Use the Knight textbook to complete this matrix. See the syllabus for detailed instructions. The following list is to help you consider what should be written in each column.
Metaphysics = What is reality/truth? What is purpose and meaning in life? Epistemology = Is it possible to know reality/truth? If so, how? Axiology = What values should be developed in education?
Learner’s Nature = What is the role of the learner? What is the human condition? Good? Bad? Neutral? What learner factors should be considered in education? Teacher’s Role = What is the most effective approach the teacher should take? Curricular Focus = What content is most important?
Methodology = What pedagogical strategies are most effective? Criticisms = What do opponents of this philosophy/theory say about it?
(The names beside each philosophy are just for reference to help you connect the philosophy with specific philosophers.) Traditional Philosophies
Truth lies in a realm of ideas that is beyond the world of the senses Knowing truth requires it to fit into a harmonious nature of the universe. Values that express goodness and beauty with a life lived in harmony with the universe. Absolute Self-macrocosm and individual human self is microcosmic. Most important aspect of learners is intellect. Idealists concentrate on the mental development of the learner. The teacher’s role is to pass on knowledge of reality and to be examples of the ethical ideal. The curriculum must be formed around those subjects that bring students into contact with ideas Classrooms are an open extension on a library, because it’s a place where books and ideas form the center of attention. Methodology is lecturing, verbal transfer between teacher and student, reading and discussion. Seems as ivory tower experience. School is a sustainer of the status quo. REALISM (Aristotle)
The realist sees reality in terms of things that operate according to the natural law of the physical world in which people live that makes up reality. Truth for the realist is viewed as observable fact. The realist seeks to discover how the world works by examining it. The natural law thereby discovered is believed to be built into the nature of reality. Through natural law values are obtained. One knows the ethical and aesthetic judgment through the study of natural order. Developing of nature as the moral law. A beautiful art form reflects the logic and order of the universe. Student is viewed as a spectator viewing the universal machine. Students must be reinforced, disciplined, and shaped until they have learned to make the proper responses. The role of the teacher is to provide information about reality to the student in the quickest and efficient. The teachers are to demonstrate the regularities and laws of nature and to pass on to the student those facts of the natural world that have been verified by research. The focus of realist curriculum is on demonstrable facts and the structural frameworks of the academic disciplines that give meaning to those facts. Language and mathematics are also important in the curriculum because they provide the entrance to an academic discipline. Modern realist favor teaching for the mastery of facts to develop an understanding of natural law. Modern realist favor demonstrations in the classroom, filed trips and the use of audio-visual aids in the absence of field trips. In favor of teaching machines and programmed learning Other questioned the naturalistic presuppositions of realism that seen to them to be more in harmony with deism, agnosticism, or even atheism than with personal Christianity. Realism tends to be deterministic and to minimize the importance of humanity in its...
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