THE PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

BY GLENN AUSTIN

SINCE THE DEPRESSION YEARS OF THE THIKTIES there has been an almost continuous chorus of criticism directed against American education. The statement that there is much confusion in and about American education, and that American education lacks a sense of direction has become a commonplace. Out of the growing awareness of this confusion has developed a renewed interest in phi- losophy and philosophy of education, a hope that philosophy with its traditional reputation for wisdom and profundity can offer resolution to the confusion and solution to the problems in American education, giving to it that needed sense of direction. John S. Brubacher has suggested recently that not since the time of Plato has philosophy played so important a part in educati0n.l

This is all to the good. Probably no one trained in philosophy or philosophy of education would deny the significance of this turning to philosophy for guidance out of educational confusion, even though there might be much re- sultant disagreement concerning the path we should take. Out of this general emphasis upon the importance of philosophy for education there has risen, how- ever, a specific problem which plagues many individuals who are teaching in the field of philosophy of education. That problem is the problem of determin- ing the nature and content of the undergraduate course in philosophy of educa- tion, which is required for graduation in an increasing number of teacher-training institutions. This course is usually given for seniors and carries two or three semester hours of credit. Few if any of the students have had any formal course contact with philosophy as such. In many teacher-training institutions no course in general philosophy is offered. With this situation being what it is, the problem is simply how philosophy can come to function most effectively in the profes- sional education of teachers in this, their one and only contact with it, an intro- ductory course in philosophy of education.

In the volume, Philosophy in American Education, prepared by a committee of the American Philosophical Association, the suggestion is made that the obvious way to improve courses in philosophy of education is to put more philosophy in them, a suggestion which should delight all philosophy teachers2 Even if we should be willing to accept this suggestion without qualification, we still have the problem of what should go into the introductory undergraduate course, unless we wish to make it simply another “Introduction to Philosophy,” with occasional passing glances at education from which the label, “Philosophy

G L E N N A U S T I N i s a member of the Department of Education, Arizona State College, Tempe, Arizona.

Brubacher, John S. Modern Philosophies of Education. Second Edition. New York:

* Blanshard, Brand, and Others. Philosophy in American Education. New York: Harper McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1950, p. viii.

and Brothers, 1945, p. 243.

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THE PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 69

of Education,” would be derived. An examination of particular introductory courses in philosophy of education reveals several procedures which are com- monly used, and which tend to work out, for the most part, as an approximation of this very thing.

PROCEDURES USED IN PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION COURSES A common procedure is simply that of presenting to the students all aspects

of the major philosophic systems and pointing out their educational implica- tions. This may be done in terms of the outstanding individuals in the history of philosophy, especially those who have also written directly about educational matters, as have Plato, Locke and Rousseau, for example, or this may also be done in terms of types of philosophy such as idealism, realism, and pragmatism. The Forty-first Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education may yel l be considered as representative of this approach. T h e Philosophy of American Education by Wahlquist, a comparatively popular textbook, also uses this ap- proach. Or each field of philosophy may be expounded separately and then related to education. This approach is exemplified by a textbook such as An Introduction t o Philosophy of Education by Henderson.

Whether this approach is made in terms of individual philosophers or of types or fields of philosophy, an attempt is usually made to present various solutions to the philosophically technical problems in the areas of metaphvsics, theory of knowledge, and ethics. If the content of traditional philosophy in ihese areas-is emphasized in this course, the material will be temporally and intel- lectually remote from the student and his professional problems. I t is difficult to make clear to him as a potential teacher the importance of the status of universals or the nature of sense data. H e is likely to feel that there surely are more significant as well as more useful things for him to study in relation to his professional goal. H e may well be right about this.

A further difficulty is involved in the fact that this approach attempts to cover an impossibly large amount of material, unless regular philosophy cowses, (which often are not available and which many students avoid in any case), are used to supplement it. The straight philosophy material alone is rarely grasped adequately for real understanding in two semester courses in philosophy. In general, we can say that these procedures duplicate material for those who have studied philosophy, and present it all too sketchily for those who have not. The former possibility may help some to understand difficult material, but the latter leads to an inaccurate superficiality or to intellectual frustration.

