Educational philosophy

Pakistan's Problem of Justice!

2017-12-20T21:00:00.000-05:00

Any society that loses its justice system ultimately collapses! In the recent times that has been the problem with Islamic states and societies! In the recent times Islamic societies, and there is no dearth of examples, collapsed after their justice system collapsed! Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan, and many others collapsed because their costly Western judicial system failed to deliver!

Pakistan is no exception! Pakistan's British judicial system has a backlog of more than 3 million cases! Many of these cases are registered for victim-less crimes! Pakistani legislature is too ineffective to relieve its judicial system of the cases in which there is no plaintiff! However, the problem needs a broader solution!

Pakistani-British judicial system is too expensive in all terms! It is too expensive to produce good advocates, judges, barristers, and paralegal staff! Pakistan is facing a dearth of workers to serve its man power and efficiency starved law department. It is a country of 200 million people without sufficient law experts to deliver efficient justice!
In this situation Pakistan has to seriously think about the devolution of the judicial authority! Even a country like UK with a population of 50 million, and an income 10 times more than that of Pakistan has been working on devolution of justice since last 4 years, just because of the cost! Pakistan should also act in the same direction!

When conflicts among the citizenry rise beyond a threshold , they threaten the fabric of the society! It is happening in Pakistan! For Pakistani judicial system is weakened by the lack of resources, insufficient manpower, and corruption! What can Pakistan do to remove these conflicts from its society cost effectively?
Luckily Pakistan has effective solutions at its disposal to address this problems! Pakistan has two solutions that it can apply simultaneously to support the crumbling judicial system. These two solutions are: the local jury(or panchayat and jirga system) , and the Islamic Qazi system.

Pakistan should evolve its panchayat jirga system, and Islamic Qazi system to support the system of justice in Pakistan. Pakistani liberals might think that these two systems are against their modern conscience! But the problem the society is facing now cannot be solved through appeasing an absolutist modernized conscience! It can only be solved through providing free of cost swift justice at the doorsteps of the citizenry of Pakistan.

It is the deliverance and providence of free and swift justice that is important. Whether it be through the primitiv Lax tallionis or the law of retribution of the Panchayat or Jirga, or through Islamic Law, or through the Modern British law. The type of law through which a society provides justice to its society is only a means: the end achieved is justice. For justice is the life of a society. Great Plato said, " A society where there is no justice, is not worth living in!"

All laws provide justice! If a society has three types of laws on its disposal, it should use all three to deal with the scarcity of justice! According to Nietzsche:
" If you don't want to die of thirst among mankind, learn to drink from all glasses!"
Pakistan should use all three types of laws and justice mechanisms to deal with the problem of providing justice to its society. Pakistan should imbibe through all sources of law at its disposal to satisfy its thirst for justice.

Pakistan should not only enact the Moghul department of Qazi Ul Qaza, but also the panchayat system.These two systems of justice have worked simultaneously to serve the judicial needs of the society. During the British Raj, in certain areas(most of which are now parts of Pakistan) all three systems worked together without much friction.

However, regarding the Qazi Ul Qaza system that uses Islamic law as its basis, there are certain important things that should be remembered. First of all Qazi ul Qaza or Islamic Law system, if enforced should precisely focus on providing justice and resolution of conflicts. It should not act like Talibans who interfered in the private and cultural lives of the citizenry.

Talibans imposed illegal and unnecessary restrictions on the society! Those restriction were imposed because at that time they were under the influence of the primitive Arab consciousness! We don't want that primitive and contrary to our culture Arab conscience to prevail on our own! We don't want to disturb the way our people live their lives! We don't want to restrict our girls and women! We don't want to shut down the schools!

Qazu Ul Qaza system used to be a highly tolerant and inclusive judicial system that successfully worked in the muti-religious tolerant India society without disturbing the cultural pluralism of Indian society. Taliban version of Islamic judicial system was a mistake which even their new generations don't want to repeat!

What Pakistan wants from Qazis is that they should resolve conflicts, and decide cases. They should act in the spirit of Quran according to which the aim of justice is to resolve conflicts.

Qazis can also inspect the quality of life and improve it! But they are not allowed , in any way or by any means, to interfere in the lives and choices of people!

Similarly Pakistan should improve its Panchayat system! In India they have democratized the Panchayat system. Panchayat in India is an elected body with a lot of power! Establishment of an effective Panchayat system will be a great support for the judicial system.

Pakistan can support its crumbling judicial system through incorporating the three law systems of Pakistan into its judicial fabric! We hope that Pakistani law makers will deal with this issue properly!

US Policy in North Korea!

2017-08-14T21:17:00.000-04:00

Trump's policy to deal with North Korean problem is quite different from the policies favored by the previous administrations including those of Clinton, Bush, and Obama. Trump's policy is to bend the affiliation of Kim Jong Un's regime from China and Russia towards the US! You should expect an official Kim Jong Un visit to the US in the near future as a success of Trump's policy!

Unlike the policy of the previous administrations, the new American policy does not aim at a regime change in North Korea! This new approach in the American policy towards North Korean regime has a historical background that needs elaboration.

After the fall of USSR, the dictators and regimes installed and protected by the USSR to serve its interest during the cold war era were left stranded, and their fate looked uncertain.
Both Bush senior and Clinton administrations had a very clear policy towards these communist regimes and dictators.

Post USSR American policy was mainly aimed at supplanting these dictators and regimes--dotted on the world map-- with democratic system and values. Initially the efforts of both Bush Senior and Clinton administrations were focused in the East Europe where the dictators like Chaussesco and Melasevic were removed from the power and the countries were given a democratic system. A better system of governance!
It was easy for the Clinton administration to convince the people living under dictatorships in East Europe, for the people clearly knew that the nations who went with the Western powers had better economic, social, and political life conditions as compared to the countries in the communist world.

The dictators there clearly knew that the US was not going to tolerate any sort of antidemocratic ideology in the region, and the only chance they had to continue their dictatorial rule was they sought help from Russia. Russia, however, was not in a position to help those regimes, and hence, those dictators generally fell before the US power.

In the George Bush era, the focus of the US policy shifted towards the Middle East and the Islamic World. In the Islamic world there were two types of dictators and regimes: those who were supported by the West, and those by the USSR. Those who were supported by the USSR included Saddam, Gaddafi, Hafizul Assad, and the Iranian regime. Though the Iranian regime wasn't installed by the USSR, it was anti West, and hence was on the US list of the regimes to be removed. However, during the Bush era certain incidents and factors rendered the decision making complex.

During the Bush era the situation complicated due to two factors! First of all, the first Gulf war created an antipathy against the West in certain extremist quarters of the Muslim society! A mutiny against the US was initiated by the once pro American Jihadists who participated in the war against the USSR! This mutiny in the Islamic world was led by the rogue organizations like Al Qaeda, and its aim was to remove the Western influence from the Islamic world!

This mutiny led to a terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001! This accidentally changed the US policy, and instead of pursuing regime changes in Libya, Iraq, and Syria, the US went after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan! The Taliban regime was installed by the Pro West Jihadists powers, supported by the front line allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan!

Hence, President Bush, instead of going after the Bathist-Pro-Soviet dictators, went after the Taliban regime, and overthrew it with no effort! After the US forces had removed the Taliban regime, President Bush turned his attention towards Iraq, and removed Saddam from Power!

The removal of Saddam opened up a pandora's box of problems for the US strategists, for the sectarian and ethnic conflicts in the region flared up, and the transition from Saddam's dictatorship towards a robust democratic system couldn't be made. Dictatorship couldn't be supplanted with an effective democracy in the post Saddam Iraq, like it was in the post USSR East Europe. Similarly, in Afghanistan, the reconstruction efforts were thwarted, for on the one hand the allies of the US like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan didn't approve the US relationship with the Shias and the non Pashtun minority, and on the other the newly established democratic government couldn't handle the menace of corruption and lawlessness!

Both Iraq and and Afghanistan turned into great failures for the US policy makers who were thinking about these Middle Eastern and Islamic countries in terms of their successes in the East Europe! In East Europe, once the dictators were removed, the democratic values were lucidly established! However in Afghanistan and Iraq ethnic and Sectarian divides continued and haunted the US policy makers!

President Bush and his policy makers had no answer to these newly emerging problems, and they just overlooked such problems!

The second problem emerged at home!In the 80's the strong Western rulers like President Regan, and the British PM Thatcher had in principle accepted the neo liberal philosophy of open market and globalization! The initiated the process of privatization of corporations and services, and worked for the globalization of the world economy.

Furthermore, the leftist Clinton administration took the torch of globalization from the previous administration and established the realm of WTO! However, the WTO regime, globalization, and free market didn't fare well with the White American labor class and backlashed! Empty ghost towns in the US created due to the shift of labor to the third world rendered the white blue collar Americans job less! The hardline leftist thinkers in the US criticized Globalization and free market, for it had harmed the Blue collar Americans' economic interest! Thinkers like Susan George paved the way for a wholesale condemnation of globalization, and provided the blue collar American with an alternative view point.

The situation worsened in the 2008, when the US economy crashed, and sealed the fate of Republican Party for the coming elections. After the economic melt down of the Bush era, a decisive majority turned against the corporate greed and voted for Obama not only in 2008 but also in 2012 elections!

Obama didn't go against globalization, yet he resolved the immediate problems of American economy that emerged in the backdrop of the economic melt down of the Bush era!

In the elections of 2016, Republican party found itself helpless against its own voter who chose Donald as their new president.

I am not going to go into the depths of economic reasons that led to the election of Trump, or the purpose of this article is to explain the US policy in North Korea!

And in order to explain this new policy towed by Secretary Rex Tillerson, I will have to go back to the failures of Obama in the Middle East!

Obama failed in the Middle East! Obama failed to establish democracy and peace in the Middle East like his predecessor George Bush.
Obama continued the efforts to change the dictatorial regimes in the Middle East. However, unlike Bush, Obama favored another path that led towards the aim of removing dictators from their rule. That path was the path of political uprising. The political uprising of the middle, the Arab Spring, resulted in many revolutions in the Muslim world and removed dictators like Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak.

Despite the successes of Arab spring certain unacceptable things also resulted from the it. First of all, the countries from where the dictators were removed never returned to normalcy, and the political tumoil worsened into ethnic and sectarian conflicts. Second, in the case of Egypt, an orthodox Islamist regime came into power, and that regime was not acceptable to any of the major player in the region including Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the US itself. A counter revolution occurred in Egypt and an army general Al Sisi removed Mursi from power, and Egypt went back to dictatorial rule.

In Libya and Syria extremist organizations came into prominence. The worst of these extremist organization was ISIS. ISIS appeared on the scene due to the deadly sectarian conflict in Iraq and Syria. ISIS not only threatened the peace in the Middle East, it also carried out deadly terrorist attacks in Europe and America. Arab Spring was largely considered a failure for it didn't produce the desired outcomes.

These outcomes of the Arab Spring allowed a few in the US to press a review of the anti-dictator, or anti-strongman policy of the US. President Donald Trump, commenting on the Middle East situation during his presidential campaign expressed his wish to back dictators and strongmen in troubled Middle Eastern countries.

Removal of the strongmen from the scene, according to President Trump's vision, resulted in the creation of ISIS and Sectarian violence. For him the strong man of the Middle East like Saddam, Gaddafi, and Bashar Ul Assad were successful in establishing peace and were lesser evils as compared to ISIS.

The Trump Voter saw the Paris attack, the rising Islamic militancy that was caused by the ethnic and sectarian rifts in the Middle East, as immediate adversaries! Such rifts not only harmed peace in the Islamic World but also in Western Europe and America!

By the time Trump came to power, it was the turn of the South China Sea to receive the tremors of the US policy! While handing Trump the rule of the US, Obama told Trump that North Korea was the next big problem, and there was a Middle Eastern backlog too!

Now for Trump the situation was clear! He had to solve the North Korean , but he was not in favor of regime changes any more!
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Hence the policy of the US in North Korea is not of regime change, but to convert the affiliation of Kim Jon Un in favor of the US! He just want Kim Jong Un to change his fidelity from China to the US! That is what the policy of the US is in North Korea! The US wants Kim Jong Un to shift his dependence from CHINA TO THE US!

Dostoevsky: The Quantum Mechanics of Emotions

2016-12-05T22:50:00.001-05:00

Dostoyevsky is a marvel of Russia! Dostoevsky has shown, through his writings, that humans can fathom the depths of reason without losing the guidance of heart. The great Russian novelist, Dostoevsky, was in fact a mathematician of human emotions. Dostoevsky was a unity of art and higher level mathematics.

Where he shows that he viewd the affairs of human like a Pascal or Al Beruini? When he knits his character through defining his/ her limitations, aspirations, and struggles.

The example of limitations that Dostoevsky beautifully imposed on his characters are economical and emotional , and rational limitations.

Economical limitations are the most obvious ones! Look at the Characters of Prince Myshkin, Mitya, and Raskolnikov! Donia, Gurushenka, Nastasia and Sonia! These characters are finacially bankrupted , but have great emotional lives. To a certain degree all these characters are difined by their economic worth or worthlessness!

Money is essential! But money isn't the goal of these characters! These immortal characters live in stark poverty, yet they aren't interested in money: their aims are higher than the gold. Yet it is strange to say that their worse plight, their sufferings are mostly enhanced if not caused by the dearth of money. Mitya needs 3000 roubles, Raskolnikov has no money and has reached his hypondriasis through the route of stark poverty, Prince Myshkin is poor in the initial stages, Donia suffers due to the poverty of her family, and Sonia sells her body to feed the kids of her step mother. Stark poverty is a great source of suffering in Dostoevsky's novels.

Poverty is the route to suffering, yet these magnanimous souls nver run after money! They throw the money in the face of those who want to buy their emotional lives with the help of money. Dostoevky looks too much inspired by the lesson of the Temptations in the New Testament. He has mentioned that incident in the beginning of The Grand Inquisitor.

Yes! Dostoevsky follows the Christian ideal of a free of temptation love and faith. Where there is a temptation in love, there it becomes worthless! A desire for money cannot be mingled with a desire for love! The result of such conmingling are the characters like the " Fiance of Donia in the Crime and Punishment. The Suitor of Nastasia whom rhagozin insulted in the " Idiot." Even Rakitin is close to such a sinister conmingling of the love for money and love. The result is eternal damnation in the world of Dostoyevsky.

