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Ridnouer beli. Read more. March 05, He may say, for example, that education is the most effective way, or the only way, of socialising the young, of converting them from human animals into human beings, or of enabling them to realise their intellectual and moral potentialities. Or he may say that education is the best way to establish a sense of social solidarity, by giving everyone a common cultural background.

It is not important here whether or not such contentions are true. It is important to notice that they could be true or false. It may well be true that education of the formal kind is an effective way of socialising the young or of securing social cohesion. Whether it is so or not is a matter of fact and the way to find out is to look at education in practice and see what happens.

In other words, theories of this kind are descriptive theories, purporting to give a correct account of what education, as a matter of fact, does.

Such theories stand or fall according to the way the world happens to be. They belong to the social sciences, to descriptive sociology. The other kind of educational theory is one which does not set out, primarily at least, to give a description of the role or function of education but rather to give advice or rec- ommendations about what those engaged in educational practice ought to be doing. Theories of this kind exhibit a wide variety, in scope, content and complexity.

Some of them are fairly lim- ited in character, such as the theory that teachers should make sure that any new material introduced to the pupil should be linked to what he knows already, or that a child should not be told a fact before he has had a chance to find it out for himself.

Limited theories like this may perhaps be better called theories of teaching, or pedagogical theories. Other theories of this kind are wider in scope and more complex, such as the theory that education ought to promote the development of the innate potentialities of the pupil, or that it ought to prepare him for work, or to be a good citizen or a good democrat.

These overall types of educational theory are often met with in the writings of those who for other reasons are known as philosophers. Plato, for instance, gives a general theory of education in the dialogue known as The Republic, in which his aim is to recommend a cer- tain type of man as worthy to be the ruler of a distinctive type of society.

Rousseau gives a general theory of education in Emile. General theories of education are very often influential essays in propaganda. Two further points need to be made here about these general, prescriptive theories. First, it must be recognised that, unlike theories about education, they do not belong to the social sciences. They are not meant to be descriptions of what actually goes on in the world, but are recommendations about what ought to be done.

As such they involve a deliberate com- mitment on the part of the theorist, an assumption of some end which he considers ought to be adopted and worked for.

This value commitment means that theories of this kind cannot be verified or validated in the way that scientific, descriptive theories may be. Whereas a scientist is committed only to the formal assumption that the truth is worth having but not to any prior notion about what that truth should be, an educational theorist commits himself initially to the conviction that a certain substantial state of affairs is desirable, that a certain type of individual should exist.

So whilst a scientific theory may be established or rejected simply by checking it against the facts of the empirical world, the validation of a prescriptive theory demands a more complex and piecemeal approach, involving both an appeal to empirical evidence and a justification of a substantial value judgement. This book takes the view that to call them such is misleading. Not all that is written by philosophers qualifies as philosophy, and these comprehensive practical theories of edu- cation are not themselves philosophical products.

They are general theories of education offered by philosophers. They may be closely connected with philosophy of education but the connection is not that of equivalence or identity. What the connection is, in fact, now needs to be looked at.

In section 1 it was said that contemporary philosophy tends now to be seen as a higher-order activity which deals with conceptual and linguistic problems arising out of ground-floor activities like science, mathematics and history, using the content of these disciplines as subject matter.

In section 2 it was maintained that education itself is a first-order activity, concerned with teaching and developing the young. Education has its own immediate higher-order activity, educational theorising, the making of theories about education and theories of education.

The further point was made that philosophy of education is another higher-order activity parasitic upon the practice and theory of education. It is not the same thing as educational theory, but it takes theory as its main subject matter. This contention must now be dealt with in more detail. Teachers engage themselves professionally in educational activities, ground-floor activ- ities of a certain kind. They teach in various ways: they set tasks for pupils, they try to motivate pupils, to help them, to control their performances, and to improve their under- standing and skills.

In doing all this they necessarily act on theories of a practical kind. Even mun- dane, everyday classroom activities like asking children to be quiet, to open their books and to write in them are based on theories, limited theories admittedly, but theories none- theless. It is held as a theory that if you want pupils to hear what you say you must see to it that they are reasonably quiet; that if the teacher wants them to write something he must see that they have writing materials.

If the teacher allows children to work in groups, this follows from a theory about the best way to achieve his educational ends; if he organises their work on the basis of individual discovery, this too follows from a theory. All practice is theory-loaded and educational theory is logically prior to educational practice.

Unless what is done is done according to some theory, bearing in mind some desirable end to be achieved and the means to achieve it, it is not practice at all, merely random behaviour. What applies to everyday classroom affairs applies to the general stance a teacher takes up about his work. If he deliberately allows the children the maximum amount of freedom in what they do, he does so according to some libertarian theory; if his teaching is didactic and authoritarian, this once again follows from a theory about the way in which the desired educational end is best achieved.

