Education and Pragmatism a Method for Schools

¶ … education is that it should be rooted in reason, and in this sense it is based in the philosophical principle of modernism identified by Knight, namely that human reason has the ability to see and understand the world around it, identify its nature and laws and extrapolate its meaning (2008, p. 87). At the same time, however, I also approach education in the sense that there remains a mystery to the world that our human reason cannot always understand.

In other words, I see a transcendent reality that exists above us -- and this is rooted in the classical philosophical traditions of the Greeks (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle). I do not view approach as very postmodern in the sense of Hume, Kant, and Nietzsche, who finally stated that there is no truth but what the human mind constructs (Knight, 2008, p. 89). I believe this is to place too much emphasis on the subjective experience without giving proper weight to the objective experience.

Thus, my three approaches are based in modernism, classicalism, and scholasticism, which is part of the medieval educative tradition. These same three approaches are ones I plan to implement in my classroom, but I also intend to add humanism, which I think emphasizes the experience of the individual and can serve as a type of post-modernism, because it points out how every individual does see things uniquely through his or her own eyes. This is supported by the view of Kant and Nietzsche (Knight, 2008).

I also want to engage students and families using digital media, as this is a pathway in the Digital Age that many people prefer and opens up new lines of communication (Scherer, 2009). My recommendations for dealing with cultural and demographic issues prevalent in most communities and schools is to combine the democratizing approach to education that builds on the ideas of Hess and Morrison with the top-down management styles of modern schools promoted by Nathan, Clabough, et al. (Koonce, 2016, p. 60-77). There is no simple way to approach education.

Taking cues from the various philosophical sectors in the education field is a way that can help teachers and administrators provide enough freedom for teachers and students to move successfully towards goals while at the same time providing the necessary parameters in which those movements should be situated. This is not to say that schools need more bureaucratization.

I think that with diverse cultures in this country and diverse students coming to a class, it is important to have a standard available that teachers and students can draw on if needed. However, it is also helpful to give teachers and students room to individualize their approach to education.

As Hess points out, it does not do any good to narrowly define the way we think of public school, as education is not confined to this one square box; there a variety of modes in which education can occur (Koonce, 2016, p. 60). For this reason, when cultural and demographic issues arise in communities and schools, it should be recommended that a pragmatic approach be taken within the education departments.

Consideration should be given to highlighting goals that schools want to achieve in terms of regarding the cultures and demographics that they are associating with -- and then they should allow their teachers ample room to navigate and find the formula for success that works best for them and their classroom. This can include using standardized measures to gauge progress as well as less formal observational methods for assessing how well students and teachers are performing.

The key is to strike a right balance between control and freedom, direction and the ability to wander; allowing the subjective experience to manifest itself but also identifying the objective. Follow-Up Question: It really feels like things are at a tipping point in the communities with so much racial tensions. Do you envision any way in which that could overflow into our classrooms? I definitely see a way in which the racial tension in our communities could overflow into our classrooms.

Students do not live in a bubble; they come and go and interact with the world outside the school; their opinions and beliefs are impacted by that outside world just as much as they are by the world inside the school, so there can obviously be a tension there that spills out into the classroom. This could occur through a discussion of something as simple as cultural backgrounds. Suppose one of the ELLs is of a certain religious background that is having a bad reputation in the mainstream media.

This could cause other students who are impacted by the media to look down on this student or to view him/her with hatred. This could be a terrible occurrence in the classroom. Or, what if there are students who are white and others who are black and some of the current hostilities about race in the nation are vented in the classroom, and.