It is quite clear that money isn't the aim: So Donia doesn't surrender her soul to the lust of Sividrigailov. Raskolnikov didn't allow his sister to Donia to marry the greedy lawyer. He refused the career and money for the sake of true human relations. Nothing is important in this world than human love.

And yet sometimes reason leaves the love behind, and drives a man crazy! " Ivan was described by Mitya " as a tomb." " Ivan is a tomb" says Mitya. Why? For Ivan was an embodiment of reason, and it was his reason that ultimately pushed him towards the abyss of madness.

Raskolnikov was deceived by his reason into an act of utter violence. An act of violence that was a burden on his conscience. " When he was free he was in prison, and when was in prison, he was free! " Says Dostoevsky about Ivan. What was his Prison? In one word , the sting of his conscience. What was his relief? Acceptance of his crime, and go to the prison. The police officer who was following his trail knew that he would eventually confess the crime just because he couldn't bear the perpetual sting of conciense.

But when the reason reaches its height on its flight under the guidance of love, it reaches the wisdom of Father Zossima, and his disciple Alyosha. THese two embodiments of reason and love are epitome of the Christian ideal in Dostoevsky's world. Father Zossima and Alyosha are always confronted with the paradox of faith, yet they are powerful enough to stand their ground in the face of the attacks of scepticism. Alyosha's faith is always tested, and succeded in defending itself. It was tested by Ivan's reason, by the death of the Saint Zossima, by his own father, by the sufferings of his brothers! And yet it sustains all the attacks.

Another religious personality is the Idiot, Prince Myshkin. Who this man is? He is an idiot, for he is not selfish, and doesn't guard his self interest. He doesn't have any self interest, not owing to any kind of asceticism, but owing to his mentle illness. He is an idiot!

And yet his doctor has asked, " Never lie to anyone, and to yourself." This man is a saint in it that he accepts everything that comes to his mind, he never has negative emotions that he could challenge. He only has an acceptance of himself, and he expresses what he feels. Prince Myshkin is like the God's fool whom the God loved.

Dostoyevsky's world is amazing! It tells us about strange deals! Barters! Every dealing in the world of humans is a well thought out deal! In Insulted and humiliated a little girl, who has no one to take care of her, refuses the custody of a wealthy man. The reason? The wealthy according to that little girl wanted to adopt her because he had abandoned his own daughter. And to fill that gap he wanted to adopt her! The girl laid bare the true motive behind the intent to adopts her and refused to enter that deal.

Katrina Ivanovna had money, beauty, and she apparently even loved Mitya! Yet Mitya knew that she only loved herself, and refused her! Raskolnikov refused the deal between Donia and his fiancee saying that the only purpose he wanted to marry his sister was her povert and beauty. He wanted a wife who would always feel indebted to him! Such relations do not give happiness!

Raskolnikov criticized Donia for her pity and support for her step mother's kids. That deal was harshly criticized by him, and yet Sonia didn't break that deal! She continued to sell her body for the survival of the kids.

In such deals, in their explanation and analysis Dostoevsky seems to solve quantum mecjhanical equations of the emotional life! It is here that the mathematical skills of this master artist come to fore!

Khalid Rawat

A Critique of the Hindutva Concept of RSS and BJP:

2016-10-20T20:54:00.001-04:00

The concept of Hindutva as presented and pursued by the BJP and RSS nexus has a basic flaw in it. It does not account for the new reality of the subcontinent! Now what is that new reality of the subcontinent that the Hindutva concept failed to address? The new reality is that each and every thinking mind of the subcontinent has to reconcile three authorities! These are Hinduism, Islam, and the Modern Western thought!

The fallacy of Hindutva lies in following the Manu's law as it is! Whereas it is quite clear that Manu's law contradicts certain important aspects of both Islam and the modern Western thought! What are those aspects? In order to know those aspects I would like to start from positing the basic tenets of Manu's laws!

Manu's law divides human population into four Vernas or classes according to their virtues! Manu's law rightly identifies that a society functions on the basis of four cardinal virtues! These virtues are Wisdom and knowledge, and Brahman class represents it. The second virtue is of courage and Kshatriya class represents it! The third vitue is the accumulation of wealth and marketing, and the Vaish class masters it. And the fourth virtue is of temperance that the Dalit or the service offering class has to master!

THese four cardinal virtues are necessary for the society! Manu Smitri has asked the society to promote and preserve these virtues! For a society needs a knowledge base, and a law giving class! A defending class embodied in the Kshatriya! A wealth earning class represented by the Vaish! And a service offering class represented by the working or the labor class!

Manu Smitri is brilliant in it that it has instituted laws to perfect these virtues, and advocated a class based society! Manu Smitri, or Manu's law wants to evolve social classes that are reared up to practice these virtues! It is a deep idea, and it requires a lot of discussion to understand its true merits! I have no objection on it!

However, after the advent of Islam, a new virtue was given the cardinal importance! And that virtue is the vitue of Taqwa! Taqwa means to abstain from the wrong doings, and practice the right parh! If we combine Manu's virtues with Taqwa we come across an interesting situation! Islam recognizes that Brahman is for knowledge, Khatriya is for courage, Vaish is for wealth and Shudra is for the services! However, in the course of history these four virtues were compromised! And vested interests stopped the Brahman from the true service of Knowledge! Kshatriya compromised honor! Vaish aspired to rule! And the Shudra aspired to pursue its material desires!

Islamic virtue of Taqwa asks all these four Vernas to sacrifice their ulterior motives for their Cardinal virtues! That is Taqwa! So Taqwa basically askes the Brahman to sacrifice everything else for the acquisition of knowledge! Taqwa asks Kshatriya to abandon anything else for the sake of honor! It asks Vaish to earn wealth for the socirty! It asks the sevice or the proleteriate class to perfect their skills!

It is quite evident that the cardinal virtue of Taqwa is essential for the society! It is a necessary virtue, for in the course of history the Vernas started following other motives! Taqwa is an essential part to be preaced in Hindutva!

The in put of the Western philosophy is also important and unavoidable!

In the Western tradition the believe in the functionalism of the four Vernas! But they say that in the modern times, since every Verna is corrupted, therefore it is no longer important to give the birth right to the classes! Modern West is against the birth right! It says that a Shudra can have an appetite for knowledge far exceeding the whole Brahman class! A Brahman can be a greater Vaish than any Vaish! And you can extend this line of thought to understand the fact that the birth right is no longer relevant! So the Western though promotes merit! It says that we accept the four Vernas but it is not a matter of birth right!

No my point is that! If you want to institute Manu Smitri in today's world, you should promote both Taqwa and Merit!

Merit means even a Shudra can be a Kshtriya! And Taqwa means that a Kshtriya, selected on the merit should religiously follow his merit! This is what I want to say! I will write further on this subject if you ask me questions! But My conclusion is that: Manu, Islam, and the West don't contradict but supplement each other! I invite questions from the reader! And this means BJP_ RSS has to promote all three concepts of society in the Indian subcontinent!

Reflections on Nietzsche's philosophy

2016-08-04T22:46:00.001-04:00

Nietzsche’s Philosophy

Nietzsche’s philosophy is not as complicated as it appears to be. The reason it appears complicated is that people try to read some absolute meaning in it, which obviously it does not offer. People try to see his philosophy as a positivistic fat or reality, which obviously it isn’t. Like everything else it is open to interpretation.

So how should we approach Nietzsche? The answer is we should approach Nietzsche in a manner that allows us to interpret his philosophy in a certain paradigm of meaning. A paradigm that befits our own individual situations.

What I am proposing here is an interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy from my perspective.

Nietzsche’s Theory of Language

In the Semitic religious tradition, the most praised intellectual quality of humans is termed as the ability to name things. This ability to name things places humans above angels and the rest of the creation.

“And He taught Adam the names—all of them. And then He showed them to angels and asked, “Inform me of the names of these, if you are truthful.”

The angels couldn’t name the animals, but when the Lord asked Adam, he successfully named everything before him.

This ability to name things is the very basis of the human cognitive abilities. Man knows his world, and the objects in it through their names.

What is a name? In the world of linguistics, a name is called a sign, and it is a combination of two things. A sound, or a word, and a concept. The sound or the word we use in a name joins with a concept to form a name.

It is said that the sound or the word we choose for a concept in a name is arbitrary, means there may or may not be a reason behind its choice.

The other part of a name or a sign, the concept, is formed through a long social process. This process is very much like the process of qualitative research.

The process of research starts with something that we want to study. We gather data about that entity, analyze it and then formulate a theory about that entity, after careful sifting and reductions.

The same process is used in the formation of concepts. People of a community interact with an entity or a situation. They share their experience with each other through mutual discussions, and then, after a process of reduction, in which everything non-essential is removed from different experiences, a general concept is formed.

This concept is assigned a sound image, and the way this sound image is chosen isn’t based on any resemblance with the object it names. Like the word lion that we use for the concept of lion doesn’t bear any resemblance with the being it designates.

However, once a sound image is chosen for a concept, no one is allowed to use it for any concept other than the one for which it was chosen.

This regularity in the use of a certain sound image for a certain image is ensured and guaranteed by a strict tradition or convention.

Hence, we cannot use the word poor to designate a rich man, and if someone does so, use the designation rich for the poor, he will be called a liar.

A liar is the one who defies the conventional use of a sign, and uses it to designate a being for which it is not conventionally used. A fox can’t be called a wolf, and a wolf a fox.

This then is the sense in which we use the designations truth and lie. Truth means to stick to the convention, and lie mean to defy the tradition.

This sense of truth and lie has a great consequence for the societies where certain concepts become debatable.

Dewey and Pedagogical content knowledge

2016-08-04T22:43:00.002-04:00

Lee Schulman’s concept of a teacher’s work and knowledge, which is dominating the research interests in the present time, categorizes it as something which is closer to the notion of techne in Aristotle. This type of characterization of PCK or teacher’s work as techne stands in sharp contrast with the understanding of teacher’s work which is closer to the notion of phronesis or practical wisdom.

Lee Schulman has identified PCK as a special blending of content and pedagogical knowledge, while keeping in view the specific needs of learners, to be utilized in a classroom. He has actually presumed the distinction between the content and method to postulate that it is through a long experience and trial and error that a teacher comes to develop an effective blend of content and method. This formulation presumes that there is a content, which a teacher has to give a form, while utilizing the pedagogical strategies that he or she has learned from different sources.

Moreover, the activity of blending the content and method cannot possibly be an end in itself as far as teaching is concerned. Whatever maybe the place where this blending takes place, whether it takes place during a teacher’s interaction with his her students or while a teacher is reflecting on the experiences, it is true that it is the product of this blending that is important. The process of blending is not in itself a source of complete satisfaction for the teacher.

Aristotle while describing the nature of techne describes it as an activity that comprises in producing something out of nothing through blending a particular form with a content, through an activity guided by true reason. Techne does not have its goal within its activity; its goal is the product that is the end result of an activity.

This concept of techne closely resembles Schulman’s notion of PCK. In both cases there is an agent who is involved in giving a certain content a certain form through a chain of activities guided by reason. Both have an end product that is different from the initial stuff , that is content and form, and to both the activity in itself is not the final aim. The final aim is the product , that is to be utilized in a certain situation.

Although Schulman has acknowledged that he has followed the footsteps of Dewey among others in developing his ideas, his formulation of teachers work stands in a stark contrast with that of Dewey. Dewey’s notion of teacher’s work is closely associated with the Aristotelian notion of phronesis.

Phronesis, according to Aristotle, is different from techne in it that it is first of all concerned with doing , and secondly , it has no aim beyond the action itself. The aim and means in phronesis remain so close to each other that the performance of activity itself becomes the aim. One who exercises phronesis aims at the general good which is happiness or eudaimonia , and which is achieved by a morally good person as he or she performs the chosen activity. Phronesis involves in acting according to one’s dispositions and the activity thus performed always results in satisfaction. A virtuous action is an end in itself, and does not aim at anything beyond it.

Dewey’s understanding of a teacher’s work is closely related to this formulation of phronesis. Since Phronesis is different from techne, there is no question of blending a form and a content, to produce an end result. Similarly in Dewey’s concept of education the dichotomy between the form and the content is overcome. This renders education a form closer to phronesis.

The accounts of teachers’ experiences reported by various prominent researchers have suggested that the course of reaching success in teaching closely resembles the practice of practical wisdom. Let us see how the concepts used by Aristotle in the depiction of phronesis can be applied to the experiences of the teacher to develop a better understanding of the process of the development of PCK.

Saint Thomas Aquinas has described teaching as a combination of contemplative and active pursuits. One’s knowledge of the subject that one teaches, his knowledge of the various truths related to the learners and the issues of learning and one’s knowledge of the various methods of teaching corresponds to the contemplative side of the activity of teaching. Whereas, when a teacher enters a particular situation in which he or she has to teach a certain subject to the learners, to this or that particular learner, a teacher enters the domain of the active side of the teaching. And it is here that the understanding of practical wisdom helps us.

A successful teacher is in fact a practically wise person, who possess and practices phronesis. Thus, the teacher as a practically wise person has to satisfy certain condition of being practically wise. And there are two such conditions. Since practical wisdom enables a man to desire a correct end and a correct way of reaching that aim, therefore, a practically wise teacher should be able to desire correctly and should be able to select a proper means to do so.

What does a teacher desire? The desire of a teacher is to teach a piece of knowledge to his students. And his choice of the course of action to achieve this end is his method. And this choice of the means and end should be guided by the virtue or the disposition of the mind that a teacher has.

So what is the virtue of a teacher? What bent of mind should a teacher possess? The answer lies in the rising value that the educationist now a days place on democratic model of education, in which a learner is active and educational process is based on the true motivation of the learner to learn. The aspiration of a teacher towards the democratic and interactive model of education of Dewey is the right bent of mind for a teacher. So the virtue that the teacher of our times has to practice, and the value that a teacher is taught in the modern day teachers’ training program is that of democratic interactive model proposed by Dewey.

