AL-Farabi
Introduction
Abu Nasr Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Tarkhan Awzalagh al-Farabi was
born in ah 257/ ad870. He was one of the utmost Islamic
philosophers and known for Arabs as the second Master ‘after Aristotle’. Also
he was logician, musician, and was also a major political scientist. “Father of
Islamic Neoplatonism” that was his name in the area of metaphysics, and while
he was taking the way of Aristotelianism and spreading the vocabulary of
Aristotle, but Neaplatonic dimension dominates much of his collection. This is noticed
in his famous work, al-Madina al-Fadila (The Virtuous City), so he has both
Aristotelian and Neoplatonic dimension. One of his works the great book of
music, the virtuous city, Epistle on the Intellect. He spoke many languages and
travels to a lot of countries and his death circumstances are not clear, he
died in Damascus in 950 ad.
Curriculum
Al Farabi said that learning must start with
the language and its composition, without the language the student will not be
able to introduce himself, communicate with others, and his personality will
not develop. Also, the base for knowledge is the language that is very
important for him. He can be able to speak many languages that makes him able
to know many cultures. Beside language there is ‘logic’ which plays a main role
in sciences and their methodology. After language and logic comes mathematics.
For Al Farabi arithmetic comes first in the hierarchy of the theoretical
sciences. If someone wants to learn the theoretical art he must starts with
number, then measures, and after that comes the other things that is related to
optics. One of the important ways to study optics, astronomy and natural
sciences are mathematics and arithmetic. Al Farabi said that there after
sciences we have metaphysics, then the human sciences, then jurisprudence, law,
and academic theology. Briefly, Al Farabi’s curriculum classified as follows:
science of language, logic, mathematics, natural science, theology, civics,
jurisprudence, and academic theology. Al-Farabi
designed a mathematical curriculum in education like that of Plato. As a
reminder of the famous words written over the door of the Academy ‘Let none
enter who is not a geometer’. Al-Farabi said that ‘the demonstrations used in
geometry are the soundest of all demonstrations’. Al-Farabi mentioned another
theory that was taken by the follower of Theophrastus, which said that
education starts with reforming the ethics, so if he can’t reform his own
morals he will not be able to learn any science correctly, then strengthen the
rational mind by geometry giving access to logic.
Teaching Methods
Al-Farabi has divided the instructions into
special and general, where the general instructions are achieved by
demonstration. The nation and citizen are divided into elite and general
public, and that is the main reason for different methods of instruction, so
for general public persuasive and descriptive methods are used to instruct
them, while demonstration methods are used with elite people to find out if
they have superior genius. According to the discussion before, Al-Farabi says
that there is two ways for education ‘elite and public people’ and education is
very important and necessary for all nation, and without it there is no
happiness. Also, the method of instruction may also vary as per available
instructional material. For example in order to teach theoretical virtues, the
demonstration method will be adopted and persuasion method will be used to
teach arts and crafts. The speech can be used for demonstration, where the
teacher uses this method in teaching theoretical virtues, applied arts and moral
values. Al-Farabi used dialogue method following the Plato’s method, and he
confirmed on the importance of dialogue in teaching to reach the world of
intelligentsia there is two methods: the argument and the discourse methods,
both can be used orally and written. While speaking with public people their
comprehension level should be taken into consideration so that they can
understand what is being said.
Role of the Teacher
According to AL-Farabi morality and learning
are important conditions for the teacher, he says that the teacher must holds
good personality and says the truth in all conditions, and he must be volunteer
in his teaching profession. The other scientific and educational requirements a
teacher should hold are: specialization, having the ability to demonstrate and
make others comprehend, finally the ability to beware of any defect enters his
art.
Role of the Student
Al-Farabi believes that in the mind of the
student there should be three parts: to study human talents, to understand
physical object intellect, and to comprehend abstract form. So the role of the
student is to try for the huge resource of knowledge. There must be no mix
between numbers and measures while start teaching mathematics because there is
accuracy, precision to train the student in mathematics, and because
mathematics has many levels that ranges between immaterial and immeasurable so
the student needs progress to distinguish these levels. Beside arithmetic there
is geometry that rely on demonstration to get knowledge.
