MPFP1023

PHILOSOPHICAL IDEA IN
EDUCATION
DR. SUBADRAH MADHAWA NAIR
Faculty of Education and Liberal Studies
City University
Petaling Jaya
Lecture 3
 THE AIMS OF
EDUCATION
• John Dewey
John Dewey
• Democracy and education by John Dewey is the
greatest work of the Philosophy of
Education. Indeed, Dewey is the initiator of
the “hands-on learning”, opposed to a
“lecturing” approach. Dewey created a
laboratory school away from the usual
authority where the teacher is a guide, and
where the student learns by doing. Dewey
wants to reconcile spirit and action, work and
leisure, interest and effort. He believes that
children should act rather than listen. For
these reasons, He is one of the leading
educators of new education movement.
●
 John Dewey (1859-1952) applied pragmatist philosophy in
his progressive approaches. He believed that learners
must adapt to each other and to their environment.
Schools should emphasize the subject matter of social
experience. All learning is dependent on the context of
place, time, and circumstance. Different cultural and
ethnic groups learn to work cooperatively and contribute
to a democratic society. The ultimate purpose is the
creation of a new social order. Character development is
based on making group decisions in light of consequences.
 For Pragmatists, teaching methods focus on
hands-on problem solving, experimenting, and
projects, often having students work in groups.
Curriculum should bring the disciplines together
to focus on solving problems in an
interdisciplinary way. Rather than passing down
organized bodies of knowledge to new learners,
Pragmatists believe that learners should apply
their knowledge to real situations through
experimental inquiry. This prepares students for
citizenship, daily living, and future careers.
The meaning and aims of education

 1. Social Efficiency:
 According to John Dewey, the development of
social efficiency is one of the aims of education.
 To him, school is a social institution. The school
should be organised in such a way that the
activities of the outer world are reflected.
 The meaning and aims of education

 Education takes place with the participation of

the individual in social activities and relationships
with his fellow human beings. Dewey holds that
education is a necessity for healthy living in the
society. Education bridges the gulf between the
innate nature of the child and the social needs
and demands.
The meaning and aims of education

 Itgives him social consciousness. The school

directs guides and controls the inborn propensities
of the child in socially desirable channels. The
teacher must know the original nature of the child
as well as the social demands. The teacher has to
direct and guide the child’s activities in socially
desirable channels. The school is a social
environment — “simplified, purified, balanced
and graded.”
The meaning and aims of education

 Theschool acts as an active instrument of social

change and progress. Through education, society
can formulate its own purposes, organise its
means of attainment, and shape itself in the
direction it wishes to go. This is the essence of
democratic social order.
The meaning and aims of education

 The school should include both the social and the

individual goal. Social institutions do not give to
man. They create him. Individuality is wrought
out. Personality is achieved. Education is the
means of social continuity and development of
individuality.
The meaning and aims of education

 Education is growth as the child is an ever-

growing and changing personality. The place of
individual in society depends upon native
aptitudes, not on wealth and social position.
Social welfare depends upon man finding and
filling his place in life.
The meaning and aims of education

 2. Education is Life:
 Dewey emphasises that education is not a
preparation for life; it is life itself. The child lives in
the present. The future is meaningless to him.
Hence it is absurd to expect him to do things for
some future preparation. As the child lives in the
present, the educative process will be naturally
based on the present needs and interests of the
child.
 The school is a miniature society facing problems
similar to those faced in life. Children should be
trained to participate in social life effectively.
The basic purpose of the school is to train pupils
in cooperative living. Since the pupils are to live
in a democratic society they should help to
organise one and live in it.
 The child is to share the resources of a
good society and to give back to that
society, thus helping the development of
other members. By give-and-take process
the growth of the individual and the group
is achieved.
 3. Education is Experience:
 Dewey favoured an education by, of, and
for, experience. Every new experience is
education. An old experience is replaced by
a new experience. The human race has
gained experience in its struggle to meet
the needs of life. This ‘struggle for
existence’ is a continuous process.
A conscious effort has to be made to make men
more competent to take part in the activities and
purposes of the race. This effort is education.
Education, Dewey said, helps “The process of the
reconstruction of experience, giving it a more
socialised value through the medium of increased
individual efficiency.”
 4.Education should Combine Theory and
Practice:
 The aim of education, according to Dewey, should
be to create a balance between theoretical and
practical activities. He has stressed equal
importance to both action and thought. These two
should go hand-in-hand. Practical side is no
doubt, very important but the theoretical side, at
the same time, should not be ignored.
 Abstract ideas should have concrete applications. Similarly,
practical applications must have theoretical basis.
 Theory and practice can be combined in the school through
occupations. By occupations, Dewey meant various
activities like wood-work, cookery etc. which we have in
social life. Such occupations have necessary balance of
theory and practice.
 Activeself-expression takes place through
the hands, eyes, observation, planning and
reflection. These give a new orientation to
the whole personality of the child. Children,
by nature, get interest in occupations. This
ensures successful or true learning as
interest is the basis of all real education.
Some Aims of Education

 Critical Thinking
 Critical thinking involves logic as well as creativity. It may
involve inductive and deductive reasoning, analysis and
problem-solving as well as creative, innovative and
complex approaches to the resolution of issues and
challenges.
 One of the significant aims of education is to
produce learners who are well informed, that is to
say, learners should understand ideas that are
important, useful, beautiful and powerful. Another
is to create learners who have the ability to think
analytically and critically, to use what they know
to enhance their own lives and also to contribute
to their society, culture and civilization.
National Identity

