Introduction to the philosophy of education

Day and Time: Monday and Wednesday – 2.00pm- 4.00pm

Outline of the course:

A good (comprehensive, easy to access and read) way to have an introduction of the field is D. C. Phillip’s paper in the “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” at: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/education-philosophy/

Those who are crediting the course have to read this paper before coming to the first lecture. We will meet twice a week (in the afternoons at 2:30) -- one hour lecture on Fridays and two hours student-presentations plus a summary lecture on Tuesdays.

I plan to begin the lectures with the historical development of the field, including the discussion of changing relationship between education and philosophy.  Then we will take up issues and concepts that have been engaging the philosophers of education. My present plan is to begin with “aims of education” and then go on to discuss the philosophy of “teaching, learning, understanding and constructivism”. I also plan to place important issues and concepts linking ethics, education, curriculum and policy, but I am yet to decide on the extent and manner of its inclusion in the course (we will decide this once we have some idea of how the course is progressing). Those who are crediting the course will be assigned readings each week. They are expected present their understating of the reading to the class and submit a write up of no more than 1000 words on it (in their OWN words). The student presentations will be followed by a short lecture that will further discuss the readings of the week.  The readings will be from Aristotle, Plato, John Dewey, Jerome Bruner, etc. Assessment will primarily be based on the presentations and write-ups.

I will mainly follow the following anthologies for the course.

Carr, W. (ed.). 2005. The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Philosophy of Education. Routledge.

Hirst, P. H. et al. (ed.). 1998. Philosophy of Education (four volumes). Routledge.