Philosophy of Education

2009-05-17T21:09:00.001-07:00

Although three centuries span the difference in time between John Locke, dubbed as The Philosopher in his era, and John Dewey, father of the experiential education movement, the two have been widely discussed and written about mainly because of their sometimes similar, often different takes on the matter of education. This paper will attempt to compare and contrast their two philosophies by first showing where the two philosophers share the same ideas, and then summarizing their differences on the topics of God and value, wisdom, and the transmission of learning based on how they are applied in today’s learning setting.

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A Case For Education Locke and Dewey are similar in their belief that the experience of being educated must be enjoyable and that students must be motivated to learn. Neither one believes in punishing the students nor forcing them to like going to school; instead, the educator must be creative in finding ways to stimulate the interest of the student so that he or she will grow to love learning. However, this does not mean that the child should be allowed to grow without supervision and rules in place; Dewey was “critical of completely "free, student-driven" education because students often don't know how to structure their own learning experiences for maximum benefit” (Neill 2005). Locke, in particular, placed a high premium on the importance of the child being encouraged to read as soon as he or she is able to talk. Albeit a little too extreme, this has its own merit in that children who learn to read early will have the necessary disposition to be open to learning and curiosity, as well as having an adventurous mind, later on in life. Both believed that the end or purpose of education is to mold young people to become responsible and model citizens of society. For Locke, “the goal of education is the welfare and prosperity of the nation - he conceived the nation's welfare and prosperity in terms of the personal happiness and social usefulness of its citizens” (Deighton, 1971, p. 20). Dewey, in the same vein, also believes that “education also has a broader social purpose, which was to help people become more effective members of democratic society…students need educational experiences which enable them to become valued, equal, and responsible members of society” (Neill, 2005). In this sense, we can derive that both value education as a social tool to help build and shape society and affect future generations. Locke believes in the notion of tabula rasa - that is, blank slate – to describe the state of mind of the human person from his conception. He believes that the person is only able to gain knowledge from the direct experience of things. He did not believe in innate ideas, hence, the mind is a clean slate on which the words and memory of experience could be written. Being an empiricist, he believes that the experience of “publicly verifiable, measurable, plain, demonstrable facts” (Cranston, 1969, p. 17) will lead to the formation and building of character rather than in the imagining of some sort of virtue or ideal the experience of which will not be imprinted in the child’s memory. Further, he maintains that since there are no innate ideas, the pressure is greater on the parents to help the child build his or her character by becoming immersed in various situations and activities which will help him or her form one’s values. Dewey, likewise, espoused the theory of experience wherein he prescribes that the role of educators is to be able to take into account - and into context – the different backgrounds and histories of each individual and formulate a curriculum based on the diversity of each person’s experiences. He challenged educators to go beyond a uniform, homogeneous approach to teaching and instead be constantly aware of how to best make the learning experience beneficial to the child’s development. This is not to say, though, that the educator has to undergo the tedious, painstaking process of coming up with various curricula; instead, he proposes a systematized, organized, and consequently, effective method of learning. Indeed, the two tenets of Dewey’s theory of experience – continuity and interaction, are based on the presumption that the educator understands how experience vastly affects one’s disposition in life (continuity), and how the experiences from the past could influence the present situation (interaction). Thus, Dewey is highly critical of what he calls traditional education because this is more concerned with imparting knowledge rather than empathizing with students and their actual experiences and thus formatting the method of teaching based upon what is actually happening. This has a large implication on today’s modern schools, especially the formative schools, because most of the children who go to school today have already experienced different kinds of trauma from society which need to be taken into consideration if the educator is to become effective. These are basic similarities to be found in the philosophy of education of both educational thinkers. The next section of this paper is going to discuss how they differ in the discussions on God and virtue, wisdom, and the transmission of learning. Locke vs. Dewey John Locke believed that a child who has been taught early on in believing that there is a God to whom we pray will be able to assimilate, by practice, the virtues of kindness and compassion, and believe in integrity and fairness in his or her dealings with other people. In other words, a belief in God and in living the Golden Rule of doing unto others what one wants to be done unto him or her will greatly influence and shape a child’s character. Notice that this is the first priority in Locke’s list of the things which a child ought to learn. He believed that by cultivating first the values in a child, it will be easier to impart other bodies of knowledge later on. A belief in God will also encourage the child to be always a “truth-teller”, both in avoiding telling lies and also in trying not to live an untruthful life. Dewey, on the other hand, in his pragmatic philosophy, has influenced progressive education (although he did not espouse it) in denying that there is a God and that there are moral values. Therefore, much is being tolerated from the students which leads to the absence of standard principles for action and rules of conduct. Although this is not the original intent of his doctrine, progressive education as it has come to be applied today looked to Dewey’s principles and interpreted them as godlessness and lawlessness. What is important to note here that Dewey, in his original doctrine, believed in a set of rules to be followed to put structure and order into the learning experience. Another point of contention in the application of the two philosophers’ teachings is in how wisdom is viewed. Basically, Locke opines that the experience to be gathered from learning from an educator in a learning setting is enough to imbue one with the wisdom which for him comes from living a virtuous life. In this sense, there is an objective morality to adhere to, and therefore a guide on how to properly conduct one’s affairs. What sprung from Dewey’s theory of experience, on the other hand, is what is called “situational ethics” wherein one acts according to what the situation is, and therefore calls forth a flexible sort of morality which may or may not lead to being virtuous. Lastly, the difference between Locke’s and Dewey’s philosophy of education lies in their prescription for the curriculum of study. Locke, as has been mentioned, prioritizes virtue first, followed by wisdom, breeding and decorum, and lastly, learning specific subjects (Brewton, 2005). He believes that character formation is first and foremost before anything else, and that the learning of specific subjects, such as Mathematics and Astronomy, can flow from this. Dewey, on the other hand, is a believer of democracy and experience, and therefore, we must to turn to what experience affords us and from there we can proceed to learn the necessary subject or area of learning that will best address or suit that experience. In application today, this has come to mean that the object of learning has stopped at the short-term gains and benefits, which is for oneself, and does not extend to striving to become good contributors to society. Works Cited: Brewton, T. (2005 March 22). How far have we fallen? 22 March 2005. IntellectualConservative.com. Retrieved from http://www.intellectualconservative.com/article4224.html Cranston, M. (1969). John Locke (rev. ed. Green and Co., Ltd.). London: Longmans, Deighton, L. C. (Ed.). (1971). The encyclopedia of education (vol. 6). New York: The Macmillan Company and the Free Press. Neill, J. (2005 Jan 26). John Dewey, the modern father of experiential education. Retrieved from http://wilderdom.com/experiential/ExperientialDewey.html