The Teacher and the

Community, School Culture

and Organizational Leadership
Chapter 1: Philosophical thoughts on
Education
A. John Lock 91632 – 1704): The Empiricist Educator
• Acquire knowledge about the world through senses – learning by doing
and by interacting with the environment
• Simple ideas become more complex through comparison, reflection and
generalization – the inductive method
• Questioned the long traditional view that knowledge came exclusively
from literary sources, particularly the Greek and Latin classics
• Opposed he “divine right kings” theory which held that the monarch
had the right to be an unquestioned and absolute ruler over his
subjects.
• Political order should be based upon a contract between the people
and the government.
• Aristocrats are not destined by birth of rulers, People were to establish
their own government and select their own political leaders from
among themselves; civic education is necessary
• People should be educated to govern themselves intelligently and
responsibly
Comments:
• For John Locke education is not acquisition of knowledge contained in
the Great Books. It is learners interacting with concrete experience,
comparing and reflecting on the same concrete experience,
comparing. The learner is an active not a passive agent of his/her own
learning.
• From the social dimension, education is seeing citizens participate
actively and intelligently in establishing their government and in
choosing who will govern them from among themselves because they
are convinced that no one person is destined to be ruler forever.
B. Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903) : Utilitarian Education
• Spencer's concept of “survival of the fittest” means that human
development had gone through an evolutionary series of stages from
the simple to the complex and from the uniform to the more
specialized kind of activity.
• Social development had taken place according to an evolutionary
process by which simple homogeneous societies has evolved to more
complex societal systems characterized with humanistic and classical
education.
• Industrialized society require vocational and professional education
based on scientific and practical (utilitarian) objectives rather than on
the very general educational goals associated with humanistic and
classical education.
• Curriculum should emphasize the practical, utilitarian and scientific
subjects that helped human kind master the environment.
• Was not inclined to rote learning; schooling must be related to life and
to the activities needed to earn a living.
• Curriculum must be arranged according to their contribution to
human survival and progress.
• Science and other subjects that sustained human life and prosperity
should have curricular priority since it aids in the performance of life
activities.
• Individual competition leads to social progress, He who is fittest
survives.
Comments:
• To survive in a complex society, Spencer favors specialized education
over that of general education. We are in need of social engineers who
can combine harmoniously the findings of specialized knowledge. This
is particularly true in the field of medicine.
• The expert who concentrates on a limited field is useful, but if he loses
sight of the interdependence of things he becomes a man who knows
more and more about less and less. We must be warned of the deadly
peril of over specialism. O course we do not prefer the other extreme,
the superficial person who knows less and less about more and more.
Spencer’s Survival of the Fittest
• He who is fittest survives. Individual competition leads to social
progress He who is the fittest survives. Individual competitions leads to
social progress. The competition in class is what advocates of a whole-
child approach and socio-emotional. Learning (SEL) atmosphere
negate. The whole child approach a powerful tool for SELF-focused
schools has as tenets – “each students learns in the environment that
is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults” and “each
student has access to personalized learning and is supported by
qualified and caring personalized learning and is supported by
qualified and caring adults.
The highlighted words point to no competition for competition works
against an emotionally safe environment.
C. John Dewey (1859 – 1952): Learning through Experiences
• Education is a social process and so school is intimately related to the
society that it serves.
• Children are socially active human beings who want to explore their
environment and gain control over it.
• Education is a social process by which, the immature members of the
group, especially the children, are brought to participate in the society.
• The school is a special environment established by members of the
society, for the purpose of simplifying, purifying and integrating the
social experience of the group so that it can be understood, examined
and used by its children.
• The sole purpose of education is to contribute to the personal and social
growth of individuals.
• The steps of the scientific or reflective method which are extremely
important in Dewey’s educational theory are as follows:
The learner has a “genuine situation of experience” involvement in an
activity in which he/she is interested.
Within this experience the learner has a “genuine problem” that
stimulates thinking.
The learner possesses the information or does research to acquire the
information needed to solve the problem.
The learner develops possible and tentative solutions that may solve
the problem.
The learner tests the solutions by applying them to the problem in
this one way one discovers their validity for oneself.
• The fund of knowledge of the human race-past ideas, discoveries and
inventions was to be used as the material for dealing with problems. The
accumulated wisdom of cultural heritage has to be tested. If it served
human purposes, it becomes part of a reconstructed experience.
• The school is social, scientific and democratic. The school introduces
children to society and their heritage. The school as a miniature society
is a means of bringing children into social participation.
• The school is scientific in the sense that it is a social laboratory in which
children and youth could test their ideas and values. In here, the learner
acquires the disposition and procedures associated with scientific or
reflective thinking and acting.
• The school is democratic because the learner is free to test all ideas,
beliefs and values. Cultural heritage, customs and institutions are all
subject to critical inquiry, investigation and reconstruction.
• Schools should be used by all, it being a democratic institution. No
barrier of custom or prejudice segregate people. People ought to work
together to solve common problems.
• The authoritarian or coercive style of administration and teaching is
out of place because they block genuine inquiry and dialogue.
• Education is a social activity and the school is a social agency that
helps shape human character and behavior.
• Values are relative but sharing, cooperation, and democracy are
significant human values that should be encouraged by schools.
Comments:
The Fund of Knowledge of the Human Race
• Dewey does not disregard the accumulated wisdom of the past. These
past ideas, discoveries and inventions, our cultural heritage
Will be used as the material for dealing with problems and so will be
tested. If they are of help, they become part of a reconstructed
experience. If they are not totally accurate, they will still be part of a
reconstructed experience. This means that he ideals learner for Dewey
is not just one who can learn by doing, e.g. conduct an experiment but
one who can connect accumulated wisdom of the past to the present.

