QUOTATIONS ARE CATEGORIZED ACCORDING TO AUTHOR AND ACCORDING TO THEME (quotations theme)
AUTHORS: Jacob Bronowski, Jerome Bruner, Geoffrey and Renate Numella Caine, Fritjof Capra, John Cremin, John Dewey, Jack Forem, Paulo Freire (problem-posing education), Robert Fritz, Erich Fromm, John Gatto, Norman Goble, Paul Goodman, Kevin Harris, Karen Horney, Ivan Illich, William James, Lawrence Kohlberg, Alfred Korzybski, Abraham Maslow, Ron Miller, Maria Montessori, Henry Overstreet, Jean Piaget, David Purpel, Carl Rogers, Rudolph Steiner, Roger Walsh...
Jacob Bronowski. The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination New Haven: Yale University Press 1978
Bronowski, J. Ascent of Man, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1973.
"Progress is the exploration of error" (Jacob Bronowski The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination. London, New Haven: Yale University Press 1978 112)
"Progress comes only when accepted values are challenged... Dissent is an instrument of intellectual evolution" (Bronowski 60
science... A science necessarily values truth. "Truth is central to science" (Bronowski, 56)
The search for truth requires independence of mind which safeguards originality - the tool with which new discoveries are made. Independence of mind and originality must be allowed expression and thus 'dissent' must be valued. "The high moments of dissent are monuments in our literature: the writings of Milton, the Declaration of Independence, the sermons of John Wesley and the poetry of Shelley. (Bronowski 58
"There cannot be a philosophy, there cannot even be a decent science, without humanity." (Bronowski, Ascent of Man, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1973. page 5)
"The understanding of nature has as its goal the understanding of human nature, and of the human condition within nature." (Bronowski, Ascent of Man, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1973. page 5)
"My ambition ...to create a philosophy of nature rather than of science. Its subject is a contemporary version of what used to be called Natural Philosophy." (Bronowski, Ascent of Man, 5)
Role of imagnation in cognition... "The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike... creative mind ... creative mind and maverick personality often go together. (Jacob Bronowski. The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination London, New Haven: Yale University Press 1978, page 111)
Human ability for tool making... The human organism is the only animal which uses tools with foresight - makes tools for future use. Goodall's observations with chimpanzees: None made a probing stick in preparation for future (to probe the ants nests). Probing sticks were only made once the ants' nest had been found. (Jacob Bronowski. The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination. London, New Haven: Yale University Press 1978. page 33)
Jerome Bruner Process of Education. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966.
....... The Relevance of Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. 1971
"The objective of education is not the production of self-confident fools." (Bruner, Jerome. Process of Education. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966. 65)
Jerome Bruner questions the scientific nature of a 'pedagogical theory.' "It is even questionable whether it (pedagogical theory) is principally a scientific theory in the explanatory sense." (100) "A theory of instruction is a political theory in the proper sense that it derives from consensus concerning the distribution of power within the society - who shall be educated and to fulfill what roles? In the very same sense, pedagogical theory must surely derive from a conception of economics, for where there is division of labor within the society and an exchange of goods and services for wealth and prestige, then how people are educated and in what number and with what constraints on the use of resources are all relevant issues. The psychologist or educator who formulates pedagogical theory without regard to the political, economic and social setting of the educational process courts triviality and merits being ignored in the community and in the classroom."(1971 Bruner Relevance of Education 100)
"What is most unique about man is that his growth as an individual depends on the history of his species - not upon a history reflected in genes and chromosomes but, rather, reflected in a culture external to man's tissue and wider in scope than is embodied in any one man's competency. Perforce then, the growth of mind is always growth assisted from the outside. And since a culture, particularly an advanced one, transcends the bounds of individual competence, the limits for individual growth are by definition greater than what any single person has previously attained. For the limits of growth depend on how a culture assists the individual to use such individual potential as he may possess." (Jerome Bruner, The Relevance of Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc. 1971 page 5)
"Is there some sense in which principles of pedagogy can be derived from our knowledge of man as a species - from knowledge of his characteristic growth and dependence, of the properties of his nervous system, of his modes of dealing with culture?" (Jerome Bruner, 1971, Relevance of Education 118)
"It is even questionable whether it (pedagogical theory) is principally a scientific theory in the explanatory sense." (100) "A theory of instruction is a political theory in the proper sense that it derives from consensus concerning the distribution of power within the society - who shall be educated and to fulfill what roles? In the very same sense, pedagogical theory must surely derive from a conception of economics, for where there is division of labor within the society and an exchange of goods and services for wealth and prestige, then how people are educated and in what number and with what constraints on the use of resources are all relevant issues. The psychologist or educator who formulates pedagogical theory without regard to the political, economic and social setting of the educational process courts triviality and merits being ignored in the community and in the classroom."(1971 Relevance of Education 100)
"...educational reform confined only to the schools and not to the society at large is doomed to eventual triviality." (Jerome Bruner. The Relevance of Education. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. 1971 p. 98)
RENATE NUMMELA CAINE and GEOFFREY CAINE
Caine, Renate Nummela and Caine, Geoffrey Making Connections: Teaching and the Human Brain. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1991
During the twentieth century, the system of education has been based on a set of assumptions which have obscured the importance of the brain's natural capacities. "With the rise of industrialization and the consequent focus on the economy, schools have had to provide a work force for the hierarchical and mechanical workplace of the factory, of business and of industry. Hierarchical and mechanical school environments have been modeled on the basis of the school's function to provide a work force for the economic infrastructure of the society." (Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections. 20-21.)
"...a new model for educational theory and practice is desperately needed."
"What is needed is a framework for a more complex form of learning that makes it possible for us to organize and make sense of what we already know" about educational theory and methods. (viii) "Such a framework has to have a 'bottom line' integrity; for us that means it must integrate human behaviour and perception, emotions and physiology. To make our point, we borrow heavily from cognitive psychology, education, philosophy, sociology, science and technology, the new physics, and physiological responses to stress, as well as the neurosciences....
Wholistic education is based on a reconceptualization of the 'traditional' teaching methodologies. Wholistic education is based on the acknowlegement of the brain's natural rules for meaningful learning. Known as brain-based learning, wholistic learning uses to full advantage the brain's capacity to make connections. A reconceptualization of teaching for brain-based learning "requires a framework with 'bottom line' integrity.... that means it must integrate human behaviour and perception, emotions and physiology... borrowing heavily from cognitive psychology, education, philosophy, sociology, science and technology, the new physics, and physiological responses to stress, as well as the neurosciences." (Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections p.viii )
The integration of behavior, perception, emotions and physiology is a natural outcome of the integrated functions of the human brain.
"We must not forget that much of what happens in the school is in the context of a larger society in action... one cannot underestimate the impact of the world beyond the school... cannot be underestimated. In terms of immersion and how the brain learns, all of society participates in education. In terms of how the brain learns, we need to think in new, global ways about education generally." (125)
"The research of the neuroscientists and psychobiologists, together with the knowledge and intuition of educators and psychologists, points to the need for a more deliberate involvement of the whole brain in the process of learning." (Caine Making Connections p.7)
BRAIN
"Three major layers or 'brains' were established successively in human evolution. The oldest is the reptilian system or R-complex, the second the limbic system, and the third the neocortex. Each has a separate function but all three layers interact. Each can become dominant depending on the circumstances. The R-complex consists largely of the brain stem. Its function is related to physical survival and body maintenance. It is involved with digestion, reproduction, circulation, breathing, stress responses, territorial instincts, social dominance etc. Behaviors associated with the R-complex are automatic, ritualistic and resistant to change. When threat is perceived, the need for survival and safety needs predominate and the R-complex is activated. The limbic system functions in primal activities related to food and sex, and in activities related to the expression and mediation of emotions and feelings, including emotions linked to the attachment and care of young. Included in the limbic system are the 'amygdala' which functions in the association of events with emotion, and the 'hippocampus' which functions in spatial memory. Protective and loving feelings become increasingly complex when the limbic system interacts with the thinking part of the brain. Five sixths of the brain is the cerebral cortex, neocortex or 'neomammalian brain.' two millimeters in thickness, covers the two cerebral hemispheres. The numerous morphological subdivisions are based on the numerous neurological functions, seat of language, speech, thought and sensory processing. These include motor-control and some associative events. Sensory-receiving areas and motor-control areas are well-defined. Areas involved with associative events are less well-defined. The cortex is considered to be the structural and functional 'interface' between input of environmental stimuli and brain output. The interaction of the three brain layers forms the biological basis for the interaction of concepts, emotions and behaviors which make up the learning process." (Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections, Alexandria, Va. ASCD, 1991, 51-58.)
For reasons unknown, there was rapid brain growth during the last 250,000 years." "Three major layers or 'brains' were established successively in human evolution (Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections, Alexandria, Va. ASCD, 1991, 51-58.)..
The brain's natural function is the search for meaning in experience. 'Brain-based learning' is confluent with the brain's natural rules for meaningful learning. (Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections, (Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 1991), 79-88.)
"In general the findings in brain research indicate that effective learning results from the wholistic response of the whole brain to incoming stimuli.Wholistic brain-based learning for natural knowledge has meaning for the present and for the future".
"The brain has an immense capacity to learn and remember in the context of the 'here and now' of space and time. The brain naturally learns and remembers the moment-to-moment events that constitute life experience. In order to make sense of new experience, the brain attempts to categorize and pattern new information with the information which is already stored in memory. The brain's mechanism of 'patterning' allows for the rapid processing of complex stimuli. At a very high rate of speed, the brain processes new experiential information in the context of previous patterns. Creating spatial maps and patterns, the brain naturally thrives on complexity. In its attempt to process new information from complex sensory input, the brain automatically recalls previously stored programs and formulates new programs. It formulates 'programs' which provide it with crucial information about the surroundings. Allowing for the instant memory of experiences, new information is rapidly processed in the 'spatial memory system' located in the brain's hippocampus. Necessary for survival, the spatial memory system drives the brain's innate search for meaning and is constantly monitoring and comparing the present with past surroundings and experiences. Learning and memory are most effective when facts and skills are 'embedded' in the natural spatial memory and in the context of real life experiences. New learning experiences are naturally 'embedded' in previous learning experiences. With continued learning and experience, the spatial memory system is enriched over time." (Renate Nummela Caine and Geoffrey Caine, Making Connections, Alexandria, Va.: ASCD, 1991, 40-42.)
As a product of human evolution through natural selection, the human brain can best be understood as an organ of learning, necessarily adapted for the survival of the species. The aim of brain research is to describe the functioning of the mind and the learning process. The aim of brain research is the search for the neural basis of mental phenomena, which include urges, desires, subconscious forms of learning, emotions and affect as well as conscious thought, imagination and creativity. Brain research is based on the assumption that this is possible once there is sufficient explanation for the specific functions of individual neurons and their connections. Mental events can be explained by patterns of nerve impulses in the brain
Learning is a physiological function of the brain involving the transmission of signals along nerve cells - neurons - and across their junctional connections - synapses. Learning involves the modification of the synapse. Learning occurs as a result of changing the effectiveness of synapses so that their influence on other neurons also changes.
"One of the most important lessons to derive from brain research is that in a very important sense, all learning is experiential. What we learn depends on the global experience, not just on the manner of presentation. We do not automatically learn enough from our experience. What matters is how experience is used. ...in deliberately teaching for the expansion of natural knowledge, we need both to help students have appropriate experiences and to help them capitalize on the experiences." (Caine Making Connections 104)
'Teaching to the brain' is teaching for 'natural knowledge'. Natural knowledge is personal perceptual knowledge which provides meaning to one's world and purpose. Knowledge becomes natural when it is connected with previously acqured knowledge. Meaningful learning is creative learning. Engaging the imagination, creative learning is inherently joyful, challenging and absorbing. It is learning for understanding. Memorization becomes a part of the creative learning process. New information is related to knowledge already acquired. Successful teaching methodologies are those which recognize and encourage the learning process as a natural phenomenon. "Teaching to the brain is teaching with the brain's rules." (Renate Nummela and Tennes M. Rosengren. What's Happening in Students' Brains May Redefine Teaching. Educational Leadership May 1986 )
Fritjof Capra The Turning Point
Thesis of book: the various 'crises' are all different facets of one and the same crisis. This is a crisis of perception. "Like the crisis in physics in the 1920s, it derives from the fact that we are trying to apply the concepts of an outdated world view - the mechanistic world view of Cartesian-Newtonian science - to a reality that can no longer be understood in terms of these concepts."