Teachers of our time are disposed towards the democratic mode. Their teachers teach them to value the modern educational ideals. This valuation of the democratic and interactive model develops a conscience in teachers that feels bad whenever a teacher fails to act in its direction. And that’s what John Loughran et al have described in their research titled Learning through experiencing. They equated the instant when a teacher realizes that something is wrong with his her teaching as a moment of awakening, and usually this moment of awakening lies in realizing that they have to replace the transmissive learning mode with an interactive one. They write:

“Attempting to meet such aims obviously confronts the notion of teaching as transmission of information. However, in attempting to address these concerns, Mandi and Philippa found it to be demanding work. There was little real support available to them...Therefore , they were left to work through their issues alone and to construct their teaching in new and different ways...”

The further write:

“Just as Garry Hoban experienced an awakening in relation to his views of and subsequent approaches to teaching, for many teachers there are ongoing and subtle reminders of the mismatch between their

intentions for teaching and the practice that evolves as a consequence of the dailiness of teaching

(Loughran & Northfield, 1996).”

This clearly shows that it is an inner sense of dissatisfaction from the traditional way of teaching that changes the practice of a teacher. This type of awakening is in fact the awakening of a new virtue and new value system in education.

This is further enhanced by the excerpt:

PEEL (Baird & Mitchell, 1986; Baird & Northfield, 1992; Loughran, 1999) is an example of a

movement in education that directly responds to teachers’ concerns about students’ passive learning;

which itself is partly a consequence of “traditional” teaching. PEEL teachers view teaching as

problematic and have become expert at developing teaching procedures that are the antithesis of

transmissive teaching. The accumulated wisdom of practice evident in their work (shared and

disseminated through a diverse range of meetings, conferences, and publications) is driven by their desire to challenge students’ passive learning habits in order to develop their metacognitve skills, and to

therefore become more active, purposeful learners. As a consequence, PEEL teachers’ knowledge of

teaching is such that it demonstrates how thinking about teaching as something more than the delivery of information, is a foundation to strong, ongoing professional learning.

However the practice of this new virtue in one’s professional life is not easy. One finds oneself at odds with the whole system of education, with the routines one has to follow. The opposition is strong but not invincible.

Researches on PCK have also revealed that teachers sometimes find what they have learnt from their teachers’ training courses in part irrelevant to the practical situation.

“What Mandi and Philippa then came to recognize was that the changes in their teaching comprised a

journey, not an event. They did not teach one way at the start of their adventure and then suddenly

transform their teaching overnight to become new and different teachers. They came to develop their

teaching as they experimented with their practice and built new understandings of teacher and student

learning. Their journey involved many false starts, much frustration, considerably more work and time

and the development of new scripts that challenged their previous routines in teaching science. Their

professional learning, while being personally rewarding, was not something able to be garnered from a

book on curriculum reform, or developed as a result of an in-service or professional development activity. “

The statement above that says that the professional learning has nothing to with the in-service professional development activity does not seem apt. For if teaching is the exercise of practical wisdom or phronesis, it should know both universal and the particular. Like a doctor who knows that this or that medicine cures this or that disease from his learning at the school, but knows how to use the medicine to cure a particular person only from experience. Similarly, the universal concepts of education should be known for their knowledge can be very effective in dealing with the particular situation.

Lee Schulman described pedagogical content knowledge as a special blend of content knowledge and pedagogical strategies that a teacher uses in the teaching of a particular content area.

Researches on the nature of pedagogical content knowledge have described it as a highly content, context and person specific knowledge. It is a knowledge that results from years of practice and reflection on practice and it involves taking a right pedagogical decision at a right time and for the right purpose.

Thus pedagogical content knowledge does not only involve the in depth knowledge of the content area but it also involves a correct use of reasoning as to the selection of a proper strategy to teach that content to the student while keeping in view the specific students requirements in terms of their learning needs .

This way of describing pedagogical content knowledge makes it so specific that it is believed that it cannot be delivered to the teachers through instruction alone. Some of the researches suggested that owing to its specific nature, PCK can only develop through practice.

Although this way of characterizing PCK identifies it as a strictly specific type of knowledge, yet to be a type of knowledge there must be some kind of universal element in it. For the knowledge of a specific situation in which there is no element of generality cannot be called knowledge proper. Knowledge basically is an interaction between subject and object and hence bears the characteristics of both.

An in-service or pre-service teachers’ training program can contribute towards the development of PCK through teaching the general ideas related to the blend of content and method.

Nietsche's concept of Aristocracy

2016-08-04T22:40:00.001-04:00

Nietzsche’s Concept of Aristocracy

Nietzsche has described the aim of his philosophic endeavor quite clearly, and that aim is to build an aristocracy for Europe that can create a thousand years long empire. He writes:

“But here it is expedient to break off my festal discourse…for I have already reached my serious topic, the “European problem,” as I understand it, the rearing of a new ruling caste to Europe.”

For Nietzsche, the real threat to Europe comes from Russia, whose disintegration he views in promoting the democratic ideal there. Russia for Nietzsche is a thousand years old empire that has acquired the qualities of a crocodile, that waits for its prey, hiding its predator energies behind its apparent laziness, but once it finds its prey within its reach, it devours it. …But it is strongest and most surprising of all in that immense middle empire where Europe as it were flows back to Asia—namely, in Russia. There the power to will has been long stored up and accumulated, there the will—uncertain whether to be negative

That merely is the political background of his own age, in which Nietzsche wanted to create a European aristocracy, otherwise the reason behind his will to create a new aristocracy in Europe, is to assure a more stable European society. He writes:

“I mean such an increase in the threatening attitude of Russia, that Europe would have to make up its mind to become equally threatening—namely, to acquire one will, by means of a new caste to rule over the continent, a persistent, dreadful will of its own, that can set it aims thousands of years ahead; so that the long spun-out comedy of its petty stateism, and its dynastic as well as its democratic many-willedness, might finally brought to a close. The time for petty politics is past; the next century bring the struggle for the dominion of the world.”

Larry Hickman and technology

2016-08-04T22:37:00.001-04:00

Dewey’s Philosophy of Technology: A bridge between theory and practice

In most of his writings, Professor Larry Hickman has presented three main ideas regarding Dewey’s philosophy of technology:

1. How Dewey is similar to and different from the traditions of postmodernism and philosophy of analysis

2. What is Dewey’s understanding of technology

3. How this understanding of technology results in constructing a better society

It seems that the modern day commentators are quite unable to fathom Dewey’s philosophy of technology and are more or less caught in categories that do not cover the whole scope of Dewey’s philosophy. Some are committed to the destruction of metaphysics, and some are committed to criticize modernity, thus evading by a distance the true meaning of Dewey’s philosophy. Their perspective do not show them the whole of Dewey’s philosophy in a brighter light and leaves great masses of shadowy areas, leaving the reader in confusions and darkness on every now then.

In one of his essays Professor Hickman writes:

“Put another way, one of the central strands of American philosophy, Pragmatism, offers a third option, between Anglo-American conceptual analysis and French-inspired postmodernism. Its broad reach transcends the analysis of concepts and definitions in order to engage the real-world problems of men and women. And at the same time it rejects the notion of a “grand narrative,” it also transcends the postmodernist denial of commonality and referentiality. It engages the physical and social sciences, as well as technology, in ways that are rarely found within other philosophical traditions. (Contrary to the claims of some of his critics, Dewey also rejected the positivists' search for the “foundations” of science and mathematics, which he thought worked quite well enough and thus required no foundations).”(Larry Hickman, Why American Philosophy)

Professor Hickman has placed Dewey between Postmodernism and Anglo-American conceptual analysis. What is Anglo-American philosophy of analysis? It actually shares with pragmatism a general task and objective. The task of overthrowing, in the words of Hickman , the jettison of metaphysical ideas. Post modernism , owing to its Nietzschean background is originally a critique on the father of philosophy of analysis, positivism(postmodernism only partially shares the task of Nietzsche’s philosophy ,or any genuine philosophy in general, and feels content with the criticism of positivism and does not go on to posit new ideas). So here post modernism shares a basic task with Dewey’s pragmatism. The task of criticizing the reductionist approach of positivism and consequently of Anglo –saxon philosophy of Analysis.

Thus Dewey both shares certain aspects of Post modernism and philosophy of analysis and differs in other. This places Dewey at a point where he can carry out his pragmatic pursuit of building up consensus. Professor Hickmann writes in his essay Why American Philosophy?

“American philosophy has its roots in the experimentalism that was required by a people who faced the task of coming to terms with the uncertainties of a radically new environment. But a true experimentalism always reaches out in an attempt to be inclusive – as American Pragmatist Jane Addams learned to do during her late 19^thand early 20^thcentury experiments with Hull House, the settlement house located in a section of Chicago where recently arrived immigrants spoke more than a score of different languages and where sharply differing customs rubbed up against one another. Her search for unity in diversity – a richly American concept – was to become a central feature of Dewey's philosophical outlook.“

The search for reconciliation of differences, cooperative attitude, merging and diffusing the previously hold boundaries for practical aims , such seeds constitute the real spirit of Dewey’s pragmatism.

Having postulated the general traits of Dewey’s philosophy , Professor Hickman has also identified the general outlines of his philosophy of technology. However the task is rendered very difficult by the fact that Dewey’s philosophy is very intricate. At a point professor Hickman has quoted one of his collegues as equating Dewey’s philosophy with a cobweb, easy to be traversed by an insider but very intricate for an outsider.

This intricacy is obviously because of the reason that people try to locate Dewey in one or the other category of philosophers, whereas Dewey does not fall within these narrow categorizations.

As far as Dewey’s philosophy of technology is concerned it is repeatedly presented as a bridge between theory and practice. Technology as the bridge between theory and practice and having mixed traits of both theory and practice seems to be the great solution for all sociall problems and questions. The nature of tools is reconceived as including both tangible and intangible tools in the form of concepts and theories. Professor Hickman writes:

“At the heart of Dewey's philosophy of technology is his theory of inquiry, or deliberation.Breaking with the long tradition of Western epistemology, Dewey argued that inquiry isneither primarily theoretical nor primarily practical. It is instead a kind of production. Hethought that inquiry starts with raw materials and then reworks them with specializedtools. “

Inquiry is equated with production. This gives the idea that Dewey is actually trying to bring the task of theoretical reasoning to those who are involved in practical pursuits. This obviously is the greatest difference between Dewey and other thinkers from the tradition belonging to Aristotle and Plato.

One important point to be noted here is the type of commitment with technology in people like Borgmann and other commentators mentioned by professor Hickman, both in his essays and his book, seems to be different from that of Dewey’s. Dewey’s commitment with technology is a response to the problems emerged due to a new environ, a new society and landscape and a global change in the ideas and social structure. On the other hand, recent commentators do not have any such meaningful task in their hands and sight. Their attempt is limited to the understanding of how people understand technology. Some are technophobic and others technophillic and nothing in between.

It seems that the evaluations and estimation of the modern commentators on technology do not have the merit to comment and evaluate Dewey. Actually most of them are not qualified to do so.

Those who are under the sway of postmodernism do not take into account the fallacies that postmodernists commit in their readings of philosophy. Philosophy is not a mere criticism, philosophy is a normative statement beyond narration of facts and criticism.

Similarly , positivists also relied on a mere criticism of metaphysics and did not have the merit of uttering any value statement, which obviously requires a courage and a holistic understanding resulting from the concrete experience of the philosopher.

Reflections on Pedagogical content knowledge

2016-08-04T22:35:00.002-04:00

Lee Schulman described pedagogical content knowledge as a special blend of content knowledge and pedagogical strategies that a teacher uses in the teaching of a particular content area.

The situation can be viewed in the light of Aristotle's distinction between a man of experience and the artist. Art lies in knowing the reason for one's prticular choice in a particular situation, where as

Schulman Pedagogical content knowledge

2016-08-04T22:33:00.001-04:00

Although Schulman(1986) acknowledged Dewey as one of the pre cursors of his ground breaking idea of PCK, no one has paid much attention towards the works of Dewey to find out his understanding of PCK . Lougharn(2012) claimed that each and every teacher has its own PCK, which maybe similar t or different from the PCK of other teachers. Moreover, different researchers have also identified certain important domain of PCK. Mostly it comprises knowledge of the content to be taught, teaching strategies that fit best to teach that content, student’s way of learning that content and curricular knowledge.
Not many researchers however have pointed out any kind of organized account of a teacher’s PCK. Mostly the teacher’s accounts of their PCK are in the form of raw data, needed further work to rduce the concrete account in the form ideas.
PCK does not owe its existence to Schulman’s articulation and discovery of PCK. It must be there right from the beginning. On this ground it can be said that teachers , even before the discovery of PCK, had this type of knowledge, if PCK has to qualify as an essential trait of a teacher. This amounts to saying that teachers of the past also had PCK , and not only that had their own PCK, they must also have expressed it .
Dewey being a great teacher himself and an ardent researcher and learner of educational processes and teaching, also had his notion of PCK, which he did not obviously presented under the title PCK, but must have presented in his writings. However, there are certain claims in modern research on PCK that can be utilized to confront this view that Dewey’s general reflections on method and content and cannot be subsumed under the heading of PCK.
In certain researchers it is claimed that the knowledge of pedagogical strategies that a teacher possesses is of a generic character, whereas the knowledge of content is actually of a concrete and specific nature. In other researches, this claim is contested and it is said that even the knowledge of pedagogical strategies is of a specific nature. They put forward the difficulty which a teacher faces in teaching a subject outside his or her content area. So if a math teacher, who knows his PCK well in the case of mathematics, teaches physics, he or she is certain to face difficulties finding proper strategies to teach physics.
If we grant the later view that teacher’s knowledge of pedagogical strategies is of a specific nature rather than a generic one, we, cannot deny the fact that a teacher, who in the course of time, has developed PCK in two different content areas, can somehow reflect on his or her PCK of both subjects to furnish the similarities and differences between the two. In case such an account is produced by a teacher, who has simultaneously mastered teaching of two domains of content area, then that account can recognized as a general statement of pedagogical content knowledge.
Some people would argue that PCK of one subject is so different from that of the other that there is no possibility of drawing any similarity between the two.

