Eng 416

LANGUAGE CURRICULUM IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Reaction paper for RATIONAL HUMANISM – one of the curriculum ideologies.

Out of six (6) curriculum ideologies, we have thought-out the Rational Humanism. It is
the second ideology baring in schooling. Rational Humanism discovers its modern roots in the
enlightenment and its ancient roots in Plato. Compete and others believed that the universe in
which we live is, in principal, understandable and that through rational methods, best
exemplified in science, the workings of the clocklike character of the world could be discovered.
Mysticism and religious were practices that for them well ill-suited to the human’s rational
nature and that rational nature, as Aristotle had indicated, was to know. With it came a new
faith in the power of the human, mainly in the human’s intelligence to guide and control his or
her own future, to take control of his or her own life. The spirit that animated the Rational
Humanism of Hutchins and Adler is broader than the methods of science.
The pedagogical method that Hutchins and Adler espoused is based on their view that
the idiosyncratic feature of the human being is the capacity to exercise reason. It does not
ultimately be contingent on empirical demonstration or on the conditions necessary for
scientific knowledge, but on reflection and insight. Reflection and insight, in turn, could be
fostered, they argued, by providing two educational conditions in the classroom.
They very principle that Rational Humanism advances – the centrality of human reason,
man as the measure of all things, the contextualized nature of knowledge as a human
construction although, at the same time, recognizing the existence of truth – are principles that
religious dogmatic reject. If God exists, and if God is truth, then to conceive of education in
terms that make man the measures of all things is to lead children into spiritual domination.
The practical educational implications of Rational Humanism center on curriculum
content and teaching methods. As I already indicated, humanists believed that once students
have learned how to read and cipher, they ought to be exposed to the best of the best. This,
incidentally does not mean reliance on secondary commentaries, but on the contrary, on the
appropriate use of primary source material. Rational Humanism as an educational ideology is
often accused of being culturally parochial – only Western content is offered and elitist. As far
as elitism is concerned, there are several ways to respond to this change. One is that the proper
aim of education is to expand the elite, which is to enable all students to encounter and to be
informed by the best works humans have created.
One other feature of rational humanistic ideology is important to mention which feature
pertain to matters of curriculum electives and vocational specialization prior to graduate
school. A nation that has little toleration for ambiguity in its politics and a need for happy
endings in its movies is likely to regard Rational Humanism as a bit too intellectual to be
appropriate for today’s world.
Alvis, Yushua V.
Caringal, Dianne A.
Guevara, Charisse Joy S.
Laurora, Lalaine A.
Valencia, Bernalene C.

Sir Bryan A. Herrera

Eng 416 Instructor