Introduction.
The
philosophical foundation of curriculum helps to determine the purpose of
education and the purpose to set goals of curriculum. Thru philosophy suggestion education should
calculate concepts of morality, goodness, knowledge and trust.
Philosophy
The
word ‘philosophy’ comes from the Greek word ‘philosophies’ which is made up of
the words “phileo” meaning love and “sophia” meaning wisdom. Thus, the literal
meaning of philosophy is ‘love of wisdom” (Power, 1982). Each individual has an attitude toward life,
children, politics, learning, and previous personal experiences that informs
and shapes their set of beliefs. That why philosophical of foundations of
curriculum are involve the values, traditions, culture factors and forces which
influence the contents of the school offers to the student.
Philosophy of Education.
Curricula
of education not only focusing the student gain knowledge and skill. The hidden curriculum cultivate the
value. In other word change the behavior
of learner too. Eventually philosophical
foundation of curriculum encourage all student to the greatest possible in
their life as holistic person.
Philosophy
and Curriculum
These
educational philosophies focus on what an educator should teach according the
curriculum aspect. The major four philosophies of curriculum development
include Perennialism, Essentialism, Progressivism and Reconstructionism.
i.
Perennialism.
Perennialism
means “everlasting’ and most conservative educational philosophy. It is root in the philosophy of Plato and
Aristotle. Robert Hutchins and Mortimer
Adler are two modern proponent of
parennialism. Their aim of
education is a common nature of man. It
advocates the permanency of knowledge that has to be test of time.
Implication
for perennialism in the curriculum following ‘The Great Books’ programme called
the liberal arts discipline their mind and cultivate the intellect. Here is
subject centered and emphasices teaching learning languages, literature,
science and arts. But teach subject in
separate form like history as history.
The teacher teach student to inquire represent basic knowledge. Example Plato’s Republic for student to read,
the content can be simplified for young readers in terms of level of complexity of word. Where student achievement assist him/her to
explore knowledge and discover their niche in life.
ii.
Essentialism.
Essentialism
advocate instilling basic academic knowledge and character development. Because
student need to become model citizen.
The teacher should instil traditional values such as respect for
authority. Essentialism focus on
instruction in nature science to
understanding the world.
The
curriculum proposed the basic of subject mathematic, nature sciences, history,
foreign language and literature.
Essentialism programs are
academically strict for all learner because it emphasize academic subject in
school and colleges. Teacher play importance role, whom serves as
the intellectual and moral role model for student.
iii.
Progressivism.
Progressivisms believe
that education should focus on the whole child, rather than on the content or
the teacher. This educational philosophy stresses that students should test
ideas by active experimentation. Learning is rooted in the questions of learners
that arise through experiencing the world. It is active, not passive. The
learner is a problem solver and thinker who makes meaning through his or her
individual experience in the physical and cultural context. Effective teachers
provide experiences so that students can learn by doing.
Curriculum content is
derived from student interests and questions. The scientific method is used by
progressivism educators so that students can study matter and events
systematically and first hand. The emphasis is on process-how one comes to
know. John Dewey was its foremost proponent. One of his tenets was that the
school should improve the way of life of our citizens through experiencing
freedom and democracy in schools. Shared decision making, planning of teachers with
students, student-selected topics are all aspects. Books are tools, rather than
authority.
iv.
Reconstructionism.
Reconstructionism
is a philosophy that emphasizes to create a better society and worldwide
democracy. Reconstructionist educators focus on a curriculum that highlights
social reform as the aim of education. Means
that to preparing people for creating
this new social order.
For
reconstructionists curriculum focuses on
student experience and taking social action on real problems, such as violence,
hunger, international terrorism, inflation, and inequality. It known as Community-based learning and
bringing the world into the classroom are also strategies.
Three
figures in the of philosophy and curriculum.
The
philosopher is thoughtful, remains in a thoughtful mood, being in search of new
ideas, new knowledge with the help of his growing wisdom. Philosophers are
interested in the first principle and the final conclusion of all branches of knowledge. Philosophies vary from culture to culture, place
to place and time to time. Thus different person having their different
ideologies, ways of life.
Here are three figures
in philosophers of curricula in an education.
They are Abu Nasr Al Farabi, Confucius and Rabindranath Tagore.
i.