The Reality of ISIS(Islamic State of Iraq and Syria):

2014-06-13T13:08:00.001-04:00

The Reality of ISIS(Islamic State of Iraq and Syria):

The Revolution: A Novel from prehistoric past

Apparently the name ISIS for the recently emerged militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is a common name, but it is symbolic and has a deep relationship with Arab nationalism.

ISIS was the Egyptian goddess who led a political movement to take back the throne of Egypt from Seth. Seth killed Osiris, her husband and fatherly figure of Egypt(Osiris is some time equated with prophet Idris in Islamic tradition), and cut his phallus through intrigue. Isis reared up her son Horus who fought and defeated Seth and reclaimed the throne of Egypt, the root of all Middle Eastern Civilizations.

Isis was a symbol of political resistance to reinstate the right ruler, the true heir of the ancient father king Osiris.

In the present case, the Islamists joined hands with the nationalist Baa'th party to avenge the various Osiris like figures of Arabia like Saddam, Gaddafi(whose phallus was infact cut by the revolutionaries), Yasir arafat etc. ISIS, the fearsome alliance between the nationalist Arabs and Islamist has revived this ancient symbol of political struggle and it's goddess Isis. Isis was worshipped in various forms throughout the world in pre Islamic and pre Christian era.

Osiris, the husband of Isis is regarded as a sacred figure in Islamic Sufi and mainstream tradition. His green color is equated with Khizr and Idris. The green of Osiris is already the sacred color of Turkish and Iraqi Sunnis all over the world. Osiris is also significant in various Sufi orders like Bahais have a Osiris Sufi order. Naqshbandiya claim that they have their origin in Khizr(khizr is also equated with Osiris).

Isis is sometimes equated with Ishtar in Mesopotamia and Al- Uzza in ancient Arabia. ISIS was part of the trinity of Osiris, Isis and Horus. The father, the mother and the son, and in recent example it is replaced with the trinity of Saddam(Osiris or father), ISIS(the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria) and the allegedly coming new ruler of Iraq(the son Horus, maybe the son of Saddam or Gaddafi).

The strange thing is that the Shia also cherish a myth comparable to that of the political resistance of Isis, the goddess. shia conflict with Sunnis is for the heir-ship to caliphate. Shia struggle revolves around reinstating a legitimate ruler to the Caliphate of Islam.

Khalid Jamil Rawat

John Dewey

2014-03-22T21:16:00.000-04:00

Introduction:

The Revolution: A Novel from Ancient past
John Dewey is one the great and famous thinker of 20th century. His book “Democracy and Education” is one of the most authentic works on education. He was born in America on 25 October 1859. He was awarded degree of PhD at the age of 25 years. Dewy served as a professor of philosophy in many universities of America.
PRAGMATISM:

Taneja (2001) claimed that The term pragmatism is derived from Greek word meaning action from which the words practical and practice have come.. Pragmatists are practical people believing in finishing the book here, solving the problem now making the social contact immediately striking the business deals at once. The emphasis of pragmatism is on action rather then on thought.

Thought is subordinated to action it is made an instrument to find the suitable means for action that is why pragmatism is also called instrumentalism. According to this the thinker is the manipulator not is holder he is engaged in his actions.

Ideas are tools. Thought enlarges its scope and usefulness by testing itself on practical issues. Pragmatism also locates, identifies or traces values in the human experience. Pragmatism is also called experimentalism at first the man thinks in a more and more thoughtful nature as he approaches further he experience new things in his habit structure and doing the hard work which is the right way pragmatism accept everything that has practical consequences.

Pragmatism believe that man is a biological and social organism the man acts only where there is a biological and social stimulation pragmatism examines the great question of what is true? and answer that anything which helps in achieving our purposes and goals of life and works best in advancing and developing our life is true pragmatists’ also lay great stress on environment pragmatism has influenced education to the maximum extent. It makes activity the basis of all teaching and prefers self activity in the context of the cooperative activity. Individual must be respected and education be planned to cater to individual capacities.

In order to produce creative, resource full and adaptable minds children should have conditions in the school which are conducive to the creation of these qualities of mind children should not be asked to work according to predetermined goals. The children should determine their goals according to their needs. UN like idealist the pragmatists are not interested in lectures because they require the children not to sit still and theoretical exposition they want them to do something children interact with their teachers and with their fellow students.

In pragmatism there is no place for reward and punishment as every activity is to be done in social setting where all the members are equal. The child has to become an enlighten member of the society. In conclusion it must be said that pragmatist philosophy is the practical philosophy having no fixed or absolute standards.

PROBLEM SOLVING METHOD:

According to Purkait (2006) His philosophy of education is based on change, process, relatively and reconstruction of experience.

Experience is a key word in Dewey’s philosophy of education. It may be destined as interaction of the human organization with the environment. Since living depends on the ability to solve problems therefore education is that which cultivates problem solving skills and methods.

Problem solving method is very useful in developing social qualities in the learner. Problem solving means that education like life is a practice that involves the continuous reconstruction of experience. The experience meant that human purpose and plans could only be validated by acting on them and judging them by their consequences.

Most other philosophies of education emphasize bodies of substantive knowledge us subject matter discipliner. Dewey stresses the methodology or process of problem solving. Education for Dewey is the continual. Reconstruction of experience and knowledge.
Goal of Education:
1) To look after the psychological needs of the child by catering to individual difference.
2) To consider the social conditions in which the child lives.
Dewey’s conception of education:
1) life itself is education
2) Education is growth.
3) Education is the process of the reconstruction of experience.
4) Education is a means to transmit and transform culture.

Steps in the problem solving method:
1) The students must sense a difficulty.
2) Students explore and define it.
3) Once the situation is thoroughly problem surveyed and analyzed, suggestions will arise of how to solve the problem.
4) The student must reason out the implications of these suggestions.
5) He puts he suggestions that most likely to solve the problem.

According to Khalid (1990) Problem solving construction is the concept of experience, or the idea that the totality of events and activities that students carry out under the school direction as part of the planned learning process will produce certain desirable traits or behaviors. The problem method as Dewey presented it seems to have a very logical order of development. But when he gives his views about interest he is talking of psychology also.

In Dewey thinking the logical and psychological are not opposed but mutually dependent. Dewey’s concept of activity and social process brought a change in the old practice of classroom discipline. In the school he had in mind he expected that there would be more noise and disorder than in the conventional one. He believed that when the children would be busy in finding ways and means to solve a common problem there would be much more noise as compared to the class where children sit silently listening to the teacher. He was against the traditional concept of discipline.

He said that the behavior and conduct of the student should not be regulated by artificial means. Instead the teacher should provide them with the right kind of environment so that the activities of the students may go in a co-operative manner. He added that the purpose of discipline should be to develop social attitudes, social interests and social habits. Moreover, this method introduced children to the methods of experimental problem-solving in which mistakes were an important part of learning.

Providing children with ‘first-hand experience, ‘the problematic situations largely of their own making, was the key to Dewey’s pedagogy. He believed that ‘until the emphasis changes to the conditions which make it necessary for the child to take an active share in the personal building up of his own problems and to participate in methods of solving them (even at the expense of experimentation and error) the mind is not really freed’. Dewey gave a new concept of education too. To him education is a necessity of life and a lifelong process and education is not for the future life but it is life itself.

CHILD AND CURRICULUM BY JOHN DEWEY:
Singh (2007) claimed that the child and the curriculum are simply two limits which define a single process. Just as two points define a straight line, so the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of studies define instruction. It is continuous reconstruction, moving from the child's present experience out into that represented by the organized bodies of truth that we call studies.
The old education was largely fixed in subject matter, authoritarian in methods, and mainly passive and receptive from the side of the young. The imagination of educators did not go beyond provision of a fixed and rigid environment of subject matter, one drawn moreover from sources altogether too remote from the experience of the pupil.

On the positive side Dewey was convinced that the ordinary contacts of day to day community life, be they social, economic, cultural or political, provided real and significant learning situations. For Dewey politics was not just a matter of national importance removed from the concern of the ordinary citizen but a matter of vital and immediate interest to the community. He believed that the school should prepare the child for active participation in the life of the community: he believed that education must break down, rather than reinforce, the gap between the experience of schooling and the needs of a truly participatory democracy. The school is primarily a social institution.

Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.
Dewey's curriculum in the school was not intended to implement a structured pedagogical plan. It was intended as a curriculum in two senses: firstly it was intended to facilitate research and experimentation into new principles and methods and secondly, it was designed to allow the children to take an experimental approach to their own learning.
The curriculum of the school was to be the testing ground for Dewey's philosophical ideas and their implementation: education is the laboratory in which philosophical distinctions become concrete and are tested. If we are willing to conceive of education as the process of forming fundamental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and fellow men, philosophy may even be defined as the general theory of education.
According to Khalid (1990) the furniture of the traditional school tells the story of traditional education; it is a story of Submission, immobility, passivity and dependency. In the old system it was the function of teachers to motivate the child - against his/her immediate interests - to learn the established subjects. He said that I know of no more demoralizing doctrine than the assertion that after subject matter has been selected, and then the teacher should make it interesting.
The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but ids there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influence.
The old, subject centered system subdivides each topic into studies; each study into lessons; each lesson into specific facts and formulae, emphasis is put on the upon the logical subdivisions and consecutions of the subject matter, subject matter furnishes the end and it determines method. The child is simply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial being who is to be deepened; his is narrow experience which is to be widened. It is his to receive, to accept. His part is fulfilled when he is ductile and docile. By contrast to the traditional approach Dewey put the pupil at the centre of education as a willful, purposive and active agent in the learning process.
The child is the starting point, the centre, and the end. His development, his growth, is the ideal. ... To the growth of the child all studies are subservient; they are instruments valued as they serve the needs of growth. Personality, character, is more than subject matter. Not knowledge or information, but self-realization, is the goal. To posses all the world of knowledge and lose one's own self is as awful a fate in education as in religion.
The curriculum of the school operated on three simple principles which informed Dewey's educational philosophy.
The first principle was that the business of the school is to train children in co-operative and mutually helpful living - to help them to grow into community: the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself.
The second principle was that the foundation of all educative activity must be in the instinctive, impulsive activities of the child, and not in the presentation and application of structured, external material.

If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert mass. Finally the laboratory school promoted the child's individual tendencies and activities. These were to be organized and directed to promote the idea of co-operative living

The child's relation to the curriculum is not the subordination of the child to the existing established knowledge, nor is it the abandonment of established existing knowledge for an anarchic child centered approach.
The young child is not conscious of subject barriers; he views knowledge as a key to life and his questions concerning the world around him range over the whole field of knowledge. The curriculum should reflect this attitude of the child and be seen more as an integral whole rather than as a logical structure containing conveniently differentiated parts. But later the child must come to learn the ways in which human knowledge has been structured into subjects or disciplines. But this is not the starting point. It is a development on the journey.

Meaning of Truth and Allegory of Cave in Plato's Republic

2014-03-19T03:23:00.002-04:00

EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY:

The Revolution: A Novel from prehistoric past

Plato was the most famous Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens, in a noble family. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. From Socrates, Plato learned the Socratic or dialectic method, which used logic (the use of reason in thought processes) to achieve clear thinking. Plato says that senses are not enough to have the exact knowledge, only through education one can have the exact knowledge.

Plato, in his book the ‘Republic’, has mentioned the Cave allegory. Allegory means something that uses symbols to explain something which is hidden . Cave allegory is basically the search for the ultimate truth. In cave allegory he has used the Sun as the symbol of the ultimate truth; for it is the Sun that gives existence to all physical reality, and likewise it is the God the ultimate truth who illumines the spiritual world. The true source is sun, which enables everything to exist. However, in a lower realm of understanding, fire is regarded as the source of existence instead of the sun. Similarly in the allegory vision is the symbol of understanding.

In this allegory people were away from truth and reality, they were living with understanding of shadows. For them actual source of living was fire. One person came out from the cave and passed through the whole journey to discover the truth and he discovered that the sun is the actual source of living. This person after becoming enlightened or educated with the knowledge of the ultimate truth, comes back to the cave to liberate the fellow human beings from darkness.

The purpose of the whole journey from the darkness to light was to enlighten the souls of the people, to come out from dark and to become aware of the truth and reality. Human beings learn through imaginations and shadows but Plato says that, through imaginations one cannot have the exact knowledge. If they learn by looking at the real things, senses are involved in it but senses are not reliable.

Plato says through ‘definitions’ (Mathematics, physics, science etc), one can have the true knowledge. People are able to reason and judge things. Then there is dialectics, it is the science which overthrows all the previous hypotheis. Dialecticians bring revolutions in mind in a positive way. Contemplation and Vision of God is above dialectics. Prophets are the real dialecticians, because they do not give any reasons for their sayings or laws.

According to Plato, the aim of education is for the growth and development of the individual and welfare of the society. The purpose of education is to train the human being, to know his physical, mental and emotional needs. As human being is a social animal, to fulfill physical needs, they need food, clothing and shelter as these are the basic necessities of life.

Plato talks about cardinal virtues of temperance, courage and wisdom. One should also have the self control over excessive desires to become a perfect human being. Emotional needs are related to feelings and expressions. Moreover, if something is good or bad, one must have the courage to speak the truth. Mental needs are related to knowledge. Education develops these virtues in those who naturally possess such tendencies.

One should have enough knowledge to be able to survive as an effective member of the society. However, education prepares individuals to accept the challenges and to perform their duties well; and education is the only source which brings justice in the society.

According to western people Plato was the first one who introduced curriculum. Plato assigned a Greek education for both military and governing classes, which included two divisions of Greek education, music and gymnastics. Music is for the training of soul and gymnastics for the training of body. Plato says that education should become mandatory for all the children and to develop skills and abilities in them. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure, the future warrior should learn riding etc.

The curriculum designed for the early training, that occupied first seventeen years of life, was compromised of music and gymnastics. Music included poetry, history, drama and oratory. For gymnastics he included dances, hunting and field exercises. Plato did not mention arts in curriculum because he did not feel the importance of manual arts.

