Philosophy of Education

Nel Noddings

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429974496
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The first edition of Nel Noddings' Philosophy of Education was acclaimed as the 'best overview in the field' by the journal Teaching Philosophy and predicted to 'become the standard textbook in philosophy of education' by Educational Theory. This classic text, originally designed to give the education student a comprehensive look at philosophical thought in relation to teaching, learning, research, and educational policy, has now been updated to reflect the most current thinking in the field. A revised chapter on Logic and Critical Thinking makes the topic more accessible to students and examines how critical thinking plays a role in light of the new Common Core standards.

Philosophy of Education introduces students to the evolution of educational thought, from the founding fathers to contemporary theorists, with consideration of both analytic and continental traditions. This is an essential text not only for teachers and future teachers, but also for anyone needing a survey of contemporary trends in philosophy of education.

CHAPTER 1

Philosophy of Education Before the Twentieth Century

Philosophers of education are interested in analyzing and clarifying concepts and questions central to education. Long before there were professional philosophers of education, philosophers and educators debated questions familiar to contemporary philosophers of education: What should be the aims or purposes of education? Who should be educated? Should education differ according to natural interests and abilities? What role should the state play in education?

All of these questions are still asked today. The fact that they are still current discourages many students of education. Why study questions that never go away? If we cannot answer certain questions, why ask them? One answer to these sensible objections is that every society must answer them, not once and for all time but as well and conscientiously as it can for the benefit of its people and the future of the earth. In every age, the questions have elicited better and worse responses, and thoughtful people continue to examine the old responses, to generate new ones induced by changing conditions, and to reflect on current responses in the interest of making education as good as it can be.

Questions in philosophy of education are first and foremost questions about education, and most philosophers of education are employed in schools and departments of education. Their questions are philosophical in that they require philosophical methods for their investigation. For example, we cannot decide entirely by empirical methods—methods of experiment and observation—what the aims of education should be.¹ Rather, we have to argue from certain basic premises or by positing certain likely effects of our choices. If we choose the latter approach, we can engage in empirical methods to show that our choices do in fact culminate in the predicted consequences, but we still need philosophical argumentation to persuade others that the consequences we seek should be valued.

One of the perennial questions in philosophy of education centers on who should be educated and how. As we will see, this question deeply interested Plato, and he began his discussion with an analysis of society’s needs and the varieties of human talent. From an elaborate set of premises about the nature of real and Utopian societies and the nature of human beings, he derived his recommendations for education. In contrast, John Dewey (whose work we will study in Chapter 2) made his recommendations by asking what the consequences might be if we made certain choices.

Our current society answers the question, Who should be educated? with an almost unanimous Everyone. Our great debate is over how individual children should be educated, and the debate today is heated. Many educators insist that all children should have exactly the same education at least through grade twelve. Others, many in the Deweyan tradition, argue that education should be tailored as closely as possible to the interests and needs of individual children.

Sometimes questions of philosophical interest arise on the contemporary scene. Although such questions are not, by definition, perennial questions, they are usually rooted in issues that transcend the contemporary scene, and careful philosophical analysis can contribute to the ongoing policy debate.

Consider, for example, the currently popular issue of school choice: Should the public vote for and install a choice, or voucher, system? Should parents be given vouchers worth a designated amount, say $5,000, to apply toward tuition for their child in the school of their choice? This question certainly has its roots in the perennial questions of whether all children should receive the same education, whether parents should have some control over their children’s education (how much?), and whether the right to control education should be restricted to those who can afford to pay for the kind of education they want.

We can see how philosophical analysis might be useful in identifying and clarifying basic issues. We might be able to decide by empirical test whether parents who avail themselves of such opportunities are better satisfied than they were without vouchers. We might even be able to judge whether schools with many satisfied voucher students do a better job on certain specified measures than they did before they became voucher schools. But how can we decide whether the possibly better outcomes for voucher students offset the likely deprivation of students who remain in schools deserted by peers from better informed and better endowed families? If vouchers lead to a form of cultural balkanization—each sect and subculture reigning in its own school community—is this result desirable or undesirable? Notice that the way I have worded my questions suggests strongly that I am not in favor of a voucher system. One of the tasks of philosophy of education is to analyze the language used in arguments and to offer alternative language that draws attention to other perspectives and possibilities. If you are in favor of a voucher system, you might try constructing questions that will reveal the one-sidedness of my questions.

