A critique on reconstructionism and its impact in education.
Reconstructionism is a philosophy that centers on the idea of constant change. To a reconstructionists point of view, the world is a ceaselessly evolving whole and its inhabitants need to ceaselessly evolve themselves in order to cope with the situations around them. In a political context, this has been largely seen through secessionist movements such as the Katangese in Congo, Joseph Kabui’s group in Papua New Guinea or MILF in the Philippines.
In general, reconstructionism in itself is not usually held as an independent philosophy. This is because individual reconstructionists or groups thereof usually contain themselves in reconstructing one area of society. Although wishing to change that area of society is a reconstructionist attribute, this attribute is not mutually exclusive with their other philosophies as to how they wish to change society. This creates an ambiguous division between pure reconstructionist and applied reconstructionists, that is those who do want the system changed but adhere to another philosophy on how to change it which is often the case. Pure reconstructionism is impractical. If one looks at history, all reconstructionists who have made great impact in society had done so in just one area under another philosophy. What just makes them reconstructionist is the fact that they wanted to change the system. The Christian reconstruction gave rise to the Presbyterian Church for example. Reconstructionism is a way of thought that is best used in conjunction with other ways of thought. One wishes to change something about the system with respect with one’s beliefs and not just with the notion that change is needed.
With regards to its applications in education, reconstructionist thinkers have been some of the greatest contributors to learning. Concepts such as multiple intelligences or alternative learning procedures have come from reconstructinist motivation built on other philosophies. While this means that reconstructionism has been the cause of great innovations, one should be wary about the propensity of abuse that can be done in its name. In the Philippines alone, several movements in education such as the bridge system or facilitated learning were packaged as ideas of great innovative change but have proved the contrary to most if not all institutions. Educators who were introduced to facilitated learning bought the idea of making students do all the work so much that they lost focus on the real target of the process: learning. Although the method had shown promise in other states, the misinterpretation of the method was letdown on the Philippine education system which had to sacrifice objectivity and value for learning so that students can “be happier” in their studies and teachers can have the excuse of letting students do all the work for them since it is “a new innovation”. The solution to this dilemma is pretty simple, in as much as we can reconstruct the system, we should always be sensitive to the changes that we make and be ready to reverse them should they prove to have adverse effects. Not all innovations are applicable to any society. It’s either the society should be changed first or the innovation should be modified to fit the society’s needs accurately.