He emphasizes on the study of numbers that is arithmetic, it sharpens the mind. Warriors should have the knowledge of arithmetic to be aware of military tactics. He considered geometry as the second branch of education. Geometry elevates the soul and creates the mind of philosophy. Plato recommended another subject for higher education, that is, astronomy.

It is necessary for military purpose and navigation. For Plato the highest study would reveal the absolute truth. He says that children till the age of six should stay at home with their parents and they should teach values to their children. They should tell them good moral tales to have good and positive impression on their minds and should enrich their souls with these moral values.

The second stage is from seven to seventeen. In this stage, individual’s physical and mental development takes place because youth is the time to study. Third stage is from seventeen to twenty years of age, new era of education will begin and the youth are brought to the ground of battle.

The fourth stage is from twenty to thirty years of age. In this age, individual undergoes through various experiences and then at the age of thirty selection was made was the study of dialect. Individual is mature enough for dialectic studies and is also ready to become a ruler.

When the person reaches to fifty years of age, he is invited to mould the lives of youth as he did for himself in his time. He is invited to resolve the state affairs and then let him return to the end of all things and he shall be honoured with sacrifices.

About the method of teaching, Plato says that when education which becomes burden for child is of no use, it does not have long lasting effect on child’s mind. Education should be a fun for child rather than teaching traditionally. In his Republic, Plato has emphasized that; individual should be given choices to select the field for himself according to his own skills and abilities. In this way education will have a long last effect in individual’s mind and could be traced for centuries.

Therefore, Whiteland criticized that Plato neglected the technical education but on the other hand he also realizes that Plato has maintained the harmony in different subjects. Plato was a great philosopher and educator. His works are the corner-stones in their respective fields.

Republic, Plato's Statement on Education

2014-03-19T03:18:00.001-04:00

THE REPUBLIC

The Revolution: A prehistoric Novel

Plato, the most famous Greek philosopher, was born in Athens, in a noble family. He was the student of the great thinker and philosopher Socrates and the teacher of the Aristotle. One of the greatest contributions in education is the book of Plato, “The Republic”. As Plato was the student of Socrates so, as a gesture of respect and admiration towards his teacher, he wrote the books in which he used the name of Socrates. In the book, Republic, there are dialogues of Socrates with Glaucon, Adeimentus, Cephalus, Polarmarcus and Thrasymacus. Plato discussed in his book how education should be given to the children. He also discussed in his book how a good guardian of a state should be. But he did not get any attention for his work in Athens. So he went to Sicily where he lived for twelve years. After twelve years he came back to Athens and started his school for philosophers called “Academy”. One of Plato’s students was Aristotle. Plato died at the age of 82 in 347 B.C.

In the book 6 of the Republic, Plato discusses that the ruler should be a philosopher. But his fellows would not agree with him, for they thought that the philosophers were useless. Then he describes the true philosopher is the one who always searches truth and knowledge, and for this love of knowledge and wisdmon, a philosopher is the right person to be the guardian. He tells them that sometimes a person, who is born with a philosophical nature; with a good memory and the ability to reason, is used by his family and friends, who take advantage of his skills and send him in the politics to earn money. These are, however, false philosophers.

Good philosopher, on the other hand, is always after knowledge and not money. He describes three types of people to further clarify the disposition of a philosopher.First, there are the people who always look for money, who pursue desires. These are the peasents, tradesman and service providers , and they form the working and business class. These people should practice the virtue of temperance, for their nature is more disposed towards appetites and desires, therefore they should better be able to control them to strike balance.

The second type of people are those who look for honour and they are called warriors. These people are responsible for maintainig the and guarding the interst and the requirements of justice. These people require courage, for the disposal of their duties.

The last type are the people who look for the knowledge and they are called philosophers. They are love wisdom and knowledge, and are not interested in wealth or honor, though honor automatically comes to them for the service of truth. Socities are formed by these three classes of people.

Plato holds justice as the supreme good for the society. To maintain the justice, warriers should control the masses according to the law and reason. Warriors, who have the courage and passion to maintain justice in the society, cannot act with the guidance of the wisdom, and this wise guidance can only be provided by the wise people , philosophers.

Each class of people performs its function in the society. The working and business class produces wealth and services. The warrior class defends the society and the law . The courage of the warrior class should always be governed by reason. The ruling class, comprising philosophers, is responsible for rationally guiding the society. And to ensure that each class performs its functions, its members should be meritoriously selected and educated. Thus, education is the backbone of Plato's social system.

Book 7 of the "Republic" is related to the education. In this book he starts with the parable of the cave. In this cave people are chained and they only see the wall before them. Behind them there is a bridge on which people walk. The other thing in the cave was the fire which produces shadow of the people on that wall and people only can see that shadows. The people in the cave show the people with the limited knowledge. Then one of the man is able to escape from the cave first he sees the fire his which causes pain in his eyes he gradually adjust with the light of the fire then he go outside the cave where he sees the other things and the light of the sun again his eye feels the pain. When he go back to the cave he cannot see so his fellow men consider him blind. The man who went out of the cave to see the things is like a man who gained knowledge. The real things he sees are the real knowledge and sun represents the truth. Now if one person gains knowledge he/she should go to the other people to spread this knowledge. Furthermore in book seven Plato discusses the seven stages for education. In his opinion education should not begun before the age of seven. The child till the age of seven should stay at home and learn from his/her mother. Till the age of seven boys and girls can play together but after this they should be separated boys should play with boys and girls should play with girls.

Till the age of the seventeen they should be taught music, early education and sports because sports and games are essential for physical and mental growth of the child. Mathematics is also very important education of the child according to Plato everything is always occur in numbers. He emphasised on two fields that is geometry and astronomy. From the age of seventeen to twenty year student should brought into battle field to learn from the nature and gain real life experiences. From the age of twenty to thirty the student gets the education of mathematics. After the age of thirty the person selected for the dialectic. They get more education for five years and at last they must rule the city and their duty is to educate the other people.

Plato's Educational Views in Republic

2014-03-19T03:16:00.000-04:00

Topic: The Republic by Plato

Introduction:

Plato was the famous Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens, in a noble family. He was inspired by Socrates and was being his students. Plato was the teacher of Aristotle the great thinker. Plato served his life for the Educational field. He introduced a great concept of Education in his book “The Republic”.

Introduction of the book “The Republic”:

In the book “The Republic” Plato has suggested appropriate kind of Education for the ruling and military classes of community. He presented some logical principles of ethics and politics. His great achievement was “The Republic”. He described some important part of education in this book. He talked about curriculum as well as very beautiful reality of life. In the law Plato repeats that “Education is the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have”.

“The Republic” and its different parts:

In this book Plato has presented his ideas in following sections.

. Enlightenment or unenlightenment of nature:

He has given the idea of a man who lives in den where the man cannot see the reality of life. From childhood he opens his life in den. After sometime he can see only a fire from distance and as he goes near to the reality of that he finds another perception. As he sees water he can see only his reflection, and when he sees sun he can peruse that this is the source of light. Then he realizes unenlightenment to enlightenment. As like this rulers should not be un-educated or so much over educated that must be forced down again among the captives in the den to partake of their labors and honors.

. Former education:

He was talking about the former education. Because he thought that it can be the cause to bring soul into dark to bright. According to him former education has two branches one is “gymnastic” and another is “music”. It can maintain natural harmony between mind and literature. He was talking about arithmetic also where he was describing that it stimulates class which suggest contrast and relation. For example, like that a finger does not arouse thought unless involving some conception of plurality, but when the one is also the opposite of one’ the contradiction gives rise to reflection, an example of this is afforded by any object of sight.

. Second branch of Education:

Second branch of education he described as geometry. He said that the skill of knowledge can be double in this. The geometry is always talking about squaring, subtending, opposing in view action. It elevates the soul, and creates the mind of philosophy.

. Third branch of education:

Astronomy he found as third branch of education. The knowledge of heavens is necessary at once for husbandry, navigation, and military tactics. Astronomy as studied at present appears to draw the soul not upwards, but downwards. Only by problems can we have place astronomy on a truly scientific basis. Pythagoreans can be applied in astronomy as the part of mathematics. All scientific subjects are connected to each other and it tell us about absolute truth.

. Dialectic:

He further described that dialectic alone rises to the principle which is above hypotheses, converting and gently leading the eye of the soul out of the upper world. It is also defined as the science which defines and explains the essence or being of each nature. Dialectics distinguishes abstract the good get ready to be battle against the opponents of good. It is represented the way darkness to light.

. Division of knowledge stages:

He divided education as four stages, one is there is early education of a child and fancies of the poet, and in the law and costoms of the state. Then second is when there is a training of the body to be a warrior athlete. Third stage is completion of the education of training and the last stage when a man enters to dialectics (analysis of vision).

. Early childhood education:

He described that when a child born the first education of a child is given by his parents. Then the child sends to the school where he learns many ethics, discipline which is the necessarily of his life. He studies many things like music, where he learns to get harmony in his soul. Then the child sends back to the gymnastic master to be strong and tough to face the difficulties of lives.

. Religious and moral values:

He also presented some idea about religious and moral values. In that time everyone was running after wealth. He thought that now the concept of wealth must be changed. It can be like old Greek society into Modern Greek society. Society must be well organized and should have wisdom for others. According to him education can be considered as welfare for the society, and the universal truth is this where men should be united.

. Plato’s ways of learning:

Contemplation

Delectation

Judge reality

Senses

Imagination

Many illustrations of this part of the Republic may found in modern politics and in daily life. The main idea of his theory is there are some disorders of eye sights, those who see not far in the distance means they engage with their lives, those people limited on their own; they could not see the real spirituality. Another example is those who can prejudice the narrowness of world to comprehend them.

In this Plato has dealt with Education in detail. It was all about public education. It is observed that the idea which was given by Plato is what we are following now a day in Modern Education. He has sketched an idealized education of a Greek youth in this piece of writing. The system of education presented by Plato was supposed to discover the potentialities of an individual to develop the qualities for the membership in that class where nature has fitted him.

Allegory of the Cave

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Plato was born in 428–427 BC in Athens. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. He was a Greek philosopher well known for his dialectics approaches of reality. Plato demonstrates at the enlightment of the human being to the ultimate reality of life and which has its own purpose. The parable demonstrates that the human mind is capable to great things, the men tied to the chains are like those individuals who have been driven by society and their parents to look and follow that piece of reality that has been inheritated by their forefathers people generally are followers and encourage to follow the natural path in life and that is something that is with them till they die.

Knowledge is the base of thinking from a broad spectrum. The person who was freed from his chains was first made to stand and then look at the raised platform and the fire that was the source of life to all living in the cave. The person doing so is first in a condition of disequilibrium, where his knowledge is tested with his beliefs and morals that were his from the day he was born. A person who is in a condition such as this has to make various decisions to either accept the ultimate reality or to go back to his chains.

A person derived outside the cave discovers the sun is dazzled with its light. But seeing the real animals and plants would make him see that what he saw in the cave was only a small part of reality that he saw and had lived with. An enlightened person is a changed person. He has the power to be a great leader who has seen the ultimate reality and is enriched with the beauty of the ultimate reality. He recalls what wisdom and knowledge the cave offered him that is something not likely to be remarked at all. The people of the cave are indeed the people who are not enlightened with the glory of the reality all the wisdom they can offer and suffice is to predict the pattern of the shadows and the puppets that have gone by the cave and that person would be regarded as the most wiser of all reality and all the reality. But the person who is enlightened with the ultimate reality would not care for all. He would enjoy the gifts and wonders which the ultimate reality has to offer. The wisdom, the fruits and the knowledge that it has to be offered. But in the end an enlightened person is also an educated person who is unselfish. He would come and share the reality with his mates. A person doing so will be called a deceiver from his friends and mates and is not accepted with his knowledge, he is generally laughed upon by his friends and mates therefore he is made a fun. But still he is a person from the cave and is seen the ultimate light and can in no way compete with them in a contest of having measuring the objects in term of their image and size. The person who is has seen the ultimate reality would be the forger of the people. But another person realised from the chain is not valid to be doing such an act.

The person enlightened has to deliver the truth to the people of the society and it you that mean can only be achieved with the education of the society and the must do all they can to support that. Even if the cost of that is death

Rousseau: Summary of Emile Book 1

2014-03-19T03:05:00.002-04:00

Rousseau Book One (summary)

“Emile” is the famous book written by Rousseau in 1762. It is an imaginary description of the education of a baby named Emile. This book contains five chapters . In the first book Rousseau discussed the physical development and careful nurturing of a baby. In the first book , Rousseau has discussed the development of an infant, where as he describes an infant as the one who cannot speak.Rousseau is of the view that a person is born well by nature and he or she is fashioned by education. His detailed views regarding nurturing of a baby is discussed in below:

Baby is dependent

Rousseau is of the view that we are born weak, stupid, and lacking everything so we need the help of some one else around us. All that we lack at birth is given to us by education. An infant can not eat, drink, walk, speaks, and so on by himself so he needs some external help at this stage.

Categories of education according to Rousseau

There are three main categories of education given by Rousseau these include: education of nature, education of men, and education of things. Education of nature related with our inner growth of our organs and facilities on the other hand the use we learn to make of this growth is the education of men and education of things is what we gain by our experience of our surroundings. Thus we are taught by three masters: nature, men and things.

Nature

He says that baby is born good but it is the environment and men who make a baby to learn some evils; like speaking lie, backbiting and so on.

Tutor

According to Rousseau the best nurse is the mother and the best teacher for the baby is the father. Rousseau is strictly against sending to baby to some one else where baby will be taught, he is saying that nurses do not have that much love for the baby which the real parents have. so they can not train a baby in a right way.

Making a man or making a citizen

According to him the sense of living for others should be developed in the child rather than living for himself. He is saying that at one time these both areas can not be developed by the teacher in the child. He suggested that choose between making a man and making citizens because both at one time is not possible. If some one tries to teach both than he will be good neither for himself nor for other.

Natural man

According to Rousseau natural man is everything for himself but, good institutions are those that who knows how to denature man to take away his absolute existence in order to give him a relative one, and to transport the “me” into a common unity.

Best educated person

According to Rousseau the best educated is one who endures the good and evil of life. Hence it flows that true education is consists of less in percept than in practice.

