ARTICLES ON EDUCATION

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Philosophy of education
The philosophy of education is the study of the purpose, process, nature and ideals of education. This can be within the context of education as a societal institution or more broadly as the process of human existential growth, i.e. how it is that our understanding of the world is continually transformed (be it from facts, social customs, experiences, or even our own emotions).

Contents

1 Educational Philosophies 2 Chronological Summary o 2.1 Plato o 2.2 Aristotle o 2.3 Rousseau o 2.4 Dewey o 2.5 Rudolf Steiner o 2.6 B.F. Skinner o 2.7 Maria Montessori o 2.8 Jean Piaget o 2.9 Paulo Freire o 2.10 Neil Postman and the Inquiry Method o 2.11 John Taylor Gatto 3 Critical responses and counter-philosophies 4 Notes 5 External links

Educational Philosophies

Educational Educational Educational Educational Educational

essentialism progressivism perennialism existentialism behaviourism (with more information)

Chronological Summary
A chronological summary of the work of some of the most important and influential Western culture educational philosophers follows.

Plato
Plato is the earliest important educational thinker. Education is, of course, a relatively minor part of his overall philosophical vision, but it is an important one. He saw education as the key to creating and sustaining his Republic. He advocated extreme methods: removing children from their mothers' care and raising them as wards of the state, with great care being taken to differentiate children suitable to the various castes, the highest receiving the most education, so that they could act as guardians of the city and care for the less able. Education would be holistic, including facts, skills, physical discipline, and rigidly censored music and art. For Plato the individual was best served by being subordinated to a just society. Plato's belief that talent was distributed non-genetically and thus must be found in children born to all classes moves us away from aristocracy, and Plato builds on this by insisting that those suitably gifted are to be trained by the state so that they may be qualified to assume the role of a ruling class. What this establishes is essentially a system of selective public education premised on the assumption that an educated minority of the population are, by virtue of their education (and inborn educability), sufficient for healthy governance. Plato should be considered foundational for democratic philosophies of education both because later key thinkers treat him as such, and because, while Plato's methods are autocratic and his motives meritocratic, he nonetheless prefigures much later democratic philosophy of education. This is different in degree rather than kind from most versions of, say, the American experiment with democratic education, which has usually assumed that only some students should be educated to the fullest, while others may, acceptably, fall by the wayside.

Aristotle
Though Aristotle wrote a treatise On Education, this only survives through fragments that have come down to us. We thus know of his philosophy of education primarily through brief passages in other works. Aristotle considered nature, habit and reason to be three equally important forces to be cultivated in education. Thus, for example, he considered repetition to be a key tool to develop good habits. The teacher was to lead the student systematically; this differs, for example, from Socrates' emphasis on questioning his listeners to bring out their own ideas (though the comparison is perhaps unfair since Socrates was dealing with adults). 3

Aristotle placed great emphasis on balancing the theoretical and practical aspects of subjects taught. Subjects he explicitly mentions as being important included reading, writing and mathematics; music; physical education; literature and history; and a wide range of sciences. He also mentioned the importance of play. One of education's primary missions for Aristotle, perhaps its most important, was to produce good and virtuous citizens for the polis. All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.

Rousseau
Rousseau (1712-78), though he paid his respects to Plato's philosophy, rejected it as impractical due to the decayed state of society. Rousseau also had a different theory of human development--where Plato held that people are born with skills appropriate to different castes (though he did not regard these skills as being inherited), Rousseau held that there was one developmental process common to all humans. This was an intrinsic, natural process, of which the primary behavioral manifestation was curiosity. This differed from Locke's tabula rasa in that it was an active process deriving from the child's nature, which drove the child to learn and adapt to its surroundings. As Rousseau wrote in his book Emile, all children are perfectly designed organisms, ready to learn from their surroundings so as to grow into virtuous adults. But, due to the malign influence of corrupt society, they often failed to do so. Rousseau advocated an educational method which consisted of removing the child from society (i.e., to a country home) and alternately conditioning him through changes to environment and setting traps and puzzles for him to solve or overcome. Rousseau was unusual in that he recognized and addressed the potential of a problem of legitimation for teaching. He advocated that adults always be truthful with children, and in particular that they never hide the fact that the basis for their authority in teaching was purely one of physical coercion--"I'm bigger than you." Once children reached the age of reason (about 12), they would be engaged as free individuals in the ongoing process of their own.

Dewey
Main article: John Dewey 4

Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), a philosopher and writer, created a holistic educational impulse that has become known as Waldorf Education. He emphasizes a balance of developing the intellect (or head), feeling and artistic life (or heart), and practical skills (or hands). The education focuses on producing free individuals, and Steiner expected it to enable a new, freer social order to arise, through the creative, free human beings that it would develop. Waldorf Education is based on Steiner's philosophy, known as anthroposophy, and divides education into three discrete developmental stages; these stages predate but have close similarities to Piaget's stages of child development. The first stage is early childhood, normally lasting 6-7 years. In this stage, which emphasizes practical skills and concrete experiences, imitation is the primary educative force, and an environment replete with healthy impulses and especially practical work - crafts, gardening, cooking, cleaning, woodwork, and much more - is regarded as the ideal educational setting for the pre-school and kindergarten years. Language development is fostered through story-telling, verse and movement and/or finger games, i.e. primarily imitatively. The children are given opportunities for free play both inside and outside; this is considered vital for their healthy development, as this is the way they digest their impressions and develop their will forces, feeling life and intellect in an age-appropriate manner. The second stage runs from the beginning of schooling, at six or seven years of age, until puberty. Here, education is best achieved through appeal to the child's imagination; development of the children's feeling and artistic life is strongly emphasized. The teacher's authority is established through guiding the child wisely and sensitively, but clearly; there is great worth placed upon establishing this sense in the child of having found a true authority in the teacher. There is a balance between academic, artistic and practical (crafts) subjects. The arts play an especially large role at this time; all subjects are to be presented with artistic feeling and permeated with imaginative approach. Two foreign languages are normally taught from first grade on. Generally the attempt is made to keep a main teacher with a class for longer periods of time, often from first grade right through the end of the elementary school. The third stage runs from puberty until the end of childhood, or approximately from 13-14 years of age until 20-21. Here, the authority of the earlier years is no longer a viable pedagogical tool; instead, idealism becomes the key force of education. The children's intellectual development is now intensively fostered and their sense of judgement called upon. Great worth is placed upon avoiding early specialization; even in the secondary school, all students are normally expected to take a full range of academic courses (including physics, chemistry, biology, geology,

mathematics, history, art history and literature), one or two foreign languages, arts, crafts, music (frequently both orchestral and choral), physical education and a movement discipline special to the schools (eurythmy). Teachers are specialized according to the discipline and the education should introduce the adolescent to the larger world as much as possible. Foreign exchanges and work experience are both thus common elements of the secondary school. Throughout the education, a great importance is placed upon having free and creative individuals as teachers; thus, schools should have an appropriate amount of freedom to shape their own curriculum and teachers should have a corresponding freedom to shape the daily life of the classroom. In order for such a system to function, intensive work must take place both amongst teachers within schools and between schools to provide the necessary communication, training and development. Waldorf education includes a respect for children's physical nature, rhythmic life (technical term: ether body), consciousness (technical term: astral body) and individuality (ego). Anthroposophy includes teachings about reincarnation and schools often try to foster an awareness that each human being - and thus each child - carries a unique being into this earthly life. As both an independent educational model and a major influence upon other educators - such as Maria Montessori - Waldorf education is currently both one of the largest and one of the fastest growing educational movements in the world. Waldorf schools are also increasingly operating as state-funded (in the U.S.A. charter) schools or even state-run (in the U.S.A. public) schools.

B.F. Skinner
One of B.F. Skinner's (1904-90) contributions to education philosophy is his text Walden Two wherein he details the failings of society and education, as one is intricately and intrinsically linked to the other. The pedagogical methods Direct Instruction and Precision Teaching owe much to his ideas. Behaviorist theories play largely in his proposed ideas of social engineering. Precision Teaching, developed by Skinner's student Ogden Lindsley, uses the basic philosophy that the "learner knows best". Each learner is charted on a unique graph known as a "Standard Celeration Chart". The record of the rate of learning is tracked by this charting and decisions can be made from these data concerning changes in an educational program.

Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori (August 31, 1870 May 6, 1952) was an Italian educator, scientist, physician, philosopher, feminist, and humanitarian. She was born in Chiaravalle (Ancona), Italy. Maria was the first female to graduate from the University of Rome Medical School. She was a member of the University's Psychiatric Clinic and became intriguied with trying to educate the "mentally retarded" and the "uneducable" in Rome. She opened her first school, in a housing project in Rome, on January 6, 1907. The Montessori method of education that she derived from this experience has subsequently been applied successfully to children and is quite popular in many parts of the world. Despite much criticism of her method in the early 1930s-1940s, her method of education has been applied and has undergone a revival. It can now be found on six continents and throughout the United States. By 1907 Montessori had established the first Casa dei Bambini or Children's House, in Rome. By 1913, there was an intense interest in her method in North America, which later waned. (Nancy McCormick Rambusch revived the method in America by establishing the American Montessori Society in 1960.) Montessori was exiled by Mussolini mostly because she refused to compromise her principles and make the children into soldiers. She moved to Spain and lived there until 1936 when the Spanish Civil War broke out. She then moved the Holland until 1939. During a teachers conference in India she was interned by the authorities and lived there for the duration of the war. Montessori lived out the remainder of her life in the Netherlands, which is now the headquarters of the AMI, or Association Montessori Internationale. She died in Noordwijk aan Zee. Her son Mario headed the AMI until his death in 1982.

Pedagogy
Aside from a new pedagogy, among the premier contributions to educational thought by Montessori are:

instruction of children in 3-year age groups, corresponding to sensitive periods of development (example: Birth-3, 3-6, 6-9, and 912 year olds with an Erdkinder (German for "land children") program for early teens) children as competent beings, encouraged to make maximal decisions observation of the child in the environment as the basis for ongoing curriculum development (presentation of subsequent exercises for skill development and information accumulation)

child-sized furniture and creation of a child-sized environment (microcosm) in which each can be competent to produce overall a self-running children's world parent participation to include basic and proper attention to health screening and hygiene as a prerequisite to schooling delineation of a scale of sensitive periods of development, which provides a focus for class work that is appropriate and uniquely stimulating and motivating to the child (including sensitive periods for language development, sensorial experimentation and refinement, and various levels of social interaction) the importance of the "absorbent mind," the limitless motivation of the young child to achieve competence over his or her environment and to perfect his or her skills and understandings as they occur within each sensitive period. The phenomenon is characterized by the young child's capacity for repetition of activities within sensitive period categories (Example: exhaustive babbling as language practice leading to language competence). self-correcting "auto-didactic" materials (some based on work of Itard and Seguin)

Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896 September 16, 1980) was a Swiss philosopher, natural scientist and developmental psychologist, well known for his work studying children and his theory of cognitive development.

