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Introduction:
The focus of this essay is to discuss the purpose of education and how it is essentially a contested concept. Or, one that has a vast range of definitions, none of which is satisfactory, Harris (1999, cited in Bates and Lewis 2009, p.21). Education derives from two terms, the first is ‘educare’ which is to draw out and realize the potential, and the second is ‘educere’ which is to bring up and nurture (Jordan, Stack, Carlile, 2008, p.6). The whole purpose of education is conceptually connected to what some people would say is a meal ticket toward getting a job, Peters (1966, cited in Bailey, 2010, p.36). On the other hand, some philosophers state that if you have a modicum of common sense, you should find no difficulty in it (Barrow, Woods, 2006, p.1). Education is the integral development of a child and as a result, it allows a child to benefit and fulfill a ‘better’ life.
The two educational aims I will be taking a deeper look into are our ‘knowledge and curriculum’ and ‘the benefit to society’. Knowledge is known as a set of information that one can recall when asked for. Repetition can help one to stick the information in the memory.
The national curriculum has never come from teachers, it has come from the government, in 1988 this was given to all schools as a guide to teaching their children (Jordan, Stack, Carlile, 2008, p.248). Furthermore, the benefit to society can allow an improvement of efficiencies for existing organizations, institutions, and economic structures Oliver (1982, cited in Morrison and Ridley 1988).
The school I have placement in is situated in County Durham and their values and ethos are at the very heart of their community. This school provides support to both the children and their families in the ever-changing world, especially since COVID-19 has hit. The class has thirty-one students with an age range between nine and ten (Year five). This school consists of two classes per year group, meaning there are over sixty pupils in the school. This essay will begin by discussing how the aims of ‘knowledge and curriculum’ link to the purpose of education. It will then go on to discuss how ‘the benefit to society’ also links to the purpose of education. Subsequently, it explores different aims and how these all link to the purpose of education.
Main Body:
Firstly, how is the transmission of knowledge catered to by schools and the learning environment? Transmission of knowledge is when the teacher has ‘something’ that a learner does not have at that given point. This allows these learners to greater their knowledge in that specific topic area (Whitehead, 1916,192-205). According to Aristotle, there are three kinds of knowledge, ‘episteme, techne, and phronesis’. To start with, episteme is a philosophical term that refers to the theory of scientific knowledge. Techne is the practice of technical skills or craftsmanship and finally, phronesis is the practical wisdom, when to know what we are doing is correct Aristotle (338322, cited in Chappell, 2016 p.5). On the other hand, Piaget argued that there were four stages of the development of knowledge. The first is the sensorimotor stage which is when learning takes place through touch and feel. The second stage is the pre-operational stage, where the ability to arrange objects logically starts to develop. The third stage is the concrete operational stage which is when their abilities to think logically about objects and events start to become structured. Finally, the formal operational stage is where abstract thinking and verbal reasoning start to develop Piaget (1896-1980, cited in Bates, 2019).
In school, in particular, a lot of the time the knowledge the students learned was done seven out of ten times using the internet. The children at the school were more likely to obtain this information easily using the internet rather than asking the teacher for help (Jordan, Stack, Carlile, 2008, p.249). As well as this the children would find this conventional for the environment, is technology slowly taking over? However, the teacher would float around the classroom to help the children who needed assistance with their work. Sometimes, some knowledge that the teacher was giving the children went through one ear and out of the other, and as a result, my teacher took a much slower approach to new topics with which they were not too familiar to allow them to improve their baseline knowledge (Young, 2013, p.102).
The school’s main aim is to create a welcoming, happy, and safe environment for children, staff, and parents whilst enabling children to achieve their full potential. In the fraction (maths) lesson I overlooked the main objectives were to understand the basics of how to convert a decimal into a fraction. When the teacher said this there were many puzzled faces in the classroom, but some felt they could do it. The teacher used a rainbow fraction tile and with this could show the children the fractions and how fractions looked like in comparison with one. (Mooney et al, 2021, p.71). This use of her prior knowledge allowed the class to pick up the topic and because of this, they could progress at a faster pace than what was required. The school’s curriculum links very closely with its main aims as it allows a vision for the knowledge, skills, and value that all its pupils will learn whilst using the development of a coherent and progressive national curriculum, Medwell et al., (1998, cited in Medwell, 2021 p. 16).
The main purpose of education for Plato’s knowledge theory was described using the allegory of a cave to explain his theory. His theory was his belief in the separation of two worlds, one of appearance and the second of reality. His true belief was that truth and knowledge were to be found within someone, Plato (427-327BC, cited in Bates, 2019). Whereas his student Aristotle thought the opposite of this, his theory was that people needed to use the wisdom of others for truth and knowledge in the world. This sparked an argument of ‘nature vs nurture’, and this debate still goes on among modern-day users, Aristotle (384-322BC, cited in Bates, 2019). In the school placement, both theories were implemented in the school environment, education for transmission of knowledge was seen when the teacher accepted that some children misbehave in the class, and as a result, the teacher used the school’s behavior scheme, red and yellow cards. The teacher would give the child a warning using the yellow card and if the behavior did not change a red card would be implemented using Plato’s theory. As well as this, the teacher made the class discuss and share the findings that they have learned and for the children that do not quite understand to support them in allowing them to learn from their own mistakes, this is using Aristotle’s theory.
