Comparing
Realities
We have probably heard something similar to
this question: "If a large branch fell from an old, ancient tree in the
middle of the forest and nobody was close enough to hear anything, did it make
a sound?"
For a Realist, the answer would be an
absolute yes. The sound would be caused by the vibration of the branch
hitting the forest floor, and even if nobody was able to perceive it, it
created a sound. The sound existed in the real world despite the fact
that no human being heard it. A Realist would be absolutely sure of this
even without physical perception, while an Idealist would say that the sound is
only a product of the mental world so unless someone imagined all those
happening, it did not happen. Meanwhile, a Pragmatist would probably think that
it would only matter to him if he could use that large fallen branch as a tool
to make something like a stool, but since the Pragmatist was not able to
experience the falling of the branch, it would not matter to him at that
particular time. If he happens to walk in that part of the forest
someday, and see the branch, then he would discover the tool and make use of
it. Other than that, it would not matter.
On
Values
For the Realist, values would be based on
natural laws and the objective reality. Human beings can judge fairly
through reason and formation of the will. For the Pragmatist, values are not
universal and these can change in time. These are very different ways of
looking at values, which I would like to think about.
On
Goals of Education
Knowing all the basic viewpoints of reality,
I will continue to try answering my
question -- What are the goals of education?
According to my classmates’ reports, the
goal of Realist education is to cultivate human rationality, and the goal of Pragmatist
education is to contribute to a person’s personal and social growth. If I take the answers as they were
reported, then my question would always have a ready answer, and I would no
longer have a philosophical inquiry. Right now, I am declaring that I do not
have an answer yet, but I will use my classmates’ reports to explain possible
answers to a situation common to us teachers.
This is a situation that many of us find
ourselves into, and I have heard various viewpoints of teachers on what they do
when this happens. I’d like to analyze it using the two viewpoints of the
Realist and the Pragmatist. Let’s
say a teacher made a mistake in checking a test and gave a point to a wrong
answer, which the student later on honestly reported. In addition, that single point determines whether the
student gets an A or A-. Deducting the point would bring the student to an A-
and retaining it would give the student an A. How would a Realist teacher and a
Pragmatist teacher address this situation?
Please correct me if I am wrong in any of
this, but I given what I understood of their values, a Realist would be
objective about the reality of that situation while a Pragmatist would have another
approach to this problem. The Realist
teacher would consider the reality that the answer was wrong, and he/she was
wrong for marking the wrong answer as correct. Given the truth that the answer was wrong, the Realist
teacher would have to deduct a point from the student even if the student was
honest about it. He/she would then
add points to the behavioral grade of the student (on being honest). In this
sense, the Realist teacher would still encourage rational thinking of the student
by allowing the student to see that a wrong answer is wrong while an honest
deed is an honest deed. Both are
measured differently. The student would then have to review lessons well in
order to get an “A” in the future, while the Realist teacher would take note of
this experience and be more careful in checking.
On the other hand, a Pragmatist teacher may
approach it in more ways than one. Given that the student was honest about the
wrong answer despite the fact that the A would become A-, and given that a
Pragmatist teacher might view this honesty as more important than the objective
answer itself, the teacher would retain the student’s “A”. If this honesty
would allow the student to grow as a person, the teacher would give that point,
since she was the one who was also mistaken in putting a check in the first
place. The student was honest enough to lose a point and have a lower letter grade --
was that not a good way of showing real personal growth? Was that not the point
of education after all? Of course
the Pragmatist teacher would also take note of this experience and be more
careful in the future, but also believe that this was a learning experience for
the student.
Another Pragmatist teacher might still
deduct the point if the teacher wants to point out that there is a lesson in
this experience, which is much more important in the real world. It’s more of “Thank
you for your honesty, but in the real world, when someone makes a mistake,
there is a corresponding consequence”.
The student’s mistake’s consequence is the real score of A- and the
teacher’s mistake’s consequence is that he/she has to change the score in the
grade book (additional work).
What’s my point? I can’t predict a
Pragmatist teacher as much as I could be so sure of a Realist teacher, because
the Pragmatist seems to be open to changes in their values across time. Given this, the growth of a person now
in the 21st century for a Pragmatist could be different for the
growth of a person in another century.
Would it be safe for me to say then that the Goals of Education of a
Pragmatist is ever changing and fluid in time because the concept of a “personal
growth and social growth” would always be different, while the Goals of
Education of a Realist would always be the rational human?
The Question Giving Birth
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