Comparing Plato, John Dewey And Paulo Freire's Philosophy Of Education

Educational philosophers were able to challenge conventional thought and bring wisdom that helped shape how we educate our children today. By doing so, we change how we see the world and how we learn. How we were taught has a great impact on every aspect of our lives, from choosing what we will do with our futures to how we treat one another. The three philosophers that I respect and admire are Plato, John Dewey and Paulo Freire. A combination of these philosopher's ideas and ideals are what will create a healthy, productive, and unique classroom that provides guidance for the ever changing dynamics in a classroom. With teaching, there is no one size fits all. This makes it more of a challenge but the result is students are able to learn more
Freire saw education not as a banking system where students receive and give back information, but in a problem posing model where children can explore different solutions after the teacher poses a question. In this approach learning is bidirectional and students can teach teachers. By setting up a democratic classroom, the students can feel liberated by feeling free to voice their opinions without fear. Critical consciousness is one of the most important parts of creating a democratic classroom. By encouraging students to critically think about worldly issues and take action on them, it helps students prepare for the future. Freire also talks about the importance for the teacher to be a constant learner and to always have critical self reflection in order to improve their classroom. With using many of Freire's ideas on education, the classroom can be a place that authentic learning takes place through engaging in critical
With Plato, I especially want to include his concepts of "The Allegory Of The Cave." By breaking free from our limitations with the use of reasoning, we can help students to seek truth and to critically think. In a classroom, many times the students are not thinking about what their limitations may be, however, in my ideal science classroom, I would want to have students be aware of their limitations and have reasoning be the foundation of the class. Having the capacity and ability to think is such a gift and we are now more than ever able to think for ourselves and draw our own conclusions to complex problems. My hope is that students can be objective and use reasoning to solve their problems and learn more about the world around them. Science is based off of the search to find truth and I hope to inspire that in students by how the class projects, discussion, and learning is set