Philosophical Analysis and Education (International Library of the Philosophy of Education Volume 1)

Reginald Archambault

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781032810171
• eBook ISBN: 9781135172282
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

When originally published in 1965 this book reflected some of the new thinking among philosophers regarding the role of the discipline in its investigation of central issues in educaton. The essays are grouped into four major sections: The Nature and Function of Educational Theory; The Context of Educational Discussion; Conceptions of Teaching; and The Essence of Education. The concepts dealt with are of the first importance to any practical or theoretical discussion in education and the editor provides a generous introduction to the essays to aid the reader in his analysis of the issues.

THE CONTEXT OF EDUCATIONAL DISCUSSION

THE three essays that make up this section are concerned with an examination of how to proceed to talk about education. The points of view are fresh ones. Professor Perry’s paper considers what an educational situation is by looking at two ideal versions of what it ought to be: the traditional and the progressive. He then looks at the actual structure of a typical practical educational situation, and concludes that fruitful directions for improvement in education must stem from analyses of real situations rather than those ideal ones which are constructed on assumptions that may be irrelevant to practical contexts. By so doing, his essay is emblematic of recent trends in philosophical analysis, and consistent with the views of several of the other contributors to this volume.

Professor Peters’ concerns relate to Perry’s, but are broader in scope. He rejects many conventional ways of describing or characterizing education: education as ‘growth’, as controlled by ultimate ‘ends’, as ‘experience’, as ‘acculturation’, as ‘training’. He concludes that education is a process aimed at the development of motivation of a certain kind, and of cognitive structure. It is properly concerned with the initiation of the young into activities, modes of conduct, and thought, which have public standards written into them. Education has no ends beyond itself, and what is perhaps most significant, its aims should be stated in terms of the explicit manner of teaching. Again we note the choice of a clear and tangible context for the investigation of problems.

Professor Hirst turns to a definition of liberal education, proceeding through an examination of traditional notions on the one hand, and a famous contemporary statement on the other. He begins by analysing the structure of knowledge that seems intrinsic to both of these ideas, an approach which is frankly epistemological and consequently relatively abstract; yet a major portion of his paper is concerned with the applications of the principles thus derived to the practical educational context. He concludes by examining such commonplace problems as teaching for critical appreciation, selecting content within the disciplines, and organizing the school curriculum.

WHAT IS AN EDUCATIONAL SITUATION?

Leslie R.Perry

COMMON CAUSES OF CONFUSION

WHATEVER may be the task of philosophers of education, the typical task of the teacher is a practical one: that is, he is constantly preoccupied with what to do in a situation requiring him to do something. This does not at all mean that thinking and reflecting is a less important part of his business, for, as the old controversy aroused by pragmatism showed,¹ theory is not opposed to practice but essential to it. The teacher, however, needs a type of thinking particularly suited to practical problems—it might be called practical thinking, in contrast to that which arose without a practical end in view. Without it, the way a teacher acts can be inconsistent, indecisive, or mechanical and rigid. Nor is it likely that he can free himself from these hindrances to effective work unless he forms, in the course of his practical thinking, what may be called a ‘concept’ of education—that is to say, a set of ideas, characterized by their common capacity to contribute to his practical work. These may be combined in various ways according to the practical problem concerned, and they consist of a number of procedures appropriate to the carrying out of the teacher’s work, plus a number of aims in pursuit of which those procedures are operated. This ‘concept’, then, would provide him with some basic notion of his role as a teacher and how to carry it out. Such a concept need not arise—a teacher may continue indefinitely doing his work in an inferior way—but it can arise out of an intelligent and observant assessment of the results of daily practice, an awareness of the convictions that one is using as aims, and a constant attempt at improvement. This demand is at present commonly met by the recourse to technical knowledge of one sort or another. But it need not mean this. It can mean what is meant here by formulating a concept; namely, the attempt to obtain insight into one’s aims and purposes in grappling with practice (which is not purely a matter of method) as well as reflection upon questions of method.

I am suggesting then that teachers often work less effectively than they might because of lack of a clear concept of education. In other words, thinking that is antiquated, or not quite to the point, or in conflict with other thinking but not realised to be so, can obstruct the work of the teacher. More: this is, as a matter of fact, largely what happens. It is not my intention, though, to urge teachers to believe in some kind of faith—some scheme of systematic and interrelated beliefs. All I would suggest is that, without some purposes to co-ordinate action, and enable individual decisions to be consistent and reinforce each other, teachers will not attain the mastery of the practical situation which they want. A systematic faith, presented as a picture of what the educational situation might be if it were immaculate, does not seem indispensable to effective teaching. It is true that without purpose actions tend to become random, but whether all purposes need to be connected, and to be related to some general beliefs about the meaning of life, or something of the kind, is quite another question. Certainly the teacher can achieve consistent action without such general beliefs.

