A Compendium Cum Evaluation On "Naturalism and Education by Gerald Gutek"

Summary

Gutek's article on Naturalism and Education began with a definition of Naturalism and an enumeration of the leading proponents of the Naturalist philosophy that included the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Herbert Spencer.

Naturalism according to Gutek is adherent to a single natural and physical principle, "which is matter in motion". This single principle is recognized by him as the tie that binds the many Naturalists who hold as many Naturalist views ranging from Rouseau's Romanticist perspective of human nature to Herbert Spencer's Darwinian Evolutionary view that holds that ethical systems are highly competitive.

Gutek recognized that nature and everything that is natural are fundamental to the Naturalist educational theory. As nature asserts its influence to complement human nature, education evolves slowly and very gradually to approximate the equally slow and gradual process of a child's development. For this reason, Gutek maintains that consistent to the educative ideals of naturalism , education has to be unhurried.

Another common belief in Naturalism is that, one has to make use of his senses to comprehend the workings of nature. Comprehension in this sense recognizes that the mind has its own way of unraveling truths about things, and that knowledge of them is based upon the sensations that pass through a sentient organism's sensory organs.

Basically, Rouseau's Naturalist philosophical theses are mirrored in both his The Social Contract and Emile. The Social Contract detailed how the individual lost his identity to the group that accommodated him. The fading or mixing in of the individual to the group is figured by Rouseau as caused by the sheer influence of the will of the many upon the will of one. In the end, the pressure is unilaterally directed upon the individual for him to succumb to the general will and be identified as belonging to the group.

In Emile, Rouseau illustrated his Naturalist/Romanticist philosophy in the character of a boy who has been raised and educated away from the corrupting influences of urbanity and the sophistications that go with it. Rousseau believed that the experience of a natural education prepared Emile to resist and overcome the distortions to genuine education entailed by being enmeshed in a structured society. Such distortions are what Rousseau termed as "amour propre", or pride with all the appurtenances of control, domination, and other means for "social aggrandizement". Conversely, the natural education that Emile obtained, developed in him what Rousseau called, "amour de soi", or love of oneself, that geared him up to become the genuine person that he is - uncorrupted and innocent.

On account of Rousseau's idea of growth and development being gradual, he postulated that like a child going through stages of maturity, education has to be programmed to meet the specific demands that are required for a specific stage. Such stages of human growth and development are identified by Rousseau as: infancy, childhood, preadolescence, adolescence, and young adulthood. Through the second stage, henceforth, Emile is introduced to and taught with the concept of "negative education". Here, Emile is sanitized of the influences of society. Proscriptions preventive of naturalist deviations are imposed upon him and a tracked up Naturalist orientation is inculcated into the young mind.

Implications for Education

Gutek's recognition of Naturalism's implications for education is gleaned from his identification of six Naturalist themes: nature and the natural; Naturalist epistemology; axiology and values; human growth and development from a Naturalist perspective; a Naturalist view of the curriculum; and the teacher-learner relationship in the Naturalist context.

He maintains that nature and the "natural" are key elements in the Naturalist perspective of education. As the terms suggest, the Naturalist is more inclined to submit that a learner is better off educated from the artificialities of society. The premise here being that society imposes unnecessarily, certain corrupting influences upon the individual. the genuineness of the individual's "person" is adulterated with the pressure to make himself fit in and belong to a group with which he can find a common and shared interest. To this end, Naturalism stipulates that leaving the child in his primitive and original state influenced only by sheer motives resulting from the learner's "unspoiled instincts", equips him with unselfish and enlightened understanding of nature as a living source of human growth and development.

On the Naturalist epistemology, Gutek stipulates that though Naturalism did not depart much from the Aristotelian Natural Realism on the basis of their shared scientific realist perspective, it however deviated from the Greek educative methodology of verbalism which was the preferred mode in the latter period of antiquity. Naturalism espoused the "doctrine that we learn through our senses". Implicit to this, is the progressivist claim that a learner learns first-hand if he or she immerses in and with nature and find for him or herself out the intricacies of nature's workings. For this, the Naturalists agree with the Progressivists in promoting sensory experience through means like "field-trips and excursions".

Another common belief in Naturalism as identified by Gutek zeroes in on the Naturalist perspective of axiology, values, and human nature. The Naturalist recognizes that there are two forms of self-esteem: the "amour de soi" and the "amour propre", which take on the natural and social dimensions, respectively. For Rousseau, the natural person or the "noble savage" is good and harbors no inherent evil in his heart. It is on this account that Rousseauean education has to be re-programmed in such a way that desensitization of the child is reduced. Consistent with this, is the concept of negative education. This kind of education employs both prescription and proscription as deemed necessary in the negation of artificialities and contrivances formulated from civilized societies. Such artificialities and contrivances according to Rousseau are counter-productive to the growth and development of the child.

As human growth and development proceed through stages that are cumulative, Naturalists argue that genuine education is and should be situated in accordance with the identified level of preparedness of the individual. Hence, the curriculum has to be devised in such a way that it becomes responsive and receptive to the "being" of the learner.

Evaluation

Naturalism in the Rousseauean sense purports that the learner can genuinely approach the realization of his "being" through an educative process that is detached significantly from the artificialities of a structured society. And as the child perfects his education in a natural setting. Rousseau make out of him a natural person who has developed "amour de soi" that enables him to ward off and overcome the corrupting influence of society.

These Naturalist assertions are practical in a sense that they are rendered operational in a material {natural} setting. But then, whether they are practicable in the context of current educational structures leaves ample room for doubt. Considering the trend with which education, the world over, is rationalized based on Dewey's Pragmatist philosophical perspective, it will be a case of high improbability to turn back the hands of time and pit off anticipated presupposed outcomes against experimentally warranted educative outcomes that the current educational situation has put in place. To this end, it is logical to ask whether infusion of resources into experiments on the naturalist perspective is worth it all. In the Philippine setting, the closest perhaps that can be ascribed with the Naturalist perspective of education is the system that serves as the basis for the establishment of the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA). Students who qualify for scholarship at the PHSA are those who are inherently endowed with skills and acumen that are geared towards the arts. The curriculum therefore is redesigned to suit the aesthetic needs and inclinations of the students. On top of this, the school is situated in the pristine environs of Mt. Makiling. More than the complementary relationship between nature and nurture though, no other naturalist tenet may be ascertained as associational to the PHSA system.

The evolution of societies from the period of antiquity to societies that are the inventions of our current collective civilizations has, but proceeded in a linearly progressive manner. Implicit to this, the human experience within a structured society has but progressed from primitive to advanced, technologically. Technology must be understood as a contrivance in itself that is reflective of the evolution through which the mind leapt within the confines of a social structure. Having said this, is there not a Naturalist perspective that relaxes the inflexibility of attributing to society all the evils and none of the good?

William Golding, in his novel, "Lord of the Flies" has this to warn us about. That apart from civilization, man has the tendency to revert back to his atavistic instincts. But then again, perhaps not.