Educational Foundations & Teaching Philosophies
Perennialism
Essentialism
Social Reconstructionism
Progressivism
Bruner, J. S. (1977). The importance of structure. In The Process of Education. (pp. 17-32).
“Perennialists recognize as the main purpose of education today the training of intellectual leaders, who would be equipped with such developed intuitive abilities that would allow fundamental and eternal principles to be recognized” (Kostylo, 24).
“The most innovative concept of the four mentioned above is social reconstructionism. According to reconstructionists, being too heavily burdened with transmission, and too prone to adaptation, education loses sight of the most pressing social problems” (Kostylo, 2014, p. 28).
“Analysing, criticizing, the ability to distinguish between alternatives and to make a selection, as well as the awareness of risks associated with it, are the most important components in understanding thinking in the progressivist concept” (Kostylo, 2014, p. 27).
“There are two ways in which learning serves the future" (Bruner, 1977, p. 17).
Perennialism focuses the hope for proper education and, indeed, also for a healthy culture in returning to the idea of the Middle Ages, to the eternal principles of truth, good and beauty. (Kostylo 2014, p. 23-24)
"One is through its specific applicability to tasks that are highly similar to those we originally learned to perform” (Bruner, 1977, p. 17).
“A second way in which earlier learning renders later performance more efficient is through what is conveniently called nonspecific transfer or, more accurately, the transfer of principles and attitudes” (Bruner, 1977, p. 17).
Perennialist philosophy recognizes the authority of reason as the source of freedom. (Kostylo 2014, p. 24)
The superior purpose of this education is to liberate in a person his rational I, to bring him to the maximum potential of his freedom. (Kostylo 2014, p. 24)
“Reconstructionism focuses on educating the younger and older generations on issues related to culture. It makes us realize that culture is a bedrock, a foundation of our life, and that without „practising” it we stop taking care of ourselves” (Kostylo, 2014, p. 29).
According to this view, the child has a certain potential for the future, which at the beginning of education is not yet actualized. The task of education is to develop it, and the method used is developing specific habits by continuous exercising and repetition, and communing with proper content. (Kostylo 2014, p. 24)
“Progressivism evolved under the influence of four factors: the industrial revolution, modern science, the development of democracy and the favourable cultural environment in the United States” (Kostylo, 2014, p. 27).
“The reconstructionist concept of education, emphasizing the central category of democracy, certainly set before pedagogy more questions than it brought answers” (Kostylo, 2014, p. 31).
“The first and most obvious problem is how to construct curricula that can be taught by ordinary teachers to ordinary students and that at the same time reflect clearly the basic or underlying principles of various fields of inquiry.” (Bruner, 1977, p. 18)
“The problem is twofold: first, how to have the basic subjects rewritten and their teaching materials revamped in such a way that the pervading and powerful ideas and attitudes relating to them are given a central role; second, how to match the levels of these materials to the capacities of students of different abilities at different grades in school” (Bruner, 1977, p. 18).
“Only by the use of our best minds in devising curricula will we bring the fruits of scholarship and wisdom to the student just beginning his studies.” (Bruner, 1977, p. 19)
“There are two ways in which learning serves the future. One is through its specific applicability to tasks that are highly similar to those we originally learned to perform… A second way in which earlier learning renders later performance more efficient is through what is conveniently called nonspecific transfer or, more accurately, the transfer of principles and attitudes” (Bruner, 17).
“Not only was there pleasure and excitement in the pursuit of a question, but in the end the discovery was worth making, at least for urban children for whom the phenomenon of the city was something that had before been taken for granted.” (Bruner, 1977, p. 22)
Four General Claims
“Values in progressivism, unlike their understanding in the previous two currents, are recognized as dynamic, temporary and changeable” (Kostylo, 2014, p. 27).
“There is at least one major matter that is left unsettled even by a large-scale revision of curricula in the direction indicated. Mastery of the fundamental ideas of a field involves not only the grasping of general principles, but also the development of an attitude toward learning and inquiry, toward guessing and hunches, toward the possibility of solving problems on one's own” (Bruner, 20).
“The first is that understanding fundamentals makes a subject more comprehensible.” (Bruner, 1977, p. 23)
“The second point relates to human memory. Perhaps the most basic thing that can be said about human memory, after a century of intensive research, is that unless detail is placed into a structured pattern, it is rapidly forgotten.” (Bruner, 1977, p. 24)
“Third, an understanding of fundamental principles and ideas, as noted earlier, appears to be the main road to adequate "transfer of training." To understand something as a specific instance of a more general case-which is what understanding a more fundamental principle or structure means-is to have learned not only a specific thing but also a model for understanding other things like it that one may encounter.” (Bruner, 1977, p. 25)
“The fourth claim for emphasis on structure and principles in teaching is that by constantly reexamining material taught in elementary and secondary schools for its fundamental character, one is able to narrow the gap between "advanced" knowledge and "elementary" knowledge” (Bruner, 1977, p. 25-26)