RELATION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND SOCIETY

T h e most serious objection to emphasizing the traditional content of phi- losophy in the introductory course in philosophy of education can be made clear only if we pause to examine briefly the relation between education and the society in which it functions. W e have come a long way from the doctrine that there is an inescapable conflict between the individual and society. I t is now commonly accepted that i t is only as a member of a group that an individual attains the status of a human being. Only through membership in society does the individual develop his aesthetic, moral, and intellectual capacities. W e may

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describe society as a process, “. . . the process of associating in such ways that experiences, ideas, emotions, values are transmitted and made

Society is served by the creation of a special social environment, the school, in this transmission of experiences, ideas, emotions, and values. But in so doing education always operates within the limits set by the cultural pattern. Boyd H. Bode has emphasized this fact in the following words. “We are inevitably molded by the social environment into which we are born; and education is basicallv a process through which this molding is continued and through which the mean- ing of the cultural pattern is clarified.”4 From a different point of view, we find, in the words of the Harvard Report, “This impulse to mold students to a pattern sanctioned by the past can, in one form or another, never be absent from edu- cation. If it were, society would become discontinuous.”s

W e can speak of education then as a process of shaping the individual, of initiating him into membership into the group. The values which a sociefy cherishes are, of course, the ones which i t strives to perpetuate through educa- tion; those things which it considers important are the things w.hich education will emphasize. The factual material will be selected because of its relevance to the purposes and goals of that society. This implies, of course, that education will vary with the quality of life prevailing in the group. It does not imply, however, that in a democratic society education must indoctrinate for a passive and unquestioning acceptance of things as they are. The social philosophy of democracy recognizes that changes will take place, that new problems will arise, and that through the co-operative intelligence of the group new solutions will be found.

If the basic function of education is as indicated, then education is derivative to a particular social philosophy, and much of the technical content of traditional philosophy is simply of no great significance in the training of teachers as teach- ers. The philosophy which is significant for teacher education is the functioning social philosophy of the society in which the education is being carried on. Furthermore, even if we make the somewhat dubious assumption that the build- ers of the great philosophical systems have always been successful in integrating their social philosophies with their systems in such fashion that their social philosophies can be satisfactorily understood only if their entire philosophic systems are understood, it will still remain true that many of these systems from the past have little if any direct relevance to the education of teachers as teachers in a Twentieth Century democratic society.

In conclusion, it should be emphasized that there is here no intention what- ever to disparage the value of courses in general philosophy for anyone. Nor is there any questioning of the importance of some of the more technical aspects of general philosophy for advanced work in philosophy of education. But in

’Dewey, John. Reconstruction in Philosophy. New York: Henry FTolt and Company, 1920, p. 207.

‘Bode, Boyd H. “The Harvard Report,” Journal of Higher Educirtion XVII (January, I%), p. 3 .

’ General Education in n Free Society. Harvard Committee Report. Cambridge (Mass.): Haward University Press, 1945, p. 44.

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that first, and usually only, undergraduate course in philosophy of education, a professional course, the emphasis should fall upon social philosophy. This course should neither compete with nor substitute for courses in general philosophy. If it does so, it is likely to be ineffective, inadequate, and largely irrelevant to the student’s professional training. In contemporary American society this course should, (if we may use some of the phrasing of William James), be concerned with helping the student carry on an unusually persistent effort to clarify his more or less dumb sense of what democracy and education in a democracy, such as ours is today, honestly and deeply mean. This concern should come to a focus in the philosophy of education course; the concern should not be confined to this one course, however, but should pervade all the student’s professional work. Such a concern will give guidance to the potential teacher in learning to make choices which he must make as a member of the teaching profession. I t will help him to make these choices, not blindly and arbitrarily, but con- sciously and in the light of their considered consequences for the democratic aspiration. 0

A MESSAGE TO PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS (Continued from page 67)

Education for world leadership is what we are really after. Social ideas must catch up with technology. W e need a person to come along and do for the social field what Darwin and Pasteur did for science. W e need a science of man. As Stuart Chase3 has put it, perhaps some day a child will appear in your classroom with an I.Q. near the boiling point who can qualify. Let us hope you will recognize him and guide him in seeing life and seeing it whole. W e need wise and mature people with an integrated view. In the meantime you can all ap- proach this. You can, if you are not lulled into silence and apathy. And you won’t be-you won’t if you continue to learn and to understand and above all if you are not afraid. 0

‘Stuart Chase, The Proper Study of Mankind, Harpers, New York, 1948.