2.1 Introduction

Like health care, education is not a thing, but an activity. Educational activities take place within institutional frameworks of practices, such as schools, day care centres, children’s homes, youth clubs, and families. But what does ‘educational practice’ mean? It is a practice of child rearing, upbringing, and teaching in which educators interact with children and young people with the intention of helping them grow up. Growing up is not so much attaining an adult status, but concerns becoming acquainted with the world in which one lives and taking responsibility for what one does in that world. Taking responsibility is not an activity that can be produced in a child or adolescent by an educator, and neither can that child’s activity of becoming acquainted with the world. An educator can help children and young people to attain these activities—they can show them how to do it, invite them to act, but they cannot do it for them; children and young people must become acquitted with the world and take responsibility by themselves. Education always implies self-formation. Without the self-activity of children and young people, education can never succeed.

Nowadays, educational practices are informed by very different theories: psychological, sociological, economic, managerial theories, and so on (cf. Bartlett and Burton [2006] 2016). Education is no longer studied from a single angle; current educational practices are studied through a multidisciplinary lens. The theories that inform educational practice describe and explain the educational process from the perspective of the discipline they stand for. So, today, there are many descriptions and explanations of the processes that take place in the field of education. Within this multidisciplinary approach, there is one discipline that distinguishes itself from the other disciplines: philosophy of education.

Philosophy does not describe and explain processes as other disciplines that inform education do; it is not focused on the functioning of processes, on cause-and-effect relations. Instead of that it clarifies and tries to understand the meaning of education. The philosophical focus is a focus on concepts. The intention of philosophy is to open a field of thought through the concepts it develops. Philosophy of education presents concepts that allow child rearing, upbringing, and teaching to appear as an educational practice. This chapter deals with philosophy of education as a philosophy of educational practice.

In Sect. 2.2, we consider some examples of thinking regarding education in the history of philosophy, latterly describing the rise of philosophy of education in the last century. In Sect. 2.3, we give some examples of different philosophy of education positions, not only those with roots in the English-speaking world, but also from the non-English speaking world. Later, in Sect. 2.4, we focus on the practical philosophical concept of pedagogy as it was developed by the French educationalist Philippe Meirieu. Finally, in Sect. 2.5, we describe similarities between the educational and health professions, and the importance of a practical philosophy for these professions.

Before we progress further, there is something important we must clarify. Even though philosophy of education is about the education of children and not yet grown-up young people, certain views may be important for professionals working with grown-up students in health professions education. Where that is the case (particularly within Sect. 2.4), we will clearly highlight this applicability.

2.2 Philosophy and Education

Growing up is a social and cultural phenomenon. One needs fellow human beings to become a grown-up person, humans who point to, who show, who indicate the direction one should go, and help and support one in doing so.

When societies develop, people start to think about how this process of growing up should take place.

2.2.1 Plato and Aristotle on Education

In the Athenian society of the fifth and fourth century BCE, education was one of the topics of what the Athenians called philosophy, literally: desire (philein) for knowledge and wisdom (sophia). We find in the work of Plato (427–347 BCE) and Aristotle (384–322 BCE) several places where education is discussed. For both, politics and education are closely related. Plato was a more elitist philosopher than Aristotle. In his The Republic, he describes the education he wants to give to the best among the young male Athenian citizens, the ones that are the best suited to it. The intention was that they would later lead the state. Aristotle, on the other hand, did not differentiate between the male citizens of Athens. All free male citizens should be able to achieve a happy and virtuous life. That life isn’t a life in isolation, it is a life of togetherness, a life of acting together. This implies a crucial educational task with important political implications. A state where humans can reach their destination of a happy and virtuous life will be a strong state as it is a state supported by happy and virtuous people. Virtue requires a guideline. In his Politics Aristotle ([335/323 BCE] 1990) writes: “There are three things which make men good and virtuous; these are nature, habit and rational principle” (40). He states that these things must be in harmony with one another. To put them into harmony requires not only knowledge, but also wisdom; so, philosophy as the source of knowledge and wisdom provides the guideline, both in politics and education.

