Whitehead: The Aim of Education

Joshua Caesar O. Elegado, IV-BA Philosophy, Teaching Philosophy

Education is something that is meant to help people live their life in a meaningful and useful fashion. Alfred North Whitehead highlights in his work The Aims of Education that education is something that should be relevant yet creative. When we say that education should teach relevant ideas, we infer that such relevant ideas help people develop concepts that help them live their life that is useful and practical concerning real world. If the education teaches irrelevant ideas, the learners then are expected to apply such irrelevant ideas in the real world making them look dumb at the very end of the day. That being said, education must teach relevant ideas to people to help them live their life in a useful and meaningful manner. Another thing is that education should help people become creative in a way that people are enjoying such ideas and relating ideas after ideas, hence, they construct ideas at their own pace making them creative and have their intellectual body functioning and ultimately have them enjoy the discovery of the world and see their very meanings as individuals.

On the rhythm of education, cyclic process, stage of romance, stage of precision, and stage of generalization. The stage of romance is simply the stage where it is focused on simple apprehension, where a child goes to earth exploring. The stage of precision is the stage where it establishes facts, such as a child begins to know factual ideas or the factuality of order things, naming, and identifying. The stage of generalization is a stage where the child integrates an idea from combining and relating previous facts to create new ideas. Such a process is vital for the development of a human person. It is a process by which every individual needs to be part of because the development of a human person does not happen overnight, rather, it is done along the process. One cannot go to the stage of generalization without stepping through the stage of romance and precision. With these stages, it must be in a cyclic process by which it is to be taken in paces by which an individual must enjoy as far as self-development and individuality are concerned.

The role of the teachers is also vital to the growth of the learners, the teachers must be able to relate the ideas in the real world for the learners to relate as well. If the teacher imparts an idea that is not useful nor irrelevant in the real world, how do we expect the learners to think practically? If ever the student who gains a lot of inert ideas finally graduates and is about to face the real world, how would the student be ready to even face it if all he learns was to the subjects that are irrelevant to the real world? The point here is that the teaching strategy of a teacher is to teach few subjects that are relevant and is to be taught thoroughly, in such way the learners not only learn genuinely but also pragmatically that he is able enough to relate and combine things to create his meaningful ideas.

The teachers should stimulate ideas to the students in a way that they exercise ideas to keep the ideas running and not stay in a state of inert. The ideas that the teachers impart must be lively, which enables the student to be lively as well. A student must not be bored in a classroom, it is the job of the teachers to kill the boredom of the students to keep the learning lively and enjoyable. In that way, the learners are learning in a manner that is genuine and not forced.

Overall, I think that the true aim of education is to help people live a useful and meaningful life. I believe that if the education sectors adopted Whitehead’s concept of education and teaching, the products can be excellent in terms of usefulness, practicality, accounts for the differences of people, and the process of effective learning and development. The implication is countless, the glory of education must be intended for human flourishment at the very end of the day.