Socrates

was a Greek philosopher and the main source

of Western thought. Little is known of his life
except what was recorded by his students,
including Plato.
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, an
Athenian stone mason and sculptor, and Phaenarete,
a midwife. Because he wasn't from a noble family,
he probably received a basic Greek education and
learned his father's craft at a young age. It is
believed Socrates worked as mason for many years
before he devoted his life to philosophy.
Contemporaries differ in their account of how
Socrates supported himself as a philosopher. Both
Xenophon and Aristophanes state Socrates received
payment for teaching, while Plato writes Socrates
explicitly denied accepting payment, citing his
poverty as proof.

Socrates married Xanthippe, a younger woman, who bore him three sons—Lamprocles,
Sophroniscus and Menexenus. There is little known about her except for Xenophon's
characterization of Xanthippe as "undesirable." He writes she was not happy with Socrates's
second profession and complained that he wasn’t supporting family as a philosopher. By his own
words, Socrates had little to do with his sons' upbringing and expressed far more interest in the
intellectual development of Athens' young boys.

Athenian law required all able bodied males serve as citizen soldiers, on call for duty from ages
18 until 60. According to Plato, Socrates served in the armored infantry—known as the hoplite—
with shield, long spear and face mask. He participated in three military campaigns during the
Peloponnesian War, at Delium, Amphipolis, and Potidaea, where he saved the life of Alcibiades,
a popular Athenian general. Socrates was known for his courage in battle and fearlessness, a trait
that stayed with him throughout his life. After his trial, he compared his refusal to retreat from
his legal troubles to a soldier's refusal to retreat from battle when threatened with death.
Plato's Symposium provides the best details of Socrates's physical appearance. He was not the
ideal of Athenian masculinity. Short and stocky, with a snub nose and bulging eyes, Socrates
always seemed to appear to be staring. However, Plato pointed out that in the eyes of his
students, Socrates possessed a different kind of attractiveness, not based on a physical ideal but
on his brilliant debates and penetrating thought. Socrates always emphasized the importance of
the mind over the relative unimportance of the human body. This credo inspired Plato’s
philosophy of dividing reality into two separate realms, the world of the senses and the world of
ideas, declaring that the latter was the only important one.
 Plato 
was born around the year 428 BCE in
Athens. His father died while Plato was
young, and his mother remarried to
Pyrilampes, in whose house Plato would
grow up. Plato's birth name was Aristocles,
and he gained the nickname Platon, meaning
broad, because of his broad build.

His family had a history in politics, and

Plato was destined to a life in keeping with this history. He studied at a gymnasium owned by
Dionysios, and at the palaistra of Ariston of Argos. When he was young he studied music and
poetry. According to Aristotle, Plato developed the foundations of his metaphysics and
epistemology by studying the doctrines of Cratylus, and the work of Pythagoras and Parmenides.
When Plato met Socrates, however, he had met his definitive teacher. As Socrates' disciple, Plato
adopted his philosophy and style of debate, and directed his studies toward the question of virtue
and the formation of a noble character.
 Plato's most influential work, The Republic, is also a part of his middle dialogues. It is a
discussion of the virtues of justice, courage, wisdom, and moderation, of the individual and in
society. It works with the central question of how to live a good life, asking what an ideal State
would be like, and what defines a just individual. These lead to more questions regarding the
education of citizens, how government should be formed, the nature of the soul, and the afterlife.
The dialogue finishes by reviewing various forms of government and describing the ideal state,
where only philosophers are fit to rule. The Republic covers almost every aspect of Plato's
thought.

PHILOSOPHY

Plato regards education as a means to achieve justice, both individual justice and social
justice. According to Plato, individual justice can be obtained when each individual develops his
or her ability to the fullest. In this sense, justice means excellence. For the Greeks and Plato,
excellence is virtue. According to Socrates, virtue is knowledge. Thus, knowledge is required to
be just. From this Plato concludes that virtue can be obtained through three stages of
development of knowledge: knowledge of one's own job, self-knowledge, and knowledge of the
Idea of the Good. According to Plato, social justice can be achieved when all social classes in a
society, workers, warriors, and rulers are in a harmonious relationship. Plato believes that all
people can easily exist in harmony when society gives them equal educational opportunity from
an early age to compete fairly with each other. Without equal educational opportunity, an unjust
society appears since the political system is run by unqualified people; timocracy, oligarchy,
defective democracy, or tyranny will result.
 Aristotle
Born: c. 384 BCE in Stagira,
Macedonia
Died: c. 322 BCE

was an ancient Greek philosopher

whose work has been extremely
important to the development of
both western philosophy and
western theology. It has
traditionally been thought that
Aristotle started out in agreement
with Plato and gradually moved
away from his ideas, but recent
research suggests just the
opposite.

PHILOSOPHY and CONTRIBUTIONS:

Aristotle is a towering figure in ancient Greek philosophy, making contributions to

logic, metaphysics, mathematics, physics, biology, botany, ethics, politics, agriculture, medicine, dance
and theatre. He was a student of Plato who in turn studied under Socrates.

