Article by Thessayist Network

Literature ReviewMoore (1957) maintains that the selection of the optimal philosophy of education is predicated upon the prior acknowledgement of the interrelationship between society and education on the one hand, and the extent to which education is simultaneously shaped by and shapes society. This perspective substantially complicates the selection process insofar as its central contention, referencing the correlation between society and education, is that education policy makers need first articulate society’s values, needs and expectations prior to the selection of a philosophy of education.Densford (1963) concurs with the above, adding that the value of an educational system derives from the degree to which it reflects societal current needs and values on the one hand, and the extent to which it addresses potential needs and nascent values on the other. The educational system, in other words, must immediately reflect existent social characteristics and values while, simultaneously mirroring societal and national aspirations. The above provides a rudimentary framework for the articulation of the criteria for the selection of the optimal moral educational philosophy. As per the stated, an appropriate educational philosophy needs to be well-grounded in current reality and flexible enough to address the mercurial or ephemeral nature of social and national reality. Within the parameters of the stated, it is possible to deduce that the educational philosophy which best fits a particular society in a specified period, may not suit another society and with the progression of time, may not even suit the society it originally addressed and was selected on the basis of. As Winch (2004) notes, in order to retain vitality and relevancy, the selection of a philosophy of education must be conceived of as a continued process whereby that philosophy and the policy which it informs must constantly be held up for measurement against societal reality, aspirations and needs, and adjusted upon the emergence of any notable inconsistencies or gaps definitional parameters of the former and the characteristics of the latter set.On the basis of the explicated, the task of defining the criteria for the selection of a moral philosophy of education attains greater clarity. A philosophy of education must be selected following a thorough consideration of existent societal and national needs and values; the identification of articulated societal and national political and economic aspirations and nascent or emergent ones; and a consideration of the greater global context in which a society or nation is located, and the demands imposed on the society/nation by the referred t greater global environ. Concomitant with the stated criteria, education policy makers must acknowledge the exigencies of flexibility as a strategy for ensuring continued relevancy and vitality and, as such, ensure that the selected philosophy is endowed with the characteristic of flexibility.Through the implementation of a selection process which subscribes to the elucidated criteria, educational policy makers can, at the very least, ensure that the selected philosophy of education will be relevant to the society/nation/era in question.Range of Philosophies of EducationThere exists a wide range of philosophies of education, directly consequent to the fact that philosophers have been engaged in the articulation and development of the stated ever since the birth of philosophy itself. According to Winch (2004) the preponderant presence of multitudinous philosophies of education is due to the fact that, by definition these philosophies articulate the ever-changing aims of life and work and provide the educational curriculum with a definition of the knowledge that needs to be embraced and educators with the teaching strategies by which to teach the identified knowledge. As knowledge is both expansive and almost impossible to contain, on the one hand, and as different eras ad societies focus on different types of knowledge on the other, novel philosophies of education are constantly being articulated and different philosophies of education, apart from the more general ones, address different areas of knowledge (Winch, 2004). Consequently, the variety philosophies of education are not necessarily competitive but often coexist, in a mutually dependant relationship.Value TheoryValue theory constitutes one of the more pragmatic of the various philosophies of education. As defined and advocated by Densford (1963) , value theory embraces moral, sociological and economic precepts. On the one hand, it is founded upon the ideas and values which any given society identifies as integral to, and representative of, its belief structures and value systems and, as such, contributes to the fortification of its moral base. On the other hand, value theory is, at its core, fundamentally derived from economic principles wherein it maintains that, insofar as an education system is supposed to promote the interests of a society and endow the citizenry with the knowledge tools integral to the fulfilment of specified national and societal aims, it is valuable only if it successfully achieves that (Densford, 1963). In other words, as a philosophy for education, value theory is premised on the contention that educational policy and related curricula derive value from the extent to which they reflect societal belief systems and mores and the degree to which they aid in the production of graduates who are capable of satisfying national economic (Saito and Imai, 2004).LiberalismLiberal Education Philosophy constitutes on of the more popular of the existent philosophies of education. Also known as the General Education Philosophy, Bilsky (1954) advocates this particular philosophical paradigm for the framing of educational policy because it exploits numerous areas of knowledge and their concomitant problem-solving and particularistic critical thinking methodologies as a strategy for the expansion and development of