Importance of Educational Philosophy

 

The educational process depends on four fundamental aspects: the education institution, teachers, curriculums, and the students. These four aspects correlate with each other strongly.

In fact, all aspects are being integrated into the educational process in any educational institutions. Each one of those aspects is working side by side to support the other aspect accurately. It is well known that an educational philosophy reflects a social philosophy. A social philosophy is considered as a plan to guide the educational process.  A relation between philosophy and education is unclear; however, there is acceptance for this relations existence. Some people believe that education is a result of philosophical doctrines, and educators are, in fact, philosophers. Moreover, education is a process of keeping and transferring social heritage throughout history.

The importance of educational philosophy is made clear by the following points:

it helps to understand and to modify the educational process. It helps to identify conflicts and contradictions in any theory. It develops the human capacity to raise questions about theory. Also, it clarifies concepts and assumptions that are underlying educational theories. Vividly, it’s clear that the importance of studying the educational philosophy at the present time is to understand deeply the educational process. Each fundamental aspect has a basic function in the education process.

Firstly, the education institution – the school – is a social educational institution which plays a significant role side by side with other aspects. The primary function of the school is raising the children by transferring the cultural heritage from previous generations. Additionally, within the school environment children learn the basic studies such as: knowledge of religion, history, literature, science, and linguistic. Those studies will made clear by teaching specific curriculums for each level and gradually, starting from primary education to higher education. Following this further, the school seeks during each stage of education to enhance pupils’ values of cultural identity and principles of Human Rights. Undoubtedly, the significant objective of any educational institution is to qualify a person for public life and to be an effective member of society.

Secondly, the teacher is one of the fundamental aspects of the educational process. The transition from the traditional education system to the E-learning system made some changes in the teachers’ role. The teacher is a mentor, director, and educational leader in the educational process. A successful teacher is the one who is able to organize the work and classroom life. Also, he creates a desire in each student to do the work. In the concept of emotional intelligence, a person who’s able to understand his emotions has the ability to understand and to control others’ emotions. Pursuing this further, the teacher affects the learner both emotional and behavioral ways. He, also, contributes to achieving the objectives of education process which is a result of his effective role. Basically, the teacher conveys knowledge to students easily and visibly. Providing a great classroom climate helps to gain good learning outcomes. The climate that is dominated by warmth is more likely to achieve most teachers’ objectives. It was found that there is a strong correlation between the climate during the teaching process and the learning outcomes. Obviously, it is a positive correlation; as much as the climate provided was suitable, the learning outcomes were better.

Thirdly, curriculum is not less important than other aspects. It’s defined as all the educational experiences that are offered by teachers at the school. Another definition, is all educational experiences that are offered by teachers either in the classroom or outside the classroom. Besides that, there are several dimensions that must be accrued in any curriculum. Those dimensions are objectives, content, teaching methods, and assessment. Objectives mean all knowledge that is established by the educational institution and achieved by students. The content is the components of the curriculum which organizes all knowledge in a particular manner in order to achieve all objectives. Both previous dimensions will be explained by the teaching method.  It means the way that is used to deliver information by the instructor to students. The assessment aims to determine if the student may have reached all educational objectives in all areas or not. All the previous aspects are working together to create a healthy and educational environment for the student, who’s considered a fundamental factor to build the future.

Finally, the student role is unclear in the education process. As it is well known that the student is the center of the education.  For instance, in Saudi Arabia, they treat the student as a receiver, which is unacceptable. That action made a huge gap between student and teacher; also, it changed the real role of the education process. Therefore, benefits that the student is looking forward to gaining are quite few. A field of discussion is virtually rare in some classes, as well a creative field. All those imperfections must be changed by applying new strategies and employing specialized teachers. Those teachers are able to discuss and explain curriculums accurately. Special needs students are a forgettable part of the education approach. Ignoring their needs and not understanding their situation were clear actions in some education institutions in Saudi Arabia. However, lately these actions were changed significantly. It started by integrating disabled students with normal students which gives a good opportunity for both of them to discover others’ lives and make friendships. Furthermore, disabled students will get a better understanding to accept their situation and looking for a positive aspect of the handicap. The benefit of that action is not confined to the disabled student; it also includes the normal student. In fact, integration leads to changing the attitude of the normal student and to accept the disabled student.

Aspirations of the future are changing the teaching methods, especially in Saudi Arabia, and establishing many institutions that care about early childhood and special needs students. Moreover, applying self-learning for students will help them to discover the hidden aspects behind their personality. Providing students with a good environment will lead them to innovation and creative ideas and thoughts. Substantially, teachers and students must understand their roles in order to get a better outcome of learning. There is no benefit of curriculum development if it is not accompanied by qualification, either for teachers or school environment.

Although, there are many different branches of education, but the present time requires the presence of philosophy in the field of education, considering that the educational philosophy derives its subject from the education. Essentially, the main goal of any learning process is finding a change in the learner’s behavior. Therefore, the measurement and evaluation process is an integral part of the educational process. There is no right or wrong strategy in any function, because each strategy has advantages and disadvantages. All ways support each other and each student is on a different level of learning.

By

Hala Alsaleh

Supervised by: Ann Haskell

Email: [email protected]

Southern New Hampshire University