4 Philosophies

Abstract:
Idealism believes that ideas and concepts are the essence of all that is worth knowing. To them being educated means being engaged in a discussion that stretches back through time. They like to ask questions that spark thought and artful bring students to realize that the student knows the answer. Realists believe in observation and experimentation. They believe that knowledge, reality and value exist independent of the human mind. They want to teach methods of obtaining knowledge. They would teach logical, clear content and clarify how things differ from one another by classifying them. Pragmatists believe that everything changes. They believe that experience changes both the knower and the world. To them there are no unchanging ideas and no universal laws. They focus on solving problems through interacting with the environment in an intelligent and reflective manner. Existentialists on the other hand believe that reality is nothing more than lived experience and the final reality resides within each individual. They believe in education as helping students create meaning out of their choice because we are our choices.

Reflection:
I think that my educational philosophy is most like Idealism and Pragmatism. I do believe that teaching ideas and concepts are more important than teaching material. Ideas and concepts can be applied to any material. Not all material can be applied to all concepts and ideas. I think too that is important to be engaged in a conversation and that being educated does open up those conversations to you. On the other hand I think the pragmatist have something with the idea of change. Everything does change. Most often in a cycle kind of way but that is still change. I also agree that values change. The values that they held to be true 100 years ago do not hold to be true today. They don't work for the society we live in now. The Idealists are interesting to me because it seems like there are some archetypes and metaphors that many cultures agree on. Such as the story of Cinderella. Almost every culture around the world has a Cinderella story. But I still think it is important to be culturally diverse, like the Pragmatists argue, because we differ in other ways. Those differences are as important as our similarities are. That to me seems to be where they intersect. In knowing what things we are similar and in what ways we are different and in constant flux.