Nature, habit, and ‘the rational principle’ are the basis of education in ancient Greece. Educators have to consider the nature of the child they are educating, help them to develop good habits and, by helping them to master the essentials of Greek culture, to develop not only physically and musically, but also intellectually, and morally. In Greek education, the emphasis was on what the educator does. But the activities of the child or young person are rarely mentioned. There is only one exception: Plato’s description of the dialogues Socrates had with Athenian citizens, including young men. Especially in the early dialogues, Socrates tests the ideas and beliefs of his interlocutor; by doing this, he challenges the young man he talks with to think for himself, or in other words: to put the—according to Plato, innate—rational principle into practice. Here comes into existence what we call ‘self-activity’ today.

In the history of philosophy, it is a very long time before educators emphasize self-activity as a crucial educational act. The French writer Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) does so in one of his Essays (‘Of the Education of Children’, [1580] 2007) , almost two thousand years later: “I would not have [the teacher] start everything and do all the talking but give his pupil a turn and listen to him” (55).

2.2.2 Rousseau and Kant on Education

The philosopher who really put self-activity in the spotlight was the Geneva-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). In his philosophical novel, Emile, or Education, he describes the development of a young boy (Emile) into a grown-up man. The development seems automatic; Rousseau describes it as a natural process. Emile is all self-activity. He feels free; through the activities he undertakes freely, and the experiences gained, he develops. Rousseau ([1762] 1921) writes:

Let [your pupil] always think he is master while you are really master… No doubt he ought only to do what he wants, but he ought to want to do nothing but what you want him to do (84–85).

Rousseau takes nature as a guideline for Emile’s education, for him nature is the basis of what Aristotle called the rational principle. He organizes Emile’s environment in such a way that he can develop naturally. The environment shapes his habits, and through what he undertakes and experiences, he masters the essentials of culture, he learns to read, to write, and to calculate, and to orient himself in time, place, and space. Subsequently, he becomes capable of distinguishing good and evil. He learns it all by himself, as a self-active young man, but it is Rousseau who encourages him to do so, by engaging him in situations that provoke all these learnings.

As is the case with Plato and Aristotle, for Rousseau, too, education and politics are closely related. A democratic society in which people can live as free citizens—Rousseau describes this society in his The Social Contract—, needs people who are educated as free humans. The Emile is the pedagogical counterpart of the political The Social Contract.

The great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was impressed by the Emile. It is said that he forgot his daily walk when he was reading the book. Rousseau taught that humans are corrupted by society; on the other hand, Kant ([1784] 1963) said that they are made of ‘crooked wood’ out of which ‘nothing perfectly straight can be built’. Humans are imperfect. They should be aware of that: they need to know what exactly they can know, must do, and may hope. That is why humans need education. Kant recognizes the importance of discipline; it can result in what the Greek called good habits, but discipline is not yet education. Education requires self-activity; its intention is to make free. Freedom does not mean doing what you want. Freedom requires the recognition of a super-individual, rational law to which humans measure their actions. That must be taught and can’t be without restraint, Kant argues. In his lecture on education he states:

One of the greatest problems of education is how to unite submission to the necessary, restraint with the child's capability of constraint moral exercising his freewill – for restraint is necessary. How am I to develop the sense of freedom in spite of the restraint? (Kant [1803] 1900, 27)

Rousseau hid this question behind the educational environment where Emile grew up. Kant made this question the crux of education.

Even when confronted with this major problem, Kant still expects a lot from education. He does not believe that by following the law of nature humans could improve themselves. Improving themselves, however, is a human’s most important task. Kant hopes that generation after generation humanity will get better. In addition to this, education is not only the link between the generations, but also the lever for improvement. Cultivation, civilization, and moralization are the necessary steps to take in education. It is through the step of moralization that humans make themselves free. So, unlike Rousseau, it is not by following the law of nature within Kant’s philosophy that frees humans, but the rational principle mentioned by Aristotle, long ago.

