MNHK: About Educational Philosophy
Nov. 20th, 2016 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jenny_islanderEducational philosophy is the framework on which we hang our daily lesson plans. It covers how children learn, what should be taught and when, and what education is for. If you attended public school, or most private schools for that matter, your teachers worked from the assumption that a child's mind was a receptacle to be filled with selected pieces of knowledge in carefully chosen order, and by so doing the teacher could create skills that had not existed before and build students into productive citizens. This teaching method is based on the educational philosophy of a man named Johann Friedrich Herbart, although he would be amazed at where people went with his ideas because he died in the mid-19th century. Most people have never heard of him; we just think of this kind of education as the way things are. But it is always worthwhile to get to the roots of things.
When I was getting ready to homeschool, I looked at many different virtual schools, curricula, and support groups. I had only a dim idea--more of a hope--that there were other ways to learn and teach. When I read about the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason, it was like a light coming on in a dark room. Here were answers to my book of questions.
Mason, who was born a year after Herbart died, had serious problems with his philosophy and the teaching method that had been founded on it. You can read her own words at multiple sites. I recommend Ambleside Online (amblesideonline.org) because the site is mostly text with very simple graphics and windows. She was an active teacher and administrator, so she never found the time to edit her work into streamlined form. However, she did list her underlying principles at different times. Here is my rough summary of her philosophy:
First, children are complete people from the day they are born: people who combine inborn talents and handicaps with the ability to change, grow, and learn. They are not unformed little blobs, but neither are they permanently set in good or evil ways.
Second, whether we like it or not, human beings live in hierarchies. Sometimes they are elaborate (feudalism), sometimes very simple (the skipper tells the other fishermen what to do), but authority and obedience are natural to our lives. However, individual personhood must be respected. Manipulation, humiliation, and intimidation are wrong.
Third, respecting the children who have been placed under their authority limits teachers to three tools: providing a good place to learn, teaching children to discipline themselves, and presenting the material in ways that children's minds are best suited to grasp.
A good place to learn: The point of childhood is to grow into the ability to live in the world on one's own. Therefore, although you should of course keep kids safe, don't dumb down or kiddify the child's learning environment. If they are learning about firefighting, arrange a visit to the firehouse so they can get an idea of the real thing instead of giving them toys. If they are learning about farms, don't present pictures of smiling purple cows or pigs in hats; show them video of real farm animals living their lives--or take them to an actual farm. (And prepare for mud and smells!)
Teaching children to discipline themselves: This is easier than it may sound at first because people run mostly on habit. Teach children good habits first, starting with the basics, such as hygiene and neatness, and going on to habits of courtesy, study, etc. Don't lecture; lead by example and briefly remind as seldom as possible--otherwise your children may develop the habit of tuning you out. On top of this foundation of good habits, teach children to discipline their wills: to understand the difference between "I want that" and "I'm getting it now," and between "I don't find this to be fun" and "I can't do this/it's not worth doing."
Presentation: The current standard way of teaching, with its carefully organized facts and repetitive practice sheets, actually slows most children down, not to mention making them hate school. Very young children should not be formally educated at all, but given plenty of freedom to exercise their bodies and senses. When education begins, handling concrete objects must come before abstraction; for example, teach them to count and add shells or stones before they ever put pencil to paper. Our most ancient method of presenting things that should be remembered is storytelling, so reading (for example) history lessons to students up to the fourth grade is appropriate--and finding texts that flow like a good story, what Mason called living books, is vital. Instead of having their minds filled with a sequence of abstract facts, let the students use their minds to find the important facts in the context of a living book and make the connections on their own. As children mature toward adulthood, it is appropriate to ask them to do more work on the page and without direct oversight. But at all times, lessons should be short--five minutes is not too little time for many subjects; repetition should be shunned in favor of having the student do something as well as they can a few times and try again the next day; and review should be immediate, because we best remember the things we are able to put into words. Reread this paragraph a few times, because if you had a standard K-12 education this may paint a very different picture of school from what you remember.
Fourth, there's no way to educate a child to know everything they will need. However, we can teach them how to find out what they need to know and lead them to discover and develop their own abilities. A Charlotte Mason education, then, covers a little of everything from making things (useful things, not paper crafts) to mathematics, the Dewey decimal system to debate.
Fifth, the limit of education is the limit of human reason. Helping children develop their ability to reason, by teaching them logic and debate, helps them become adults who can maintain and shape our civilization--one of Mason's main goals. However, while our minds can take us very far indeed, we can't understand everything. Therefore, it is extremely important to teach children to choose what to believe in the areas of life where reason cannot help us. A foundation of good habits and a survey of the wide range of human experience will help them choose.
Sixth, Mason believed strongly that spirituality should be an everyday thing. By this she of course meant the mainstream Christianity of her culture. She made Bible reading and prayer a regular part of her schools. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, it is true that if you want your children to feel them to be part of their lives, they should experience them regularly. Whether you believe in a spiritual realm at all, it's important to make the rituals of your cultural identity part of life on one hand, and be sure that children understand why you believe what you believe on the other. (And of course, be sure that what you say and what you do are the same thing!)
