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e relevant study materials.
1. Know the syllabus requirements;
2. Know the functions of the D2L course;
3. According to James Wm. Noll in his “Ways of Thinking about Educational Issues”, to clarify our own viewpoints, what must be done?
4. What does a general model for the examination of positions on educational issues include?
5. According to Noll, what does the model in #4 encourage readers to do?
6. According to J.S. Mills, what is the way to know an issue holistically?
7. Should we consider opposing viewpoints according to David L. Bender and Bruno Leone? Why?
8. What influences the formation of a person’s opinion according to David L. Bender and Bruno Leone?
9. Can a belief be changed according to Bender and Leone?
10. What do statistics say about American students’ academic performance in comparison with other developed countries?
11. What is Idealism? Its major philosophical principles? Who is considered its father or its representatives?
12. What is Realism? Its major philosophical and educational principles? Who is considered its father or its representatives?
13. What is Pragmatism? Its major philosophical and educational principles? Who is considered its father or its representatives?
14. What is Existentialism? Its major philosophical and educational principles? Who is considered its father or its representatives?
15. Ways of Thinking About Educational Issues
16. James Wm. Noll
17. Concern about the quality of education has been expressed by philosophers,politicians, and parents for centuries. There has been a perpetual and unresolved debate regarding the definition of education, the relationship between school and society, the distribution of decision-making power in educational matters, and the means for improving all aspects of the educational enterprise.
18. In recent decades the growing influence of thinking drawn from the humanities and the behavioral and social sciences has brought about the development of interpretive, normative, and critical perspectives, which have sharpened the focus on educational concerns, These perspectives have allowed scholars and researchers to closely examine the contextual variables, value orientations, and philosophical and political assumptions that shape both the status quo and reform efforts.
19. The study of education involves the application of many perspectivesto the analysis of “what is and how it got that way” and “what can be and how we can get there.” Central to such study are the prevailing philosophical assumptions, theories, and visions that find their way into real-life educational situations. The application situation, with its attendant political pressures, sociocultural differences, community expectations, parental influence, and professional problems, provides a testing ground for contending theories and ideals. This “testing ground” image applies only insofar as the status quo is malleable enough to allow the examination and trial of alternative views. Historically, institutionalized education has been characteristically rigid. As a testing ground of ideas, it has often lacked an orientation encouraging innovation and futuristic thinking. Its political grounding has usually been conservative.
20. As social psychologist Allen Wheelis points out in The Quest for Identity (1958), social institutions by definition tend toward solidification and protectionism. His depiction of the dialectical development of civilizations centers on the tension between the security and authoritarianism of “institutional processes” and the dynamism and change-orientation of “instrumental processes.”
21. The field of education seems to graphically illustrate this observation. Educational practices are primarily tradition bound. The twentieth-century reform movement, spurred by the ideas of John Dewey, A. S. Neill, and a host of critics who campaigned for change in the 1960s, challenged the structural rigidity of schooling. In more recent decades, reformers have either attempted to restore uniformity in the curriculum and in assessment of results or campaigned for the support of alternatives to the public school monopoly. The latter group comes from both the right and the left of the political spectrum.
22. We are left with the abiding questions: What is an “educated” person? What should be the primary purpose of organized education? Who should control the decisions influencing the educational process? Should the schoolsfollow society or lead it toward change? Should schooling be compulsory?
23. Long-standing forces have molded a wide variety of responses to these fundamental questions. The religious impetus, nationalistic fervor, philosophical ideas, the march of science and technology, varied interpretations of “societal needs,” and the desire to use the schools as a means for social reform have been historically influential, In recent times other factors have emerged to contribute to the complexity of the search for answers—social class differences, demographic shifts, increasing bureaucratization, the growth of the textbook industry, the changing financial base for schooling, teacher unionization, and strengthening of parental and community ressure groups.
24. The struggle to find the most appropriate answers to these questions now involves, as in the past, an interplay of societal aims, educational purposes, and individual intentions. Moral development, the quest for wisdom, citizenship training, socioeconomic improvement, mental discipline, the rational control of life, job preparation, liberation of the individual, freedom of inquiry—these and many others continue to be topics of discourse on education.
25. A detailed historical perspective on these questions and topics may be gained by reading the interpretations of noted scholars in the field. R. Freeman Butts has written a brief but effective summary portrayal in “Search for Freedom—The Story of American Education,” NEA Journal (March 1960). A partial listing of other sources includes R. Freeman Butts and Lawrence Cremin, A History of Education in American Culture; S. E. Frost, Jr., Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Western Education; Harry Good and Edwin Teller, A History of Education; Adolphe Meyer, An Educational History of the American People; Robert L. Church and Michael W. Sedlak, Education in the United States: An Interpretive History; Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educators; Henry J. Perkinson, The Imperfect Panacea: American Faith in Education, 1865-1965; Clarence Karier, Man, Society, and Education; V. T. Thayer, Formative Ideas in American Education; H. Warren Button and Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., History of Education and Culture in America; David Tyack and Elisabeth Hansot, Managers of Virtue: Public School Leadership in America, 1820—1980; Joel Spring, The American School, 1642 - 1990; S. Alexander Rippa, Education in a Free Society: An American History; John D. Pulliam, History of Education in America; Edward Stevens and George H. Wood,Justice, Ideology, and Education; and Walter Feinberg and Jonas F. Soltis, School and Society.
26. These and other historical accounts of the development of schooling demonstrate the continuing need to address educational questions in terms of cultural and social dynamics. A careful analysis of contemporary education demands attention not only to the historical interpretation of developmental influences but also to the philosophical forces that define formal education and the social and cultural factors that form the basis of nformal education.
27. Examining Viewpoints
28. In his book A New Public Education (1976), Seymour Itzkoff examines the interplay between informal and formal education, concluding that economic and technological expansion have pulled people away from the informal culture by placing a premium on success in formal education. This has brought about a reactive search for less artificial educational contexts within the informal cultural community, which recognizes the impact of individual personality in shaping educational experiences.
29. This search for a reconstructed philosophical base for education has produced a barrage of critical commentary. Those who seek radical change in education characterize the present schools as mindless, manipulative, factory-like, bureaucratic institutions that offer little sense of community, pay scant attention to personal meaning, fail to achieve curricular integration, and maintain a psychological atmosphere of competitiveness, tension, fear, and alienation. Others deplore the ideological movement away from the formal organization of education, fearing an abandonment of standards, a dilution of the curriculum, an erosion of intellectual and behavioral discipline, and a decline in adult and institutional authority.
30. Students of education (whether prospective teachers, practicing professionals, or interested laypeople) must examine closely the assumptions and values underlying alternative positions in order to clarify their own viewpoints. This tri-level task may best be organized around the basic themes of purpose, power, and reform. These themes offer access to the theoretical grounding of actions in the field of education, to the political grounding of such actions, and to the future orientation of action decisions.
31. A general model for the examination of positions on educational issues includes the following dimensions: identification of the viewpoint, recognition of the stated or implied assumptions underlying the viewpoint, analysis of the validity of the supporting argument, and evaluation of the conclusions and action-suggestions of the originator of the position. The stated or implied assumptions may be derived from a philosophical or religious orientation, from scientific theory, from social or personal values, or from accumulated experience. Acceptance by the reader of an author’s assumptions opens the way for a receptive attitude regarding the specific viewpoint expressed and its implications for action. The argument offered in justification of the viewpoint may be based on logic, common experience, controlled experiments, information and data, legal precedents, emotional appeals,and/or a host of other persuasive devices.
32. Holding the basic model in mind, readers of the positions presented in this volume (or anywhere else, for that matter) can examine the constituent elements of arguments—basic assumptions, viewpoint statements, supporting evidence, conclusions, and suggestions for action. The careful reader will accept or reject the individual elements of the total position. One might see reasonableness in a viewpoint and its justification but be unable to accept the assumptions on which it is based. Or one might accept the flow of argument from assumptions to viewpoint to evidence but find illogic or impracticality in the stated conclusions and suggestions for action. In any event, the reader’s personal view is tested and honed through the process of analyzing the views of others.
33.