Contents
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1 2 3 4 5

Early life The stages of cognitive development Piaget's view of the child's mind The developmental process Influence o 5.1 Developmental psychology o 5.2 Education o 5.3 Historical studies of thought cognition o 5.4 Evolution of human intelligence o 5.5 Primatology o 5.6 Philosophy o 5.7 AI 6 Major works and achievements o 6.1 Major works o 6.2 Other works o 6.3 Appointments

and

7 Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage theories 8 References

9 External links [edit]

Early life
Piaget was born in Neuchtel in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. His father, Arthur Piaget, was a professor of medieval literature at the University of Neuchtel. Piaget was a precocious child who developed an interest in biology and the natural world, particularly molluscs, and even published a number of papers before he graduated from high school. In fact, his long career of scientific research began when he was just eleven, with the 1907 publication of a short paper on the albino sparrow. Over the course of his career, Piaget wrote more than sixty books and several hundred articles. Piaget received a Ph.D. in natural science from the University of Neuchtel, and also studied briefly at the University of Zrich. During this time, he published two philosophical papers which showed the direction of his thinking at the time, but which he later dismissed as adolescent work. His interest in psychoanalysis, a strain of psychological thought burgeoning at that time, can also be dated to this period. He then moved from Switzerland to Grange-aux-Belles, France, where he taught at the school for boys run by Alfred Binet, the developer of the Binet intelligence test. It was while he was helping to mark some instances of these intelligence tests that Piaget noticed that young children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions. Piaget did not focus so much on the fact of the children's answers being wrong, but that young children kept making the same pattern of mistakes that older children and adults did not. This led him to the theory that young children's thought or cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults. (Ultimately, he was to propose a global theory of developmental stages stating that individuals exhibit certain distinctive common patterns of cognition in each period in their development.) In 1921, Piaget returned to Switzerland as director of the Rousseau Institute in Geneva. In 1923, he married Valentine Chtenay; together, the couple had three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy. [edit]

The stages of cognitive development

Main article: development Theory of cognitive

Piaget served as professor of psychology at the University of Geneva from 1929 to 1975 and is best known for reorganizing cognitive development theory into a series of stages, expanding on earlier work from James Mark Baldwin: four levels of development corresponding roughly to (1) infancy, (2) pre-school, (3) childhood, and (4) adolescence. Each stage is characterized by a general cognitive structure that affects all of the child's thinking (a structuralist view influenced by philosopher Immanuel Kant). Each stage represents the child's understanding of reality during that period, and each but the last is an inadequate approximation of reality. Development from one stage to the next is thus caused by the accumulation of errors in the child's understanding of the environment; this accumulation eventually causes such a degree of cognitive disequilibrium that thought structures require reorganising. The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as 1. Sensorimotor stage: from birth to age 2 years (children experience the world through movement and senses and learn object permanence) 2. Preoperational stage: from ages 2 to 7(acquisition of motor skills) 3. Concrete operational stage: from ages 7 to 11 (children begin to think logically about concrete events) 4. Formal Operational stage: after age 11 (development of abstract reasoning). These chronological periods are approximate, and in light of the fact that studies have demonstrated great variation between children, cannot be seen as rigid norms. Furthermore, these stages occur at different ages, depending upon the domain of knowledge under consideration. The ages normally given for the stages, then, reflect when each stage tends to predominate, even though one might elicit examples of two, three, or even all four stages of thinking at the same time from one individual, depending upon the domain of knowledge and the means used to elicit it. Despite this, though, the principle holds that within a domain of knowledge, the stages usually occur in the same chronological order. Thus, there is a somewhat subtler reality behind the normal characterization of the stages as described above. The reason for the invariability of sequence derives from the idea that knowledge is not simply acquired from outside the individual, but it is constructed from within. This idea has been extremely influential in pedagogy, and is usually termed constructivism. (See "Constructivism (learning theory)") Once knowledge is constructed internally, it is then tested against reality the same way a scientist tests the validity of hypotheses. Like a scientist, the individual learner may discard, modify, or

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reconstruct knowledge based on its utility in the real world. Much of this construction (and later reconstruction) is in fact done subconsciously. Therefore, Piaget's four stages actually reflect four types of thought structures. The chronological sequence is inevitable, then, because one structure may be necessary in order to construct the next level, which is simpler, more generalizable, and more powerful. It's a little like saying that you need to form metal into parts in order to build machines, and then coordinate machines in order to build a factory. [edit]

Piaget's view of the child's mind

Piaget viewed children as little philosophers, which he called tiny thoughtsacks and scientists building their own individual theories of knowledge. Some people have used his ideas to focus on what children cannot do. Piaget, however, used their problem areas to help understand their cognitive growth and development. [edit]

The developmental process

Piaget provided no concise (or clear) description of the development process as a whole. Broadly speaking it consisted of a cycle:

The child performs an action which has an effect on or organizes objects, and the child is able to note the characteristics of the action and its effects. Through repeated actions, perhaps with variations or in different contexts or on different kinds of object, the child is able to differentiate and integrate its elements and effects. This is the process of reflecting abstraction (described in detail in Piaget 2001). At the same time, the child is able to identify the properties of objects by the way different kinds of action affect them. This is the process of empirical abstraction. By repeating this process across a wide range of objects and actions, the child establishes a new level of knowledge and insight. This is the process of forming a new cognitive stage. This dual process allows the child to construct new ways of dealing with

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objects and new knowledge about objects themselves. However, once the child has constructed these new kinds of knowledge, they start to use them to create still more complex objects and to carry out still more complex actions. As a result, the child starts to recognize still more complex patterns and to construct still more complex objects. Thus a new stage begins, which will only be completed when all the childs activity and experience have been re-organized on this still higher level.

This process is not wholly gradual, however. Once a new level of organization, knowledge and insight proves to be effective, it will quickly be generalized to other areas. As a result, transitions between stages tend to be rapid and radical, and the bulk of the time spent in a new stage consists of refining this new cognitive level. When the knowledge that has been gained at one stage of study and experience leads rapidly and radically to a new higher stage of insight, a "gestalt" is said to have occured. It is because this process takes this dialectical form, in which each new stage is created through the further differentiation, integration, and synthesis of new structures out of the old, that the sequence of cognitive stages are logically necessary rather than simply empirically correct. Each new stage emerges only because the child can take for granted the achievements of its predecessors, and yet there are still more sophisticated forms of knowledge and action that are capable of being developed. Because it covers both how we gain knowledge about objects and our reflections on our own actions, Piagets model of development explains a number of features of human knowledge that had never previously been accounted for. For example, by showing how children progressively enrich their understanding of things by acting on and reflecting on the effects of their own previous knowledge, they are able to organize their knowledge in increasingly complex structures. Thus, once a young child can consistently and accurately recognize different kinds of animal, they then acquire the ability to organize the different kinds into higher groupings such as birds, fish, and so on. This is significant because they are now able to know things about a new animal simply on the basis of the fact that it is a bird for example, that it will lay eggs. At the same time, by reflecting on their own actions, the child develops an increasingly sophisticated awareness of the rules that govern in various ways. For example, it is by this route that Piaget explains this childs growing awareness of notions such as right, valid, necessary, proper, and so on. In other words, it is through the process of objectification, 12

reflection and abstraction that the child constructs the principles on which action is not only effective or correct but also justified. [edit]

Influence
Despite ceasing to be a fashionable psychologist, the magnitude of Piagets continuing influence can be measured by the global scale and activity of the Jean Piaget Society, which holds annual conferences and attracts very large numbers of participants. His theory of cognitive development has proved influential in many different areas:

Development psychology Education Historical studies of thought and cognition Evolution of human intelligence Primatology Philosophy AI

On the other hand, Piaget does not seem to have influenced therapeutic methods or models to any significant degree. [edit]

Developmental psychology
Piaget is without doubt one of the most influential developmental psychologists, influencing not only the work of Lev Vygotsky and of Lawrence Kohlberg but whole generations of eminent academics. Although subjecting his ideas to massive scrutiny led to innumerable improvements and qualifications of his original model and the emergence of a plethora of neo-Piagetian and post-Piagetian variants, Piagets original model has proved to be remarkably robust (Loureno and Machado 1996). [edit]

Education
During the 1970s and 1980s, Piagets works also inspired the transformation of European and American education, including both theory and practice, leading to a more child-centred approach. In Conversations with Jean Piaget, he says: "Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society . . . but for me and no one else, education means making creators. . . . You have to make inventors, innovatorsnot conformists," (Bringuier, 1980, p.132). His influence on education was not long lasting or profound, however. This was perhaps because his theory is not well taught in educational colleges 13

and text books, and perhaps because his model of the child's development implied a far more radical transformation of the education system than was acceptable. // [edit]

Historical studies of thought and cognition

Historical changes of thought have been modelled in Piagetian terms. Broadly speaking these models have mapped changes in morality, intellectual life and cognitive levels against historical changes (typically in the complexity of social systems). Robinson's History of Human Reason (2004) also suggests that history itself is the expression of our intelligence. Notable examples include:

Michael Barnes' study of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thinking (Barnes 2000) Peter Damerow's theory of prehistoric and archiac thought (Damerow 1995) Kieran Egan's stages of understanding James W. Fowler's stages of faith development Suzy Gablik's stages of art history (Gablik 1977) Christopher Hallpikes studies of changes in cognition and moral judgment in prehistorical, archaic and classical periods (Hallpike 1979, 2004) Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama (LePan 1989) Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development (Radding 1985) R.J. Robinson's stages of history (Robinson 2004)

[edit]

Evolution of human intelligence

The origins of human intelligence has also been studied in Piagetian terms. Wynn (1979, 1981) analysed Acheulian and Oldowan tools in terms of the insight into spatial relationships required to create each kind. On a more general level, Robinsons Birth of Reason (2005) suggests a large-scale model for the emergence of a Piagetian intelligence.