As a prolific writer and polymath, Aristotle radically transformed most, if not all, areas of
knowledge he touched. It is no wonder that Aquinas referred to him simply as "The Philosopher." In his
lifetime, Aristotle wrote as many as 200 treatises, of which only 31 survive. Unfortunately for us, these
works are in the form of lecture notes and draft manuscripts never intended for general readership, so they
do not demonstrate his reputed polished prose style which attracted many great followers, including the
Roman Cicero. Aristotle was the first to classify areas of human knowledge into distinct disciplines such
as mathematics, biology, and ethics. Some of these classifications are still used today.

Aristotle’s emphasis on good reasoning combined with his belief in the scientific method
forms the backdrop for most of his work. For example, in his work in ethics and politics, Aristotle
identifies the highest good with intellectual virtue; that is, a moral person is one who cultivates certain
virtues based on reasoning. And in his work on psychology and the soul, Aristotle distinguishes sense
perception from reason, which unifies and interprets the sense perceptions and is the source of all
knowledge.
 As the father of the field of logic, he was the first to develop a formalized system for reasoning.
Aristotle observed that the validity of any argument can be determined by its structure rather than its
content. A classic example of a valid argument is his syllogism: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man;
therefore, Socrates is mortal. Given the structure of this argument, as long as the premises are true, then
the conclusion is also guaranteed to be true. Aristotle’s brand of logic dominated this area of thought until
the rise of modern propositional logic and predicate logic 2000 years later.
Aristotle was the founder of the Lyceum, a school of learning based in Athens, Greece; and he
was an inspiration for the Peripatetics, his followers from the Lyceum.
MARIA MONTESSORI
Dates:
Born: August 31, 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy.
Died: May 6, 1952 in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

Early Adulthood:

An extraordinarily gifted person with the scholarly bent of a Madame Curie and the
compassionate soul of a Mother Teresa, Maria Montessori was always ahead of her,time.
She became Italy's first female doctor when she graduated in 1896. Initially she took care of children's
bodies and their physical ailments and diseases.

Professional Life:
Appointed Professor of Anthropology at the University of Rome in 1904, Montessori represented
Italy at two international women's conferences: Berlin in 1896 and London in 1900. She amazed the
world of education with her glass house classroom at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San
Francisco in 1915. In 1922 she was appointed Inspector of Schools in Italy. She lost that position when
she refused to have her young charges take the facist oath as the dictator Mussolini required.

CONTRIBUTIONS:

Montessori Method, Montessori Training, Montessori Education, Montessori Philosophy,

Montessori Classroom.

Then her natural intellectual curiosity led to an exploration of children's minds and how they
learn. She believed that environment was a major factor in child development.

JOHANN HEINRICH
PESTALOZZI
was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach. 

Born: January 12, 1746, Zürich, Switzerland

Died: February 17, 1827, Brugg, Switzerland
Education: Carolinum, Zürich
Era: 19th-century philosophy
Region: Western philosophy
Books: Letters on Early Education

PHILOSOPHY
 Pestalozzi’s early pedagogy emphasized the combination of learning and industry. Initially, he
believed his students could build things and sell them to help support the school. However, by the time of
his involvement with the Stans orphanage, he believed crafts and work were much more valuable for their
ability to develop students’ dexterity, attention, observation, memory and social interactions.
Unfortunately, the French retook Stans in 1799 and commandeered the building in which his orphanage
was housed.

Pestalozzi’s believed that rather than dealing with words, children should learn by doing and they
should be free to pursue their own interests and draw their own conclusions. This was in marked contrast
to the typical pedagogy of the day, in which the children learned entirely from books, lecture and rote
repetition and memorization, often without understanding what they were repeating. Furthermore, most
teachers in those days were not even trained as teachers. Pestalozzi eschewed the notion that teachers
were there to give children answers. Thus, he felt it was
imperative for the teacher to cultivate children’s power
of observation and reasoning.

JOHNDEWEY (18591952)
"I believe that education, therefore, is a process of
living and not a preparation for future living."  - John
Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed (1897)

John Dewey Is Best Known For:

Educational reform
Pragmatism

Birth and Death:

John Dewey was born October 20, 1859 in Burlington,
Vermont.
He died June 1, 1952.

PHILOSOPHY

John Dewey (1859-1952) believed that learning was active and schooling unnecessarily long and
restrictive.  His idea was that children came to school to do things and live in a community which gave
them real, guided experiences which fostered their capacity to contribute to society.   For example,
Dewey believed that students should be involved in real-life tasks and challenges:

HISTORY could be learnt by experiencing how people lived, geography, what the climate was like,
and how plants and animals grew, were important subjects
Dewey had a gift for suggesting activities that captured the center of what his classes were studying

MATHS could be learnt via learning proportions in cooking or figuring out how long it would take to
get from one place to another by mule

Dewey's education philosophy helped forward the "progressive education" movement, and spawned
the development of "experiential education" programs and experiments
PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION
-  is a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century; it has persisted in
various forms to the present. The term progressive was engaged to distinguish this
education from the traditional Euro-American curricula of the 19th century, which was
rooted in classical preparation for the university and strongly differentiated by social
class. By contrast, progressive education finds its roots in present experience. Most
progressive education programs have these qualities in common:

