Pragmatism Philosophy in Education

Pragmatism and educational process:

The basics of all teaching are the activity of the child. Every experience or activity is educative and all education lies in having experience however continuous growth of experiences is not the whole education, where education is a constant recognizing of experience. Pragmatism proceed toward the problem of education from the point of view of “progressivits”, progress means change , and change means novelty, so education cannot be acquired once for all. Solving the problem is the core of education in which the educational process becomes more practical and experimental: in a word pragmatic.

Pragmatism and aims of education:

Pragmatism doesn’t set any aims of education. It believes that there are no fixed aims, life is changeable, and thus aims are also changeable. Education deals with human life. It must help the children to attain their social and biological needs. According to pragmatists, education aims at the harmonious development of the educand-physical, social, intellectual and aesthetic. Thus the purpose of education is to direct the interests and abilities toward the satisfaction of the child that he needs in his environment. Children should be able to solve their daily problems, they also should be creative and effective members in the society, and finally they must be dynamic so they can change with changeable situations.

Pragmatism and curriculum:

Pragmatists follow some principles in the field of curriculum development.

1. Principle of utility: experiences, subjects, and activities must be included in the curriculum because they are very useful to the present needs and meet the future expectations of adult life. Other subjects like history, geography, language must also be a part from the curriculum.
2. Principle of interest: in this principle, only experiences and practical exercises that provide interest for the students are allowed to be included in the curriculum. There are four types of interests: interest in conservation, navigation, construction, and creative expression. Although these interests are of big importance; on the other hand, at the early stages, reading, writing and      counting must be included in the curriculum.
3. Principle of experience: the pragmatic curriculum here is formed from three integrated varieties      represented by the activity, experience, and vocation of the child. Pragmatism curriculum must include such varieties for learning experiences which stimulate original thinking to develop purposeful and social attitudes.
4. Principle of integration: pragmatic curriculum integrates activities, subjects and experiences in which pragmatists consider that knowledge is one unit. They focus on building a dynamic and integrated curriculum that helps in developing children and the variable society as the needs and demands require.

Pragmatism and methods of teaching:

The principle of teaching in the pragmatic method is an activity or experience-based method. The core of pragmatic method is learning through personal experience of the child.

“Education is not so much teaching the child things he ought to know, as encouraging him to learn for him through experimental and creative activity”.

When a student learns about things by experimenting them by him, he becomes more creative and confident. The method used by the pragmatism teacher is experimental and the student must discover the solution by himself.

Teachers and textbooks play a secondary role in pragmatism education, they only suggest problems and leave the students to test or experiment themselves. Every child teaches himself, so we can say that pragmatic education is an auto-education.

Pragmatist teacher:

Pragmatists consider the teacher as a leader, philosopher, and guide. A pragmatic teacher must give problems to the students and motivate them to find the solution by themselves. In addition the teacher must provide chances for the students to develop their innate qualities. So the main role of the teacher is to suggest problems for the students and guide them to find answers.