ARTICLES - Why You Need A Philosophy of Education

14/9/2017 ARTICLES | Why You Need a Philosophy of Education
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Why You Need a Philosophy of Education
I’ve been working on forming my own philosophy

of education and feel that this is something more
of us need to be thinking about. In this post I
discuss the importance of reflecting deeply on the
big questions in learning and education, along
with an examination of the dominant views of our
time.
Nasos Papadopoulos
The Importance of
Having a Philosophy of
Education
http://www.metalearn.net/articles/philosophy-of-education 1/11
I’m becoming increasingly convinced of the need to

reflect deeply on the most important high-level
questions around learning and education, in order
to form my own philosophy. I also feel strongly
that this is something anyone who has a view on
education or is involved in the field should also
take the time to do.
This involves thinking about questions such as:
What should the aims and purposes of

education be?
Who should be educated?
What should be taught and should this differ
according to interests and abilities?
How should we be educated?
The fact that these questions have been asked for

many centuries and are yet to be answered
discourages many from examining them in the first
place. After all, why study questions that never go
away? Why not just get on with the job instead of
philosophising and having lots of abstract RELATED POSTS
discussions?
While these objections are understandable, I think Gami cation

they miss the point completely. Organisations, in Learning:
whether they are governments, businesses or Godsend or
schools work the way they work because of the way Gimick?
people think.
Policies and rules didn’t create the problems we How To Use

have and they won’t solve them either. If you want Technology
to improve any system you need to look at the ways Better in
people think and interact with each other before Your
changing the rules. And that is what educational Learning
philosophy is all about. Exploring the

Fierce
An unwillingness to look at the big questions in
Debate on
education also fails to recognise its fundamental
importance and to treat it with the respect it
the School
deserves. Our educational system prepares the next
Curriculum
generation to enter society and imparts ideas,
values and beliefs that will shape young people’s How To
thinking and behaviour for the rest of their lives.
Rede ne
The magnitude of this task can't be overstated and
Learning for
it’s not just the responsibility of teachers and the 21st
school administrators but also of parents to think Century
deeply about the type of educational system they
want for their children.
SEE MORE
Education is too important to be left up to
guesswork. Its recipients are not cogs in a machine
but living, breathing human beings who have one
life to live.
The Mechanistic View of RELATED

Teaching and Learning PODCASTS
The mechanistic view of teaching and learning is ML86: Make

the guiding mental model behind most educational Me A
systems around the world.
MetaLearner
Under this view knowledge is treated as a thing –
objectified and disconnected from other forms of ML85:
knowledge and from the student. Brazilian Jonathan
educationalist Paulo Freire calls this “banking Cutrell on
education” because teachers are supposed to
Learning To
deposit knowledge into students’ heads as discrete Code,

pieces of information. Lessons
from
Because we see knowledge as something that
teachers have and students have to get, we view it
Podcasting
as being possessed by individuals. Unsurprisingly,
and How To
this makes us see the learning process as similarly Fly a Plane
individualistic.
ML84:
When we combine this view of knowledge with the
views that educational institutions should be run
George
by specialists who maintain control (as in
Spencer on
businesses), that competition always accelerates Building
learning, and that there is always a right answer to Business
everything, we get the one size fits all approach to Skills,
education that was formulated in the period after Disrupting
the industrial revolution.
The
Now this system certainly helped to reduce the
Property
abusiveness of child labour and bring opportunity Market and
to more people than ever before to help them find Dispelling
work and progress in society. Media
Myths in
But at what cost were these results achieved? And Tech
is finding work and earning a larger income an
indicator of a better quality of life? These are
important questions, but I’ll leave them aside for ML83: How
the purpose of finishing this article. To Learn
through
Whatever your opinion on the mechanistic Play
worldview of education and the industrial model it
has produced, one thing is certain – it has outlived
its usefulness.
SEE MORE
My Philosophy of
Education
We desperately need a new paradigm in education

and this means having honest discussions about
where we are, where we want to go and how we’re
going to get there.
I’m walking the talk by forming my own

educational philosophy – reading some of the great
thinkers like Plato, Rousseau, Dewey and Freire
and reflecting on my experience as a student and
an academic tutor. I'll also be writing a series of
posts to address some of the big questions
mentioned above in the next few weeks.
I’m at the start of this journey and I'm sure the

