Education philosophy is an individual statement of an education guiding principle in education related issues. This includes students’ learning potential and how to improve it, the role of the teacher in class, community, and society. There are four philosophical perspectives of education: essentialism, Perennialism, reconstruction, and existentialism. The objective of this research is to discuss the four education ideologies to use them to formulate an education philosophy.
Essentialists hold that there is a common core of knowledge that should be conveyed to students in an organized, disciplined way. The emphasis of this ideology is to give the students essential skills, knowledge, and academic precision. According to essentialism, schooling should be practical making students to become valued members of the society. It should focus on training students basic skills of writing, reading, speaking, and computing. Students should be trained on respect for authority, discipline, and hard work to make them moral citizens and problem solvers. Essentialism emphasizes cultural literacy. According to Edward and Richard (314), “the purpose of school was not to change society but rather to preserve it.”
According to perennialists maintains that there are ideas and truths influenced by idealism and realism which ideas have transcended time but remain vital in modern times as they were in the past, the aim of education is to ensure that students acquire knowledge of different ideas. These ideas have prospective for problem solving in the future. It provides students with a sense of truth, reality, culture, and ethics. Ideas, themes, principles, and questions are learnt through debates and seminars. This enables teachers to know the students’ ability, and, those lacking the discipline to study academic work are taken for vocational training or less vigorous academic programs (Grace 35). The subject matter in the heart of perennialists is for schools to provide skills to enable students handle complex matters in high grades.
Reconstruction emphasizes addressing of social questions, and a quest to a better society and worldwide democracy. It emphasizes the aim of education as social reforms, and social justice. Social justice is a result of providing equal facilities to students without discrimination. Schools should not be used as a vehicle for socio-economic stagnation but rather for solving evident problems of a nation (Edward and Richard 318). Learning is taken as an inquiry into social issues, and focus is on different societal problems and how they can be solved.
Existentialism argues education should focus on the child, and not on the teacher. It rejects the idea of a single reality reflecting one truth. According to this ideology, all persons create and experience their own reality, and make meaning out of it. Reality is a result of individual choice. Therefore, students are responsible for determining what is right, wrong, valid, and invalid. They determine what expertise to acquire based on their own needs (Grace 42).
Based on the above ideologies, my education philosophy is that students should be provided with knowledge on moral, religious, socio-cultural, academic, job skills, as well as social justice issues. A student should be allowed a measure of latitude in which to inquire into a societal problem, analyze it and come up with own solution. This will nurture and prepare them well to be able to handle problems in all aspects of life and not only in academics. On all the ideological postulations there is an emphasis on student-based knowledge and that is what my philosophy is underpinned.
Works cited
Ebert, Edward S., and Richard C. Culyer. School: an introduction to education. 2nd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.
Huerta, Grace. Educational foundations: diverse histories, diverse perspectives. Student ed. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2009. Print.