Abu
Nasr Al Farabi
Figure
1: Modern imaginary portrait of Al-Farabi (Source).
Abu Nasr
Muhammad al-Farabi, known as Alpharabius, was a Muslim polymath and one of the
greatest scientists and philosophers of Persia and the Islamic world in late
9th and early 10th century. He was also a cosmologist, logician, musician,
psychologist and sociologist.
He
also known as Al-Farabi, was born in Wasij, in the province of Farab in
Turkestan, in 872 AD (259 AH) of a noble family. He died at the
age of 80. His father, of Persian
origin, was an army commander at the Turkish court. (Sherzai Dilawar ,2013).
Al-Farabi studied grammar, logic,
philosophy, music, mathematics and sciences at Baghdad . He also was a great translator and interpreter
of Greek philosophy of Abu Bishr Matta b. Yunus. Then he studied under Yuhanna
b. Haylan, abaut Nestorian, in Harran. Thereby he is affiliated to the
Alexandrian school of philosophy. As a
result of these years of study, he accumulated such knowledge of philosophy
that he earned the name of the ‘Second Teacher', by reference to Aristotle as
the ‘First Teacher'. His despair at
reforming his society that inclined him towards Sufism.
Al-Farabi had great desire to understand
the universe and man. As such he
conducted the meticulous ancient philosophy, which Plato and Imam Al-Ghazali.
Past youth absorbing component philosophy of Platonic and neo-Platonic solids
and integrated into the Arabic-Islamic civilization. His philosophy of community and national
unity be achieved by unity of thought, wisdom and religion, respectively. The foundations of the unity and the
establishment of an impartial governess.
Entirely based on the source of the Quran and science.
He was founder of a new school that is called
Islamic Philosophy, and Al-Farabi was a Muslim philosopher. Al-Farabi has also
mastered to philosophy and believed to Islamic sources, and accept them with
reason and logic
In education, the most important social phenomena in al-Farabi's
philosophical system is concerned with the human soul and makes sure that the
individual is prepared from an early age to become a member of society, to
achieve his own level of perfection, and thus to reach the goal for which he
was created (Sherzai Dilawar ,2013)..
Indeed, the whole activity of education,
in al-Farabi's view, can be summed up as the acquisition of values, knowledge
and practical skills by the individual, within a particular period and a
particular culture. The goal of education is to lead the individual to
perfection since the human being was created for this purpose, and the goal of
humanity's existence in this world is to attain happiness, which is the highest
perfection—the absolute good.
According to al-Farabi, the perfect
human being (al-insan al-kamil), is the one who has obtained theoretical virtue—thus
completing his intellectual knowledge—and has acquired practical moral
virtues—thus becoming perfect in his moral behaviour. So this perfection which he expects from
education combines knowledge and virtuous behavior; it is happiness and
goodness at one and the same time (Sherzai Dilawar ,2013)..
Al-Farabi also inroduce of
technical terms in education to describe concept such as;
Table 1: Technical
terms in education
|
Consept in education
|
Al-Farabi ‘s technical term
|
|
discipline
|
ta'dib
|
|
correction/assessment
|
Taqwim
|
|
training
|
Tahdhib
|
|
guidance
|
Tasdid
|
|
instruction
|
ta'lim
|
|
exercise or learning
|
Irtiyad
|
|
Good manners or
culture
|
adab
|
His opinion the true
educational are the combination of all the good qualities, while discipline is
the way of creating the moral virtues and the practical is a arts in the
nations.
Al-Farabi
believed that the main objective of education is to bring people happiness
include mysticism, belief and obey to the right (God). He added that with the knowledge it can lead
the mind, body and soul throughout the regeneration, achieve the highest
perfection, and the purpose of social education.
ii.
Confucius
Qiu or Ch’iu is the
traditional name of Confucius and his formal name is Zhongni, or Chung-ni. He was born in 551 BCE (lunar calender) in
the feudal state of Lu, in modern Shandong Province. He was the son of
63-year-old clerk, ex-warrior Shuliangh.
His married with 17-year-old pretty girle named Yan Zhengzai. Confucius lost his father when he was three
years old, and then his mother took him and left the fiefdom. They lived in
poverty and when Confucius was seventeen years old, his mother died of illness
and overwork.