"The current crisis, is not just a crisis of individuals, governments or social institutions, it is a transition of planetary dimensions....during the phase of rebirth it will be important to make the transition as painless as possible. It will therefore be crucial to go beyond attacking particular social groups or institutions, and to show how their attitudes and behaviour reflect a value system that underlies our whole culture and that has now become outdated. It will be necessary to recognise widely communicate the fact that our current social changes are manifestations of a much broader and inevitable cultural transformation. Only then will we be able to approach the kind of harmonious, peaceful cultural transition described in one of humanity's oldest books of wisdom, the Chinese 'I Ching', or book of Changes: 'After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force...The movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results."
"The Chinese philosophers saw reality, whose ultimate essence they called Tao, as a process of continual flow and change. In their view all phenomena we observe participate in this cosmic process and are thus intrinsically dynamic. The principal characteristic of the Tao is the cyclical nature of its ceaseless motion; all developments in nature-those in the physical world as well as those in the psychological and social realms-show cyclical patterns. The Chinese gave this idea of cyclical patterns a definite structure by introducing the polar opposites 'yin' and 'yang', the two poles that set the limits for the cycles of change: 'The yang, having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yin; the yin having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yang.' In the Chinese view, all manifestations of the Tao are generated by the dynamic interplay of these two archetypal poles, which are associated with many images of opposites taken from nature and from social life. It is important, and very difficult for us Westerners, to understand that these opposites do not belong to different categories but are extreme poles of a single whole. Nothing is only yin or only yang. All natural phenomena are manifestations of a continuous oscillation between the two poles, all transitions taking place gradually and in unbroken progression. The natural order is one of dynamic balance between yin and yang." (Capra 35)
"The polar opposites 'yin' and 'yang' are the extreme poles of a single whole cycle; they are not two separate categories. classical mechanics versus quantum mechanics: In quantum theory individual events do not always have a well defined cause. For example, the jummp of an electron from one atomic orbit to another, or the disintegration of a subatomic particle, may occur spontaneously without any single event causing it. We can never predict when and how such a phenomenon is going to happen; we can only predict its probability. This does not mean that atomic events occur in completely arbitrary fashion; it means only that they are not brought about by local causes. The behavior of any part is determined by its nonlocal connections to the whole, and since we do not know these connections precisely, we have to replace the narrow classical notion of cause and effect by the wider concept of statistical causality. The laws of atomic physics are statistical laws, according to which the probabilities for atomic events are determined by the dynamics of the whole system. Whereas in classical mechanics the properties and behavior of the parts determine those of the whole, the situation is reversed in quantum mechanics; it is the whole that determines the behavior of the parts. " (Capra Turning Point 86)
"Relativity theory has made the cosmic web come alive, so to speak, by revealing its intrinsically dynamic character; by showing that its activity is the very essence of its being. In modern physics the image of the universe as a machine has been transcended by a view of it as one indivisible, dynamic whole whose parts are essentially interrelated and can be understood only as patterns of a cosmic porcess. At the subatomic level the interrelatons and interactions between the parts of the whole are more fundamental than the parts themselves. There is motion but there are, ultimately, no moving objects; there is activity but there are no actors; there are no dancers, there is only the dance." (92)
"One of the most powerful and influential images of the psyche is found in Plato's philosophy. In the Phaedrus the soul is pictured as a charioteer driving two horses, one representing the bodily passions and the other the higher emotions. This metaphor encapsulates the two approaches to consciousness - the biological and the spiritual - which have been pursued, without being reconciled, throughout Western philosophy and science. This conflict generated the 'mind-body problem' that is reflected in many schools of psychology, most notably in the conflict between the psychologies of Freud and Jung. In the seventeenth century, the mind-body problem was cast into the form that shaped the consequent development of Western scientific psychology. According to Descartes, mind and body belonged to two parallel but fundamentally different realms, each of which could be studied without reference to the other. The body was governed by mechanical laws, but the mind - or soul - was free and immortal. The soul was clearly and specifically identified with consciousness and could affect the body by interacting with it through the brain's pineal gland. Human emotions were seen as combinations of six elementary 'passions' and described in a semimechanical way. As far as knowledge and perception were concerned, Descartes believed that knowing was a primary function of human reason, that is, of the soul, which could take place independently of the brain. Clarity of concepts, which played such an important role in Descartes' philosophy and science, could not be derived from the confused performance of the senses but was the result of an innate cognitive disposition. Learning and experience merely provided the occasions for the manifestation of innate ideas." (Cartesian doctrine) (166)
"Hobbes and Locke refuted Descartes' concept of innate ideas and maintained that there was nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses. At birth, the human mind was, in Locke's famous phrase, a 'tabula rasa', a blank tablet upon which ideas were imprinted through sensory perceptions. This notion served as the starting point for the mechanistic theory of knowledge, in which sensations were the basic elements of the mental realm and were combined into more complex structures by the process of association."(167)
"The modern science of psychology was a result of nineteenthcentury developments in anatomy and physiology. Intensive studies of the brain and the nervous system established specific relations between mental functions and brain structures, clarified various functions of the nervous system, and brought detailed knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the sensory organs. As a result of these advances, the ingenious but naive mechanistic models outlined by Descartes were formulated in modern terms, and the Newtonian orientation of psychology became firmly established." (169)
"The world view and value system that lie at the basis of our culture and that have to be carefully reexamined were formulated in their essential outlines in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Between 1500 and 1700 there was a dramatic shift in the way people pictured the world and in their whole way of thinking. The new mentality and the new perception of the cosmos gave our Western civilization the features that are characteristic of the modern era. They became the basis of the paradigm that has dominated our culture for the past three hundred years and is now about to change. Before 1500 the dominant worldview in Europe, as well as in most other civilizations, was organic. People lived in small, cohesive communities and experienced nature in terms of organic relationships, characterized by the interdependence of spirirtual and material phenomena and the subordination of individual needs to those of the community. The scientific framework of this organic world view rested on two authorities - Aristotle and the Church. In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas combined Aristotle's comprehensive system of nature with Christian theology and ethics, and in doing so, established the conceptual framework that remained unquestioned throughout the Middle Ages. The medieval outlook changed radically in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The notion of an organic, living and spiritual universe was replaced by that of the world as a machine, and the world machine became the dominant metaphor of the modern era. This development was brought about by revolutionary changes in physics and astronomy, culminating in the achievements of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton. The science of the seventeenth century was based on a new method of inquiry, advocated forcefully by Francis Bacon, which involved the mathematical description of nature and the analytic method of reasoning conceived by the genius of Descartes. Aknowledging the crucial role of science in bringing about these far-reaching changes, historians have called the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Age of the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution began with Nicolas Copernicus, who overthrew the geocentric view of Ptolemy and the Bible that had been acceptex dogma for more than a thousand years. After Copernicus the earth was nolonger the center of the universe but merely one of the many planets circling a minor star at the edge of the galaxy, and man was robbed of his proud position as the central figure of God's creation. Copernicus was fully aware that his view would deeeply offend the religious consciousness of his time; he delayed its publication until 1543, the year of his death, and even then he presented the heliocentric view merely as a hypothesis. Copernicus was followed by Kepler , a scientist and mystic, who searched for the harmony of the spheres and was able through painstaking work, with astronomical tables to formulate his celebrated empirical lawws of planetary motion which gave further support to the Copernican system. But the real change in scientific pinion was brought about by Galileo Galilei, who was alreacdy famous for discovering the laws of falling bodies when he turned his attention to astronomy. ..He discredited the old cosmology beyond any doubt and established then Copernican hypothesis as a valid scientific theory. He was he first to combine scientific experimentation with the use of mathematical language to formulate the laws of nature he discovered, and is therefore considered the father of modern science." (54)
The empirical approach with the use of a mathematical description of nature have remained important criteria of scientific theories up to the present day. The scientist's obsession with measurement and quantification during the past four hundred years has exacted a heavy toll. Experiences of feelings, motives, intentions, consciousness, spirit, values have been ignored. "Since Bacon, the goal of science has been knowledge that can be used to dominate and control nature, and today both science and technology are used predominantly for purposes that are profoundly antiecological."(56)
DESCARTES a brilliant mathematician, usually regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, affected by the new physics and astronomy. "He did not accept any traditional knowledge but set ut to build a whole new system of thought....At age twenty three,he experience an illumnaing vision that was to shape his entire life....in a suddenf lash of intuition he perceived ' the foundations of a marvellous science' which promised the unification of all knowledge....the firm belief in the certainty of scientific knowledge- Cartesian belief in scientific truthTo carry out his plan of building a complete and exact natural science, he developed a new method of reasoning which he presented in his most famous book, ..an introduction to science. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and Searching the Truth in the Sciences. The crux of Descartes' method is doubts. He doubts everything he can manage to doubtall traditional knowledge, the impressions of his senses, and even the fact that he has a body - until he reaches one thing he cannot doubt, the existence of himself as a thinker. In his celebrated statement, "Cogito, ergo sum," "I think, therefore I exist." From this Descartes deduces that the essence of human nature lies in thought, and that all the things we conceive clearly and distincty are true. The "conception of the pure and attentive mind" he calls 'intuition' and he affirms that "there are no paths to the certain knowledge of truth open to man except evident intuition and necessary deduction.... Descartes' method ('Cartesian method') is analytic. It consists in breaking up thoughts and problems into piecs and in arranging these in their logical order. This analytic method of reasoning is probably Descartes' greatest cntribution to science. ...Overemphasis on the Cartesian method has led to the fragmentation that is characteristic of both our general thinking and our academic disciplines , and to the widespread attitude of reductionism in science - the belief that all aspects of complex phenomena can be understood by reducing them to their constituent parts. (59) ...The Cartesian division between mind and matter has had a profound effect on Western thought. It has taught us to be aware of ourselves as isolated 'egos' existing 'inside' our bodies; it has led us to set a higher value on mental than on manual work; ...Descartes based his whole view of nature on this fundamental divisian between two independent and separate relms ; that of mind or 'res cogitans' the 'thinking thing' and that of matter, res 'extensa', the 'extended thsing'. Both mind and matter were the creations of God ....in subseuent centuriesa scientists omitted any explicit reference to God and developed their theories according to the Cartesian division, the humanities concentrating on the 'res cogitans' and the natural sciences on the 'res extensa.' For Descartes the world was a machine....governed by mathematical laws....the mechanical picture of nature was the paradigm of science in the period following Descartes.(60)
The organic world view of the Middle Ages had implied a vlaue system conducive to ecological behavior. ...The Cartesian view of the universe as a mechanical system provided a 'scientific' sanction for the manipulation and exploitation of nature that has become typical of Western culture. Descartes himself shared Bacon's view that the aim of science was the domination and control of nature..... (61)
Montesqieu wrote "Descartes has taught those who came after him how to discover his own errors."(62)
Descartes created the conceptual framework for seventeenth science but his view of nature as a perfecyt machine remained a vision during his lifetime. ...The man realized the Cartesian dream and completed the Scientific Revolution was Isaac Newton, born in England 1642, the year of Galileo's death. Newton developed a complete mathematical formulation of the mechanisticview of nature, and thus accomplished a synthesis of the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes. Newtonian physics, crowning achievment of seventeenth century science, provided a consistent mathematical theory of the world that remained the solid foundation of scientific thought well into the twentieth century.... Kepler had derived empoirical laws of planetary mootion by studying astronomical tables , and Galileo hasd performed ingenious experiments to discover the laws of falling bodies. Newton combined those two, discoveries by formulating the general laws of motion governing all objects in the solar system, from stones to planets. According to legend, the decisive insight occurred to Newton in a sudden flash of inspiration when he saw an apple fall from a tree. He realized that the apple was pulled toward the earth by the same force that pulled the planets toward the sun, and thus found the key to his grand synthesis. (63) ...
Newton presented his theory to the world in great detail in his Mathematicalk Principles of Natural Philosophy. The Principia, as the work is usually called for short after its original Latin title, comprises a comprehensive system of definitions, propositions, and proofs which scientists regarded as the correct description of nature for more than two hundred years (64)....
Before Newton there had been two opposing trends in seventeenth century science; the empirical inductive method represented by Bsaacon and the rational, deductive method represented by Descartes. Newton in his Principia, introduced the proper mixture of both methods, emphasizing that neither experiments without systematic interpretation nor deduction from first principles without experiemental evidence will lead to a reliable theory. Going beyond Bacon in his systematic experimentation and beyond Descartes inhis mathematical analysis, Newton unified the two trends and developed the methodology upon which natural science has been based ever since. ...The stage of the Newtonian universe , on which all physical phenomena took place, was the threedimensional space of classical Euclidean geometry. All changes in the physical world were described in terms of a separate dimension, time,which again was absolute having no connection with the material world and flowing smoothly from the past through the present to the future. Thge elements of the Newtonian world which moved in this absolute space and absolute time were material particles....The Newtonian model of matter was atomistic...all the particles were thought to be made of the same material substance. ..The motion of the particles was caused by the force of gravity which acted instantaneously over a distance....both the particles and the force of gravity created by God...(65)
.The physical phenomena themselves were not thought to be divine in any sense, and when science made it more and more dificult to believe in such a god, the divine disappeared completly from the scientific worldview, leaving behind the spiritual vacuum that has become characteristic of the mainstream of our culture. (66)
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used Newtonian mechanics with tremendous success. ...The picture of the world as a perfect machine, which had been introduced by Descartes, was now considered a proved fact and Newton became its symbol. (67).. Applying Newtonian mechanics to the sciences of human nature and human society, "Locke developed an atomistic view of spociety, describing it in terms of its basic building block, the human being. ...he attempopted to reduce the patterns observed in society to the behavior of its individuals. (69) ...
