Philosophy and Education

     Education is an old word that is frequently and commonly used through ages.  Education has taken a great part in philosophers’ and researchers’ lives.  For its importance and need in our lives, we notice that education is a renewable and everlasting process.  However, whatever new educational theory or philosophy reached, it must be constructed and based on old basics.  As we know, philosophy means the love of wisdom which is something broad that includes knowledge, facts, information and truth. There is a number of differences between eastern and western philosophies, yet they all work for the individual’s own sake, in order to prepare humans as independent and critical thinker in the society.  Al Farabi, Avicenna and many other Arab philosophers included education as an integral part of their general philosophy.  Moreover, pragmatism and existentialism are two western philosophies that also involved aspects of education as an essential part of the philosophy itself.  

Teachers must be wise enough, humanistic and aware of all the philosophies.  The teacher has to know what to pick from each philosophy in order to build up a unique one that should be satisfying for both poles.  Old is gold, and without history we can never build up the future.  Even though a number of points seem not to be successful or useful for us but that would teach us, as teachers, the wrong aspects and the right ones.  The most important thing is that teachers, no matter how old they are or what subject they teach, should take the students’ needs and desires as a main objective and consider their background.  When we start treating students as our real infants, then we will be doing our job as it should be and achieving our noble role in life.