Philosophy Of Education: Comparative Analysis Of Theories

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Educational philosophy refers to a teacher’s vision of the purpose of education and its role in society. It focus on what teachers should teach and how they relate their values and beliefs to teaching. Philosophy of education examines the goals, methods and meaning of teaching.

Al-Farabi:

Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad Al-Farabi is widely known as the founder of philosophy within the Islamic world. He was born in what is now Kazakhstan around 870 and died in Damascus in 950. He spent his entire life in Baghdad, he has studied logic, medicine and sociology. He wrote works on logic, physics, metaphysics, music, politics and important commentaries on both Aristotle and Plato.

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Philosophy of Education:

Al-Farabi’s philosophy of education deals with the human soul and ensures that the individual is being prepared from an early age to become a beneficial member of the society and achieve his level of perfection to reach the goal for which he was sent in this world.

According to Al-Farabi the main aim of education is to guide the individual towards the perfection because he was created for this reason. The existence of humanity in this world is to gain happiness which it is the highest perfection. The perfect human being is who has theoretical morality, intellectual knowledge and practical moral values. Al-Farabi combines moral and aesthetic values like good are beautiful, and beauty is good. So the perfection he expects from education unites knowledge and worthy behavior. It is also happiness and goodness at one and the same time.

Al-Farabi believes that education is the combination of learning with practical action. The purpose of knowledge is to apply it and the highest stage lies in its being transformed into actions. To benefite from what we learn we should apply on it, science are nothing unless they can be applied in practical.

Curriculum:

For Al-Farabi, learning must start with the language and its structure. He was well aware of the importance of language, he himself could speak several languages that enable him to compare cultures. The language helps the student to express himself in front others, without this ability he will not be able to understand people and his personality will not develop properly. Next to language comes logic, It gives sound reflection to science and also closely related to language. After language and logic comes mathematics, which he divided it into several parts.

Teachers and students Characteristics:

According to Al-Farabi, molarity and learning are important conditions for the teacher. He has to seek truth in all conditions, has a good ability to understand and think. To educate, the teacher should be trained in the logical arts and should adopt voluntarily without any obligation.

Students have different basis and individual differences. The teacher must help them cooperate with each other, motivate them and give them rewards.

Al-Ghazali:

Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad Al-Ghazali was one of the most influential Muslim philosophers, theologians, jurists and mystics. Some Muslims considered him to be a renewal of the faith. He was born in 1059 near Tus in Khurasan and he died in 1111. Al-Ghazzali was one of the original thinker not only in the history of Muslim philosophy but also in the history of human thought.

Philosophy of Education:

As an educator, he is the most influential educators of Islam and has a great influence on the modern educational thoughts. His philosophy is very similar to the philosophy of Plato. The educational ideas of Al-Ghazali are deeply affected by his religious philosophy and research.

According to Al-Ghazali, the human mind is like a blank sheet or a clean state that the teacher can transform it with the passage of time. Knowledge can bring human closer to God as well as raise the status of an individual, create self-respect and takes him to a higher positions. Al-Ghazali divided knowledge into two types:

  1. Useful Knowledge: Obligatory and contains the knowledge of Islam and worldly knowledge and religious knowledge.
  2. Useless knowledge: No knowledge is useless but it can create an undesirable effects or habit that may harm others, such as magic.

The major aim of education, is that it is useful for the individual and the society. It builds the personality of an individual so he could differentiate between good and evil and avoid following the evil path. The human beings are imperfect creatures but they have the ability and capacity to become perfect.

Curriculum:

After he studied the various curriculums in his time, he concluded that more time is spent on religious education and worldly education is completely ignored. There is no place for character building in education.

Al-Ghazali recommended that curriculum should be composed of obligatory and optional knowledge and it should be a combination of religion and worldly education. As he included industrial education, agriculture and hair cutting. Teaching lessons should be based on previous knowledge and experience of the student, since this helps to know the ability of the learner and helps to motivate students toward the lesson which is very important for educational process.

Role of Teachers and students:

The teacher’s role is to be a facilitator and should simplify the difficult concepts by stories and tales, otherwise his teaching will not be effective. Teacher should move from simple to complex, it is very dangerous to teach everything at the same time. Teacher should motivate students and avoid the use of force, he should use love and affection instead of physical punishment. Use of force can lead to bad habits among the students. Also teachers `should deal with students according to their differences and abilities.

Students must be trained to obey their parents, teachers and behave well toward their classmates. There should be the suitable climate in which education takes place and the learners’ desire.

Pragmatism:

Philosophy of Education:

Pragmatism means action, from which the words practice and practical. It is an educational philosophy that says that education should be about life and growth. It does not believe in fixed and external values. The central theme of pragmatism is activity, it makes activity the basis of all teaching and learning.

According to pragmatism education create values and formulate ideas. It is based on the psychology of individuals’ differences. Every individual must be respected, were every individual has a social self and can best be developed in and through society.

Thus pragmatism has brought democracy in education that’s why it has supported self-government in the schools. Education is preparation for life. Pragmatism makes an individual socially efficient, optimistic, energetic and active. It gives him self-confidence. So he can create values through his own activities. The main aim of education is to enable the child to create values in his life and develop values for himself. Every child should be an efficient member of the society, has his own values that helps him to be able to face the problems of future life.

Curriculum:

The aim of education are reflected in the curriculum. The curriculum should be formed on the basis of certain basic principles. Children should not be taught dead facts and theories because this may not help them to solve the problem of life. Curriculum should include subjects like writing, arithmetic, nature study, hand work and drawing. With respect to pragmatism all education is “learning by doing”. So it must be based on the child’s experience and activity. They believe in unity of all knowledge and skills. The pragmatism aim of education is to prepare the child for a successful and well-adjusted life. He must be fully adjusted to his environment.

Teachers and students:

Teachers and textbooks are not so much important in pragmatic education. Their position is secondary in teaching-learning process. They are required to suggest and promote only. His position is to guide and advise the student. In fact, his importance lies in that he has to suggest suitable problems to his students and to motivate them in such a way that they can solve their problems with intelligence and cooperation.

In this method, the child is the central figure, the child should learn through his personal experiences. Student should learn to fulfill the purpose of his life.

Existentialism:

Philosophy of education:

Existentialism in education focuses on the individual, seeking out a personal understanding of the world. Each individual characterizes for himself the concepts of reality, truth and goodness. According to existentialism, schools exist to help children know themselves and their place in society.

Existentialism believes that values are not absolute and are not determined by external criteria, but each value is determined by person’s free choice. Each person is the creator of his actions and constructive choice. He is unique and his uniqueness is valuable in this world. The purpose is finding and serving the individual’s consciousness. They prefer that instead of creating a philosophical system that explains all aspects of human life, philosophize about the human conditions. Thus, any person is responsible about his identity and everyone should tries to accomplish his personality.

Curriculum:

The curriculum includes skills and subjects that state real and social facts. It includes human sciences that states human selection. There are topics such as history, literature, language, math and science. Learning stage is not in the structure of knowledge or the curriculum but also in the sense that students lies on.

Although, teacher may choose a variety of education methods for his work but should not be harm. Training is important to help student has the realization of self and awareness.

Teaching and Learning methods:

Teacher in his teaching should be democratic and use indirect methods and technology. The teacher should not impose his personal goals to the student and his task is to guide students. The teacher should encourage the students to be aware and to be able to express their minds. Teachers try to facilitate learning and self-examination. The teacher must constantly avoid defining students based on their age, academic rank or status. Building self-nature and making reliability about himself than others and creates a sense of responsibility in person.

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