34. Philosophical Considerations
35. Historically, organized education has been initiated and instituted to serve many purposes—spiritual salvation, political socialization, moral uplift, societal stability, social mobility, mental discipline, vocational efficiency, and social reform, among others. The various purposes have usually reflected the dominant philosophical conception of human nature and the prevailing assumptions about the relationship between the individual and society. At any given time, competing conceptions may vie for dominance—social conceptions, economic conceptions, conceptions that emphasize spirituality, or conceptions that stress the uniqueness and dignity of the individual, for example.
36.
37. These considerations of human nature and individual-society relation ships are grounded in philosophical assumptions, and these assumptions find their way to such practical domains as schooling. In Western civilization there has been an identifiable (but far from consistent and clear-cut) historical trend in the basic assumptions about reality, knowledge, values, and the human condition. This trend, made manifest in the philosophical positions of idealism, realism, pragmatism, and existentialism, has involved a shift in emphasis from the spiritual world to nature to human behavior to the social individual to the free individual, and from eternal ideas to fixed natural laws to social interaction to the inner person.
38. The idealist tradition, which dominated much of philosophical and educational thought until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, separates the changing, imperfect, material world and the permanent, perfect, spiritual or mental world. As Plato saw it, for example, human beings and all other physical entities are particular manifestations of an ideal reality that in material existence humans can never fully know. The purpose of education is to bring us closer to the absolute ideals, pure forms, and universal standards that exist spiritually, by awakening and strengthening our rational powers. For Plato, a curriculum based on mathematics, logic, and music would serve this purpose, especially in the training of leaders whose rationality must exert control over emotionality and baser instincts.
39. Against this tradition, which shaped the liberal arts curriculum in schools for centuries, the realism of Aristotle, with its finding of the “forms” of things within the material world, brought an emphasis on scientific investigation and on environmental factors in the development of human potential. This fundamental view has influenced two philosophical movements in education: naturalism, based on following or gently assisting nature (as in the approaches of John Amos Comenius, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi),and scientific realism, based on uncovering the natural laws of human behavior and shaping the educational environment to maximize their effectiveness(as in the approaches of John Locke, Johann Friedrich Herbait, and Edward Thorndike).
40. In the twentieth century, two philosophical forces (pragmatism and existentialism) have challenged these traditions. Each has moved primary attention away from fixed spiritual or natural influences and toward the individual as shaper of knowledge and values. The pragmatic position, articulated in America by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, turns from metaphysical abstractions toward concrete results of action. In a world of change and relativity, human beings must forge their own truths and values as they interact with their environments and each other. The European-based philosophy of existentialism, emerging from such thinkers as Gabriel Marcel, Martin Buber, Martin Heidegger, and Jean-Paul Sartre, has more recently influenced education here. Existentialism places the burdens of freedom, choice, and responsibility squarely on the individual, viewing the current encroachment of external forces and the tendency of people to “escape from freedom” as a serious diminishment of our human possibilities.
41. These many theoretical slants contend for recognition and acceptance as we continue the search for broad purposes in education and as we attempt to create curricula, methodologies, and learning environments that fulfill our stated purposes. This is carried out, of course, in the real world of the public schools in which social, political, and economic forces often predominate.
42. Power and Control
43. Plato, in the fourth century B.C., found existing education manipulative and confining and, in the Republic, described a meritocratic approach designed to nurture intellectual powers so as to form and sustain a rational society. Reform-oriented as Plato’s suggestions were, he nevertheless insisted on certain restrictions and controls so that his particular version of the ideal could be met.
44. The ways and means of education have been fertile grounds for power struggles throughout history. Many educational efforts have been initiated by religious bodies, often creating a conflict situation when secular authorities have moved into the field. Schools have usually been seen as repositories of culture and social values and, as such, have been overseen by the more conservative forces in society. To others, bent on social reform, the schools have been treated as a spawning ground for change. Given these basic political forces, conflict is inevitable.
45. When one speaks of the control of education, the range of influence is indeed wide. Political influences, governmental actions, court decisions, professional militancy, parental power, and student assertion all contribute to the phenomenon of control. And the domain of control is equally broad—school finances, curriculum, instructional means and objectives, teacher certification, accountability, student discipline, censorship of school materials, determination of access and opportunity, and determination of inclusion and exclusion.
46. The general topic of power and control leads to a multitude of questions:Who should make policy decisions? Must the schools be puppets of the government? Can the schools function in the vanguard of social change? Can cultural indoctrination be avoided? Can the schools lead the way to full social integration? Can the effects of social class be eradicated? Can and should the schools teach values? Dealing with such questions is complicated by the increasing power of the federal government in educational matters. Congressional legislation has broadened substantially from the early land grants and aid to agricultural and vocational programs to more recent laws covering aid to federally impacted areas, school construction aid, student loans and fellowships, support for several academic areas of the curriculum, work-study programs, compensatory education, employment opportunities for youth, adult education, aid to libraries, teacher preparation, educational research, career education, education of the handicapped, and equal opportunity for females. This proliferation of areas of influence has caused the federal administrative bureaucracy to blossom from its meager beginnings in 1867 into a cabinet-level Department of Education in 1979.
47. State legislatures and state departments of education have also grown in power, handling greater percentages of school appropriations and controlling basic curricular decisions, attendance laws, accreditation, research, and so on. Local school boards, once the sole authorities in policy making, now share the role with higher governmental echelons as the financial support sources shift away from the local scene. Simultaneously, strengthened teacher organizations and increasingly vocal pressure groups at the local, state, and national levels have forced a widening of the base for policy decisions.
48. Some Concluding Remarks
49. The schools often seem to be either facing backward or completely absorbed in
50. the tribulations of the present, lacking a vision of possible futures that might guide current decisions. The present is inescapable, obviously, and certainly the historical and philosophical underpinnings of the present situation must be understood, but true improvement often requires a break with conventionality—a surge toward a desired future.
51. The radical reform critique of government-sponsored compulsory schooling has depicted organized education as a form of cultural or political imprisonment that traps young people in an artificial and mainly irrelevant environment and rewards conformity and docility while inhibiting curiosity and creativity. Constructive reform ideas that have come from this critique include the creation of open classrooms, the de-emphasis of external motivators, the diversification of educational experience, and the building of a true sense of community within the instructional environment.Starting with Francis Wayland Parker’s schools in Quincy, Massachusetts,and John Dewey’s laboratory school at the University of Chicago around the turn of the twentieth century, the campaign to make schools into more productive and humane places has been relentless. The duplication of A. S. Neill’s Summerhill model in the free school movement in the 1960s, the open classroom/open space experiments, the several curricular variations, and the emergence of schools without walls, charter schools, privatization of management, and home schooling across the country testify to the desire to reform the present system or to build alternatives to it.
52. The progressive education movement, the development of “life adjustment” goals and curricula, and the “whole person” theories of educational psychology moved the schools toward an expanded concept of schooling that embraced new subject matters and new approaches to discipline during the first half of this century. Since the 1950s, however, pressure for a return to a narrower concept of schooling as intellectual training has sparked new waves of debate. Out of this situation have come attempts by educators and academicians to design new curricular approaches in the basic subject matter areas, efforts by private foundations to stimulate organizational innovations and to improve the training of teachers, and federal government support of educational technology. Yet criticism of the schools abounds. The schools, according to many who use their services, remain too factory like, too age-segregated, and too custodial. Alternative paths are still sought—paths that would allow action-learning, work-study, and a diversity of ways to achieve success.
53. H. G. Wells has told us that human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. What is needed in order to win this race is the generation of new ideas regarding cultural change, human relationships, ethical norms, the uses of technology, and the quality of life. These new ideas, of course, may be old ideas newly applied. One could do worse, in thinking through the problem of improving the quality of education, than to turn to the third-century philosopher Plotinus, who called for an education directed to “the outer, the inner, and the whole.” For Plotinus, “the outer” represented the public person, or the socioeconomic dimension of the total human being; “the inner” reflected the subjective dimension, the uniquely experiencing individual, or the “I”; and “the whole” signified the universe of meaning and relatedness, or the realm of human, natural, and spiritual connectedness, It would seem that education must address all of these dimensions if it is to truly help people in the lifelong struggle to shape a meaningful existence. If educational experiences can be improved in these directions, the end result might be people who are not just filling space, filling time, or filling a social role, but who are capable of saying something worthwhile with their lives.
54.
55. James, W. N. (2011). Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial educational issues (17th ed.)McGaw-Hill/Dushkin,A Division of The McGaw-Hill Companies.