Locke's analysis of human behavior was based on that of an earlier philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, who had declared that all knowledge was based on sensory perception. ...Locke compared the human mind at birth to a 'tabula rasa', a completely blank tablet on which knowledge is printed once it is acquired through sensory experience.... According to Locke, 'natural laws ' were those which existed before any government was formed.Naurla laws included the freedom and equality of all individuals as well as the right to property, which represented the fruit of one's labor. Locke's ideas became the basis for the value system of the Enlightenment and had a strong influence on the develoment of modern economic and political thought. The ideals of individualism, property rights, free markets, and representative government, all of which can be traced back to Locke, contributed significantly to the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and are reflected in the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution.(69)
At the end of the nineteenth century Newtonian mechanics had lost its role as the fundamental theory of natural phenomena. Maxwell's electrodynamics and Darwin's theory of evolution involved concepts that clearly went beyond the Newtonian model and indicated that the universe was far more complex than Descartes and Newton had imagined. Nevertheless, the basic ideas underlying Newtonian physics, though sufficient to explain all natural phenomena, were still believed to be correct. The first three decades of our century changed this situation radically. Two developments in physics, culminating in relativity theory and in quantum theory, shattered all the principal concepts of the Cartesian worldview and Newtonian mechanics. (74)
In physics the mechanistic paradigm had to be abandoned at the level of the very small (in atomic and subatomic physics) and the level of the very large (in astrophysics and cosmology).(101)
Educational crisis represents a 'paradigm shift' "The current crisis, is not just a crisis of individuals, governments or social institutions, it is a transition of planetary dimensions... during the phase of rebirth it will be important to make the transition as painless as possible. It will therefore be crucial to go beyond attacking particular social groups or iinstitutions, and to show how their attitudes and behaviour reflect a value system that underlies our whole culture and that has now become outdated. It will be necessary to recognise and widely communicate the fact that our current social changes are manifestations of a much broader and inevitable cultural transformation. Only then will we be able to approach the kind of harmonious, peaceful cultural transition described in one of humanity's oldest books of wisdom, the Chinese 'I Ching', or Book of Changes: "After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force...The movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results."
holistic science: "The Chinese philosophers saw reality, whose ultimate essence they called Tao, as a process of continual flow and change. In their view all phenomena we observe participate in this cosmic process and are thus intrinsically dynamic. The principal characteristic of the Tao is the cyclical nature of its ceaseless motion; all developments in nature-those in the physical world as well as those in the psychological and social realms-show cyclical patterns. The Chinese gave this idea of cyclical patterns a definite structure by introducing the polar opposites 'yin' and 'yang', the two poles that set the limits for the cycles of change: 'The yang, having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yin; the yin having reached its climax retreats in favor of the yang.' In the Chinese view, all manifestations of the Tao are generated by the dynamic interplay of these two archetypal poles, which are associated with many images of opposites taken from nature and from social life. It is important, and very difficult for us Westerners, to understand that these opposites do not belong to different categories but are extreme poles of a single whole. Nothing is only yin or only yang. All natural phenomena are manifestations of a continuous oscillation between the two poles, all transitions taking place gradually and in unbroken progression. The natural order is one of dynamic balance between yin and yang." (Capra 35) The polar opposites 'yin' and 'yang' are the extreme poles of a single whole cycle; they are not two separate categories.
"Relativity theory has made the cosmic web come alive, so to speak, by revealing its intrinsically dynamic character; by showing that its activity is the very essence of its being. In modern physics the image of the universe as a machine has been transcended by a view of it as one indivisible, dynamic whole whose parts are essentially interrelated and can be understood only as patterns of a cosmic porcess. At the subatomic level the interrelatons and interactions between the parts of the whole are more fundamental than the parts themselves. There is motion but there are, ultimately, no moving objects; there is activity but there are no actors; there are no dancers, there is only the dance." (92)
quantum theory "In quantum theory individual events do not always have a well defined cause. For example, the jummp of an electron from one atomic orbit to another, or the disintegration of a subatomic particle, may occur spontaneously without any single event causing it. We can never predict when and how such a phenomenon is going to happen; we can only predict its probability. This does not mean that atomic events occur in completely arbitrary fashion; it means only that they are not brought about by local causes. The behavior of any part is determined by its nonlocal connections to the whole, and since we do not know these connections precisely, we have to replace the narrow classical notion of cause and effect by the wider concept of statistical causality. The laws of atomic physics are statistical laws, according to which the probabilities for atomic events are determined by the dynamics of the whole system. Whereas in classical mechanics the properties and behavior of the parts determine those of the whole, the situation is reversed in quantum mechanics; it is the whole that determines the behavior of the parts. " ( 86)
John Dewey. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. New York, London: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1938.
.... How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933.
...... Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education New York: The Free Press 1966
Fairhope experiment, the Organic School discussed by John Dewey in "Schools of Tomorrow", NY l915 "The development of fundamental sincerity is the basis of all morality." (Marietta Johnson "Thirty years with an idea" Fairhope experiment, the Organic School discussed by John Dewey in "Schools of Tomorrow", NY l915 page l20)
"Preparation for possible action in situations not as yet existent in actuality is an essential condition of, and factor in, all intelligent behavior."(John Dewey. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. New York, London: Holt Rinehart and Winston, 1938. page 56)
reflective thinking makes for intelligent action. In the development of the human species, intelligent action - intentional acts - based on reflective thinking was of survival value. He made observations of certain facts which on reflection were perceived as signs of probable future events for which he could prepare. To plant seeds, to cultivate the soil, to harvest grain are intentional acts which were only possible after relective thinking. With intentional acts the individual controls the environment. Reflective thinking is possible when things have meaning based on experience. Reflective thinking require open mind - free from prejudice and other habits which make it unwilling to consider new problems and entertain new ideas." (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933. page 30)
"The crucial problem for the educator...is to utilize for intellectual purposes the organic curiosity of physical exploration and lingusitic interrogation". (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company 1933. 39).
Curiosity as natural disposition "Every living creature, while it is awake, is in constant interaction with its surroundings. It is engaged in a process of give and take - of doing something to objects around it and receiving back something from them - impressions, stimuli. This process of interacting constitutes the framework of experience." (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company 1933 page 36)
"Curiosity is the basic factor in enlargement of experience and therefore a prime ingredient in the germs that are to be developed into reflective thinking." (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933 page 37)
"The crucial problem for the educator...is to utilize for intellectual purposes the organic curiosity of physical exploration and lingusitic interrogation. (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company 1933. 39).
"Curiosity on the intellectual plane is wonder." (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933 page 52)
"Arrested curiosity stays on the plane of interest in local gossip and prying inquisitiveness into other peoples' business. (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company , 1933 40)
What is required is a thorough interest -'wholehearted interest'. "When a person is absorbed, the subject caccies him on. Questions occur to him spontaneously; a flood of suggestions pour in on him; further inquiries and readings are indicated and followed... The interest provides the impetus for thinking. Intellectual 'responsibility' requires the search for meaning. This comes naturally with wholehearted interest. Thoroughness depends on intellectual responsibility. Moral integrity comes naturally with wholehearted interest and willingness to explore new experiences. " (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933 page 31)
Morality as a function of intelligence "A moral situation is one in which judgement and choice are required antecedently to overt action. The practical meaning of the situation - that is to say the action needed to satisfy it - is not self-evident. It has to be searched for. There are conflicting desires and alternative apparent goods. What is needed is to find the right course of action, the right good. Hence inquiry is exacted...This inquiry is intelligence." (Dewey The Quest for Certainty. page 255)
"We never educate directly, but indirectly by means of the environment. Whether we permit chance environments to do the work, or whether we design environments for the purpose makes a great deal of difference. And any environment is a chance environment so far as its educative influence is concerned unless it has been deliberately regulated with reference to its educative effect." ... much of what happens in the school is in the context of a larger society in action... one cannot underestimate the impact of the world beyond the school... In terms of how the brain learns, think globally about education...
"The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike... creative mind ... reflective thinking makes for intelligent action. In the development of the human species, intelligent action - intentional acts - based on reflective thinking was of survival value. He made observations of certain facts which on reflection were perceived as signs of probable future events for which he could prepare. To plant seeds, to cultivate the soil, to harvest grain are intentional acts which were only possible after relective thinking. With intentional acts the individual controls the environment. Reflective thinking is possible when things have meaning based on experience. Reflective thinking require open mind - free from prejudice anmd other habits which "make it unwilling to consider new problems and entertain new ideas." (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Refelective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933. page 30)
"Where can relevant education be found?"
In "The Science of Being and the Art of Living" Maharishi Mahesh Yogi defines the purpose of education: "The purpose of education is to culture the mind of a man so that he can accomplish all his aims in life. Education, to justify itself, should enable a man to use the full potential of his body, mind and spirit. It should also develop in him the ability to make the best use of his personality, surroundings and circumstances so that he may accomplish the maximum in life for himself and for others. The purpose of education would be met if the schools provided educational methods of self-development by which the individual can "gain complete possession of of all his powers." Broadly speakly, education has two goals which are mutually dependent: cultivation and development of the individual and the improvement of society. But it is individuals who make up the society. Therefore the society improves with the improvement of the individuals who make it up. As Plato said, the individual is the heart of society. (See Robert Hutchins "Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society." New York: Harper, l953) John Dewey said, "...only by being true to the full growth of individuals who make it up, can by any chance society be true to itself." (John Dewey. My Pedagogic Creed cited in Wade Baskin, ed., Classics in Education, New York: Philosophical Library, l966 pp. l86 and l89)
.. The aim of education is not the formation of independent functions or processes. "It is not so important which facts one teaches the student, because very often these facts are obsolete by the time they can be used. It is more important to help him to develop his potentialities so that he can rely on his own ability to cope with the unexpected and to solve whatever new problems crop up. He must be helped to feel independent in his own world."
Kohlberg on Dewey "The cognitive-developmental approach was fully stated for the first time by John Dewey. The approach is called 'cognitive' because it recognizes that moral education, like intellectual education, has its basis in stimulating the active thinking of the child about moral issues and decisions. It is called 'developmental' because it sees the aims of moral education as movement through moral stages." (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 176) According to Dewey, ("What Psychology Can Do for the Tearcher" John Dewey on Education: Selected Writings, edited by Reginald Archambault. New York: Random House 1964)
"The aim of education is growth and development, both intellectual and moral. Ethical and psychological principles can aid the school in the greatest of all constructions - the building of a free and powerful character. Only knowledge of the order and connection of the stages in psychological development can insure this. Education is the work of supplying the conditions which will enable the psychological functions to mature in the freeest and fullest manner."
Dewey postulated three levels of moral development: 1. the 'premoral' or 'preconventional' level of 'behavior motivated by biological and social impulses with results for morals' 2. the 'conventional' level of behavior 'in which the individual accepts with little critical reflection the standards of his group' and 3. the 'autonomous' level of behavior in which 'conduct is guided by the individual thinking and judging for himself whether a purpose is good and does not accept the standard of his group without reflection'. Dewey's thinking about moral stages was theoretical."(Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, page 177)
Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985
..... Education as Practice of Liberation
A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education with Ira Shor and Paulo Freire, Bergin and Garvey Publishers, South Hasdley, Mass l987)
..... Education for Critical Consciousness. New York: Seabury Press. 1973
...... Education, Liberation and the Church
.... . Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Herder and Herder, 1971 (original Portuguese manuscript 1968, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos)
"It was while in exile that I realized I was truly interested in learning. What I learned in exile is what I would recommend to all readers of this book: each day be open to the world, be ready to think; each day be ready not to accept what is said just because it is said, be predisposed to reread what is read; each day investigate, question, and doubt. I think it most necessary to doubt." (Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 181)
"The new sociology of education emerged in full strength in England and the United States in the early 1970s as a critical response to what can loosely be called the discourse of traditional educational theory and practice. The central question through which it developed its criticism of traditional schooling as well as its own theoretical discourse was typically Freirian: how does one make education meaningful in a way that makes it critical and hopefully, emancipatory?".
