A Comparison of Classic And Contemporary Philosophers
Why is it so important that young children in our society receive a good education? The answer to that question is very simple; because they are our future. The old saying “the youth of today are the leaders off tomorrow” holds more truth than many people realize. By giving children a good start at an early age we are only helping ourselves as well as the children. A good example of this is can be seen in our society. By the time a teacher in our society retires from his or her position their students will have made it out into the real world and taken jobs. This new generation will be the ones to make the decisions about laws such as Social Security, and Medicaid. The students will be able to turn these programs around and make them more beneficial to their recipients. These teachers who are now retired will be the ones who are collecting Social Security and reaping the benefits of the children’s solid education. The idea of educating the youth is not even close to a new idea. Philosophers such as Jean Jacques Rousseau in the seventeen hundreds and even farther back than that to the time of Plato in three hundred eighty six B.C. and after. Both of these great men shared similar ideas on how children should be taught so that they can get the most out of their education. Though educational philosophy dates back thousands of years, there are still many great thinkers who are revolutionizing teaching with their philosophies today. In the later part of the twentieth century there was also Paulo Friere who is considered by some to be the greatest thinker of his time and also Maxine Greene who has also greatly changed education in today’s society. Thanks to these great minds along with many others, modern day education was revolutionized. Many of the teaching techniques and ideals that are practiced in the classroom today originated from these philosophers. These four philosophers though from two very different time periods had some very similar ideas about education.
Jean Jacques Rousseau said that children are born innocent and pure, and become contaminated by the world, as they grow older. “Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Maker of the world but degenerates once it gets into the hands of man”. (Cahn 163) This quote shows that Rousseau saw the world as an imperfect place that corrupted ...
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...that they had a firm grasp on what it takes to give children a proper education, and to prepare them for the real world. The approaches that they proposed would give students more of a drive or desire to learn. In toady’s society school is just a hassle that kids have to put up with. I think that if children were taught in the way that Plato, Rousseau, Friere, and Walzer said they should be, our society would be very different. One other thing that I found interesting about these philosophers is the fact that they all had very similar philosophies about education even though one live around 300 B.C. and another in the seventeen hundreds while the other two in the later part of the twentieth century. I guess that no matter the time period, its like they always say; “great minds think alike.”
Works Cited
Cahn, Steven M. Classic And Contemporary Readings In The Philosophy of Education. Apr 20, 2002. McGraw Hill Co. 1997.
“Educational Philosophy”. http://home.pacbell.net/altsch/Philosophy.html. Aug 11, 1999. HotBot.com. Accessed Apr 20,2002.
“Plato”. http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Plato.html . Jan 1999. Google.com. Accessed Apr 20,2002.
Zuckerman, Michael “Pilgrims in the Wilderness: Community, Modernity, and the Maypole at Merry Mount”, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp. 255-277. The New England Quarterly, Inc.
According to Rousseau, the greatest good that humanity could achieve is to become a self-sufficient, self-reliant, and independent human being. Humans were able to become self-reliant by being raised according to nature. Rousseau writes that "all we lack at birth, . . . is the gift of education."1 This education is to help humans achieve happiness. According to Rousseau, we gain this education from nature. Rousseau writes that a person's "first feeling is one of pain and suffering."2 Pain is an essential part to the development of a child; in fact it is the most important and useful lesson. It helps a child gain strength and experience. Rousseau holds that a child should run and "fall again and again, the oftener the better."3 The more the child falls the more accustom it will become to pain. When the child grows older, it will be more equipped to deal with hardships because it has already learned at...
Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford and A Description of New England by John Smith are essentially irrelevant to one another in the way that each piece has a very different point of view. The author John Smith was a pilgrim who arrived in the Americas and wrote a description of the new land. William Bradford was also a pilgrim who arrived at Plymouth and wrote more about the realities of his personal journey. The purpose of this essay is to contrast the purposes of the writers, their intended audiences, and how each writer gives out a specific feeling.