To live is not to breathe but to act

Baby should be trained in different areas for instance, he should be taught how to swim, how to bear the clod weather and so on. so that in the absence of parents he can survive easily and will have capabilities to face the upcoming challenges. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted most years but he who has most felt life.

The first language of a baby

The first language of a new born baby is “crying” so this is the duty of a mother to understand hi/her language. if a baby is crying then try to find out the reason which made him crying than try to reduce his pain rather than to beat him or to shout at him.

Freedom of baby

The child should be given freedom to move, to walk, to do, or to act and so on, the newly born child needs to stir and stretch his limbs to free them from the stiffness resulting from being curled up so long. His limbs are stretch indeed, but he is not allowed to move them. Even the head is confined by a cap. One would think they were afraid the child should look as if he were alive. It means that Rousseau is totally against of wrapping a child in a piece of cloth for a long time, the child should be free to exercise and he should his organs as he can

Use of Mask for baby

All children afraid of different things which they rarely encountered in the life for example dog, lion and so on. So child should be trained for these things by removing fear from them. One technique parents can use is the use of MASK; parents can begin by showing a mask with a pleasant face. Then some one put this mask before his face. Degrees one can accustom him to less pleasing mask and at last hideous one. If one can arrange these stages skillfully, far from being afraid of the last mask, he will laugh at it as he did at the first.

If in a childhood he sees toads, snakes and fish etc he will not be afraid of any animal when he is grown up. Those who are continually seeing terrible things think nothing of them.

Do not confine a baby in tight wrappings

No cap, no bandages nor swaddling cloths. Loose and flowing flannels wrappers which leaves its limbs free and not too heavy to check his movements not too warm to prevent his feeling the air. Instead put him in a big cradle well padded where he will move easily and safely.

Building of habit in a baby /bathe

Rousseau emphasized on building habits in children which will help him in latter life. For instance he is saying that train a child to bathe occasionally in hot water of every bearable degree and often in every bearable degree of cold water. Now water being a denser fluid touches us at more points than air, so that having learnt all the variations of temperature in water, we shall scarcely feel this of the air. This habit of bathe once established should never be broken off it must be kept up all through life.

The only habit the child should be allowed to contract is that of no habit; let him be carried on either arm; let him be accustomed to offer either hand, to use one or other indifferently; let him not want to eat, sleep or anything in fixed time nor unable to be left alone by day or night.

When a Baby education starts?

Rousseau is of the view that a child education begin at birth, before he can speak or understand he is learning. Experiences precede instruction; when he recognizes his nurse he has learnt much. The knowledge of the most ignorant man would surprise us if we had followed his course from the birth to the present time.

Should a Baby provide immediate help when he or she cries?

Prolonged cry does not harm the child. Be careful when a child cries, try to find out the reason if he is in real pain and his/her pain can be removed by some effort then immediate action should be taken. If he/she is crying without any reason and the care taker tries to calm him/her then he will become quite for today but cry louder tomorrow if you become careless these tears become command.

What to do for a useless or unnecessary cry of a baby?

As their thinking stronger they use adults to carry out their wishes and supplement their own weaknesses. To cure prolonged cry do not pay attention, no one likes to take useless pains. If it is not possible to remove the pain then do not try to sooth otherwise he will become your master.

What should be done when a baby ask a thing to bring it him?

In the first case bring it to him slowly; in the second do not even seem to hear his cries. The more he cries the less you should heed him. He must learn in good time not give commands to men, for he is not their master nor to things, for they cannot hear him. Thus when a baby wants something you mean to give him, it is better to carry him to it rather then to bring the things to him. Form this he will draw a conclusion suited to his age and there is no other way of suggesting it to him.

The weaning period of a baby

Weaning time begins when they start cutting their teeth. Commonly he is given a hard thing for soothing; actually it is not a helpful but making the process of teething painful. for example puppies tries to chew wood, leather, rags and soft materials on which tooth leaves mark and not hard things like bones, iron or pebbles. Porridge is not suitable for them, first thing for chewing: dried fruit or crust, instead they can be given a small branch of a tree with its leaves and fruit, a little poppy flower in which one can hear the seeds shake, liquorices, he/she which may suck and chew. Rattles and other such teeth are of no use. They are just tools of making them materialized.

Speaking period of a child and his/her training

Always utter proper and complete words. Speech differences; a peasant child and a city dwellers child. Little faults of speech can be removed but the fear and shyness which is caused by criticism can not e cured. Do not to help when child begins to stammer, be patient and let him try to make you understand. Do not pressurize the child to start speaking; otherwise they get confused in their speech. If they start speaking on pressure they will have problems their pronunciations.

So we can see that an infant progresses in different ways. He/she learns to talk, eat, and walk about the same time.

Should a baby given to nurse for caring

According to Rousseau the baby should not be given to any nurse because they do not have that love which hi/her real parents have for him/her. He is saying that the best nurse for a baby is his/her mother and the best teacher is father. The one who he /she is not educated how he/she can educate a baby; this is really cheating with a baby.

Food for mother

Instead of changing the nurse usual diet it would be better to give food in larger quantities and better of its kind. It is not the nature of the food that makes a vegetables diet indigestible, but the flavoring that makes it unwholesome.

Some principles of nature that need to be followed

There are some principles of nature that should be followed otherwise deviations occur in child’s personality. First rule: Nature has given superfluous strength to a child. Nature demands to utilize those energies otherwise they can be abused. Second rule: they should be helped with their weakness, for example physical care, help from falling, touching sensitive things, hot things and so on. Third rule: limit the amount of unnecessary help, help only when there is a dire reason. Fourth rule: one must study their signs and language carefully and should understand what a baby want to say or asks.

Khushhal Khan

M-Ed final year NDIE, 2011-2012

Dated: 17/12/2011

How We Think: Dewey

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“How we think”

By John Dewey.

John Dewey in his book “How w think” argues that thinking is a natural process like breathing and heartbeat. Therefore it is impossible to teach some one to think. However it is possible to help someone thinking. This is the duty of the teacher to provide such kind of encouraging environment which helps the child to stimulate creative thinking.

In the fifteenth chapter “the recitation and the training of thought” he discusses the importance of recitation in the process of teaching and learning. During the process the teacher has the closest contact with the students which influence their language habits. It also helps the teacher to provide guidance during the activity which indirectly helps the teacher for observation about the process of teaching and learning. Recitation is an instrument for those teachers who are skillful.

Before discussion on recitation versus reflection it is important to understand the meaning of recitation. It means “to recite is to cite again, to repeat and to tell over and over. If the teacher does not understand the real meaning of recitation then it is only the rehearing of secondary information which leads towards memorization. The purpose of memorization is to produce correct answers at the proper time.

According to Dewey the aim of education in and out of the school at all ages develop a type of critical thinking that is applicable to solve the problems. Then he discusses the Herbartians’ teaching method which is based on five steps;

(a) Preparation

(b) Statement of aim

Presentation
Comparison/ association
Generalization
Application

The teachers mostly use this method in teaching and learning process but these steps make a child a passive learner. Because the process lead them to neglect the impotence of natural tendencies and to over stress the dominant role of teachers in the creation of interests and training of thought. This process only deals with thought simply as an incident in the process of information. The teachers do not develop the critical thinking with the help of formal instruction method because their problem is lack of preparation for the lesson. If the teachers reflect critically before interacting with the students then they can develop critical thinking. The following questions will help the teachers in achieving the objectives.

What preparations have my pupils for attacking this subject?
What familiar experiences of theirs are available?
How shell I present the matter so as to fit economically and effectively into their present equipment?
What pictures shall I show?
What comparisons shall I lead them to draw, what similarities to recognize?
What is the general principle toward which the whole discussion should point as its conclusion/
By what applications shall I try to fix, to clear up and to make real the grasp of this general principal?

For the purpose the teachers should aware of the interests and the natural tendencies of their students rather than the inculcation of knowledge. The teacher should provide them opportunities to learn in natural way.

John Dewey believed in giving the child great freedom but the teacher has regulate it. The teacher must ensure that the opportunities which are provided in the class should fulfill the individual needs as well as group requirements. The teacher is supposed to supervise children’s activities for helping and guiding them according to their inborn needs. The teacher’s is not so much imparting knowledge as to create in them the interest for knowledge. He/she should not destroy the initiative of the child but he/she is there to guard it.

Plato's Ideas on Education

2014-03-19T02:55:00.001-04:00

PLATO

Introduction:

Plato was the most famous Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens, in a noble family. He was the pupil of great thinker Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, the great scientist and thinker, Plato was considered the world renowned philosopher. His thinking was influenced by people from generation to generation.

History of life:

Plato worked a lot and attached greatest importance to the subject of education. In the Republic he compares it with war, the conduct of campaign and the administration of states and counts it as amongst the greatest and most beautiful subject. In this Plato has dealt with education in detail. Although, the Greek old education resulted in a brilliant period of personal achievement and national progress. Plato thinks that this new bond was to be found in ideas, in universal truth and in intelligence through which men were united by nature. Plato considered education is the welfare of both individual and society.

Stages:

Plato has described different stages of life and has prescribed proper education for these periods. For him education cannot begin in the age of seven. Before this age children should stay with their mothers or nurses and can be educated with their company. The adult should tell them good moral tales to have good impression on their mind up to the age of six children of both the sexes may be play together but after this age they should be separated.

The second stage prolong until the age of seventeen. According to Plato it should comprise music & gymnasium, sport and games were considered important for the physical and mental development.

The third stage is meant for cadetship. For three years after the completion of the early education, it is from seventeen to twenty years of age the young ones are brought to the field of battles and like young hounds have a taste of blood given them.

The fourth stage is from twenty to thirty years of age, for the training at this stage the choice characters are selected. They have to undergo the mathematical training. This training continued for ten years and at the age of thirty another enumerated that qualities required in an individual for higher education. He said that preference should be given to the bravest and if possible to the fairest and having noble and generous temper, they should have the natural gifts which will facilitate their education. He further said that a good memory and quick to learn, noble, gracious the friend of truth, justice, courage, temperature, magnificence, apprehension and memory.

The fifth stage consists of five years, i.e. from thirty to thirty five years of age. Plato deliberately with holds the study of diabetic at this age, because one has to be mature enough to carry on the study in diabetic. This study is to be prosecuted for five years, every other pursuit being resigned for it.

At the six stages, i.e. from thirty five years of age, one is ready as a philosopher or ruler, to return to practical life to take the command in war and hold such offices of state as young man.

After this age of fifty the lives are to be spent in contemplation of ‘the good’. When they are called upon to regulate the affairs of the state, their knowledge of dialectic enables them to mould the lives of individual as their own. They were supposed to make philosopher as their chief pursuit. They were called upon to participate in politics and rule for the good of the people as the matter of their duty.

Conclusion:

Thus Plato was considered one of the most renowned philosophers, educator and thinker. He makes aware of education to people from generation to generation. He gives universally valid examples. Thus the system of education presented by Plato makes the individual mentally & physically developed & his work are the corner stone’s in their respective field.

Republic and Education: Plato's Ideas

2014-03-19T02:53:00.001-04:00

THE REPUBLIC

Plato was the most famous Greek philosopher. He was born in Athens, in a noble family. He was the student of the great thinker Socrates and the teacher of the Aristotle. Plato wrote a very famous book “Republic”. Rousseau as cited in (Khalid, 1996.p.43) States that, if you wish to know what is meant by public education read Plato’s Republic. He discussed in his book how education should be given to the children. But he did not pay any attention for his work in Athens. So he went to Sicily where he lived for twelve years. After twelve years he came back to the Athens and started his school as an “Academy”. It was a time when new philosophical thought was developed and new educational practice was evolved.

According to Plato the aim of education is to develop the awareness of both the individual and society. Education should mean at developing this wisdom for ideas in the individuals in whom the ability exists and should plan and direct each individual through the guidance of philosopher for the performance of those duties which by nature he is most fixed to perform. In the ‘law’ Plato repeats that “education is the first and fairest thing that the best of men can ever have”

In his book VI Plato discussed about the justice and as well he described three types of people.

Ø First there are the people who always look for money they are the ordinary people.

Ø Second type of people is those who look for honour they are warriors.

Ø Third type of the people who look for the knowledge they are philosophers and maintaining the justice. Worrier should control the ordinary people and to control the law and to control both the types of people, philosophers must look after the laws.

In book VII Socrates continues efforts to complete representation of the good. He describes human nature in both of its states:

Ø The educated

Ø The uneducated

Book VII of the republic in related to the education. He asks his audience to imagine a cave with prisoners in it. Socrates describes a dark scene. A group of people have lived in a deep cave since birth, never seeing the light of day. These people are bound so that they cannot look to either side or behind them, but only straight ahead. Behind them is a fire, and behind the fire is a partial wall. On top of the wall are various statues, which are manipulated by another group of people, lying out of sight behind the partial wall. Because of the fire, the statues cast shadows across the wall that the prisoners are facing. The prisoners watch the stories that these shadows play out, and because these shadows are all they ever get to see, they believe them to be the most real things in the world. The people in the cave show the people with the limited knowledge. Then one of the man was able to escaped from the cave first he saw the fire his eyes felt pain he gradually adjusted then he went outside the cave he saw the other things and the light of the sun again his eye were in pain. When he went back to the cave he could not see so his fellow men considered him blind. The man who went out of the cave to see the things is like a man who gain knowledge and sun represents the truth. So when they talk to one another about “men,” “women,” “trees,” or “horses,” they are referring to these shadows. These prisoners represent the lowest stage on the line—imagination.

If one of the prisoners would be allowed to see the fire and light, at first he would be blinded. Then afterwards, as the things passing out he must be confused and believe that shadows are truer then the reality. If he went back to the cave then darkness would fill his eyes, and may he would not be able to make the shadows as he experienced. Now his fellow prisoners would believe that his eyes were cleaned out, and they would want to kill the person who was trying to make them go into the sunlight.

As revealed by the story of the man from the cave confusion was the movement from darkness to light and from light to darkness. The same could be happen to the soul and people may not laugh at other when they see them confused by things in life.

It is clear that uneducated people with no experience of truth, as well people who finish their education will never rule. Then he said that people should be given four types of education.