Freire's politics and pedagogy as a vision of liberated humanity: "Central to Freire's politics and pedagogy is a philosophical vision of a liberated humanity. By combining the dynamics of critique and collective struggle with a philosophy of hope, Freire has created a language of possibility that is rooted in what he calls a permament prophetic vision." (Henry Giroux in Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 xvii)y.
'Pedagogy of the oppressed' as a humanistic pedagogy: a life-affirming humanizing pedagogy; a pedagogy of the practice of freedom, which "denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world; it denies that the world exists as a reality apart from men."
Pedagogy of the oppressed: brain based 'problem-posing' education; practice of freedom; liberating and humanizing education; mediated by 'dialogical theory of action' - action based on authentic dialogue, thought and action are consistent.
Central to humanistic pedagogy is a philosophical vision of a liberated humanity...
"Left critics provided theoretical arguments and enormous amounts of empirical evidence to suggest that schools were in fact, agencies of social, economic, and cultural reproduction. At best public schooling offered limited individual mobility to members of the working class and other oppressed groups, and in the final analysis they were powerful instruments for the reproduction of capitalist relations of production and the legitimating ideologies of everyday life." (Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 xv)
Education as expression of power and politics:
"Freire understands that power as a form of domination is not simply something imposed by the state through agencies such as the police, the army and the courts. Domination is also expressed by the way in which power, technology, and ideology come together to produce forms of knowledge, social relations, and other concrete cultural forms that function to actively silence people. But the subtelty of domination is not exhausted by simply referring to those cultural forms that bear down on the oppressed daily; it is also to be found in the way in which the oppressed internalize and thus participate in their own oppression.... domination is subjectively experienced through its internalization and sedimentation in the very needs of the personality." (Henry Giroux p.xix)
Freire attempts to examine the psychically repressive aspects of domination and hence, the possible internal obstacles to self-knowledge and thus to forms of social and self-emancipation. (Henry Giroux p.xx)
Oppressors oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power. They cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. In an attempt to 'soften' their power with a paternalistic false 'generosity', the oppressors perpetuate the injustice which creates the oppressed. True generosity is fighting to destroy the causes of injustice. This fight is an act of love. In the process of liberating the oppressors, the oppressed liberate themselves."
"In a class society, the power elite necessarily determine what education will be, and therefore its objectives. The objectives will certainly not be opposed to their interests. As we have already said, it would be supremely naive to imagine that the elite would in any way promote or accept an education which stimulated the oppressed to discover the raison d'etre of the social structure. The most that could be expected is that the elite might permit talk of such education, and occasional experiments which could be immediately suppressed should the status quo be threatened." (Freire, P. Education, Liberation and the Church. Study Encounter SE/38,9,I, 1973 World Council of Churches p.8)
"As a referent for change, education represents both a place within and a particular type of engagement with the dominant society. For Freire, education includes and moves beyond the notion of schooling. Schools represent only one important site where education takes place, where men and women both produce and are the product of specific social and pedagogical relations. Education represents, in Freire's view, both a struggle for meaning and a struggle over power relations. Education is that terrain where power and politics are given a fundamental expression, since it is where meaning, desire, language and values engage and respond to the deeper beliefs about the very nature of what it means to be human, to dream, and to name and struggle for a particular future and way of life. As a referent for change, education represents a form of action that emerges from a joining of the languages of critique and possibility. It represents the need for a passionate commitment by educators to make the political more pedagogical, that is, to make critical reflection and action a fundamental part of a social project that not only engages forms of oppression but also develops a deep and abiding faith in the struggle to humanize life itself. It is the particular nature of this social project that gives Freire's work its theoretical distinction." (Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 Introduction Henry Giroux xiv)
There is a powerful relationship between power and knowledge. "People hold on to their domination in part because the oppressed do not have the critical intellectual skills to overcome the powerful continued forces of acculturation which lead the weak to internalize the ideology of the strong." (Freire 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed,. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos, New York: Herder and Herder. 124)
Banking education as 'practice of domination' produces mechanistic frame of mind: education as expression of power and politics power as a form of domination: mythification of reality Ignorance and illiteracy are necessary ingredients of poverty, hunger, misery and oppression.
Banking education is education as the "practice of domination." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 69)
"Education in cultural action for domination is reduced to a situation in which the educator as 'the one who knows' transfers existing knowledge to the learner as 'the one who does not know.'" (Paulo Freire. The Politics of Education. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 114)
Banking education "anesthetizes and inhibits creative power." It "attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. page 68)
"In the 'banking' concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. page 58)
"The 'banking' concept of education mirrors the oppressiveness of society as a whole". (59) Banking education mythisizes reality and therefore fosters irrational thinking which creates further mythisizing.".(Pedagogy of the Oppressed 15)
Student-teacher contradiction is maintained. Students accept a passive role - they are the 'oppressed.' Their creative power is annulled." Serving the interest of oppression, the banking concept of education is based on a mechanistic and static view of consciousness. In attempting to control thinking and action, it inhibits creative thinking and transforms the student into a receiving object who is capable of adjusting to the reality created by the oppressors. Banking education "mythologizes reality." It "attempts to conceal certain facts which explain the way men exist in the world."(71)
The practices of 'banking' education: "the teacher teaches and the students are taught; the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; the teacher talks and the students meekly listen; the teacher disciplines and the students are desciplined; the teacher chooses and enforces his choice and the students comply; the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the teacher,; the teacher chooses the program content, and without being consulted, the students adapt to it; the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of his students; the teacher is the Subject of the learning process and the students are the objects." (59)
With banking education, the students accept the passive role imposed on them and adapt to the fragmented view of reality which is presented to them. (60)
Banking education "anesthetizes and inhibits creative power." It "attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness." (68)
"Implicit in the banking concept of education is the assumption of a dichotomy between man and the world: man is merely in the world, not with the world or with others; man is spectator, not re-creator." (62)
The 'educated man' is the 'adapted' man, adapted to the world created by the oppressors; adapted without questioning it. The teacher of banking education fears communication with the student. And yet it is only through communiction that human life can have meaning (63)
The banking approach to education teaches the individual to accept without questioning. It prevents the individual from thinking. In the interests of the oppressors, banking education is the exercise of domination which stimulates the credulity of students. Often not perceived by educators , the ideological intent is to indoctrinate students to adapt to the world of oppression (65) This explains the almost instinctive reaction against educational 'experiments' which would stimulate the student's critical faculties and encourage a critical consideration of reality. By mythologizing, the banking method of education reinforces the individual's fatalistic perception of reality. He becomes resigned to his situation and perceives it as unalterable.
The practices of 'banking' education: "In the 'banking' concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing." (58)
'Student-teacher contradiction' is maintained. "The teacher presents himself to the students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students ... accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher's existence and never discover that they educate the teacher." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. page 58)
"Implicit in the banking concept of education is the assumption of a dichotomy between man and the world... man is merely in the world, not with the world or with others; man is spectator, not re-creator." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 62)
The 'educated man' is the adapted man - adapted to the world created by the oppressors; adapted without questioning it.
Students accept the passive role imposed on them and adapt to the fragmented view of reality which is presented to them. (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. page 60) .. They accept a passive role - they are the 'oppressed.' Their creative power is annulled... the teacher teaches and the students are taught; the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing; the teacher thinks and the students are thought about; the teacher talks and the students meekly listen; the teacher disciplines and the students are desciplined; the teacher chooses and enforces his choice and the students comply; the teacher acts and the students have the illusion of acting through the teacher,; the teacher chooses the program content, and without being consulted, the students adapt to it; the teacher confuses the authority of knowledge with his own professional authority, which he sets in opposition to the freedom of his students; the teacher is the Subject of the learning process and the students are the objects." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 59)
"Generally speaking, the good student is not one who is restless or intractable, or one who reveals one's doubts or wants to know the reason behind facts, or one who breaks with preestablished models, or one who denounces a mediocre bureaucracy, or one who refuses to be an object. To the contrary, the so-called good student is one who repeats, who renounces critical thinking, who adjusts to models, and who 'thinks it pretty to be a rhinoceros'" (Paulo Freire The Politics of Education 117)
"The teacher of banking education fears communication with the student. And yet it is only through communiction (dialogue) that human life can have meaning" (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 63)
Serving the interest of oppression, the banking concept of education is based on a mechanistic and static view of consciousness. In attempting to control thinking and action, it inhibits creative thinking and transforms the student into a receiving object who is capable of adjusting to the reality created by the oppressors. Banking education "mythologizes reality." It "attempts to conceal certain facts which explain the way men exist in the world." (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 71)
The mechanistic frame of mind "sees" a dichotomy between consciouness and reality, subjectivity and objectivity, practice and theory. "It was while in exile that I realized I was truly interested in learning. What I learned in exile is what I would recommend to all readers of this book: each day be open to the world, be ready to think; each day be ready not to accept what is said just because it is said, be predisposed to reread what is read; each day investigate, question, and doubt. I think it most necessary to doubt."(181)
"The individualistic, bourgeois concept of existence cannot grasp the true social and historical basis of human existence. It is of the essence of humanity that men and women create their own existence in a creative act that is always social and historical even while having its specific, personal dimensions." (Paulo Freire The Politics of Education 129)
"Our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of us and subtly programming us into conformity of the logic of its system." (Richard Shaull Foreward Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 14)
Dehumanisation: " ... a distortion of being more fully human.""the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed."(28)
Dehumanized because they dehumanize others, the oppressors cannot lead the struggle for freedom. The oppressed must first 'critically' recognize the causes for injustice and create a new situation to remove the causes for their oppression. Central problem: "how can the oppressed participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?" (Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 33) They must first make the "critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization." The contradiction of the 'oppressor-oppressed' is superceded by the concept of the humanization of both oppressor and oppressed.
"The great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well."
" Freedom is "the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion." (Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed (31)
Propaganda as mythification of Reality
"Since they are unable to eliminate the human capacity to think, (the dominant classes) obscure the real world by a conditioned and specious reasoning about people and the world in general. This mystification of reality consists of making the world appear different from what it is, and in the process and by necessity, of imparting an artificial consciousness. In fact, it would be impossible to falsify the real world, as the real world of consciouness, without falsifying the consciousness of the real world. One does not exist without the other." Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 (115)
"The mythical element... makes the critical application of peoples' thinking difficult by affording people the illusion that they think correctly. Propaganda establishes itself as an efficient instrument for legitimizing this illusion, and through it the dominant classes not only proclaim the 'excellent quality' of the social order but also impugn any expression of indignation toward the social order as 'subversive' and dangerous to the common welfare.' Thus, mystification leads to the 'sacredness' of the social order, untouchable and undisscusable. Any who questions the social order must be punished one way or another and they are labeled by similar means of propaganda as 'bad citizens in the service of the international demon.'" (Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 116)
Declining motivation is at the heart of the educational crisis: "The problem of motivation is at the heart of the teaching crisis now in the States which has brought out a grand parade of official reports in the past three years" 5) (See Paulo Freire, The Politics of Education, Bergin and Garvey, South Hadley, Mass l985 chapter l3, pages l67-l73)
"The dominant curriculum treats motivation as outside the action of study. Tests, discipline, punishment, rewards, the promise of future jobs etc. are considerable motivating devices as alienated from the act of learning now... The carrot and stick approach to education - 'first learn the skills then you can get the education and then you can get the job'. Students do not cooperate because they are not encouraged to experience motivation while learning." (A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Transforming Education with Ira Shor and Paulo Freire)
Students do not cooperate because they are not encouraged to experience motivation while learning.
"There is no such thing as a neutral educational process. Education functions either as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity to it, or it becomes the 'practice of freedom,' the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. The development of an educational methodology that facilitates this process will inevitably lead to tension and conflict within our society. But it could also contribute to the formation of a new man and mark the beginning of a new era in Western history. (Richard Schaull in the introduction: Paulo Freire, 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed 15)
Libertarian education and problem-posing methods of teaching:
"The educator who makes a humanistic choice must correctly perceive the relationship between consciousness and world, and man and world."(Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 115)
Methodology (of problem-posing education) is thematic investigation. Have the individual analyse significant dimensions of his contextual reality. This makes it possible for him to recognize the interactions between the various components of that reality and consequently to perceive them as different dimensions of that total reality. With the critical analysis of a situation, it is perceived as problematic and challenging, creating new depth .
'Libertarian' concept of education: education begins with the reconciliation of the student-teacher contradiction. (59) Freire's conviction: "every human being is capable of looking critically at this world in a dialogical encounter with others. Provided with the proper tools for such encounter, he can gradually perceive his personal and social reality as well as the contradictions in it, become conscious of his own perception of that reality, and deal critically with it. In this process, the old, paternalistic teacher-student relationship is overcome."(13) The 'word' takes on new power. Each person takes back the right to 'name the world,' gaining a new self-awareness and sense of hope, regaining human dignity.