As a matter of history, and recent history included, instead of forming such clear, constructive concepts, teachers seem to have suffered from an obstruction of action occasioned by the prevalence of generalized models. These arise, apparently, from an unfortunate but well-established habit of thinking about the problems, that is, the habit of supposing, widespread among writers on education, that there are particular places in which they find it going on; and this has resulted in some versions becoming standard versions of the educational situation. But they differ a great deal and have given rise to a lot of confusion to the working teacher. And the first source of confusion is that these ‘standard’ educational situations serve two main purposes, not one, and these have been very mixed up.

The first is that of a concept for method purposes. The writer conceives teacher and pupil or pupils in certain specifiable circumstances. This initial conception is vague, and he explores it further by enriching its detail and by analysing the relationships involved to discover their implications. For example, he imagines a teacher and a pupil as a first step to giving some principles of history teaching method. His next step might be to ask:

(a) what age and sex is the pupil?

(b) is this taking place in a school or a home?

(c) is the teacher the father, a tutor, a paid state employee?

(d) are there other pupils present?

(e) are there other classes, with a head teacher?

and the like; and with the answers his first assumption becomes ever more detailed and specific. He forms then a concept of a typical educational situation, not a particular one; and it has to be changed to fit a particular case. What he in historical fact does, is to generalize from his own experience as a teacher. He thinks of a typical case based on his experience of a large number of particular cases, and works out principles of method from it. And he supposes that these principles can be used by any teacher in any teaching situation, because they seem to work well with those that he himself has experienced. These suppositions I propose to call into question.

The second purpose, however, is very different—it depicts the ideal situation towards which educators should work, and which teachers should try to emulate. It usually offers a vision of the ‘perfect’ teacher and the ‘perfect’ pupil in ‘perfect’ circumstances. The use of this type of situation is not specially to do with clarity and the analysing of ideas, although the earlier commentaries on methods developed under its aegis. Rather it is concerned with strengthening the belief and thereby heightening the motivation of people. Its function is that of a guide, a means by which teachers may control and direct their action, and to which they may refer whenever their course is not clear. The ultimate justification of any action a teacher takes is provided by this picture, which gives a norm by which the whole working life of the teacher may be judged. Trouble arises, howevcr, when the two uses are mixed; for it is one thing to urge upon teachers practical recommendations which arise from analysing a model to see what it implies for practical teaching method, and quite another to urge people to act in such a way that they live up to an ideal. If a teacher ignores conclusions that have been arrived at after examining an educational situation to see how it may be organized to the best advantage, he may be accused of neglecting valuable information for his job. But if he fails to behave exactly like the ideal teacher, he is not necessarily failing to use valuable and relevant knowledge, whatever other censure he may be open to. He may indeed be guided by the model in one sense whilst not conforming to its use as an ideal picture. The confusion of the two uses has resulted in much unfair criticism of teachers. We may hope a man will become a saint, but hardly accuse him of incompetence if he fails.

A second cause of confusion is no less harmful in its consequences than the first. Standard versions, or models, of the educational situation, tend to be first thought of in a particular set of educational circumstances, say, from a certain age-range, or class of the community, and then generalized to cover all parts of the educational system. An attempt is made below, in the detailed account of the ‘traditional’ and ‘child-centred’ models, to show what has happened in these cases, for these, so widely taken to be general models, both turn out to be principally devised to meet particular needs, the ‘child-centred’ model being in this respect no improvement on its predecessor. But such a generalised use is also a source of confusion now, because, with the growth of technical information, new model situations have appeared, and they tend to offer themselves as general models on the assumption that the educational situation is solely a field of application of the particular technical discipline concerned. We may instance the therapeutic model:² this supposes that education is fundamentally an occasion for the skilled psychotherapist, acting as teacher, to modify the personality structure of pupils in an educational context. All questions of discipline become matters of adjustment, and an unsatisfactory educational product is thought to be the outcome of imbalance in either teacher or pupil. Another is the learning model. The educational situation is here equated (cogently enough) with an occasion for learning. But in practice the supposition is introduced that particular kinds of learning are the focal point of the business; this is particularly true of the emphasis, powerfully backed by research, on intellectual learning. As soon as this basis is introduced, learning loses its general character and the learning model becomes a technical model posing as a general one; for the educational situation is clearly wider than an occasion for intellectual learning, with other kinds playing a subsidiary role.³ Similarly for the sociological model; education in school is one of many occasions in which behaviour towards others, and the accompanying mental attitudes, may be learnt. The reader will readily multiply instances for himself—the economic model, the statistical model, and those models vague and unsatisfactory to a degree, customarily used by architects, administrators and medical personnel.