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[edit]

Primatology
Piagets models of cognition have also been applied outside the human sphere, and there is a thriving community of primatologists assessing the development and abilities of primates in terms of Piagets model. Notable names include Sue Taylor Parker and Francesco Antinucci. A summary of the very extensive literature can be found in Parker and McKinney (1999). [edit]

Philosophy
Given his explicitly neo-Kantian assumptions and his focus on topics such as logical and mathematical reasoning, moral judgment, contradiction, language, justification and so on, it is surprising how little attention Piaget has attracted among philosophers. Some have taken account of his work, however, For example, the philosopher and social theorist Jrgen Habermas has incorporated it into his work, most notably in The Theory of Communicative Action. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn credited Piaget's work in helping him understand the transition between modes of thought which characterized his theory of paradigm shifts. [edit]

AI
Piaget also had a considerable impact in the field of computer science and artificial intelligence. Seymour Papert used Piaget's work while developing the Logo programming language. Alan Kay used Piaget's theories as the basis for the Dynabook programming system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or Xerox PARC. These discussions led to the development of the Alto prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the graphical user interface (GUI), and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980's and beyond.

Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage theories

Michael Barnes' historical stages of religious and scientific thinking (Barnes 2000) Peter Damerow's theory of prehistoric and archiac thought (Damerow 1995) Kieran Egan's stages of understanding James W. Fowler's stages of faith development Suzy Gablik's stages of art history (Gablik 1977) 15

Christopher Hallpike's historical stages of cognitive moral understanding (Hallpike 1979, 2004) Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama (LePan 1989) Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development (Radding 1985) R.J. Robinson's stages of history (Robinson 2004) Robert Kegan's constructive-developmental theory (Kegan 1982) Allen Ivey's developmental counseling and therapy (DCT) (Ivey 1986)

Paulo Freire
A Brazilian who became committed to the cause of educating the impoverished peasants of his nation and collaborating with them in the pursuit of their liberation from oppression, Paulo Freire (1921-97) contributes a philosophy of education that comes not only from the more classical approaches stemming from Plato, but also from modern Marxist and anti-colonialist thinkers. In fact, in many ways his Pedagogy of the Oppressed may best be read as an extension of or reply to Frantz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth, which laid strong emphasis on the need to provide native populations with an education which was simultaneously new and modern (rather than traditional) and anti-colonial (that is, that was not simply an extension of the culture of the colonizer). Freire is best-known for his attack on what he called the banking concept of education, in which the student was viewed as an empty account to be filled by the teacher. Of course, this is not really a new move--Rousseau's conception of the child as an active learner was already a step away from the tabula rasa (which is basically the same as the "banking concept"), and thinkers like John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead were strongly critical of the transmission of mere facts as the goal of education. More challenging, however, is Freire's strong aversion to the teacherstudent dichotomy. This dichotomy is admitted in Rousseau and constrained in Dewey, but Freire comes close to insisting that it should be completely abolished. Critics have argued that this is impossible (there must be some enactment of the teacher-student relationship in the parent-child relationship), but what Freire suggests is that a deep reciprocity be inserted into our notions of teacher and student. Freire wants us to think in terms of teacher-student and student-teacher, that is, a teacher who learns and a learner who teaches, as the basic roles of classroom participation.

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This is one of the few attempts anywhere to implement something like democracy as an educational method and not merely a goal of democratic education. Even Dewey, for whom democracy was a touchstone, did not integrate democratic practices fully into his methods. (Though this is in part a function of his peculiar attitudes toward individuality and his idea of democracy as a way of living rather than merely a polticial practice or method.) However, in its early, strong form this kind of classroom has sometimes been criticized on the grounds that it can mask rather than overcome the teacher's authority. Freire's work is widely-read by educationalists but is less well-respected among philosophers.[citation needed] Aspects of the Freirian philosophy have been highly influential in academic debates over 'participatory development' and development more generally. Freire's emphasis on emancipation through interactive participation has been used as a rationale for the participatory focus of development, as it is held that 'participation' in any fora can lead to empowerment of poor or marginalised groups. Critics argue that the inherently undemocratic, unequal nature of development projects forecloses any possibility of Freirian emancipation, but many cling to the 'empowering potential' of development.

Neil Postman and the Inquiry Method

Neil Postman has been a strong contemporary voice in both methods and philosophy of education. His 1969 book "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" (co-authored with Charles Weingartner) introduced the concept of a school driven by the Inquiry Method, the basis of which is to get the students themselves to ask and answer relevant questions. The "teacher" (the two authors disdained the term and thought a new one should be used) would be limited in the number of declarative sentences he could utter per class, as well as questions he personally knew the answer to. The aim of this type of inquiry would be to prepare the students to lead responsible adult lives, primarily by functioning as an antidote to the rampant bureaucracy most adults are faced with after leaving school. Postman went on to write several more books on education, notably "Teaching as a Conserving Activity" and "The End of Education." The latter deals with the importance of goals or "gods" to students, and Postman suggests several "gods" capable of replacing the current ones offered in schools, namely, Economic Utility and Consumerism.

John Taylor Gatto

John Taylor Gatto is an American retired school teacher of 30 years and author of several books on education. He is an activist critical of compulsory schooling and the hegemonic nature of discourse on education and the education professions.

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Gatto was born in the Pittsburgh area steel town of Monongahela, Pennsylvania. In his youth he attended public schools in throughout the Pittsburgh Metro Area including Swissvale, Monongahela, and Uniontown as well as a Catholic boarding school in Latrobe. He did undergraduate work at Cornell, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia, then served in the U.S. Army medical corps at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Following army service he did graduate work at the City University of New York, Hunter College, Yeshiva, the University of California, and Cornell. He worked as a writer and held several odd jobs before borrowing his roommate's licence to investigate teaching. He was named New York City Teacher of the year in 1989, 1990, and 1991, and New York State Teacher of the Year in 1991[1]. In 1991, he wrote a letter announcing his retirement, titled I Quit, I Think, to the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal, saying that he no longer wished to "hurt kids to make a living". He then began a public speaking and writing career, and has received several awards from libertarian organizations, including the Alexis de Tocqueville Award in 1998. He promotes homeschooling, and specifically unschooling. Inspired by Ken Burns's Civil War, Gatto is currently working to produce a 3-part documentary about compulsory schooling, titled The Fourth Purpose. Spiritual successor to The Hidden Curriculum, Gatto takes a historical view of educational systems as primarily and purposefully socializing and normative, as opposed to the stated goal as a vehicle for individual personal development.[1]

Critical responses and counter-philosophies

Critics have accused the philosophy of education of being one the weakest subfields of both philosophy and education, disconnected from philosophy (by being insufficiently rigorous for the tastes of many "real" philosophers) and from the broader study and practice of education (by being too philosophical, too theoretical). However, its proponents state that it is an exacting and critical branch of philosophy and point out that there are few major philosophers who have not written on education, and who do not consider the philosophy of education a necessity. For example, Plato undertakes to discuss all these elements in The Republic, beginning the formulation of educational philosophy that endures today.

Notes External links

Encyclopaedia of Philosophy of Education Five Educational Philosophies by Larry J. Shaw, San Diego State U] 18

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_education"

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Epistemology
Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature and scope of knowledge. The term "epistemology" is based on the Greek words " or episteme" (knowledge) and " or logos" (account/explanation); it is thought to have been coined by the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier. Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims. In other words, epistemology primarily addresses the following questions: "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", and "What do people know?". Although approaches to answering any one of these questions frequently involve theories that are connected to others, there is enough particular to each that they may be examined separately. There are many different topics, stances, and arguments in the field of epistemology. Recent studies have dramatically challenged centuries-old assumptions, and the discipline therefore continues to be vibrant and dynamic.

Contents

1 Defining knowledge o 1.1 Distinguishing knowing that from knowing how o 1.2 Belief o 1.3 Truth o 1.4 Justified true belief o 1.5 The Gettier problem 1.5.1 Responses to Gettier 1.5.1.1 Infallibilism, indefeasibility 1.5.1.2 Reliabilism 1.5.1.3 Other responses o 1.6 Externalism and internalism 2 Acquiring knowledge o 2.1 The regress problem o 2.2 A priori and a posteriori knowledge o 2.3 Analytic/synthetic distinction o 2.4 Specific theories of knowledge acquisition 2.4.1 Empiricism 2.4.2 Rationalism 2.4.3 Constructivism 3 What do people know? o 3.1 General skepticism o 3.2 Responses to general skepticism 20

3.2.1 Contextualism 3.2.2 Fallibilism o 3.3 Specific forms of skepticism and responses to them 3.3.1 Skepticism about the external world 3.3.2 Skepticism about ethics 3.3.3 Skepticism about religious claims 4 Notes 5 References and further reading 6 External links and references

7 See also

Defining knowledge
The first question that will be dealt with (of the questions presented at the beginning of this article) is the question of what knowledge is. It is a problem that is several millennia old, and among the most prominent in epistemology.

Distinguishing knowing that from knowing how

In this article, and in epistemology in general, the kind of knowledge usually discussed is propositional knowledge, also known as "knowledgethat" as opposed to "know-how". To exemplify the distinction: in mathematics, there is knowing that 2 + 2 = 4, but there is also knowing how to count to 4. Or, one knows how to ride a bicycle and one knows that a bicycle has two wheels. The distinction is between theoretical reason and practical reason, with epistemology being interested in knowledge of the theoretical kind, not the practical kind.

Belief
Sometimes, when people say that they believe in something, what they mean is that they predict that it will prove to be useful or successful in some senseperhaps someone might "believe in" his or her favorite football team. This is not the kind of belief usually dealt with in epistemology. The kind that is dealt with as such is that where "to believe something" just means to think that it is truee.g., to believe that the sky is blue is to think that the proposition, "The sky is blue," is true. Belief is almost universally accepted as a necessary part of knowledge. [citation needed] Consider someone saying, "I know that P is true, but I don't think that P is true." The person making this utterance, it seems, contradicts him- or herself. If one knows P, then, among other things, one thinks that P is indeed true. If one thinks that P is true, then one believes P. (See the article on Moore's paradox.) 21

Truth
Knowledge is distinct from belief. If someone claims to believe something, he or she is claiming that it is the truth. Of course, it might turn out that he or she was mistaken, and that what was thought to be true was actually false. This is not the case with knowledge. For example, suppose that Jeff thinks that a particular bridge is safe, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. We might say that Jeff believed that the bridge was safe, but that his belief was mistaken. We would not (accurately) say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. For something to count as knowledge, it must be true.