Schools are For the People and By the People

• Schools are democratic institutions where everyone regardless of age,
ethnicity, social status is welcome and encouraged to participate in
the democratic process of decision-making. Learners and stakeholders
practice and experience democracy in schools.
D. George Counts 91889 – 1974): Building a New Social Order
• Education is not based on eternal truths but is relative to a particular
society living at a given time and place.
• By allying themselves with groups that want to change society.
Schools should cope with social change that arises from technology.
• There s a cultural lag between material progress and social
institutions and ethical values.
• Instruction should incorporate a content of a socially useful nature
and a problem-solving methodology. Students are encouraged to
work on problems that have social significance.
• Schools become instrument for social improvement rather than an
agency for preserving the status quo.
• Teachers should lead society rather than follow it. Teachers are agents
of change.
• Teachers are called on to make important choices in the controversial
areas of economics, politics and morality because if they failed to do
so, others would make the decisions for them.
• Schools ought to provide an education that afford equal learning
opportunities to all students.
Comments:
Schools and Teachers as Agents of Change
• For George Counts, schools and teachers should be agent of change.
Schools are considered instruments for social improvement rather as
agencies for preserving the status quo. Whatever change we work for
Always be change for the better not just change for the sake of change.
• Teachers are called to make decisions on controversial issues.
• Like Dewey, problem solving, should be the dominant method for
instruction.
Lag Between Material Progress and Ethical Values
Counts asserts that “there is a cultural lag between material progress
and social institutions and ethical values.” Material progress of humankind
is very evident but moral and ethical development seem to have lagged
behind. A friend once wrote: “The Egyptians had their horses. Modern
man ha his jets but todays it is still the same moral problems that plague
humankind.” Indeed with science and technology, we have become very
powerful and yet powerless. We have conquered a number of diseases and
even postponed death for many, we have conquered aging, the planets,
the seas but have not conquered ourselves.
E. Theodore Bra meld (1904 – 1987) – Social Reconstructionism
• As the name implies, social reconstructionism is a philosophy that
emphasizes the reformation of society. The social reconstructionist
contend that:
…human kind has moved from an agricultural and rural society… here is a
serious lag in cultural adaption to the realities of a technological society.
Humankind has yet to reconstruct its values in order to catch up with the
changes in the technological order, and organized education has a major
role to play in reducing the gap between the values of culture and
technology.
• So the social reconstructionist asserts that schools should:
Critically examine present culture and resolve inconsistencies,
controversies and conflicts to build a new society not just change society…
Do more than reform the social and educational status quo. It should
seek to create a new society… Humankind is in a state of profound
cultural crisis. If schools reflect the dominant social values ills that are
symptoms of the pervasive problems and afflictions that beset
humankind.. The only legitimate goal of a truly human education is to
create a world order in which people are in control of their own destiny.
In an era of nuclear weapons, the social reconstructionist see an urgent
need for society to reconstruct itself before it destroys itself.
• Technological era is an era of interdependence and so education must
be international in scope for global citizenship.
• For the social reconstructionist, education is designed “to awaken
students’ consciousness about social problems and to engage them
actively in problem solving”
• Social reconstructionist are family committed to equality or equity in