1. Physical education

2. Poetry

3. Mathematics

4. Astronomy

5. Harmonies

The education that they are looking for must be useful for warriors. Early education relate with the sports because sports and games are essential for physical and mental growth of the child. Mathematics is also very important education of the child according to Plato everything is always take place in numbers. He emphasised on two fields that is geometry and astronomy they move on to examine whether geometry would be beneficial to the soul or not. After the age of thirty the person selected for the dialectic. They get more education for five years and at last they must rule the city and their duty is to educate the other people. Now the discussion will be on type of people who to be taught these things. First one should learn and must to be good in it. Then selected people will be honour to prove their abilities.

So, dialectics is must as they must engage in it for twice when they engaged in physical education. Then they will rule in the military offices of the young and had experienced. When they will about fifty then they must be taken to see the light and spend their lives by ruling the city. As education makes individual good and good men conquer the battle and education gives the victory. Then Plato find in the life of man intellectual rules the desires by control their action, soldier’s virtue is honour and industrial people dedicated for trade and making for money. According to him education should be in different stages and each stage has their on importance and qualities and the same importance of education for women. Women should get the same training in music and gymnastic as well in the art and war like men. Moreover education must be provided according to the abilities and qualities of the students.

When their turn comes to rule, however, they must do it because it is necessary, and not because it is beautiful, and keeping in mind that they must constantly educate those younger than them so that they may rule one day.

Socrates adds that this could all be possible if the current ruler sends everyone in the city older than ten out to the farms and takes over the children, raising them as discussed.This is the theory which was presented by Plato.

SUBMITTED BY UZMA DAVID B.ED STUDENT

Allegory of Cave and Education

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The Republic - Book VII

By Plato

Socrates gave Glaucon a scenario of humans in a dark cave. He said that humans were living under ground, their legs and neck were bound which made it impossible for them to look around them. Behind them there was a path which was raised and behind it a burning fire. The humans would see shadows of different objects that used the path to pass by. They had no information of what those objects were as they associate the sound with the shadows on the wall.

When one of those bound, was released, he would fight against his release, and when he was forced into the sunlight, it hurt his eyes and he would get irritated. He would not be able to comprehend, but with the passage of time he would get used to the new world.

After he got used to the new world, he would think of his fellow prisoners and would go back and try to inform them of all he had seen. But as they were down below and he had no way of getting to them, he would shout to tell them all he had discovered but to their ears the sounds were not comprehensible.

This allegory Plato associated humans with, that they too were bound to this earth, and were limited in their capacity to understand the light of truth, God, in His infinite light of intellectual power.

Socrates stated that those who took on the duty to rule and guide the state should be people who were wealthy in good values. Who desired to better the state and not look for riches for themselves at the expense of the state. They should be ones who loved their duty to serve their state.

He also stated that the youth of the state are the worriers who would go to war, they sould have the knowledge of gymnastics to keep them strong and also know the art of music, because this would teach them to harmonize and have rhythm.

The worriers were also required to possess the knowledge of arithmetic, as it would help in calculation. He said that the knowledge of numbers led to truth and that the military should have knowledge of this subject so that they would know how to arrange the troops at the time of war. It provided reasoning to the individuals, as it is truth.

Another subject he talked about was Geometry, he said that the knowledge of this subject was very important for the military because through this they would be able to allot places to pitch camp and then also to maneuver and change the direction of the army, it would make a great difference if the military leader had knowledge of Geometry.

Astronomy another subject Socrates spoke about, he said that “astronomy compels the soul to look upward and leads us from this world to another”.

Socrates said that all the subjects he had spoken about were interrelated, he had put it in almost a poetic form where he said that the heavenly bodies in the universe are harmonized and were all moving in their own rhythm.

The importance of dialectics too was brought to light as people needed to understand and comprehend and this could be done through dialect in the form of communication between people.

He also saids that if a man was just into gymnastics and worked laboriously and had no intention to learn or discover or question anything then he would be missing out on a lot and vice versa. One had to be educated and informed both in mind and body in order for them to be a wholesome character. He also said that exercise for the body did it no harm to an individual but when a mind was forced to learn or knowledge was forced into it, it would not be retained. A person should be free to acquire knowledge when and if he feels he wants to know something.

Aristotle Eucation, Spiritual Happiness , Virtue

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BASIC IDEAS ABOUT ARISTOTLE’S BOOK ETHICS:

“The meaning of human life is Spiritual Pleasure.”

Book Divisions:

In this book the main concern of Aristotle is the Supreme good and that supreme good is called Spiritual Pleasure or Eudaimonia. According to Aristotle every human activity aims at some end that we consider good. A farmer cultivates because of the need of money, a cobbler mends shoes for the same reason. Thus, activities are directed towards goals. But one does not money for the sake of money itself, one needs it to make oneself happy. This makes happiness the supreme goal or the goal of the goals. Money is a goal, but its aim is to give happiness to a man. Thus money is an assisting aim, and the aim it assists is happiness.

These assisting ends are actually means towards the highest aim, and each of these aims or end should lead towards supreme good. For Aristotle, the supreme purpose of human life is spiritual pleasure. Humans are not born to run towards physical pleasures that are temporary, but they should strive for the spiritual pleasure which can give real happiness to the soul.

Commonly, people equate happiness with sensual pleasure which is sufficient for the satisfaction of animal soul. Aristotle, however, considers human life as much higher than that of animals, and it should go for the spiritual happiness or Eudaimonia.

Plato’s Theory of Forms suggests that there is a single Form of Good and that all good things are good in the same way. In this theory Plato also talk about the highest good and how to achieve goodness. For him if a person has only one good and if he practices it in his life then it is enough for him.

Spiritual Happiness is the only good because it is the purpose of human existence. And this spiritual well being is reserved for those who lead a virtuous life, who live according to their virtue, or virtues. We call people good because of their good actions. A person who plays good flute can not be called a good man, but a good fluti-player. The activitiy which distinguish us from other things is our rationality. Therefore, the supreme Good should be an activity of the rational soul in accordance with the virtue. And a good person will always behave in a virtuous manner. Even if faced with great misfortunes of life.

Aristotle divides the soul into a irrational and a rational part. The irrational soul has two aspects: the vegetative aspect, which deals with nutrition and growth and has little connection to virtue; and the appetitive aspect, which governs our impulses. The rational part of the soul controls these impulses, so a virtuous person with greater rationality is better able to control his or her impulses.

Virtues are of two types. These are intellectual and Moral virtues. He says we learn intellectual virtues by instruction, and we learn moral virtues by habit and constant practice. For him all human beings are born with the potential to be morally virtuous. But it is only possible when we practice virtues because virtues do not develop from thinking about them but by practicing them.

Further, he explains the mean of virtuesl, that right conducts consist of some sort of mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess. For instance, courage consists in finding a mean between the extremes of cowardice and rashness, though the appropriate amount of courage varies from one situation to another.

A person becomes virtuous by voluntarily choosing a definite course of action and not by accident: Virtuous people act for the sake of virtue. They know the way they act as the right way of behaving. And they act in a certain direction, because their souls are disposed to act in that direction.

He defines human virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. Aristotle lists some of the principle virtues along with their corresponding vices of excess and deficiency in a table of virtues and vices. Some extremes seem closer to the mean than others: for instance, rashness seems closer to courage than to cowardice. This is partly because courage is more like rashness than cowardice and partly because most of us are more inclined to be cowardly than rash, so we are more aware of being deficient in courage.

Aristotle explains person’s actions depend to some extent on whether those actions are voluntary, involuntary, or nonvoluntary. An action is involuntary when it is performed under compulsion and then it also causes pain to the person acting.

There are certain cases, when someone is compelled to do something dishonorable under threat, but we should generally consider such cases voluntary, since the person is still in control of his or her actions. Something actions are done in ignorance may be called involuntary but if the person later recognizes that ignorance, then those actions are called nonvoluntary. Ignorance can be seen only in particular cases, but not in general behavior, and for Aristotle the ignorance of general behavior precisely makes a person bad.

Moral goodness can be measured through choice, because unlike actions, choices are always made voluntarily. We make choices to achieve our desired end. These choices are made by our deliberation that proceeds according to analytical method. In which first we think about our desired end, and then we reason backward to the mean that we implement to bring the desired end.

Good character man will always aim for the highest good. And who are not of good character always takes things incorrectly. Both virtue and vice, therefore, lie within human power, because they are related to choices that we make voluntarily and deliberately. People who behave badly form bad habits that are difficult to change, but their lack of self-control is hardly an excuse for their badness.

For Aristotle virtue is an abstract and he examines each particular virtue, starting with courage. He says courage does not mean the fearlessness but it is an attitude towards the fear, as one worrier fighting in battlefield with confidence in the face of fear. He shows himself unafraid to die an honorable death. An excess of fearfulness constitutes the vice of cowardice, and a deficiency constitutes rashness.

Aristotle further gives one more example of virtue, temperance that is the mean state with regard to physical pleasure, while licentiousness is the vice of excessive yearning for physical pleasure. The licentious person feels not only excessive pleasure with regard to physical sensations, but also excessive pain when deprived of these pleasures. The temperate person will feel appropriate amounts of pleasure, and only toward those things that are encouraging to health and fitness.

Aristotle now moves through the rest of the virtues, discussing them one by one.

Liberality is the right disposition with regard to spending money, while prodigality and illiberality represent excess and deficiency respectively. The liberal person knows how to use money in a right way and how to manage resources then prodigal person. For Aristotle prodigality is more better then illiberality because it is the result of foolishness.

Magnanimity is the quality of the person who knows himself or herself to be worthy of great honors. The person who overestimates self-worth is conceited, and the person who underestimates self-worth is pusillanimous. Neither vanity nor pusillanimity is so much bad as mistaken, though pusillanimity is generally worse. The magnanimous person is great and knows it because he/she accepts honors knowing they are deserved, but does not take excessive pleasure in these honors. Being aware of his or her greatness and status, the magnanimous person is uncomfortable when put in a position inferior to anyone and always seeks his or her rightful superior place. Aristotle asserts of the magnanimous person that “his gait is measured, his voice deep, and his speech unhurried.”

Amiability, sincerity, and wit are important social virtues. Amiability is the virtuous quality of appropriate social conduct. An over eagerness to please exhibits itself in obsequiousness or flattery, while surly or quarrelsome behavior exhibits a deficiency of amiability.

Truthfulness or sincerity is a desirable mean state between the deficiency of irony or self-deprecation and the excess of boastfulness. Self-deprecation is acceptable unless it is overly pretentious, and it is certainly preferable to boastfulness, which is especially blameworthy when the boasting is directed at making undeserved gains.

Wit is important to good conversation. A person lacking in wit is boorish and will be uninteresting and easily offended. By contrast, buffoonery is the excessive vice of being too eager to get a laugh: tact is an important component of appropriate wit.

Modesty is not properly a virtue but rather a feeling that a well-bred youth ought to be capable of. Modesty consists of feeling shame at the appropriate times. A virtuous person will never do anything shameful and so will have no need of modesty, but a youth will learn to be virtuous only by feeling shame when shame is called for.

Main Ideas in Dewey's Experience and Education

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“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

Book Divisions:

This book is consisted on eight parts, in first part John Dewey talks about the traditional and progressive education. Second book is about the Need of a Theory of Experience, in third part he sets the criteria of Experience. In part four he explains about the Social Control in life and further in part five he elaborates the Nature of Freedom. Then he continues with the Meaning and purpose of freedom in part six. Part seven is about

Progressive Organization of Subject Matter and in the last part he tells the Means and Goal of Education.

John Dewey is the Modern Father of Experience and Education. The greatest educational thinker of 20^th century. His idea was that children came to school to do things and live in a community which gave real, guided experiences which foster their capacity to contribute to society. He believed that students should be involved in the real life tasks and challenges. His views continue to strongly influence the design of innovate educational approaches such as, in out door education, adult raining and experiential therapies.

Experience is the main theme as well as the goal of education for John Dewey in this book. He says, “Progressive education, to accomplish its goals, must be based on intelligently directed development of the possibilities inherent in ordinary experience.”

Traditional education has been criticized as one that imposes on students from the outside and from above by teachers. Students’ limited experiences make the adult nature of the imposed material irrelevant and hard to understand. Progressive education has arisen, in part, because of dissatisfaction with traditional education. It offers freedom from the static nature of traditional education and growth through students’ present experience.

Further he talks about that all experience is not educative. Experiences, as in the traditional schools, can be mis-educative if they are static, don’t contribute to students’ growth, or don’t lead students to understand or appreciate later experience. The primary justification of progressive schools is that, by providing better experience, they provide students with better preparation for lifetime appreciation, independence, and development. However, progressive education, when it is done right, is not simple.

If we believe in the democratic ideal, why wouldn’t we want children to have experience with democratic social arrangements and positive interactions, as in progressive schools? The manner in which students learn is as important as what subject-matter they learn; they should be taught in a manner consistent with their becoming positively interactive, democratic, and dynamic learners.

He says that everyone experiences social control in life, but this does not have to represent autocratic rule. Social control of individual actions, by agreement and by the members of a group for the benefit of the members of the group, is common and accepted. Teachers should act or speak firmly, when needed, in behalf of the group. Students should be participants in group planning as well as activities. The teacher should

be a member of the group, the most mature and experienced member. Children should learn manners and should use them when participating, planning, and interacting with others.

For Dewey the most important freedom is freedom of intelligence. Freedom of movement does not automatically create freedom of intelligence, but it can be a means to that end, since it can allow the teacher to know the child better and the child to know himself better. Freedom should be of a type that helps students learn to control their impulses and desires. The ideal aim of education is to create intelligent self-control. He says that individual freedom is achieved with the ability to identify desires and create a plan that makes those desires or ideas into realities. It is a teacher’s obligation to provide students with the opportunity to participate actively in the process of creating such a plan of action. : Traditional education has been criticized as failing to teach critical discrimination and the ability to reason. The scientific method should be used to derive the significance of everyday experience and subject matter as well as discovery of the potentialities inherent in experience. Any study must fall within the scope of ordinary, everyday experience.