Justified true belief

Knowledge is true and believed and... In Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, Socrates considers a number of theories as to what knowledge is, the last being that knowledge is true belief that has been "given an account of"meaning explained or defined in some way. Although not the same, the theory that knowledge is justified true belief has often been identified with the theory Socrates discussed at the end of the Theaetetus.[citation needed] According to the theory that knowledge is justified true belief, in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have a good reason for doing so. One implication of this would be that no one would gain knowledge just by believing something that happened to be true. For example, an ill person with no medical training, but a generally optimistic attitude, might believe that she will recover from her illness quickly. Nevertheless, even if this belief turned out to be true, the patient would not have known that she would get well since her belief lacked justification.

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Socrates rejected the theory that knowledge is true belief that has been given an account of. The theory that knowledge is justified true belief, on the other hand, was widely accepted as straightforwardly correct until the 1960s.[citation needed] At this time, a paper written by the American philosopher Edmund Gettier provoked widespread attempts to revise or replace it.

The Gettier problem

In his 1963 paper, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", Edmund Gettier called into question the theory of knowledge that had been dominant among philosophers for thousands of years. In a few pages, Gettier argued that there are situations in which one's belief may be justified and true, yet fail to count as knowledge. That is, Gettier contended that it is necessary for knowledge of a proposition that one be justified in one's true belief in that proposition, it is not sufficient. More technically, Gettier claimed that the following account of knowledge is insufficient: S knows that P if and only if:

P is true; S believes that P is true; and S is justified in believing that P.

According to Gettier, there are certain circumstances in which one does not have knowledge, even when all of the above conditions are met. Gettier proposed two thought experiments, which have come to be known as "Gettier cases", as counterexamples to the classical account of knowledge. One of the cases involves two people, Smith and Jones, who are awaiting the results of their applications for the same job. Both men have ten coins in their pockets. Smith has excellent reasons to believe that Jones will get the job and, furthermore, believes the true proposition that Jones has ten coins in his pocket (he recently counted them). From this, Smith infers that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job. However, Smith is unaware that he himself also has ten coins in his pocket. Furthermore, Smith, not Jones, is going to get the job. While, Smith has strong evidence to believe that Jones will get the job, he is wrong. Smith has a justified true belief that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job; however, according to Gettier, Smith does not know that the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job, because Smith's belief is "...true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith's pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith's pocket, and bases his belief...on a count of the coins in Jones's pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job."[1]

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Responses to Gettier
The responses to Gettier have been varied. Some have suggested that with respect to the example of Smith and his job, Smith really does know that someone with ten coins in their pocket will get the job. [citation needed] However, many people find this claim counterintuitive. [citation needed] Usually, responses to Gettier have involved substantive attempts to provide a definition of knowledge aside from the classical one, either by recasting knowledge as justified true belief plus some fourth condition, or as something else altogether.
Infallibilism, indefeasibility

In one response to Gettier, the American philosopher Richard Kirkham has argued that the only definition of knowledge that could ever be immune to all counterexamples is the infallibilist one.[citation needed] To qualify as an item of knowledge, so the theory goes, a belief must not only be true and justified, the justification of the belief must necessitate its truth. In other words, the justification for the belief must be infallible. (See Fallibilism, below, for more information.) Yet another possible candidate for the fourth condition of knowledge is indefeasibility. Defeasibility theory maintains that there should be no overriding or defeating truths for the reasons that justify one's belief. For example, let's suppose that person S believes they saw Tom Grabit steal a book from the library and uses this to justify the claim that Tom Grabit stole a book from the library. A possible defeater or overriding proposition for such a claim could be a true proposition like, "Tom Grabit's identical twin Sam is currently in the same town as Tom." So long as no defeaters of one's justification exist, a subject would be epistemically justified.
Reliabilism

Reliabilism is a theory advanced by philosophers such as Alvin Goldman according to which a belief is justified (or otherwise supported in such a way as to count towards knowledge) only if it is produced by processes that typically yield a sufficiently high ratio of true to false beliefs. In other words, as per its name, this theory states that a true belief counts as knowledge only if it is produced by a reliable belief-forming process. Reliabilism has been challenged by Gettier cases. A prominent such case is that of Henry and the barn faades. In the thought experiment, a man, Henry, is driving along and sees a number of buildings that resemble barns. Based on his perception of one of these, he concludes that he has just seen barns. While he has seen one, and the perception he based his belief on was of a real barn, all the other barn-like buildings he saw were faades. Theoretically, Henry doesn't know that he has seen a barn, despite both his belief that he has seen one being true and his belief being 24

formed on the basis of a reliable process (i.e. his vision), since he only acquired his true belief by accident.[citation needed]
Other responses

The American philosopher Robert Nozick has offered the following definition of knowledge: S knows that P if and only if:

P; S believes that P; if P were false, S would not believe that P; if P is true, S will believe that P.[citation needed]

The British philosopher Simon Blackburn has criticized this formulation by suggesting that we do not want to accept as knowledge beliefs which, while they "track the truth" (as Nozick's account requires), are not held for appropriate reasons. He says that "we do not want to award the title of knowing something to someone who is only meeting the conditions through a defect, flaw, or failure, compared with someone else who is not meeting the conditions."[citation needed] Finally, at least one philosopher, Timothy Williamson, has advanced a theory of knowledge according to which knowledge is not justified true belief plus some extra condition(s). In his book Knowledge and its Limits, Williamson argues that the concept of knowledge cannot be analyzed into a set of other conceptsinstead, it is sui generis. Thus, though knowledge requires justification, truth, and belief, the word "knowledge" can't be, according to Williamson's theory, accurately regarded as simply shorthand for "justified true belief".

Externalism and internalism

On a last note: part of the debate over the nature of knowledge is a debate between epistemological externalists on the one hand, and epistemological internalists on the other. Externalists think that factors deemed "external", meaning outside of the psychological states of those who gain knowledge, can be conditions of knowledge. For example, an externalist response to the Gettier problem is to say that, in order for a justified, true belief to count as knowledge, it must be caused, in the right sort of way, by relevant facts. Such causation, to the extent that it is "outside" the mind, would count as an external, knowledge-yielding condition. Internalists, contrariwise, claim that all knowledge-yielding conditions are within the psychological states of those who gain knowledge.

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Acquiring knowledge
The second question that will be dealt with is the question of how knowledge is acquired. This area of epistemology covers what is called "the regress problem", issues concerning epistemic distinctions such as that between experience and aprioricity as means of creating knowledge and that between analysis and synthesis as means of proof, and debates such as the one between empiricists and rationalists.

The regress problem

The regress problem emerges in the context of asking for justification for every belief. If a given item of justification depends on another belief for its justification, one can also reasonably ask for this latter justification to be provided, and so forth. This appears to lead to an infinite regress, with each belief justified by some further belief. The apparent impossibility of completing an infinite chain of reasoning is thought by some to support skepticism. The skeptic will argue that since no one can complete such a chain, ultimately no beliefs are justified and, therefore, no one knows anything. However, many epistemologists studying justification have attempted to argue for various types of chains of reasoning that can escape the regress problem. Some philosophers, notably Peter Klein in his "Human Knowledge and the Infinite Regress of Reasons", have argued that it's not impossible for an infinite justificatory series to exist. This position is known as "infinitism". Infinitists typically take the infinite series to be merely potential, in the sense that an individual may have indefinitely many reasons available to him, without having consciously thought through all of these reasons. The individual need only have the ability to bring forth the relevant reasons when the need arises. This position is motivated in part by the desire to avoid what is seen as the arbitrariness and/or circularity of its chief competitors, foundationalism and coherentism. Foundationalists respond to the regress problem by claiming that some beliefs that support other beliefs do not themselves require justification by other beliefs. Sometimes, these beliefs, labeled "foundational", are characterized as beliefs that one is directly aware of the truth of, or as beliefs that are self-justifying, or as beliefs that are infallible. According to one particularly permissive form of foundationalism, a belief may count as foundational, in the sense that it may be presumed true until defeating evidence appears, as long as the belief seems to its believer to be true. [citation needed] Others have argued that a belief is justified if it is based on perception or certain a priori considerations. 26

The chief criticism of foundationalism is that it allegedly leads to the arbitrary or unjustified acceptance of certain beliefs.[citation needed] Another response to the regress problem is coherentism, which is the rejection of the assumption that the regress proceeds according to a pattern of linear justification. The original coherentist model for chains of reasoning was circular.[citation needed] This model was broadly repudiated, for obvious reasons.[citation needed] Most coherentists now hold that an individual belief is not justified circularly, but by the way it fits together (coheres) with the rest of the belief system of which it is a part. [citation needed] This theory has the advantage of avoiding the infinite regress without claiming special, possibly arbitrary status for some particular class of beliefs. Yet, since a system can be coherent while also being wrong, coherentists face the difficulty in ensuring that the whole system corresponds to reality. There is also a position known as "foundherentism". Susan Haack is the philosopher who conceived it, and it is meant to be a unification of foundationalism and coherentism. One component of this theory is what is called the "analogy of the crossword puzzle". Whereas, say, infinists regard the regress of reasons as "shaped" like a single line, Susan Haack has argued that it is more like a crossword puzzle, with multiple lines mutually supporting each other.[citation needed]

A priori and a posteriori knowledge

For centuries, a distinction has been made between two kinds of knowledge: a priori and a posteriori. The nature of this distinction has been disputed by various philosophers; however, the terms may be roughly defined as follows:

A priori knowledge is knowledge that is independent of experience (that is, it is non-empirical). A posteriori knowledge is knowledge experience (that is, it is empirical). that is dependent on

In addition to disputes over the nature of the distinction, there are disputes among philosophers regarding its relation to other distinctions, such as the semantic distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions and the metaphysical distinction between the necessary and contingent.

Analytic/synthetic distinction
Some propositions are such that we appear to be justified in believing them just so far as we understand their meaning. For example, consider, "My father's brother is my uncle." We seem to be justified in believing it to be true by virtue of our knowledge of what its terms mean. Philosophers call such propositions "analytic". Synthetic propositions, on the other

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hand, have distinct subjects and predicates. An example of a synthetic proposition would be, "My father's brother has black hair." Although the American philosopher W. V. O. Quine, in his "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", famously challenged it, leading to its being taken to be less obviously real than it once seemed, it is still widely believed that there is a distinction between analysis and synthesis.[citation needed]

Specific theories of knowledge acquisition

Empiricism
In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience. Certain forms treat all knowledge as empirical, [citation needed] while some regard disciplines such as mathematics and logic as exceptions.[citation needed]

Rationalism
Rationalists believe that knowledge is primarily (at least in some areas) acquired by a priori processes or is innatee.g., in the form of concepts not derived from experience. The relevant theoretical processes often go by the name "intuition".[citation needed] The relevant theoretical concepts may purportedly be part of the structure of the human mind (as in Kant's theory of transcendental idealism), or they may be said to exist independently of the mind (as in Plato's theory of Forms). The extent to which this innate human knowledge is emphasized over experience as a means to acquire knowledge varies from rationalist to rationalist. Some hold that knowledge of any kind can only be gained a priori,[citation needed] while others claim that some knowledge can also be gained a posteriori.[citation needed] Consequently, the borderline between rationalist epistemologies and others can be vague.

