Every time I teach, I am confronted by the varying notions of the mind. My posturing of what it is and what it’s not certainly affects students. This concern is not only imperative but a very crucial one because it helps me locate myself in the immensity of the philosophy of education and provides me direction on how to approach my students. Perhaps other teachers refuse to rest on problematizing its anatomy, but I have come to believe that the mind is the seat of history, reflection and actualization.
History. The mind is a reservoir of memory of the past generations. Jung claims that there is a collective unconscious, he stresses that it is “identical in all men”, consisting of a “common psyche substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us”. Within our minds is a record of images, responses, and reflexes which is special to our community. From this viewpoint, I’d like to derive my conviction that every learner has knowledge of a cultural reality which dates back even before he was born. Whether he is Korean, Filipino, Spanish, American, or British, he carries in him a representation of the group he is linked with. My role is to assist and facilitate his awareness of his being. He is a being in this world yet there is a universal truth which binds him with the other.
Reflection. Our power to playback our experience through the mind is the most useful attribution that we have. Without reflection, one cannot evaluate the self. There is no rear-view mirror, but only a sight of the road ahead. This narrowed range of vision leads to a meaningless experience which is synonymous to not having lived at all. Moreover, a loss of meaning is a loss of reasons to pursue. Locke draws a proposition of an intrinsic quality of people to fall into reflection in this statement:
“We know certainly by Experience, that we sometimes think, and thence draw this infallible Consequence,
That there is something in us, that has a Power to think:
But whether that Substance perpetually thinks, or no, we can be no farther assured, than Experience informs us
For to say, that actual thinking is essential to the Soul, and inseparable from it…"
This presents the idea that reflection informs us of our existence. Learners must be brought to a state of consciousness and this can only be achieved through reflection. As a teacher, I have to tap this nature to make him contemplate on the value of his life and the possibilities he can make out of it.
When a student is able to define himself, he proceeds to determining his dreams. Here is where actualization comes in. What his mind has constructed of himself will show in how he behaves. He is stimulated by his ideas and acts on it. This is supported by a study of Makeig, a professor from the University of California-San Diego, he posits that “perception and cognition support action. A primary function of human perception is to assist motor control (Churchland et al., 1994). For example, the dorsal visual pathway directly supports visually guided actions such as grasping (Goodale and Milner, 1992). In monkeys and humans, motor neurons involved in controlling tools are active when pictures of tool use are viewed, even in the absence of overt motor actions or planning (Rizzolatti and Arbib, 1998).” In this specific example, one can formulate the idea that whatever happens in the mind, it has a corresponding manifestation.
The mind is the battleground for every learning phenomenon. It is my point of reference when a student resists and is losing heart for the pursuit of truth. Along with the philosophy of education in MITIS, this personal insight serves as a foundation in rousing the minds of the young.
Electronic Sources:
Jung, Carl. Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. http://www.rlwclarke.net/courses/LITS3303/2008-2009/08AJungArchetypesoftheCollectiveUnconscious.pdf. July 12, 2011.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. http://www.iliesi.cnr.it/iniziative/Letture/spinosa_locke.pdf. July 12, 2011
Makeig, Scott. International Journal of Psychophysiology: Linking Brain,Mind and Behavior. http://sccn.ucsd.edu/~scott/pdf/IJP08_share.pdf. July 12, 2011
Marrapodi, John. Educational Philosophers. Capella University . http://www.applestar.org/capella/Educational%20Philosophers.pdf. July 12, 2011
History. The mind is a reservoir of memory of the past generations. Jung claims that there is a collective unconscious, he stresses that it is “identical in all men”, consisting of a “common psyche substrate of a suprapersonal nature which is present in every one of us”. Within our minds is a record of images, responses, and reflexes which is special to our community. From this viewpoint, I’d like to derive my conviction that every learner has knowledge of a cultural reality which dates back even before he was born. Whether he is Korean, Filipino, Spanish, American, or British, he carries in him a representation of the group he is linked with. My role is to assist and facilitate his awareness of his being. He is a being in this world yet there is a universal truth which binds him with the other.
Reflection. Our power to playback our experience through the mind is the most useful attribution that we have. Without reflection, one cannot evaluate the self. There is no rear-view mirror, but only a sight of the road ahead. This narrowed range of vision leads to a meaningless experience which is synonymous to not having lived at all. Moreover, a loss of meaning is a loss of reasons to pursue. Locke draws a proposition of an intrinsic quality of people to fall into reflection in this statement:
“We know certainly by Experience, that we sometimes think, and thence draw this infallible Consequence,
That there is something in us, that has a Power to think:
But whether that Substance perpetually thinks, or no, we can be no farther assured, than Experience informs us
For to say, that actual thinking is essential to the Soul, and inseparable from it…"
This presents the idea that reflection informs us of our existence. Learners must be brought to a state of consciousness and this can only be achieved through reflection. As a teacher, I have to tap this nature to make him contemplate on the value of his life and the possibilities he can make out of it.
When a student is able to define himself, he proceeds to determining his dreams. Here is where actualization comes in. What his mind has constructed of himself will show in how he behaves. He is stimulated by his ideas and acts on it. This is supported by a study of Makeig, a professor from the University of California-San Diego, he posits that “perception and cognition support action. A primary function of human perception is to assist motor control (Churchland et al., 1994). For example, the dorsal visual pathway directly supports visually guided actions such as grasping (Goodale and Milner, 1992). In monkeys and humans, motor neurons involved in controlling tools are active when pictures of tool use are viewed, even in the absence of overt motor actions or planning (Rizzolatti and Arbib, 1998).” In this specific example, one can formulate the idea that whatever happens in the mind, it has a corresponding manifestation.
The mind is the battleground for every learning phenomenon. It is my point of reference when a student resists and is losing heart for the pursuit of truth. Along with the philosophy of education in MITIS, this personal insight serves as a foundation in rousing the minds of the young.
Electronic Sources:
Jung, Carl. Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. http://www.rlwclarke.net/courses/LITS3303/2008-2009/08AJungArchetypesoftheCollectiveUnconscious.pdf. July 12, 2011.
Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. http://www.iliesi.cnr.it/iniziative/Letture/spinosa_locke.pdf. July 12, 2011
Makeig, Scott. International Journal of Psychophysiology: Linking Brain,Mind and Behavior. http://sccn.ucsd.edu/~scott/pdf/IJP08_share.pdf. July 12, 2011
Marrapodi, John. Educational Philosophers. Capella University . http://www.applestar.org/capella/Educational%20Philosophers.pdf. July 12, 2011
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