For Dewey Progressive education, to accomplish its goals, must be based on intelligently directed development of the possibilities inherent in ordinary experience. Those who think progressive education is not successful or valuable are doing it wrong. Progressive education can only succeed when certain conditions apply: Primarily, this involves use of sound standards and methods to achieving its goals, which are based on providing the best educational experience possible to create confident, self-controlled, and capable citizens. Experience is the means as well as the goal.

Analyzing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is mis educative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeper and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive about education.

Rousseau: Emile and Education

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ROUSSEAU: (1712-1998)

Rousseau was an Genevan philosopher, writer, composer of eighteen century. His philosophy influenced the French revolution as well as the overall development of the modern political, sociological and educational thoughts. His novel Emile is the critisize on the education of the whole person

for cilizenship. He was also the successful composer of music.

EMILE :

SUMMARY OF BOOK ONE :

Every thing is good as it leaves to its nature, the creater of these things. In the hand of the man every thing destroyes eveything degenerates. Man mixes every thing he wants the tree to bear the fruit of another tree. Man don’t want the thing to keep at their nature. Even he don’t want his own child to be keep on nature . if we want to keep the things on their own nature then we need to train the man as a saddle horse. Wihtout this every thing would be worse. If the man is left to its orignal birthnthen he would be most disfigured of all.

Prejudice, authority and necessity are social conditionin which we all are submerged. Child is like a seedling who has grown in the middest of the high way of life. Struggling but soon crushed by people who are passing by . By addressing the mother Rossuaee said that it is moythers responsibility to keep the child away from this world. He used the words like tender and far sighted for mothers. Cultivate and water your your young p,lant before it dies. Form your impact encloser around your child’s soul. Hold your childs heart and built him a great personality. One day this innocent child will give you true happiness. Plants are managed, arranged and fashioned by cultivation like this children be built by Education. He has to know how to use his best abilities and qualities , other wise the child may lost his abilities by seeking help from others. If we left the child on his own then might be he will die because of missery and incomfort before knowing his needs ansd ways to fullfillit. Child born week lacking and stupid we need help , aid and adjustment and all these are provided by education. This education comes to us by nature , from men or from things. The education of nature is beyond our control. Now lets try to define the word “nature”. Nature is our own habits and thoes habits that conform to nature. Rossuea states that in this way we can keep away confusion.

Rossuae argues that we are raising the children for others not for himself. Here we need to decide either narure or social institutions. We have to choose between making a man and making a citizen.These both can’t be at the same time.

He gives the example of Spartan Pedaretes when rejected by the three hundred spartian for council, he was happy that at least there are three hundred ppeople who defeat me. Like this Spartian mother when her five children died in war remain happy and have a concern with her country’s success. Rossuae’s strong point is that he clearly declared that one who has a contradiction between wishes and duties will be nither a man nor a citizen. He will be good nither for himself nor for others.He will the man of the days a “Bourgeois”.

SUMMARY OF BOOK TWO:

This is the second stage of life when infancy period ends and child starts speaking words. He said that the purpose of cry ios just to take attention when the child starts speaking words then his habbit of crying reduces. Roussaeu is against to keep the child safely and take too much care of him. He wants the child to take life experience of injury, pain and danger. In this way he tries to develop his senses. Another progress which makes tears less necesary to children is the development of their strengths, become able to do most of their work by themselves. He considered the life uncertain . he want the man to be treated as man and child as child, he calls it what suits our condition. He wants the child to taste the true happiness for this he first has to taste the pain. “Every sentiment of pain is inseperable for the desire to get rid of it and every idea of pleasure is inseperable for the desire to enjoy it”p.218

The self desire in human is self preservation then comes the imagination. Its imagination which proceeds our actioneither evil or good. The man is week means he has less strength to fullfill his needs.for learning human institution are the masses of faulty assumptions and contradictions.

According to roussaeu actual conscious life began at sixty. He has suggested for man to confine his existence inside himself and he will be very happy. He takles freedom as a basic principal for childhood education. Society weekend the man by multiplying his desires with his strength and shows him week. The man has desires and childs have whims which are not true needs and these desires are satisfied by others. He recommanded creative dependency fro the child but against of giving the cammand or order to the child. He didn’t give the right even to the fathers to put orser on the growing child. Keep the child dependent on things not on man. He could be grown up in occordance wir th the natural laws.

Roussaeu is very strick about child development and said that your child must not get what he wants but what he needs. He must never act from obedience but from necessity. He has to develop in the sence that there should be no vocabulary or command or instructions to follow.

In the book Emile the dialogues are given between a child and a master who is teaching not to do this or that and the child is not agree to obey. Let the child be on nature. Children have their ways to learn about right and wrong. He himself will drawn conculusions. By imposing our own critearea of right and wrong we will make them the ones who know how to obey the command.

Treat the pupil according to their age and let them enjoy the age do’t try to pull them out of it. He suggested well regulated freedom for children. He wants to provide thye complete feedom of age to the children and suggested to put the room be furnished with plain and solid furniture, no mirror and any other luxury objects. Inspite of all care if the child break something don’t punish him.

He explains ‘negative ‘education for the children. The first education should be purely negtiveup to yhe age of twelve. Even idf the child could not distinguish his left and right hand it doesn’t matters. Roussaeu point out that wise man takes time to observe nature. He wants to keep the Emile awy from societal customs, rules, regulations and miserable views. Commenting on traditional education system he says that we teachethe child about their duties not about their rights. By intertacting with elders he learns that respect elders and stronger then he can’t save himself from danger. Addressing the teachers he suggested actions or practical teaching skillsrather than speeches. If theemile broke few of his things don’t provide it again let him to feel the absence of these things. Children should not be get punishment as a punishment but it could be come as a consequence of their own bad actions. He is against of teaching full language at this early stage of life wants only sounds or figures. “Emile will never learn any thing by heart, cultivation of childs mind is essential.”

Roussaeu wants the child to be dresed loosely and comfortably so that he will be differtiated from man. Emile may not wear any thing on head. Let the children be drink cold and fresh water and give them bath in winter but the temperature of water should be moderate . after playing let them drink cold water. Let the emile play on uncomfortable bed the experience of discon]mfort makes their life comfortable. The games should be swim, run, jump, spin a top, throw stones to strengthen the arms and legs. Let them learn measure, count, weigh and compare.

Improve the jugemental ability of the child. About teaching th roussaeu is in the opinion that it is a trade at which one must be able to lose time and save it. Teach them geometry don’t use words or definitions, let them draw and examine different shapes. Flying a kite is a training for eye and hand coordination and accuracy. Teach the children to spell plainly and distinctlynot be in hurry to teach in to read and write, let them to understand music.

Don’t stimulate the child’s appitite but just satisfy him. He is in the idea that the children involve in games and other activities didn’t feel hungry, let them play, don’t distrube them.

Improve the sixth sence of the children , which starts its development when al, five sences are used perfectly. This sixth sence is very helpful in organizing creativity and intuition.

In this way the child may be able to find his oen strengths and weekneses. He know how to find his wn strengths and weekneses. He knows how to find the solution of the problems. He rely on his own abilities and in this way he proves himself more stronger, judgemental and confident then the other peer group. A child developed with so much care is nothing but a rough little boy.

SUMMARY OF BOOK THREE:

This book describs the intellectual development of the Emile . this education should aalso based on childs own nature. When he is ready to learn and takes interest in languages, geography, history and science. The learning should ge related to childs own way of activites. He will learn language through normal conversational activity. The motion of the sun leads him to the natural phenomenaof astronomy. Through his pwn garden the knowledge of natural science generates. Finally Emile is taught the trade of carpentry in order to prepare him for an occupation in life.

IMPLICATIONS IN EDUCATION:

Rossuae’s philosophy ‘Naturalism’ recommanded that Elementry education for the children would be more natural and based on real life experiences. He is against of books at this stage. Nature is the good tutor for him he learn more in the hands of nature. He do’t want the child to keep inthe hands of this corrupt society. As the philosophy talks about the limitations of care, love and directions given to the child. This Rousseau’s philosophy wants to make the chil brillient, self dependent and confident. One who is able to take disions , who who will be capable of facing challenges and hazards of life.

CONCULUSION:

The analyses of the existing educational system in the light of these philosophical concepts shows that the present declining of educational index might be a proof of that we are not including these philosopycal concepts in our teaching learing processes. As Plato talked about free and education for all. In most of our educational lanning and implimentation we are moving against philosophical thoughts of these great philosophers. Our primary education mostly depend on books and writting, not focussing on childs sensational and muscles development . our whole educational system is based on faulty assumption of childs psychological and mental development. In short it can be said that if we apply all the philosophical views of all our great philosophers we cn best develop a system through which we can get humans rather than citizens, individuals or works.

Aristotle's Ethics an Education

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ARISTOTLE:

Aristotle was a Greek , student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He is a author of great philosophycal book “THE ETHICS”. Aristotle considered Ethics to be a practical rather than theoritical study i-e one aimed at becomming good and doing good rather than knowing for its own sake. Aristotle thought that virtues has to do with the proper function of a thing . An eye is only a good eye in so much so it can see . Because the proper function of eye is sight. Aristotle reasoned that human must have a function specifict o humans and that this function must be an activity of the of soul in accordance with reason.

THE ETHICS:

Nicomaclean Ethics is a philosophycal inquiry in to the nature of the good life for human being.aristotle started his philosophycal thought by pointing the idea that there is some4 ultimate good and humans every actio is trowards it or to acheive it. This is the actual hapiness. Some of the nessesary charecterstics of this ultimate good are that it is complete , final, self sufficientand contineous. This good towards which implicitly and explecility all human actions are directed is happiness in Greek “euaimonia” which can be translated as blesedness or living well. It is not the statistic state of being bu a type of activity. VIRTUE for him is not simply an isolated action but a habit of acting well. For an action to be virtous a person must do it delberately, knowing what he is doing because it is noble action. The virtuous action is a mean between two extremes. It has to be said that Prudence is necessary for ethical virtue by which a person is able to determine the mean specific to each situation.

Only voluntry action can be virtuous. An action done through fear is nly partially voluntry and an action done through ignorance may have different degree of voluntryness. A proper intentionis necessary for virtuous action Intention is not a desire , a wish or an opinion. It is some thing deliberate and is adopted with full reasonor thought. One can only intend some thing which one has a power to do. The actions whoes purpos ea re with in the completiton of that action then thoes actionsa re virtuous. Such as if the mother is feeding her child then her destingy or purpose is just to fee d the child properly. Same as sleeping, eating and doing house hold chores are all virtuous action having the purpose just to accomplish the task properly. The first virtue which Aristotle have discussed is bravery. It is a mean between rashness and cowardice. For the right reason, at right time and in the right manner the brave man face the fear. He never ever left the noble purpose just to make the others happy.

The next virtue is temperence. It is a mean with regard to bodily pleasure.Temperence keep the desiring part of the soul in harmony with reason.

Generosity is the fourth virtue examined by Aristotle . It is a mean between wastefullness and stinginess. Generous man give the right amount, at right time and in right manner. Generosity is not depend onthe amout whcich you give but it is depend on how much you have and now much you given. The famous story of Hatim Tayi is the best example of generosity.

The mean between ostentation and meanness is munificence. The munificence man spent lavishly and largely for the noble purpose without calculating the cost.

The fifth virtue which aristotle disscussedd and called the peak of virtue is Magnanimity. It is a mean between low minded and vain. The magninamous man claims and deserve great honour. The one who claim honour but doesn’t deserve is vain and one who deserve honour but doesn’t claim is low minded. So it is better to be vain than low minded because vanity can be improved by life experience. The magninamous man shows how good the virtuous life is.

Some other virtues are ambition it is balance between too little and too much. Good Temper is the virtue which is the mean between irascibility and bitterness. The irascibill man get angry very quickly and in a very short time he forget it while bitter holds anger for a lonner period of time. In contract to this the temperate man get angry on the right occasion, with the right people, at the right time and for the right length of time.

The next fewvirtues are

· Friendliness mean between flttery and quarrelsomeness

· Truthfulness mean between boast fullness and depreciation

· Wit the mean between humour and amusement

· One of the major virtue which includes many other virtues is Justice. It is a combination of honour ,property and safty. Natural justice is that wich is just in all time and places. Conventional justice is that which is made up of laws and customs. Justice is the virtue which is spritual in nature, it is beyond human approach even laws conn’t define all circumstances and situations. All laws are to some extent just because any law is better than no law.

· Prudence is the virtue which give an ability to choose what is virtues mean in specific situation. It is intellectual virtue of practical situation.

· Friendship is a part of good life. There are three types of friendship

Based on usefullness, based on pleasure and based on virtue. The friendship based on virtue is genuine. The relationship one has with friend is like the harmonious relationship betweeen th edifferent parts of the soul of virtuous man.

Law and proper education is nesessary specially for young people to develop as virtuous man. As it was mentioned earlier that virtus are of two type ethical and intellectual. Ethical virtues we have diccussed a lot now lets talk about intellectual virtues. Through ethical virtues we will move to intellectual virtue. The soul has two parts rational and non rational. Rational part can again be divided in to two parts the scientific and estimative. There are five things by which the soul may posses truth,art,knowledge (scientific)prudence, wisdom and intuition.

Art is considered with production not with action. Prudence is a dispoition with true reason, while science knowledge is unversal, prudence and ethical values are inseperable, they are two side of the same coin. Wisdom is connected to prudence as health is to medicine. In short the prudent man considers how wisdom is acquired and priscribes his action in order to acquire it.

IMPLICATIONS IN EDUCATION:

Personality is the combination of inner thoughts and outer behaviour. Inner mental abilities can be developbed with the inter action of our religious belives and philosophy. Virtues are the part of our religious belives as well as philosophy of life. Every religion ,, every custom and every philosophy talked about some universal ethical values.The peak of these ethical values are virtues. As Aristotle’s philosophy talked about the virtues are the mean between two extremes, bravery is a virtue between rashness and cowardness, generosity is the mean between wastefulness and stininess and in the same way magnanimity is the mean between low minded and vain. Virtue can’t be injected in the personality. It has genetic nature but by providing good education we can make them more virtues. Good laws and regulations makes the person virtues. By providing challenging educational activites and creative skills we can develop virtuoes attitude among our Pakistani generation.