Constructivism
Constructivism is a view in philosophy according to which all knowledge is "constructed" inasmuch as it is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience.[citation needed] It originated in sociology under the term "social constructionism" and has been given the name "constructivism" when referring to philosophical epistemology, though "constructionism" and "constructivism" are often used interchangeably.
[citation needed]

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What do people know?

The last question that will be dealt with is the question of what people know. At the heart of this area of study is skepticism, with many approaches involved trying to disprove some particular form of it.

General skepticism
Main article: Philosophical skepticism

Responses to general skepticism

Contextualism
Contextualism in epistemology is the claim that knowledge varies with the context in which it is attributed. More precisely, contextualism is the claim that, in a sentence of the form, "S knows that P," the relation between S and P depends on the context of discussion. According to the contextualist, the term "knows" is context-sensitive in a way similar to words such as "poor", "tall", and "flat". (Opposed to this contextualism are several forms of what is called "invariantism", the theory that the meaning of the term "knowledge", and hence the proposition expressed by the sentence, "S knows that P," does not vary from context to context.) The motivation behind contextualism is the idea that, in the context of discussion with an extreme skeptic about knowledge, there is a very high standard for the accurate ascription of knowledge, while in ordinary usage, there is a lower standard. Hence, contextualists attempt to evade skeptical conclusions by maintaining that skeptical arguments against knowledge are not relevant to our ordinary usages of the term.

Fallibilism
For most of philosophical history, "knowledge" was taken to mean belief that was true and justified to an absolute certainty.[citation needed] Early in the 20th Century, however, the notion that belief had to be justified as such to count as knowledge lost favour. Fallibilism is the view that knowing something does not entail certainty regarding it. As a response to skepticism...

Specific forms of skepticism and responses to them

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Skepticism about the external world Skepticism about ethics Skepticism about religious claims
Certain religious claims are subject to skepticism due to the lack of empirical data. While many events described in religious texts are possible, their scientific accuracy is that which is disputed. However, those that oppose religious doctrine are subject to skepticism as well. For example, there is no scientific proof which can confirm the existance of God. Conversely, there is no scientific proof which can deny the existance of God. Therefore, it is a moot point, and anyone that decides to prove otherwise will always be subject to ridicule and/or skepticism.

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Educational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists are likely to be identified as educational psychologists, whereas practitioners in schools or schoolrelated settings are identified as school psychologists. Educational psychology is concerned with the processes of educational attainment among the general population and sub-populations such as gifted children and those subject to specific disabilities. Educational psychology can in part be understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by psychology, bearing a relationship to that discipline analogous to the relationship between medicine and biology. Educational psychology in turn informs a wide range of specialities within educational studies, including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education and classroom management. Educational psychology both draws from and contributes to cognitive science and the learning sciences. In universities, departments of educational psychology are usually housed within faculties of education, possibly accounting for the lack of representation of educational psychology content in introductory psychology textbooks.[1]

Contents

1 Social, moral and cognitive development 2 Individual differences and disabilities 3 Learning and cognition o 3.1 Behavioral perspective o 3.2 Cognitive perspective o 3.3 Social cognitive perspective o 3.4 Constructivist perspective 4 Motivation 5 Research methodology o 5.1 Quantitative methods o 5.2 Qualitative methods 6 Applications in instructional design and technology 7 Applications in teaching 8 History o 8.1 Influential educational psychologists theorists 9 Careers in educational psychology o 9.1 Education and training o 9.2 Employment outlook 10 Research journals

and

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11 See also 12 External links o 12.1 Careers in the United Kingdom o 12.2 Careers in the United States o 12.3 Textbooks 13 References

Social, moral and cognitive development

An abacus provides concrete experiences for learning abstract concepts.

To understand the characteristics of learners in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, educational psychology develops and applies theories of human development. Often cast as stages through which people pass as they mature, developmental theories describe changes in mental abilities (cognition), social roles, moral reasoning, and beliefs about the nature of knowledge. For example, educational psychologists have researched the instructional applicability of Jean Piaget's theory of development, according to which children mature through four stages of cognitive capability. Piaget hypothesized that children are not capable of abstract logical thought until they are older than about 11 years, and therefore younger children need to be taught using concrete objects and examples. Researchers have found that transitions, such as from concrete to abstract logical thought, do not occur at the same time in all domains. A child may be able to think abstractly about mathematics, but remain limited to concrete thought when reasoning about human relationships. Perhaps Piaget's most enduring contribution is his insight that people actively construct their understanding through a self-regulatory process.[2] Piaget proposed a developmental theory of moral reasoning in which children progress from a naive understanding of morality based on

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behavior and outcomes to a more advanced understanding based on intentions. Piaget's views of moral development were elaborated by Kohlberg into a stage theory of moral development. There is evidence that the moral reasoning described in stage theories is not sufficient to account for moral behavior. For example, other factors such as modeling (as described by the social cognitive theory of morality) are required to explain bullying. Developmental theories are sometimes presented not as shifts between qualitatively different stages, but as gradual increments on separate dimensions. Development of epistemological beliefs (beliefs about knowledge) have been described in terms of gradual changes in people's belief in: certainty and permanence of knowledge, fixedness of ability, and credibility of authorities such as teachers and experts. People develop more sophisticated beliefs about knowledge as they gain in education and maturity.[3]

Individual differences and disabilities

An example of an item from a cognitive abilities test.

Each person has an individual profile of characteristics, abilities and challenges that result from learning and development. These manifest as individual differences in intelligence, creativity, cognitive style, motivation, and the capacity to process information, communicate, and relate to others. The most prevalent disabilities found among school age children are attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), learning disability, dyslexia, and speech disorder. Less common disabilities include mental retardation, hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and blindness. Although theories of intelligence have been discussed by philosophers since Plato, intelligence testing is an invention of educational psychology, and is coincident with the development of that discipline. Continuing debates about the nature of intelligence revolve on whether intelligence can be characterized by a single factor (Spearman's general intelligence), multiple factors (as in Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence and Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences), or whether it can be measured at all. In practice, standardized instruments such as the Stanford-Binet IQ test and the WISC are widely used in economically developed countries to identify children in need of individualized educational treatment. Children classified as gifted are often provided with accelerated or enriched

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programs. Children with identified deficits may be provided with enhanced education in specific skills such as phonological awareness.

Learning and cognition

Two fundamental assumptions that underlie formal education systems are that students (a) retain knowledge and skills they acquire in school, and (b) can apply them in situations outside the classroom. But are these assumptions accurate? Research has found that, even when students report not using the knowledge acquired in school, a considerable portion is retained for many years and long term retention is strongly dependent on the initial level of mastery.[4] One study found that university students who took a child development course and attained high grades showed, when tested 10 years later, average retention scores of about 30%, whereas those who obtained moderate or lower grades showed average retention scores of about 20%.[5] There is much less consensus on the crucial question of how much knowledge acquired in school transfers to tasks encountered outside formal educational settings, and how such transfer occurs.[6] Some psychologists claim that research evidence for this type of far transfer is scarce,[7] [8] while others claim there is abundant evidence of far transfer in specific domains. [9] Several perspectives have been established within which the theories of learning used in educational psychology are formed and contested. These include Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Social Cognitivism, and Constructivism. This section summarizes how educational psychology has researched and applied theories within each of these perspectives.

Behavioral perspective
Applied behavior analysis, a set of techniques based on the behavioral principles of operant conditioning, is effective in a range of educational settings.[10] For example, teachers can improve student behavior by systematically rewarding students who follow classroom rules with praise, stars, or tokens exchangable for sundry items. [11][12] Despite the demonstrated efficacy of awards in changing behavior, their use in education has been criticized by proponents of self-determination theory, who claim that praise and other rewards undermine intrinsic motivation. There is evidence that tangible rewards decrease intrinsic motivation in specific situations, such as when the student already has a high level of intrinsic motivation to perform the goal behavior. [13] But the results showing detrimental effects are counterbalanced by evidence that, in other situations, such as when rewards are given for attaining a gradually increasing standard of performance, rewards enhance intrinsic motivation.
[14]

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Cognitive perspective
Among current educational psychologists, the cognitive perspective is more widely held than the behavioral perspective perhaps because it flexibly admits causally related mental constructs such as traits, beliefs, memories, motivations and emotions. Cognitive theories posit memory structures that are thought to determine how information is perceived, processed, stored, retrieved and forgotten. Among the memory structures theorized by cognitive psychologists are separate but linked visual and verbal systems described by Paivio's dual coding theory. Educational psychologists have used dual coding theory and cognitive load theory to explain how people learn from multimedia presentations.[15]

Three experiments reported by Krug, Davis and Glover[16] demonstrated the advantage of delaying a 2nd reading of a text passage by one week (distributed) compared with no delay between readings (massed).

The spaced learning effect, a cognitive phenomenon strongly supported by psychological research, has broad applicability within education. [17] For example, students have been found to perform better on a test of knowledge about a text passage when a second reading of the passage is delayed rather than immediate (see figure). [16] Educational psychology research has confirmed the applicability to education of other findings from cognitive psychology, such as the benefits of using mnemonics for immediate and delayed retention of information. [18] Problem solving, regarded by many cognitive psychologists as fundamental to learning, is an important research topic in educational psychology. A student is thought to interpret a problem by assigning it to a schema retrieved from long term memory. When the problem is assigned to the wrong schema, the student's attention is subsequently directed away from features of the problem that are inconsistent with the assigned schema.[19] The critical step of finding a mapping between the problem and a pre-existing schema is often cited as supporting the centrality of analogical thinking to problem solving.

