Philosophy of Education
Q 1. Importance of Philosophy of Education to BED students. (8MKS)
The units enable the students to understand ethical principles and their applications. The unit provides concepts that apply to work situations, social and family situations. It helps the learners to recognize and respond to ethical issues in the real world.
Students discover their own definition of success. The unit of philosophy presents students with the challenge of confronting themselves, their values, and their world. The students get to know what it means to succeed and why.
The unit can bring perspective to the learner’s career. The really good engineers, scientists, and doctors think deeply about their work and its effects on other people and the world. The classes of philosophy offer the space to think, discuss, and even write broadly on one’s experience.
It prepares students for success in a wide variety of careers. The unit of philosophical study develops reasoning, writing, adapting, re-thinking, dialogue skills, and organizing.in a fast-changing technological environment and business, these are capabilities of practical value.
Q 2. Dimensions of defining education as put forward by Bennars and Njoroge. (12MKS)
The normative dimension of education. Education should bring awareness of the norms of society to the learners. Each and every society has universally acceptable patterns of conduct. These norms must be incorporated to students through education. The aim of education is to enable individuals in society to fully understand their conduct. Some of the important societal conduct include; fairness, happiness, good, and justice. Through ethics and aesthetics perception of values, education aims at producing an individual who is mindful of other people’s affairs hence enhancing harmony in human society.
Creative dimension of education. Education should help an individual to think critically and also think of alternatives when faced with challenges. Hence the individual should be authentic in ideas. A room should be created for critical inquiry into issues, thus critiquing and dialogue must be tolerated at all costs by individuals who practice education. Education must take into account differences of learner’s individual in terms of interests and needs which should be catered for to allow for creativity. Education should develop the ability of the learners to be innovative, creative, and skillful. Someone should be able to invent in order to come up with new ideas in any field.
The dialogical dimension of education. It is only through speaking with each other that people can learn to appreciate, understand, and respect each other as partners in creating a cultural world. The system of education is an interaction between the teacher and the learner. Since education is a dialogue, any problem faced in education is solved through dialogue. People are able to invent new ways of solving issues through the use of proper structures of reasoning. Thus, education is an institutional and social affair hence a dialogue is necessary.
The cognitive dimension of education. The word cognitive refers to the process of thought. It involves the processing of information, changing preferences, and applying knowledge. Education is usually equated with the acquisition of knowledge. For education to take place, knowledge should be passed to the learners. Knowledge is all that remains after everything has been forgotten.
Q 3. Why basic education curriculum should be revised every six years. (10MKS)
Curriculum review is a very essential part of the curriculum enhancement process. In Kenya, after every six years, it is necessary for the ministry of education to revise the curriculum. Some of the reasons why the curriculum should be revised include the following;
Improve the teaching and learning practices of the teacher. After every six years, it is important for the ministry of education to review the curriculum and see if the methods used in the classroom are of positive impact. If the methods and practices of teaching are not bringing good results, there is a need to change and improve the teaching practices.
Helps in providing an opportunity for critical reflection on the program’s curriculum. After setting a new curriculum, an opportunity should be provided to see if the curriculum is going to be favorable to the learners. Failing to give an opportunity for the curriculum, it can be hard to know the curriculum setting which is best for education
Provide evidence to guide decision making within the program. After providing an opportunity for the program’s reflection, evidence can be retrieved from the curriculum performance .good evidence is necessary for decision making on the curriculum in the country. For instance in Kenya, most of the students who do not have good performance in class tend to get wasted, but with the new curriculum, they can be able to study the course which they can do the best.
Identify specific actions to address gaps within an academic program. In every curriculum, there are certain things that need to be done to perfect it. Such gaps can be formulated after revising the curriculum. For example in Kenya, after curriculum, they saw a need to add technology to basic schools where learners can be familiar with it.
Understand the relationship among courses within a program. Some courses in the curriculum are related and the learners cannot continue with the next unit without being familiar with the primary unit. Curriculum review can help the ministry of education to a group and arrange the units according to how they are related in the syllabus and the course.