56. Week 3 Study Summary:
57. 1. Father of Idealism:
58. Plato (427 – 347 B.C.) and Socrates (470 – 399 B.C.).
59. Plato studies with Socrates and spread out Socrates’ philosophical ideas in the first part of his writing.
60.
61. 2. Major Emphases of Idealism:
62. Philosophical idealism, in a variety of forms, came to prominence in the nineteenth century.
63. Idealists regard mind, or types of mental activity, as basic to understanding. The world of nature exists as an object of mental activity. Thus, idealism emphasizes the reality of ideas, thoughts, mind and selves rather than material objects and forces. Idealism as a philosophy is more concerned with metaphysics than epistemology and axiology.
64.
65. 3. Book VII of Plato’s The Republic (ca.366 BC), The Allegory of the Cave:
66. In this reading, Plato described a cave with prisoners, fire, and shadows… . His real purpose is to suggest that we humans are in our own cave – the world as we see it with our five senses. It looks real enough, but this is only a world of images: three dimensional shadows of another, a more genuinely real world, a world of pure ideas, standing behind of the world that we see, hear and touch. The world of ideas is so absolutely perfect, so superlatively complete that it has the intensity beyond the reach of the human mind. Like the sun that blind our eyes, the “Absolute Mind” completely overwhelms our feeble intellects, and we turn away from it, just as we turn our eyes away from the sun. So we prefer a more manageable and comfortable existence. Even if less genuinely real, we retreat to our “cave” –the world of sense perception, allowing our intellect only occasional glimpses of ultimate reality.
67. 4. Plato’s Two Worlds:
68. 1) The physical world, which we live in, is the world of the apparent; we know this world through our senses. The world is full of irregularities, errors, and imperfection.
69. 2) The ultimate world of reality, which contains forms or pure ideas, is perfect, eternal and unchanging. It is hidden from our senses and can only be understood through our intellect.
70. 5. Universals vs. Particulars:
71. According to Plato, our physical world is only a shadow, an image of the ultimate world. The world we live in is governed by the pure ideas (the form, or universal unchanging principles) found in the ultimate world of reality. All the things we experience through our senses are known as particulars, representations of pure ideas/concepts. For example, the chair you are sitting in is only a representation or an example of the idea/concept of chair. The chairs we sit in in our physical world vary by the size, color and design. But they all have the basic characteristics of the concept of chair. The concept of chair is represented on all chairs. Although the concept cannot be sit in, it is the blueprint for all the chairs we experience in the world. Thus, the concept is the universal.
72.
73. 6. Philosophical Positions of Idealism:
74. Metaphysics: A reality of the mind
75. Reality is not found in the world of apparent. It is found in the world of ultimate reality.
76. Epistemology: Truth as ideas
77. Truth lies in the realm of ideas. Idealists are interested in developing a system of truth that is logically consistent and coherent. To the idealist, knowledge is the knowledge of the universal. Truth or knowledge must be infallible, and of what is.
78. Axiology: Values from the ideal world
79. Idealists believe there are universal moral principles in the world. Humanity is moral when it is in accordance with the Universal Moral Law. Aesthetically, the art, which attempts to express the Absolute is categorized aesthetically pleasing. According to this view, is photography a good form of art?
80.
81. 7.Idealism and Education:
82. Nature of the student:
83. A student is characterized by the will to perfection because the ideal person is perfect. Mental development should be the focus in teaching.
84. Role of the teacher:
85. The teacher is a living example of what students can become. The teacher is to pass on knowledge of reality and be examples of the ethnical ideal.
86. Curriculum emphasis:
87. Study of humanities because truth is ideas. The curriculum should be formed around those subjects that bring students into contact with ideas. History and the study of literature are the center of the
88. curriculum since these subjects help students most in their search for the ideal humanity and society.
89. Teaching method:
90. Words form the basis of instruction since ideas are passed on through words. Thus, the library is a good place for teaching and learning. The classroom is an extension of the library; teaching should be conducted in the classroom, too. Field trips are discouraged in teaching.
91. The social function Of the school:
92. Since the world is governed by perfect universal principles, schools should not be an agent for social change. The social function of the school is to preserve the heritage and to pass on the knowledge of the past. That is, to help students find those pure ideas or forms in the ultimate reality.
Week 3: Realism – Study Summary
1. Father of Realism:
Aristotle (384 – 322 B.C.) Aristotle studied as Plato’s student and was a member of Plato’s academy for twenty years. He is a man of many talents. His contributions were well known in the fields of philosophy, zoology, botany, psychology, physics, and sociology. He stands at eh base of our intellectual structure because of the supreme simplicity of his approach to the metaphysical problem and of his extravagant genius in providing a straightforward answer to it.
2. The Form-Matter Hypothesis:
According to Aristotle, everything in the world has form and matter. Matter stands at the base of everything. It became the principle of potentiality – it has the potential to become any thing. Without matter, nothing can come into existence. However, matter cannot achieve thinghood by itself. By itself, it is nothing. To become anything, it requires the stamp of Form. That is, matter has to assume the shape and form of some particular thing before it can actualize its potentiality. Thus, according to Aristotle, Form is the Principle of Actuality.Matter and Form are two different concepts, although in this world of experience, they are never separated from each other.
3. Philosophical Positions of Realism:
Metaphysics: A Reality of Things.
The universe is composed of matter in motion. The physical world makes part of the reality. The world is governed by Universal Law, which has the same magnitude as Plato’s Form or Universal Idea. According to Aristotle, the world is like a giant machine, rolling on based on the Nature Law. Whether we agree with the Nature Law or not does not make any difference. Examples of Nature Law include: The Principles of Gravity, Supply and Demand. There are Natural Laws governing every aspect of humanity. That includes moral aspects of human life.
Epistemology: Truth Through Observation.
The universe rolls on based on the Natural Law. Truth then is observable facts. Humans are spectators of the giant machine. Realism stresses on objectivity, scientific method (inductive method) of discovery, and the sense.
Axiology: Value From Nature.
Ethics: The Nature Law exists in morality. The inalienable rights of people spoken of by Thomas Jefferson is an example of the Natural Law.
Aesthetics: A good art form should reflect the order and logic of Nature (the universe). Rationality should be or is revealed in pattern, line, balance and form. What is the realist’s view on photography?
4. Realism and Education:
Nature of the student: Students have senses that help them learn. Everyone is subject to the Natural Law. There is no free will. Therefore, students are not free agents having freedom of choice.
Role of the Teacher: The role of the teacher is to give accurate knowledge and verified information about reality to the student. Teaching must be objective, devoid of personal biases.
Curriculum Focus: Sciences are the focus of study because it deals with laws of nature. Mathematics and Language also serve as the foci for learning since math contains the highest form of order and logical thinking, and language provides entrance t academic knowledge and a means for passing on accumulated knowledge.
Teaching Method: Since the physical world is reality, senses are encouraged to be the channel for gaining truth. Visual aids, physical objects are used in the classroom. Classroom demonstration is favored if field trips are impractical. Books are still emphasized and teaching is done in the most objective and dehumanized way.
Social Function of the School: The realist believes that there are universal principles (Natural Law) governing the universe. The function of the school, much like the idealist, is to preserve the heritage and make students understand the Natural Law.
5. What is virtue and how is virtue produced?
Virtue is the state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, which is determined by a rational principle. It is found in the middle ground between two extremes/vices, with one being excess and the other, defect. Virtue is gained by exercising it.
6. What is perfect happiness according to Aristotle?
Contemplation or thinking.
7. According to Aristotle, which is more important, the mind or the sense?
The mind is superior to the sense. A person of art is one who commands the theory/reason behind facts can explain better than a person of mere experiences who knows facts only. Art is knowledge of universals whereas experience is only k
Week 3 Study Summary on Pragmatism
1. Pragmatism is a modern philosophy that has drastic philosophical differences from traditional philosophies we have studied so far. It originated from America. Charles Peirce was the originator of the single root idea from which Pragmatism has grown. William James spread out and popularized Pragmatism and it was John Dewey who wrought out the full-fledged philosophy and making it more radically experimental. Pragmatism is frequently referred to as experimentalism and instrumentalism.