Love as moral courage... creative dialogue Not sentimental, love is an act of courage, an act of freedom, an act of humility, an act of dialogue-(dialogical) requiring an intense faith in man -"faith in his vocation to be more fully human" Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Herder and Herder, 1971 79)
"The essence of dialogue is the 'word'... Two dimensions of the word are 'reflection' and 'action.' Without refelection, the word becomes 'activism. Without action, the word becomes 'verbalism.' Dichotomizing the word makes it false and results in inauthentic forms of thought and inauthentic forms of existence. Dialogue is an act of creation; "the united reflection and action of the dialoguers - in mutual trust- are addressed to the world which is to be transformed and humanized... Dialogue cannot exist in the absence of a profound love for the world and for people. (Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressederder and Herder, 1971 original Portuguese manuscript 1968, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos pp. 75-77)
Mutual trust is required for creative dialogue. Words which do not coincide with actions are false words and do not generate trust. Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985
"It is farcical to glorify 'democracy' and silence the people. Hope is required for creative dialogue and the stuggle for liberation from an unjust order. Creative dialogue depends on critical thinking and generates critical thinking. It requires and perception of reality as process and transformation and generates that objective perception. It requires solidarity between men and the world and fosters that solidarity."
Freedom and authority conflict in situations of either licence or authoritarianism. "The dialogical theory of action opposes both authoritarianism and license, and thereby affirms authority and freedom. There is no freedom without authority, but there is also no authority without freedom. All freedom contains the possibility that under special circumstances (and at different existential levels) it may become authority. Freedom and authority cannot be isolated, but must be considered in relationship to each other." (Paulo Pedagogy of the Oppressed 179)
"Education which is able to resolve the contradiction between teacher and student takes place in a situation in which both address their act of cognition to the object by which they are mediated... (dialogue)" (81)
"Without dialogue, there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education." (Paulo Pedagogy of the Oppressed 81)
"Dialogue is indispensable to the act of cogniton which unveils reality."
Authentic thinking about reality only takes place in communication - 'action on the world.'(64) Authentic thinking is not possible without communication.
"Critical perception obliterates the simplistic dualism that establishes a nonexistent dichotomy between consciousness and the world." (Paulo Freire 115
Authentic liberation is humanisation.(66) 'Authentic reflection' considers "men in their relations with the world. In this relation consciousness and world are simultaneous." Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 69) ( Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 69)
Freedom as the pursuit of the right to be human: The pursuit of the right to be human is the pursuit of freedom. The process of humanisation is the process of achieving freedom. The liberation of the oppressed depends on their perception of reality as a limiting situation which they can transform. By liberating themselves, they liberate their oppressors. Oppressive acts prevent the individual's sel -faffirmation and right to be human.
Problem-posing education is 'liberating education': its function in the demythification of reality
"Problem-posing education de-mythisizes reality, transforming reality by unveiling its 'true' nature and thereby fostering rational thinking." Problem-posing education strives to demythologize.
"Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information. It is a learning situation in which the cognizable object (far from being the end of the cognitive act) intermediates the cognitive actors- teacher on the one hand and students on the other. Accordingly, the practice of problem-posing education entails at the outset that the teacher- student contradiction be resolved." (67):
"Problem-posing education does not and cannot serve the interests of the oppressor. No oppressive order could permit the oppressed to begin to question: why? Leaders must be revolutionary - that is to say, dialogical - from the outset." (Pedagogy 110)
Problem-posing education "strives for the emergence of consciousness and 'critical intervention' in reality. As the practice of freedom, it only works when the teacher student contradiction is resolved through dialogue - dialogical relations. Mediated by the world, students and teachers teach each other. They all grow in the joint responsibility for the learning process. The 'problem-posing method' eliminates the teacher-student dichotomy. The teacher does not regard the 'cognizable' material as his private property. He "presents the material to the students for their consideration, and re-considers his earlier considerations as the students express their own." (68) The students become critical 'co-investigators in dialog ue with the teacher.' "The role of the problem-solving educator is to create, together with the students, the conditions under which knowledge at the level of the 'doxa' is superseded by true knowledge, at the level of the 'logos.' Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 68) "Students, as they are increasingly posed with problems relating to themselves in the world and with the world, will feel increasingly challenged and obliged to respond to that challenge. Because they apprehend the challenge as interrelated to other problems within a total context, not as a theoretical question, the resulting comprehenion tends to be increasingly critical and thus constantly less alienated. Their response to the challenge evokes new challenges, followed by new understandings; and gradually the students come to regard themselves as committed."(Paulo Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed 68-69)
It is natural education based on the brain's natural functioning. Critical faculties are developed. Students are made into critical thinkers. The individual learns to perceive critically his own mode of existence in the world in which he finds himself. His survival depends on his actions which depend on his decision making faculties based on accurate and objective perception of reality of his surroundings and his world. Perceiving reality with critical objectivism, he sees the world as a reality in process, in 'transformation.' His actions are based on his perception of the reality of his world. He seees his situation, not as fated but as limiting and therefore challenging. He can reflect on his situation critically and objectively and then act on his objective perception of a reality in process. He can make decisions on the basis of this objective perception and move and work to change his situation and transform his world. "Without dichtomizing relection of the world from their action in the world, students and teachers "establish an authentic form of thought and action." (Paulo Freire 71)
"Problem-posing education bases itself on creativity and stimulates true reflection and action upon reality, thereby responding to the vocation of men as beings who are authentic only when engaged in inquiry and creative transformation." (71) Man's historical vocation is to become more fully human. Banking education inhibits creativity, isolating consciousness from the world, denying the individual the ontological and historical vocation of becooming fully human."(71) "The unfinished character of men and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity."(72) "To study is not to consume ideas, but to create and re-create them." (4)
Conscientization: The word 'conscientization' originates in the word 'consciousness.'
"Through their own efforts people can remake the natural path where consciousness emerges as the capacity for self-perception." Paulo Freire The Politics of Education South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. 1985 (115)
"Comprehension of the process of conscientization and its practice is directly linked to one's understanding of consciousness in its relations with the world." Conscientization involves a dialectic between objectivity and subjectivity, reality and consciousness, practice and theory." (168)
Deepening the individual's consciousness about his situation (conscientization), the problem-posing method presents the situation as one with limitations - as a problem which he is challenged to solve. The process of inquiry is stimulated. Preventing the individual from inquiring is preventing him from bedoming fully human, reducing him to an object and therefore is dehumanizing. It is an act of violence because it alienates the individual from his own brain-based function to think critically in order to make the decisions necessary for his own survival. Man's historical vocation is humanization. Becoming fully human is dependent on critical thought, inquiry and dialogue with his world. Humanization and dialogue requires the mediation of fellow human beings and therefore fellowship and solidarity with other human beings. The concept of 'individualism' does not mean 'in isolation' from one's fellow human beings. 'Individualism' does not mean having more and dehumanizing others - the meaning which the term has acquired in capitalist countries. Solidarity and dialogue are required for humanization. Problem-posing education , humanist and liberating - the individual must fight for freedom. It requires the elimination of teacher authoritarianism and alienating 'intellectualism.' It depends on the dialogue- dialogical relations- and is considered 'revolutionary' because the 'oppressed' individual (student of banking education) is not permitted by the oppreessor to ask "why?".
Responsibility of the educator... to foster individuality in the cultural context:
"If we are to accept our commitments seriously, educators have a special concern for helping us to be liberated from the various conditions that oppress us, particularly those of ignorance and illiteracy. There is a powerful relationship between power and knowledge. "People hold on to their domination in part because the oppressed do not have the critical intellectual skills to overcome the powerful continued forces of acculturation which lead the weak to internalize the ideology of the strong." "The educator - teacher and 'technical expert', is responsible for the state of the culture." The responsibility of educators is to empower all students, not just the few."(Freire Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 124)
The criticism that liberating education has to offer emphatically is not the criticism which ends at the system of education. On the contrary, the criticism in the liberatory class goes beyond the system of education and becomes a criticism of society. Undoubtedly the Progressive Movement (also known as the New School Movement or the Modern School Movement) brought many good contibutions to the education process, but generally the criticism stayed at the level of the school and did not extend to the larger society... one characteristic of a serious position in liberating education is to stimulate criticism that goes beyond the walls of the school- in the last analysis, by criticizing traditional schools, what we have to critize is the capitalist system that shaped these schools... in a traditional educational system, those in power in the society shape the education in the schools. (Paulo Freire: ?35)
('Holistic perception' of reality required for congruence of thought and action necessary for survival in a changing environment. To have a rational and critical perception of one's reality means that one can perceive the various parts as constituent elements of a whole. Wholistic perception of reality means having a total vision of the context of the constituent fragments and thereby gaining a clearer perception of the reality in its totality).
ERICH FROMM
Fromm, Erich. Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. Holt, Rhinehart, Winston New York l947
..... The Heart of Man
....... Preface to Sumerhill by A.S. Neill
...... Escape from Freedom New York: Rinehart, l94l
Science of ethics: human development and human values... virtue
"A scientific inquiry should be characterized by a faith in the truth of a rational vision; faith in the hypothesis as a likely and plausible proposition; faith in the final theory ...This faith is rooted in one's own experience, in the confidence in one's power of thought, observation and judgement...rational faith is rooted in an independent conviction based upon one's own productive observing and thinking." (Fromm, Man For Himself 205)
A 'science of ethics' and a 'science of education' are both concerned with the full development of the individual's powers and potentialities in the process of becoming fully human. They both depend on the knowledge of human nature as a basis for determining what constitutes man's 'true' self-interest. In order to achieve his full human potential as a human being, the individual is instinctively aware of his own basic biological and biologically based psychological needs. They must be satisfied in order for him to achieve his full humaness, his potential as a 'whole' human being. Consequently a 'science of ethics' and a ''science of education' both depend on the knowledge of human development for the knowlege of the real needs of the developing human being. Both depend on the 'science of man' (science of human nature) as a basis for determining what constitutes man's natural and real self-interest - "his natural interest in his real self, who wants happiness, not in terms of material success but in terms of an ethical and productive life." "A person's natural responsibility to his own biological and psychological existence and self-actualization constitutes the ethical value called 'virtue'."
The aim of ethics is virtue and the aim of education is productiveness. An educational system which encourages spontaneous productiveness simultaneously encourages virtue. In the social manifestation of a rational value system, man's social and political activities and institutions create conditions to foster the development of productiveness. Their only purpose and end is man's 'real' interest - man for himself.
The foundation of a science of ethics is the science of man. The concept of a 'science of ethics' rests upon the premise that there is a 'human nature' which is characteristic of the human species. The science of man involves an inquiry of human nature. The 'science of man' is a theoretical construction inferrred from observations of people's reactions to various individual and social conditions. The formulation of valid ethical norms by reason is based on the knowledge of human nature... inherent qualities of human nature which are manifest in the mature and integrated personality... result of mature growth or 'self-actualisation'... the 'productive' character. The productive character values the affirmation of the true human self... respect for the dignity of human existence, the moral norms of humanistic ethics.
"The drive to live is inherent in every organism.... the choice between life and death is more apparent than real; man's real choice is that between a good life and a bad life".
Human evolution "Human evolution is rooted in man's adaptability and in certain indestructible qualities of his nature which compel him never to cease his search for conditions better adjusted to his instrinsic needs." (Man For Himself 23)
"The emergence of man can be defined as occurring at the point in the process of evolution where instinctive adaptation has reached its minimum. But he emerges with new qualities which differentiate him from the animal: his awareness of himself as a separate entity, his ability to remembrer the past, to visualize the future, and to denote objects and acts by symbols; his reason to conceive and understand the world; and his imagination through which he reaches far beyond the range of his senses. Man is the most helpless of all animals, but this very biological weakness is the basis for his strength, the prime cause for the development of his specifically human qualities." (Man For Himself 39)
The integration of behavior, perception, emotions and physiology is a natural outcome of the integrated functions of the human brain. A theoretical framework for wholistic education is based on the biological knowledge of the human organism and the functioning of the human brain.
