“At its heart, the debate over online teaching and learning is about the meaning and purpose of education. According to Aristotle, education’s purpose was to make people virtuous. He asserted that all seek what they believe to be good. Evil, then, is the result of ignorance, as people choose what they mistake for good. The solution to evil is education, because only through proper knowledge and understanding can people identify and choose what is truly good. Because of its integral relationship to virtue, Aristotle argued, education was the state’s highest duty, a duty that the modern United States has enshrined in every state constitution. Likewise, Aristotle’s conception of the critical importance of education supports all subsequent philosophies of education. Over the centuries, scholars have adapted and reinterpreted Aristotle’s articulation of the purpose and philosophy of education. Medieval theologians, such as Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, saw education as critical to purifying the soul. Renaissance scholars, such as Galileo, Newton, and Kepler, saw education as the cornerstone of understanding the world we inhabit, and their theological contemporaries, Erasmus and Luther, viewed education as a tool to critique, to refine, and to improve social institutions. Descartes, Locke, Rousseau, and the Enlightenment rationalists asserted the primacy of reason for understanding self and society. In the 19th and 20th centuries, these assertions bore fruit in the universal education movement and the development of public school systems. In the 21st century, the newest refinement of education is technological, and because of this development, a new dialogue must begin to articulate the underlying value and purposes of education in a technologically driven world. This essay does not aim to present a fully developed philosophy of online education but to sketch the framework for such a philosophy.”
Toward a philosophy of online education
No Responses to “Toward a philosophy of online education”