Idealism, Realism, Thomism and Humanism and its guidelines for teachers, psychologists and counselors

With many of the basic philosophies discussed, we came into a comparison of helping professionals who hold different views.

For the idealist, education is seen as the vehicle for social mobility. Students/Clients should realize that they have responsibilities towards themselves and to other people. People are born with knowledge and educators are supposed to hone this innate capability to learn through dialogues and interactive learning sessions. Wisdom and goodness should be ingrained on the students/clients to produce individuals who are mentally healthy and morally good. With idealism as philosophy, students/counselees are asked to examine and reflect upon their perceptions of life, truth, beauty and justice. They are to strive towards attaining perfection and thus should be given opportunities to learn.

Clients/students are to be of high moral character and should consider the greater good of the society in which each class and unit would be working harmoniously with each other. Idealist teachers, psychologists and counselors would move towards traditional values and belief systems that are thought to make the world a better place to live in. They are apt to educate their students/clients of idealistic viewpoints and teach truth as a universal belief that a person should work for to be truly happy and actualized.

For the more godly perspective, education is based on the logical study of beliefs of the church. Students should be taught about God with the combination of reason and faith—this then enables students to acquire and use bodies of knowledge.

Teachers, psychologists and counselors who are thomists see their students/clients as co-servers of God. People are created by God and are therefore, to be respected and treated as humanely as possible. Counseling and teaching are done with a theological perspective. Students/clients are taught that reality is an ordered world created by God and that people should strive for eternity with Him. Faith is combined with reason to acquire and use bodies of knowledge.

The humanistic perspective contends for this: education and learning is a vehicle for growth and actualization. The person has the potential to become the best that he can be—he has the natural tendency to learn, therefore education should provide a nourishing environment for a person to fully develop.

Students and clients are viewed to be inherently good, free yet responsible, and full of potentials. They are encouraged to strive for personal meaning in their experience and interpretation of life on earth. Exploration, questioning and critical thinking is encouraged when teaching and counseling. These enable students and clients to discover or construct and use knowledge. The affective dimension of learning is used as well.

As a student and also a part of the helping profession today, I feel that it is important that I learn all of these perspectives. I am aware that I am more of the idealist type but I acknowledge the significance of knowing all the other perspectives so that I will be more effective in helping even those who hold a different philosophy from me. As much as people can be having different goals and motivations in life, the beliefs and philosophies that one holds will always affect the way we decide and carry out our everyday tasks—something that a helping professional-in-training like me should know.