2. Realism
Realists asserts that there are more
important, unchanging truths to be
learned. These truths are to be
found in the real world of things
that exist apart from any intangible
ideas about them.
Realists view reality as essentially
materialistic.
3. Realism
Realists view the world in terms of
objects and matter.
Realists place a high priority on
teaching young people to develop
their thinking abilities.
Realism was the name applied to
the theory which advocated that
education must be concerned with
all of life’s realities.
4. The School of Realists
This school is concerned with the
world of ideas and things that are
fixed within established subject
matter and are generally accepted.
Theory and principles tend to
come first in the learning
experience; application or
practice follows.
5. The School of Realists
They want curriculum specialists to
identify school subjects that help
student organize information and
make judgments based on the
careful consideration of evidence.
Classrooms would be highly ordered
and disciplined, like nature, and the
students would be passive
participants in the study of things.
6. The School of Realists
The realists believes in the:
Importance of practical education in
the study of foreign language in the
schools.
In the role of the teacher in guiding
the personality development of the
children.
7. The School of Realists
In the importance of arithmetic and
physical science to total educational
development
In the value of games, free play,
and physical activity.
8. The School of Realists
Worthwhile knowledge is to be
gathered, organized, and
systematized in a rational form and
then dispensed to the young may
be truly educated and so that
knowledge itself may be preserved.
To realists, the curriculum is
knowledge organized for delivery to
the student’s mind.
9. The School of Realists
The student’s mind is considered as
a receptacle into which information
is stored.
Textbooks and Lectures prepared
by experts, laboratories, films,
testing and biographical studies are
important instruction materials for
helping children learn what they
should learn.
10. Classical Traditions
Aristotelian Realism
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E)
He believed that people should
be much involved in studying and
understanding the reality of all
things.
Aristotle believed that everything
had a purpose and that humans’
purpose is to think.
11. Classical Traditions
Religious Realism
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
His Philosophy combined with
realism with Christian doctrine,
developed and offshoot of reality
called Thomism, in which much of
contemporary Catholic education is
rooted.
12. Modern Realism
DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN
REALISM
Modern realism developed out of
attempts to correct such errors, and
these corrective attempts were at
the heart of what today is called
scientific revolution that swept
Western culture.
13. Modern Realism
Francis Bacon and John Locke was
the two most outstanding realist
thinkers.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
His famous work Novum
Organum, in which he challenged
Aristotelian logic. Bacon opposed
Aristotelian logic primarily because
he thought that it yielded many
errors, particularly concerning
material phenomena
14. Modern Realism
John Locke (1632-1704)
Locke was empiricist. He
respected the concrete and practical
but distrusted abstract idealisms;
consequently, what we know is
what we experience. People
experience the qualities of objects.
Whether these are material or
ideational experiences.
15. Contemporary Realism
Has tended to develop most
strongly around concerns with
science and scientific problems of a
philosophical nature.
Hilary Putnam (1926-)
Attempted to construct a variant
form of realism he called “internal
realism”
16. Contemporary Realism
John R. Searle (1932-)
Accepts the traditional realist
view that an external world exists
independent of human
consciousness and that the truth of
statements about that world is
dependent on how well those
statements correspond to the
external world.
17. Realism As A Philosophy of
Education
Realism is a complex philosophy
because of its many varieties:
classical realism, religious realism,
scientific realism, and others.
The primary confusion over realism
could be between a religious realism
and a secular or scientific realism.
18. Realism As A Philosophy of
Education
Religious realism would show
how similar Aristotle’s philosophy is
to that of Plato and Aquinas.
Secular realism would relate
Aristotle’s work
Scientific philosophy through the
works of Bacon, Locke and Rusell
19. Summary
Reality Consisting of
sensation and abstraction
Values Absolute and eternal; based
on nature’s laws
Teacher’s Role To cultivate rational thought;
to be a moral and spiritual
leader; to be an authority
Emphasis on Learning Exercising the mid; logical
and abstract thinking are the
highest form
Emphasis on Curriculum Knowledge based; subject
based; arts and sciences;
hierarchy of subjects:
humanistic and scientific
subject