2. Pragmatism is associated with the phenomena of change taking place in 19th and 20th century. According to the pragmatist, the only thing that is constant is change and experience. Since, they argue, everything undergoes change, there is no constant reality. In this way, pragmatism turns its back on metaphysics and lays it focus on epistemology that deals with the nature, validity and sources of knowledge. The only thing they agree to be constant metaphysically is experience and change and this constitutes their metaphysical position.
3. William James in his "What Pragmatism Means" summarized the major philosophical positions of Pragmatism. The following is what pragmatism is against and what it is for.
Against:
Metaphysics, objective/universal/absolute truth, fixed principles, closed systems, pure abstractions, verbal solutions, bad a priori reasons, pretense of finality in truth, first principles and causes.

For:
Epistemology, deal with particulars, plural truth, change, experience, facts, concreteness, practical aspect, theories as instruments, last results, fruits and consequences.

4. Epistemology of Pragmatism:
Since pragmatists' reality/metaphysics is experience, their concept of knowledge cannot be otherwise. Knowledge is rooted in experience. Human mind is active and exploratory as opposed to passive and receptive. People not only receive knowledge, they make it as they interact with their environment. The seeking of knowledge is a transaction -- a two way movement of phenomena between ourselves and the reality we can never know directly. This transaction is also know as the process of inquiry.

5. How to transform experience into knowledge?
See Dewey's reflective thinking process in Knight's book, pp. 68-69.

6. Pragmatism and Education:
Nature of the student:
Children are naturally curious. They are experiencing agents who have experiences that help them learn.
Role of the teacher:
The teacher does not know everything. He/she is a fellow learner. But the teacher definitely has more experiences to guide students to explore new areas of knowledge.
Subject matter:
Formal study disciplines such as reading, writing, arithmetic, chemistry, physics, geography are integrated into projects students are interested in.
Teaching method:
Child centered approach that focuses on giving students freedom of choice. Field trips are deemed more important than audiovisual aids, thus are highly encouraged.
Social function of the school:
The school is life itself, not a mere preparation for life. School should try to initiate change and make children adapt to the social change.

7. How is Pragmatism different from Realism?
For the Realists:
The world is clearly out there. We can see it, and it seems to persist and exist without our aid. The world exists in its own right. It is governed by univeral principles. Humans can do very little but to comform to the ultmate univeral order. Knowledge is a priori, built in the fabric of the universe; it is fixed, final and universal.
For the Pragmatist:
The real world, when all is said and done, is what human beings say it is. For example, the world used to be flat, used to be at the center of the universe. Before Darwin, it was a closed system of organic forms. Today, it is round, a minor planet in a speck of the universe, and evolving in all kinds of ways. Knowledge is aposteriori. It is not fix and final. It is just an instrument for the discovery of new truth/knowledge. Week 3 Study Summary on Existentialism 1. Existentialism is a 20th century product. It is more related to axiology (literature and art) than to metaphysics and epistemology. It is deeply concerned with the emotions of individuals, not so much with the intellect. So its primary concern is on individuals. This primary concern was initiated as a response to the dehumanizing impact of modern industrialization. 2. The heart of Existentialism is characterized by the position: Existence precedes essence. That is, humans are not predetermined. Our essence (who we are) is the making of our own thoughts, decisions and behavior. (Compare this Existentialist position with traditional philosophies.) 3. Man is the center of epistemological authority in Existentialism. Meaning and truth are not built into the universe. Rather, it is man who gives meaning to such things as reality and nature. To discover what is true, man has to rely on his choice. Choice is the final control of how we believe what is true. (Is knowledge a priori or a posteriori according to the Existentialist?) 4. To the Existentialist, what we individually believe to be truth is what we want to believe. What the Existentialist is interested in pointing out is that in all knowing, it is the individual self that must make the ultimate decision as to what is true. (Does the Existentialist really care about what is ultimately true?) 5. According to the existentialist, because we are free agents, we are responsible for our choices and actions. To be responsible is to:  Act upon our decisions;
 Be authentic to oneself;
 Disregard of consequences. 6. Individuals are the final agents to decide what is beautiful and a good art form. 7. Existentialism and Education:
Nature of the student: A choosing, free and responsible agent;
Role of the teacher: A facilitator helping students find and be themselves.
Curricular focus: Students’ choice. The three R’s, science and social studies are still important.
Teaching methods: Many options, non-coercive method; use “I-Thou” relationship in teaching.
Social function of the school: The concern is with the individual, not social policy of education or the school.

EXCERPTS FROM
The Achievement of Education, by John H. Chambers
Copyright ã 1983 by Harper& Row, Publishers, Inc.
Chapter 2
Activities

2.1 EDUCATION A. Educational Activities
If we walk about school classrooms, we see various things happening. We see five-year-olds pouring water from small containers into larger ones. We see teenagers typing. We hear teachers telling pupils about the causes of the French Revolution. In one room boys are separating the yolks from the whites of eggs to make soufflés. In another room girls are using a lathe to polish a metal ornament. Here students are finding the area under a curve of an irregular plane surface. There infants are tracing the shape of a letter "S" in the air. In a hall a teacher is exhorting pupils of dramatic improvisation to think themselves into a role. In the gymnasium we view students practicing on the parallel bars and the vaulting horse. Nearby in a darkened room we see on a screen a picture of sharp-edged red stones littering the surface of Mars, from a photo sent back to Earth by the U .S. Viking Lander. And so on endlessly. Is there any easy way of categorizing this variegated mass of activities? In order to answer this question, let us leave the school context for a while to consider the following examples of things that people do or have done at various times. Category 1
Learning to read
Hammering in roofing nails
Jogging at 7:00 A.M. on a winter's day.
Filling in a tax return
Washing dishes
Category 2
Playing football
Reading about the last days of Socrates
Telling a joke
Making a mobile
Listening to a Beethoven sonata
Landing on the moon These are two broad but overlapping categories. Category 1 consists of activities that people engage in, in general, in order to achieve something else that they want. Such activities are often said to be instrumentally valuable, or valuable as a means to an end. Category 2 consists of activities that people do for their own sake.
Such activities are often said to be intrinsically valuable, or valuable as ends in themselves.
There are also activities that are complex mixtures of 1 and 2, ranging across a whole continuum from nearly pure 1 to nearly pure 2. Equally, there may be whole chains of reasons why people do things. We can also perform for ulterior motives the activities listed in category 2 as generally of intrinsic value, in which case they become instrumentally valuable activities; so whether a particular activity counts as intrinsic or instrumental will depend upon the context in which it takes place.
Of course, at anyone instant it may be difficult to be exact about why we are doing a particular thing, or our reason may shift from one category to another and back. A person begins a jogging keep-fit run, say, at 7 :00 A.M. on a cold winter morning. As he goes up the first hill he feels hardly awake and it is all rather unpleasant, and no doubt he is running at that stage for reasons extrinsic or instrumental to what he is doing--he is jogging to keep healthy. A little farther on he may start to feel warm, he smells the clean freshness of the air, and he begins to enjoy the jog. At that stage his primary reason for jogging may be for his own intrinsic enjoyment of it. Later, if the going gets hard, he may slip back and keep running only because it is good for him.
There are thus going to be all sorts of possible variations and combinations, but I do not think this fact has any effect on the fundamental distinction between intrinsic and instrumental reasons for activities. If someone asks us why we are doing something and he wants the explanation in terms of reasons, then we can answer only that it is because of something else that it leads to; that we just enjoy, want to do it; or that there is a subtle combination of these two. In short, the three categories exhaust the possibilities.
Can the same sort of analysis into categories of instrumentally and intrinsically valuable activities be applied to why children do things in school?
It can, but in a modified way, for we have to bear in mind that the school situation is complicated by the fact that children do not merely have their own reasons fordoing things, but that teachers put pressure on children to do things for reasons that the teachers have as teachers and as agents of society. So the actual answer to why a particular child is doing a particular thing in class may require an explanation of great complexity, one that has to be traced through a whole series of relationships and reason-giving.
This distinction between the reason-giving of categories 1 and 2 has been introduced because on one level of analysis it is on the basis of one or the other, or on some combination, that teachers must also see the justification for what they teach in schools. In other words, the teachers believe that what they teach will lead to something else important (such as getting a job or becoming socialized) or else that what they teach is in itself something that is worth knowing about or worth engaging in (such as artistic activity or scientific knowledge of the world). Of course, many teachers may teach what they teach because a particular syllabus directs them to, and cynical or indolent or disillusioned teachers may merely keep pupils and students active on what the profession calls "busy work," activities the children do in order to keep busy and to pass the time, rather than for any sound reason.
