Essay: Education And Learning: A Philosophical Analysis.

Educational philosophy practically involves the concerned nature and objectives of education and the philosophical issues arising due to the application of educational practices and theories. As practices cannot be ubiquitous for all societies and possess individual manifestations of varying influence, discipline and institutional concepts play major roles. The title suggests that education causes young students to follow a governed pattern of receiving education according to perceived societal construct. It rarely enables them to utilize their unique abilities and apply critical or conscious thinking as they are merely forced to adjust to common patterns of learning. Exploration of ideas is widely reduced when learning is restricted to following policies and retaining desired standard curriculum. Interestingly, students tend to start with building blocks and then move towards curiosity, instead of initiating curiosity for moving towards their development. Modern education has evolved as a result of the industrial revolution to churn out generations of employable workers, feeding factories and providing human resources to keep up with the modern demands. Creativity has limited space in the education system (Lian, 2020).

Education has served to beat down the individualism of colonies across the world so that the first world can have a steady supply of subservient workers. Modern education imparts a practical way of forging the path of civilization. It is an efficient way to form doctors, engineers and lawyers who have thought and invented their way into a modern society, which despite having disastrous flaws, are objectively better than the pre-industrial revolution society. Our populations no longer get halved due to the cause of incurable diseases. Medical research made out of the same products of modern education ensure, for instance, limbs to no longer be amputated for small cuts. Biologists have ensured that crops do not fall and millions do not lose lives to starvation. Individuals can grow sturdy reliable crops in semi-arid deserts to perennially wet marshlands and build food for billions. The concept of learning via thinking and creating is gradually becoming obsolete as currently, education systems have spawned progressive thought processes like anti-racism, feminism, anti-xenophobia that ensure women and weaker sections of the society also have agency and rights across the board. Modern education has evolved to be an efficient way of educating huge populations in ways that make them lead better lives than the generations that have come before.

Inspiration is key to learning and the engine behind the motivation for the students while acting as a glue to make ideas unite (Lake et al., 2017). But the schooling system necessarily undervalues the importance of inspiration for making students learn as much as they can. If learning is based on survival, it is not essentially enjoyable. Individuals can resent the process of learning as it would invite stress that is sustained for long periods. Schooling works on the principle of inducing fear in students through the creation of exams and degrees. The educational system is resented mostly for its inadequacy in creating a love for learning in the majority of the students.

The Learning Process

It has been realized in multiple cases that enjoyable learning can start with being inspired to combat the struggles of acquiring knowledge. If students are guided by adequate inspiration, the advantages of memorization can be evident and learning occurs intrinsically. It is often noted that teachers do not give students adequate respect to flame desires in them. For instance, teachers in the current educational system tend to rush through concepts and subjects before clarifying the context and inducing interest in students. The modern fast-paced world relies on making students gulp information without needing to make it deeply embedded in their minds. As stated by C.S Lewis, “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work”. This morale should be greatly imbibed by most teachers to try and alter prevalent learning standards.

Education can never be impartial or neutral, it would either promote compliance or freedom. The domesticating form depends on cultural invasion. Education in the current day has a directive attempt to instruct students to inhabit specific ‘agencies’ or ‘learning constructs’ that enables them to recognize the larger world and individual roles while defining inter-related relationships. As stated by Henri Giroux in his article based on the ideas of Paulo Freire, it should not be deemed to be a responsibility to diverse others or experience a mere understanding of democratic or imaginative life (Giroux, 2020). Education should be able to expand capacities important for human agency. The core of Freire’s idea is that dissatisfaction drives humans to be more. Consciousness plays a major role in understanding the implications of choices regarding educational discourse or practices. It is also important for students to analyse the context of learning along with concerned groups and individuals. They need to create ways in transcending the dichotomy existing between teachers and students.

