Before you go much further in this chapter, you should clarify where you
stand today. What are your answers to these philosophical questions:
- What should an education being trying to achieve?
- What is or are the ends or goals of an education?
- Should a school lay out what is to be learned, or should the students have
a large say in what and how they learn?
- Which of these four branches of philosophy do you think is of greatest importance
to you as a future teacher?
- Have you seen elements of the perennialist view in your own educational background?
- How much emphasis on classical enduring works do you hope to include in your
own teaching?
- Think of some knowledge that you believe will be essential for the students
you teach to learn in order to be effective members of their society?
- How would teachers in public schools, who are held accountable for students' mastery of curriculum standards, be able to follow a Romantic philosophy
of letting student interest guide the curriculum?
- Did any of your teachers take a progressive approach to teaching? If so,
how did you, as a student, respond? Do you believe your students would respond
well if you chose to implement a progressive approach?
- It is perhaps unfair of us to ask you so soon after having read descriptions
of different philosophies and theories of education, but, right now, which
one holds the great intellectual appeal to you? Which one holds the least appeal? And, "why" to both questions?