The main purpose of education is to build a child to become the best for themselves in society. To stand out from the rest, and not to be the sheep in the classroom environment. Instrumentalism, in philosophy, is being used as a tool for something else also known as a strategy derived from a concept of understanding and instrumental understanding. Improving the education standards to match the rest of Europe can have a significant advantage over in years to come. Currently, the UL is facing very large issues with their GDP, and as a result of improving these standards could lead to the addition of £8trn over the lifetime of a child born today or in other words increasing GDP by one percent every year Cridland (2012, cited in CBI, 2012). On placement, the schoolteacher demonstrated excellent subject knowledge and curriculum knowledge as well as fostering children’s interest and understanding their misunderstands. This shows the school made sure their teachers were to their best abilities in this department and if the teacher needed to broaden their knowledge, they could visit the specific subject lead in the school for help. This links directly with their school’s ethos and values webpage which states it enables children to reach their full potential (School A, 2021).
Furthermore, Dewey’s theory of critical democratic ideal sends across the message that the purpose of education is to shape the experiences of the young, they should become better habits and the future of adults should therefore be improved within society, Dewey(1916, cited in Cambridge Assessment 2016). He believed in the importance of a rigorous curriculum that will allow children to develop new methodologies and knowledge. This purpose of education can be seen in the school environment as teachers have to attend compulsory training so that they are up to standards with the curriculum and any new additions that are implemented to it, in particular when new subjects are made compulsory for children to be taught. On the other hand, Piaget (1896-1980) believed that the curriculum was not the most important influence on education. Instead, his theory talks about how children’s active engagement with their environments leads to the children being able to explore the processes for themselves instead of being taught by the curriculum. Piaget discovered the ‘discovery learning’ school movement of the 1960s which encouraged children to discover principles of subjects through exploration, Piaget (1960, cited in Jordan, Stack, Carlile, 2008, p.57). In school A they were most focused on Piaget’s theory, this was because they want the children to be independent and work things out by themselves instead of using the teacher for every question. This could be seen when the teacher said to the children that they would have to use ‘three before me’, this process meant that the children had to use their knowledge and others in an attempt to answer the question first.
Education for the transmission of knowledge can be seen through empiricism, in philosophy, is the theory that knowledge can be found when a child experiences the information for themselves. All humans are born as a ‘tabula rasa’ (Latin for blank slate) knowing little information about anything and as we start to see more of the world it starts to develop the child more as they have started to gain knowledge through their senses or their minds reflections on sensory experiences (Smith, J., Clark, K., Lints, R., 2004). Empiricism can lead to children being able to fill gaps in their knowledge, however, it means a child has to be willing to want to learn and if a child wasn’t willing, they wouldn’t be able to experience empiricism. This links very closely with behaviourism; this is a theory of learning which concentrates on behavioural changes in a school environment. Pavlov’s argument emphasises the careful structure of the stimuli and the observational learners. This then goes on to argue how some children learn in these environments, especially those who are associated with physiological functioning or emotion. Pavlov set up an experiment that included dogs and how the smell of food causes dogs to salivate. Then Pavlov began to ring a bell in which he discovered that the bell was sufficient enough to cause saliva. This can link to the school environment as an in-particular child could be distracting the whole class resulting in it becoming a hard environment to learn from. As a result of this, many children will start to become off-task as well as imitate what that child is doing. For instance, a child in school A was making funny noises and as a result, the class had to be paused by the teacher, other children started to join in. Due to this happening the teacher had to implement the school’s behavioural scheme giving that child a yellow card. This child continued to carry on resulting in the child being moved seat, the child moved next to an introverted child where for the rest of the lesson the child made no more noises. Furthermore, due to the disruptive child making no more noise the child was rewarded with 15 minutes of playtime which the student used this time to play football, this reward links directly to another theorist Skinner. Skinners suggest that if positive reinforcement is used then a child will respond in a positive way back in the school environment (Skinner, 1938).
The main purpose of education is to make a better society and worldwide democracy, and this can happen through the theory of social reconstructionism. This theory was founded by Theodore Brameld who recognised the potential for human annihilation through the advancement of technology as well as human cruelty. This theory was discovered in a reaction against the realities of World War Two. Social reconstructionism allows children to address a more realistic realisation of the world that allows the children to address social questions (Reed, 1999, p.292). In a school situation, this allows children to identify problems, methods, needs, goals and to be able to implement aggressive strategies on a day-to-day basis. The teacher is the class played a vital role in the social reconstructionism curriculum as they allow children to create and identify life goals and academic goals and students find interest in wanting to find a solution for the social problems that surround them. In Year five, the teacher emphasized how vital group learning experiences and being involved within the community, such as being part of the football team was to society. This as the teacher talked about was vital for her students to live a successful life.
Conclusion
Throughout this essay, the main purpose of education can be seen by many different theorists in different ways. This is then linked in with the school’s environment and what different stakeholders of the school can affect or support a child’s development. For teachers in School A, they played such a vital role in every child at the school from supporting their emotions to helping them through the worksheet. Specifically, the adults can support a child’s future by allowing the children to have a vast variety of support from books to different information the child could need throughout their years in school. As well as this, children need to be motivated by the adults in school to become the best of themselves. As stated in the values and ethos, the school believes that by motivating the children both intrinsically and extrinsically (School A, 2021, values). The school did this extremely well, as the teacher used extrinsic motivation with some children who were more extroverted, in particular, child A’s behavior set a negative atmosphere throughout the classroom, so they were motivated by the teacher saying that if they were to behave for the rest of the lesson then they were allowed to have a fifteen-minute reward time with one other child and a teacher of your choice. This motivated this child resulting in the atmosphere becoming one that is relaxed and where children feel comfortable to work in. Whereas child b had selected mutism and as a result, much preferred to be given another worksheet as they saw this as being a motivator as they were understanding what was meant to be done and was becoming fondness towards mathematics. ‘Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow, D’Angelo (cited in Souders, 2021).
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