Students strive to fit in, undertake great lengths for aligning thoughts and actions with people around them. According to Solomon’s classic study of conformity 1953, experimental participants had to undergo perpetual tasks that normally sighted people can do easily without errors (McLeod, 2018). However, he was not seeking perpetual fluency but examining social conformity. While participants named obvious matches in initial trials, confederates chose other lines in the next trial, which were wrong matches. It proved the manipulation of human interest, as they tend to go along with others instead of believing in themselves. Education is modelled on assembly line systems, with instructors processing learners through subjects and stages forming educational experience. Specializations tend to get more concentrated with the process.

Conformity Vs Freedom

Academic Conformity: Correct inferences are reached in an approved manner where the entire work is dependent on convergent styles of thinking (Mampaey, 2018). The classification and measurement system utilized in academia or grades demands conformity. Virtually everything learnt by students demands conformity as right answers cannot be gained by implementing wrong methods.

Learners can receive reinforcement of their efforts through conformity. The entire society scoffs and looks in derision for non-conformists. One can obtain high-degree qualifications in any imaginable field through the confirmed application of already formulated techniques. However, continuous adoption of radical coping mechanisms through enforced conformity can also impact the mental health of students, which should be taken care of.

In this method, the classes are structures utilizing a series of activities for students to complete. Utilization of language occurs in adaptive ways for centering learning around the lives of students. Language takes place in context, without which meaning is lost. Students can be encouraged to establish their contexts through the determination of what is useful in their lives (Aikahi & Kiany, 2021). Relevant instruction can be borne out of the application of language. For instance, if student goals are based around merely passing tests, it would differ from students who aim to also induce conversation and make new friends. Critical thinking, although necessary to understand self-worth and formulate comfortable ways of learning adaption, students also need to be provided with sufficient information to initiate rationality. This focuses on how merging with professional standards, equipping oneself to modern ways of education is primary for accepting basic functionalities.

1. The Acquisition hypothesis: Classroom activities involve native speakers in a process where students should experience their encounters with the native speakers for adequately producing language. It relies on the importance of mingling with correct audiences for gaining advantages.
2. The Monitor Hypothesis: This approach finds students to apply their ideas by means of initiating communication. While communicating ideas, students explicitly talk about their understanding of the roles of language, instead of restricting thoughts to themselves (La & Wei, 2019).
3. The “Natural Order” hypothesis: Educational programs can also guarantee students to gain meaningful insight while acquiring language. Specific dialogues from instructors can instil features embedded in student activities.
4. The Input hypothesis: In this case, a student already has profound knowledge of operating in expected ways in the societal or academic context. The activities are outside the settings of classrooms, to make the student develop language in natural settings.
5. The “Affective filter hypothesis”: The settings of communication are ensured to be less pressure intense for students. Students need not be forced to produce languages of particular standards. It is because teachers understand how a student might require time to acquire something that they do not inherently possess. It correlates to how students are driven by external information as a means to produce internal growth.

The current state of school curriculum, assessment and intervention follows a pattern of skill-based methods of learning and measures the aptitude of students with minimal consideration of its relevance culturally. Student assessments are leveraged for measuring success based on standard benchmarks (Kulasegaram & Rangachari, 2018). Skill-based learning primarily neglects to address the necessary criticality for students to be able to create a strong identity for themselves. They also miss opportunities of gaining understanding regarding manoeuvring themselves beyond classrooms in productive and meaningful ways. Critical literacy extends beyond skills built in an academic environment and encompasses a student’s understanding of injustices and their capability to recognize how they would be able to influence change (Hart, 2019). According to literature obtained from Geneva Gay, some programs increase student achievements for students of colour, but the observed disparity cannot comprehensively stand the test of time when students compromise their cultural and ethnic identity for the attainment of academic achievements. Insertion of criticality into learning experiences, provision of personalized context for students to induce critical consciousness can help in the inculcation of virtues. But what is practically seen in academic scenarios is widely different. Ignorance of the social backgrounds of various diverse students enhances the risk of pertinent resistances. Students should rather be invited to consider their interaction with the world outside classrooms or peers. This is essentially liberating for students to explore transformative ideas concerning social actions, and betterment within communities that they exist (Martin-Sanchez & Flores-Rodriguez, 2018).

