ED 542 Final

What is philosophy

The study of wisdom

The study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline.

Commitment

Idea of something you are dedicated to

What is worldview?

A fundamental orientation of the heart

Expressed in a story

A lens through which we view the world

A part of our larger culture that we accept without realy thinking about it

Presuppositions

Which may be true, partially true, or entirely true

Personal vs. Professional worldview

Personal is what you believe

Professional is what profess for the sake of our occupation

Philosophy

Knowledge, academic

Affects history and education

Worldview

Day to day life

Developing an belief of something before understanding or applying it

Everything is based on philosophy

Existence is at the heart of philosophy

Why study philosophy?

Philosophy is the art that teaches us how to live

Montaigne’s View of Philosophy

1. Philosophy as practical, not abstract

2. The art of living well

3. Focus on human experience

4. Ethics and virtues at the core

5. Philosophy as lifelong learning

Areas of philosophy

1. Activities: what a philosopher does

2. Attitude: How the philosopher thinks toward philosophy

3. Body of knowledge: content

The philosophic process (Activities)

1. Examination

2. Analysis

3. Synthesis

4. Speculation

5. Prescription

6. Evaluation

Examination

• The key is to examine all aspects of topic (Be comprehensive)

• Seeks God’s word, all evidence, all sources not just one, read widely

• Go to experts and others in the field, even those you don’t agree with

Analysis

• Carefully look at evidence specifically

• Clarify tone in piece, language being used

• Seeks understanding

  • What others mean or what we understand others to mean

Synthesis

• Stop here and think “do I have a bias”

• How do I take these ideas and integrate into my worldview

• Integrates and unifies knowledge into broader knowledge

• Seeks comprehensive view of life

• Ideas in education or day to day life

• How does it all fit in?

Speculation

What will it do for the future?

Not winging it, not done on a whim

Prescription

• Coming up with standards in which to judge something

• Establishes standards and values

• Takes the emotion out of it

Evaluation

• Compare things against criteria

• Seeks philosophic orientation

• Key takeaway: have a clear biblical understanding to make a clear discussions

Philosophic Attitudes

1. Awareness

2. Comprehensiveness

3. Penetration

Comprehensiveness

• attitude you take into the process

• Wide spectrum of data

Penetration

Going deeper and deeper

Flexibility

• promotes a sensitive reconstruction of ideas

• Sometimes we do things just because we have always done it

Influence of society on Education

• Socrates’ influence on our thinking

• Reflects a composite of philosophies

• Regards outcomes more than the origin

• Transmits the voice of the people

• Relies on eduction

Education’s influence on our thinking

• For the most part, we learn by doing

• We are dumping all this knowledge into young minds, but not teaching them how to use it or right from wrong

Four ways we learn

1. training (habitual action)

2. learning (results of personal involvement)

3. schooling (classroom setting)

4. education (life-long process, or directed by teacher)

Teacher’s influence on thinking

1. focus on more than motion

2. focus on thinking

3. avoid problematic philosophical roles

Influence on Children’s thinking

1. Family influence

• One of the biggest influences on your life

2. Church influence

3. Peer group influence

4. Environment and media influence

5. School has a strong influence because of the amount of time spent there

What about your thinking?

• Are you educated?

• What cultural ideas have you adopted?

• Who is educating our children

Roots of philosophy

1. Metaphysics (study of reality)

2. Epistemology (study of truth and knowledge)

3. Axiology (study of value)

Metaphysics

The faith of the mind

The branch of philosophy that explores reality

Deals with ideas that are beyond the senses

Activates our worldview

“First philosophy”

Deals with fundamental questions

Subsets of Metaphysics

1. Cosmology

2. Ontology

3. Anthropology

4. Theology

Cosmology

Studies about the totality of the universe

Origin, nature, purpose

Looks at how or world came to be

Effects everything

We have to examine our reality

Ontology

Studies the nature

Butler calls it “isology.”

If we understood this society, we would be better off

Does it really exist

Is reality orderly, or is someone else ordering it

Anthropology

Study of human being

What is the relationship between mind and body

What is humanity moral status

Does man have a soul

Do humans have free will or all their thoughts and actions determined by environment, heredity?