both society and education. Barriers of socio economic class and racial
discrimination should be eradicated.
• They also emphasize the idea of an interdependent world. The quality of
life needs to be considered and enhanced on a global basis.
Comments:
• Like John Dewey and George Counts, social reconstructionist, Bra meld
believe in active problem-solving as the method of teaching and
learning.
• Social reconstructionist are convinced that education is not a privilege of
the few but a right that all citizens regardless of race and social status
must enjoy.
F. Paulo Freire (1921 – 1997) – Critical Pedagogy
Critical Pedagogy and Dialogue vs. the Banking Model of Education
• Paulo Freire, a critical theorist, like social reconstructionist, believed that
systems must be changed to overcome oppression, and improve human
conditions.
• Education and literacy are the vehicle for social change. In his view,
humans must learn to resist oppression and not become its victims, nor
oppress others. To do so requires dialogue and critical consciousness, the
development of awareness, the development of awareness to overcome
domination and oppression.
• Rather than “teaching as banking,” in which the educator deposits
information into students’ heads, Freire saw teaching and learning as a
process of inquiry in which the child must invent and reinvent the world.
• Teachers must not see themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge and their
students as empty receptacles. He calls this pedagogical approach the “banking
method” of education.
• A democratic relationship between the teacher and her students is necessary in
order for the conscientization process to take place.
• Freire’s critical pedagogy is problem-posing education.
• A central element of Freire’s pedagogy is dialogue. It is love and respect that allow
us to engage people in dialogue and to discover ourselves in the process and learn
from one another…By its nature, dialogue is not something that can be imposed.
Instead genuine dialogue is characterized by respect of the parties involved toward
one another. We develop a tolerant sensibility during the dialogue process, and it is
only when we come to tolerate the points of view and ways of being of others that
we might be able to learn from them and about ourselves in the process. Dialogue
means the presence of equality, mutual recognition, affirmation of people, a sense
of solidarity with people , and remaining open to questions.
• Dialogue is the basis for critical and problem-posing pedagogy, as
opposed to banking education, where there is no discussion, only the
imposition of the teacher’s ideas on the students.
Comments:
• All of these education philosophers, point to the need of interacting with
others and of creating a “community of inquiry” as Charles Sanders
Peirce put it. The community of inquiry is “a group of persons involved in
inquiry, investigating more or less the same question or problem, and
developing through their exchanges a better understanding both of the
question as well as the probable solutions.” A community of inquiry will
engage learners in active problem solving,
Application- Let’s Apply
1. The modern explosion of knowledge has led to an age of
specialization with this concomitant quip:
A specialist knows more and more about less and less
An expert knows more and more about less and less
Until he or she knows everything about nothing
A related joke cleverly twists this saying;
A generalist knows less and less about more and more until he or she
knows nothing about everything
Should schools produce generalists or specialist? Defend your answer.
2. “If we cannot bring the learners to the world, bring the world to the classroom.”
Will this go with John Dewey’s philosophy of education: Explain your answer.
3. Is free tertiary education really pro-poor in the sense that it is the poor who are
indeed benefited? Justify your answer.
4. Freire opposed the banking method of education and favored critical pedagogy.
Why? The banking method is characterized as a vertical relationship while critical
pedagogy is characterized by a horizontal type of relationship. Be guided by the
figure below.
teacher

