Chapter 5, School as agent of culture II

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

Teaching-Learning and the cultural process

“The preceding chapter tried to show that the key to cultural process lies in Tylor’s term ‘acquiring’ — but that metaculturally the term appears to suggest different things to different interpreters.  Thus the realist essentialist way of acquiring is primarily by means of conditioning, while the progressivist way of acquiring is primarily through inquiring.  In different words, the essentialist presupposes a psychology of learning epitomized in some such term as ‘passive mentation,’ while the progressivist takes a more functional and organismic approach through which acquiring as learning involves active and critical transactions with the cultural and physical environment.”  (p. 74)

“. . . we now see that cultural theory and research afford solid ground upon which to approach these problems with an innovating attitude.  Indeed, the contention of some essentialist educators that the school has no legitimate role as an agent of cultural change fails to stand up in the face of such research.  The attitude of innovation, when consciously and deliberately developed by the teacher within a cultural matrix, not only negates this contention, but it influences the learner if only by the contagion of the teacher’s attitude.   Meanwhile, the classroom itself undergoes alteration:  the enculturative process defined merely as passive mentation is superseded by analysis, criticism, originality, and participation, with all the modifications in learning and teaching that these processes imply.”  (p. 79)

“For the essentialist, because truth is already embodied in the nature of the universe and culture, the chief task of the school is to place the learner in a position of receptivity and then to see to it that he acquires as much truth as he possibly can by direct exposure.  For the progressivist, truth is not already present, awaiting disclosure; it is always in the making, always unfinished, always subject to correction as learners engage in further interactions with their natural and human environment.”  (p. 80)

The Control of Education and Cultural Goals

“Cultural goals actually permeate both the curriculum and the learning-teaching process, while cultural order and process are, in turn, inseparable from the problem of educational control.”  (p. 80)

“What, after all, is the purpose of all these rules and regulations?  In short, what is education for?”  (p. 81)

“To write of the need for ‘well-educated men,’ of ‘critical thinking,’ of ‘responsible citizenship,’ and similar goals is motivated by sincere intentions, certainly.  It fails, however, to tell us what we most require; it fails to place these generalities in the setting of real cultures through which alone they become meaningful.  Indeed, what any controller needs most to know is:  Where is our culture going?  And, above all:  Where ought it to go in the future?  Then, and only then, can he begin to answer parallel questions for the great enculturative agency he represents.”  (p. 81)

“From our earlier discussion of cultural goals, we recall two major ways of approaching them — the one, cultural relativism; the other, cultural univeralism.  We saw, too, that anthropologists seem to be moving toward accord that neither of these ways of looking at the goals of culture is sufficient in its use.”  (p. 81)

“From the point of view of educational goals, the bipolar concept of relativism-universalism therefore means that effective cotrol must be guided, on the one hand, by values that are distinctive to the particular community within which the school operates and, on the other hand, by the wider values of region, nation, and even the world.  A high priority task of the educational leader is to search for and develop a balance of both kinds.”  (p. 82)

“Here, indeed, is the reconstructionist type of approach to the whole problem of educational control.  This philosophy, related as it is to the science of anthropology, finds that participation is a cross-cultural value which, while not necessarily universal, appears from the evidence to be very widespread.  Therefore, administrations influenced by this approach are likely to create every conceivable opportunity for parents to engage in planning the work of the school, for involving teachers in problems of curriculum and learning, and for including students (beginning at a very early age) in their own share of cooperative responsibilities.  At the same time, they take into account the cultural habits of the individual community:  thus, a community where a high degree of religious or familial authority has been traditional can hardly be expected to move as rapidly toward a reconstructed pattern of control as one that has not.”  (p. 82)

“[the perennialist philosophy] In common with reconstructionism agrees that much more serious attention should be given the goals of education than is usually given.  But the perennialist has a special attitude, rooted as his thinking is in a special set of ontological and other metacultural assumptions.  The goals of education — and, indeed, of culture — are for him expressions of the much wider teleological direction of reality as a whole, a direction from the ‘potential’ to the ever more ‘actual.’  In a fundamental sense, the business of education is to become as conscious as possible of this unfolding of reality and so to enlist the schools in the everlasting effort to achieve it.  And yet, because the ultimate end of culture (for many perennialists, certainly) is not within culture at all, but in the afterlife of salvation and eternity, we discover this to be the great magnetic goal that finally shapes both the order of the curriculum and the central processes of enculturation.”  (p. 83)

“In terms of education control it follows that, unlike reconstructionist theory, perennialist education encourages a strong policy of authority in the hands of those who, by virtue of their higher actualization in the alleged order of reality, are also closer to the goal of education than any other members of a school system — than teachers, for example.  Therefore, these leaders are the ones who rightly control school policy and practice.”  (p. 83)

Note:  see pp. 84-85 for a clear summary of this chapter.

