PANEL DISCUSSION

TRANSCRIPT
(Group 1)

Moderator (Charmaine): A pleasant day to each and every one! My name is Charmaine
Salibio. I would like to welcome you all for today's panel discussion.

Introduction: Many of the teaching practices and learning strategies that we employ nowadays
are all rooted from the different sets of beliefs and philosophical thoughts. These philosophies
and theories are coming from the great philosophers in historical times. Some of them are John
Locke, Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, George Counts, Theodore Brameld, Paulo Freire,
Plato/Kant, Aristotle, Jean Paul Sartre, Robert Hutchins, and Rousseau. Each of these
philosophers presents their distinct views on education. Their philosophies do not only help
improve our critical thinking skills, but also provide us with knowledge of logic that can greatly
help us to become aware and improve our way of thinking. They help us established our
principles in education. By knowing and understanding their various philosophies, we can be
able to clarify what we believe and can be stimulated to think about ultimate questions.

Moderator: Today, we have our two special guests, Mr. John Locke who came from England
and Mr. Jean Paul Sartre all the way from Paris, France. We sincerely appreciate your presence
with us today sir. Now, the purpose of this panel discussion is to give us more insights about
your different ideologies specifically on education.

Moderator: Without further ado, let us now start. This is for Mr. John Locke. What is your point
of view on education sir?

John Locke (Ventulero): Good day everyone! My point of view on education was outlined in
my extremely influential book aptly entitled "Some Thoughts Concerning Education," published
in 1693. I believed that the purpose of education was to produce an individual with a sound mind
in a sound body so as to better serve his country. I thought that the content of education ought to
depend upon one's station in life. The common man only required moral, social, and vocational
knowledge. I am convinced that moral education is more important than other kinds of
education. The goal of education, in my view, is not to create a scholar, but to create a virtuous
man. More particularly, the aim of education is to instill what I called the Principle of Virtue. I
believe that the goal of education is to create a person who obeys reason instead of passion.

Moderator: Thank you sir. So, since you have said that your book entitled "Some Thoughts
Concerning Education is extremely influential book. We would like to know what is the content
of the book that makes it influential?

John Locke (Tino): Thank you for that question Miss Charmaine. I am honored to answer that.
Actually, I did not set out to write a book on education. Not until in 1684, I was approached by
my friend Edward Clarke, who asked for my advice on how to best raise his newborn son. I
responded with a series of letters, which I continued to send all the way up until 1691. During the
course of these letter-writing years other friends, such as William Molyneux, asked to see the
letters, and soon my ideas on education were circulating among a small group of parents. As you
can read from the preface of the book, it was the members of this group of readers that ultimately
persuaded me to publish this letters as a book.

Because it started as a series of letters, this book does not present a systematic theory of
education. As the title indicates, it merely presents some thoughts on the topic. Nonetheless it
shows a great deal of insight into child psychology. It emphasizes the importance of both
physical and mental development—both exercise and study. I believed that children should not
only have a healthy mind but healthy body as well. This theory is even put to use in today's
classrooms the former recess and physical education. I also claimed that a virtue and reasoning is
the main object of education wherein teaching children how to reason rather than merely
presenting and processing information must be focused. This emphasis on reasoning is taught
today as critical thinking skills. I also believed that teacher’s responsibility is to instruct children
and develop habits to be virtuous. I also focused on the structure of academic curriculum. I
believed that the subjects children should be educated should be useful in everyday life.

These three main ideas were being focused on the book which I believed to be the most
important parts of the system of education and these points influenced many more people and
helped shaped what we know as education today.
Moderator: Thank you sir. It was indeed a fascinating thoughts of education coming from you.
Another question sir, since you are being associated as an empiricist, can you tell us how does an
empiricist think and see education particularly in practical classroom situations?

John Locke (Vito): Oh well! I am very interested to share it to you. For the information of
everyone, empiricism is a philosophical doctrine that holds the view that knowledge is derived
from experience. Hence, as one of the empiricists, I view that all knowledge begins with
experience. I held that at birth the human mind is a blank slate, a tabula rasa, empty of ideas. We
gradually acquire knowledge about the world from information our senses bring to us. Simple
ideas become compound ideas as we combine them, and these in turn become more complex
through comparison, reflection, and generalization.

As an empiricist, I would like to emphasize to you that learning should be enjoyable. I think that
there is no good reason, that children should hate to learn and love to play. The only reason that
children happen not to like books as much as they like toys is that they are forced to learn, and
not forced to play. I set out to show how learning can be a form of recreation. One of my
proposals is that children should never be forced to learn when they are not in the mood; that
they should never be beaten or spoken too harshly; that they should not be lectured to, but should
be engaged in conversation; and that their ideas should be taken seriously.