 Schools also played an important role in the propagation

of images of national identity. Education being one of the
foremost factors in nationalism becoming a mass
phenomenon. Teachers imbued pupils with the deceptive
ideal of a ‘common national destiny’ – and thus
contributed to the breaking down of feelings of social,
estates-based or confessional community. Now, Tyrolean
peasants might see Styrian students or north-Bohemian
industrial workers as ‘comrades in the German people’ –
but felt separated by unsurmountable national barriers
from Italian peasants working only a few kilometres away
under conditions very similar to their own.
 National identity is formed by a society that exists in it.
Thus, all the science of education both in terms of skills,
academic and personal is very important to the country in
forming the personality of youth today. Education
received by students is what shapes the identity of the
country where education have a substantial impact on life
opportunities to acquire good quality and identity.
Therefore, quality education is a dynamic concept of
change and evolves over time and changes in the context
of social, economic and environmental. According to Ross
and Wu (1996), education level of individuals incapable of
managing the quality of life for economic and social
 Obviously education has a very important role in transmitting and
fostering values that determine, in turn, behaviours, attitudes,
reactions specific of responsible citizens. According to Deni Hardianto
(2005), failure of education in shaping the national identity is due to
the components in the education system. All members of society
including teacher, educational facilities and government’s
commitment need to get involved in improving education. For
instance teachers also must have a strong identity and at the same
time strong commitment in cultivating the sense of identity to the
students. The government needs to play an important role in the
development of national education. It includes provide adequate
education, take care of teacher’s welfare and avoid making education
as a political medium.
 Through education, individuals can build self-esteem
among them the confidence to face the world and society
and to understand the heart's desire. With firmness and
confidence individuals are capable of making choices and
decisions on actions and break free from outside influence
or interference that is not beneficial. Assertiveness and
confidence is a knowledge derived from education.
Without education, ones self-esteem is not as strong as a
person who acquires knowledge in education.
Well-Being and balanced

 Education can be regarded as systematic efforts that build

up by the society in order to deliver the knowledge, value,
attitude and skill among their group members towards an
effort to enhance individual’s potential and changes that
occurred in themselves. This definition is consistent with
Education Philosophy whereby "Education in Malaysia is an
on-going effort towards further developing the potential
of individuals in a holistic and integrated manner, so as to
produce individuals who are intellectually, spiritually,
emotionally and physically balanced and harmonic, based
on a firm belief in and devotion to God.
 Such an effort is designed to produce Malaysian
citizens who are knowledgeable and competent,
who possess high moral standards and who are
responsible and capable of achieving high level of
personal well-being as well as being able to
contribute to the harmony and betterment of the
family, the society and the nation at large"
CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION FOR THE 21ST
CENTURY
 Citizenship education can be defined as educating
children, from early childhood, to become clear-thinking
and enlightened citizens who participate in decisions
concerning society. ‘Society’ is here understood in the
special sense of a nation with a circumscribed territory
which is recognized as a state.
A knowledge of the nation’s institutions, and also an
awareness that the rule of law applies to social and human
relationships, obviously form part of any citizenship education
course. Taken in this sense, citizenship education is based on
the distinction between:
 the individual as a subject of ethics and law, entitled to all
the rights inherent in the human condition (human rights); and
 the citizen – entitled to the civil and political rights
recognized by the national constitution of the country
concerned.
 Conversely, citizenship education which trains ‘good’
citizens, ie. citizens aware of the human and political
issues at stake in their society or nation, requires from
each citizen ethical and moral qualities. All forms of
citizenship education inculcate (or aim at inculcating)
respect for others and recognition of the equality of all
human beings; and at combating all forms of
discrimination (racist, gender-based, religious, etc.) by
fostering a spirit of tolerance and peace among human
beings.
Four major themes for citizenship
education:
 The relations between individuals and society: individual
and collective freedoms, and rejection of any kind of
discrimination.
 Therelations between citizens and the government:
what is involved in democracy and the organization of
the state.
 The relations between the citizen and democratic life.
 The responsibility of the individual and the citizen in the
international community.
Autonomy

 When applied to educational practice, this

nuanced and complex concept may indeed mean a
variety of things. Take school-level autonomy as
an example. Schools are complicated social
systems in which multiple actors operate in
different roles, and in which one's scope of action
may affect the decision-making capacity of that
of others. The question of who in a school
community may possess autonomy (e.g. the
teachers, the principals, or the learners) has
fundamental implications for the ways in which
 Moreover, the teacher autonomy debate has been
influenced by and reflects wider global education
trends and international comparisons. Indeed,
autonomy has been a central concept in education
policy in Nordic countries.
 Recently, this could be seen, for example, in
relation to ‘PISA envy’, and the ways in which
Finland's consistent success in PISA has been
explained, at least partly, through its highly
educated and autonomous teaching workforce.
 However, as the contributions in this issue
highlight, international comparisons
concerning teacher autonomy must remain
sensitive to the national and local contexts
in which teachers operate, and consider
what autonomy actually means for teachers
in those settings
 Another advantage of increased autonomy is
improved learning within the students. This means
that as students are allowed to participate and
engage, they have a greater opportunity to align
their educational learning towards their specific
interests. This allows them to find or produce
meaning within their learning and, hence, be
more motivated in the process. Individuals have
different personalities; they are subject to
different interests and motivations.
Thank you