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THE PRESBYTERIAN UNIVERSITY OF EAST
AFRICA
COURSE CODE: EDU 210
COURSE TITLE: PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

LECTURE NOTES
LECTURER: JASTO M
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Plato (427 – 347 BC)
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Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
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John Dewey (1859-1952)
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Julius Nyerere (1922-1999)

Plato (427 – 347 BC)
Plato (427 BC– 347) is the earliest important educational thinker
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Along with
his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of Western
philosophy and science
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Plato's writings have been published in several fashions;
this has led to several conventions regarding the naming and referencing of Plato's texts
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Plato is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy
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Based on ancient sources, most modern scholars believe that he
was born in Athens or Aegina between 429 and 423 BC
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According to a
disputed tradition, reported by Diogenes Laertius, Ariston traced his descent from the king of
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Athens, Codrus, and the king of Messenia, Melanthus
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Perictione was
sister of Charmides and niece of Critias, both prominent figures of the Thirty Tyrants, the brief
oligarchic regime, which followed on the collapse of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War
(404–403 BC)
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He advocated
extreme methods
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2) According to Plato, Education should be holistic including, facts, skills, physical discipline
and rigidly censored music and art
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4) Plato believed that talent was distributed non-genetically and thus must be found in
children born to all classes
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5) Plato is considered foundational for democratic philosophies of education both because
later key thinkers treat him as such, and because, while his methods are autocratic and his
motives meritocratic
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He experimented his ideas in Nenhof,
Burgdorf and Yverdon institutes
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He emphasized on the role of the mother in the family and her great importance in
education
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This comprised of guiding the child towards the best
realization of him of the things of the world
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In other words, education should be
child-centred, where the child is free and independent
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He argued that every human being has an intellectual potential
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Art
would help in this respect
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He advocated teaching from the known to the unknown or from the simple to the complex
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Thus, the child should learn from the immediate environment before moving to distant
environments
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Thus, a child should not be
given ready answers but should be allowed to arrive at solutions by himself, through
perception, judging and reasoning
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This would enable the child to develop his talents
fully
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Pestallozi argued that the complexity of a subject matter should correspond to the child's
capacity to comprehend
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In other words, knowing and doing should go
hand in hand in order to make education meaningful in life
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Physical education should also be carried out within the same principles of intellectual
education
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He argued that all practical skills must be based on the most elementary body
movements
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He propagated for a firm discipline in class
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But in this case the
teachers and the students must have a relationship that would make the student understand
why he is being punished
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He tried to set up
schools for the poor children but they all failed due to the contradiction between his
theories on education according to social classes which was in accordance with
contemporary ideologies and his actual practice which was a result of his interest and his
humanitarian thoughts
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He emphasized on natural education which prepared an individual to serve his family and
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the community
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The top class children were taught or educated to acquire greater effort through
greater knowledge while the poor children were educated to greater knowledge through
need to work
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According to Pestalozzi the children of the middle classes were the most readily educable
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Criticisms of Pestalozzi’s Theories
Criticisms of his theory were more based on jealousy rather than on intellectual or practical
foundation
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R
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Other critics mainly from German argued that what pestalozzi advocated for was not new since
they had written on the same
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Pestallozi was wrong in taking counsel only from himself
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Present relevance of Pestalozzi's Theories to Education
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That is there should be three angles of education which include:

i) The mental or the intellectual power education should be aimed at development of
the mind
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ii) Education should be aimed at elevation of man to the true dignity of a spiritual feeling

He emphasized a natural education in which the teacher acted a gardener who cultivates the land,
waters it and allows it to grow as nature allows
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i) The central element in a teaching method should be the process of perception
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He advocated for a combination of theoretical and practical education which are supposed to
compliment each other in order to create a holistic educated person
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Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778)
He was born and brought up in France where he played a fundamental role in the French
revolution through his writings, which dealt with socio-economic and political issues
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He is referred to as the father of progressive or
very modern education
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This is a general work of writing
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consisting of five books which gives a number of general principles of a child development in a
systematic form
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Rousseau's Educational and General Theories

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This is because the child is created by the author
of nature who creates good things only
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The different ages of Emile serve as a principle of the division of work
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Children at this time are not to be intellectually
instructed or instructed in moral discipline
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In other words on what
nature demands
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But, as adults we interfere with this natural
process by putting a child in over tight garments that restrict his movements
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Rousseau promotes the idea of parents particularly the mother bringing up his child
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To him where there is no mother,
there is no child and thus, there is no family
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According to him
women's education should be relative to that of men
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In fact, men were to teach their wives after marriage
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The woman is expected to be meek and obedient
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But his interpretations in this respect can be seen
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in light of his poor experiences with women in his early days
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He recommended that boys or Emile should be bare footed and should not use candles
since he is accustomed to darkness
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The true educator is nature
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They should be encouraged to play, experience the pleasures
and happiness that nature portends for them
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Rousseau promoted the study of a child's mother tongue till the age of fifteen years
since the child was incapable of judging and comprehending
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Similarly history and literature were not to
be taught during this time
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Rousseau argues that before the age of five years a child should not be taught how to
read books
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By isolating the
child from the society one could deprive him a large proportion of feelings and
experiences and hence impoverish his world
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However his theories were criticized because:
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He severely sacrifices the future to the present for fear that the future may never
come
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According to him a woman is a slave and an instrument of man, a creature whose
purpose on earth is for sexual satisfaction of man and procreation
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In conclusion, Rousseau's thoughts and ideas can be understood in the light of the period he lived
and the conditions under which he wrote his ideas, however he laid profound influences on other
educational theorists such as Pestalozzi, Herbert, Kault and Froebel
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He began his educational practice with young children
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He saw the kindergarten as an educational experience
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To him educational experience was to make man closer
to the image of God
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His Educational Theories
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Thus, it should be respected and the adult should not feel superior
and interfere with natural conditions of childhood
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Thus, a teacher was to strike a balance between the
child's freedom and the society's obligation to impart skills, knowledge and values aimed
at making a useful member of the society
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He emphasized on play which was a medium through which a child achieved a balance
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through harmonious development
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He explained this in his books namely:
a) Education for Man
b) Education by Development
c) Pedagogics of the Kindergarten
d) Mother Play