More generally still, if his teaching aims at producing well-integrated personalities, or democratic citizens or dedicated communists or dedicated Christians, he is in each case acting on a theory. It is well worth insisting on this priority of theory to practice, since it is often thought to be the other way round, that theory always follows on practice. The fact is that what is codified in theoretical treatises are either those theories which have already been put into practice, or those which it is thought ought to be so.

Theories may be amended or refined as a result of putting them into practice, but in no way does practice precede some theory. This is true of education as of practice generally. Behind all educational practice lies a theory of some kind. Now, what can be put into practice can be put into words and talked about. So in addi- tion to the actual practices of the classroom there is talk about what is done there and what ought to be done there. This is educational discourse which, in so far as it is serious, will consist partly of descriptions of what is being done, what is being taught and how, what results are being obtained, and partly of recommendations about what ought to be done, with arguments to back up these recommendations.

Educational discourse will consist largely of educational theory more or less informally expressed. At the classroom or staff- room level the theories will be at their most informal, often more implied than explicit, and will usually only be made explicit when assertions or recommendations are challenged. At educational conferences theory may well be more detailed, structured and explicit.

When the discourse comes to be formally set down, in books, the theories will be at their most explicit, with serious attempts at a convincing rationale. At both the practical and theoreti- cal levels the specific conceptual apparatus will be employed. And in so far as there is explicit theorising about education there will be argument and attempts at justification, since prescriptive educational theory is never simply a matter of assertion. Theory will involve recommendations backed up by reasons, which may be appropriate or not, relevant or not, adequate or not.

His concern with it will be twofold. He will be interested in the conceptual apparatus employed. He will want to examine the major concepts used by practising teachers and theorists to see what exactly is being said by this kind of language. What exactly is teaching? Ques- tions like these and the answers to them involve the philosopher in philosophical analysis in trying to work out the criteria for the correct use of these terms.

For educational discourse is to a large extent a matter of educational theory and theories need to be scrutinised to see whether they are well founded or not.

The philosopher is concerned with the acceptability of educational theory and a practical prerequisite of any enquiry into the credentials of a theory is that the terms used in it should be made as clear as possible. Conceptual analysis is thus the first step in the scrutiny. Then comes the examination of the theory itself, of its inter- nal coherence, its conformity with what is known about human nature, its conformity with accepted moral convictions and its general practicability.

Confronted with a general theory of education the philosopher will ask: what is being recommended here? This scrutiny may be carried out in more than one way. One way would be to take a his- torical approach and deal with the more important theories of education in turn, beginning with Plato and working through those of, say, Rousseau, Mill, Froebel and Spencer, and ending with more or less modern theorists like Dewey. This would require an examination of the various assumptions made in each case, assumptions about what was to count as an educated man, about human nature, about the nature of knowledge and methods, testing each assumption, and the argument as a whole, to see how far what was being said could be rationally maintained.

Another way, which will be followed in the remainder of this book, is to look at educational theory in terms of major topics of interest which have emerged. In the past, and still today, those who have been concerned with education have put forward a number of views and have adopted a wide range of positions respecting educational prac- tice. These views have ranged from more or less conventional and unreflecting comments on schooling to detailed accounts of the roles and functions of education in society.

They have attempted answers to questions like: what is education? What is the purpose of it? What should be taught? Why should some subjects be taught and not others?

How should pupils be taught? How should they be disciplined and controlled? Who should be educated and how should educational advantages be distributed? In other words they try to answer questions about the curriculum, about worthwhile knowledge, about teaching methods, about social considerations like the need for equality, freedom, authority and democracy in education.

These answers have been embodied in educational theories, either explicit or implicit in practice. Questions like these and the answers to them have interested not only the great historical theorists like Plato and Rousseau, but also many of those engaged in everyday educational affairs. Philosophy of education, which is concerned with the theories on which such positions are grounded, can be most usefully engaged in a critical scrutiny of these views and answers.

It is central to the thesis of this book that practice is theory- loaded. If this is correct, then the need for such a scrutiny is obvious. Inadequate theory will lead to inadequate practice and inadequate practice to inadequately educated people. Philosophy of education thus has an important social function quite apart from any intrinsic interest it may have.

It is not proposed here to defend this view of philosophy or to suggest that this is the only way in which philosophy may be understood. Indeed, as was indicated earlier, it is by no means clear that this view explains adequately all that a philosopher of education tries to do, since most of the problems that concern him do not arise from linguistic confusion but are more often problems about justification.

What usually went under this heading in the past were comprehensive theories of education, general theories which tried to deal with education in something like the way in which metaphysicians dealt with reality. These historical general theories often had great merits and they are still worthy of study, but they also had considerable shortcomings, some of which will be referred to in the next chapter.

