The Relevance of Philosophy of Education

As teachers, you might face numerous posers from your students. They may declare, 'Sir, this course is too argumentative, it is nothing short of mudslinging among scholars'. Of course, it may sound tautological, monotonous etc., to many among learners but its relevance cannot be over emphasised.

•  It encourages critical examination of issues and justification for actions. 
•  It equips teachers with the ideas required for educational reforms and considers those changes to be based on the analysis of current practices in education in line with the values of the society. 
•  Educational philosophy tends to provide an insight of what education is and the role education should perform at the various stages of growth and for what category of learners. 
•  It gives more weight to the validity or soundness of arguments than to the authority of the person arguing a case, thereby disregarding prejudice and personal interests. 
• It has an humbling effect, in other words, it compels one to keep an open mind on evidence/findings that may render ones previous opinion less valuable. 
• It puts forth the various schools of thought about education as a discipline to develop and inculcate knowledge, skills and ability through training in humans for welfare of the individual and the society. 
•  it gives the teacher a deeper understanding of the various hypotheses put forward by the classical and modern schools of thought in order to develop the best approaches to education. 

Activity II

• Your students have a misconceptual belief about the course Philosophy of Education. Explain briefly to them the relevance of the course to teachers. 
•  Discuss fully on the focus or validity/soundness of arguments rather than the authority of the person arguing a case. 

Philosophy as a Rational Activity

Reasoning involves many things. It involves the use of deductive and inductive methods, clarity in the use of language, and regard to evidence. Deductive or inductive reasoning involves arranging certain kinds of statements in such a way that we can infer conclusions from them. Deductive reasoning leads to a necessarily true conclusion whereas inductive reasoning leads to a causally true conclusion. Philosophy is a rational activity not in the sense that it gives us information about the world but in the sense that it enables us to scrutinise our beliefs and see whether or not they are rationally tenable. Philosophy makes us rational human beings.

CONCLUSION

Philosophy is a method of reflective thinking and re-saved inquiry. Generally three modes of philosophy are discussed with more explanation on speculative and prescriptive modes. The analytic approach is a combination of the former modes.