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Social cognitive perspective

Social cognitive theory is a highly influential fusion of behavioral, cognitive and social elements that was initially developed by educational psychologist Albert Bandura. In its earlier, neo-behavioral incarnation called social learning theory, Bandura emphasized the process of observational learning in which a learner's behavior changes as a result of observing others' behavior and its consequences. The theory identified several factors that determine whether observing a model will affect behavioral or cognitive change. These factors include the learner's developmental status, the perceived prestige and competence of the model, the consequences received by the model, the relevance of the model's behaviors and consequences to the learner's goals, and the learner's self-efficacy. The concept of self-efficacy, which played an important role in later developments of the theory, refers to the learner's belief in his or her ability to perform the modeled behavior. An experiment by Schunk and Hanson [20], that studied grade 2 students who had previously experienced difficulty in learning subtraction, illustrates the type of research stimulated by social learning theory. One group of students observed a subtraction demonstration by a teacher and then participated in an instructional program on subtraction. A second group observed other grade 2 students performing the same subtraction procedures and then participated in the same instructional program. The students who observed peer models scored higher on a subtraction posttest and also reported greater confidence in their subtraction ability. The results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that perceived similarity of the model to the learner increases self-efficacy, leading to more effective learning of modeled behavior. It is supposed that peer modeling is particularly effective for students who have low self-efficacy. Over the last decade, much research activity in educational psychology has focused on developing theories of self-regulated learning (SRL) and metacognition. These theories work from the central premise that effective learners are active agents who construct knowledge by setting goals, analysing tasks, planning strategies and monitoring their understanding. Research has indicated that learners' who are better at goal setting and self-monitoring tend to have greater intrinsic task interest and self-efficacy;[21] and that teaching learning strategies can increase academic achievement.[22]

Constructivist perspective
Constructivism refers to a category of learning theories in which emphasis is placed on the agency and prior knowledge of the learner, and often on the social and cultural determinants of the learning process. Educational psychologists distinguish individual (or psychological) constructivism, identified with Piaget's learning theory, from social constructivism. A dominant influence on the latter type is Lev Vygotsky's work on

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sociocultural learning, describing how interactions with adults, more capable peers, and cognitive tools are internalized to form mental constructs. Elaborating on Vygotsky's theory, Jerome Bruner and other educational psychologists developed the important concept of instructional scaffolding, in which the social or information environment offers supports for learning that are gradually withdrawn as they become internalized. Vygotsky's version of constructivist theory has led to the view that behavior, skills, attitudes and beliefs are inherently situated, that is, bound to a specific sociocultural setting. According to this view, the learner is enculturated through social interactions within a community of practice. The social constructivist view of learning has spawned approaches to teaching and learning such as cognitive apprenticeship, in which the tacit components of a complex skill are made explicit through conversational interactions occurring between expert and novice in the setting in which the skill is embedded.[23]

Motivation
Motivation is an internal state that activates, guides and sustains behavior. Educational psychology research on motivation is concerned with the volition or will that students bring to a task, their level of interest and intrinsic motivation, the personally held goals that guide their behavior, and their belief about the causes of their success or failure. A form of attribution theory developed by Bernard Weiner[24] describes how students' beliefs about the causes of academic success or failure affect their emotions and motivations. For example, when students attribute failure to lack of ability, and ability is perceived as uncontrollable, they experience the emotions of shame and embarrassment and consequently decrease effort and show poorer performance. In contrast, when students attribute failure to lack of effort, and effort is perceived as controllable, they experience the emotion of guilt and consequently increase effort and show improved performance. Motivational theories also explain how learners' goals affect the way that they engage with academic tasks.[25] Those who have mastery goals strive to increase their ability and knowledge. Those who have performance approach goals strive for high grades and seek opportunities to demonstrate their abilities. Those who have performance avoidance goals are driven by fear of failure and avoid situations where their abilities are exposed. Research has found that mastery goals are associated with many positive outcomes such as persistence in the face of failure, preference for challenging tasks, creativity and intrinsic motivation. Performance avoidance goals are associated with negative outcomes such as poor concentration while studying, disorganized studying, less self-regulation, shallow information processing and test anxiety. Performance approach

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goals are associated with positive outcomes, and some negative outcomes such as an unwillingness to seek help and shallow information processing.

Research methodology
The research methods used in educational psychology tend to be drawn from psychology and other social sciences. There is also a history of significant methodological innovation by educational psychologists, and psychologists investigating educational problems. Research methods address problems in both research design and data analysis. Research design informs the planning of experiments and observational studies to ensure that their results have internal, external and ecological validity. Data analysis encompasses methods for processing both quantitive (numerical) and qualitative (non-numerical) research data. Although, historically, the use of quantitative methods was often considered an essential mark of scholarship, modern educational psychology research uses both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Quantitative methods

Test scores and other educational variables often approximate a normal distribution.

Perhaps first among the important methodological innovations of educational psychology was the development and application of factor analysis by Charles Spearman. Factor analysis is mentioned here as one example of the many multivariate statistical methods used by educational psychologists. Factor analysis is used to summarize relationships among a large set of variables or test questions, develop theories about mental constructs such as self-efficacy or anxiety, and assess the reliability and validity of test scores.[26] Over one hundred years after its introduction by Spearman, factor analysis has become a research staple figuring prominently in educational psychology journals. Because educational assessment is fundamental to most quantitative research in the field, educational psychologists have made significant contributions to the field of psychometrics. For example, alpha, the widely used measure of test reliability was developed by educational psychologist Lee Cronbach. The reliability of assessments are routinely reported in quantitative educational research. Although, originally, educational measurement methods were built on classical test theory, item response theory and Rasch models are now used extensively in educational

38

measurement worldwide. These models afford advantages over classical test theory, including the capacity to produce standard errors of measurement for each score or pattern of scores on assessments and the capacity to handle missing responses. Meta-analysis, the combination of individual research results to produce a quantitative literature review, is another methodological innovation with a close association to educational psychology. In a meta-analysis, effect sizes that represent, for example, the differences between treatment groups in a set of similar experiments, are averaged to obtain a single aggregate value representing the best estimate of the effect of treatment. [27] Several decades after Pearson's work with early versions of metaanalysis, Glass[28] published the first application of modern meta-analytic techniques and triggered their broad application across the social and biomedical sciences. Today, meta-analysis is among the most common types of literature review found in educational psychology research.

Qualitative methods
Qualitative methods are used in educational studies whose purpose is to describe events, processes and situations of theoretical significance. The qualitative methods used in educational psychology often derive from psycholinguistics, anthropology or sociology. For example, the anthropological method of ethnography has been used to describe teaching and learning in classrooms. In studies of this type, the researcher may gather detailed field notes as a participant observer or passive observer. Later, the notes and other data may be categorized and interpreted by methods such as grounded theory. Triangulation, the practice of cross-checking findings with multiple data sources, is highly valued in qualitative research. Case studies are forms of qualitative research focusing on a single person, organization, event, or other entity. In one case study, [29] researchers conducted a 150-minute, semi-structured interview with a 20-year old woman who had a history of suicidal thinking between the ages of 14 to 18. They analyzed an audio-recording of the interview to understand the roles of cognitive development, identity formation and social attachment in ending her suicidal thinking. Qualitative analysis is most often applied to verbal data from sources such as conversations, interviews, focus groups, and personal journals. Qualitative methods are thus, typically, approaches to gathering, processing and reporting verbal data. One of the most commonly used methods for qualitative research in educational psychology is protocol analysis.[30] In this method the research participant is asked to think aloud while performing a task, such as solving a math problem. In protocol analysis the verbal data is thought to indicate which information the subject is attending to, but is explicitly not interpreted as an explanation or justification for behavior. In contrast, the method of verbal analysis [31]

39

does admit learners' explanations as a way to reveal their mental model or misconceptions (e.g., of the laws of motion). The most fundamental operations in both protocol and verbal analysis are segmenting (isolating) and categorizing sections of verbal data. Conversation analysis and discourse analysis, psycholinguistic methods that focus more specifically on the structure of conversational interchange (e.g., between a teacher and student), have been used to assess the process of conceptual change in science learning.[32] Qualitative methods are also used to analyse information in a variety of media, such as students' drawings and concept maps, video-recorded interactions, and computer log records.

Applications technology

in

instructional

design

and

Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives: categories in the cognitive domain [33]

Instructional design, the systematic design of materials, activities and interactive environments for learning, is broadly informed by educational psychology theories and research. For example, in defining learning goals or objectives, instructional designers often use a taxonomy of educational objectives created by Benjamin Bloom and colleagues.[33] Bloom also researched mastery learning, an instructional strategy in which learners only advance to a new learning objective after they have mastered its prerequisite objectives. Bloom[34] discovered that a combination of mastery learning with one-to-one tutoring is highly effective, producing learning outcomes far exceeding those normally achieved in classroom instruction. Gagn, another psychologist, had earlier developed an influential method of task analysis in which a terminal learning goal is expanded into a hierarchy of learning objectives[35] connected by prerequisite relations.

Intelligent tutoring system Educational technology John R. Anderson Cognitive tutor Cooperative learning Collaborative learning problem-based learning Computer supported collaborative learning 40

William Winn

Applications in teaching

A class size experiment in the United States found that attending small classes for 3 or more years in the early grades increased high school graduation of students from low income families.[36]

Research on classroom management and pedagogy is conducted to guide teaching practice and form a foundation for teacher education programs. The goals of classroom management are to create an environment conducive to learning and to develop students' self-management skills. More specifically, classroom management strives to create positive teacher-student and peer relationships, manage student groups to sustain on-task behavior, and use counselling and other psychological methods to aid students who present persistent psychosocial problems.[37]

Special education Lesson plan

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History

William James

Educational psychology cannot claim priority in the systematic analysis of educational processes. Philosophers of education such as Democritus, Quintilian, Vives and Comenius, had examined, classified and judged the methods of education centuries before the beginnings of psychology in the late 1800s. Instead, aspirations of the new discipline rested on the application of the scientific methods of observation and experimentation to educational problems. Even in the earliest years of the discipline, educational psychologists recognized the limitations of this new approach. In his famous series of lectures Talks to Teachers on Psychology , published in 1899 and now regarded as the first educational psychology textbook, the pioneering American psychologist William James commented that:
Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediate inventive mind must make that application, by using its originality.[38]

According to Berliner[39] educational psychology theorists' attitude to the world of educational practice has shifted from initial interest to disdain, and eventually to respect.

