John Dewey's pragmatism and competing educational philosophies

Educational Philosophies

Pragmatism

Pragmatism emerged from the writings of John Dewey who believed that experimentation was the best approach for educating young minds. For example, pragmatists feel that field trips, educational excursions etc. are more effective in teaching students about the world instead of audio-visual aids. Pragmatism includes such as thoughts as futurism, and educational humanism and Reconstructionism. Pragmatic education philosophy doesn't assign a traditional role to the teachers who are only seen as guides and not exactly more knowledgeable beings. George R. Knight in his book on education philosophies explained that pragmatism focuses on real life experiences as the main source of knowledge and education. They gives the example of field trips as he says that for a child to learn about dairy products, its better to take him to a barn and let him experience the whole thing himself instead of showing him a movie on the subject. (p. 75)

Idealism

Idealism is an important philosophy that gained greater influence over education in the 20th century and was not so popular prior to that. It has been present in the educational field for a long time emphasizing the reality of ideas, thoughts, and mind over material and matter. William E. Hocking who is a modern thinker in this area maintained that due to emphasis on ideas; this philosophy should have been called "idea-ism" instead of idealism. This is because idealism is more concerned with intrinsic values such as honesty, truth, courage etc. while idealism in the case of education stresses the importance of ideas, thoughts and mind precisely. Educationists working on idealistic philosophies would concentrate more on the development of ideas instead of more physical things believing that this would lead to action automatically. Students are taught that they create or produce what they think and they are told to strive for perfection.

Existentialism

Existentialism philosophy focuses on emotions more than the intellect. The person, his values, beliefs, ideals, and identity are of greater importance than his intellectual capacity and for this reason it views education in slightly negative light. This is because they feel that a student learning through traditional educational means would become nothing more than a pawn in capitalist world. To become a whole and healthy human being who has a unique personality and thinking capacity, it is important to allow the students to explore the world on their own. "Existentialism is not a philosophy but a label for several widely different revolts against traditional philosophy. Most of the living "existentialists" have repudiated this label, and a bewildered outsider might well conclude that the only thing they have in common is a marked aversion for each other." (Kaufmann: 75) The teacher in this case would be seen as a facilitator instead of an authoritarian figure. Existentialism supports the idea of allowing students all possible answers to a question instead of handing them down one answer as the only and final solution. Existentialism has something in common with pragmatism as both advocate a curriculum based on individual needs instead of fixed theories and ideas.