Ch’iu was a
self-educated youth, raised by a poor family in the state of Lu. In his teenage
years, he had an administrative position with the local noble, managing his
agricultural accounts. It was here that Ch’iu started developing a passion for
ethical philosophy. Later he known as
Kong Qui or K’ung Fu-tzu.
Confucius’ philosophy
of education focused on the "Six Arts": archery, calligraphy,
computation, music, chariot-driving and ritual. To Confucius, the main
objective of being an educator was to teach people to live with integrity. He
is the author of the golden rule of ethics. The Golden Rule is the principle of
treating others as one's self would wish to be treated. Confucius himself devoted his whole life to
teaching his disciples.
The Confucianism really concerns about the aim of
education, curriculum, teaching
and learning. The actualisation
of this aim of education
requires a normative
standard to guide the
ruler in knowing whether
and when the
people have been transformed
and their customs perfected. This
standard is revealed in Xueji II to be dao (Way) that is the object of
learning: “People who do not learn will not realise dao”. Dao is the the Way of
Heaven (tian) or ‘guiding discourse’ (Hansen, 1989) that is passed down from
antiquity. To realise dao is to understand and experience the ‘vision of human
excellence’ (Cua, 1989) that forms the basis for human transformation and cultural
perfection.
A Confucian curriculum is
essentially holistic, comprehensive and integrated. The holistic
curriculum emphasises on students’
cognitive, affective and behavioural domains. Learners are
called to internalise and apply
the contents learnt
through self-cultivation and social
interaction. The curriculum
is also broad-based where
students learn the six arts
of rituals, music, archery,
charioteering, calligraphy, and
mathematics. Furthermore, the curriculum is designed in such a way that
the students learn systematically and progressively by constantly
building upon, synthesising and putting into
practice what they have learnt. Teaching and learning are learner-focused where the teacher responds empathetically to the individual needs of students.
The ‘enlightening
approach’ is recommended where the teacher encourages independent
thinking and guides students
using the questioning
technique and peer learning. Confucian education also fosters critical and
creative thinking, as modelled by Confucius
himself who challenges
the rulers and
social norms of
his time.
iii.
Rabindranath Tagore
Figure
5: Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 6,
1861 in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, and British India in a prosperous family.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a
leader of the Brahmo Samaj, which was a new religious sect in
nineteenth-century Bengal. At primary
level his father provided him education in Sanskrit language, Indian philosophy
& Astronomy. Then For higher
education he was sent to Bengal Academy where he developed an aversion to
prevalent dull and rigid education. Then
he was sent to England, he further studied on his own. He turned into a poet,
dramatist, philosopher and painter. He as then awarded the title of Gurudev. He got the Nobel Prize as he translated
Gitanjali in English.
The British Indian government awarded
him with the degree of Doctorate in 1915 which he gave away the Jalyanwala Bagh incident.
In Tagore’s philosophy of education, the
aesthetic development of the senses was as important as the intellectual. His
believe that music, literature, art, dance and drama were given great
prominence in the daily life of the school.
According to Tagore, "That education
is highest which not only imparts information and knowledge to us, but also
promotes love and follow feeling between us and the living beings of the
world.”(M. O’Connell K.,2003)
In terms of curriculum, he advocated a teaching system that analysed
history and culture for the progress that had been made in breaking down social
and religious barriers. Such an approach emphasized the innovations that had
been made in integrating individuals of diverse backgrounds into a larger
framework, and in devising the economic policies which emphasized social
justice and narrowed the gap between rich and poor. Art would be studied for
its role in furthering the aesthetic imagination and expressing universal
themes.
Conclusion.
The philosophy of Al-Farabi, Confucius and Tagore
are in line with the diverse and diverse cultures of Malaysian society to live
in harmony.
Therefore, Malaysian authorities had to
deliberate a coherent philosophy of education accommodating for its
multi-ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural society, but based on the long
tradition of Malay and Islamic based education and taking account of eastern
and western philosophies brought by the influx of the Chinese and Indians to
Malaysia. This was realized through the formation of the National Education
Philosophy (NEP) according to the needs of Malaysian citizens and the country,
especially for the betterment of its citizens in line with the National
Principles (Rukun Negara) with ultimate aims of building a united and
progressive society.
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