Not only should the general temperament of childhood be taken into account, but so should the
individual temperament of the child. Every mind, I tell you, is different, and what is right for one
child is not right for another. The goal of education is to guard against any vices to which a child
is predisposed. By tailoring children's educations to their characters, teacher not only obtains
more effective results, but they also make the experience enjoyable.

I also stress the importance of habit and example inside the classroom, while downplaying the
role of rules. Children generally do not understand rules, I claim, nor can they remember them.
Teaching by rules, therefore, is counterproductive. The child will either end up being punished
constantly and then giving up on the attempt to be good, or else the rules will not be enforced
and the child will lose his respect for authority.

Moderator: Thank you Mr. John Locke. As future teachers, you provide us pieces of
information that we can utilize in the teaching and learning process.
Moderator: Now, I would like to ask the other great philosopher in front of us right now. Mr.
Jean Paul Sartre, what is your philosophy in education sir?

Jean-Paul Sartre (Romagos): A delightful day to each and every one. Thank you for the
invitation today. So, I am best-known leading philosopher of existentialism. A teaching and
learning philosophy that focuses on the student’s freedom and agency to choose their future.
Thus, I believe that there is no God or higher power that will guide students. Therefore, I believe
that teachers should encourage all students to exercise personal agency and create their meaning
for life.

Moderator: As an existentialist sir, what is the implication of an existentialism philosophy in

education?

Jean-Paul Sartre (Tinambacan): My philosophy in education is existentialism which

emphasizes individuality. Basically, my philosophy aims at fostering unique qualities and
cultivating individualities, development of complete man, becoming of a human person, making
better choices, leading a good life, and fostering of values. This implies that the first step in any
education is to understand ourselves since making existential methods in the classroom requires
a balance in which both teachers and learners as human beings preserve their identity because I
believed that “existence precedes essence”, meaning individual human is important since they
are the creator of ideas. Thus, I say that in here, the role of a teacher is to initiates the act of
education and influences the lives of his learners throughout his own life. They should be very
active and welcome challenges to his ideas from the learners.

Moderator: Mr. Sartre, can you share to us how an existentialist teacher does acts in a
classroom setting?

Jean-Paul Sartre (Sol): Yeah. It’s my honor! In a classroom setting, I believe that every
technique, every tool, every gesture is a way that opens upon the world. Reality has many
aspects as there are ways of manipulating it. Thus, teacher should present the subject matter with
all the possible views on it. He should read widely and set the subject matter before the class
adequately, and genuine discussions should make students familiar with his own thinking and
then ask students to evaluate his view against then own experience and knowledge. At this stage
students should be completely free to set their view on the matter.

Play-way method has the great importance for an existentialist teacher, because the function of
play is personal liberation - persona release. The desire to play corresponds with the desire 'to be'
a certain type of person. The idea of play is thus united with the idea of “art and science” to
become a valuable means of self-expression. Existentialist teachers believe that literature, the
graphic arts, music and myth are far more than the source of truth than the sciences. Since truth
for the existentialists derives from human subjectivity. They are strongly anti-scientific because
for them science is cool, aloof and objective in its approach to nature and to man. In science and
technology there is extreme specialization.

Existentialist philosophy found that their teaching style is very near to Socratic Method. In fact,
his humanistic approach to philosophy and his insistence on man as a focus are the themes that
find an important place in existentialism of 20th century. Existentialist likes his way of teaching
and a close relationship between teacher and student which Socrates established in his teaching.
His teaching was personal, intimate, an I-though affair, in which knowledge and wisdom were
achieved through the mutual interaction of two living beings. The method of pedagogy must
allow for the student’s development of her own unique possibilities, which is why the
existentialists would reject a standardized curriculum and an authoritarian model for teaching.
An “existential” curriculum would include a diverse content as well as an array of varied
pedagogical methods, which would, importantly, include ample opportunities for peer initiated
and peer-directed learning. Educators should plan lessons that embrace and incorporate aspects
of the student’s emotional and intellectual autobiography.

Moderator: Thank you so much Mr. Sartre! It was indeed an existentialist way of explaining it
to us. May we also grasp an idea from your philosophy in education.

Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen! Finally, we come to the end part of our discussion. Let us
all give our greatest appreciation to the great philosophers, Mr. John Locke and Mr. Jean Paul
Sartre for their time, effort, and knowledge that they have shared to us. Let us all give them a
virtual applause. To our audience, thank you for your active participation. I hope that everyone
takes the discussion interestingly. Thank you so much and have a great day.