Rooted in the very existence of man are contradictions to, which he can react in various ways, the existential dichotomies inherent in the human situation. Each human being is unique in that he has his own way of solving his human problems, his own temperament and character. The combination of these inherited and acquired psychic qualities constitutes the personality. A person's character structure " represents a particular form in which energy is canalized in the process of living." (56)
"In Spencer's Ethics we find one of the most comprehensive and systematic discussions of the pleasure principle, which we can use as an excellent starting point for further discussion. The key to Spencer's view of the pleasure-pain principle is the concept of evolution. He proposes that pleasure and pain have the biological function of stimulating man to act according to what is beneficial to him individually, as well as to the human race; they are therefore indispensable factors in the evolutionary process." (Fromm Man for Himself, Holt, Rhinehart, Winston New York l947 p. l77)
Spencer points up the parallel between the biological function of pleasure and the social evolution of man and proposes that "remoulding of human nature into fitness for the requirements of social life must eventualy make all needful activities pleasurable, while it makes displeasurable activities at variance with these requirements." (Principles of Ethics 153) Also, "the pleasure attending the use of means to achieve an end, itself becomes an end." (Fromm Man For Himself 159) "Pains are the correletaives of actions injurious to the organism, while pleasures are correletives of actions conducive to its welfare." "Individuals or species are from day to day kept alive by the pursuit of the agreable and the avoidance of the disagreeable" ( The Principles of Ethics, New York , Appleton Co. 1902 vol.1 p.79, 82
The unity of the human race an be envisioned for the first time in history, but people are bewildered by the moral confusion of an irrational value system. As the result of a capitalist economic system, ethical norms are formulated on the premise that man is powerless and insignificant. People are influenced by the power of political leaders and become easy prey to the demands of a technological society. Without faith in the human capacity for dignity and courage, they are persuaded to make value judgements on the basis of material success.
Education and freedom The aim of education is the full development of human nature - human potential and human values. "Education is identical with helping the child realize his potentialities...The root of the word 'education' is 'e-ducare', literally to 'lead forth' or bring out something which is potentially present. Education in this sense results in existence, which means literally to stand out, to have emerged from the state of potentiality into that of manifest reality... The opposite of education is manipulation, which is based on the absence of faith in the growth of potentialities and on the conviction that a child will be right only if the adults put him into what is desirable and cut off what seems to be undesirable. There is no need of faith in the robot since there is no life in it either." (Man For Himself page 207)
"During the eighteenth century, the ideas of freedom, democracy and self-determination were proclaimed by progressive thinkers; and by the first half of the 1900s these ideas came to fruition in the field of education. The basic principles of such selfdetermination was the replacement of authoriity by freedom to teach the child without the use of force, by appealing to his curiosity and spontaneous needs, and thus to get him interested in the world around him. This attitude marked the beginning of progressive education and was an important step in human development." (Erich Fromm Preface to Sumerhill)
The achievement of maturity and of self-realization is the outcome of the productive use of the individual's inherent primary potentialities. The resultant productive orientation is the basis for freedom, for virtue and for happiness. "Virtue is proportional to the degree of productiveness achieved." (229)
Education for happiness and virtue: The fundamental aspect of an individual's education is his inner development. The inner state of consciousness is translated into the outer structure and expression of life. This has been stated by many great thinkers throughout human history (Buddha 'your thoughts make the world'). In dealing with problems of society and education, the tendency is to deal with outer structures and forms. But the structures and forms are created by individuals and depend on their levels of consciousness. Thus a more intelligent approach would be to deal with the implementation of methods which would enable individuals to improve themselves through their own inner development, the basis for their success and happiness. Education should provide the individual with a foundation for successfully living in the world. There is a need for depth education - education of the 'whole' individual. Specialization of knowledge must be accompanied by full human development. Albert Einstein said that "the school should always have as its aim that the young man leave it as a harmonious personality, not as a specialist. The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost." (Albert Einstein. "Out of my Later Years" New York: Philosophical Library, l960) ( Fromm 59)
As virtue is the same as spontaneous productiveness, an educational system which encourages natural productiveness simultaneously encourages virtue. "The freedom to realize that which one potentially is, to fulfill the true nature of man according to the laws of his existence" is the necessary condition for happiness and virtue. (247)
The moral problem of man and society today: making people virtuous. The conditions must be created which foster the development of productiveness. The first and foremost of these conditions is that the unfolding and growth of every person is the aim of all social and political activities, that man is the only purpose and end, and not a means for anybody or anything except himself." (229)
"Positive freedom ...is identical with the full realization of the individual's potentialities, together with his ability to live actively and spontaneously." (Man For Himself 270) Maharishi writes "As long as the mind does not function with its full potential and is not in position to use all the faculties it has, its freedom is restricted. Therefore the first important step in making the mind really free is the full unfoldment of its potentialites." ('The Science of Being and Art of Living' 234-235 cited by Fromm Man For himself page 270)
Man can become free by being himself (Man For Himself 257) In this context 'freedom' means self-realization. "The realization of the self is accomplished not only by an act of thinking, but also by the realization of man's total personality, by the active expression of his emotional and intellectual potentialities. These potentialities are present in everybody; they become real only to the extent which they are expressed. In other words, positive freedom consists in the spontaneous activity of the total, integrated personality."(Man For Himself 258)
"The ideas of freedom and democracy deteriorate into nothing but irrational faith once they are not based upon the productive experience of each individual but are presented to him by parties and states which force him to believe in these ideas" (Fromm Man For Himself 210)
"'Freedom' is one of the most frequently used words in our time and should be defined. There are two kinds of freedom corresponding to the inner and outer aspects of life. Outer freedom is freedom of action, political or social freedom. Inner freedom is freedom of the mind, freedom from the bondage of ignorance of human nature and its potentialities. Ignorance breeds fear, suspicion, hatred, and confusion. As a result the individual lives in the prison of his own limitations, restricted understanding, emotions and activities."
American culture:
"In American culture the emphasis is on freedom of the outer aspect of life, freedom of choice and action. The individual is not allowed the inner freedom to act from conviction and internal harmony. '
"A study of the correlation between character orientation and social structure is very important to a science of ethics. As well as explaining some of the causes for the formation of character, the study of a specific character orientation which is common to most members of the culture, tells us which powerful emotional forces are instrumental in molding the social character and the functioning of the society.
"The whole personality of the average individual is determined by the way people relate to each other and it is determined by the socioeconomic and political structure of society to such an extent that principle, one can infer from the analysis of one individual the totality of the social structure in which he lives." (Man For Himself 79)
The marketing orientation of character: the individual experiences himself both as "the seller and as the commodity to be sold on the market, his self-esteem depending on conditions beyond his control. If he is 'successful' he is valuable; if he is not 'successful' he is worthless. The degree of insecurity which results from this orientation can hardly be overestimated. If one feels that one's own value is not constituted primarily by the human values one possesses, but by one's success on a competitive market with ever-changing conditions, one's selfesteem, is bound to be shaky and is in constant need of confirmation by others. Hence one is driven to strive relentlessly for success, and any setback is a severe threat to one's self-esteem ; helplessness, insecurity, and inferiority feelings are the result. If the vicissitudes of the market are the judges of one's value, the sense of dignity and pride is destroyed."(Fromm, Erich. "Man for Himself: an Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics." Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, New York, l947. page 72)
With its roots in orthodox Protestantism, the American 'scientific' worldview placed severe limtions on human experience and the human potential, in spite of the more optimistic view of human nature. "Puritan ethics, with the emphasis on work and success as evidence of goodness, supported the feeling of security and tended to give life meaning and a religious sense of fulfillment." (Fromm, Man For Himself, 81)
"In spite of all the emphasis put upon man's happiness, individuality and self-interest, capitalistic theories of modern society have taught people that the aim of life is the successful fulfillment of his duty to work. Money, prestige and power are made the incentives to this end. Under the illusion that their actions benefit their self-interest, they act against the interests of the real self. Making everything important except life and the art of living, such a society causes man to be for everything except himself. This is contrary to the basic instinct of self-preservation."
Individual in capitalist culture: "The relationship between society and the individual is not to be understood simply in the sense that cultural patterns and social institutions 'influence' the individual. The interaction goes much deeper; the whole personality of the average individal is molded by the way people relate to each other, and it is determined by the socioecoomic and political structure of society to such an extent, that in principle, one can infer from the analysis of one individual the totality of the social structure in which he lives." (Fromm Man For Himself, 78)
Conditioning influences of the culture are conflicting. When there is a lack of wholeness in the conditioning influences, the individual cannot grow into a psychologically whole, mature human being. With conflicts inherent in the culture, the individual is a divided ...a compartmentalized self, trying to harmonize the various 'selves' of his experience - the domestic self, the business self, the religious self, the political self etc. with doubts, fears and inner tensions... which become manifest in mental illness, violence, crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, racism etc. divided self has difficulty maturing into a psychologically whole human being.... building sound linkages of responsibility with the world... It is difficult for a child to grow to maturity in a culture in which "the natural hazards of life are vastly multiplied by the confusions of the culture and in which he faces an abnormal temptation to remain dependent and irresponsible."
People are made to believe that it is in their interest to work for money, prestige, and power. They become unaware of the fact that it is in their 'real' self-interest to live in harmony with themselves and their fellow human beings. As a result of the demands of the system, ethical norms are formulated on the premise that man is powerless and insignificant. People are persuaded to make value judgements on the basis of material success rather than faith in human dignity and courage. Bewildered by the moral confusion of this irrational value system, they become easy prey to its demands and are influenced by the enthusiasm of political leaders.
The individual does not know what he wants, what he thinks or what he feels. He is not free according to his own will, acting from inner harmony and conviction. In order to function in the society, he must give up his identity, conform to anonymous authorities and adopt successful roles. The more he escapes from his inner freedom to act according to his will, the more powerless he feels and the more meaningless his life seems to be. "If life loses its meaning because it is not lived, man becomes desperate." (Fromm Man For Himself 255-256)
Work is measured in terms of tangible results and productivity.. In the capitalistic consumer society of American culture, the task-oriented perception of the environment results in limited imagination and incomplete cognition.
"The relative atrophy of the generative capacity is very frequent in our culture. A person may be able to recognize things as they are (or as his culture maintains them to be) but he is unable to enliven his perception from within. Such a person is the perfect 'realist' who sees all there is to be seen of the surface features of phenomena but who is quite incapable of penetrating below the surface to the essential and of visualizing what is not yet apparent. He sees the details but not the whole, the trees but not the forest. Reality to him is only the sum total of what has already materialized. This person is not lacking in imagination, but his is a calculating imagination, combining factors all of which are known and in existence, and inferring their future operation." (Fromm Man For Himself 89)
The intrinsic human values are not valued in a society which measures the individual in terms of material 'success.
"Confusion of values makes for a sense of personal bewilderment and helplessness; the average individual gets what happiness he can out of doing what everybody else does. To 'survive', the individual has to accept the cultural norms. Adult immaturity is an accepted cultural norm. The philosphical tradition of intellectual and social liberalism requires that the individual grows up into full psychological maturity. The traditions of political and religious authoritarianism (dogma of man as a child of sin) do not require the individual's psychological maturity and in fact depend on the individual's psychological immaturity. The inherent cultural confusion comes from the competition of the two conflicting philosophies: rational liberalism and antirational materialsm. "Authoritative religion might want man to remain a child in his obedience and dependence, while nineteenth century antirationalism might want him to remain a child in egocentric aggrandizement; but in an emergency the two would accurately feel that they had more in common than either with a philosophy that asked man to put his childhood behind him and to achieve the spiritual independence of maturity." (Fromm Man For Himself. p.142)
Comprehension of the world through love and reason: "Man comprehends the world, mentally and emotionally, through love and through reason (Fromm Man For Himself 97)
Love is affirmation not possession of another person. Love is granting the other person the full right to his own humanhood. "The love of a person implies not the possession of that person but the affirmation of that person. It means granting him gladly the full right to his unique humanhood. One does not truly love a person and yet seek to enslave him - by law or by bonds of dependence and possessiveness."
'Love' and 'Reason' are two inseparable forms for comprehending the world. Love is a power of emotion. Reason is a power of cognition. The powers of emotion and cognition are expressed in different ways. The power of love combined with the power of reason results in undertanding. Love with knowledge and respect is productive love. Love without knowledge and respect degenerates into possessiveness and domination. 'Reason' is a human faculty for understanding reality. It leads to the comprehension of all conceivable perspectives and dimensions. With intense interest in reality, the human organism is affected and stimulated emotionally as well as intellectually. Perception is objective. The object is perceived simultaneously in its uniqueness and totality. (Fromm Man for Himself 97)
Although the expression of the two different powers of emotion and thinking, 'love' and reason are two inseparable forms for comprehending the world. 'Love' meaning 'productive love,' is inseparable from 'labor' meaning 'to cultivate' or 'make something grow.' 'Love' in this sense is unconditional and cannot be divorced from care and 'responsibility' meaning 'readiness to respond.' To love productively means to care and feel responsible for another's growth and human development. Productive love is inseparable from labor and reason.