One major disadvantage which beset them was that they were often grounded on assumptions not generally acceptable, often adopted unargued and seldom based on systematic research. Thus understood philosophy of education may lack the glamour attached to the provision of largescale educational recommendations and to the philosophy which deals with the giant confusions of metaphysics.

Philosophers of education are rarely able to get rid of an educational problem by dissolving it. Nevertheless, the patient examination of the conceptual apparatus of educational discourse and the painstaking enquiry into the credentials of educational theorising, past and present, make up in utility for what they may lack in intellectual excitement.

Two further points may be made by way of con-clusion to this chapter. The distinction made above between educational theorising and philosophy of education, though useful as a heuristic strategy, is by no means so clear-cut as the account given might seem to suggest.

The borderline between these two activities is not always well-defined and it is sometimes a matter of emphasis whether a writer may be said to be offering a theory or engaging in philosophy. Philosophers need not offer educational theories of their own, but they may do so, either explicitly, as Plato does, or implicitly, by registering approval or disapproval of an existing theory. Another philoso- pher who wishes to criticise or reject the theory would by implication be giving support to a rival theory in its stead.

The line where philosophical criticism of one theory passes over to the affirmation of another is a very fine one. Notwithstanding this blurring of the edges, however, it will still be helpful to think of theory as a body of overt recommendations for practice and philosophy as being the critical examination of such theories.

The second point is that while this book is about philosophy of education it will not confine itself to a description of what philosophers of education are trying to do. The best way of introducing philosophy is to do some philosophy and so from time to time in the following chapters some elementary philosophising will be tried out. A beginning has already been made. The distinction between theories which are primarily descriptive in function and those which are primarily prescriptive, involving a substantial commitment to some end thought desirable, is part of the analysis of what constitutes a theory, an analysis of the concept.

Moreover, the point that, contrary to some popular belief, theory is logically prior to practice is itself a conclusion of philosophical interest, arising as it does out of an analysis of what counts as a practice. Perhaps the best introduction is J. This may be followed up by J. Application of the new philosophical approach to the problems of education may be found in J. Archambault ed. An elementary introduction to the nature of educational theory is given in T.

Moore, Educational Theory: An Introduction. A more technical treatment of this topic may be found in papers by P. Hirst and D. The scope of philosophy of education is dealt with in articles by P. Hirst and R. Peters in The Study of Education ed. Peters, The Logic of Education. Much of the remainder of this book will be an attempt to show how general theories of education throw up topics of philosophical interest and how a philosopher of education might react to the pronouncements made in such theories.

The nature of a general theory of education has already been indicated. A general theory differs from a limited theory in that it sets out to give a comprehensive programme for producing a certain type of person, an educated man, whereas a limited theory is con- cerned with particular educational issues, such as how this subject should be taught, or how children of this age and this ability should be dealt with.

Plato, in The Republic, offers a number of limited theories of education, how to give children a sense of the orderliness and regularity of nature, how to deal with poets and poetry in education, how to make sure that the future soldiers are healthy and strong, and so on, but he does so within a general theory which aims at producing a certain type of individual, one capable of ruling the state.

A general theory of education will thus contain within itself a number of particular and limited theories as part of its overall recommendations for practice.

Any practical theory will involve a set of assumptions or presuppositions which together form the basis of an argument. A general theory of educa- tion will involve presuppositions of a general kind.

One of them will be a commitment to value, to some supposedly worthwhile end to be achieved; in this case some general notion of an educated man. There will also be assumptions about the raw material to be worked on, the nature of pupils, or more generally the nature of man; and assumptions about the nature of knowledge and skill and about the effectiveness of various pedagogical methods.

These various assumptions will constitute the premisses of an argument whose conclusion will be a set of practical recommendations about what should be done in education. These are the main centres of philosophical interest in this field. This chapter will concentrate on an examination of two of these centres of interest: the assumptions made about education and its end, its aims and purposes; and the assumptions made about the nature of man.

This is a commitment to value and a logical prerequisite of there being a theory at all. All practical theories, limited or general, must begin with some notion of a desirable end to be attained. Formally a general theory of education can be said to have one aim only: to produce a certain type of person, an educated man. The interesting question is how to give substantial content to this formal aim. There are two ways in which this might be done. The first is to develop an analysis of the concept of education, to work out in detail the criteria which govern the actual use of this term.

The criteria will be those which enable us to mark off the educated man from one who is not. The task of working out these criteria falls to the analytical philosopher of education. At the outset of this enterprise we meet with a complication.