individual abilities. Moore (1957) advocates general education and/or liberalism as the optimal philosophy of education insofar as it ensures that students are not trapped within the confines of highly specified and limited areas and fields of knowledge. Through the formulation of educational policies which specify the design of curricula which, while supporting knowledge specialisation, insists on the expansion of students’ knowledge base, trains the mind in variant critical thinking and problem solving methodologies, further directing them towards a recognition of the relationship between the nature of problem ad the problem-solving and critical thinking methodology that should be applied (Moore, 1957).Within the framework of the above explication of the constituent elements of the liberal or general education, philosophy of education, this particular approach ultimately emerges as multi-pronged. In making that argument, Horlacher (2004) explains that, as a philosophy of education, this approach is particularly useful for the informing of complex educational policies which are formulated for implementation in societies which have a wide range of needs, including, as Heyting and Winch (2004) assert, moral ones. In other words, this approach is all-encompassing and if employed for the informing of educational policy, influences the design of academic curricula which are geared towards providing students with a wide array of analytical and problem solving tools, within the confines of ethical parameters.Aristotelian Philosophy of EducationWhile not detracting from the value of the Aristotelian, one of the oldest existent, philosophies of education, decisions regarding its implementation as a knowledge set and paradigm for the informing, and framing of, education policies, have to be approach with tremendous cautious. This, as Stuetel and Spiecker (2004) explain is directly due to the fact that this particular philosophy of education is an intrinsically moral and sentimental one. Its primary aim is the elucidation of the methodologies by which to judge, and critically evaluate, actions as moral or immoral, as ethical or otherwise. Its overriding concern is, thus, the `cultivation of feelings deemed appropriate for moral action, behaviour and judgement’ (pp. 531-532). While, within the context of the stated, this philosophy of education appears to be immediately suitable for the resolution of the defined research problem, the fact is that it is not. Quit simply stated, while education has an undeniable duty towards the inculcation of moral precepts among learners, that is hardly its sole aim. Therefore, while all educational policies must, in varying degrees, be informed by the Aristotelian approach and articulate the communication of morality and ethics as an integral componential element of education, educational curricula and aims have to be more expansive than that, insofar as they are expected to address the existent and potential societal needs, and not simply reflect and popularise its norms and mores.The Optimal Philosophy of EducationMasschelein (2004) maintains that the optimal philosophy of education is the one which is tailor-made to the needs of a specific society, reflects its values and aims towards the fulfilment of its aspirations. The customisation of a philosophy of education does not imply the development of a novel one but, rather, entails a careful analysis of existent philosophies of education, the identification of their respective strengths, followed by the selection of the relevant strengths of each (Masschelein, 2004). In simultaneous recollection of the defined philosophies of education and the articulated criteria for selection, one may identify the optimal approach as that one which derives from the Aristotelian philosophy of education, while borrowing from the value theory approach and largely depending upon the liberal, or general education philosophy. Each of the stated philosophies possess an inherently moral dimension while, at the same time, address multitudinous other social needs. Upon the basis of the above reviewed literature, and I light of the research aims, hypothesis and questions, the selection of an amalgamated philosophy of education, as opposed to the Aristotelian one, emerges from the recognition of the fact that fortification of society’s moral base through the integration of moral philosophy in the educational system, should not occur at the expense of the role that education plays in the fulfilment of society’s variant other needs.MethodologyAs Sekaran (2003) notes, the concept of research methodology references that set of tools and data collection and analysis instrument which researchers utilize to examine a particular problem, suggest solutions and subsequently test the validity of the proposed. A research methodology defines what the activity of the specified research is, and articulates procedural methods, strategies for progress measurement and, the criteria for research success (Sekaran, 2003). Consequently, research methodology provides the researcher with the required procedural and objectives’ blueprint while, simultaneously defining the study’s epistemic stance, and identifying the research and data collection tools to be exploited. For the purposes of the current study, and as predetermined by the research questions, hypothesis and the nature of the investigated problem, the research shall primarily focus upon secondary data, with limited primary data collection. The secondary data will concentrate on the interrelationship between morality and education, the contributory value of a well-design philosophy of education to society and the exigencies of adopting such a philosophy in light of the widespread breakdown in ethics across the professions and practices. Furthermore, literature on educational psychology theory, pertaining to the degree to which the nature of a school curriculum shapes character and influences behaviour shall be reviewed. As pertains to the primary data, structured and