"An emotion resulting from the natural mutual interdependence of human beings, love represents human solidarity which is a necessary condition for the unfolding of each individual's human powers and humaness. Love without 'respect'and knowledge can degenerate into domination and possessiveness. 'Reason' as a human faculty for understanding reality is the comprehension of all conceivable perspectives and dimensions, and not only those which are of practical relevance. Intensely interested in a subject, an individual is affected emotionally and intellectually stimulated. With respect, he perceives the subject objectively in its uniqueness and totality, and is motivated to think about it productively."
"To love is an expression of one's power to love, and to love someone is the actualization and concentration of this power with regard to one person." (Fromm Man for Himself129)
"Whenever we experience a genuine love, we are moved by this transforming experience toward a capactity for good will. Or we might put the matter inversely: if what we call love in relation to one person or to a few people creates in us no capacity for good will toward many, then we may doubt that we have actually experienced love. In all likelihood, what we have experienced is some form of immature will to make security for ouselves in a dangerous world by clinging to the role of dependent." (Fromm)
To love productively is to relate to a person's human core ... to relate to the person as representing humankind. (Fromm Man for Himself 101).
Need for rational faith in oneself. "The drive to live is inherent in every organism....the choice between life and death is more apparent than real; man's real choice is that between a good life and a bad life." (Fromm, Erich. Man for Himself p.18)
Without faith in the persistence of our self, our feeling of identity is threatened and we become dependent on other people whose approval then becomes the basis for our feeling of identity with ourselves. Only the person who can be faithful to himself can be faithful to others. We must have faith in the potentialities of others, of ourselves, of mankind. There are potentialities which can fail to develop. The child has innate potentialities to love, be happy, use his reason and other talents. The inherent potentialities are like seeds. They grow and manifest themselves only if they are given the proper conditions for development. They can be stifled if they are not given the proper conditions for their development. Education is characterized by faith in human potential. Manipulation results from the lack of faith in human potential. There is no prouder statement man can make than to say 'I shall act according to my conscience.'" (Fromm Man For Himself 140)
Self-actualisation and development of conscience: The human conscience is a natural expression of a biologically based interest in the properly integrated functioning of the whole personality. The human conscience is the guardian of man's true self-interest and integrity.
"Humanistic conscience is based on the knowledge of man's nature. The great tradition of humanistic ethical thought is based on a wholistic perspective of man in his 'physico-spiritual totality'. It is based on the belief that man's aim is to be himself, and that the condition for attaining this goal is that man be for himself. It is based on the premise that one has to know the nature of man in order to formulate valid ethical codes. Based on the validity of man's autonomy, valid ethical norms are formed by man's reason." (Fromm Man For Himself 7)
Intensely interested in a subject, an individual is affected emotionally and intellectually stimulated. With respect he perceives the subject objectively in its uniqueness and totality, and is motivated to think about it productively. Known as self-realization or self-actualization, human fulfillment as ethical and productive living is the result of natural process of psychological human development and the development of the human 'conscience' meaning knowledge within oneself (from, Latin 'conscientia') As a reaction of the whole person to its functioning, the human conscience has a strong influence on the affective (emotional) as well as intellectiual (reason) components of the peronality. "Actions, thoughts, and feelings which are conducive to the integration of our whole personality produce a feeling of inner approval, of 'rightness' characteristic of the 'good conscience'. On the other hands, acts, thoughts, and feelings injurious to our total personality produce a feeling of uneasiness and discomfort, characteristic of the 'guilty conscience.' "Conscience is thus a reaction of ourselves to ourselves. It is the voice of our true selves. which summons us back to ouselves, to live productively, to become what we potentially are. It is the guardian of our integrity...of our love for ourselves." (159)
Neurotic development or 'neurosis' as moral failure... 'evil'
Man's value judgements - his criteria for good and evil- are derived from the meaningfulness of his own existence. Man finds fulfillment and happiness through love - the power by which he relates to the world through his fellow man."Living' as an art : the process of developiong into that which one is potentially. "Humanistic ethics is the applied science of the 'art of living' based upon the theoretical 'science of man'. (Fromm Man For Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. page 18)
"If life's tendency to grow, to be lived, is thwarted, the energy thus blocked undergoes a process of change and is transformed into life-destructive energy. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and social conditions which make for the blocking of life-furtheriing energy produce destructiveness which in turn is the source from which the various manifestations of evil spring." (Fromm Man For Himself 216)
Incomplete psychological development means incomplete development of the human conscience."The problem of psychic health and neurosis is inseparably linked up with that of ethics. It may be said that every neurosis represents a moral problem. The failure to achieve maturity and integration of the whole personality is a moral failure." (Fromm Man For Himself 24)
"In spite of the great difference between the Roman paterfamilias, whose family was his property, and the modern father, the feeling that children are brought into the world to satisfy the parents and compensate them for the disappointments of their own lives is still widespread." (Fromm Man For Himself 153)
The child depends completely on the care and love of the adult. Under intense emotional pressure, "the child acquires a sense of distinguishing between good and bad before he learns the difference by reasoning. His value judgements are formed as a result of the friendly or unfriendly reactions of the significant people in his life... The fear of disapproval and the need for approval seem to be the most powerful and almost exclusive motivation for ethical judgement." (Fromm Man For Himself 11)
"Both the formal and the material aspects of authoritarian ethics are apparent in the genesis of ethical judgement in the child and of unreflective ethical judgement in the adult. (Fromm Man For Himself 10)
The authoritarian conscience is the "voice of an internalized authority such as the parental authority, or state authority." Authoritarian ethics is the product of irrational authoritarian conscience derived form the internalization of an external authority. (Fromm Man For Himself 143)
"The authoritarian 'conscience' is a fear for the authority rather than a representation of the individual's real conscience, the source of natural value judgements. (144)
"Under inner stress, a person may become alienated from his real self. He will then shift the major part of his energies to the task of molding himself, by a rigid system of inner dicates into a being of absolute perfection. He idealizes the image he has of himself. This neurotic development illustrates the strong human striving for 'perfection'. ".... man by his very nature and of his own accord strives toward self-realization, and his set of values derives from such striving." Growth is only possible with the assuming of self-responsibility. The criteria for morality depend on the needs for individual growth. Attitudes which are conducive to a person's growth are 'moral' and those which are obstructice to a persons growth are 'immoral.' Growth and self-realization are not possible without truthfulness to oneself.
"By taking over the conceptions of others as our own, we lose contact with the potential wisdom of our own functioning and lose confidence in ourselves. Since these value constructs are often sharply at variance with what is going on in our own experiencing, we have in a very basic way divorced ourselves from ourselves, and this accounts for much strain and insecurity. This fundamental discrepancy between the individual's concepts and what he is actually experiencing, between the intellectual structure of his values and the valuing process going on unrecognized within him - this is part of the fundamental estrangement of modern man from himself" (Fromm Man For Himself 247
Selfishness as identical with lack of love for the 'self': "Is (modern man's) selfishness identical with self-love or is it not caused by the very lack of it?" (Man for Himself p. 129)...
"Selfishness and self-love, far from being identical are actually opposites ...selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either." (Man for Himself page 131)
Psychoanalysis provides important data on human nature as defined by human values: An individual's 'search for identity' is essentially a search for his own intrinsic value system, his own authentic nature, his humanness, the human core which he shares with other members of the human species. Psychoanalytic therapies help him to 'search for his identity' ..."An individual's search for identity is essentially a search for his own intrinsic value system, his own authentic nature, his humanness, the human core which he shares with other members of the human species." (Erich Fromm Man For Himself)
Providing important data in the search for values, psychoanalysis could be regarded as a significant process in the efforts of philosophers to formulate a 'science of values' or 'science of ethics.' A 'science of values' would constitute a significant basis for the formulation of a 'science of education.' Psychoanalysis can be regarded as a process for formulating a 'science of values' or 'science of ethics.' The overemphasis of traditional psychology on the pathologies, neuroses, psychoses etc. has provided abundant evidence that men's bad and evil behavior results from frustration in his efforts toward self-actualization. "Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self; (Fromm Man For Himself 189
Wholistic perception of human growth and development.. 'productive character orientation'
"The whole personality of the average individual is determined by the way people relate to each other and it is determined by the socioeconomic and political structure of society to such an extent that in in principle, one can infer from the analysis of one individual the totality of the social structure in which he lives." (Man For Himself 79
"The aim of man's life is the unfolding of his powers according to the laws of his nature"
"Life has an inherent tendency to grow, to expand, to express potentialities." (Erich Escape from Freedom p.269
The person whose authority is respected functions competently in the task with which he is entrusted by those who conferred it upon him." (Fromm Man For Himself page 10)
As a mode of relatedness, the 'productive character orientation "covers mental, emotional and sensory responses to others, to oneself and to things." (Fromm, Erich. Man for Himself: an Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. p.84)
"... (concerning) the 'productive character'... the nature of the fully developed character is the aim of human development, and simultaneously the aim of humanistic ethics." (Fromm Man For Himself 83)
In a spontaneous process of self-realization, the 'productive' character recognizes his powers, identifies with them and puts them to productive use. Unless mentally and emotionally crippled, every human being is capable of the attitude characteristic of the 'productive' character. Every child is born with the biologically inherent natural capacities of a 'productive' character. Full maturation of the 'productive' character and the individual's self-realization is the aim of the biological process of human development and therefore of education and humanistic ethics. Consequently an inquiry into the 'science of ethics' is simultaneously an inquiry into the 'science of education' and human development. Conversely an inquiry into the 'science of education' and human development is simultaneously an inquiry into the 'science of ethics.'
A cultural environment which respects the human organism's basic psychological needs fosters the individual's growth towards self-actualization. A cultural environment which respects the human organism's instinctive 'metaneeds' as well as basic psychological needs, fosters the individual's 'metamotivation' towards full human awareness or 'humanness'. Necessitating a cultural environment for their actualization, the 'metaneeds' and 'metamotivation' can easily be lost in a culture which does not approve of human nature.
"Value system based on the concept of what Albert Schweitzer called the 'reverence for life'. Valuable or good is all that which contributes to the greater unfolding of man's specific faculties and furthers life. Negative or bad is everything that strangles life and paralyzes man's activeness." (Erich Fromm The Revolution of Hope :Toward a Humanized Technology. New York, London: Harper & Row,1968 p.89)
SCIENCE OF ETHICS AND APPLICATION TO SCIENCE OF EDUCATION "
IMPROVED SELF-KNOWLEDGE (AND CLARITY OF ONE'S VALUES) IS ALSO COINCIDENT WITH IMPROVED KNOWLEDGE OF OTHERS AND OF REALITY IN GENERAL (AND CLARITY OF THEIR VALUES)." (l77)
Validity of humanistic ethics: "Humanistic ethics is the applied science of the 'art of living' based upon the theoretical 'science of man'. (Erich Fromm. Man For Himself 18)
Humanistic ethics: "... our knowledge of human nature does not lead to ethical relativism, but to the conviction that the sources of norms for ethical conduct are to be found in man's nature itself; moral norms are based on man's inherent qualities, and their violation results in mental and emotional disintegration...the character structure of the mature and integrated personality, the 'productive ' character, constitutes the source and the basis of 'virtue' and 'vice' in the last analysis is the indifference to one's own self and self-mutilation." 'Self-love' and the affirmation of one's true self are the supreme values of humanistic ethics.
"If man is to have confidence in values, he must know himself and the capactity of his nature for goodness and productiveness." (Fromm Man For Himself 7
Humanistic conscience is based on the knowledge of man's nature. The great tradition of humanistic ethical thought is based on a wholistic perspective of man in his 'physico-spiritual totality'. It is based on the belief that man's aim is to be himself, and that the condition for attaining this goal is that man be for himself." (Fromm Man For Himself 7) It is based on the premise that one has to know the ature of man in order to formulate valid ethical codes. Based on the validity of man's autonomy, valid ethical norms are formed by man's reason.
Doubt of human reason leads to moral confusion: Human autonomy and reason was doubted and led to moral confusion and the concept of ethical relativism and the 'relativistic' position "which proposes that value judgements and ethical norms are exclusively matters of taste or arbitrary preference and that no objectively valid statement can be made in this realm. But since man cannot live without values and norms, this relativism makes him an easy prey for irrational value systems...The demads of the state, the enthusiasm for magic qualities of powerful leaders, powerful machines, and material success become the sources for his norms and value judgements." (Fromm Man For Himself 5)
Purpose of the book(Man for Himself): to reaffirm "the validity of humanistic ethics, to show that our knowledge of human nature does not lead to ethical relativism, but to the conviction that the sources of norms for ethical conduct are to be found in man's nature itself; that moral norms are based on man's inherent qualities, and that their violation results in mental and emotional disintegration...the character structure of the mature and integrated personality, the 'productive ' character, constitutes the source and the basis of 'virtue' and that 'vice' in the last analysis is the indifference to one's own self and self-mutilation."
