2. Menand’s Three Theories
• Theory one:
– “it doesn’t matter which
courses students take, or
even what is taught in
them, as long as they’re
rigorous enough for the
sorting mechanism to do
its work. All that matters
is the grades.”
3. Menand’s Three Theories
• Theory two: • Theory three:
– “you might consider grades – “advanced economies
a useful instrument of demand specialized
positive or negative knowledge and skills, and,
reinforcement, but the since high school is aimed
only thing that matters is at the general learner,
what students actually college is where people
learn.” can be taught what they
need in order to enter a
vocation. A college degree
in a non-liberal field
signifies competence in a
specific line of work.”
4.
5. What is education?
• Throughout our reading this semester we
have covered many different views on
what the purpose of education is. We
have also encountered multiple views on
how and what should be taught to these
young learners. I would like to cover the
main points of each of our readings.
6. Plato's Meno
• In Meno, Socrates argues that if an individual
wants to be good at a profession they should
go to the experts of that field. Socrates
states,“If we wanted him to be a good
cobbler, should we not send him to the
cobblers?” He continues on to suggest that
there are no experts on virtue and therefore
Socrates and Meno decide that virtue is of
divine nature.
7. Plato’s Protagoras
• In this excerpt Protagoras claims to be a
teacher of virtue and Socrates challenges him
to prove that he truly can teach virtue.
Socrates is skeptical at first, but Protagoras
makes a point that virtue can be taught and is
made evident in the fact that good parents
can have children lacking virtue and bad
parents can have virtuous children. In the end
Socrates believes that Protagoras is indeed a
teacher of virtue.
8.
9. Plato’s Republic
• In Plato’s Republic the main concept of the passage is to elaborate
on and describe what skills a leader should possess to be capable of
leading.
“Then this is knowledge of the kind for which we are seeking, having a
double use, military and philosophical; for the man of war must learn
the art of number or he will not know how to array his troops, and the
philosopher also, because he has to rise out of the sea of change and lay
hold of true being, and therefore he must be an arithmetician.”
An example of how this is still important today is, with the fairly
recent addition of chemistry as a science, proper use and
knowledge of arithmetic and numbers are essential to a safe
working environment. Miscalculated formulas can result in
explosions and many other harmful results. So arithmetic has a
double use both in mathematics and in chemistry. I'm sure you can
think of many different examples where one subject has multiple
uses in our daily lives.
10. Renaissance Writers
Baldassare Castiglione Giovanni Michele Bruto
• Believed that men and • Believed that men should
women should posses a lot be the superior sex and that
of the same qualities and be women should not be
educated in the same way. educated.
There are some exceptions, – “It not mete nor convenient
she should learn to dance for a Maiden to be taught or
and be beautiful and should trained up in the learning of
humane arts, in whom a
not claim to know that in virtuous demeanor and
which she does not. honest behavior, would be a
sightlier ornament…”
11. Renaissance Writers
Christine de Pisan
• Believed that women and men
are equals in their ability to
learn.
– “… just as women have more
delicate bodies than men,
weaker and less able to
perform many tasks, so do they
have minds that are freer and
sharper whenever they apply
themselves.”
–She argues that women were
never given the chance to learn and
that is why they were considered
unable to learn, not because they
actually could not learn
12. John Locke: Some Thoughts
Concerning Education
• Locke believed that there • “Every one’s natural
were four goals of genius should be carried
education and these as far as it could…”
were: – Every child should study at
– Virtue the pace of nature and not
– Wisdom be forced to practice other
areas.
– Breeding
– Learning
Locke did not believe in physical
punishments and that they
commonly have the opposite
affects than those intended.
13. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• In Emile, Rousseau • Rousseau argues that
describes the proper there is an enormous
upbringing of a child benefit in natural
without exposing them education. Not
to the conventional imposing habits and
classroom and letting forcing them to learn
them learn by material too early in
experience. life. He believes that a
child should be a child
and not forced into a
man before his time.