Conformity in Practice

Philosophical analysis is viewed by scholars as a reputable or viable activity for gaining prominence in analytical techniques. As per O’ Connors Introduction to Philosophy of education, ‘theory’ mainly serves as courtesy titles and can have diverse sets of applicability (Hargreaves & Connor, 2019). In “language of education”, the logic of slogans is considered to be meaningless, truncated arguments. The “Reason and teaching” allows influential and wide-ranging ideas to foster critical thinking or rationality as it is considered to be a fundamental educational ideal. Finally, the evolutionary “APE” or Analytic philosophy of education emphasizes learning to be a process of initiating liberal education, while considering the nature of knowledge, various types of teaching and the concepts of instruction vs indoctrination (Bonino & Tripodi, 2018). Contradictory arguments in response to the current topic can be derived from the sayings of Hirst and Peters regarding the educational concept. Only if people are genuinely educated, instead of being indoctrinated or instructed as suggested by the discussion, can they nurture their intellectual abilities, acquire substantial knowledge and be committed to its domains. This analogy of ‘reform’ can aid the development and cultivation of unique thoughts that forced principles cannot bring about.

Indoctrination can be any form of teaching that has the objective of making students adopt beliefs, despite having any evidential support for the given beliefs (Wareham, 2019). The methods of teaching instil ideas in students in a way that they are unable or unwilling to question the beliefs in any way. Independent evaluation of the beliefs does not occur in students as the form of teaching embraces given doctrines without having regard for the concerned evidential status. The alleged contrast of indoctrination with critical thinking can be highlighted. Critical thinkers base their judgements, actions and beliefs after the competent assessment of relevant evidence and research. Victims of indoctrination do not tend to obtain information beforehand or apply their minds before accepting predefined notions.

Knowledge derived from educational practices can either be discovered or be constructed. Students can rely on a common curriculum dedicated to all or study subjects based on their interests and needs. If students are considered to be ‘blank slates’ for absorbing information in passive ways or deemed to be active learners (Rathus, 2021). Characteristic measures to determine educational attainment, success or outcomes would be primary in classroom settings. It is also essential to analyse if students can induce better performances in teams, and well-knit social units rather than trying to gain proliferating knowledge in isolation. Learning is a collaborative process and requires constant questioning, and should rely on support from peers or superiors. Cultural or socio-economic differences cannot hinder a child’s academic growth. Evaluation or grading students can be counterproductive in education as it undermines the natural motivation of children to learn on their own.

Freire’s Dialogical Approach with TBLT or Task-Based Language Teaching

Conclusion

Educational practices, ranging from curriculum decisions, classroom activities and policy setting at school inevitably rely on philosophical claims, assumptions, and positions.  Defensible and thoughtful educational practices depend on philosophical understanding and awareness. The knowledge of educational philosophy can assist teachers or policymakers, and also students and their parents. The study has focused on how education is essentially fed to students rather than giving them the space to inculcate their virtues. Students merely try to grasp and collect knowledge for passing examinations and effectively follow stringent patterns that become habits. They consciously avoid trying to learn more or look beyond whatever they have learned within the four walls of a class. This hinders rational thinking and the liberty to use their minds in producing transforming knowledge of higher scope. Their cognitive development is restricted as they merely comply with logic acquired from instructors. A gradual change is expected in the way education is observed, delivered or absorbed. Teachers utilizing the 21^st-century education system are mere facilitators instead of guides, with a lack of coherent classroom management. There can also be no creativity in an area of conformity. The direct loss of creative genius is derived as an outcome of institutional conformity in an extensively complex world.

References

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