Comparing Plato, John Dewey And Paulo Freire's Philosophy Of Education

Educational philosophers were able to challenge conventional thought and bring wisdom that helped shape how we educate our children today. By doing so, we change how we see the world and how we learn. How we were taught has a great impact on every aspect of our lives, from choosing what we will do with our futures to how we treat one another. The three philosophers that I respect and admire are Plato, John Dewey and Paulo Freire. A combination of these philosopher's ideas and ideals are what will create a healthy, productive, and unique classroom that provides guidance for the ever changing dynamics in a classroom. With teaching, there is no one size fits all. This makes it more of a challenge but the result is students are able to learn more
and gain skills that will aid them in the future. Teachers have both the honor and burden of raising up the young minds that will fill the world of tomorrow. My hope is that teachers can continually be self reflective and build upon the idealistic ways of teaching expressed in pedagogies. This combination of teaching styles will be idealistic, however, if there is no ideal then there is no way to build a better future. Plato did not specifically focus on education but was concerned about truth. He saw truth as objective unlike his predecessor Socrates. Plato also expressed how we can come to find truth through reasoning. Plato states, "It would therefore be true to say that the more "objective," i.e., bonocentric one's love becomes, the more things disclose themselves in their truth" (Schindler, 135). In Plato's most famous work, "The Allegory Of The Cave," he depicts how he sees people in society. Plato shows how we are shackled by our experiences and we need to break free to see the light and truth. This can also be seen in light of education as a teacher acts a guide to students to help them seek truth. Plato's many philosophical concepts can be utilized in teaching to create a classroom where students are seeking truth. Dewey saw students as little explorers and concentrated on progressive and pragmatic education. He encouraged students to think for themselves and wanted them to use their interests as the base of their learning. Dewey deeply supported hands-on learning and doing many projects. He would also bring the society into the classroom with community learning. This allows students to apply their concepts out into the community. He believed in learning through play and having what students learn be useful for them in the future. Dewey explains if we want to change society, we can do so through education, "But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move" (10). By educating and guiding students, teachers can prepare them to be future democratic citizens. Freire focused on critical pedagogy which goes hand in hand with democratic teaching and critical consciousness.
Freire saw education not as a banking system where students receive and give back information, but in a problem posing model where children can explore different solutions after the teacher poses a question. In this approach learning is bidirectional and students can teach teachers. By setting up a democratic classroom, the students can feel liberated by feeling free to voice their opinions without fear. Critical consciousness is one of the most important parts of creating a democratic classroom. By encouraging students to critically think about worldly issues and take action on them, it helps students prepare for the future. Freire also talks about the importance for the teacher to be a constant learner and to always have critical self reflection in order to improve their classroom. With using many of Freire's ideas on education, the classroom can be a place that authentic learning takes place through engaging in critical
thinking. In a science classroom, I would try to incorporate what I think are the best parts of each philosopher's ideas about education.
With Plato, I especially want to include his concepts of "The Allegory Of The Cave." By breaking free from our limitations with the use of reasoning, we can help students to seek truth and to critically think. In a classroom, many times the students are not thinking about what their limitations may be, however, in my ideal science classroom, I would want to have students be aware of their limitations and have reasoning be the foundation of the class. Having the capacity and ability to think is such a gift and we are now more than ever able to think for ourselves and draw our own conclusions to complex problems. My hope is that students can be objective and use reasoning to solve their problems and learn more about the world around them. Science is based off of the search to find truth and I hope to inspire that in students by how the class projects, discussion, and learning is set
up. Dewey's ideas of progressive and pragmatic education as well as seeing children as little explorers can be used in a science classroom. When student's interests are at the base of learning, they can become active learners and find value in what they are learning. By inviting the society inside the classroom, students can be better prepared to be effective citizens and learn by doing. In a science classroom, students would be able to work on hands on projects that interest them and learn science in a more realistic and tangible way. By doing many projects and collaborating with people in the society and their parents, students can be more equipped with how to start or general knowledge on future careers or life paths. This type of learning really engages students and makes learning fun and tangible. By teaching children how to think for themselves and explore the world around them, you can not only change the dynamics of the students in the classroom but also in the world. Drawing upon Freire's critical pedagogy and his problem posing model, I hope to build a classroom that allows students to be critically conscious as well as autonomous. In a science classroom, the students can ask questions and also learn for themselves about what the answer is. In this classroom, the student can also teach the teacher, with this type of learning this relationship is not a stagnant one but a bidirectional one. The students will be given space to explore, critique, and learn about science. By including the student in the teaching process, there is also a greater depth of learning that occurs. When someone can truly teach another something that they know it is highest form of learning. Giving students this opportunity to teach their teacher and fellow classmates will allow them to take ownership of their own learning. With this democratic learning, everyone's voices will be heard and it encourages students to become well rounded democratic citizens. Although some of these concepts may seem unrelated to science, I feel that it is necessary to incorporate aspects of teaching and learning that not only have to do with the subject matter, but also have to do with building up critically conscious students. With even the most idealistic classroom there is bound to be some limitations. In the science classroom that I have created some limitations would be that it really does not fit in the public school system and to apply these concepts would be difficult and met with challenges. Another limitation that I would probably run into is not having enough time to teach in this way as well as prepare students for standardized testing. These limitations make my science classroom a far off dream, but I hope that this can change in the near future. I hope that teachers can have more autonomy over their classroom and not be bound by strict guidelines. Teachers, like students, also need to be give the freedom to express their own unique voice and create their own classroom environments.