Bearing in mind that the situation is being simplified in order to discuss things one at a time, it can be argued that there are many school activities that fall into the first category. Teaching children read and write and calculate has such instrumental aims: literacy and numeracy in general make for a person’s better economic viability. Schools are expected to turn out at the end a teenager who can take his part appropriately in the political system, with at least a minimum of skills and understanding that can be of some use in the manpower requirements of the nation. The current disquiet among employers over some of their young employees is an example of this second expectation. Some of these skills are general, such as those that make for democratic behavior, others are quite specific, such as the ability to type or to solder or to bake a sponge cake. This general area of activities in schools can be fairly appropriately called training. The justification for training children in these ways is instrumental, whether we see such instrumental value in terms of the later use to the individual or in view of that use to the society as a whole, or both. And it is these sorts of activities that many average citizens see as the job of schools; schools, in their eyes, should produce children with usable and marketable skills and understanding who can fit easily into the social and economic system.
Schools for these people are seen but as a means to some specific end, though they may not state the point that way. Now, to see the activities of schools in this way, in terms of training, in terms of instrumentality, is all very well, for it appropriately describes some of the things that go on, but it is at best only part of a description. For there is a large range of activities that are more usually viewed by teacher in terms of intrinsic value-activities that fall within category 2. Many of these maybe called education rather than training, and the reason why they may be so called is that they may be considered to have a particular sort of intrinsic value. Teachers think that such activities and studies are somehow worthwhile in their own way; it is the greater knowledge and understanding of the world and its workings that these studies provide, and the greater rationality that they make possible, that are worth having in themselves. The point may be put alternatively by saying that I and many teachers believe the understanding and insights that such activities provide are in themselves appropriate for human persons. Even to grant this last claim is, however, still in some degree to undervalue these activities, as will be explained later in 2.1E. B. Cognitive Perspective and Rationality There is something further to say about these intrinsically valuable activities that I and many teachers take to be educational activities, for not all intrinsically valuable activities are education. Persons may delight in flower arranging or fuchsia gardening, in baseball or basketball, in swigging of beer or swimming off boats, but although these activities can have intrinsic value, in their usual forms they will not be education. So it is not just because certain activities in schools are seen by teachers as having intrinsic value that they are called education. In using the terms "education" and "educational activities," I am trying to mark out a special sort of intrinsic value.
By way of example, let us consider what persons have in mind when they say, of an acquaintance at dinner, "It was an education just to be in her presence"; or of the excellent teacher, "He doesn't just teach those kids, he really educates them"; or of the lout, "Though he went to school, he didn't get an education"; or of the quiz king, "He knows a mass of facts, but I wonder if he's educated"; or about an experience that gave us real depth and insight, "That was undoubtedly one of the most educational incidents of my life," What is being emphasized in these examples is not merely the knowledge acquired, but also the broadening effect of certain experiences; what has been learned has wider implications and brings with it some pattern for interpretation of the world. Such experiences and activities give meaning to features of the world other than themselves. Their meaning is not merely tied to the activity or the experience itself. It is general, not specific. It gives comprehension. Education helps people to see the world differently.
Consider for a moment the phrase, “an educated guess," for it helps to make this point about the broadening nature of educational activities, A person may be faced with a situation or question the precise form of which he has never encountered before. In answer to the question, he will say, "Well, I don't really know, but I'll try to make an educated guess"; and in making his educated guess he brings to bear various aspects of his knowledge and understanding of other contexts, questions, and situations. He may draw an analogy; he may make an estimation; he may note a range of individual features and form a generalization; he may use a combination of such approaches; but whatever particular method he adopts, it is characterized by an appropriate and rational adaption of his present quanta of understanding to meet the expectations of the new situation. An educated guess makes intelligent use of present understanding and extends and modifies it to fit within the parameters of the new situation.
To take an elementary example: Suppose a person has to guess the particular distance between his present position and some far point. He thinks about similar experiences in the past, allows for such visual clues as the height of trees nearby and at the far point, estimates the approximate speed of a car and notes how long it takes the car to traverse the distance, or looks at the distance he has already come and then at the far point and makes an estimation, and so on. Educated guesses are possible when a person has the ability and the inclination to put his knowledge and understanding to work in the most appropriate way. Having experienced a range of educational activities, a person is in a position to make educated guesses. The opposite of making an educated guess is epitomized, I think, in the clumsy vernacular phrase, "Wouldn't have a clue."
The special sort of intrinsic value of educational activities that is being alluded to in using a phrase like "an education just to be in his presence" and in talking about educated guesses, is put compactly by R. S. Peters (1966, p. 31) when he writes that educational activities have "cognitive perspective" and when he says that education is something that transforms a person's outlook (1967, p. 9). Another way of describing the last claim is to say that a person has become more rational-the making of educated guesses is the rational thing to do.
As persons become more educated they become more rational. The words rationality and rational are generalized descriptions; they may apply to a person -more at one time than at another. This is why there is some point in the suggestion that mankind is not a rational animal so much as an intermittently rational animal. Rationality, then, is a matter of degree. Furthermore, in talking about rationality we are referring to an interrelated cluster of attitudes, values, beliefs, skills, dispositions, habits, and so on. But though rationality is a matter of degree and involves a complex cluster of features, there are many things that can be said about it. For instance, to be rational a person must have the use of concepts and language, which help him to get purchase upon the real world. He needs to be able to distinguish different sorts of questions and issues; for example, conceptual issues about meaning are net to be confused with empirical issues about happenings or with artistic or moral issues, even though all these may interrelate.
Rationality certainly includes the careful finding of the best means to a particular end or goal, and then making use of these means. When faced with a question, the rational person seeks as much relevant information as time and circumstance permit, for he knows that it is necessary to obtain as many germane facts as possible, not merely a few of them, or only those that are comforting to his present views. He also faces the facts squarely, and because he realizes that human beings are subject to irrationalities of all sorts--bigotries, prejudices, wants, wishes, delusions, fond hopes, biases, dogmatisms, irrelevancies, and unrealities-that warp and distort judgment, he attempts to free himself of these. Allied to this view is the point that the rational person knows that while his thought processes are his own, the standards by which thought is shown to be true or false, precise or clumsy, are public. A person is rational to the extent that he critically analyzes the current and received views of his society, but nevertheless accepts the importance of traditions and stabilities. He is wary of all positions that derive from doctrines (see 2.3), and while he acknowledges a conceptual difference between knowledge and belief, he realizes that it is not always easy to say which is which. Though rational persons certainly appreciate the rewards of the present, they are not overwhelmed by these; they can postpone gratification, if they calculate a more enduring and intense gratification in the future, or if present gratification conflicts with other ends they seek or with values they hold. They plan ahead: indeed, it is probably not distorting the picture to claim that it is this ability to step outside the concerns and sensations of the present that is the key feature of rationality. Theorizing, rule following, planning, explaining, generalizing, understanding, and the living of a nicely balanced life all involve this feature. Animals and young children singularly lack it, which is why we do not apply the term "rational" to their activities.
Rationality involves not merely the use of the best means to a determined end or value, but also the careful scrutiny of these very ends and intrinsic values themselves. This can only be done in the light of a proper background of history and morality and the various forms of knowledge that together give a sufficiently subtle general education. For the educated state involves rationality andcognitive perspective; the one depends crucially upon the development of the other. A careful scrutiny of ends also involves clear and logical analysis. By "clear and logical analysis" is meant, for instance, ensuring that the end or value is consistent with a person's other ends and values--that is, it is consistent with equally important other ends he holds, or else helps to achieve a further and more important end or intrinsic value. Peters' suggestions about breadth and fecundity as justification of education as an end (discussed in 2.1D) are interesting in this respect.
The person who seeks to be rational keeps his mind open so that his present viewpoints and positions can be revised in the light of new evidence; he gives due weight to that evidence, is consistent, and makes appropriate discriminations. He tries to be logical at all levels. For example, in noticing that to the extent that the doctrines of, say, Marxism and Mormonism (see 2.2B) involve conflicting and mutually exclusive beliefs about the universe, then both cannot be correct.