Charles Hubbard Judd

In 1912, Thorndike, who developed the theory of instrumental conditioning, presaged later work on programmed instruction, mastery learning and computer-based learning:

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If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print.[40]

Influential educational psychologists and theorists

The following persons were selected and featured in a recent biographical history of educational psychology[41] as having made significant contributions to the field:

Albert Bandura 1925Alfred Binet 1857-1911 Benjamin Bloom 1913-1999 Ann Brown 1943-1999 Jerome Bruner 1915Lee Cronbach 1916-2001 John Dewey 1859-1952 Nathaniel Gage 1917Robert Gagn 1916-2002 William James 1842-1910 Maria Montessori 1870-1952 Jean Piaget 1896-1980 Herbert Simon 19162001 Burrhus Frederic Skinner 1904-1990 Charles Spearman 1863-1945 Lewis Terman 1877-1956 Edward L. Thorndike 1874-1949 Lev Semenovich Vygotsky 1896-1934

Careers in educational psychology

Education and training
A person may be considered an educational psychologist if he or she has completed a graduate degree in educational psychology or a closely related field. Universities establish educational psychology graduate programs in either psychology departments or, more commonly, faculties of education. Psychologists who work in a k-12 school setting are usually trained at either the masters or doctoral (PhD or EdD) level. In addition to conducting assessments, school psychologists provide services such as academic and behavioral intervention, counseling, teacher consultation, and crisis intervention.

Employment outlook
Employment for psychologists in the United States is expected to grow faster than most occupations through the year 2014, with anticipated growth of 18-26%. One in four psychologist are employed in educational 43

settings. In the United States, the median salary for psychologists in primary and secondary schools is $58,360 as of May 2004. [42] In recent decades the participation of women as professional researchers in North American educational psychology has risen dramatically. [43] The percentage of female authors of peer-reviewed journal articles doubled from 1976 (24%) to 1995 (51%), and has since remained constant. Female membership on educational psychology journal editorial boards increased from 17% in 1976 to 47% in 2004. Over the same period, the proportion of chief editor positions held by women increased from 22% to 70%.

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Socialization
Socialization is the process by which human beings or animals learn to adopt the behavior patterns of the community in which they live. For both humans and animals, this is typically thought to occur during the early stages of life, during which individuals develop the skills and knowledge necessary to function within their culture and environment. However, this also includes adult individuals moving into an environment significantly different from one(s) in which they have previously lived and must thus learn a new set of behaviors.

Contents

1 Socialization for social agents (humans) o 1.1 Forms of socialization 1.1.1 Reverse socialization 1.1.2 Developmental socialization 1.1.3 Primary socialization 1.1.4 Secondary socialization 1.1.5 Anticipatory socialization 1.1.6 Resocialization o 1.2 Agents of Socialization 1.2.1 Total Institutions o 1.3 Products of socialization 1.3.1 Gender socialization and gender roles 2 Socialization for non-human animal species o 2.1 Feral animals o 2.2 Cats o 2.3 Dogs 3 See also

Socialization for social agents (humans)

Socialization is, in essence, learning (see Charon, 1987:63-69). Socialization refers to all learning regardless of setting or age of the individual. In every group one has to learn the rules, expectations, and knowledge of that group, whether the group is your family, the army, or the state (nation). Socialization is the process whereby people acquire a social identity and learn the way of life within their society. All of this amounts to the learning of culture. For some psychologists -- especially those working in the psychodynamic tradition -- the most important time when socialization occurs is between the ages of one and ten. Humans learn throughout their lives, but this first

45

ten years is arguably the most important time in determining the personality of persons across their life span.

Forms of socialization
Sociologists may distinguish five kinds of socialization:

Reverse socialization Developmental socialization Primary socialization Anticipatory socialization Resocialization

Reverse socialization
Reverse socialization is deviation from the desired behaviours or enculturation, especially of the younger generations.

Developmental socialization
Developmental socialization is the process of learning behavior in a social situation. Developing your social skills.

Primary socialization
Primary socialization is the process whereby people learn the attitudes, values, and actions appropriate to individuals as members of a particular culture. For example, some Inuit learn to enjoy eating the raw intestines of birds and fish, while some Chinese people eat Carp's heads and the semen of pigs (Schaefer & Lamm, 1992: 98).

Secondary socialization
Secondary socialization refers to process of learning what is appropriate behavior as a member of a smaller group within the larger society. It is usually associated with teenagers and adults, and involves minor changes than those occurring in primary socialization. eg. entering a new profession.

Anticipatory socialization
Anticipatory socialization refers to the processes of socialization in which a person "rehearses" for future positions, occupations, and social relationships (See Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:76). Henslin (2004:71) offers the example of a high school student who, upon hearing he had been accepted to a university, began to wear college student-type clothes: "In his last semester of high school, Michael has received word that he has been accepted to State University. Soon he begins to dismiss 46

high school activities as being "too high school," and begins to wear clothing styles and affect mannerisms that are characteristic of State University students. Michael is exhibiting signs of anticipatory socialization." Prior beliefs, values, attitudes & expectations people have about a job/organisation Impressions influenced Relatives, friends, media company reports Sources may be biased

Resocialization
Resocialization refers to the process of discarding former behavior patterns and accepting new ones as part of a transition in one's life. This occurs throughout the human life cycle (Schaefer & Lamm, 1992: 113). Resocialization can be an intense experience, with the individual experiencing a sharp break with their past, and needing to learn and be exposed to radically different norms and values. An example might be the experience of a young man or woman leaving home to join the military.

Agents of Socialization
Agents of socialization are people and/or groups that influence self concepts, emotions, attitudes and behavior of a person. (Henslin, 1999:7681) 1. The Family. The family is the most important of the agents of socialization. Family is responsible for, among other things, determining one's attitudes toward religion and establishing career goals. 2. The School. The school is the agency responsible for socializing groups of young people in particular skills and values in our society. 3. Peer Groups. Peers refer to people who are roughly the same age and/or who share other social characteristics (e.g., students in a college class). 4. The Mass Media. 5. Other Agents: Religion, Work Place, The State.

Total Institutions
The term "total institutions" was coined in 1961 by Erving Goffman, designed to describe a society which is socially isolated but still provides for all the needs of its members. Therefore, total institutions have the ability to resocialize people either voluntarily or involuntarily. For example, the following would be considered as total institutions: prisons, the military, mental hospitals and convents (Schaefer & Lamm, 1992: 113). Goffman lists four characteristics of such institutions:

47

All aspects of life are conducted in the same place and under the same single authority. Each phase of a members daily activity is carried out in the immediate company of others. All members are treated alike and all members do the same thing together. Daily activities are tightly scheduled. All activity is superimposed upon the individual by a system of explicit formal rules. A single rational plan exists to fulfill the goals of the institution.

Products of socialization

Gender socialization and gender roles

Henslin (1999:76) contends that "an important part of socialization is the learning of culturally defined gender roles." Gender socialization refers to the learning of behavior and attitudes considered appropriate for a given sex. Boys learn to be boys and girls learn to be girls. This "learning" happens by way of many different agents of socialization. The family is certainly important in reinforcing gender roles, but so are ones friends, school, work and the mass media. Gender roles are reinforced through "countless subtle and not so subtle ways" (1999:76). Henslin (2004:66) suggests that the fact that parents let their preschool boys roam farther from home than their preschool girls illustrates how girls are socialized to be more dependent.

Socialization for non-human animal species

The process of intentional socialization is central to training animals to be kept by humans in close relationship with the human environment, including pets and working dogs.

Feral animals
Feral animals can be socialized with varying degrees of success. We also have feral children which are those which are brought up in the wild and savage manner.They are not animals in this sense of sociological cultural relativism.

Cats
For example, the cat returns readily to a feral state if it has not been socialized properly in its young life. A feral cat usually acts defensively. People often unknowingly own one and think it is merely "unfriendly." These cats, if left to proliferate, often become "pests" in populated neighborhoods by decimating the bird population and digging up people's yards. Feral cats are sometimes helpful when used in agriculture to keep

48

rodent and snake populations down. Such cats are often referred to as "barn" cats. Socializing cats older than six months can be very difficult. It is often said that they cannot be socialized. This is not true, but the process takes two to four years of diligent food bribes and handling, and mostly on the cat's terms. Eventually the cat may be persuaded to be comfortable with humans and the indoor environment. Kittens learn to be feral either from their mothers or through bad experiences. They are more easily socialized when under six months of age. Socializing is done by keeping them confined in a small room (ie. bathroom) and handling them for 3 or more hours each day. There are three primary methods for socialization, used individually or in combination. The first method is to simply hold and pet the cat, so it learns that such activities are not uncomfortable. The second is to use food bribes. The final method is to distract the cat with toys while handling them. The cat may then be gradually introduced to larger spaces. It is not recommended to let the cat back outside because that may cause it to revert to its feral state. The process of socialization often takes three weeks to three months for a kitten. Animal shelters either foster feral kittens to be socialized or kill them outright. The feral adults are usually killed or euthanized, due to the large time commitment, but some shelters and vets will spay or neuter and vaccinate a feral cat and then return it to the wild.

Properly socialized dogs can interact with unfamiliar dogs of any size and shape and understand how to communicate.

Dogs
In domesticated dogs, the process of socialization begins even before the puppy's eyes open. Socialization refers to both its ability to interact acceptably with humans and its understanding of how to communicate successfully with other dogs. If the mother is fearful of humans or of her environment, she can pass along this fear to her puppies. For most dogs, however, a mother who interacts well with humans is the best teacher that the puppies can have. In addition, puppies learn how to interact with other dogs by their interaction with their mother and with other adult dogs in the house. A mother's attitude and tolerance of her puppies will change as they grow older and become more active. For this reason most experts today 49

recommend leaving puppies with their mother until at least 8 to 10 weeks of age. This gives them a chance to experience a variety of interactions with their mother, and to observe her behavior in a range of situations. It is critical that human interaction takes place frequently and calmly from the time the puppies are born, from simple, gentle handling to the mere presence of humans in the vicinity of the puppies, performing everyday tasks and activities. As the puppies grow older, socialization occurs more readily the more frequently they are exposed to other dogs, other people, and other situations. Dogs who are well socialized from birth with both dogs and people are much less likely to be aggressive, to suffer from fear-biting, or to interact undesirably with either species. They are more likely to be calm and interested in even the most unusual situations.