more I think about these issues and the more
experience I gain, my philosophy will evolve. As of
this moment though, here are three things I believe
a good educational system should do:
1) Cultivate the whole of the

human being
Our current system is focused religiously on the

accumulation of specialised knowledge in fields
from maths and physics to history and geography.
While knowledge of these areas isn’t useless, a
good education should help us to live well by
teaching us how to deal with our emotions, how to
build relationships and how to live well. We need
to start thinking about cultivating the whole of the

human being, not just filling students' memories
with facts and information.
2) Encourage independent
thinking and self sufficiency
A teacher has done his job properly when the

student no longer needs him. There aren’t any pre-
packaged answers to the big decisions we need to
make in life and education should help us to realise
this and prepare us for those moments.
Students should be shown how to look at questions

and issues from multiple perspectives in order to
form their own view independently, rather than
how to ingest and regurgitate the opinions of
others without consideration.
3) See schools and communities

as part of a holistic system
Whether a school is public or private, urban or

rural, large or small, there are three
interdependent systems at place – the classroom,
the school and the community (including parents).
These systems all interact with each other in ways

that can be hard to see, but they shape the
priorities of the educational system. Sustainable
change will only be made by addressing all three of
these different levels and the relationships between
the different people in them – students, teachers,
parents and administrators.
The Takeaway
It’s up to all of us to reflect as deeply as needed, for

as long as necessary about the big questions in
education. This doesn’t mean retiring to a cave and
meditating on them in isolation, or dropping
everything to focus on developing your philosophy
of education.
What it does mean is thinking about what you’re

doing and why you’re doing it, so that if someone
were to wake you up in the middle of the night and
ask you what the point of school is, you’d at least
be able to give them an answer.
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Insights Insights
Gami cation in Learning: Godsend or How To Use Technology Better in Your
Gimick? Learning
In our smartphone society, We all need to think more

gamification is becoming a critically about how we
staple feature in education interact with technology,
technology in an attempt to because the secret to getting
make the learning process the best out of it isn't related
more fun. In this post I to which devices we use, but
examine the past, present and to how we use them. Here’s
future of gamification in my take on 3 areas we should
learning to find out whether all spend more time thinking
all the hype is really justified. about when considering the
impact of technology on our
learning and lives.
Insights MetaLearning
Exploring the Fierce Debate on the School How To Rede ne Learning for the 21st
Curriculum Century
The debate about the school Most of the articles and

curriculum has been raging podcasts here on MetaLearn
for hundreds of years – and fall under the theme of
it’s still not clear what we learning so it’s a word I use
should be teaching our regularly. The aim of this
children. In this post I post is to to explore how
discuss the various others have defined it over
perspectives on the debate the years and to present a
with the help of some saber new definition that's fit for
tooth tigers. the 21st Century.
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14/9/2017 ARTICLES | Why You Need a Philosophy of Education

COURSES A RT I C L E S YO U T U B E POD CAST COMMUNIT Y

I’ve been working on forming my own philosophy

I’m becoming increasingly convinced of the need to

This involves thinking about questions such as:

What should the aims and purposes of

The fact that these questions have been asked for

While these objections are understandable, I think Gami cation

Policies and rules didn’t create the problems we How To Use

philosophy is all about. Exploring the

The Mechanistic View of RELATED

The mechanistic view of teaching and learning is ML86: Make

deposit knowledge into students’ heads as discrete Code,

We desperately need a new paradigm in education

I’m walking the talk by forming my own

I’m at the start of this journey and I'm sure the

1) Cultivate the whole of the

Our current system is focused religiously on the

to start thinking about cultivating the whole of the

A teacher has done his job properly when the

Students should be shown how to look at questions

3) See schools and communities

Whether a school is public or private, urban or

These systems all interact with each other in ways

parents and administrators.

It’s up to all of us to reflect as deeply as needed, for

What it does mean is thinking about what you’re

MORE: LANGUAGES PRODUCTIVITY

HACK YOUR LEARNING

- 5x Video Lessons on the 5 key MetaLearning

Enter Your Details Below for Instant Access

FIRST NAME EMAIL SUBMIT

100% privacy. No Spam. Ever.

MORE FROM THE METASPHERE

In our smartphone society, We all need to think more

The debate about the school Most of the articles and

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