2.2.3 Dewey on Education

For Kant, the older generation’s task is to educate the younger in such a way that they could become cultivated and civilized, but, above all, become moral and free humans. One could say that education is a certain kind of intergenerational communication. The North American philosopher John Dewey (1859–1952) would agree (for detail on Dewey’s other work see Chapter 17, which considers Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy of technology). One hundred and thirty years after Kant’s lectures, he writes in his Democracy and Education ([1916] 1966) “all communication is educative” (5). Dewey considers the cultural processes that take place between people as a process of interaction. In such a process, mutual adjustments take place. Such adjustments lead to shared experiences. For Dewey, these experiences are crucial; they not only bring people together, but also create a common world. He writes: “Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession. It modifies the disposition of both the parties who partake in it” (9). What Kant calls cultivation, civilization, and moralization are nothing but different forms of communication. These super-individual forms, which could be compared with Kant’s super-individual, rational law cannot exist without the self-activity of the participants—of the educator, but foremost of the one who is educated: the child or adolescent: “Education is not an affair of ‘telling’ and being told, but an active and constructive process” (38). Such a process allows children and young people to break their habits, acquire new knowledge and skills, and relate to their fellow human beings in a new way, perhaps a morally more considered way. We speculate the same may be true of educators invested in this process.

Aristotle considered nature, habit, and reason (the rational principle) as the crucial elements of education. We conclude that he was right. In the history of educational thinking those core elements appear in new configurations time and time again.

2.3 The Rise of Philosophy of Education

In the Western world, whilst the importance of education increased in the nineteenth century it truly amplified in the 20th. Education Acts were introduced, new schools were set up, teacher training was improved, and the first chairs of pedagogy were established at universities.

2.3.1 Pestalozzi, Herbart, and a Practice-Based School Pedagogy

The educational ideas that had developed over centuries and were given new forms in the second part of the eighteenth century, spread across Europe and North America. The German-speaking countries played a major role in this. In Switzerland, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) developed a pedagogy focused on head, heart, and hand aiming “to forge oneself through his own work” (Pestalozzi [1797] 1968, 98). He was inspired by Rousseau; he wrote about education, but besides his writing he set up different educational institutions where he put his pedagogy into practice. In Germany, Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841) developed—partly in discussion with Kant—a ‘pedagogical science’, twenty years later. Herbart met Pestalozzi in Switzerland. There, he started as a tutor, but soon he went back to his homeland and became a professor in philosophy and pedagogy. The purpose of education was, according to him, to form a moral and many-sided character. To this end, education must provide the right mental representations, both in culture and nature. Pestalozzi’s and Herbart’s ideas became the leading pedagogical ideas in the nineteenth century, over Europe and North America, the former in the first part of the century, the latter in the second.

At the end of the nineteenth century, a movement of educational renewal emerged, emphasizing child's activity, aimed at gaining and sharing culturally determined experiences. Many people, practicians, and theoreticians joined this movement. Dewey, who put his ideas into practice in his Laboratory School, was one of them. All those ideas entered the school, through training, through individual teachers who tried to change school practice, and through newly established schools that put a new pedagogy into practice. It led to several new practice-based school pedagogies.

2.3.2 The 20th Century and the Rise of Philosophy of Education

The twentieth century brought new changes. Compulsory education was introduced throughout the Western world. Education became a human right. Over the century education was gradually extended, becoming longer and longer. New social sciences such as psychology, sociology, economics emerged that started to investigate human activities, including educational activities. Contrary to philosophy, they did not focus on the meaning and purpose of the activities, but on the functioning of the processes that would determine them. During the twentieth century, education increased in importance. Now, school was important not only for the intellectual and moral development of new generations, but for the development of a country’s economy. Policy makers began to emphasize learning outcomes. As a result, teachers were subjected to ever higher demands. No longer were they trained at normal schools or stand-alone teacher colleges, but at universities. There, they were introduced to the results of the now emerged social sciences. These sciences began to prescribe certain approaches, stating that certain skills were necessary to obtain desired outcomes. The image of practice was no longer determined by a practice-based school pedagogy, but by a multidisciplinary field of research results that provided prospective teachers with the necessary knowledge and skills to act as able educational professionals.