semi-structured interviews will be conducted with five school administrators and five child psychologists. The aim here is the determination of prevalent professional opinion on the aforementioned problem and proposed solution. Close-ended questionnaires will be distributed among 120 school children, through grades 1-12 in order to assess their opinions and attitudes regarding the values that they are exposed to within the school environment. The collected data will be both quantitatively and qualitatively analysed and the results discussed in light of the hypothesis.ConclusionAs evident throughout the proposal, the research shall seek to establish the correlation between societal morality and the educational curriculum on the one hand, and link the prevalent ethics breakdown to the structural parameters of prevalent school education curricula on the other. The ultimate aim is to propose a moral philosophy of education which would address and resolve the mentioned problem through the fortification of society’s moral base via the inculcation of ethics precepts and values among school children while, at the same time, addressing society’s numerous other demands from the educational system.BibliographyBalz, G.A. and H.A. Larrabee. (1942). Philosophy and the philosophy of education. The Journal of Philosophy. 39(8), 205-212. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from JSTOR database.Bilsky, M. (1954). Liberal education as philosophy. The Journal of Higher Education. 25(4), 191-196+226-227. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from JSTOR database.Carr, D. (2003) Philosophy and the meaning of Education. Theory and Research in Education. 1(2), 195-212. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Densford, J.P. (1963). Value theory as basic to the philosophy of education. History of Education Quarterly. 3(2), 102-106. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from JSTOR database.D’Innocenzo, M. (1999). Aims of education: Tolerance, understanding and inclusion. Vital Speeches of the Day. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Heyting, Frieda and Christopher Winch (2004). The role of critique in philosophy of education: Its subject matter and its ambiguities. Journal of the Philosophy of Education. 38(3), 311-323. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Honneth, A. (1991) Foucault’s Theory of Society: A Systems-Theoretic Dissolution of the Dialectic of Enlightenment, in: The Critique and Power: Reflective Stages in Critical Theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Horlacher, Horlacher. (2004) Bildung – A construction of a history of the philosophy of education. Studies in Philosophy and Education. 23, 409-426. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from Oxford Journals database.Hunter, I. (1996) Assembling the school, in: A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (eds) Foucault And Political Reason: Liberalism, Neo-Liberalism And Rationalities Of Government. London: UCL Press.Masschelein, J. (2003). How to conceive of critical educational theory today? Journal of Philosophy of Education. 38(3), 351-367. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.McMurrin, S.M. (1962). What about the philosophy of education? The Journal of Philosophy. 59(22), 629-637. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from JSTOR database.Moore, Asher (1957). The philosophy of general education. The Journal of Higher Education. 28(2), 65-69+115-116. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from JSTOR database.Papastephanou, M. (2004). Educational critique, critical thinking and the critical philosophical traditions. Journal of the Philosophy of Education. 38(3), 369-380. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Said, Edward. (1999). A place to travel in. Al-Ahram Weekly. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Saito, N. and Y. Imai (2004). In search of the public and the private: The philosophy of education in post-war Japan. Comparative Education. 40(4), 583-595. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Carr, D. and J. Stuetel (1999) Virtue Ethics and Moral Education. London: Routledge.Sarfatti-Larson, M. (1976). The Rise Of Modern Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Sekaran, U. (2003). Research Methods for Business. London: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Stuetel, J. and B. Spiecker (2004). Cultivating sentimental dispositions through Aristotelian habituation. Journal of the Philosophy of Education. 38(4), 531-549. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.Winch, Christopher. (2004) Work, the aims of life and the aims of education: a reply to Clark and Mearman. Journal of the Philosophy of Education. 38(4), 633-638. Retrieved February 27, 2006 from EBSCO database.

Lesson planning is an important component of education and the everyday function of a classroom. It is vital to the learning of your students. A strongly structured lesson plan can reach and engage the toughest students while challenging the most gifted. The lesson plan is the blueprint and sets up the foundation for educators to reach students with different learning styles.

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Overall, it’s important to remember that your lesson plan can result in two outcomes: it can make inherently interesting content less interesting, or it can make dull material appealing and interactive. The tools to change how your students view the material lie in the lesson planning. By incorporating interactive ways of learning, students will be more likely to get involved and therefore learn more efficiently. If you build and structure your plan in a way that takes the results of educational research and combine it with motivating strategies, you will have the ideal curriculum. Designing curriculums is an art form and a science. You need to use strategy, research, and creativity. A great deal of work and details go into the creation of a successful lesson plan, but the results are rewarding.