Screening Objectives with Philosophy

After gathering objectives from learners, contemporary life, and subject specialists, a developer faces a problem of abundance. The three sources together suggest a large number of objectives, and many of them are inconsistent with one another. A school cannot pursue them all. It should aim at a small number of consistent and highly important objectives, which means the long list has to be screened.

Why and how to screen

The screening question is direct: how do you eliminate the unimportant and inconsistent objectives from the heterogeneous collection the sources produced? The first screen is the school’s own philosophy.

Objectives are picked by identifying those that stand high in terms of the values either stated or implied in the school’s educational and social philosophy. A school’s philosophy generally attempts to define the nature of a good life and a good society, and to outline the values considered essential to a satisfying and effective life. Objectives that match those values are kept; objectives that clash with them are dropped. The philosophy acts as a sieve.

Flashcard

What is the first screen used to filter educational objectives?

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Answer

The school’s educational and social philosophy

It keeps objectives that stand high in the values the philosophy states or implies, and drops those that clash. The philosophy defines a good life and society and the values essential to them.

Democratic values as a worked example

To see the screen working, take a school whose philosophy stresses democratic values for a satisfying personal and social life. Such a philosophy might emphasise four values in particular:

1. The worth of every individual as a human being, regardless of race, national, social, or economic status.
2. Wide participation in all phases of activity in the society’s social groups.
3. Encouragement of variability rather than demanding a single type of personality.
4. Faith in intelligence as the method for dealing with important problems, rather than depending on the authority of an autocratic or aristocratic group.

A school that accepts these as basic will set them as objectives in its program, stated as values and habits, ideals and practices. The screen then does its work: objectives consistent with these values are picked, and objectives inconsistent with them are eliminated and kept out of the curriculum.

Flashcard

Name two democratic values a school philosophy might use to screen objectives.

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Answer

The worth of every individual, and faith in intelligence over autocratic authority

The fuller set adds wide participation in social activity and the encouragement of variability over a single personality type. Objectives consistent with these are kept; inconsistent ones are dropped.