The contribution of the social sciences to teacher education provided a new view, not only of educational practice, but also of the teacher within this practice. The social sciences describe how development and learning processes proceed, how such processes can best be managed and what resources can be used to achieve certain goals. But they do not describe the educational meanings of what one is doing, the educational aims one pursues, what is at stake when one is teaching. The social sciences cannot do that; philosophy can do it. With the rise of the social sciences within the field of education a new branch of philosophy arose named philosophy of education. In the English-speaking countries this new branch focused initially on clarifying the concepts used in the educational field: ‘education’, ‘development’, ‘curriculum’, ‘teaching’, and so on (cf. Hirst and Peters 1970). The method used was that of language analysis. But soon, concepts of philosophy were used to shed new light on educational processes. In the 1960s, one of the most prominent philosophers of education in the English-speaking world, Richard Peters (1919–2011), introduced Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1889–1951) concept of initiation into the philosophy of education. Following him, he stated that “education… has to be described as initiation into activities or modes of thought and conduct that are worthwhile…” (Peters [1966] 1970, 55). Concepts of other philosophers were also introduced: concepts of Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), Emmanuel Levinas (1906–1995), Jacques Rancière (1940), and many others. Arendt enriched the philosophy of education with the concept of ‘to introduce into the world’, Levinas with ‘the face of the Other’, and Rancière with ‘the equality of intelligence’. Each of these concepts sheds new light on education, but by doing so, it also calls into question existing educational practices. Nowadays, philosophy is no longer just a clarifying and ‘meaning-producing’ discipline; it also is a critical discipline. Its intention is more and more to encourage us to start ‘thinking again’ (Blake et al. 1998), aimed not only at prospective teachers, but at everyone involved in education, teachers in practice, managers, and policy makers.

2.3.3 The Intellectual ‘Home’: Discipline or Educational Practice?

Today, philosophy of education is an important discipline within the field of sciences that deal with education. It is a discipline with its own voice: a critical voice aiming at meaning and purposes. From different philosophical perspectives, it focuses not only on various educational target areas, but also on the different parts of the broad field of contemporary education (Blake et al 2003; Siegel 2009; Smeyers 2018). Despite the large differences between sciences dealing with education and philosophy of education, there is also a similarity: the intellectual ‘home’. This home is the discipline, for instance psychology, sociology, or economics, and—concerning philosophy of education—philosophy (Biesta 2012). The home is not the practice of education. The practice is the object of study, the object investigated by different sciences and to which philosophy applies its concepts. It is approached from the outside, and not approached as a practice with its own ‘dignity’, a practice with inherent meanings, purposes, and principles.

However, there are exceptions to the above-described dominant view. Even in English-speaking countries where this is particularly the case, there are exceptions, for example the work of the North American David Hansen (1952). Contrary to the dominant view, the ‘home’ from which Hansen departs is not that of philosophy, that of the discipline, but that of educational practice. So does the Dutch-born Gert Biesta (1957). Hansen’s starting point for his reflections on education is what teaching means for teachers and the goals they pursue in educational practice (cf. Hansen 1995); and Biesta’s starting point for thinking through the concepts he uses—concepts he derives from various philosophical resources—is also, like Hansen, the inherent meaning and purpose of educational practice (cf. Biesta 2014). There are more exceptions to this dominant view, notably in the German-speaking countries and in several neighbouring countries, like Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France (Biesta 2011).

2.3.4 Pedagogy as Part of the Humanities

As we have seen, Germany played an important role in spreading pedagogical ideas in the nineteenth century. This was not only done by newly established educational institutions where innovative practices took place, but also by universities. In Germany, the first chair of pedagogy was established in 1778, in Halle. Herbart was a professor in philosophy but also in pedagogy, from 1802, first in Göttingen, later in Königsberg. He gave lectures on pedagogy, but also acted as teacher educator in the experimental school that was affiliated with the university. In Germany, educational theory and educational practice were closely related from the beginning. Pedagogy (in German: Pädagogik) means not only the theory of education, but also the practice of it. Pedagogy as it developed in Germany from the end of the nineteenth century, uses, as part of the humanities, philosophical methods (phenomenology and hermeneutics) to investigate educational practice. Even though the influence of social sciences in educational research dominates nowadays, the philosophical inspired, humanities research approach to the study of education remained in Germany, and in some other countries as well.

After the Second World War, a phenomenology-based pedagogy was developed in Germany and the Netherlands. The Dutch educationalist Martinus Langeveld (1905–1989) states in his Beknopte theoretische pedagogiek [Concise Theoretical Pedagogy] ([1945] 1971):

We wish to analyze [the educational] phenomenon only as such for now. We do want to interpret it from another source than from itself… we start in a phenomenological way (29).

