Transcript Robi Kroflič

Robi Kroflič
RECOGNITION OF THE CHILD AS
CAPABLE BEING – THE FOUNDATION
OF EDUCATION IN THE SPIRIT OF
CHILDREN’S RIGHTS
Aims of lecture:
• to show why it is urgent to reach an educational
approaches, that are based on well balanced support
of all of three clusters of children’s rights (for
protection, provision and participation)
• to prove, that especially for supporting children’s rights
for participation, recognition of the child as pro-socially
oriented and morally capable being is very important
corrective of the concept of distributive justice
• to describe three contemporary approaches that
promote an image of “rich child” and are therefore
educational concept that are based on the logic of
children’s rights: pedagogy of listening in Reggio Emilia
approach, inductive approach to moral education in ToGather project, and use of art
How to understand inner logic of the
Convention on the rights of the children?
• Convention on the rights of the children is
built on the concept of three clusters of
children’s needs: for protection, provision and
participation
• So the accomplishment of the central goal of
education in the spirit of children’s rights is
strongly connected with searching for the
balance between the protection and
participation, and provision of stimulative
educational environment
How to understand inner logic of the
Convention on the rights of the children?
• the very fact that we speak about special rights of
children contains a FIRST DANGER, that we look
at the children as simply more vulnerable beings
than adult persons, which can lead to oppressive
paternalism
• THE OPPOSITE DANGER is connected with too big
emphasis on children’s freedom of choices, which
leads to lack of the sense of belonging and safety
and changes our tendency to freedom into the
liberal pressure toward free choices as moral
obligations of living in the consumers’ society
How to understand inner logic of the
Convention on the rights of the children?
• we can conclude that for a healthy
development children need a well balanced
provision of all three clusters of rights,
because both described threats (of oppressive
paternalism and lack of ontological security)
are a serious danger for their psychological
stability and the development of identity.
My personal experience on the
importance of this warning
An ethnographical note: A change of a playing
corner
“Since children no longer play with dolls, we
decided that we will change the babies corner it
into a beauty parlour. When I told them that
(‘motivation to act’), Saša reacted: ‘Leave the
babies corner as it is, Marija plays there every
day. She loves babies, she loves them so much
she’ll have nine of her own when she grows up.”
(Marija is a handicapped child!) We left the nook
as it was, and arranged a beauty parlour
elsewhere.”
My personal experience on the
importance of this warning
I have to admit that it took me seven years of
study to return to this “peak experience” with at
least some sensible theoretical solutions. But
what is more important, this ethnographical note
has warn me that we should never treat a preschool child as incapable, egoistic being who
should be simply protected with formal rules and
motivated to follow adult’s examples of noble
moral acting. Saying in other words, it was a
warning to treat children as subjects of moral
decisions and legal rights!
Children’s rights and the question of
justice in education
• Rawls concept of distributive justice is the
most known political concept, relevant also
for the protection of children’s rights
• recognition of the child as socially and
cognitively capable being is a kind of
precondition for asserting of children’s rights
for participation
• as Nancy Fraser stresses out, proper
recognition of every person should be seen as
the important extension of rawlsean concept
of distributive justice
How to understand recognition?
• Recognition becomes a crucial moral task of
educator when we accept the hypothesis, that
our identities are formed in dialogue with
others, in agreement or struggle with their
recognition of us
• But every form of recognition is not good for
the development of the child, as well as every
relation is not necessarily good, because
domination is as relational as love.
How to understand recognition?
• in education we can trace different modes of
inappropriate recognition of the child and
therefore also unjust educational practices:
– cultural domination (being required to assimilate),
– nonrecognition (being rendered invisible),
– and disrespect (being routinely maligned).
• specially young children are very vulnerable for
different modes of inappropriate recognition
(historic images of the child - from child’s
invisibility (rejection of the child as different
being as adult person) to our expectation that the
child is born as “incomplete being”, “sinful and
egoistic being”, “irrational being” )
How to understand recognition?
• Mechanism of the projection causes that we are looking to
the child through our subjective theories, so to assure a
proper recognition of the child we need to stress out
ethical and political consciousness of the educator
»When we recognize another, or when we ask for
recognition for ourselves, we are not asking for an Other
to see us as we are, as we already are, as we have always
been, as we were constituted prior the encounter itself.
Instead, in the asking, in the petition, we have already
become something new, since we are constituted by virtue
of the address, a need and desire for the Other... It is also
to stake one's own being and one's own persistence in
one's own being, in the struggle for recognition.«
(Judith Buttler)
How to understand recognition?
• two dimensions of recognition:
– as a political request for just acceptance of one’s
social status,
– or as the ethical request for affirmation of
individual’s identity which is a necessary part of
optimal educational encounter and human
flourishing
How to understand recognition?