Marples, R. (2010). What should go on the curriculum? In Bailey, R. (Ed.), The philosophy of education: An introduction (pp 33-47). London: Bloomsbury
Born in Austerfield England in 1590, William Bradford, orphaned at an early age, raised by several relatives, and with no formal education, became one of the most influential men of the original American Colonists, and is credited as the “Father of American history,” with his diaries of the Pilgrims’ journey and struggles to America. “Of Plymouth Plantation” the journals of William Bradford are still one of the major resources used for historians for this time in history. (Schoenberg, 2001)
The former, a product of the human empathy and responsible for the preference of seeing no harm come to other living creatures so long at the latter is maintained. Together these maxims form the basis of the savage man’s natural state and, by extension, his tenancy of gentleness towards his fellow man (121). The civilised man, in contrast, comes to be as a result of “perfectibility”. Perfectibility, according to Rousseau is an innate human attribute to want to learn and better oneself, particularly to overcome obstacles in one’s environment. Rousseau’s description of perfectibility implies that the conditions of one’s environment have a direct influence over their character and that one can therefore deduce that regardless of man’s natural gentleness, he can develop the capacity to be cruel if so prompted by elements in his environment. Such a prompt comes as man looks to collaborate with others out of mutual self-interest. Rousseau notes that, “their connections become more intimate and extensive … there arose on one side vanity and contempt, on the other envy and shame … Men no sooner began to set a value upon each other, and know what esteem was, than each laid claim to it … It
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Macbeth. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jeremy Hylton. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/macbeth/
When the first settlers arrived in the Americas during the 15th century, some of the first literature they produced were descriptions of their new life far from the English mother country. The Puritans settlers specifically, owing to their emphasis on education. William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony in what would become Massachusetts, is a well-known writer of these types of colonial “chronicles”. In his work Of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford provides a chilling description of the colony’s first winter. He describes the colony’s perilous position when he writes “Being thus passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may be remembered by that which went before), they had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weather-beaten bodies; no houses or much less town to repair to, to seek for succor.”
I believe that the aim of education is to create well-rounded citizens in a democratic society. This means that students are not only being taught just the academic standards by also being taught social skills. The students will be able to be a citizen that will improve their society and be a person who is diverse and who is open to the differences in people. With this comes a couple of barriers, such as the desire to learn new things in both teachers and students in the classroom is lacking and the worker-as-machine model.
Throughout the novel, both characters show their similarities towards one another. One of the biggest similarities is the wealth that both of these characters hold. Tom attended school at Yale and was born into the wealth of his family. Gatsby was a janitor which humiliated him and led him to become an illegal bootlegger. This is how Gatsby gained his wealth. Tom has many sports cars while Gatsby has an enormous mansion with lights so bright that it shines like a fair. Even though there is a difference in how they gained their riches, the two characters still have an immense quantity of wealth. Both characters also want Daisy to themselves. Gatsby goes into a crime business to gain his wealth in order to attract Daisy whom he is in love with. He also holds large parties which are mainly used to gain Daisy’s attention as well. The love Gatsby has for Daisy is so strong that he is willing to take the blame when Daisy kills Myrtle with his car. Nick asks if Daisy was driving and Gatsby says “Yes but of course I’ll take the blame for ...
At the end of an awful, long day one might wonder what went wrong – was the universe against them? Was it a mistake on their part? What have they lost as a result? Such a scenario can be exemplified in the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare. First, outside forces influence Macbeth into making decisions he would not ordinarily make. Second, Macbeth’s transition from a revered leader to a detested king can be symbolized by the absence of nobility loyalty, and peace. Third, Macbeth’s overwhelming pride and thirst for power leads him to commit a series of crimes. The play Macbeth by William Shakespeare highlights the role of a Tragic Hero signifying that not staying true to ones core values will ultimately lead to their downfall.
Ed. Michael Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 36.2 (2013): 181-82. Print. The.
Internet has become a vital element in people daily lifestyles. People use smart phones, tablets, laptops or computers to access Internet. By the first decade of the 21st century, many Internet users use faster broadband Internet access technologies. As the Internet users grow, one of the Internet phenomenons that can be seen is social networking. Basically, people use social media to interact among people where they create, share or exchange information in virtual communities and networks.
Dewey, John, and Reginald D. Archambault. John Dewey on education; selected writings.. New York: Modern Library, 1964. Print.
Education is a vital part of society. It serves the beneficial purpose of educating our children and getting them ready to be productive adults in today's society. But, the social institution of education is not without its problems. Continual efforts to modify and improve the system need to be made, if we are to reap the highest benefits that education has to offer to our children and our society as a whole.