The question that has risen in our class is How would the ideas of the philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, or Confucius be applied in today's school system?.
Throughout my process of researching their ideas versus what I actually have witnessed in my career, I came across a sense of disappointment. In fact I believe that if any of the great philosophers were here today in our society, they would be terribly overwhelmed in attempting to understand what has gone wrong in today's educational process. I am referring to both school and at home. The education process in both of these facilities have somehow gone down a narrow, unpaved road with no one having the skills to or desire to repair maintain or regulate it.
My philosophy, I share with a small percentage of the population, is based on the idea the education is a science. It is a science that involves skill and artistic impression. The educator is the person to lead the generation that will be replacing us to open their minds. To teach the students to learn to process their own knowledge experiences and uses them successfully in a positive way. This would be striving when they have reached maturity and the adult world of giving back to society through employment and socialization.
However, I have been teaching or have been in the field of education for the last ten years. I have since seen an unsteady down fall of what I considered the future adults of our society. The great philosophers would be shocked to see the horrible lack of disrespect to the elders and peers. I have worked in eight different schools throughout my career. All of which have been in the very best neighborhoods to the kind of neighborhood that would cause you to live in lock down. In every one of these schools I have seen the rise and complete fall of the students lack of interest, desire and ambition to respect their educators.
Socrates believed up to the very day of his death sentence the following.
