LEARNING HOW TO LEARN: AN ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHY …
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN: AN ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
by Michael Skirpan
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Pittsburgh Department of Philosophy
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Bachelor of Philosophy
University of Pittsburgh 2011
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCE
This thesis was presented by
Michael Skirpan It was defended on
August 6, 2010 and approved by John McDowell, PhD., Professor, Department of Philosophy Michael Giazzoni, PhD., Advisor, University Honors College Elliot Paul, PhD., Professor, Barnard College ? Columbia University Dissertation Advisor: Karl Schafer, PhD., Professor, Department of Philosophy
ii
Copyright ? by Michael Skirpan 2011
iii
LEARNING HOW TO LEARN: AN ESSAY ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
Michael Skirpan, BPhil University of Pittsburgh, 2011 The question of how to educate our youth has been a tradition in philosophy since the time of the ancients and now has become highly debated issue in contemporary society. While answers to this problem take on many different forms, there is a way to interpret much of the canon as arguing for an education that strives to pass down the ability to learn on one's own. `How educators are supposed to support such an aim,' is the primary question of this work. To thoroughly answer this question, many aspects of education must be considered: classroom behavior, curriculum, theories of learning, teaching, and evaluation. These problems are addressed in the spirit of a constructivist view on education and are supported foundationally by philosophical arguments ? primarily Wilfrid Sellars's views regarding the process of becoming a language user. Accepting Sellars's model of language acquisition and a modern view on the nature of knowledge, an immersive approach to `learning how to learn' is taken. Designing a curriculum that emulates a structure of knowledge, slow and thorough inculcation of creative and critical thinking skills, and taking seriously the notion of teaching as a practice are all central themes to the proposed system. Elaborating on how to bring these pieces together into one view on education is the fundamental thread of the work, though, secondarily, there is discussion of harmful practices that are current in education. To actualize a system that truly aims at learning, it will be argued that grades and standardized tests are methods of evaluating that must be disabused. The argument for this is that their affectation on the attitudes of students and teachers has an undermining effect on the educational ideology that is central to this thesis. Bringing all
iv
of these parts together, the hope is to not only build an educational ideal with a system that inculcates students with the ability to properly learn, but also provide for an institution that supports human flourishing.
v
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related download
- power to my students my philosophy of multicultural education
- personal leadership philosophy elizabeth guerrero michigan
- educational philosophy and leadership style
- my philosophy of teaching grand valley state university
- philosophy example 5
- learning how to learn an essay on the philosophy
- philosophy of education paper
- educ 604 smith 22275744 philosophy of education
- 0dun dvwhho schreyer institute for teaching excellence
- a brief guide to writing the philosophy paper
Related searches
- how to start an essay samples
- how to start an essay about yourself
- how to start an essay introduction examples
- how to write an essay for college
- how to cite an essay mla
- how to start an essay introduction
- how to cite an essay in mla
- how to start an essay about myself
- how to end an essay powerfully
- how to write an essay title
- how to outline an essay for college
- how to write an essay outline format