Being rational also involves discipline, because it is only through discipline that a person's planned-for ends have the best chance of being realized and that the concerns and sensations of the present can be put in perspective (see 4.3).
Rationality is epitomized in the approach of the good scientist, who is proud of the pet theory that he has produced by mastering the complex content of his scientific field and by making a creative, cognitive leap in an attempt to explain some particular, puzzling phenomenon. At first sight it looks as though the scientist may be expected to hold to the theory at all costs, but what, in fact, happens is that this strength of conviction remains only if, after having expressed it in such a way that it is both clear and precise and can be tested by other scientists, the theory can withstand this sustained critical scrutiny over time (Popper, 1968, 1969). If it does not hold up under scrutiny, he modifies or rejects it, or develops another explanation for the facts as known, and then offers that for criticism. The good scientist realizes that truth depends not upon who says something, but upon public, independent, and replicable activity. Far from being annoyed that his pet theory has been shown wanting, the scientist respects and welcomes the open-minded criticism of other scientists, especially of scientific rivals, as aids in the pursuit of truth. He realizes that freedom of thought and speech, and toleration of diverse views, are first principles in this pursuit. There is no one more useful to a rational person than a critical opponent.
Rationality features crucially in the moral life as well, though this is often forgotten when people incorrectly believe that morals are merely matters of taste or tradition. For moral codes, like any other claims, are not above rational scrutiny. (A brief attempt at a rational approach to the fundamental principles of morality is provided in 4.1C.) It is important to note that such principles of morality may also function as some of the "very ends and intrinsic values themselves" that, it was said a few paragraphs ago, required careful scrutiny. Olson makes a key point about the connection between morality and rationality when he writes (1978, p.97), For example, no matter how much parents may love their children, their love is worth little unless they are sufficiently rational to work effectively for the children's benefit. ...Rationality is not only a virtue in its own right. It is also an indispensable condition for the proper exercise of all other virtues. What is more, though it is rarely recognized in the everyday world, rationality is of fundamental importance in the life of the emotions (see 2.1E).
What all this amounts to is that to count as education, the activities of schools must indeed be such that they broaden children's outlooks on life; give perspective to what they do; provide meaning, knowledge, and real understanding; bring encounter with values; and thus help to make children more rational. If the ideas met with in schools are to count as education in his sense of the word, then they must not be inert ideas. They must be ideas that are worked with and upon, ideas that are thrown into combination with other ideas.
Thus it is that science, literature, morality, physical education, and so forth are not education if they are taught in a narrow or limited manner. If history consists merely in learning lots of dates and facts without any endeavor to get children to understand the ways of life behind the pages, or the dilemmas and difficulties faced by men and women in the past; if science involves merely textbook memorization with little time for pupils to apply what they learn or to encounter hypothesis and observation and the scientific way of approaching a problem; if literature is read for grammatical analysis only, or merely because it is a good yarn, with no attempt to involve the pupils imaginatively in the text nor any chance to see its implications for the human condition; if morality is taught as a fixed list of absolute rules rather than as a subtle and developing adjustment to changing contexts; if physical education becomes various skills and knowledge of games, without an attempt at producing a more generalized physiological understanding and kinaesthetic awareness; if this happens, then these subjects are being presented in such a narrow manner that they lose their entitlement to be called education, because they are failing to provide cognitive perspective and they are failing to make children more rational. If after 10 years of schooling all a 15-year-old can do in his visual art is produce a piece of direct but untutored expression that we might admire' in a young child, but lacks a more developed artistic way of looking, analyzing, and communicating to others, then despite the spontaneity his art activities have failed to develop cognitive perspective and he cannot use art as a tool of rationality. If a person has studied in detail the history and geography of New York State, but when he first enters the Port of New York is not moved in some way to speculation, questioning, or hypothesis by human achievement in what was once virgin forest, then his studies have been cognitively and rationally inert.1

(FootnoteJ)
1It seems at this point relevant to say something brief about truth. Education is closely concerned with truth. If activities really do throw light on the world, do develop cognitive perspective and rationality, then presumably they have to show concern for truth. A person does not understand the world as it is if he holds false beliefs. Of course, such false beliefs will often actually function as principles for guiding a person's conduct. There may be hot dispute about just which beliefs are true or false (see 2.2C), but teachers who are educators want their students and pupils to hold particular positions and to believe particular things only to the extent that these positions and things can be shown to be true or at least acceptable, given the evidence. This situation will be a matter of degree, so educators are concerned that students hold positions with a strength that is in proportion to the evidence or lack of it. Educators, like the good scientist, are concerned with truth and wish to hold a position only insofar as it can stand up to open-minded criticism. If their position does not seem to hold up under criticism, then they change it in the light of the criticism. This approach to the truth is completely opposite to that of indoctrinators and of people who have been indoctrinated, for they believe that in their doctrine they already have the truth, and that all criticism of their position is necessarily wrong (see 2.2).
C. Education or Training?
But to return to what I have called training activities: In this group are those school activities that are seen by the teachers as having instrumental value only. Many activities that go on every day fall into this class, from emphasizing school rules, to chanting tables, to sharpening pencils, to operating a food mixer, to teaching to read. On the wall of an early primary classroom that I recently visited was a large three-dimensional representation of a bright blue shoe. Two thick tape laces dangled from the center of the shoe and the caption underneath in bold gold letters queried, Can you tie your laces? Now, teaching children to tie their laces may be rather useful. It may save parents and teacher from a time-consuming chore. It may stop Johnny from tripping, breaking a leg, and being absent from school for weeks. But it is in general valuable only as a means to various other ends, and does not provide much in the way of understanding. The tying of shoelaces does little to develop cognitive perspective and rationality. This is a simple instance, but there will be, of course, much more complicated groups of knowledge and skills, as occur, for example, in the commercial courses of schools, where training is complex and detailed and where it will often shade off into education. Nevertheless, training always has an object outside itself; it always makes sense to ask, Training in what? Training to do what? Training for what?
In discussing training and education, I have simplified distinctions somewhat, for actual effects and results are naturally matters of degree and depend very much upon personalities, values, and contexts. Such a simplification is justified in that it enables me to put the distinction as directly as possible. On the one hand, there is a concept distinguished by using the word training, on the other hand a concept marked by the word education. Training has to do with instrumental value and lack of cognitive implications; education has to do with wide cognitive implications and rationality, which I believe, have value in themselves for persons. (Notice that severely mentally handicapped people can be trained, but they cannot be educated.) It was mentioned a moment ago that if science, history, literature, morals, and so forth are taught in a narrow or limited manner, then they fail to be education. This point is crucial. For it is the way a teacher goes about what he is doing and the way a pupil or student responds that in general decide whether or not a period of time spent in a school will be education. Under some teachers and classroom regimes, what might appear to be a program of mere training can become education; under others, a program that appears in the syllabus outline to have considerable educational possibilities is negated. Again, a pupil or student who uses his initiative and imagination can turn a training program into something of an educational one through working out his own connections, implications, and combinations of ideas, while a pupil or student who refuses to do his own mental work on ideas can turn what is education for his classmates into largely valueless timeserving for himself. It is not by chance that education is maximized when an imaginative teacher encounters a thoughtful child. D. Education of the Emotions "You can't explain away feelings...," said the heroine of a television soap opera that I was viewing in a Honolulu hotel. Her claim took my attention, because it is representative of a point of view that has eaten deeply into the outlook of Western man, and I want briefly to challenge it here. For some readers may by now have begun to complain of the seeming neglect of the education of what is sometimes referred to as the affective domain of human experience—that is, the life of the emotions.
I have discussed the development of children's cognitive perspective and rationality, and the idea of training, so should schools also educate children emotionally? Train their emotions? Of course they should.
This is a vast and exceedingly complex matter (Kenny, 1963; Wilson, 1971; Harris, 1976), but only one feature will be considered here. Conceptually, I want to distinguish the “knowing” aspect or an emotion from the “feeling” aspect. And because I believe that it is the most crucial aspect and also the most neglected, I want to concentrate on "knowing" in emotions, although I do acknowledge the significance of "feeling." (For similar reasons, a parallel course is followed in Chapter 3; when the arts are considered from the point of view of their knowledge dimension.)
