Philosophical Foundations of Adult Education:
This article helped me to understand why articulating one’s philosophy is important. Every one of our behaviors has a purpose or meaning (even if unconscious). By reflecting upon why we do what we do, we come to understand our personal philosophy. Through articulating one’s philosophy, the person cannot help but be more focused in their actions toward accomplishing what they wish to accomplish. We may also come to find that our current actions are contradictory to our fundamental philosophy, creating dissonance and discomfort within ourselves. Once we have identified where our actions contradict our fundamental beliefs, we are then able to examine what is consistent with our beliefs and this facilitates a change in our behaviors to be more in line with our fundamental beliefs.
It seems that my personal philosophy is most aligned with a humanistic view of adult education. There are many aspects of an adult’s life (namely work, family, religion, recreation, service, personal reflection or meditation, exercise etc.). Education for the adult may address one’s needs or desires for learning in any area of their life. Further, with all the demands upon adults, we are likely to seek learning that is relevant to our own lives and experiences. Any learning that is not viewed by the individual as directly relevant to their life is likely to be seen as a waste of time or other resources, and will not be pursued further.
While my view of adult education centers mostly on humanistic ideas, I have also borrowed ideas from several other views. I agree with the liberal education viewpoint in that I believe that a function of education at any age or level is to develop one’s intellect, although my definition of intellect may differ from the traditional liberal view. I also agree that education can aid in social change and can help individuals to become more involved in society (as the progressive viewpoint would encourage). While I do not agree with strict behaviorists that human behavior can be conditioned and thereby controlled, I do believe that we can use positive and negative reinforcements and punishments in an attempt to modify harmful or dysfunctional behaviors toward a more functional behavior pattern. However, we must keep in mind that our efforts to modify behavior will not always yield the result that we may hope for because we cannot ignore the individual’s right to choose their behavior. Finally, I tend to agree with Dewey in that “regulative principles” as he terms it, are the best that we have to live by, but that we should always keep our mind open to the possibility that these regulative principles may not be true in all situations or under all circumstances, and may need to be changed as our understanding of the regulative principle grows.
The Sociology of Adult Education/The Adult Educator and Social Responsibility:
I tend to agree more with conflict theory as opposed to consensus theory of the sociological implications of education. I do not believe that class distinctions are inevitable or justifiable. Our educational system, in my view, is currently set up in a way that perpetuates the class distinctions that are already present in our society. Those who have resources (especially money, but also personal networks, etc.) are able to take advantage of more educational opportunities than those without these same resources. I don’t have a solution as to how we could change our educational system so that all people have the same opportunities for education, but I believe that this is something that we should be working toward. Perhaps one reason that we have not moved further in this direction as a society is that those who are on the receiving end of privileges (and thus are the best equipped to utilize their power and influence to effect change) are actually the least likely to challenge the current education structures that are in place because they may fear that they would not benefit as much as a result of such changes. In a competitive society such as ours, this could be a threat to the monopoly of power and resources that these individuals currently hold. If we could find a way for everyone to reach their own potential (as the individual sees their own potential) would this make the reward of reaching these goals any less significant to the individual? I don’t think so. I see our competitive society as it is today as a forced bell-curve, but I do not believe that this is how our society should be, or that this is the inevitable outcome. I do not see the harm in everyone having equal opportunity to reach their own potential.
To Know As We Are Known
I did not find these articles to be very helpful in discovering and defining my own philosophy. It was interesting for me to read where words such as “fact,” “theory,” and “objective” originated from. However, I feel that what is more important is to look at how educators currently understand these words and the meaning that is currently associated with these words, rather than looking to how these words were used in the distant past. I also felt that the author was insinuating that curiosity is a bad thing. Perhaps I understood the author in a way other than what was intended, but if this is the author’s view, then I am deeply opposed to this. To me, curiosity is a beautiful thing and should be celebrated, even if it challenges our current views or what others would like our views to be. We have seen historically that knowledge is a source of power, and that many times knowledge has been withheld from people because those who possess knowledge feared what may happen if others were to gain knowledge as well. Therefore, in my opinion, curiosity, or seeking knowledge, can be seen as a bad thing only if we are in fear of losing our power as a result of others gaining knowledge.
The Meaning of Adult Education:
I think that Lindeman has done a good job of illuminating a fundamental error in our current educational system in that education can be seen as a “game” and is not a joyous experience in and of itself. Rather, it is seen as a serious of hoops that one must learn to jump through as means of reaching some end that beneficial to the individual, financial or otherwise. Instead, our “hidden curriculum” if not our explicit curriculum should seek to create learners who enjoy learning. We should be focusing less on standardized objectives, and more on individuality and the qualitative experience of learning.
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