PRAGMATISM

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PRAGMATISM

• BACKGROUND AND MEANING
• BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
• PRAGMATISM AND EDUCATION

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Pragmatism

• It emerged in 19th century in America out of
  empiricist view, that knowledge is acquired
  through experience.
• Philosophers William James, Charles Pierce and
  J. Dewey
• A movement against traditional philosophies
  realism and idealism based on too much
  speculation which is difficult to verify.

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Background

• Pragmatists concentrated more on epistemological
  issues.
• Their emphasis was on daily practical experiences
  that produce testable and verifiable knowledge

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Meaning

• Pragmatism, borrowed from Greek language and was
  first used by Charles Pierce to mean to make
  things done.
• According to Popkin and Stroll1981265 taken
  from William James), pragmatism is a method for
  solving or evaluating intellectual problems, and
  a theory about the kinds of knowledge that we are
  able to acquire

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Meaning

• Pragmatism is concerned with
• Evaluating and solving practical problems through
  the process of thinking.
• Doing, experiencing, practicing, experimenting
  and engaging in solving problems.
• In relation to epistemology it assumes that
  knowledge is acquired through practice or action.

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Basic assumptions

• Belief in the process of change
• The universe is always in the process of change,
  evolution and development.
• Nothing remains the same, fixed, static or
  eternal.
• Ideas and everything else are in the process of
  development.
• Truth and values are the result of evolving human
  experience and knowledge

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Assumptions

• J. Dewey (1915)all aspects of universe can be
  properly understood in terms of a continuous
  state of evolution.
• W. James in Kelly (1986)
• Change is the essence of reality.
• Truth is not static and unchangeable.
• It grows and develops with time.
• Human engagement in inquiries that lead to new
  discoveries is the only way to cope with the
  universe successfully.
• Every one should be prepared for that.

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Assumptions

• Inherent or innate knowledge in human beings is a
  fallacy.
• New born children are only privileged with the
  physical and mental ability to allow them to
  participate in the world around them and to
  obtain what is relevant and meaningful.
• There is no universal truth since everyone
  experiences his own world and environment in his
  own way at his own time in a variety of situations

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Assumptions

• Truth and values are measured through
  consequences of actions/practice or
  experimentation.
• Charles Sanders in Kelly (1986) believes that
  meaning is a matter of consequences, what is
  meaningful is what is useful productively.
• Behavior is good if it yields good result. Our
  moral actions and behavior can be judged in that
  way.

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Assumptions

• Truth and meaning can be judged as tentative or
  hypothetical, subject to change until they are
  tested through practice, experiment or
  experience.
• J. Dewey in Kneller, G. (1971) knowledge
  develops through framing and testing of
  hypotheses. In this way we can attain knowledge
  in any field science, moral, political,
  educational or aesthetical.

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Assumptions

• Interdependence of theory and practice. Ideas are
  developed through practice and experience.
• Ideas are used for understanding practice, for
  testing or verifying theories.

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Pragmatism and education

• Goal of education adjustment to change by
  teaching democratic values, scientific ways of
  problem solving and encouraging curiosity and
  creativity.
• Adaptation to the changing circumstances or
  conditions of learners environment

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Pragmatism and education

• Curriculum
• More concerned with the process rather than the
  content, the means rather than the end of
  learning.
• Built around pressing and current issues, needs
  and experiences of the learner, to be taught in
  the form of problem solving rather than through
  dry subject matter

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Pragmatism and education

• Activities chosen should focus on the learner
  needs, ability, interest, experience and
  background knowledge.
• School activities should harmonize with learners
  experiences outside the school.
• School programmes should focus on practice,
  working with problems common to the learners
  experiences for facilitating the development of
  problem solving skills.

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Pragmatism and education

• The teacher
• Facilitator of learning or colleague
  acknowledging learners ideas and their unique
  experiences.
• Since there is no absolute truth, learners and
  teachers both need to verify the truth.
• A guide, a leader and advisor as he/she is more
  experienced.
• Manager of change and a helper of learners to
  learn how to learn.

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Pragmatism and education

• Approach Learner-centred
• Method
• Give learners adequate freedom of choice,
  interact with their environment, discover, solve
  problems, use their intelligence, hypothesize,
  test and develop ideas.
• Learners to practice democratic ideals
  cooperation, sharing and respecting ideas and
  opinions, share materials in learning.