@Jim 23 July 2020

Western Schools of Philosophy: EXISTENTIALISM

**Proponents/ Philosophers** Soren Aabye Kierkegaard Jean-Paul Sartre Friedrich Nietzsche Gabriel Marcel Martin Heidegger Karl Jaspers Abbagnamo Bardyaev Albert Camus **Assumptions** The notion is that humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or nature. It emphasizes individual existence, freedom, and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It holds that society is unnatural and its traditional religious and secular rules are arbitrary. **Roles of the Teacher** The teacher’s role is to help students define their own essence by exposing them to various paths they may take in life and creating an environment in which they may freely choose their own preferred way. The teacher must build positive relationships between himself and his students. He should avoid applying labels to children (such as ‘lazy’, ‘slow learner’ etc.) for individuals who may indeed come to think of themselves this way. **Models /Strategies**  Existentialist methods focus on the individual. Learning is self-paced, self-directed, and includes a great deal of individual contact with the teacher, who relates to each student openly and honestly. The existentialist favors the Socratic Method; because it is a method that tests the inner-life-as a stethoscope sounds the heart. **Educational Aims**  Existentialism is concerned principally with liberal education, freeing man from his isolation and his anonymity, freeing his mind from the confusions that prevent him from seeing his situations and his powers. The objective of education is to enable every individual to develop his unique qualities, to harness his potentialities, and cultivate his individualities. **Curriculum Emphasis** The proponents do not believe in a formal curriculum consisting of a set of bodies of studies to be pursued but a curriculum, which features the reverberatory effect upon heart, and mind of passionate good reading and then personal contact.

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