Philosophy of Education
Nature of Learner Role of Teacher Learning Process Curriculum
PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
The Nature of the Learning Process
In a sinless world all learning acquired through observation and reasoning would be objective and true because God created a real world and gave it structured purpose and order. For example, he made the sun and gave it a job that can be discovered and understood by rational observation (Genesis 1:14,15). Consequently, out of their nature as God’s image bearers, students discover truth by studying the world around them. The learner is designed with an active, rational and creative nature. Students can be trained to acquire knowledge, to think about the meaning of that knowledge, and to apply knowledge as part of their mandate to be fruitful and multiply and to subdue and exercise dominion over creation (Genesis 1:28). However, in a fallen world, the learner is alienated from the Creator, tends to worship the creation, and is to some extent blinded from perceiving truth. Consequently learning is subjective and fallible because learners are both finite and sinful.
God’s truth is revealed not only through fallen creation, but also through the Bible. The Bible provides God’s perspective on creation and history and reveals that God, through Christ is reconciling the fallen world to himself.
True learning is rooted in the heart. Jesus teaches that actions come out of the heart (Matthew 7:20). Training the heart begins with loving parental discipline. Then, in God’s economy, the child matures and begins to learn self-discipline and respect for parents, for teachers and for God. Although learning is rooted in the heart, it engages the mind and body as well when the learner makes a commitment to something as truth and then acts on it.
Learning, to some extent, involves personal perspective. Students come to school with personality, genetic traits and experiences from which perceptions and beliefs have been formed. When teachers shine the light of God’s word on these perceptions and beliefs, students can correct and build upon them. Each learner employs two main memory systems: taxon memory focuses on lists of items processed from short-term memory by practice and repetition; special memory is constructed by experience and events. Learning takes place as stored information is linked to new information, organized into patterns and stored. Learners must apply both inductive and deductive reasoning in this process to see individual facts in relation to the big picture. Learners receive and retain information more through different sensory channels: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. For most learners one of these modalities works more effectively than the others. Nearly all learners receive and retain information best when it is received through multiple sensory channels. Finally, the learner’s temperament (Sanguine – sensing and playing; Choleric – sensible and judicious; Melancholic – intuitive and thinking; Phlegmatic intuitive and feeling are ways of describing temperament) is a factor in how he or she will respond to various learning experiences and to the atmosphere around him or her. All of these characteristics of the learner us be addressed to devise educational opportunities within which life changing learning will take place.
As they mature, learners need to not only understand truth from a Christian perspective, but to also grasp biblical answers to other views so that they will not be easily led astray (1 Corinthians 2:15, 16).