In one of its uses it functions in a more or less descriptive way. This is a perfectly acceptable use of the word, so that it would not be inappropriate to say of a man that his education came to him as a street urchin, or in a mining camp, or in the army. A more restricted use would be to use it to describe what happens to an individual in specifically educational institutions like schools or colleges. A more restricted sense still is one which imports into the notion of education some reference to value.

Education, on this interpretation, is a normative or value term, and implies that what happens to the individual improves him in some way. The purely descriptive sense of the term carried no such implication; to comply in this case it is enough to have attended the school for a certain period. According to the normative use, an educated man is an improved man, and as such a desirable endproduct, someone who ought to be produced. Such a person would have specific characteristics, such as the possession of certain sorts of knowledge and skill, and the having of certain attitudes themselves regarded as worth having.

The educated man would be one whose intellectual abilities had been developed, who was sensitive to matters of moral and aesthetic concern, who could appreciate the nature and force of mathematical and scientific thinking, who could view the world along historical and geographical perspectives and who, moreover, had a regard for the importance of truth, accuracy, and elegance in thinking.

A further requirement is that the educated man is one whose knowledge and understanding is all of a piece, integrated, and not merely a mass of acquired information, piecemeal and unrelated. Taken all together these various criteria allow us to give content to the merely formal notion of the educated man by specifying what conditions have to be satisfied before the term has application. The formal aim simply demands an educated man, but this notion will vary in content according to the time, place and culture in which the aim is to be realised.

For Plato the educated man was one trained in mathematical and philosophical disciplines, cognizant of true reality in his grasp of the Forms and both able and willing to act as guardian and ruler of the state. Present-day shapers of societies, like the rulers of Cuba, emergent Africa, and China will no doubt have very different notions from those of nineteenth century Europe.

Each will see the educated man in terms of what social demands will be made on such a man. It is perhaps worth mentioning here that the fact that the substance of the aim is bound to be culture-relative is a good reason why no general theory can provide recommendations applicable to all educational situations and why no such general theory will command universal acceptance. What is important, however, is the fact that common to all such theories is the assumption that the educated man is someone worth producing.

This assumption establishes the educational aim, the logical point of departure for a general theory of education. Unless some end is regarded as valuable no practical theory is possible. A practical theory consists simply of an argument providing recommendations for achieving some end thought desirable. Practice, it was maintained in chapter 1, is always theory-loaded. The questions are: what are you doing? To take the second of these questions first, to ask: What are you doing it for?

To the question: what are you learning French for? The question: what are you digging that piece of ground for?

In both these examples the questions could have been put in terms of asking the purpose of the activity. In each case the answer is given in instrumental terms, one thing being done in order to achieve another, the end-product lying outside the activity itself. A rather different approach is indicated in the first question: What are you doing? Here someone is being asked to specify what his action is, to state its content. The answers might in this case be: I am trying to master the French language, or: I am digging over this piece of ground thoroughly.

Here the explana- tion does not refer to any external end, it merely makes clear what is being done. In these cases it would be appropriate to ask the agent not about his purpose but about his aim. The question is: what exactly are you about?

The question about purpose is another question altogether. This point may be summed up by saying that whereas to talk of purposes is always to refer to some external end to which the activity is directed, to talk of aims is not to refer to external ends but to the activity itself, to its internal end.

A teacher may be asked to state his aim in a particular lesson, that is, to make clear what he is doing or trying to do. He may also be asked what is really a separate question, namely, why he is doing it, what he is doing it for, what his purpose is in trying to get his pupils to write poetry or to solve quadratic equations.

So, too, it is possible to ask of education itself, what its aims are and what its purpose may be. Now, the aim of education, as has already been suggested, is to produce an educated man, one who meets the various criteria of intellectual, moral and aesthetic development.

Education can, of course, be said to have subordinate aims, as, for example, the development of literary awareness, or the giving of an appreciation of scientific or mathematical modes of thinking, but taken all together these various subordinate aims coalesce in the overall end of making a certain kind of person.

No reference is made here, however, to any good outside education. It is quite another question to ask: what is education for? Answers to this question are different from those given in response to questions about aims. The purpose of education, it might be said, is to increase the number of literate, knowledgeable citizens, or to produce sufficient numbers of doctors, lawyers, civil servants, engineers and the like.

Here the reference is to valuable ends which lie outside the actual practice of education, social, political or economic ends.

This is an important conceptual point. To ask the aim of education is to conceive of education as an end in itself, something intrinsically good, involving the development of a person. To ask its purpose or purposes is to think of it as a device designed to bring about external goods, skilled workers, executives, professionals.

It is because of this distinction that it is often said that the aims of education are internal and that it is inappropriate to ask for an aim which lies outside education itself. An unfortunate result of a recognition that education is intrinsically valuable is the conclusion that to go further and ask the purpose of education is a trifle ill-bred.

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