Understanding this will change how you teach

Man has free will and a sin nature

Theology

Studies of Religious theories concerning God

Theist: there is a God

Atheist: does not believe in God

Pantheist: God and universe is one

Deist: God created the world but doesn’t actively participate

Traditional Methodology

• Drill/ review

• Recitation

• Competitions

• Teacher-directed lessons

• Memorization

• Reading

• Questioning

• Practical

• Individual responsibility

Relativism

Cooperative groups

No grades

Peer grading

No tests

Informal teaching

Epistemology

The building of the mind

Center of the educative process

Epistemology: is the branch of philosophy that explores nature, sources and the value of truth

Epistemology and the Educator

Why truth is important

Absolute truth: always going to be true

Relative truth: changes over time

The gospel is absolute truth

The study of knowledge and truth

Skepticism: believes he cannot know truth

Agnosticism: believes there is truth but not willing to understand

Positions on knowledge and objectivity

Recipient knowledge: opposed upon a person by society

Participant knowledge: manufactured by the individual

All types of knowledge not just one

A priori knowledge

prior to human experience

A posterior knowledge

verified by human experience

Sources of knowledge

1. God of the Bible

2. The Senses

3. Reason

4. Experts

5. Intuition

God of the Bible

Inerent and absolute

As human beings we can distort it

The senses

Impiritisim

Our understanding of the world comes from senses

Rational thought systematically organizes through what we know

Emphasizing man’s power of thought

Reason

Rationalization

Obtained through systematic organization through what we know

Emphasize man’s power of thought

Experts

Authority

Knowledge obtained through other people

Teachers or books like textbooks

• Authoritative knowledge enhance social knowledge

• Can be distorted by incorrect assumptions

Intuition

Knowledge obtained through persons thought or convictions

Requires emotion

Prone to error

Requires further valuation

Theory of correspondence

Agrees with the facts

Sometimes the facts will agree but be untrue

Theory of Coherence

Tests the consistency of facts

Can be consistent but still be false

Theory of pragmatics

Tests of usefulness of facts

Can be useful and wrong

Knowledge, truth, and education

1. Epistemology generates belief and practical

2. Proper educational beliefs and practices require informed choices

• Check your transmitter

• Who in your classrooms are teachers

• Check mechanism (classroom atmosphere, tech, curriculum)

• Look at the receiver (are your students' truly learning)

The bias of the mind

Axiology: the search for values

Guides all human opinion

Refines a worldview

Determined by conceptions of reality and truth

Determined socially and personally

In perpetual conflict

The study of values

Ethics: study of morality and conduct

Real of theory that is highly personal

Asks the question “what should man do?”

“How should I live my life?”

Seeks values that are foundational, the proper standards

Types of Ethics

Personal: determined by the individual

Professional: Ethics for your job, standards

Enduring Ethical quandaries

Is there a basis of ethical authority

Is morality contingent on religion

Do morals have a universal component?

Do morals change?

What is intrinsically good?

Hedonists: what brings pleasure

Pragmatists: What is useful

Humanists: Self-realization

Christian: to love God

Aesthetics

The study of the formation and appreciation of beauty

A realm of theory that is highly controversial

Asks a lot o questions about what we think is beautiful

Enduring Aesthetical quandaries

• Is there a basis of artistic authority?

• Is creativity defined by appreciation?

• Must art be purposeful? Or at for art’s sake?

• Does beauty change?

• Is it totally subjective

Types of value

Conceived values (conceptual)

Operative values (actual)

Creating a system of values

1. Educational values cannot be neutral

2. Schools are actively involved

3. School’s can build or destroy values

Ethics in education

1. provides purpose in education

2. Students assimilate teacher’s values

3. Occurs intensively in Bible, history, literature and science classes

4. Battles skepticism and the status quo

5. Schools create a new moral order

Aesthetics in education

1. permeates the educational atmosphere

2. protestant work ethics

3. occurs intensively in art, music, and literature

4. broadens a students sensitivity to new meanings

5. develops and tempers students emotion

6. reflect total philosophy

Understand the reality of general revelation

Reveal an infinite creator

Reveals an ultimate intelligence

Reveals a benevolent Being

Reveals a model personality

Understand the realities of divine revelation

Revelation of God in His own person

Christ is substance of Revelation

Revealed in the Bible

Christianity is the declaration of Christ

Submit our faith

God designed us to seek meaning and purpose

Restoration to God and His purpose

Understand counterfeit reality

• Unsaved man focuses faith on a life or necessity, adoptive response, and nothingness