Chapter 5, School as agent of culture I

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

‘Internalizing’ the Idea of Culture

“To internalize is to fuse the chief characteristics of that idea with one’s own attitudes, feelings, and daily activities.  Culture becomes important to us as persons and as teachers only to the extent that such fusion takes place. . . . To internalize is to move from a merely intellectual formulation, on the one hand, to one’s own personality (one’s own patterns of behavior), on the other hand.”  (p. 66)

“He [Brameld] is, nevertheless, convinced that any student who approaches, say, the idea of culture seriously and responsibly will in the course of time become a very different kind of person and teacher than he would otherwise be. . . . the school too will begin to undergo transformation.  Every school is, in a genuine sense, the creation of those who operate it.  Thus, the kinds of learning and control that occur are, from one point of view, the fruits of whatever orientation toward life and education has developed among the members of a culture directly responsible for the enculturative process.  Teachers, surely, are among the most important of these members.”  (p. 67)

“What difference does an idea such as culture make to our conception of the school curriculum?  What different does it make to the teaching-learning process?  Finally, what difference does it make to the control of education? . . . . The curriculum is thus considered in relation to cultural order, teaching-learning in terms of cultural process, and the control of education in view of cultural goals.”  (p. 67)

Problems of the Curriculum:  the significance of cultural order

“The concept of cultural order, we remember, enables us to view the total environment fashioned by man in terms of spatio-temporal relations — a shorthand term for the fact that every culture may be viewed both in horizontal and vertical perspective, while yet embracing the past, the present, and the future.  This model of cultural order, when it becomes filled with the rich content that such a science as anthropology provides, may now be conceived as a way to organize the curriculum itself.”  (p. 68)

“What could this concept contribute to a distinctive way of unifying and integrating the curriculum of general education?  One answer lies in a controversial contention — namely, that the central obligation of education for most young people should be basically similar, and that the justification for such similarity lies in the struggles and objectives of human beings themselves.  This kind of education should be concerned first of all with the attempt to provide an understanding by the young learner not only of himself but of his relations to others:  other groups, other nations, and equally of theirs to him.”  (p. 68)

“Recall from Chapter 3 that the central core focuses upon problems of intrapersonal and interpersonal relations; that the next wider circle embraces intragroup and intergroup relations (racial, class, and others); and that the widest circle encompasses the relations of whole peoples, nations, and religions.  Thus, through this conception of order, we are able to see the world as a vast intricate network of human relations, from the most intimate to that most inclusive of ‘complex wholes,’ mankind itself.”  (p. 69)

“But, as also has been earlier pointed out, the merely spatial model of culture is defective as long as it lacks the temporal dimension.  We need to think of the curriculum of general education not only in terms of the present relationships of people, but in terms both of their roots in the past and their directions toward the future.  The latter anticipates the problem of cultural goals, to which we return, but the former suggests the need for intensive study of history . . . .”  (p. 70)

“We can better understand the significance of the study of history in a culture-oriented curriculum if we distinguish more clearly between the essentialist approach discussed in the preceding chapter, and the progressivist, also discussed.  It will be remembered that the essentialist, directly or indirectly reflecting as he does the superorganic view of culture, tends metaculturally to regard the order of culture as something ‘out there,’ already determined and structured beyond the control of individual human beings.”  (p. 70)

“Returning now to the study of history in the school, progressivists aware of the metacultural issue are likely to assert that essentialist history is often hypostatized history as well.  Because, moreover, the past is regarded as something that is irrevocably finished, it follows that the kind of history provided by the conventional curriculum is intended primarily to develop in young people an attitude of acceptance toward the out-thereness and completeness of historical events.  Culturally, such an attitude is likely to encourage a conservative frame of mind toward the social heritage.  Hence it is no accident that the essentialist school is usually regarded as an enculturative agent of reinforcement of patterns of culture that have come down to us in the course of time.”  (p. 71)