Langeveld starts his investigation from educational practice itself, from the experiences of the educators in the educational field and the ones they educate. By investigating these experiences in a phenomenological way, unprejudiced, he achieves insight in what education is all about: bringing children and young people to grown-up-ness, but at the same time considering their desire to be someone themselves. Although phenomenological pedagogy disappeared in the Netherlands after the 1990s, it persisted in Germany, where it has flourished in recent years (cf. Brinkmann et al. 2017). By way of the Dutch-born Max van Manen (1942), it was spread in Canada and the United States (Van Manen 2015; Friesen et al. 2012).

The hermeneutic-based pedagogy also persisted in Germany. In his Forgotten Connections (2014), translated into English, Klaus Mollenhauer (1928–1998) investigates the ‘becoming’ of current educational practices. Using pictures, all kinds of texts, including experiences put in writing, he reconstructs the basic structure of educational practice. According to him, this structure consists of two pairings: the first of presentation and representation, the second of Bildsamkeit and self-activity. The first has to do with the fact that educating implies becoming acquainted with the world. To achieve grown-up-ness, children and young people need educators who show them the world. This can be done directly by presentation and indirectly by representation, through artifacts and symbols. The second concerns the educator’s view of the child. Only if the educator considers children and young people as bildsam, as humans that have the capacity to form themselves, and challenges them as self-active humans to do so, can they achieve grown-up-ness. Langeveld would entirely agree.

German pedagogy considers theory and practice as closely linked. In education, practice cannot exist without theory, neither theory without practice. Educational practices are cultural-historical practices where theories and practices continuously influence each other. We still find ways of doing and thinking from the past in current practices. The question is what educators today find worthwhile. In what way do they intend to continue the historically grown practice? Mollenhauer (2014) writes:

Children should be brought up not as if they were [simply] material to be changed and formed. Instead, they should be raised in support of a kind of power and potentiality that develops itself, in a dialogical relationship, in a kind of mutual interchange or call and response (93).

2.4 Philosophy of Education as a Theory of Practice: Meirieu’s View

In Herbart’s first lecture in 1802, he makes a remarkable statement: “First, let’s distinguish pedagogy as science from the art of upbringing’ (Herbart [1802–1832] 1986, 55). Science as theory is general, practice is individual. That is why theory is always “too much and at the same time too little” (ibidem). There is a gap between the more general theory and the more individual practice. According to Herbart, practice needs ‘tact’; this can only be achieved by doing and reflecting on what one does in practice. That’s not saying theory is not important. It is important, in preparation for practice and reflection on practice. In the introduction of his Allgemeine Pädagogik [General Pedagogy] from 1806, Herbart speaks about theory as a map. The map allows the educator to determine their direction, but also helps them find the way they want to go and to reflect on the results of it.

2.4.1 Meirieu’s Pedagogy as a Map

The French educationalist Philippe Meirieu (1949) affirms Herbart’s stance of pedagogy as a map. For him, pedagogy is an ‘educational doctrine’  that consists of loose, heterogeneous elements, “a number of reflections and ideas” that enable the educator “to take on a pedagogical challenge” (Meirieu 2004, 136). Pedagogy is a practical theory, an ‘in-between theory’, between sciences and philosophy on the one hand, and on the other hand practice, and the experiences gained there. It is, indeed, a map to orient on educational practice, and to reflect on the gained experiences.

At the most basic level, educators should make the map by themselves. The starting point of the map is not science, nor philosophy; it is practice, more precisely: the resistance of the child or adolescent that the educator experiences. Meirieu speaks about ‘a pedagogical moment’. According to him, the heart of such a moment is resistance; it’s the moment that the educator experiences that a child or adolescent escapes their power (Meirieu 1995). The child or young person has their own will. During such a moment, the educator experiences that children and young people aren’t objects; they are subjects; they have, as Langeveld said, the desire to be someone themselves. That is an experience-based, pedagogical fact. But that fact does not absolve the educator of the responsibility to introduce children and young people into the world and help and support them as self-active young humans to grow up, and achieve grown-up-ness.

