Education as a Liberal Area of Study (original) (raw)
Essays on Education, 2013
""We offer our Readers the book, which includes articles written by Polish and Slovak educationists. All of the authors are educators, involved in educational practice research, giving lectures in pedagogy for students in the institutions which educate future teachers and tutors. In Poland, like in other countries of Slavic, Latinian or German cultures, exists a scientific knowledge domain, which is defined as pedagogy. The outstanding American scientist, psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo (1999: 2-3), in the preface of his book “Psychology and life”, designed for the lecturers teaching psychology, refers to the notion pedagogy as follows: “Pedagogy is a funny word: in reality it refers to every strategy, which we accept to make students’ learning more effective. Pedagogy is a style, added by every teacher to a content. The style, which combines the content in one integral whole, to a larger extent than simple summing up the parties. This is a way, in which the ideas are becoming accessible.” The author of this idea, identifies pedagogy with activity, teaching methodology, and teaching. In Poland, such kind of teachers’ activities are the subject of pedagogy research, strictly speaking, one of its disciplines-didactics. At the beginning of the 19th century Johan Friedrich Herbert worked out the conception of pedagogy and gave the lectures in this subject to students at Koenigsberg University, from that time, this knowledge gained the status of academic science. Pedagogy is one of the subjects of students’ education, which prepares them for the profession of teachers and educators, additionally, pedagogy is one of the sciences about education linked with such domains of scientific knowledge as philosophy of education, sociology of education, educational psychology, political science of education, economics of education etc. Pedagogy, in contrast to sciences about education, treats practice in education and upbringing as the only subject of its research. Nowadays, there are distinguished numerous individual pedagogical disciplines according to various criteria, as for example preschool and early school pedagogy, school, ever-lasting, and adults’ education. From the other point of view, there are distinguished; didactics researching the educational process, theory of education, social pedagogy, which is interested in after school education and upbringing-educational practice, also the comparative pedagogy, and in the end, general pedagogy, which integrates knowledge originated from other sciences, but necessary to work out its scientific bases, and upbringing and educating. These several examples of practicing the pedagogy domains proves the complex structure of the science involving practice of education – upbringing and education. Over the 20th century and from the beginning of the 21st century the discussions have been carrying on about pedagogy itself, and about its role in creating contemporary knowledge of education. In Poland, such the distinctive caesura of new discourse was the year 1989, initiating the changes in political system. Educationists interpreted over again the past scientific achievements of pedagogy, they reinterpreted its basic notions: education, upbringing, teaching. However, they first of all, had to leave treating this science in categories of real socialism ideology, its theoretical basis – Marx philosophy and the ideal of education, who was the man “constructing socialism”. The center of attention of theorists are nowadays new educational, social, and civil problems, which had to be read again in conditions of democratic society and free market economy. The old forgotten conceptions of education, have been reminded, they are possible to realize again in a new political situation, the pedagogy theorists’ opinions have been read again. They lived and worked before the second world war, in societies, which were defined by government as “bourgeois”. There is initiated the discussion about the new paradigms of education and the theories creating the bases of pedagogy. A student, from a “target” to shape, became the “subject”, and education became a kind of assistance in his/her personal development. From didaskalo-centrism; the opinion locating a teacher and his activities in the center of attention, to the philosophy of personalism, according to which a student is a person, a subject of realizing education. The return to some conceptions of New Upbringing and paedocentrism, created the criticism of different directions of education already in the 20th century, but nowadays. again the relations between a teacher and student are discussed (e.g. in so called anti-pedagogy), there are new definitions of upbringing and education. The notion is accepted, that after traditional school (Herbart) , after paedocentrism, treating the role of upbringing as supporting the self-development conditions; it is about time for the following path of assisting the child development, and working out the conception of teenagers, adults, and seniors’ education,. The outstanding Polish educationist, Zbigniew Kwieciński, writes that this third path is constructivism: “In opposition to maximalism and paedagogism of traditional pedagogy, didascalo-centric, and at the same time, in opposition to negativism and reductionism of pedagogy of New Upbringing (paedocentric) , constructivism can be defined as pedagogy of minimum intervention, assistance, leadership”(2009 :14). Nowadays in Poland, pedagogy is no longer treated as the theory giving the scientific bases of upbringing “the man of socialism”, thus the ideology to shape a student according to the assumed ideal, but, in reality, pedagogy is a the science concerned with