“History, understood now as the temporal phase of cultural order, may also be interpreted as an operational discipline — that is, the past is approached not as a forever-finished record of objective events but as a boundlessly fertile opportunity to interpret and reinterpret the course of human evolution.”  (p. 72)

“How, then, would a progressivist include history in general education?  If he is consistently operational, he will not, first of all, segregate history from other dimensions of learning experience anywhere nearly as much as do essentialists.  Rather, he will regard it as a vast, fruitful resource to be drawn upon in attacking every conceivable kind of problem — including problems only indirectly related to human experience, such as those of the physical sciences.  Accordingly, history teachers, in the kind of integrated curriculum suggested by cultural order, become resource persons who constantly and cooperatively work with other teachers.”  (p. 72)

Future of the Science of Behavior at Walden Two

Skinner, B. F.  (1948/1976/2005).  Walden Two.  Indianapolis, IN:  Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.

CHAPTER 32 (pp. 267-276)

What remains to be done?  Well, what do you say to the design of personalities?  Would that interest you?  The control of temperament?  Give me the specifications, and I’ll give you the man!  What do you say to the control of motivation, building the interests which will make men most productive and most successful?  Does that seem to you fantastic?  Yet some of the techniques are available, and more can be worked out experimentally.  Think of the possibilities!  A society in which there is no failure, no boredom, no duplication of effort!  (p. 274)

Frazier continues to propose new areas:  cultivation of special abilities; what makes a child’s mind mathematical?  musical?; making better mathematicians, better artists, better craftsmen; improving social and cultural design; the special qualities of the group (communal science); efficient group structure; the Superorganism!

Big Ideas from Carl Rogers V

Rogers, Carl and Freiberg, H. Jerome.  (1994).  Freedom to Learn, 3rd edition.  Upper Saddle River, New Jersey:  Prentice-Hall.

Using the “Guiding Essential Questions” from the EDCI-886, Philosophy of American Education, Fall 2009 syllabus, I describe some of the “big ideas” from Freedom to Learn.

The Philosophical and Value Ramifications (cont)

CHAPTER 15, Freedom and commitment

“Freedom to learn or choose; self-directed learning:  these are completely untenable concepts in the minds of many behavioral scientists, who believe that humans are simply the inevitable products of their conditioning.  Yet they are terms that I have used freely in this book, as though they have real meaning. . . . I do not pretend that I resolved the age-old problem of freedom and determinism, but I have, for myself, formulated a way of living with it.  I hope my statement will be clarifying to those who are perplexed by differences between the mechanistic-behavioristic point of view in education and the humanistic approach to learning.”  (p. 295)

“One of the deepest issues in modern life is the question as to whether the concept of personal freedom has any meaning whatsoever in our present-day scientific world.  The growing ability of the behavioral scientist to predict and to control behavior has brought the issue sharply to the fore.  If we accept the logical positivism and strictly behavioristic emphases that are predominant in the American educational scene, there is not even room for discussion.  But if we step outside the narrowness of the behavioral sciences, this question is not only an issue; it is one of the primary issues that define the modern person.”  (p. 296)

“One might ask, ‘Why do teachers and other educators need to know these things?’  If we take a mechanical view of teaching, then one skilled teacher is the same as any other skilled teacher.  When a teacher leaves, we replace her with another person called ‘teacher,’ and all is well. . . . In this system, teachers are interchangeable parts.”  (p. 296)

“From the way students are disciplined to the way teachers are evaluated, the method is one of control, reward, and punishment.  So writing both as a behavioral scientist and as one profoundly concerned with the human, the personal, the phenomenological, and the intangible, I should like to contribute what I can to this continuing dialogue regarding the meaning of and the possibility of freedom.  For if we see teaching as a facilitative process in which the individual is valued, then the words freedom and commitment take on very vital meanings.”  (p. 296)

The Individual is Unfree

“In the minds of most behavioral scientists, humans are not free; nor can they as free humans commit themselves to some purpose, for they are controlled by factors outside of themselves.  Therefore, neither freedom nor commitment is even a possible concept to modern behavioral science as it is usually understood.”  (p. 297)

“This view is shared by some psychologists, educators, and other who feel, as did Dr. Skinner that all the effective causes of behavior lie outside of the individual and that it is only through the external stimulus that behavior takes place.”  (p. 297)

