Kenyatta University

School of Education

Department of Educational Foundations

Unit Code: EFN 302

Unit Title: Philosophy of Education

Name Registration Number Signature

Brian Mugumura E37/CE/10067/2017 ____________________

Mary Wangu Wainaina E35/CE/10885/2016 ____________________

Daniel Abwora E37/CE/10460/2017 ____________________

Anthony Mwaniki E37/CE/10257/2017 ____________________

Samuel Maina Wainaina E37/CE/9298/2018 ____________________

Stephen Katunga E37/CE/18098/2016 ____________________

Joseph Mbugua Wanyoike E37/CE/9265/2018 ____________________

Berine Atieno Onyango E37/CE/10089/2017 ____________________

Lecturer: Dr. Edward Maina Andafu

Task: Discuss the concept of consciousness in the realm of the human person, showing how

practice of education can enhance it.

Date of Submission: 19th May 2021

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HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND EDUCATION

i. Introduction

According to (Sifuna, et al., 2006), human consciousness is a relationship between self and

other things and not cognitive processes only. He says that to be conscious is to be linked to

an object of knowledge upon which human beings act on them consciously and responsibly.

(Robert, 2015) defines consciousness as the awareness of the sensations, thoughts, and

feelings we experience at a given moment. He says that consciousness is our subjective

understanding of both the environment around us and our private internal world,

unobservable to outsiders.

(Njoroge & Bennaars, 1986) associate consciousness with reflection and action. They say that

human consciousness should lead to human action. Most philosophers and psychologists

relate human consciousness with perception and understanding of the environment, cognitive

processes, or the state of being aware. Therefore, we can define human consciousness as the

awareness of one’s environment and the ability to have rational thoughts about the

environment and act on them consciously and responsibly.

(Njoroge & Bennaars, 1986) define education to be a process of awareness. Since being

aware of the environment is the definition of human consciousness, then this implies that the

process of education can be used to enhance consciousness in learners.

ii. Philosophy of Human Consciousness

According to (Mansel, 1871) human consciousness is of two kinds i.e., the presentive

(intuitive) consciousness and representative (reflective) consciousness. He further states that

the intuitive consciousness deals with intuitions while reflective consciousness deals with

thought processes. An example of intuitive consciousness is when one has a feeling in their

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gut that whatever they are doing is either right or wrong while reflective consciousness is

when one has rational thought processes about an object.

(Njoroge & Bennaars, 1986) says that human consciousness is acquired in four successive

levels in order of their complexity. The empirical level is the first level, where human beings

experience the environment through their sense organs. This is followed by the intellectual

level where human beings start giving labels to their environment. Then the rational level

where human beings begin to have rational thoughts about their environment and finally the

responsible level where they begin taking responsibility by taking active measures.

Paulo Freire, a Brazilian philosopher, distinguished three types of human consciousness.

First, is the Magic Consciousness, where human beings apprehend facts and problems but

being unable to explain them attributes to them as superior powers. (Njoroge & Bennaars,

1986) relates this type of consciousness to the 1st and 2nd levels of human consciousness.

Second, is Naïve Consciousness, where human beings understand facts and problems and

assumes that he has control over them. (Njoroge & Bennaars, 1986) relates this to the 2nd and

3rd levels of human consciousness. Third, is the Critical Consciousness, where human beings

try to judge the situation realistically by analysing facts and problems in light of fundamental

human values. (Njoroge & Bennaars, 1986) relates this to the 3rd and 4th levels of human

consciousness.

(Smithies, 2019) says that the main reason for improving learners’ consciousness is because it

opens up a range of possibilities to the leaner, that they were unaware of beforehand.

Therefore, enhanced consciousness is an ideal way to explore and broaden a student's

perception of reality. Equally, it increases the awareness of oneself and helps them identify

various ways through which they can have an impact on the world around them. While

multiple strategies exist on enhancing consciousness, the practice of education, through

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various activities and concepts, can act as ideal avenues through which consciousness is

enhanced.

iii. The role of Education in enhancing Human Consciousness

Curriculum developers are able to enhance learners’ consciousness by implementing a

curriculum that includes social justice issues like wealth inequality in mathematics,

destruction or pollution of wildlife habitat and climate change in Environmental Sciences,

Genocide and negative effects of war in History etcetera. Social skills such as respect for

others and respect for the environment can be enhanced through subjects that target the

importance of these values in the real world. Through the teaching of religion, geography,

and ethics, students can become conscious of how to connect with values such as peaceful

coexistence, respect for opinions, appreciation of social justice, and the nexus between

human lives and their environment.

A teacher who involves the learners directly and actively enhances learners’ consciousness.

For example, in a classroom situation, the teacher should not treat learners as empty vessels

as this will make learners silent and unable to express themselves independently. Learners

should not be subjected to force learning but it should be a dialogue with the teacher; this

provides the learners with an opportunity to thinking critically when they undergo the

question-and-answer approach of teaching. This approach requires a lot of patience from the

teacher, and eventually learners become conscious on how to think critically and logically

when tackling various problems presented to them.