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Alternative education
Alternative education, also known as non-traditional education or educational alternative, describes a number of approaches to teaching and learning other than traditional publicly- or privately-run schools. These approaches can be applied to all students of all ages, from infancy to adulthood, and all levels of education. Educational alternatives are often the result of education reform and are rooted in various philosophies that are fundamentally different from those of mainstream compulsory education. While some have strong political, scholarly, or philosophical orientations, others are more informal associations of teachers and students dissatisfied with certain aspects of mainstream education. Educational alternatives, which include charter schools, alternative schools, independent schools, and home-based learning vary widely, but emphasize the value of small class size, close relationships between students and teachers, and a sense of community. For some, especially in the United States, the term alternative refers to educational settings for "at-risk" youth, as well as those in need of special education, rather than educational alternatives for all students. Other words used in place of alternative by many educational professionals include non-traditional, non-conventional, or non-standardized, although these terms are used somewhat less frequently and sometimes have negative connotations as well as multiple meanings. Within the field of educational alternatives, words such as authentic, holistic, and progressive are frequently used as well, however, these words each have different meanings which are more specific or more ambiguous than simply alternative.

Contents

1 Overview 2 Modern forms o 2.1 School choice o 2.2 Alternative school o 2.3 Independent school o 2.4 Home-based education o 2.5 Correctional Education o 2.6 Other 3 Internationally o 3.1 Canada 3.1.1 Toronto o 3.2 Quebec 51

3.3 England 3.4 Australia 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 Resources

o o

7 External links

Overview
Over the 200-year course of compulsory education, various widelyscattered groups of critics have suggested that the education of young people should involve much more than simply molding them into future workers or citizens. The Swiss humanitarian Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, the American transcendentalists Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau, the founders of progressive education John Dewey and Francis Parker, and educational pioneers such as Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner (founder of the Waldorf schools), among others, all insisted that education should be understood as the art of cultivating the moral, emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual aspects of the developing child. More recently, social critics such as John Caldwell Holt, Paul Goodman, Frederick Mayer and Ivan Illich have examined education from more individualist, anarchist, and libertarian perspectives, that is, critiques of the ways that they feel conventional education subverts democracy by molding young people's understandings. Other writers, from the revolutionary Paulo Freire to American educators like Herbert Kohl and Jonathan Kozol, have criticized mainstream Western education from the viewpoint of their varied left-liberal and radical politics. In the indian context one can see from the early part of the 20th century itself many thinkers have talked and introduced radically different ways of education. for example shantiniketan of Rabindranath Tagore, the ideal of basic school by Mahatma Gandhi etc are primary examples. Any one interested in alternative initiatives in India also may read articles in the following link http://multiworld.org/taleemnet/vernedu/v_educators.html The website may be slow but you could visit it slowly by going first to multiworld org and then to taleemnet and vernacular educators. In the recent years some of the major initiatives are schools like sarang, sita school, kanavu, timbaktoo collective, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanavu etc where formal schooling is not the objective. Similarly even at higher levels of education one does find initiatives like multiversity.com that have built upon the ideal of open knowledge. in the last few decades something that has coupled education is environment. in such a situation education is seen more wholistically than just factory schooling system Another quality that distinguishes educational alternatives from their traditional counterparts is their diversity. Unlike traditional privately-run 52

and publicly-run schools which are remarkably similar in many aspects to one another, most alternatives do not subscribe to a "one model fits all" approach. Each educational alternative attempts to create and maintain its own methods and approaches to learning and teaching. Practitioners aspire to realize that there are many ways of conceiving and understanding the needs of the whole child in balance with the needs of the community and society at large. Thus, each alternative approach is founded upon, sometimes drastically, different beliefs about what it means to live, learn, and grow in today's society. One aspect that distinguishes educational alternatives from each other is the curricula taught within their respective settings. Across these alternatives, we find that traditional subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics are not always taught separately but integrated into the overall learning experience. Other subjects like environmental education, ecology, or spirituality, which are often not found in more traditional school curricula, emerge from the interests of learners and teachers in a more open-ended learning community. For the most part, however, subject matter is only indirectly related to the root philosophies and educational approaches utilized in many alternative education systems. Often alternative approaches to education will vary considerably within a single type of alternative from one cultural or geographic setting to another.

Modern forms
A wide variety of educational alternatives exist at the elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. These generally fall into four major categories: school choice, alternative school, independent school, and home-based education. These general categories can be further broken down into more specific practices and methodologies.

School choice
Main article: School choice The public school options include entirely separate schools in their own settings as well as classes, programs, and even semi-autonomous "schools within schools." Public school choice options are open to all students in their communities, though some have waiting lists. Among these are charter schools, combining private initiatives and state funding; and magnet schools, which attract students to particular themes, such as performing arts.

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Alternative school
Main article: Alternative school Special needs schools, sometimes referred to as alternative schools are geared towards students with special needs as well as "at-risk" students who are having difficulty with school, including potential drop-outs, pregnant teens, returning students. The Camphill special schools provide education for handicapped children in a community setting. See also: Special education

Independent school
Main article: Independent school Independent, or private, schools have more flexibility in staff selection and educational approach. The most plentiful of these are Montessori schools, Waldorf schools (the latter are also called Steiner schools after their founder), and Friends schools. Other independent schools include democratic, or free schools such as Sands School, Summerhill School and Sudbury Valley School, Krishnamurti schools, open classroom schools, those based on experiential education, as well as schools which teach using international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate and Round Square schools. An increasing number of traditionally independent school forms now also exist within state-run, public education; this is especially true of the Waldorf and Montessori schools. The majority of independent schools offer at least partial scholarships. See also: List of Friends Schools, List of Sudbury Schools, and List of Waldorf Schools

Home-based education
Main article: Homeschooling Families who seek alternatives based on educational, philosophical, or religious reasons, or if there appears to be no nearby educational alternative can decide to have home-based education. Some call themselves unschoolers, for they follow an approach based on interest, rather than a set curriculum. Others enroll in umbrella schools which provide a curriculum to follow. Many choose this alternative for religiousbased reasons, but practitioners of home-based education are of all backgrounds and philosophies.

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Correctional Education
Main article: Correctional Education

Other
There are also some interesting grey areas. For instance, home-educators have combined to create resource centers where they meet as often as five or more days a week, but their members are all home-educated. In some states publicly-run school districts have set up programs for homeschoolers whereby they are considered enrolled, and have access to school resources and facilities. Also, many traditional schools have incorporated methods which might be considered alternative into their general approach, so the line between alternative and mainstream education is continually becoming more blurred.

Internationally
Canada
In Canada, some privately-run schools receive government school funding.

Toronto
In Toronto the alternative movement has been adopted and functions within the framework of the Toronto District School Board. An example, is Mountview Alternative School which shares space with the much larger Keele Elementary School in Toronto's High Park-Junction. An example are the Triangle Program, Canada's only high school program designed especially for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students. Then there are schools like Divine Class, a holistic non-school that guides and certifies average people (aged 18+) how to read people, situations, and events through alternative methods such as Tarot, psychic ability, and esoteric systems.

Quebec
In Quebec the Universal School of Life has been around for more than 23 years and is focused ont Indigo Children and Families and has created a way of life for Indigo Families. see: http://universalschooloflife.com

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England
Sands School is an alternative school in the UK. It has only 65 students, with a high ratio of teachers. The students learn at their own pace in a supportive environment. The school is run democratically, with the students having as much say in how the school is run as the staff. With more students than staff, the school really does belong to the students. Decisions are made by voting in a weekly school meeting, where matters ranging from what colour the new carpets should be, to the employment of new staff. The school offers a full range of subjects, and attendance to lessons is negotiated, not compulsory. The school also educates students on a larger range than most schools, and gives students choice in what they can learn. Their interests form a large part of what is offered in the curriculum.

Australia
Preshil, in Kew, Australia, was established in the 1930s. It is one of the few alternative schools in Australia that is unaffiliated with any doctrinal or theological movement. Its primary school has run since established by Margaret Lyttle in 1931, and the secondary school since the late 1970's. See also Village School, Vic, Currambena Primary, NSW, Melbourne Community School, Vic, Collingwood College, Vic and Fitzroy Community School, Vic.

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Educational technology
Educational technology is the systematic and creative blending of "idea" and "product" technologies with subject-matter content in order to engender and improve teaching and learning processes. Educational technology is often associated with the terms instructional technology or learning technology. "Product" technologies are tangible; for example, computer hardware or software. "Idea" technologies are cognitive frameworks or schemes; for example, Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory. When products are thoughtfully blended with subject matter content (such as mathematics or science concepts) for a specific audience in a specific educational context (such as a school), one is using "educational technology." The words educational and technology in the term educational technology have the general meaning. Educational technology is not restricted to the education of children, nor to the use of high technology. The particular case of the meaningful use of high-technology to enhance learning in K-12 classrooms and higher education is known as technology integration.

Contents

1 History 2 Theories and practices o 2.1 Cognition and learning o 2.2 Analysis o 2.3 Design o 2.4 Development o 2.5 Implementation o 2.6 Evaluation 3 Educational technology humanities 4 Societies and journals 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading

and

the

History
One of the earliest disciplines of educational technology was instructional systems design (ISD). This was used by the United States military during World War II, in order to train large numbers of people more effectively. In a common ISD model, the ADDIE Model, the steps involved are: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

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Theories and practices

The Encyclopedia of Educational Technology places the theories and practices of educational technology into six categories: cognition and learning, analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation.

Cognition and learning

Cognition and learning is about the mechanisms by which people process information. See also: Active learning, Information Processing Theory, Andragogy, Bloom's taxonomy, Cooperative learning, E-learning, Habituation, Sleeplearning, Metacognition, Overlearning, Operant conditioning, Situated learning, Observational learning, Zone of proximal development

Analysis
Analysis is the use of processes for gathering basic information needed for the design of a training programme. The results of analysis answer some basic questions: who?, what?, when? and where? See also: Human Performance Technology

Design
Design is the use of information gained from analysis to create an outline training programme. See also: Instructional Systems Design, ADDIE Model, Mind map, Distance education, SCORM, Blended learning, Mnemonic, Project-based learning, Information mapping

Development
Development is the building of an outline training programme into a usable training programme. See also: Assistive technology, Educational animation

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Implementation
Implementation is the actual use of a completed training programme. Success relies heavily on the effectiveness of the trainer. See also: Concept map, Technology Integration, Instructional design coordinator

Evaluation
Evaluation is the assessment of the effectiveness of all aspects of training programme development. The results are used to improve the programme. See also: Computer-adaptive (education), Usability testing test, Educational evaluation, Rubrics

Educational technology and the humanities

Research from the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) indicates that inquiry and project-based approaches, combined with a focus on curriculum, effectively supports the infusion of educational technologies into the learning and teaching process. Below are some promising practices and emerging applications specifically related to learning and technology within humanities disciplines:

Social Studies - Under Construction -Global Studies and Citizenship English Language Arts - Under Construction - Changing Space of Text and Reading.

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