An emotion is a specially complicated group of appraisals and physiological and psychological responses. As Whiteley says (1979, p.235), An emotion-for example fear, anger, anxiety, joy, grief, elation, despair, pride, shame, envy-is a response to situations of one specific type; its components are a belief that the situation is of that type, some characteristic sensations, and an inclination to behave suitably to the situation. We are pointing to these components when we say that someone is "experiencing" an emotion. To educate the emotions, therefore, is different from just influencing them. Injecting drugs, carrying out a lobotomy, giving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), providing electronic stimulation of the brain (ESB), engaging in conditioning, and so on, may all affect a person's emotional reactions, but they are not education.2 Education is concerned with developing cognition and knowledge and increasing rationality, and the above activities are not. Furthermore, I want to suggest that to develop cognitive perspective and rationality is at the same time to develop and educate the emotions. Far from being on a par with cognitive perspective and rationality in their significance for the development of persons, the feeling side of emotions (the sensations) is secondary and dependent. It is rationally disastrous to imagine that to emote or to feel, irrespective of the appropriateness of the emotion or its context, is an experience worth cultivating. So this means that to educate generally is also to educate the emotions. It is possible to argue this way because it is the case that although emotions certainly consist of particular feelings, involuntary bodily processes, and so forth, they are centrally involved with cognitions or construals of situations-that is, emotions have a fundamental knowledge core. Each emotion is related to a particular way of seeing a situation, or, as Whiteley says above, "...a belief that the situation is of that type." Someone is frightened of, annoyed with, regretful that. Thus in normal circumstances a person is angry because he realizes (or believes) that he has been cheated or frustrated; he is afraid because there is danger; he is envious because he sees someone else having the success that he would like for himself; he is proud because he knows that he has succeeded in a particular way; he is saddened by knowledge of man's inhumanity; he is remorseful because of his wrongdoing; and so on.
First there is a construal, or an appraisal and the feeling that comes over a person is a result of this. Indeed, so central is this seeing of a situation in a certain way, that we cannot even distinguish one emotion from another without identifying it. So while it may be true to say that animals experience emotion, only persons (see 4.1A) can experience the range of emotion that rationality, a complex language, and appropriate construal make possible. An angry dog and an angry person are poles apart. Indeed, with many emotions, such as jealousy and compassion, it makes no sense to attribute them to2 animals, for such emotions can be learned only by language-using entities.
Thus, I see emotional life both as parasitic upon and as secondary to a person's knowledge and understanding of the world. In developing children's cognitive perspective and rationality, we shall at the same time be developing their emotions in educationally significant ways. How often have we seen young children and uneducated adults reacting in an emotionally inappropriate manner? They often do so because their grasp of the realities of the situation is faulty. Indeed, it is a general truth that to lack proper knowledge is to be a potential victim of inappropriate emotional response--fools do rush in where angels fear to tread. People react inappropriately when they mistake the facts, give weight to irrelevant factors and issues, emphasize only partly relevant ones, see only particular aspects of a situation, cannot discriminate, cannot see farther than the immediately pressing present, or get things out of proportion.
One of the great aberrations in the intellectual history of mankind is the widespread acceptance of the belief that emotions are just emotions, feelings about something are just feelings, that rational consideration is therefore irrelevant to them and that is all there is to it. For just as false beliefs can be changed into true beliefs and knowledge, so inappropriate emotional reactions can be changed into appropriate emotional reactions. This is why I was so struck by the wrongheadedness of the statement by the soap opera heroine, "You can't explain away feelings. ..." It is not as though this suggestion that the emotions are educable is really new to most of us. Although they do not normally call it education of the emotions, both parents and teachers do indeed try to affect emotional development in this way. For example, they try to get young children to realize the (general) inappropriateness of fear of the dark, or the (general) irrelevance of dislike on the basis of a person's skin color, and so on. What should be encouraged is an increase in the explicit recognition of this activity in which schools already implicitly engage. In developing children's cognitive perspective and rationality, teachers are developing their ability to deal with the world as it is, with objects and events as they are. Children can act only upon what they know; thus such development stops them from being deluded by their subjective lives of wishes, desires, false beliefs, and illusions, and is of crucial importance for appropriate emotional response. In order to put the idea as simply as possible, it may be argued that education of the emotions will consist in providing knowledge and understanding that appropriately lessen or heighten a negative emotion such as fear or hatred, or appropriatelylessen or heighten a positive emotion such as compassion or admiration. Mac Murray introduces this point about appropriateness when he writes (1972, p. 25), "Why should they not be proper feelings when they are in terms of the nature of the object, and improper feelings when they are not in terms of the nature of the object?" And again (1972, p. 33): Our feelings may be illusory just as our intellectual ideas often are. Our emotions can be real or unreal. To say that a feeling is unreal does not mean that we do not feel it, any more than to say that an idea is false means that we do not think it. An unreal or illusory emotion may be very strongly felt, and it may influence our conduct profoundly. Mac Murray's terminology may be unusual, but he describes situations of great significance. It is because of such situations that children's emotional lives can be and need to be educated.
As one example of Mac Murray's point, consider the case of appropriately lessening the fear of flying. This has been achieved through having the affected person sit in on the crew's preflight briefing sessions, by viewing the preflight procedures for checking instruments and systems, by watching the flight crew in training, by showing the person around the maintenance hangars, control towers, and training carrels, so that the care and thoroughness of service and preparation can be appreciated. The vastly better statistics of safety per passenger mile in the air can be compared with the carnage on the road. Particular worries that have gripped him in the past can be countered: the wing tips flap somewhat in flight because flexibility is necessary, not because the wings are weak or worn; individual noises are attributable to particular, necessary functions--the bang of the retractable undercarriage, the hiss of the ventilators when the air conditioning is switched on, the change in engine noise when cruising altitude is reached, and so on. Between Auckland and Sydney I read a fascinating example of the success of just this sort of well-planned approach in the house journal of Air New Zealand. An irrational fear was replaced by a rational understanding. The passenger, having learned the why of things, now enjoys air travel for he can see it as a pleasant, unworrying, rapid, and instrumentally valuable activity.
What can be done in schools? Teachers can ensure that in such subjects as literature, drama, and history they regularly consider situations that explore the sensitively changing dimensions of the human condition in all its weaknesses- and glories, in order to bring about an expansion of children's consciousness through their identification with other people, at a level appropriate to the children's intellectual development. Teachers must show children that children's own reactions influence the way other people in turn react to them, that aggression has a tendency to breed aggression, sympathy to bring sympathy. Through promoting an increase in and a clarity of language, they must try to make children's emotional lives relate to the greater and broader total world of human experience in all its fullness, and also to give them the linguistic tools to think about and educate their own emotions.
Schools should arrange the regular occurrence of situations that help children to understand interpersonal relations and to handle their feelings. They should organize sporting competition, physical education, and "outward-bound" pursuits that bring appropriate feeling to games situations and legitimate rivalry, and allow children to work in challenging situations with others. And the rule-governed approach in schools should allow for children's gradual development of discipline (see 4.3E) in their intellectual and emotional lives.
It must be acknowledged that education of the emotions also involves moral education. Children need to get their ideas into some sort of scale of moral values, so that unlike the young children in the Kellmer-Pringle and Edwards (1964) study, they do not believe that running in school corridors is the next worst act to killing people. Here, of course, teachers need to be careful to avoid indoctrinating (see 2.2) their merely personal moral positions. However, there are dimensions of conceptual distinction that are rationally based and that it is teachers' moral duty to expose. So it is appropriate that as teachers develop children's compassion for, say, the German Jews under the Nazi regime, they should try to ensure that the children see why this may be accompanied by an appropriate disgust for the Gestapo. Children must be helped to recognize things for what they are. It is insufficient for children merely to be able to recognize acts of cruelty; they should also be encouraged into proper reaction. Thus with older children issues such as the confusing modern tendency to view what is actually evil as though it were mental illness (Flew, 1973) should be pointed out, if there is to be correct appraisal leading to appropriate feeling; for instance, the act of murder is only rarely evidence of mental illness.