In his Le choix d’éduquer [The Choice to Educate] (1991), Meirieu states that the act of education is based on a choice. It is a choice for the child as subject. In education, the crucial question is always: “Do I allow the other, the one in front of me, to be a subject, even if it goes against me?” (12). For Meirieu, the educator is able to say ‘yes’ to this question because they believe in a child's educability. They does so, because they are convinced of the child’s inherent capability to form themselves, convinced of what the Germans call Bildsamkeit. Based on this conviction, Meirieu argues that the fundamental task the educator stands for is twofold: to call the child as subject into presence, and to provide them with the cultural tools, and help to use them, to be able to inhabit the world in which they live.

A teacher, who is always an educator as well, can only accomplish this task within an educational safe space. A school should be a safe place where children and young people can communicate and gain experiences with the cultural tools they are offered. Safety requires a law to which all participants measure their actions. This law functions as a ‘third party’ and positions one against the other. Within such a safe space children and young people can appear as subjects and learn to work with the cultural tools offered them. At the same time, it is a place where they learn to live together. School is a form of community life, as Dewey said, a mini society where citizenship is learned (Meirieu 2004). The other fundamental task of an educator or teacher, respectively, is to install such a safe place, a safe mini society.

Here we can learn lessons for the education of health professionals. Here too, self-activity and confidence in the student’s Bildsamkeit is crucial. Only if the health care student is addressed as a subject, is challenged as a subject to pick up medical tools and challenged to work with them, can they become a responsible health professional. That is only possible if the place in which health professions education takes place is a safe place in which students can make mistakes and can learn from their mistakes. The place where health care education takes place should be a place of professional togetherness, a place where the professional attitude of healthcare workers is put into practice daily, by professional health professions educators firstly, and, following their educators, by students.

2.4.2 A Situated Philosophy

Back to Meirieu’s pedagogy. The pedagogy he puts into practice can be called a “situated philosophy” (Burbules 2018, 1424). It is a practical philosophy. Like philosophy of education, it generates meanings and indicates purposes. Above all, however, it is a practical philosophy through the concepts it proposes; these concepts make practice appear as an educational practice that challenges the educator to act. Meirieu’s practical philosophy does not give clues and hints, it points, from the concepts presented, in a direction, ways to go, to special points to notice, to obstacles to overcome. It is indeed a map, a map to orient oneself, to determine one’s direction, to find one’s way, to help to make decisions.

You may have noticed that Meirieu's practical philosophy is part of a long-standing philosophical and pedagogical tradition. Concepts of many philosophers and pedagogues can be found in it. They form a loose network together; they are the conceptual crossroads on a pedagogical map. For example, self-activity, Bildsamkeit, and the law as ‘third party’. All kinds of other forms of knowledge, practical and theoretical, can be connected to it. Meirieu does so, but he also challenges the user to do it themselves. And that is indeed also an educational task: to elaborate the maps educators are working with based on the experience they are gaining in the educational field.

2.5 Some Final Remarks on the Similarities Between the Healthcare and Educational Professions

Despite differences in training and work, there are striking similarities between the health and educational professions. Both professions exist by the grace of relationship. Health professionals such as doctors, nurses, and therapists work with people, that is also the case with educational professionals such as teachers, childcare workers, and coaches. Both professions are informed by a wide field of scientific disciplines. Today, both the practice of health care and education are viewed through a multidisciplinary lens. However, sciences describe and explain, but do not describe the meaning of what takes place in healthcare practices, nor what the ultimate purpose of it is. Education pursues grown-up-ness, health care pursues health. But what do these terms mean? Science can’t answer this, but philosophy can. That is why within the field of health professionals—as with the educational professionals—science needs to be supplemented with philosophy. But don’t they need a practical philosophy as well? A situated philosophy of healthcare situations? Don’t doctors, nurses, and therapists need maps, too? Maps to orient themselves, to determine their direction, to find their way, to help to make decisions.

Further, what of the healthcare professional who educates prospective healthcare professionals? What else can they learn from philosophy of education? To reiterate our earlier discussion, we believe that they may learn the importance of trust in a student’s capability to form themselves, the importance of self-activity, and of a safe place to be educated in (Table 2.1).

Table 2.1 Practice points
Full size table