The Individual is Free

“The need to have choices in the classroom is just as important in the evolution of healthy individuals.  If all part of a child’s life are controlled, then control becomes the driving force in decisions about teaching and learning.  What is taught and how it will be taught become controlling issues.  After the child’s learning life is controlled for thirteen years in school, suddenly at age eighteen he or she is free to choose.  The newfound freedom comes with little or no prior experience.  If experience is the best teacher, then choosing and freedom are alien experiences for too many students in our schools.”  (p. 302)

BIG IDEA

• a sense of free and responsible choice on the part of teachers and students in schools

The Irreconcilable Contradiction

“I trust it will be very clear that I have given two sharply divergent and irreconcilably contradictory points of view.  On the one hand, modern psychological science, and many other forces in modern life as well, hold the view that the person is unfree, that she is controlled, that words such as purpose, choice, commitment have no significant meaning, that the individual is nothing but an object that we can more fully understand and more fully control.”  (p. 308)

“So I am emboldened to say that over against this view of the individual as unfree, as an object, is the evidence from therapy, from the schoolhouse, from subjective living, and from objective research as well that personal freedom and responsibility have a crucial significance, that one cannot live a complete life without such personal freedom and responsibility, and that self-understanding and responsible choice make a sharp and measurable difference in the behavior of the individual.  In this context, commitment does have meaning.  Commitment is the emerging and changing total direction of the individual based on a close and acceptant relationship between the person and all of the trends of his or her life, conscious and unconscious.”  (p. 309)

“What is the answer to the contradiction I have described?  For myself, I am content to think of it as a deep and lasting paradox. . . often frustrating . . . very fruitful.”  (p. 309)

BIG IDEAS

• personal freedom and responsibility lead to self-understanding and responsible choice
• purpose, choice, and commitment have significant meaning in the classroom to both students and teachers

Chapter Two, The Use of Explosive Ideas in Education

Brameld, Theodore.  (2008).  The use of explosive ideas in education:  Culture, class, and evolution.  New York:  The New Press.

How We Shall Proceed

“The first chapter of each section considers the nature of the explosive idea itself.”  (p. 16)

“The second chapter in the three-stage design recalls the bridge of philosophy….What does a respective idea mean when its assumptions are critically analyzed by philosophic specialists?” (p. 17)

“Insofar as each third chapter is successful, it demonstrates how professional education becomes dependent upon basic knowledge from other sources than education.”  (p. 17)

Anticipating the Explosive Ideas

“Why, then, were they [culture, class, and evolution] selected?”  (p. 17)

The Functions of Philosophy

“One, epistemology, is concerned with examining and establishing criteria of reliable knowledge.  A second, ontology (sometimes defined synonymously with metaphysics), tries to discover criteria of reality.  A third, axiology, searches for criteria of value.”  (p. 19)

“To what extent do children in the South obtain unbiased knowledge of the Negro problem?  To what extent do children anywhere in America obtain a picture of economic and political events not colored by the propaganda or vested interests of some official or unofficial pressure group?  To what extent, also, do they have opportunity to consider under critical and responsible educational direction the changing mores of our age — especially the values of sexual morality?”  (p. 20)

Types of Educational Philosophy

“Idealists, for example, are idealistic ontologists — that is, they discover the principles of reality in their conception of the universe as spiritual or mental in substance.”  (p. 21)

“Materialists are materialistic axiologists — that is, they find the meaning of value in material events such as economic patterns.”  (p. 21)

“Pragmatists are pragmatic epistemologists — that is, truths are determined by their practical workability in ongoing experience.”  (p. 21)

“Let us call our own preferred types by the following four terms:  essentialism, progressivism, perennialism, and reconstructionism.”  (p. 22)

The Sphere of Practice

“Each of the following three sections concludes with a chapter of application to educational problems and activities.  The practices selected — curriculum, learning-teaching, and control — are obvious enough at first glance.”  (p. 24)

“To mention one other that will interest us again:  concomitant learning is the sort that occurs through direct association with people — usually through informally rather than formally planned experiences.”  (p. 25)

“One widely held view of teaching that we must be wary of is to identify it with indoctrination.” (p. 26)

Control:  “Who shall determine the policies of education?  How shall they be determined?  Who shall carry them out?” (p. 26)

“Should not teachers and even students also have a voice?  And what about the state and federal governments?”  (p. 26)