student
teacher student
 TAKEAWAYS
John Locke – the empiricist
• Education is not acquisition of knowledge contained in the Classics. It is
learners interacting with concrete experience. The learner is an active
not a passive agent of his/her own learning.
• From the social dimension, education is seeing citizens participate
actively and intelligently in establishing their government and in
choosing who will govern them from among themselves. They are of the
thinking that no one person is destined to be ruler forever. This is in
keeping with the Anti- Political Dynasty Bill.
Spencer – the utilitarianist
• To survive in a complex society, Spencer favors specialized education
over that of general education.
• “The expert who concentrates on a limited field is useful, but if he loses
sight of the interdependence of things he becomes a man who knows
more and more about less and less. We must be warned of the early peril
of over-specialism. Of course we do not prefer the other extreme, the
superficial person who every day knows less and less about more and
more.
• Who is the fittest survives, individual competition leads to social progress.
• The competition in class is what advocate of whole-child approach and
Socio-emotional Learning (SEL) atmosphere approach and Socio
emotional Learning (SEL) atmosphere and Socio-emotional Learning (SEL)
atmosphere negate. The whole child approach, a powerful tool for SEL
focused schools has tenets – “each students learners in an environment
that is physically and emotionally safe for students and adults” and “each
student has access to personalized learning and is
 Supported by qualified and caring adults…”
• The highlighted words- emotionally safe and caring adults point to no
competition for competition works against an emotionally safe
environment.
John Dewey – experience
• Dewey does not disregard the accumulated wisdom of the past. These
past ideas, discoveries and inventions, our cultural heritage, will be
used as the material for dealing with problems and so will be tested.
If they are of help, they become part of a reconstructed experience. If
they are not totally accurate, they will be part of a reconstructed
experience. This means that the ideal learner for Dewey is not just
one who can learn by doing . E.g. , conduct an experiment but one
who can connect accumulated wisdom of the past to the present.
• Schools are for the people and by the people. Schools are a democratic
institution where everyone regardless of age, ethnicity, social status is
welcome and encouraged to participate in the democratic process of
decision-making. Learners and stakeholders practice and experience
democracy in schools.
George Counts – Building a New Social Order
• School and teachers should be agents of change. Schools are considered
instruments for social improvement rather than as agencies for
preserving the status quo. Whatever change we work for should always
be change for the better not just change for the sake of change.
• Problem-solving, like Dewey, should be the dominant method for
instruction’
• There is a cultural lag between material progress and social institutions
• And ethical values.” Material progress of humankind is very evident but
moral and ethical development seem to have lagged behind.
• Is very evident but moral and ethical development seem to have lagged
behind.
Theodore Bra meld – The Social Reconstructionist
• Social reconstructionist critically present culture and resolve inconsistencies,
controversies and conflicts to build a new society not just change society.
• Technological era is an era of interdependence and so education must be
international in scope for global citizenship.
Paulo Freire – Critical Pedagogy vs. Banking Method
• Employ critical pedagogy and dialogue in contrast to the banking system of
education.
• Learners are not empty receptacles to be field.
Let’s check for Understanding

1. Explain in a sentence why each education philosophers was associated

with these given words:
a) John Locke – the empiricist
b) Spencer – the utilitarianist
c) John Dewey – experience
d) George Counts – building a new social order
e) Theodore Bra meld – the social reconstructionist
f) Paulo Freire – critical pedagogy vs. banking method
2. Make a table summary of the philosophies of education.
Philosophers Philosophy on Aim/s and Method/s Classroom/School Application
of education
Let’s Reflect (Double Entry Journal)

Two Things I Learned from this Chapter My thoughts or Reaction/s

Let Clinchers:
1. Which is NOT TRUE of social reconstructionist?
A. Use of problem-solving
B. Study of the Great Books
C. Schools as agent of change
D. Introduce a new society
2. Which teaching practice goes with the “banking systems” of
education which was contrary to Paulo Freire’s educational
thought?
A. Rote memorization
B. Project – based learning
 C. Problem-based learning
D. Community of inquiry
3. For which teaching will social reconstructionist be?
A. Stress on isolationism
B. Inequality and equity as normal for an international society
international in scope
C. Building of an interdependent world that is international in
scope
D. Narrow concept of nationalism
4. Why is Spencer’s educational thought described as utilitarian?
A. He emphasized vocational and professional
B. He stressed on general educational goals associated with
humanistic and classical education.
C. He stressed a balance of specialized and general education in
the curriculum
D. He eliminated the vocational and professional education
component of the curriculum
5. For which educational practice was John Dewey?
A. Problem-solving C. Emphasis on the Humanities
B. Banking-Method D. Teaching of the Classics