• three different roles of recognition:
– a concept that emphasize our commitment for
personal confirmation of a child (recognition as
confirmation – Martin Buber),
– our willingness to reject oppressive modes of
subjections (like looking at the child as incapable
being – Judith Buttler) ,
– and finally to accept the fact that recognition is
ongoing reciprocal encounter (Jessica Benjamin)
From different concepts of recognition we can
extrapolate further concrete duties of
pedagogue:
• To be treated in a spirit of children’s rights, child has a
right to be accepted as the worthy being (recognition
as confirmation)
• To enable child’s potentials for active engagement in
decision making we have to build an image of rich child
that is possible to step into active relations with adult
persons (recognition as rejection of oppressive modes
of subjections)
• Pedagogical relation is reciprocal encounter so as we
help the child in enabling him positive recognition, the
child is also giving us the opportunity for growth of our
personality and development of professional and
personal identity.
Pedagogy of listening
“Among the goals of our approach is to
reinforce each child’s sense of identity
through a recognition that comes from peers
and adults, so much so that each one would
feel enough sense of belonging and selfconfidence to participate in activities of the
school.” (Loris Malaguzzi)
“Listening is a metaphor for openness to
others... Listening therefore means giving
value to the other…” (Carlina Rinaldi)
• Listening to the child is not only important
because of our right to speak and be heard but
also because we can know ourselves – that is our
unconscious pre-judgments, prejudices and habits
- only if we know others different of ourselves. So
if we really want to spread the idea of education
through the concept of children’s rights, we have
to step further from political concept of rights to
philosophical concepts of the development of
human’s mind.
• Listening is therefore the premise for any learning
relationship, because in representing our theories,
we ‘re-cognize’ them, so understanding is
generated through sharing and dialogue. The same
phenomenon we can find in the process of artistic
imagination…
Inductive educational approach
• Thesis on special discipline approach that can be
called “inductive approach” was first elaborated
in late sixties by Martin Hoffman
• Hoffman’s approach of empathy as a source of
pro-social emotions enabled him to restore a
thesis that empathy is the first source of moral
competencies of the child in very early
developmental period which can influence
successfully further development of emotional,
motivational and cognitive capacities for moral
decision making and acting.
• with this basic statement Hoffman confirmed
Levinas thesis about the responsibility toward
the Face of the other as pre-ethical condition of
moral acting
• to speak about new educational
concept/paradigm inductive method has to be
widened to different types of activities and
theoretically expanded with profound
anthropological ideas. For this purpose I have
spread the idea of inductive approach to Levinas
concept of responsibility, M. Klein, S. Tood, N.
Eisenberg and K. Kristjansson concepts of prosocial emotions and my own concept of selflimited authority of the teacher
Three steps model of inductive
educational methodic
• The child is in his or her first years capable of
relations of love and friendship, therefore
pedagogy supporting those relationships enables
the child to develop relational response-ability and
normative agency for pro-social activities in a most
authentic way.
• Because personal engaged relations may be as well
harmful, the next important focus is to develop the
sense of respect toward concrete persons or
activities.
• Last step of moral education is to become aware of
ethical principles and humanistic demands,
especially concerning human rights and ecological
values.
• the proposed model should not be
understood as a step model of classical linear
development (like Kohlberg’s model of the
development of moral reasoning) because
every phase of the model remains important
for morality even when the next
developmental step is reached…
• the best way of using the inductive model of
moral development is within an inclusive
school environment and not only as an
abstract learning of solving moral dilemmas in
the classroom.
Role of art
• as we can speak about authentic relationships
(like love and friendship) that provoke child’s prosocial behavior, art (as one of the most authentic
human’s activities) can foster the same attitude
with compassioned imagination
• art can be used in the processes of inductive
approach in different roles, like:
– a motivational tool for opening the senses for moral
dilemmas,
– as a source of ethical knowledge
– and also as a kind of “cross-over” – a medium for
binding cultural and emotional gaps between children
What does this widened inductive approach to
moral education mean for education in the spirit of
children’s rights?
• it is the approach that is focused on all of three important
dimensions of the process of recognition: on confirmation of
Other, on rejection of oppressive modes of subjections, and
on acceptance of the fact that recognition is an ongoing
reciprocal encounter
• with an emphasis on authentic relationships and activities we
can enable a child’s sense of security, but also his willingness
to be an active subject of activities that help him/her to build
his/her personal construction of meaningful knowledge
• with limiting our paternalistic tendencies to be the ultimate
moral judges, we enable the space to the child to strengthen
his pro-social motivation, but also social skills for being able
to answer to the call of other person for help, or for
improving the situation of moral conflict that was caused
with his/her disrespectful act.
“…we promote opportunities for pro-social
behaviour, for growing reflection of conflicts, and
possibilities for common living on the basis of
active tolerance, where empowerment of
individual position of everyone and commitment
to pro-social behaviour are the mill stones of our
identity. We should stay inside the framework of
human rights and enforce weaker ‘should
obligations’ to respect human rights to become
stronger ‘must moral imperatives’.”
(Kroflič and Kratsborn 2006, Agora Dispute)
“This project links the tiny little things inside
myself with the great stuff.”
(Maria Peña, student from Lisbon, 15 years old)