NATURALISM

Is a concept that firmly believes that ultimate reality lies in the nature of the matter. Matter is considered to be supreme and mind is the functioning of the brain that is made up of matter. A term loosely applied in educational theory to systems of training that are not dependent on schools and books but on manipulation of the actual life. A type of literature that attempts to apply scientific principles of objectivity and detachment to its study of human beings.

HISTORY First appeared around 600 500 BCE, at the

very end of the Greek archaic period, on the west coast of modern Turkey Thales of Miletus (624-546 BCE) grandfather of naturalism. He held a famously eccentric view that the cosmos was composed of nothing but endless modifications of a single material substance, water.

AIMS
Complete living is the general aim .

This impression is borne out of the following objectives:

Self-preservation is the first of the five objectives. In order to live completely, as man has first of all to live, he has to continue his own existence. While instinct is the chief guarantee of this objective, education may also help by acquainting the learner with the laws of health and enabling him to earn a living.

Securing the necessities of life. It is especially in the realm of developing economic efficiency that education helps in preserving life. Money is not life, but it is a necessity in maintaining life. Education should train directly for success in this important function.

Raising children. The most important function of men and women are being parent. Therefore education should deal unashamedly both with the care of children in the nursery and the discipline of them as growing boys and girls.

Maintenance of social and political relations. Beyond the home in the far-reaching social structure, man must have some understanding and mastery of social and political processes if living is to be complete. He must be a wise citizen who is equipped for effective social and political action.

Enjoyment of leisure. Life is not all serious struggles, keeping physically strong, earning a living, being a responsible parent and an earnest citizen. Complete living also includes freedom from struggle some of the time for gratification of the tastes and feelings.

METHODS
Methods of instruction should be inductive. This follows from Natures advice that teaching make fullest use of the selfactivity of the pupil, telling him as little as possible and encouraging him to discover as much as possible for himself.

To tell a child this and to show him that only make him a recipient of anothers observations. If the learning intellect is to be guided to its appropriate food, children must master the art of independent observation and direct acquaintance.

The educational implications of the naturalistic theory holds that good education is pleasurable, thus, methods of teaching should be based upon the belief that the child is not averse to learning, but enjoys it. Teaching methods and materials will appeals to students natural inclination to learn.

Naturalism maintains that all teaching methods should be based on experience.

THE LEARNERS
The pupil is to the teacher what man is to the philosopher.

For man who is interpreted by the philosopher also has various practical engagements, one of which is being a pupil at school in his formative years, may be a student in institutions of advanced learning during his more mature years, and we hope a learner throughout life.

 If a philosopher is also a teacher and at the same time is consistent in both though and practice, he will view man as a pupil in the classroom in the same way he thinks of him when philosophizing. So the doctrine of the pupil is virtually the doctrine of man in the classroom.

The teachers role is to remain in background The natural development of child should be stimulated. Since, Nature is considered to be best educator. The teacher is the observer and facilitator of the childs development rather than a giver of information, ideas, ideals and will power or a molder of character.

THE TEACHER

Is a person who is completely in tune with nature .He has a profound faith in the original goodness of human nature. Teacher should not be in a hurry to make the child learn. Instead he should be patient, permissive and nonintrusive.

SCHOOL
Its most important job as an educational agency is to see to it that the child learns how to preserve his own physical health and well-being.

While Rousseau, proposes that formal schooling is both unnecessary and harmful to education according to nature other naturalists believed that although the parents role is very important in the childs education, one should have formalized institutions whose very existence is rooted in nature.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Was a major Genevois philosopher, writer and composer of the 16th century. His political philosophy heavily influenced French revolution.

PROPONENT

His novel Emily, is a seminal treatise on the education of the whole person. He considered it as the most important of all his writings. Tackles how education can best serve a person through a developmental process and discusses how man can retain his innate human goodness in a corrupting society

PHILOSOPHERS

 German mathematician and philosopher. He occupies a prominent place in the history of mathematics and the history of philosophy. Developed the infinitesimal calculus independently of Isaac Newton, and Leibniz's mathematical notation has been widely used ever since it was published.

One of the most prolific inventors in the field of mechanical calculators. Refined the binary number system, which is at the foundation of virtually all digital computers.

 In philosophy, Leibniz is most noted for his optimism His conclusion that our Universe is, in a restricted sense, the best possible one that God could have created. One of the three great 17th century advocates of rationalism

 The work of Leibniz anticipated modern logic and analytic philosophy, but his philosophy also looks back to the scholastic tradition, in which conclusions are produced by applying reason to first principles or prior definitions rather than to empirical evidence.

an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and known as the "Father of Classical Liberalism Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory

Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as Hume, Rousseau, and Kant.

Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception