Transcript the problem of education

SESSION 2: PRAGMATISM
How does pragmatism theorise education?
How can we characterise that?
And what does that imply?
STEP 1: background information
STEP 2: John Dewey’s theory of education
STEP 3: analysis and discussion
STEP 1: WHAT IS PRAGMATISM?
Charles Chanders Peirce (1839-1914)
William James (1842-1910)
John Dewey (1859-1952)
George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)
first ‘original’ approach developed in North America, BUT...
- coincided with emergence of philosophy as Academic discipline
(theology → British empiricism & Hegel → pragmatism)
- rooted in Western philosophy
distinctively pragmatist:
- philosophy AND science
- evolution theory: human being is part of world
- anti-foundational (anti-metaphysical)
↓
focus on actions & consequences
Why pragmatism and not practicalism?
Kant:
practical: separation of thought and action
pragmatic: connection of thought and action
Peirce: ‘pragmaticism’ (‘ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers’)
***
Dewey: a philosophy of action
“the old center was mind...”
Descartes; philosophy of consciousness
“...the new center is indefinite interactions”
transaction
(self-action; inter-action; trans-action)
knowledge as “a factor in organic action”
a different starting point
‘EXPERIENCE’
↓
transactions of organism and environment:
effects change in environment and organism
↓
‘doing and undergoing’
produces ‘habits’: predispositions to act
trial and error
+
language (conceptual operations)
=
intelligent action
knowledge concerns the relationship between actions and consequences,
not information about ‘external’, pre-existing reality
STEP 2: DEWEY AND ‘THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION’
I. IN A NUTSHELL
“the problem of education lies in the coordination of
the individual and the social factors” (1895)
individual factors: experience & growth
[the continuous reconstruction of experience]
social factors: meaning & culture
they can be [only] co-ordinated through communication
↓
the making of something in common
the task of education is to introduce the method of thinking (so as to
transform habits into intelligent habits, action into intelligent action)
the aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education
and: democracy
II. THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION AND IT’S CONTEXT
traditions in (American) education:
child-centred (developmental; psychological)
curriculum-centred (transmission; sociological)
[Froebel vs Herbartianism]
problem with child-centred: development without direction and meaning
problem with curriculum-centred: adaptation without freedom
the individual and the social are part of one encompassing process; not a
compromise but a ‘dynamic balance’: “so that the child can express
her/himself in a way that can serve social purposes” (1895)
background: ‘progressive education’ in Europe and North-America
↓
criticism of education driven by curriculum
alternative: education ‘driven’ by the child
Dewey: child-centred is un-educational
(i.e., it’s ‘really stupid’)
The Child and the Curriculum, The School and Society,
Interest and Effort in Education, Experience and Education
III. EDUCATION AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EXPERIENCE
experience (the close connection between doing and undergoing) is a
learning process (a lifelong process)
↓
the continuous reconstruction of experience
note: reconstruction, not replacement
all learning ‘trajectories’ are individual: the continuity of experience
teaching needs to ‘connect’ to the ongoing reconstruction of experience
(as it starting point, not its endpoint)
experience → habits (predispositions)
↓
knowledge that lives in the muscles
IV. THE REFLECTIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF EXPERIENCE:
MEANING, CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION
from action to intelligent action:
the intervention of thinking
↓
conceptual operations
conceptual ‘tools’ (meanings)
How can the child get access to the conceptual tools of a culture?
How does a child learn the meaning of a traffic light?
Through experimentation with objects? (e.g., Montessori)
Where is meaning located?
In the social practices in which things (including sounds) mean
something.
the ‘mechanism’ for the co-ordination of the individual and the social
factors is participation
participation: not being in a social environment
but having a social environment:
“A being whose activities are associated with others
has a social environment.”
↓
not physical proximity
not working together
but “when all are cognizant about the common end
and are interested in it”
training: done to; education: done by
↓
communication: the making of something in common
traditional theory of communication:
sender-receiver model: transmission of information
which relies on the assumption that there are already formed ‘minds’
and that they already know what the information means
(here common understanding is a condition for communication)
Dewey:
How is education possible?
How is communication possible?
↓
co-ordination of action: creates the ‘need’ for developing a shared
understanding
↓
results in ‘agreement in action’
creation of a common (but not identical) world:
practical intersubjectivity
↓
common understanding as the outcome of communication
underlying ‘mechanism’: the ‘ability’ to respond to the meaning of the
action of the other, not the action itself
↓
anticipatory, not sequential
(see Mead: symbolic interactionism)
‘the creativity of action’
a communication centred theory of education
(rather than child- or curriculum centred)
a practice centred theory of education
↓
bringing the world into the school
(instead of representing the world through books)
(but see Osberg & Biesta)
↓
‘occupations’ in the laboratory school
↓
Kilkpatrick: project method
also: experiential learning &
problem-based learning
V. THE METHOD OF THOUGHT
acquisition of cultural tools is a necessary condition for the
transformation of experience into reflective experience, inquiry into
reflective inquiry, action into intelligent action
↓
need for “the production of good habits of thinking”
“thinking is the method of an educative experience”
the ‘essentials’ of method (1916; ch. 12)
“(1) that the pupil has a genuine situation of experience: continuous activity in which he is interested for its
own sake
(2) that a genuine problem arises within this situation as a stimulus to thought
(3) that he possesses the information and makes the observations needed to deal with it
(4) that suggested solutions occur to him, which he shall be responsible for developing in an orderly
(5) that he has opportunity and occasion to test his ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to
discover for himself their validity”
= inquiry
collaborative problem-solving increases the number of conceptual
resources and thus has the potential to make action more intelligent
↓
see democracy
VI. THE AIMS OF EDUCATION AND THE AIMS OF EDUCATORS
Dewey’s critique of education as unfolding: growth, not development
growth: “the cumulative movement of action toward a later result”
non-teleological, but open and experimental
↓
“the educational process has no end beyond itself”
a continuous reconstruction of experience (lifelong)
“the aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their
education” (1916)
“education as such has no aims (...) only persons, parents, and teachers,
etc. have aims”
“Education is itself a process of discovering what values are worthwhile
and are to be pursued as objectives” (1929)
↓
distinguishing between what is desired and what is desirable
VII. DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION
“A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode
of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” (1916)
↓
the democratic form of life as the optimal form
of communication and participation
↓
and therefore the optimal environment for growth: the moral self
the democratic ‘standard’ (1916)
(1) How numerous and varied are the interests
which are consciously shared?
(2) How full and free is the interplay
with other forms of association?
STEP 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
What kind of theory is this?
Didaktik or Pädagogik?
Anglo-American construction or Continental constructio?
theory of learning or theory of education?
How does it theorise intervention and interaction?
How does it theorise content?
How does it theorise freedom/subjectivity?
A POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION
more Didaktik than Pädagogik
more Anglo-American (interdisciplinary study of ‘schooling’) than
Continental (although with some idea about the purpose and teleological
character of education)
more a theory of guided learning
It theorises intervention and interaction as communication
It theorises content as practice (with a risk of being a-political)
It theorises subjectivity in terms of growth, reflection and ability to
distinguish between desired and desirable