Al-Ghazali
Al-Ghazali was born in 450 ah or 1058 CE with
the name of Abu Hamid ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali. Al-Ghazali was a muslim,
theologican, jurist, philosopher, and sufi. He was born in Tabaran, he went to
the study the subjects of jurist and theology from al-Juwayni in Nishapur, and
then he left Nishapur and joined the court of Nizam al-Mulk in 1085. By 1091
al-Ghazali becomes the professorship in Nizamiyya School in Baghdad. During
al-Ghazali’s life he wrote more than 70 books on science, Islamic philosophy
and Sufism. He published his book “The Incoherence of Philosophers” which
marked a great change in Islamic epistemology. Another of al-Ghazali most
renowned work is Ihya’ Ulum al-Din or The Revival of Religious Sciences.
Al-Ghazali had a significant influence on both Muslim and Christian medieval
philosophers. According to most historians al-Ghazali’s death was in 1111 CE. (de benoist)
Curriculum
According to al-Ghazali the curriculum is
divided into three species that is attached to knowledge:
·
Cursed knowledge that is unnecessary. For example: black magic
·
The correct knowledge: that is related to the soul to rescue humanity
·
The right knowledge: that is learnt in depth and in detail. For
example: philosophy.
Teaching Methods
Al-Ghazali had set a teaching model for
students to improve their mental behavior and other good character. He divided
the teaching method into two parts:
·
Religion education:
It starts by memorizing and understanding, then it continues by
believing and proving.
·
Character education:
Learning process must leads to build a great personality and learning
process includes the student and the teachers’ aspect.
I.
Learning method principle
1. Giving the whole focus
of attention
2. Considering the knowledge purpose
that will be given
3. Learning the knowledge staring from the most
simple thing to the most complex one
4. Learning the knowledge with the critism
system.
II.
Teaching method principle
1. Considering the students’ thinking levels
2. Giving the clear explanation
3. Teaching knowledge from concrete to abstract
4. Teaching knowledge gradually
III.
Educating method principle
1. Giving exercises/ practices
2. Giving understanding and advice
3. Protecting students from bad social
interaction
Role of the Teacher
Al-Ghazali said that the teacher is someone
who is generous, perfect, favorable, and gives anything without expecting any
rewards.
·
Teacher duties
a. Teacher should encourage their students and
treat them as they are their children
b. Teacher should not ask for rewards
c. Teacher should prevent the student from wrong
behavior
d. Teacher should respect knowledge from others
·
Teachers’ character
a. Caring and sympathetic: act like if you are
their father
b. Sincere: he shouldn’t expect rewards from his
students
c. Honest
d. Peaceful
e. Gentle in giving advice
Role of the Student
·
A student should have a positive thinking
·
A beginner student shouldn’t learn contradictive knowledge
·
A student should now the principles
·
A good student should know any knowledge systematically, and learn
more than one
·
He should know the goals he has to achieve (Barlian)
Pragmatism
Pragmatism this word goes back to Greek origin
that means whatever the work is it can be true or false, because reality
changes so truth changes too and no one should claim that he knows the final
truth. In another way pragmatism can help us to achieve desirable goal by
searching for truth and by practicing, also it help us in solving problems. Although pragmatism as a philosophical
movement began in the United States of America in the late 1800s, but it roots
can be traced back to British, European, and the ancient Greek philosophical
traditions.
Curriculum
For curriculum developing, pragmatists had set
the following principles:
·
Principle of Utility
Only subjects, activities, and experience that
is necessary and beneficial for the student now and in the future, should be
included in the curriculum, such as science, history, physical-training, and
language.
·
Principle of Interest
Only the activities and experience that makes
the student interested should be included in the curriculum. And these
interests are: interest in investigation, interest in construction, interest in
conversation, and interest in creative expression. So, the curriculum should
include reading, writing, counting, art, craft-work, natural science.
·
Principle of experience
That consists of student’s activity, encouraging
him to work/learn, test him, all these three should be found in the curriculum
to promote original thinking.
·
Principle of integration
According to pragmatists subjects and
activities are one unit, and if they are together in the curriculum they can
help the developing student with the society needs and requirements.
Methods of Teaching
The pragmatic method of teaching is
practicing, were the student is the main thing in this method, so it depends on
activity and learning from personal experience. By this method the teacher
encourage the student to learn by himself and this makes him artistic,
confident, and cooperative. Also, the student must discover the truth by
himself, so the teacher must encourage the student and makes him curios so he
can get knowledge.
Role of the Teacher
The main role of the teacher according to
pragmatists is to suggest a problem and encourage them to find for it the best
solution, and her the teacher must be a helper guider and philosopher.
Role of the Students
Role of the teacher is to guide the student,
but the problem faces both the student and the teacher, so as much the student
is disciplined as much he learn. As a result the learning process here is a
cooperative work between the student and the teacher.
Realism
According to realists, the world is as it is,
so the job of the school is the same. So, realism is the refinement of
acceptance of the world as being just what it appears to be. Then, things
remains unchanged before and after we know it. In the 17th and 18th
century, Comenius said that the mind is like a mirror that reflects everything
around it. Also, John Locke said that all experience are just impressions made
on the mind by external objects, means that the mind is a white paper and we
get knowledge and ideas by experience.
Curriculum
·
Humanistic realism said that the student must study the classical
literature because it contains beneficial ides and content.
·
Sense realism gives more importance for studying natural sciences and
social life
·
New realism attached more importance for studying subject physics and
on humanistic feelings, physics and psychology, sociology, economics, Ethics,
Politics, history, Geography, agriculture varied arts, languages and so on.
John Wild said that for each beginner student
he must study first the basic knowledge “his own language”. Then he must know a
new knowledge by at least one foreign language and to study essential
mathematics. Then to get knowledge in physics, chemistry, biology, and basic
facts. Finally, he should know philosophy.
Methods of Teaching
According to realists the method contains
teaching for the facts to develop understanding the natural law. So, the true
knowledge is obtained when the student is able to organize data of experience.
Herbart has developed the five step method in
education:
1. Preparation: making the student interested for
explaining the lesson by making him remember materials and relate them to the
new one.
2. Presentation: the new materials are presented
and explained
3. Association: making comparison and finding
similarities between new materials and old one.
4. Generalization: concluding the general rule
from all the three methods before.
5. Application: solving exercises and problems on
the new and relevant information
Realists accept any method that involves
learning through sensory exercises whether it is direct or indirect (using
videos, films, radio, TV, records).
Role of the Teacher
According to realists the role of the teacher
is to have the full knowledge about the needs of the students. Not only this
but also he must has the ability to give the students the information in a
clear way, and to tell the students about the scientific discoveries done by
others. Finally, he must inspire his students so they can discover new facts by
experimentations, and to be able to know the amount of knowledge that should be
given to each student.
Role of the student
The student can’t learn until he follows the
roles of learning. Broudy describes the students by four concepts: The realists
see the student as a computer that can be programmed. (Maheshwari,
2015)
Reflection
We can conclude that al-Farabi’s ideas about
education contains morality, and also the knowledge in the following fields:
language, mathematics, natural sciences, human sciences, jurisprudence, law and
academic theology.
Al-Ghazali improved the education system by
his curriculum, and also when he divided the teaching method into two parts:
Religion education, and Character
education. Then he said that the teacher is someone who is generous, perfect so
he is giving the teacher a big responsibility in teaching. Finally the role of
the student to have a positive thinking which is great.
The principles of the pragmatism helped and is
helping many curriculums right now so it was a grateful thinking about the
curriculum. The methods was amazing and they are being used in our teaching
systems such as practicing. The role of the teacher and the students are
related which is discipline when the student is quite so the teacher can
achieve his goal by explaining the lesson in a good way.
Finally, realism curriculum was perfect by
containing: Humanistic realism, Sense realism, and new realism. Herbart has
developed the five step method in education and each step is dependent to other
to achieve the result. Also, role of the teacher is to give the student the
information they want in a clear way and the student must have the following
concepts: the appetitive
principle, the principle of self-determination, the principle of
self-realization, the principle of self-integration
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