Fusing Education Philosophies

Fusing Education Philosophies


   
    With maybe just a few exceptions, most anyone who reads this paper will have experienced a traditional, essentialist education. We spent weeks, months, even years memorizing letters, numbers, dates, and facts. If we weren’t able to master these things in a timely fashion with the rest of our peer group there were consequences, the worst of which left us behind our friends to struggle through another year of identical material with students now our junior. What’s absurd is the material that causes us so much anxiety at such a tender age is rarely retained past the testing point. How many States were included on the U.S. Territories map in 1810? Without being able to answer that question and questions like it you may not have passed third grade. Were you able to answer the question? Do you even care? Did you care then? You probably didn’t care then or now. We took in and retained the information because we had to. Temporarily retaining that information is what was required to get through that phase and onto the next, but for the lucky student who loved history and eagerly absorbed the information; he knew the answer. Seventeen states were included on the U.S. Territories map in 1810. Another student may spend hours attempting to memorize this and like facts, but read a chapter book and write a report that far surpasses his peers. Without a natural curiosity and passion for subject matter we naturally reject it, despise it, and at times grow to resent the subject in its entirety. What follows from this is obvious; although  essentialism in education has been our foundation we need to shift our focus to promoting a life long love of learning.  We can bring passion to education through existentialism in the classroom. Not a total shift, but through an intertwining of two teaching philosophies on opposite ends of the spectrum.

    In an essentialist classroom the primary role of the student is to listen and learn with the teacher being the master of subjects and dominating the majority of the talk time; arguing that students need a strict curriculum to learn. However many psychological and social studies prove that students are naturally inquisitive and are initially intrinsically motivated.  It is our failing but accepted pedagogical strategies that kill the natural intrinsic motivation, proving that grades and praise do not work, and in fact, kill student’s natural motivation.  Existentialist Alfie Kohn makes the distinction between positive feedback and verbal rewards--one is encouraging, while the other destroys motivation.  The distinction is crucial--one is a fraudulent, manipulative interaction, whilst the other is an honest interaction.  This goes back to existentialist Bill Glasser’s different types of relationships as set forth in “Choice Theory”: one is symbiotic and functional (lead teaching), while the other is parasitic and dysfunctional (boss teaching). 

    American educators and essentialists like William Bagley popularized and fueled this form of education based on achievements of other nations and societies. Events like the launching of Sputnik infected the American nation with a keeping up with the Jones’ syndrome. This greatly affected the way we educated our youth. Reports like the 1983 “A Nation at Risk” and increased immigration have continued to fuel this. Essentialist
Alan Bloom contends that immigration and multi-culturilism threaten traditional American culture. He advocates for a time honored Anglo-Saxon curriculum reflecting European tradition. This seems silly since traditional America is a group of human beings not wanting to be forced into one particular way of life. Now, new ideas, education reform, immigration, and multi-culturilism are looked upon as threats when those now threats were once a catalyst for a brand new nation.

    Many people on the teacher centered end of the spectrum insist that an existential classroom is too unorganized and extreme in its practices. Therefore; cannot promote practical learning. Far from being an abstract or irrelevant notion, the 'existential classroom' diverges radically from any lack of focus or neglect of 'subjectivity'. Neither is it a 'place apart', as Freud would have it. The learning relationship itself furnishes a model of conviction for all who see; an expression of trust, symbol for community, and the way to Soren Kierkegaard's (known as the "father of existentialism) notion of self-defining freedom. Current assumptions are that students are helpless, uneducated raw material, who are powerless and subordinate to the teachers and must be controlled and forced to learn.  However, Glasser states that students are competent young people who are internally motivated.  Motivation and compliance are fused and muddied words. In the current pedagogical discourse--motivation comes from within; therefore attempting to motivate someone is inherently manipulative. Glasser’s “Lead Management Theory” moves away from the notion that students must be manipulated, controlled, and
forced to learn, instead persuasion and problem solving are the central components of this theory.
One of the main roles of essentialism in education is to prepare students to be productive, contributing members of society and to move successfully into the modern world. However, recent reports show that they are far from obtaining their goal. As it stands, the average graduation rate in American public high school is 74% with many districts at 50% 0r below. In contrast 99% of students from existential settings go on to higher education. 2500 American students drop out of school daily and aren’t even a part of those statistics.
It seems a daunting task to reform education entirely. I don’t suggest that we get up and rewrite the book tomorrow. There is no arguing the fact that to start children need to learn the basic skills. However, this should be a foundation not a twelve year program that students are pushed through like drones and stamped out at the end if they make it. At some point (the earlier the better) the students need room to move about their own minds and find their passion. Self motivation should be taught along with the ABC’s and inner strength with 123’s. With subtle shifts and open minds we can take a proven but failing method of teaching and augment it with a method that is driven by passion and promotes life long learning. Then, we can gradually prime ourselves for a generation of productive members of not only society, but humanity.