Educ for Life-long Learning LO4864

GMBrady@aol.com
Sun, 14 Jan 1996 18:32:04 -0500

Replying to LO4799 --

John Warfield writes:
>Perry's highest order goal was what Rol mentions, "education for
>citizenship",

Gee whiz. I raised a question about "educating for work." Now I find
myself doing the same thing with "educating for citizenship."

I'm not,of course, opposed to an education that leads to satisfying work
or responsible citizenship. A proper education should certainly be as
supportive as possible of both. But I've an alternative suggestion for
everyone's consideration.

Before I lay it out, I'll note that traditionally, the gap between these
kinds of general, overarching goal statements and what actually takes
place in classrooms is enormous. What's actually taught isn't shaped by
such goals, but is pretty much just whatever was taught last year, the
year before, etc. The statements are, more than anything else, almost
always a p.r. overlay.

Now, I've read enough of John Warfield to know that that's almost
certainly not true in his case, that he's probably drawn very direct,
solid lines from goal statement to instruction.

But I'd like to suggest a different "bottom line" goal, because both of
the above, I think, (at least in the hands of most practitioners) make of
us "instruments"--put us in the service of the economy or the state.

My alternative is that ancient one: Know thyself.

I'm convinced that, ultimately, the pursuit of knowledge of self actually
contributes more to the realization of the other two (and other general
education objectives) than does an attempt to pursue them directly.

Lest anyone think I'm recommending that schooling amount to some version
of a trip to the psychiatrist's couch for analysis, let me repeat a
statement from instructional material I've written:

"Each of us has acquired from our society a conceptual model of reality.
The most important task of general education is to help us understand that
model, the models of those with whom we interact, and the range of
alternative models from which we might choose."

The stuff I write for teachers pursues self knowledge formally and
systematically, but has little to do with the content of psychology as
it's usually taught. I attempt to help students bring it all together
(actually make their implicitly held models of reality explicit) beginning
about age 14. Prior to this, I encourage activity that expands
understanding of "big" ideas useful in that effort, ideas such as
"pattern," "relationship," "structure,"--concepts which can be explored in
endless ways in immediate experience. When students actually "get into
it"--begin to commit to paper a version of their model of reality, what
they're dealing with are the fundamental, almost-never-articulated
cultural premises which guide thought and action--assumptions about
nature, time, causation, physical reality, the "good life," etc. Around
these range studies of possible sources and reinforcers of the
assumptions, and of the ways the assumptions manifest themselves in
patterns of action--actual behavior, creativity in the arts, the shaping
of social institutions, etc.

I believe this kind of dialogue in extremely important, that much of
what's happening in education today is more attributable to ritual than to
reason, and that most of the problems in ordinary classrooms--the
necessity for extrinsic motivators, the dropouts, the accusations of
students of irrelevancy, the lack of seriousness, the failure of the
profession to attract the best minds, the aimlessness of many of the
young--stem ultimately from the lack of a clear conception of the task at
hand.

Marion Brady

--
gmbrady@aol.com