These are the kinds of questions fascinating to philosophers of education. Some of them have been around since the time of Socrates; others are products of our own time and culture. All of them, however, require deep and careful thought, imagination, reflection, and a great capacity for patience in casting both questions and answers in a variety of ways designed to shed light on a problem of considerable importance. As we explore a few historical examples, you should ask yourselves how perennial questions change according to the context in which they are asked, how old questions die away leaving similar questions as their legacies, and how new questions are generated by the answers to old ones.

Socrates and Plato

What we know of Socrates (469–399 B.C.) comes to us entirely from the writing of his disciples—chief among them Plato. Socrates himself taught by engaging others in dialogue, not by writing, and most students of education immediately associate his name with the “Socratic method.” This method of teaching, popular especially in law schools, begins with the teacher posing a deceptively simple question such as, What is truth? or, What does it mean to be just? When a student answers, the teacher responds with another question that prompts him or her to think more deeply and offer a new answer. The process—also called destructive cross-examination (elenchus)—continues until either teacher or student or both feel that the analysis has gone as far as they can take it at the moment.

In the following bit of dialogue taken from Republic, Book 1, Socrates convinces Polemarchus that his previous position on justice—that we ought to do good to the just and harm to the unjust—is faulty. Socrates starts the argument:

And instead of saying simply as we did at first, that it is just to do good to our friends and harm to our enemies, we should further say: It is just to do good to our friends when they are good and harm to our enemies when they are evil?

Yes, that appears to me to be the truth.

But ought the just to injure anyone at all?

Undoubtedly he ought to injure those who are both wicked and his enemies.

When horses are injured, are they improved or deteriorated? The latter.

Deteriorated, that is to say, in the good qualities of horses, not of dogs?

Yes, of horses.

And dogs are deteriorated in the good qualities of dogs, and not of horses?

Of course.

And will not men who are injured be deteriorated in that which is the proper virtue of man?

Certainly.

And that human virtue is justice?

To be sure.

Then the men who are injured are of necessity made unjust? That is the result.

But can the musician by his art make men unmusical? Certainly not.

Or the horseman by his art make them bad horsemen? Impossible.

And can the just by justice make men unjust, or, speaking generally, can the good by virtue make them bad?

Assuredly not.

Any more than heat can produce cold?

It cannot.

Or drought moisture?

Clearly not.

Nor can the good harm anyone?

Impossible.

And the just is the good?

Certainly.

Then to injure a friend or anyone else is not the act of a just man, but of the opposite, who is the unjust?

I think that what you say is quite true, Socrates.

This small piece of dialogue is quite characteristic of Socrates. He dominates the dialogue and leads the listener. Sometimes, as in a later part of the dialogue with Thrasymachus, he allows a partner to advance his own argument, and very rarely (as, again, with Thrasymachus), he fails to convince his partner entirely. In most of the dialogues, Socrates is a formidable teacher—leading, questioning, giving information (often in the form of a question), forcing his listeners gently and not so gently to see the errors in their thinking.

Many of you are no doubt familiar with an old television series (and a preceding film) called The Paper Chase. In it, the brilliant and irascible Professor Kingsfield terrorized his law students with his expert use of the Socratic method. Kingsfield and Socrates had much in common: great intelligence, penetrating wit, a willingness to use occasional sarcasm, and unfailing skill in choosing and pursuing questions of real importance. But Kingsfield had official power over his students. Their answers were evaluated, and failure to prepare for their professor’s questions could lead to failure in law school and the need to consider another profession. Socrates, in contrast, met his students informally in various public places and private homes. Participants could come and go as they pleased, respond or not respond to Socrates’ probing questions. Indeed, Socrates always insisted that he did not teach anyone anything, and certainly he was not a professional teacher, for he never charged his “pupils” anything.