John Dewey (1959 -1952)
He was from America where he developed his educational theories through practice at his
University elementary school and laboratory founded in 1896
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The elementary school at Chicago was organized by using as many connections as
possible between everyday life and experience and formal work at school
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Dewey's educational principles and theories
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In this regard a teacher
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selects from the total available experiences, which he believes will help the child to
increase his experiences and thus, grow by increasing richness of potential for future
growth
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He advocated for a guided students learning in which their innate capacity, curiosity,
insight and interest were stimulated enhanced and developed through practice in
various skills of mind and body and also through social relationships within the school
community
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He believed that children are to acquire discipline and control through experience of
having a part to play in constructive work and from doing it in a social and co-operative
way
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He advocated for freedom of intelligence i
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To
him this freedom includes freedom in physical movement
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This reduced students to mere passive learners
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The same activities were also important in developing not only the intellectual
but also the practical skills of students
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Dewey saw the value of history, geography, literature and the cultural subjects
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History which is indirectly sociology is aimed at studying the
society and its process of developing
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According to Dewey, the teacher's approach in teaching should be less direct and
more subtle
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This
forced them to pre-conceived patterns of achievement
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According to Dewey education is a process of living
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He agreed that the
characteristics of childhood are growth and development as contrasted with the
selected framework of habit and specific skill associated with adults
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He equally criticized the assumption that adults are the only ones who were allowed
freedom, initiative and responsibility in developing their powers whereas children
are required to submit to the adults through determined rules
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This is because teachers used to react to children's actions
without analysis and understanding them first
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He is also critical as an extreme progressivist
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He underestimated the place of authority in
education by advocating for excessive freedom of students in all aspects
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The school and teachers must be in control
and exercise authority within the school community
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He fails in this respect because past knowledge is important and vital
for reconstruction of the present, for example in science past knowledge helps in formation
of hypothesis
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He however, does not give a clear option for this
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However, despite
this criticisms Dewey's contribution to education cannot be ignored
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He equally influenced
education internationally
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She came from Italy and was the first woman to earn a degree in medicine from the same country
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She is best known for her design of materials for sensory training
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She developed materials that could be self-administered and that were self-correcting
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She developed
activities for touch, visual and auditory senses
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Children were encouraged to repeat these
tasks in a prescribed way
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Teaching materials are to be simple which does not mean easy
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To her, the teacher was guide and organize the complicated environment of the child
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She propagated for
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the freedom of a child and careful organization of his environment
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Instead this was to be
achieved through reality
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In Montessori methods, the teacher is an observer of individuals
who select their own activities and who decide for themselves when to change
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In other words the teacher is an active participant in the class
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According to Montessori, children were responsible for the tidiness of their classrooms and helped
in preparing of tables for meals
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They were also allowed to correct each other without interference from the teacher
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However she equally influenced
education internationally
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He was a politician of principle and intelligence
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Julius Kambarage Nyerere was born on April 13, 1922 in Butiama, on the eastern shore of lake
Victoria in Northwest Tanganyika
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He was 12
before he started school 26 miles to Musoma
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His intelligence was quickly recognized by Roman

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Catholic Fathers who taught him
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On gaining his certificate he taught for three years and them went on a government scholarship to
study history and political economy for his master of Arts at the University of Edinburgh, hence
becoming the first Tanzanian to study at a British University and only the second to gain a
University Degree outside Africa
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On his return to Tanganyika, Nyerere was forced by the colonial authorities to make a
choice between his political activities and his teaching
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Working to bring a number of different nationalist factions into one grouping he achieved this in
1954 with the formation of the Tanganyika African National union, TANU
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He entered the legislative council in 1958 and become a
chief Minister in 1960
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Full independent came in December 1961 and he was elected president in 1962
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As Yusuf Kassam (1995) has noted, Nyerere `s Educational philosophy can be approached under
two main headings:
1) Education for self reliance
2) Adult education, lifelong learning and education for liberation
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There was a strong
concern to counteract the colonialist assumption
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Kassam (1 995 ) Sums up his critique of Tanzanian and other former colonies
education system as follows:

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1
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Such a situation deprives
society of their much needed contribution to the increase in national economic output and
also breeds the students a contempt for manual work
Nyerere set out his vision in “Education for self reliance”
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Further,
it had to address the realities of life in Tanzania
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It should be oriented to rural life
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Teachers and students should engage together up productive activities and students should
participate in the planning and decision- making process of organizing these activities
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Productive work should become an integral part of the school curriculum and provide
meaningful learning experience through the integration of theory and practice
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The importance of examinations should be downgraded
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Children should begin school at age of 7 so that thy would be old enough and sufficiently
mature to engage in self - reliant and productive work when thy leave school
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Primary education should be complete in itself rather than merely serving as a means to
higher education
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Students should become self –confident and co-operative, and develop critical and
inquiring minds
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The policies were never fully implemented and had to operate
against a background of severe resource shortage and a world orientation to more individualistic
and capitalist understandings of the relation of education to production
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Adult Education, lifelong learning and learning for liberation
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For him adult education had two functions:

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Help people to make their own decisions, and to implement those decisions for themselves
(Nyerere 1978 )

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