• Focuses his faith through blame

• Focuses his faith through faulty religiosity

• Don’t solve the problem of sin

The truth: Christian epistemology

Understand the miracle of the Bible (Revelation)

The Bible answrs the basic questions of finite humanity

Understand the miracle of life: empiricism

Learn from the past

Present (daily life)

Future (things we are still discovering)

Understanding the purpose of reason (rationalism)

God calls humans to reason

Fallen humanity can think abstractly

Human reason is an insufficient agent of truth

Christian faith is not a “rationalistic production”

Christians use reason as a mode of understanding?

Reason is not a source of religious authority

Reason has to be checked against the Bible

Understanding subordination to Scripture

Authority and intuition

Authority finds its source in God

Christians must biblically hone their intuition

Two forms of knowledge

General knowledge (general revelation)

Saving knowledge (divine revelation)

The life (Christian axiology)

Understand true value

Understand counterfeit value

Understand counterfeit ethics

Understand true value

• Based on the doctrine of creation

• The world is in a state of abnormality

• Christians seek the highest value

  • Loving God and loving others

Understand counterfeit value

Man sees the as normal

Man values the wrong things

Man has a faulty frame of references

Understand counterfeit ethics

Pride (puts yourself first)

Man’s character is the basis of natural ethics

Man is hopeless because of his fixation on self

Understanding true ethics

God’s character is the basis of Christian ethics

Biblical love seeks to relate to others unselfishly

Biblical justice rejects

• unlimited absolutism

• Unlimited relativism

Biblical ethics provides universal principles

Biblical ethics go beyond overt acts

Understand true Aesthetics

Appreciation of beauty

God created out of nothing, and man molds what exists

Aesthetic changes the beholder

Man selects and creates from a perspective

Prefenerneces

Contributions

• We contribute by what we create

• What we read adds to our ideas

Understanding true art

The battle over good and evil

Biblical art

Can use realism to reinferm the love of God

Biblical art has two components

Major: God exists, all is not lost, life is not absurd

Minor: dealing with defeated and sinful side of life

The focus of education

The key is balance for both teacher and students

physically, mentally, spiritually

The Christian School

school, home, and church have educational roles

The Cornerstones

Evangelism and spiritual ministry

• open vs closed enrolment

Christian, traditional philosophy

Academic excellence

High standards

• Distinctive (should not look the same as every other school)

Created in God’s image

A unique relationship to the creator

Partakers of the divine nature

Alienated from God

Partakers of the divine nature

Accountable for their behaviour

Encourages students to do more than they think they can

Language and thought; students have ability they just need to be pushed

The learner’s great potential

Greatest need is to know Christ

The whole learner is important to God

The learner has freedom of Christ

Learner is of great personal worth to God

The teacher

Teaching is a form of ministry

Christ the master teacher

Mimic Christ, look to Jesus as the example

The primary function of Christian Education

Lead students to Christ

Key ingredient

having a heart for Christian ministry

Secondary aims of Christian teaching

1. Character development

• creates better people

2. Knowledge

• Train the mind

• Academics

3. preparation for work and service

4. Social development

• activites (banquets, concerts, clubs etc)

Qualifications of the Christian teacher

1. Spritual

2. Mental

3. Social

4. Physical (stay healthy)

Social qualifications

1. tactfulness

2. respect

3. firmness

4. flexibility

5. impartiality

Three models of the Bible’s role in the curriculum

1. one topic among many

• just another academic source

2. The only textbook

• Only the bible and no other books

3. The foundation of curriculum

• Bible intertwined throughout

Formal curriculum

What a curriculum should teach

Math, Science, History, English etc.

Informal curriculum

1. Selection of activities (banquiets, social etc.)

2. Guildines

3. How does these activities build character

Null curriculum

Things left out on purpose such as

• Art/music program because of finances

• Prayed about it and decided not to teach it

Methods used by Jesus

1. Narratives

2. Illustrations

3. Thought provoking questions

4. Applications

Traditional methods

Help students learn and use information

Teacher directed

Homework, memorization, review

Measurement against standard

Progressive Methods

Facilitate students experiences

Student directed

Group discussions

Alternative assessment

One whole package

Philosophy

Curriculum

Methods

Discipline