Let us turn now to examine the matter more closely, as exemplified in what may be called the ‘traditional’ and the ‘child-centred’ models. The title ‘child-centred’ will be self-explanatory; but the word ‘traditional’ is intended to indicate the earlier model, the one reacted against, something which the successor wanted to jettison because of its uselessness. Its historical background is particularly England of the nineteenth and into the twentieth century, but its features are widely recognizable elsewhere.

THE STANDARD EDUCATIONAL SITUATION

The framework of the model or standard educational situation is simple enough. Its components are a teacher, a pupil or pupils, a class, a school. These elements can obviously compose more than one situation; we could have one teacher and one pupil (Rousseau), a teacher and a small informal group (Socrates), a teacher and a class (Montessori), a teacher and classes in a school (probably Quintilian) and still other combinations. Many have been tried. Both schools and tutors flourished in the ancient world. But of the two models above-mentioned one appears to start thinking from a teacher and a pupil, and the other from a community, though both are concerned with teacher and class—a point commented upon later.

The pictures drawn will look exaggerated and extreme, and it would be easy to choose passages from books in which their cases were more moderately and guardedly presented. But here, as said above, we are trying to deal with theory as modified by practice; and whereas the theorist may present his views in a cautiously argued way, his practical disciples tend to apply those views with less circumspection, as with Dewey, bringing out in an extreme way both the strengths and weaknesses of the theoretical position. And so I have looked to the practical situation, rather than to its theoretical begetters, to summarise the views here given.

These, mainly ideal pictures, are to be found to some extent in the literature and manuals of teaching method.⁴ It will be objected that these are the very books that would provide rather the analysis of a concept for practical purposes than the picture of an ideal; surely the ideal picture should be looked for in books on philosophy of education? Certainly one would think so; but in the literature of the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries in England, such an opinion would be disappointed; for, owing to the confusion of the two uses of the model situation, such manuals are full of pictures of the model teacher and pupil. In fact, it seems to have been thought a principal point of insistence for method that teacher and pupil try to be perfect in character and conduct; as if, owing to paucity of research and poverty of new ideas on technique, the writers assumed that the thing to do was make their readers vividly aware of the ideal picture, and then the reader would be able to devise for himself a sound practical educational method. Hence we are a mixture in which the ideal picture predominates.

The side which exhorts the teacher to live up to the ideal may be called the positive side of the matter. But from the history, and from the implications of the advice on method given to teachers, we get a glimpse of the negative side, namely the ‘expense of spirit in a waste of shame’ that the educational situation actually prevailing too often was.⁵ This is merely hinted at, often in a rather furtive and guilty tone, as if such things ought never to happen. What is rejected by the ideal is denigrated and nowhere really examined; and the discussion is carried on with a strongly religious air, as if sin and salvation were the subject-matter. Neither for that matter is this note an unfamiliar one now. So problems were neglected, and had to await a different attitude, in which moral judgment was suspended, whilst investigation of the causes of the actual situation proceeded. And this marks the point of breakaway of the child-centred from the traditional model, for whilst the dominant emphasis of the latter was religious, that of the former was mainly scientific. The result was that the child-centred model was a much better informed and more ample and detailed account of the educational situation.

THE TRADITIONAL MODEL

To the question, what is an educational situation? the traditional answer is, roughly, that it is a completely dominant teacher instructing a completely submissive pupil in a place set apart for the purpose. The word ‘instructing’ is used to imply that the teacher is already educated (a completed process), and he gives education to the pupil. ‘A place set apart’ is used to mean that the school does not intentionally in any way resemble the environment, and no comparison was felt necessary between its proceedings and those of everyday life. Moreover, no emphasis was laid upon the immediate connection between what was done at school and how such skills would be used afterwards, although this was the ostensible reason for much that was done. The exact connection remained vague and at times it is difficult to see that any was intended at all. A school was withdrawn from society; it was a specialised place as a hospital, a workhouse, or a factory (and often enough in buildings of a similar plan).

The traditional educational situation was conceived of as static. The same model served throughout schooldays. No growth in attitude of the pupil was allowed for, and no profit of an educational kind accrued to anyone but the pupil, since the teacher was already educated. The teacher did not change; the pupil changed only because he learnt certain specific things taking a certain time, and when he left, no basic matter of importance remained to be done. This view of education contains elements of very long ancestry and wide influence; behind it we see that the old are wise and they display their wisdom to the young and thereby instruct them. Only the young change; the old traverse the known ground. Great teachers are very frequent...

Table of contents

• Contents
• General editor’s note
• General editor’s preface
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION
• THE NATURE AND FUNCTION OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY
• THE CONTEXT OF EDUCATIONAL DISCUSSION
• CONCEPTIONS OF TEACHING
• THE ESSENCE OF EDUCATION
• INDEX