Existentialism And Ideas Of The Four Philosophies In Education

In education, there are four ruling philosophies on how a school should function. The first of the four is existentialism. “Existentialists place their focus on the ideas of existence and essence. Individuals create their own meaning.” (Four Philosophies para.5). The opposite of the freedom of existentialism is the idealistic philosophy. “Idealists stress the importance of learning ideas and concepts. They believe in reasoning, but question the use of scientific method and sense perception.” (Four Philosophies, para 2). The third of the philosophies is pragmatism. “Pragmatists place their focus on the idea of change. This constant change results in people having to understand what it means to know. Pragmatists believe that knowing

For myself, I am a combination of Idealism and Existentialism. The role of the teacher varies significantly between the two. In existentialism, the role of the teacher is to help a student find himself or herself. “In the existentialist world, the role of the teacher is to provide diversification within the curriculum to the individual learners.” (Existentialism, Martinez, para. 6) The teacher helps each student instead of working as a whole collect group. “Each child as an individual has a unique way of learning. When discussing types of teaching methods to be used, one size does not fit all learners.” (Existentialism, Martinez, para. 6) As a teacher in an existentialistic classroom, a person has to be able to help students no matter what learning style they have. Existentialism teachers focus on having the students answer the question in life instead of just a lesson. On the other hand, the role of the teacher in idealism is to be the rule maker, a moral guide. “The teacher’s role is to be a skillful questioner who encourages students to think and ask more questions in an environment that is suitable for learning” (Idealism, Martinez, para. 14). The teacher decides the lesson for the day based on the common core. The student must follow even if it may not be something he or she wants to learn at that moment. “Teaching connects ideas together when teaching the students” (Darrin para. 2). Teachers in idealism believe that their job is to teach the students how to act in and out of a classroom setting. I believe it is not only my job to allow the students to find themselves. Also, to be the moral guide they can look up to and model their lives