I think it’s fair to say that the recent inputs from John on the philosophy of education have left me feeling a little bit confused. However, that being said, I feel I now have a very basic understanding of some of the key theories concerning the ways in which we learn and how these can be used to improve the ways in which we teach.
The Greek philosopher, Plato, believed that we don’t learn, we remember. This is because he believed that the inner part of us – known as the soul – doesn’t change and is immortal in the sense that it has been reborn, time and again. Because of this, it has seen things in both the ‘material’ world and the ‘real’ world.
Our world, the ‘material’ world, is constantly changing and we rely on our senses to understand what’s going on. The ‘real’ world is outside of this realm and is unchanging and eternal. We understand this world not with our senses but instead with our mind.
The soul is said however, to be captivated by the workings of the body (i.e. our senses) and so we struggle to see past the illusion of our current world. Plato argued that in order to realise the ultimate reality of nature, we need to think independently of our senses, as the ‘material’ world is simply a shadow of the ‘real’ world of forms.
Plato belie
ved that all things have a true being, a concept he explained in his Theory of the Forms.
Take apples for example:
- What do they have in common?
- What makes them distinctly ‘apple’?
- What gives them their ‘appleness’?
Plato stated that there was only one form– or essence – of ‘appleness’ and that this forms the many. The form itself is unchanging and perfect (because it is from the ‘real’ world), but the apples (from the ‘material’ world) are simply an appearance of the form, which explains why they change and are imperfect.
We recognise these forms because we have a faint memory of them from our prior existence. It is this process of remembering the true reality of our world that allows us to learn, and therefore know that an apple is an apple, along with every other thing we interact with.
I think this is a really interesting concept and perhaps quite important in terms of our approach to teaching. This idea that we all have the prior knowledge there ready and waiting to be unlocked highlights the need for us as teachers to be willing to persevere with those kids who might be struggling. We need to help them rediscover what they already know.
