Philosophy of Education (EDU601)

Assignment I (Spring 2019)

Total Marks: 20
Lesson: 1-11 (Topic 1 to 78)

Instructions:

• Late assignments will not be accepted.

• If the file is corrupt or problematic, it will be marked zero.
• Plagiarism will never be tolerated. Plagiarism occurs when a student uses work done by
someone else as if it was his or her own; however, taking the ideas from different sources
and expressing them in your own words will be encouraged.
• No assignment will be accepted via e-mail.
• The solution file should be in Word document format; the font color should be preferably
black and font size should be 12 Times New Roman.
• The assignment must not be copied and pasted from the handout.

Question # 1

Write a briefly on Idealism ; also explain the following terminologies in the context of Idealism.
(10)

• Role of Teacher

• Teaching Method

• Curriculum

SOLUTION1:

IDEALISM: dealism is a term with several related meanings. It comes via idea from the Greek
idein, meaning "to see". The term entered the English language by 1743. In ordinary use, as
when speaking of Woodrow Wilson's political idealism, it generally suggests the priority of
ideals, principles, values, and goals over concrete realities. Idealists are understood to represent
the world as it might or should be, unlike pragmatists, who focus on the world as it presently is.
In the arts, similarly, idealism affirms imagination and attempts to realize a mental conception of
beauty, a standard of perfection, juxtaposed to aesthetic naturalism and realism

ROLE OF TEACHER:Idealistic pattern of education grants the highest place to the educator, and
conceives of the educator and educand as two parts of an organic plant.The educator creates a
specific environment for the educand development and provides guidance so that the later may
progress towards perfection and a rounded personality.

The most precise explanation of educator’s role is manifested in Froebel’s Kindergarten pattern
of education, in which the school is treated as a garden, the educand as a delicate plant which
requires nurturing and the educator as the cautious gardener.Although even in the absence of the
gardener the plant will continue to grow and will inevitably follow the laws governing its nature,
the gardener has certain significance in that he has the skill to develop plants.

TEACHING METHOD:Idealism has exercised more influence on the aims and objects of
education than on methods of teaching. It speaks to the general nature of teaching methods. The
great Greek idealist Plato, however, advocated and Socratis method-dialectics. Many educational
philosophers advocated many other methods the deductive method, the inductive method, the
analystic method and so on. Idealism is not much concerned with the choice of methods so long
as its essential objective is fulfilled, which is the enrichment of personality of the public.
Idealism lays stress on instruction, activity, and experience. The world ‘instruction’ implies
sympathetic guidance by the teacher.

Another factor which idealism emphasizes in the method of teaching is an activity or learning by
doing. The normal child should learn through activity. Idealism does not decry questioning
discussion and lecture method of teaching. But it extols the method and spontaneous mental
activity. It does so because creative activity leads to self-expression and realization of the highest
potentialities of the child.

Experience has a significant place in the idealistic method of teaching. The truly educative acts
are those which go on within the experiences of the learner and comprise the students own self-
activity. The duty teacher is to develop in him, as insight into duped experiences that he already
possess. In addition to it, the teacher should endeavor to unfold his potentialities by providing
him to stimulating experiences.
In short, the essence of the idealistic method of activity and freedom, which is regulated and
guided.

CURRICULUM:Idealism believes that the goal of human life is the exaltation of man’s
personality. Education has to achieve this aim. The school curriculum, accordingly, consists of
those subjects which conductive to this goal. The curriculum must reflect the capitalized
knowledge and experience of the race. So it must primarily consist of “humanities” or “cultural
studies”.

Plato, a great promoter of idealism, conceives of the curriculum form the point of view of ideas.
He believes that the highest idea of life was the attainment of the highest good or God, hence, the
curriculum ought to impart inherent values in order to unable the educand to attain his highest
good. The inherent or spiritual values, according to him, are truth, beauty, and goodness. These
three values determine three types of activities, intellectual, aesthetic and moral. Each type of
activity is represented by studies and should form a part of the curriculum. Intellectual activities
are represented by subjects like languages, literature, science, mathematics, history, and
geography; aesthetic activities will be possible through the study of art and poetry and moral
activities through the study of religion, ethics and metaphysics.

Ross talks of two types of activities which would be represented by physical activities and
spiritual activities. Physical activities draw our attention to such subjects as health and hygiene
and two subjects that foster bodily skills such as gymnastics and athletics. Hence such subjects as
history, geography, languages, fine arts, morality, religion, science mathematics, and others be
included in the curriculum.

• Write a short note on three major branches of philosophy and how these branches play
role in the process of curriculum development, explain with concrete examples.
(10)

SOLUTION2:
PHILOSOPHY:Philosophy is the systematic inquiry into the principles and presuppositions of
any field of study.

THREE BRANCHES OF PHILOSOPHY:

• Axiology: the study of value; the investigation of its nature, criteria, and metaphysical
status. More often than not, the term "value theory" is used instead of "axiology" in
contemporary discussions even though the term “theory of value” is used with respect to
the value or price of goods and services in economics.

• Epistemology: the study of knowledge. In particular, epistemology is the study of the

nature, scope, and limits of human knowledge.

• Ontology or Metaphysics: the study of what is really real. Metaphysics deals with the so-
called first principles of the natural order and "the ultimate generalizations available to
the human intellect." Specifically, ontology seeks to indentify and establish the
relationships between the categories, if any, of the types of existent things.

Rubrics

• Idealism Philosophy (4)

• Role of Teacher in Idealism (2)

• Teaching methods according to Idealist (2)

• Curriculum in the context of Idealism (2)

• Brief note on three major branches of philosophy (4)

• Role of the branches of philosophy in the process of curriculum development explain
with at least two examples (6)