If this is what it is to educate the emotions, what is it to train them? It may be suggested that training children's emotions is similar to other sorts of training, insofar as it is an attempt to form relatively specific habits and propensities of thinking and action that will come into play fairly automatically. To train the negative emotions is therefore to develop ways of channeling emotional excess or inappropriateness. Parents have done this for generations in their advice to children to count to ten before acting in anger. The very disposition to pause has itself a moderating effect, allowing children to get the issue in better proportion. Something similar but more positive happens when children are encouraged to apologize to the injured party after an unjustified emotional encounter. The institution in the schoolroom of a "quiet corner," where younger pupils go when they feel irritation and annoyance coming on, is a useful technique. To train the positive emotions, teachers must try to foster from an early age appropriate habits of generosity and sharing, taking turns, sympathy and consideration for other children and for other persons in the school and the general community. Training of the emotions, like all training, will be of instrumental value; it will lay down right habits and settled dispositions that form a background of behavior upon which teachers can also try to build a proper educated understanding.
Education of the emotions will consequently consist in the development of appropriateness in emotional reaction. This is emphasized again, for while appropriate reaction certainly consists in, say, being angry when anger is justified, and in showing compassion for less fortunate persons, appropriate emotional reaction also includes a developed respect for rationality, and such respect involves such emotion-based content as feeling the importance of consistency, relevance, and critical awareness. In the separate form of knowledge areas {see 3.1D), this becomes delight in mathematical preciseness, concern for the pursuit of truth in t4e empirical realm, care for human consciousness, passion for individual freedom and a proper anger at disrespect for persons, intense absorption in artistic endeavor, awe at the vastness of the cosmos, and pleasure in precisely expressed ideas. The good teacher is infused with a passionate concern for these things and for the development of the same concern in his pupils and students. Indoctrinators engage in a perversion of this passion, for their feelings for their doctrine outweigh their rationality.(see 3.2A). (FootnoteJ)
2Of course, it may at times be very important to influence emotions in these ways. For instance, it may be necessary for a medical doctor to give a patient a drug to counter a completely debilitating irrational fear in order to be able to do some later psychotherapy of an educational sort. Thus, it is not being suggested here that education is sufficient to deal with certain issues of mental health or with emotional problems and irrational emotions of paranoids and psychopaths. Such conditions are not amenable to education through an increase in rationality or a broadening of cognitive perspective. This section tries to confine itself strictly to the areas of education and training, to activities that schoolteachers can do something about. Why Consider Opposing Viewpoints?
“The only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this.” ---John Stuart Mill In our media-intensive culture it is not difficult to find differing opinions. Thousands of newspapers and magazines and dozens of radio and television talk shows resound with differing points of view. The difficulty lies in deciding which opinion to agree with and which “experts” seem the most credible. The more inundated we become with differing opinions and claims, the more essential it is to hone critical reading and thinking skills to evaluate these ideas. Opposing View-points books address this problem directly by presenting stimulating debates that can be used to enhance and teach these skills. The varied opinions contained in each book examine many different aspects of a single issue. While examining these conveniently edited opposing views, readers can develop critical thinking skills such as the ability to compare and contrast authors’ credibility facts, argumentation styles, use of persuasive techniques, and other stylistic tools. In short, the Opposing Viewpoints Series is an ideal way to attain the higher-level thinking and reading skills so essential in a culture of diverse and contradictory opinions.
In addition to providing a tool for critical thinking, Opposing Viewpoints books challenge readers to question their own strongly held opinions and assumptions. Most people form their opinions on the basis of upbringing, peer pressure, and personal, cultural and professional bias. By reading carefully balanced opposing views, readers must directly confront new ideas as well as the opinions of those with whom they disagree. This is not to simplistically argue that everyone who reads opposing views will – or should – change his or her opinion. Instead, the series enhances readers’ understanding of their views by encouraging confrontation with opposing ideas. Careful examination of others’ views can lead to the readers’ understanding of the logical inconsistencies in their own opinions, perspective on why they hold an opinion, and the consideration of the possibility that their opinion requires further evaluation.
………………… David L. Bender and Bruno Leone Founders
From Scott Barbour, Book Editor, (2010). Opposing Viewpoints Series, Censorship, Detroit : Gale Cengage Learning.
By Alan Vanneman|Linda Hamilton|Janet Baldwin Anderson|Taslima Rahman National Center for Education Statistics
Updated on Sep 16, 2009
In 2007, mathematics scores for both Black and White public school students in grades 4 and 8 nationwide, as measured by the main NAEP assessments of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), were higher than in any previous assessment, going back to 1990. This was also true for Black and White fourth-graders on the NAEP 2007 Reading Assessment. For grade 8, reading scores for both Black and White students were higher in 2007 than in the first reading assessment year, 1992, as well as the most recent previous assessment year, 2005.
White students, however, had higher scores than Black students, on average, on all assessments. While the nationwide gaps in 2007 were narrower than in previous assessments at both grades 4 and 8 in mathematics and at grade 4 in reading, White students had average scores at least 26 points higher than Black students in each subject, on a 0-500 scale. This report will use results from both the main NAEP and the long-term trend NAEP assessments to examine the Black-White achievement gaps, and changes in those gaps, at the national and state level.
The main NAEP 2007 Reading and Mathematics Assessments included grade 4 and grade 8 students both nationally and for all 50 states, as well as the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) and the District of Columbia (hereinafter referred to as states). Not all states had Black (or White) student populations large enough to provide reliable data, and not all states participated in the earliest NAEP state assessments.
Most of the data in this report comes from the main NAEP assessments, supplemented with some data from the NAEP long-term trend assessments. Main NAEP assessments, which began in 1990 for mathematics and 1992 for reading, are administered at the fourth and eighth grades, both nationally and at the state level. Because main NAEP only assesses public schools in its state assessments, this report contains only public school results. The most recent results in this report are for 2007.
NAEP long-term trend assessments are administered by age rather than grade. This report references long-term trend assessment public school results from the earliest assessment through 2004, with results for ages 9 and 13 instead of grades 4 and 8. The long-term trend assessments provide public school results for mathematics going back to 1978 and for reading going back to 1980, at ages 9, 13, and 17, at the national level only, on a 0-500 point scale.
At both ages 9 and 13, mathematics scores for both Black and White students were higher in 2004 than in any previous assessment. The 23-point Black-White achievement gap in mathematics for age 9 public school students in 2004 was narrower than in the first assessment in 1978 but not significantly different from the gap in the most recent previous assessment in 1999. The same was true for the 26- point gap at age 13.
For age 9 reading, scores for both Black and White students were higher in 2004 than in any previous assessment, going back to 1980. The 26-point gap between Black and White students in 2004 was not significantly different from the gap in 1980, but was narrower than the gap in 1999. At age 13 reading, scores were higher for Black students in 2004 than in 1980, but did not show a significant difference from 1999. Scores for White students were not significantly different for either comparison year. The 21-point gap in student performance at age 13 reading in 2004 was narrower than in both 1980 and 1999.
The following two sections summarize state-level achievement gaps between Black and White students in the main NAEP assessments in mathematics and reading.
Study Summary on 'education' 1. The differences between intrinsically valuable and instrumentally valuable activities:
Intrinsically valuable activities are ends in themselves; they are valuable in and of themselves. In other words, people do the activities for their own sake. The activities are treated as something final.
Instrumentally valuable activities are a means to an end; they are valuable only as an instrument for people to get something else that they desire more in life. Instrumentally valuable activities act as a bridge or a vehicle to get people somewhere. The activity itself is not treated as something final. 2. Whether an activity is intrinsically or instrumentally valuable depends on the very reason you do the activity. For some, reading is intrinsically valuable; for others, it is only an instrument for passing an exam. 3. What is ‘education’? Although education can be both intrinsically and instrumentally valuable, its identification relies on its intrinsic value. There are two criteria of education:
1) intrinsically valuable activities, which
2) promote cognitive perspective and rationality. 4. What is ‘training’? Training, which is a form of teaching, also has two criteria:
1) instrumentally valuable activities, which
2) lack the emphasis of cognitive perspective and rationality. 5. Embedded in the concept of multicultural education is a critical thinking perspective. It encourages people to reason with objectivity, impartiality and non- arbitrariness on cultural differences. On the one hand, it encourages people to view cultural differences as a resource for a hundred flowers to bloom, enriching the life of a society; on the other hand, it rejects blind acceptance of all cultural differences. It requires people to analyze, synthesize and evaluate cultural differences for the betterment of humanity.