educational practice teaching a person (student/pupil) threated as a subject. The Reader can find several reflections of new approach towards pedagogy in the articles presented in this book. Their authors, as mentioned above, are the educationists from different academic centers. Krzysztof Dziurzyński is a lecturer, and at the same time the dean of pedagogy faculty at Alcide De Gasperi Euroregional Economy University in Józefów. In the first article of this book he describes a specific method/ form of pre-school education, which is playing games. In his next article he presents the results of the survey, which measures students’ competences, and the test itself, as a method of surveying the competences. Katarina Gesova works as a lecturer at University of Matej Bel in Banska Bystrica (Slovakia); in her article she deliberates the problem of perspective of life of older people. It analyzes the functioning of the University of Third Age as a form of cultural and educational animation. Anna Klim-Klimaszewska and Ewa Jagiełło work at University in Siedlce and in their article they present the importance of a new method of pre-school education, which is a project. Ewa Kamińska is a lecturer at State Professional University in Płock; in her article she presents the results of analyses and axiological bases of civil education. Ewa Lubina works as a lecturer at University of Farming in Warsaw; in her article she deliberates the problem of regression of communication skills in the contemporary informative society. Ewa Matczak and Waldemar Kozłowski are the scientists/researchers working at the Institute of Educational Research in Warsaw and they discuss, in one of their articles, the results of research on parents’ educational optimism, whereas, in another article they present the research results, according to the criteria, which parents take into consideration, willing to provide their children great personal success through successful education. Pavol Tomanek works as a lecturer at University of John Amos Komensky in Bratislava (Slovakia); in his article he deliberates the problem of suicides. Examines the general terms and conditions for self-destructive behavior, their symptoms and remedies. It seems that the articles presented in this book, resulted from theoretical analyses and empirical research, will give the participants of American academic culture the knowledge about significant problems undertaken by middle-aged and young generations of Polish educationists. Wojciech Sroczyński Kwieciński Z., 2009, Przedmowa, w: Kwieciński Z., Śliwerski B. (red.), Pedagogika, t 1, Wyd. Naukowe PWN, Warszawa. Zimbardo Ph.G.,1999, Psychologia i życie, Wyd. Naukowe PWN, Warszawa. ""
THE ARENA OF EDUCATION: ISOLATION OR INTEGRATION?
The purpose of this reflection is to spectacle the relationship between education as a social science and human development discipline with various other disciplines like leadership and management, economics, sociology, health studies, economics, policy and knowledge management. In the subsequent paragraphs an overview of the definition of education, critical analysis of education, its relationship with various disciplines has been highlighted. Each part of the aforementioned concepts has been elaborated briefly.
Education and Schooling Revisited
Although the structural-functional school has largely fallen out of favour in academic circles in the twenty-five years or so since this article was written, these ideas still sometimes crop up as part of the public’s implicit understanding of the purpose of education and schooling. The structural-functional interpretation was so widely disseminated in the 1940s-1990s, that it became an almost unquestioned, hegemonic ideology. This article may help critique those ideas.The writings of Paulo Freire are, of course, timeless.
Educational Situation: Some Preliminary Remarks on a Basic Concept of Education
When educationalists are asked to define their own academic discipline of Education Studies, they often struggle to reach a common understanding. From an epistemological point of view, this indeterminacy leads back to the complex considerations involved in establishing a basic concept of education. In this article, the author explores in a preliminary fashion the possibility of identifying the essence of education in its performativity as an occurrence in context that always precedes and supersedes our theoretical considerations of it. Education is not to be understood primarily as something conceptual (theory) but rather in terms of its significance as a situational event (reality).
Philosophy of Educational Research: New Epistemological, Methodological and Historical Approach
International Journal of Educational Excellence, 2020
The philosophy of educational research has traditionally been one of the least studied fields in the epistemology of the social sciences and humanities. However, a philosophical reflection on education itself, in the search for an ultimate explanation of what it means in the field of human evolution, necessarily implies knowing how to obtain information for its knowledge. This, in an epistemological context, implies analyzing the research methods used in the educational sciences. Throughout its history, educational research has experienced three stages of methodological evolution in its search for scientific effectiveness: (a) research without adhering to a particular model, (b) research applied to practice, and (c) research inserted into practice. The analysis of these methodological evolutions shows a history of great academic value, of fascinating philosophical debates, which every educator and educational researcher should know, and which nevertheless remains practically unexplored and unstudied in its entirety in the academic field.