 Emphasis on learning by doing – hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning

 Integrated curriculum focused on thematic units
 Integration of entrepreneurship into education
 Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking
 Group work and development of social skills
 Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge
 Collaborative and cooperative learning projects
 Education for social responsibility and democracy
 Highly personalized education accounting for each individual's personal goals
 Integration of community service and service learning projects into the daily curriculum
 Selection of subject content by looking forward to ask what skills will be needed in future society
 De-emphasis on textbooks in favor of varied learning resources
 Emphasis on lifelong learning and social skills
 Assessment by evaluation of child’s projects and productions
 JOHN LOCKE
(1632-1704)

John Locke was born on August 29, 1632, in Warington, a village in Somerset, England. In
1646 he went to Westminster school, and in 1652 to Christ Church in Oxford. In 1659 he was elected to a
senior studentship, and tutored at the college for a number of years.
Still, contrary to the curriculum, he complained that he would rather be studying Descartes
than Aristotle. In 1666 he declined an offer of preferment, although he thought at one time of taking up
clerical work. In 1668 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1674 he finally graduated as a
bachelor of medicine. In 1675 he was appointed to a medical studentship at the college. He owned a home
in Oxford until 1684, until his studentship was taken from him by royal mandate.

PHILOSOPHY/CONTRIBUTIONS:

In 1693 John Locke, after writing extensively on topics such as human understanding,
government, money, and toleration, published a book which seemed quite heretical at the time: Some
Thoughts Concerning Education. Unfortunately, for the modern reader there doesn’t seem to be any
shock value left at all. Consider the three key themes which are addressed:

1. The development of self-discipline through esteem and disgrace rather than force or
reward;
2. The significance of developing a good character; and
3. The importance of developing reason in a child by treating the child as a rational entity.

Now what could possibly be so heretical about these themes? At first glance it doesn’t seem like
much. Indeed, many of Locke’s ideas are quite humane and consistent with his strong democratic
sentiments. However, as we will see, there is something left for us to worry about; something which may
still be a bit heretical for us today: Locke’s belief that the mind is a piece of wax or white paper which
the active educator must keep as still as possible in order to accurately stamp the information she would
have the pupil passively receive. Let us begin with an over-view of the three themes
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan

philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th
century. His political philosophy influenced the
Enlightenment in France and across Europe.

Born: June 28, 1712, Geneva, Switzerland

Died: July 2, 1778, Ermenonville, France
Influenced: Maximilien Robespierre, Jacques
Derrida, more
Philosophical era: Modern philosophy, Age of
Enlightenment

PHILOSOPHY/CONTRIBUTIONS:

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment in
eighteenth century Europe. His first major philosophical work, A Discourse on the Sciences and Arts,
was the winning response to an essay contest conducted by the Academy of Dijon in 1750. In this work,
Rousseau argues that the progression of the sciences and arts has caused the corruption of virtue and
morality. This discourse won Rousseau fame and recognition, and it laid much of the philosophical
groundwork for a second, longer work, The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality.
The second discourse did not win the Academy’s prize, but like the first, it was widely read and
further solidified Rousseau’s place as a significant intellectual figure. The central claim of the work is that
human beings are basically good by nature, but were corrupted by the complex historical events that
resulted in present day civil society.
Rousseau’s praise of nature is a theme that continues throughout his later works as well, the most
significant of which include his comprehensive work on the philosophy of education, the Emile, and his
major work on political philosophy, The Social Contract: both published in 1762. These works caused
great controversy in France and were immediately banned by Paris authorities.
The end of Rousseau’s life was marked in large part by his growing paranoia and his continued
attempts to justify his life and his work. This is especially evident in his later books, The
Confessions, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, and Rousseau: Judge of Jean-Jacques.
Rousseau greatly influenced Immanuel Kant’s work on ethics. His novel Julie or the New Heloise
impacted the late eighteenth century’s Romantic Naturalism movement, and his political ideals were
championed by leaders of the French Revolution

YVONNE LUMBAYAN YUNTING]

BSE IV-A

Born : November 24, 2015

Birthpalce: Batu_2, Sabah, Malaysia

 Philosophy:‘’Learning through
motivation .’’

I believe that every child is special and

they can learn when motivated by others.

With the best motivation and encouragement , I believe that I can teach my students the learning they
can use through a lifetime by:

 Enhancing their self-esteem and self-confidence .

 Providing their needs as students.
 Developing their social competence particularly in dealing other peers.
 Giving them the opportunity to experience the best education.
 Being free to interact in various activities.

As a future teacher, facilitator and motivator, I should possess the following attributes:

> Optimist > considerate

> Patient > fair

> competent >pleasant

> Passionate > expert

‘’I believe that a teacher who produced student which is better than him/her has achieve the highest
level of being a good educator.”

Y.L.Y ;))

PHILOSOPHIES OF EDUCATION
YUNTING, YVONNE L.