Philosophy of nursing education

Philosophy of nursing education

·  Beliefs and values with regard to man in general and specifically man as the learner, teacher, nurse and the client and the beliefs about health, illness, society, nursing, and learning etc.

·  Seeks to study the process and discipline of education in order to understand how it works, improve its methods and perfect its applications in society.

·  To improve education and its systems and methods for the betterment of humanity.

Ideally, it informs and raises the quality of curriculum, teaching methods and the overall educational experience.

Definitions

Philosophy

Philosophy is a search for a comprehensive view of nature, an attempt at a universal explanation of nature of things – Henderson.

Philosophy is the science of knowledge. – Fitche

Philosophy is the science of all sciences. – Coleridge

Philosophy is the mother of all arts and the true medicine of the mind.– Cicero.

Definitions of Philosophy of Nursing Education.

“Philosophy of nursing education is the written statement of the believes, values, attitudes and ideas which the faculty as a group agreed upon in relation to the nursing educational program such as health, disease, nursing, nurse, nursing profession, education, learner, society, patient nursing education and preparation of nurses.”

1. Relationship between Philosophy and Education

2. Types of Philosophy

3. Traditional Philosophy

Naturalism

·  It is concerned with nature and believes that reality and nature are identical and beyond nature there is no reality.

·  For naturalist, nature is everything and nothing exists superior than nature so they separates nature from God. Man is regarded as a child of nature.

·  Naturalists also believe that all our activities, whether it may be biological, psychological or social are initiated by our instincts.

·  Natualism stresses the need to return to the nature from artificiality.

Idealism

·  Idealism is the oldest philosophy. It believes that man is the combination of spiritual and material aspects, the spiritual aspect is more real and important.

·  Idealism regards spirit and intellect are of supreme value than physical matter. As per the idealism individual experience is valid than the material world and man lives in the world of ideas rather than facts.

Pragmatism

·  Pragmatism means thinking of or dealing with problems in a practical way rather than by using theory or abstract principles.

·  Pragmatism is essentially a humanistic philosophy maintianing that man creates his won values in course of activity, that reality is still making and awaits its part of completion from the future.

Realism

·  According to this, things we see and perceive are real and knowledge acquired through senses is true.

“Realism is the reinforcement of our common acceptance of this world as apears to us”– Butter

4. Modern contemporary philosophy

Existentialism

It is the youngest philosophy, described as modern 20 th century philosophy.

Meaning: This philosophy stresses the important of human experience and says that everyone is responsible for the results of their own action.

Assumptions

·  The center of existence is man rather than truth, laws, principles or essence.

·  Man is not alone in the world. Man is a social being.

·  Man cannot accept the ready-made concepts of existence forced upon him

·  Man is free agent capable of shaping his own live and shaping his own destiny.

Man is not complete: Man has to meet the challenges in the changing society.

Progressivism

It is an American philosophy.

Meaning

Progressivism is the theory of education that is concerned with learning by doing that children learn best when pursuing their own interest and satisfying their needs.

Behaviourism

Person’s behavior is the result of environmental conditioning. Man is a passive recipient, who reacts to external stimuli, he has no will or decision of his own or the capacity to take spontaneous action.

Principles

·  Individual’s action are predetermined by his heredity or immediate surroundings.

·  Man is not separate from his surrounding environment.

·  Human behavior is controlled by creativity.

Educational applications

·  Learning is governed by man’s action and reaction to various media (oral, written,machine).

·  Learning occurs as a personal achievement through interaction between the learner and environment.

Humanism

Man is an end, not a means.

Principles

The humanist emphasis is on literature. He has to overcome the conflicts of his own time.

The role of Education

·  Children must be taught to respect language, a sense of language perfection.

Children must be trained in modern literary standards of academics

Experimentalism

It believes that things are constantly changing. It is based on the view that reality is what works right now. Schools exist to discover and expand the society we live in. Students study social experiences and solve problems

Man is a social being and product of his environment. Learning depends on experiment.

Eclecticism

It is the process of pulling out and putting together of the useful and essential aspects of various philosophies of education.

Meaning

·  The fusion or synthesis of different philosophies of education.

·  The process of putting together the common views of different philosophies into comprehensive whole.

Aims of education

·  The child should become efficient member of society.

·  Promotion of good health

·  Skillful training.

·  Development of moral character.