The Existentialist

I remember the site called "The Idealist" wherein ideas and captions could be seen in catchy photos. That particular site's catch phrase is "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." 

My catch phrase if this were a site on Existentialist Education would be No two educations are ever the same. Following the Existentialist philosophy where a learner defines his/her own education, then I believe that I could say that no two education are ever the same.  If education is up to the learner, then definitely each goal would be somewhat different.

The answer to the main question of my blog (What are the goals of education?) would then be something not fixed, not planned by the educator, and not predictable. I know what it's not, but what is it?

 

TRYING TO THINK LIKE AN EXISTENTIALIST

When a child enters an Existentialist school, he/she will be faced with choices instead of clear cut goals. The student will be the one to decide on what he/she learns and who he/she becomes. 

Perhaps life's meanings can be discussed by older children who can think in an abstract manner. If a pure Existentialist would attempt to ask the meaning of life to younger children who are 4 or 5 or 6 years old, I wonder what they would say.

Also, I don't think a purely Existentialist school could exist without chaos because children need to be guided at some point somehow. Perhaps if I were an Existentialist, I would be adhering to the meat of what Existentialism is, but just like John Holt, I would give limits to the children's choices.  I could prepare an Open Classroom.

A Proposed Existentialist Art School

If I were an Existentialist Art teacher, I would give my students the options on how to learn what they would opt to learn.  They will be given a wide range of choices.

Let us say that I will be teaching Art and colors to children who know the different colors but do not know yet that secondary colors emerge from the mixture of primary ones. Instead of telling them through Direct Instruction how to combine primary colors to create secondary colors, I would only provide them materials where they can discover creating colors for themselves. They will be given a wide selection of red, blue, yellow hues in different forms -- poster paint, water color, jars with food coloring, crayons, Cray-pas, and colored pencils. They are also given paintbrushes of different sizes, scissors, glue, toothpics, cotton buds, cotton balls, cartolina, oslo paper, bond paper, or canvas.  It will be up to them to choose the materials they would like to use and combine for their project.

Here comes the limits: 
First limit: They can do anything with the materials except any activity that will cause harm to a living organism (nature). Examples of these would be eating or tasting the art materials, throwing paintballs inside the classroom which could then make the classroom slippery and lead to accidents, poking classmates with sharp tools, etc. 
Second limit: They can do anything with the materials except any activity that would be against the institution's or teacher's welfare (superior force). Examples would be vandalizing the walls, tables, etc or doing any of the aforementioned harmful activities to the teacher (the teacher being a living organism as well, of course).  Other than these, the students are free to do anything that would lead them to create their artwork.

The task would be for them to create a picture of the world that they see with all the colors they can perceive. Various pictures will be shown to them and hopefully they would be inspired by all of these, but they are not to copy any of the photos shown.

 

Instead, they would have to imagine nature in their minds, or think of places or combination of places they know which they would interpret in their art.  If they are having difficulty with the limits of the three primary colors, they could discuss among themselves what they could do. The teacher is there to guide and provide raw art materials. Hopefully the students would discover secondary and composite colors through mixing and combining some of their materials, but aside from discovering creations of these colors, the learners would have to use their own interpretation of nature and express this through their artworks. What it is exactly that each one would learn could vary from learning their secondary colors to art techniques to brush strokes (and the list goes on) while they discover the artists inside them.  In this kind of activity, the learners would be able to express their artistic selves, interpret nature, and discover themselves more through their art.

GOAL OF EDUCATION
Having seen this example, what would then be the goal of education? Perhaps the goal would be for the students to utilize their freedom to learn what they could learn through the choices they make. The permutations of their choices would be endless so the goals of education would truly be unpredictable, and no two could ever be exactly the same.