A philosophical framework in education refers to a series of assumptions or theories about the nature of the universe or knowledgeable real world that are used to influence learning and solution-solving in the classroom. It’s a way of thinking that’s both highly sophisticated and extremely intuitive, and it can bring great power and excitement to the process of learning for teachers of all sorts. It involves an active engagement with the subject matter and the whole classroom environment. A philosophical framework in education means exploring the relationship between theory and practice, learning and its role in teaching and knowledge, and the discipline of learning itself. By combining a wide variety of approaches and frames, educators can make the most of the complexity of today’s complex world.
Philosophy is one of the earliest organized fields of study. In the pre-rational era of the first millennium B.C., philosophers were among the most respected people in the world. They developed powerful arguments about how the world works, and they hoped to lay the foundation for a scientific vision of the world. The most influential among the philosophers were those in the “school of thought” that include great sages from India and china and the west, whom many students still regard as their masters.
Now, more than two millennia later, we have a rich and rewarding tradition of advanced mathematics that has been refined and developed into many sophisticated methods and applications. That said, there is still a place for an adequate philosophical framework in the classroom. And, as things turn out, philosophy may very well play a bigger role in the future of teaching and learning than it has in the past. For this reason, it’s important for you as a teacher to get started planning how you plan to approach your classroom with a philosophical frame of mind.
Some people think that philosophical framework helps students focus. In fact, some of the best results in class come when students are given philosophical questions to consider and work through. Philosophical questions force students to ask questions that tend to provoke deeper reflection. Asking deeper questions makes it more likely that students will discover new concepts and ideas that they would not have otherwise thought of on their own.
In addition, philosophical frame work forces students to take a hard look at the connections between facts and their interpretations. Most teachers do not spend a great deal of time thinking about how their interpretation of a passage connects to other passages. This leads to a generation of scholars who think that each passage is independent, and that all interpretations are false. As a result, students spend a large portion of the semester developing an understanding of how the world works according to them, rather than developing any understanding of how the world works according to the teacher. This can have disastrous effects on the student’s understanding of how the world works.
Finally, philosophical frame work forces students to look at various different interpretations of texts critically. Rather than just accepting a text at face value, students must take the time to look at how the author presents the question, how he answers it, and how his arguments and implications relate to other areas of philosophy. Without doing this kind of critical analysis, it is very easy for a teacher to simply accept a text as true and explain away any points of contention that arise. Rather than philosophical framework, a teacher can spend years building a collection of case studies that help students see the philosophical underpinnings of various texts.
These are only a few of the benefits that can be derived from philosophical framework. There are of course more benefits than I can mention in a single article. Fortunately, however, all of these benefits are easily learned and apply by most instructors. In fact, in many cases, these problems are easier to solve than they might initially seem. As long as students know how to think, they can easily learn how to do philosophical framework.
The most important part of a philosophical framework, however, is simply knowing how to do it. With this in mind, all you need to do is pay attention to how you react when reading a philosophical text. What kind of questions do you ask? What kind of thoughts do you have? How do your arguments flow? By answering these kinds of questions correctly, you will be able to tell what kind of philosophical frame work you are doing, and what kind of philosophical frame work is being done by others.