If this summary doesn't strike a favorable chord for you, there are other educational philosophies out there. I can't provide a summary of every single one. Wikipedia provides a pretty good starting point, here.
And do keep this series in mind, because you can use the same texts with many different methods of teaching.
I post these articles in my spare time and revise as needed. Watch this space.
When I was getting ready to homeschool, I looked at many different virtual schools, curricula, and support groups. I had only a dim idea--more of a hope--that there were other ways to learn and teach. When I read about the educational philosophy of Charlotte Mason, it was like a light coming on in a dark room. Here were answers to my book of questions.
Mason, who was born a year after Herbart died, had serious problems with his philosophy and the teaching method that had been founded on it. You can read her own words at multiple sites. I recommend Ambleside Online (amblesideonline.org) because the site is mostly text with very simple graphics and windows. She was an active teacher and administrator, so she never found the time to edit her work into streamlined form. However, she did list her underlying principles at different times. Here is my rough summary of her philosophy:
First, children are complete people from the day they are born: people who combine inborn talents and handicaps with the ability to change, grow, and learn. They are not unformed little blobs, but neither are they permanently set in good or evil ways.
Second, whether we like it or not, human beings live in hierarchies. Sometimes they are elaborate (feudalism), sometimes very simple (the skipper tells the other fishermen what to do), but authority and obedience are natural to our lives. However, individual personhood must be respected. Manipulation, humiliation, and intimidation are wrong.
Third, respecting the children who have been placed under their authority limits teachers to three tools: providing a good place to learn, teaching children to discipline themselves, and presenting the material in ways that children's minds are best suited to grasp.
A good place to learn: The point of childhood is to grow into the ability to live in the world on one's own. Therefore, although you should of course keep kids safe, don't dumb down or kiddify the child's learning environment. If they are learning about firefighting, arrange a visit to the firehouse so they can get an idea of the real thing instead of giving them toys. If they are learning about farms, don't present pictures of smiling purple cows or pigs in hats; show them video of real farm animals living their lives--or take them to an actual farm. (And prepare for mud and smells!)
Teaching children to discipline themselves: This is easier than it may sound at first because people run mostly on habit. Teach children good habits first, starting with the basics, such as hygiene and neatness, and going on to habits of courtesy, study, etc. Don't lecture; lead by example and briefly remind as seldom as possible--otherwise your children may develop the habit of tuning you out. On top of this foundation of good habits, teach children to discipline their wills: to understand the difference between "I want that" and "I'm getting it now," and between "I don't find this to be fun" and "I can't do this/it's not worth doing."
Presentation: The current standard way of teaching, with its carefully organized facts and repetitive practice sheets, actually slows most children down, not to mention making them hate school. Very young children should not be formally educated at all, but given plenty of freedom to exercise their bodies and senses. When education begins, handling concrete objects must come before abstraction; for example, teach them to count and add shells or stones before they ever put pencil to paper. Our most ancient method of presenting things that should be remembered is storytelling, so reading (for example) history lessons to students up to the fourth grade is appropriate--and finding texts that flow like a good story, what Mason called living books, is vital. Instead of having their minds filled with a sequence of abstract facts, let the students use their minds to find the important facts in the context of a living book and make the connections on their own. As children mature toward adulthood, it is appropriate to ask them to do more work on the page and without direct oversight. But at all times, lessons should be short--five minutes is not too little time for many subjects; repetition should be shunned in favor of having the student do something as well as they can a few times and try again the next day; and review should be immediate, because we best remember the things we are able to put into words. Reread this paragraph a few times, because if you had a standard K-12 education this may paint a very different picture of school from what you remember.
Fourth, there's no way to educate a child to know everything they will need. However, we can teach them how to find out what they need to know and lead them to discover and develop their own abilities. A Charlotte Mason education, then, covers a little of everything from making things (useful things, not paper crafts) to mathematics, the Dewey decimal system to debate.
Fifth, the limit of education is the limit of human reason. Helping children develop their ability to reason, by teaching them logic and debate, helps them become adults who can maintain and shape our civilization--one of Mason's main goals. However, while our minds can take us very far indeed, we can't understand everything. Therefore, it is extremely important to teach children to choose what to believe in the areas of life where reason cannot help us. A foundation of good habits and a survey of the wide range of human experience will help them choose.
Sixth, Mason believed strongly that spirituality should be an everyday thing. By this she of course meant the mainstream Christianity of her culture. She made Bible reading and prayer a regular part of her schools. Whatever your spiritual beliefs, it is true that if you want your children to feel them to be part of their lives, they should experience them regularly. Whether you believe in a spiritual realm at all, it's important to make the rituals of your cultural identity part of life on one hand, and be sure that children understand why you believe what you believe on the other. (And of course, be sure that what you say and what you do are the same thing!)
If this summary doesn't strike a favorable chord for you, there are other educational philosophies out there. I can't provide a summary of every single one. Wikipedia provides a pretty good starting point, here.
And do keep this series in mind, because you can use the same texts with many different methods of teaching.
I post these articles in my spare time and revise as needed. Watch this space.