Classroom practices like group discussions, debates and class projects can enhance learners’

consciousness since they learn from each other through sharing of ideas. The teacher can do

this by exposing the learners to challenging tasks which require the learners to think

critically, hence resulting in a dialogue. Each learner will be required to actively make their

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contribution in establishing the solutions to the problems identified. As this happens, they can

pick hints and tips about how specific issues are approached and discuss their understanding

with others. They can then compare and contrast their approaches with other groups and

obtain a comprehensive solution to the problem. Therefore, this activity will be accompanied

by an increase of consciousness and creativity among the learners.

School administrators can create interaction opportunities with society for their learners by

organising interschool functions like school games, academic contests, music and drama

competitions. Interaction of learners from diverse cultures, religion and social economic

backgrounds results to enhancement of learners’ consciousness towards the diverse cultures

in society, how to relate with them and one’s role in society.

Teachers can enhance learners’ consciousness by giving learners freedom of choice when

undertaking a task under specified guidelines. By letting learners select an independent task

to complete, they gain a sense of responsibility when performing the task. This sense of

responsibility makes them to own their work, and not doing it to please the teacher. For

example, the teacher can let learner to assign cleaning duties amongst themselves but giving

strict guidelines to follow. The learner will have a sense of responsibility on the duty he

chooses to do. This enhances learners’ consciousness on taking responsibility of one’s actions

and duties.

The competency-based curriculum involves both parents and teachers in educating learners.

By involving parents in educating learners, then it follows that learners’ consciousness is

enhanced. For example, some learners may feel more comfortable to share their ideas to

parents rather than in a classroom of their peers. Eventually, these learners begin gaining

confidence and start to actively participate in school; hence they become more conscious on

how to express their ideas. Moreover, the parent-learner interaction during the learning

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process makes learners more aware of their parents’ careers. Therefore, the learners are able

to become more conscious on career options for them to choose from.

Media houses that air educative children programmes can be able to enhance learners’

consciousness as they watch these programmes during school holidays. For example, if the

media starts including moral lessons, social justice issues and cultural diversities disguised as

realistic CGI cartoons and animations, then learners gain awareness of how human beings are

expected to behave i.e., morally acceptable behaviours, how to relate with people from other

cultures or race, negative effects of conflict and one’s role in the society.

iv. Conclusion

Human beings are conscious beings in this world, and hence they are aware that they are also

incomplete beings. This implies that they require education in order to become more

conscious of their environment. Therefore, education is the process of creating awareness to

human beings in order for them to become self-reliant and independent. We have seen that

school education involves a great part of society i.e., teachers, learners, parents,

administrators, curriculum developers, education ministry etcetera, and all of them have roles

to play in enhancing consciousness among learners.

However, we need to note that the points outlined above also apply for every other human

being and not only schooling learners. No human being is “all knowing” and hence human

beings need education in order get awareness on how to solve various problems that they

encounter in their environment. For example, Africa is the least vaccinated continent against

the corona virus. Apart from vaccine shortages, Africans with access to the vaccine still

refuse to be vaccinated since they believe that it’s a conspiracy plot to make Africans sterile

and hence eliminate all Africans. This is just a belief and hence they need to be educated and

made more conscious of the corona virus vaccine.

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References

Currell, J. (2019, June 12). "Is this fair?” Developing critical consciousness in our learners.

Retrieved from Maths — No Problem! Blog:

https://mathsnoproblem.com/blog/teaching-practice/developing-critical-

consciousness-in-learners/

Currell, J. (2020, February 3). Paulo Freire: the pioneer of critical pedagogy. Retrieved from

Maths — No Problem! Blog: https://mathsnoproblem.com/blog/teaching-

practice/paulo-freire-pioneer-of-critical-pedagogy/

Mansel, H. L. (1871). Metaphysics; or, The Philosophy of Consciousness. New York: D.

Applton and Company.

Njoroge, R. J., & Bennaars, G. A. (1986). Philosophy and Education in Africa. Nairobi:

Transafrica Press.

Okech, E. A. (1994). Theory and Practice of Education. (G. A. Bennaars, B. R. Boisvert, &

R. Boisvert, Eds.) Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd.

Robert, S. F. (2015). Essentials of Understanding Psychology (11th ed.). New York:

McGraw-Hill Education.

Sifuna, D. N., Chege, F. N., Oanda, I. O., Bogonko, S. N., Makatiani, M. I., Wainaina, P. K.,

. . . Waiyaki, E. M. (2006). Themes in the study of the Foundations of Education. (D.

N. Sifuna, F. N. Chege, & I. O. Oanda, Eds.) Nairobi: The Jomo Kenyatta

Foundation.

Smithies, D. (2019). The Epistemic Role of Consciousness. New York: Oxford University

Press.

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