As professional teachers—or as students about to become professional teachers—you should ask yourselves whether the Socratic method can be used in modern classrooms as Socrates used it. You might even want to consider whether Socrates himself always used it in ways you find appropriate. Did he show proper respect for the dignity of his students? Did he occasionally force opinions on them (or seem to)? Is it right (in what sense of “right”?) to cross-examine a student relentlessly in front of his peers? Can you think of ways to adapt the method so that it is acceptable to your own moral standards? Finally, if you aspire to become a Socratic teacher, what must you do to prepare yourself?²

We, like Socrates himself, might regard his method more as a method of learning or inquiry than a method of teaching. Socrates was a superlative thinker, and in Chapter 5, we will revisit his method of questioning as a method of critical thinking. It was not unusual for Socrates to start an investigation with one question and, after a brief exploration, switch to another, either because he had established that an answer to the second was necessary for analysis of the first or because the initial question was not well formulated for the investigation he hoped to complete.

Socrates did not employ his method on trivial questions. He was interested in the great questions of life: How can we find truth? What does it mean to know something? How should human beings live their lives? What is evil? What do we owe the state, and what does it owe us? What does it mean to be just? Here we should return for a moment to the content of Socrates’ dialogue with Polemarchus. Notice that Socrates argues that a just person cannot, by acting justly, make others unjust and that, if we argue that harm or injury tends to “deteriorate a man” so that he becomes unjust, then a just person must not injure even those who are evil. This dialogue raises a host of questions that have been debated for centuries: Can retributive justice be defended? How should harm or injury be defined? (Is a guilty child harmed or injured by punishment?) Was Socrates right when he claimed that people cannot be made unjust by just acts?

As he explored these questions that fascinated him, Socrates was led to criticize those in both public and private life whose thinking and behavior revealed ignorance or apparently evil intentions. His message to students and politicians often ran something like this: Our analysis shows that this is what you are really doing or striving for. Consider well. For if you follow the analysis and understand, you will change your ways. Those who know the right, will do the right.

Socrates was concerned not only with social/political problems, but also with issues that demand self-knowledge. His dictum, “Know thyself,” is still admired by most educators and intellectuals. As we will see in our later discussion of critical thinking, it is harder to turn the light of critical analysis on ourselves and our own ways of life than on others. Today some reject such Socratic reflection in schools as “therapy,” but Socrates insisted (rightly, I think) that self-knowledge is basic to all knowledge. It accompanies and informs our critical examination of the larger society.

Socrates was permitted to engage in his criticism of the state and its prominent citizens for a long time, but eventually, in a time of great political unrest, he was charged with not believing in the state’s gods and with corrupting the youth of Athens. As you all know, despite his elegant (and somewhat arrogant) defense, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.³

In philosophy of education, we could profitably spend weeks on the case of Socrates and what it implies for contemporary education. If you were to follow Socrates’ example, you would certainly have to explore highly sensitive questions with your students. Would you be allowed to do so? Should the school district or state forbid you to discuss certain topics? Or consider the charge against Socrates that he did not believe in the state’s gods. Do we hear similar charges hurled at various public figures today? Fortunately, in the United States, we do not condemn political candidates or other public figures to death for their errant religious beliefs, nor do we put teachers to death for discussing creation, evolution, sex, or communism. But people do still lose offices and jobs and, sometimes, even their good names in a battle Socrates fought long ago—in a cause he died for.

In later chapters on epistemology (theory of knowledge) and ethics, we will consider some of Socrates’ ideas on these topics. Here we will briefly review the basic educational ideas of Socrates and Plato. Most of the ideas that follow are Plato’s even though he had Socrates voice them. Even today scholars are not entirely sure which of the ideas spoken by Socrates in Plato’s writing are those of Socrates himself and which are Plato’s own. In what follows, I will refer to Plato.

Plato not only explored sensitive and complex questions about the relations of citizens to their state and all its functions, but in doing so, he created a Utopian state, the Republic, to illustrate his beliefs and principles. Much of Republic is concerned with problems of education.⁴ Plato believed that students should be educated according to their capacities—that they should not all have exactly the same education. In this century, the great American philosopher John Dewey spoke with some admiration of Plato’s astute observation that education should be tailored to the child. However, he faulted Plato for supposing that human beings necessarily fall into exactly three categories. Dewey wanted education to be fitted to each individual child. Further, Dewey rejected hierarchical categories of educational programs. Unlike Plato, he would not label one category better or higher than another.

Plato’s plan provided for the special education of workers and artisans, of guardians (soldiers), and of rulers (the upper echelon of the guardian class). The first group was to be well trained in specific occupat...