In humanistic ethics 'good' is the affirmation of life, the unfolding of man's powers. 'Virtue' from 'Virtus' is 'responsibility toward one's existence, excellence of one's achievement." 'Vice' is "irresponsibility toward one's own existence." (Fromm Man For Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. 20)
"If man is to have confidence in values, he must know himself and the capactity of his nature for goodness and productiveness." (Fromm Man For Himself 7
'Self-love' and the affirmation of one's true self are the supreme values of humanistic ethics.
Humanistic ethics and rational authority (use of reason): Rational authority depends on performance and requires constant scrutiny. The source of rational authority is competence. "The person whose authority is respected functions competently in the task with which he is entrusted by those who conferred it upon him." (Fromm Man For Himself 10)
adult immaturity is an accedpted cultural norm etc.
"Full maturation of the 'productive' character and the individual's self-realization is the aim of the biological process of human development and therefore of education and humanistic ethics." (Fromm Man for Himself 84)
"Living' as an art: the process of developiong into that which one is potentially. Man's value judgements - his criteria for good and evil- are derived from the meaningfulness of his own existence. Man finds fulfillment and happiness through love - the power by which he relates to the world through his fellow man."
"The way one experiences others is not different from the way one experiences oneself." (Fromm, Erich. Man for Himself: 73)
"The aim of man's life is the unfolding of his powers according to the laws of his nature" ...
Norman Goble The Changing Role of the Teacher. (ch 3 The Function of Teaching) Paris UNESCO 1977
theme: Selection and use of knowledge becomes more important than it absorption "Open to serious question is the asssumption that the possession of knowledge brings with it the power to control the future". (Goble 55)
"More emphasis will be put on learning than on teaching..." (Husen, T. Functions of the Schools of the Future. In: Present Trends and Future Developments in Education: A European Perspective. The Peter Sandford Memorial Lectures. Toronto. The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), l973 Occasional Papers no. 8)"
Old model of the teacher...'monopolist teacher'... and 'teaching techniques'
'Teacher-student contradiction'... "The old model of the teacher (based on the assumption that the teacher knows more than the student and must transfer knowledge to the student), and the whole complex set of attitudes and expectations that relates to that model, are extremely persistent... the factor of 'status "One of the most serious obstacles to the kind of change that we are advocating is the persistent idea that status is gained or preserved by knowing more than somebody else." When this concept is institutionalized in a school system, children are subjected to the worst features of adult society - authoritarianism and "resistance to anything perceived as a threat to authority or status." "If the function of teacher is seen as the transmission of successive quanta of knowledge" and the knowledge itself is used as a criterion for status, then the teacher of an upper school grade has more status than a teacher of a lower grade, and the absurd equation results: "the younger the child, the lower the status of the teacher (since everyone 'knows' that younger children have had less time to ingest knowledge than the older ones, and so need less knowledgeable teachers.)" ref l. In order to prevent his own loss of status, the 'monopolist' teacher in such an institution, might devise ways to prevent the acknowledgement of a deserving student's competence, by striving to possess more knowledge and by making competence testing more difficult.
"One of the most serious obstacles to the kind of change that we are advocating is the persistent idea that status is gained or preserved by knowing more than somebody else." When this concept is institutionalized in a school system, children are subjected to the worst features of adult society - authoritarianism and "resistance to anything perceived as a threat to authority or status." "If the function of teacher is seen as the transmission of successive quanta of knowledge" and the knowledge itself is used as a criterion for status, then the teacher of an upper school grade has more status than a teacher of a lower grade, and the absurd equation results: "the younger the child, the lower the status of the teacher (since everyone 'knows' that younger children have had less time to ingest knowledge than the older ones, and so need less knowledgeable teachers.)"
In the institution of the school, the function of the teacher is measured by the difference in knowledge level with the student and in this way is formalized. On the basis of the asumption that knowledge is "finite and unchanging" the student is expected to memorize and 'possess' the knowledge transmitted by the teacher whose function as a 'monopolist' (making a claim to a monopoly of knowledge) is to concentrate on "artificial and arbitrary kinds of scholarship." (Goble 54)
In order to prevent his own loss of status, the 'monopolist' teacher in such an institution, might devise ways to prevent the acknowledgement of a deserving student's competence, by striving to possess more knowledge and by making competence testing more difficult.
"The present teaching of 'teaching techniques' too often consists of strategies for maintenance of the teacher's status, in which a passive, non-developing role is assigned to the student." In this way the 'monopolist' teacher unwittingly becomes a protector of the status of the institution, antagonizing the student who refuses to cooperate in defense of his own status and self respect. A power struggle is set up between teachers and administration on the one hand and students on the other.
"The exercise of the role of teacher is a matter of time, place and circumstance. The individual can make no claim to the permament title of 'teacher' since a change of circumstances, an encounter with someone else, may at any moment reverse the roles." (Goble. The Function of Teaching 53)
Traditional role of teacher is seriously questioned today:
"Open to serious question is the asssumption that the possession of knowledge brings with it the power to control the future". (Goble 55) "Real knowledge of a scientific kind is not positive and finite, but elusive and ever-changing"(54)
"For adjustment to the environment, one must learn to control and evaluate perceptions, and to extract information necessary for survival. For intellectual and spiritual growth, one must be prepared to change one's ideas in the face of new evidence. People cannot be expected to be confidently adaptable at such a basic level unless they have the security of a stable self-image, a reasoned and realistic awareness of their own powers and their individual worth, tempered by an equal respect for the worth of others." (Goble 57)
Real knowledge is not static but dynamic: Accurate evaluation of perception is necessary for survival. With complete cognition, the human organism makes accurate evaluations of perceptions of 'reality'.... i.e. 'knowledge'...
. "The notion that a teacher is there to impart facts or demonstrate skills implies a set of social and cultural objectives that are inappropriate in face of the current explosion of knowledge and its continuous challenge to the validity of orthodox opinion, and in face of the general demand for the democritization of education."(Goble 56)
Real knowledge is not "static, unchanging and quantitatively measureable." On the contrary, it is "dynamic and in constant flux." Treated as a status symbol and perceived quantitatively, knowledge becomes meaningless. Like money, the worth of knowledge is measured according to what it is used for and the beneficial changes which it is used to bring about. Emphasis on the teacher's possession of knowledge obscures the important fact that "the only purpose of teaching is to bring about successful learning."(Goble 66)
With the accumulation of new data, we realize that real knowledge is infinite and cannot be 'possessed'. The function of the teacher is changed from a 'monopolist' to a 'mediator'
Function of teacher as 'mediator': With the accumulation of new data, we realize that real knowledge is infinite and cannot be 'possessed'. The function of the teacher is changed from a 'monopolist' to a 'mediator'. "The notion that a teacher is there to impart facts or demonstrate skills implies a set of social and cultural objectives that are inappropriate in face of the current explosion of knowledge and its continuous challenge to the validity of orthodox opinion, and in face of the general demand for the democritization of education."(Goble 56)
The function of the teacher as 'mediator' is to promote people's confident adaptability by enhancing their security and making them aware of their own powers and their own worth. The ideal teacher would "strengthen the confidence of the student in his own capabilities, and make sure in doing so that the student was learning to assess these capabilities realistically and to exercise them with due regard for the collective interest and the rights of others. He would interpret the student's perceptions in terms of past history, future probability and the large perspectives of the global morality." (Goble 57)
The teacher's responsibility: "teaching how knowledge can be sought, validated, assimilated and used as a basis for further learning, for forming and modifying goals and ideas, and for rational decision making. He is not so much a source or a purveyor as a guide to sources, an organizer of opportunities and an instructior in the techniques of inquiry and thought. His knowledge is not an ingredient in the student's education, to be consumed and used up, but a catalyst promoting the reactions of learning and growth as a result of the encounter between human capabilities and increasing knowledge." (Goble 58)
"The teacher in the new role realizes that knowledge is all around us, overwhelming in its diversity and oppressive in its insistent challenge to our beliefs; that to live in this age is to be always learning (which also means clearing the mind of obsolete ideas); that the task is to help people accomodate to that fact..... to be a mediator in the encounter between the individual and the mass of information, factual, conjectural and mythological which daily threatens to engulf him, an encounter in which selection and use of knowledge becomes more important than its absorpton." (56)
Successful teaching depends on the ability of the teacher to respond to the needs of the student.
"Educationists have failed in many attempts at school reform because they did not clearly perceive the students' needs. Plans have been made on the basis of either immature radicalism or romantic idealism about children. Consequently educationists should first be liberated from any subtle conditioning in their own education which might have deformed their natural humanitarian impulse. Then plans should be made on the basis of scientific observation of children in their capacity of learning to pursue knowledge in order to adapt to their environment and thus gain status in their evaluation of themselves." (Goble page 66)
"In order to be able to respond to the needs of the student, the teacher has to have a deep understanding of the nature of perceptions and of the learning process at various ages and stages of personal developent (not just theoretical awareness but a shrewd practical awareness), comprehension of the idiom of speech and thought of the student, and a considerable degree of empathic understadnding of the student's outlook and state of feeling".
Children need to be properly guided in the process of learning to evaluate themselves. Consequently teachers must be familiar with the psychological skills and specialized techniques required to guide the students in making accurate self-evaluations.
Evaluation of a student "must take account of the need of each individual for self-respect, for realistic self-confidence, for recognition of genuine achievement, and for the development of a positive self-image. At the same time, the notion of honest self-evaluation must be introduced as early as possible, so that the responsibility for assessment of performance can be progressively and successfully transferrred from the teacher to the student."(Goble 67)
Curriculum development "When the teacher was seen in the role of purveyor of a predetermined quantity of well-established knowledge, the scope of the term 'curriculum' was narrow. It implied little more than the breakdown of the subject matter into a sequence of units, each one manageable within an allotted period of time, presenting concepts and facts in a logical order." (Goble 68)
Studies of Piaget and Bruner led to consideration of the mechanisms of intellectual growth as a part of curriculum planning. "now we have to take our concern further. When the school is seen as the major part of the environment in which the child becomes an adult, and when it is accepted that the environment should be supportive of healthy all-round growth, the meaning of 'curriculum' must be extended to encompass all that the child excperiences." "In these circumstances, the terms 'curriculum' and 'extra-curricular' become blurred. (Goble 69)
"The experiences of the child in what used to be called 'extra-curricular' activities, and indeed in his domestic life, become relevant factors in the planning of teaching-learning strategies. Consequently the teacher's responsibility extends to the creation "of a series of environments favourable to the growth of the student towards desired ends, shaped to the characteristics of the student, and taking account of the effects of that part of the student's life which lies outside the school." See Wittenberg, A. The Prime Imperatives. Toronto, Clarke, Irwin l968)
Personal education of the teacher: Although a teacher is considered to be a professional, he is in fact only one of the adults with whom the child comes into contact. "The teacher needs to be strongly committed to the highest development of each individual child and also be sensitive to the social and economic context within which the child must operate." (ll8) The personal qualities required by teachers cannot be acquired from training. They are initially developed in the early formative years of the future teacher. "The quality of a country's support of parents and families, its encouragement of pre-school education and the establishment of policies that give priority to families with children, provide the essential store of stable and balanced children that will be needed to carry the heavy burdens of teaching and allied professional work when they achieve maturity." "Teaching is not a highly exclusive and acquired skill like playing the piano or printing a dress; the successful teacher calls upon personal qualities which can only be developed over a lifetime and thus there is a sense in which all his preparation is 'concurrent'." (l23)
"The best preparation of a teacher is to be involved critically and sensitively in the process of teaching."(123)
Paul Goodman Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System. New York: Random House, 1961
"Growth like any ongoing function requires adequate objects in the environment to meet the needs and appetites of the growing child." (Dewey)
Teachers' role "...to provide the materials and the conditions by which organic curiosity will be directed into investigations that have an aim and that produce results in the way of increase of knowledge, and by which social inquisitiveness will be converted into ability to find out things known to others, an ability to ask questions of books as well as of persons." (John Dewey. How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1933 40)
We force children to grow up absurd.
"Any reform in schooling has to deal with its absurdities."
The society and the schooling system creates dependent human beings "unable to fill their own hours, unable to initiate lines of meaning to give substance and pleasure to their own existence. It's a national disease this dependency and aimlessness." Addictions of dependent personalities are the things which are killing the nation: drugs, brainless competition, recreational sex, pornography of violence, gambling, alcohol ... and the worst pornography of all - lives devoted to buying things, accumulation as a philosophy." (Goodman 75)
We need an educational philosophy that works. One based on the belief that 'self-knowledge is the only basis for true knowledge.'
One philosophy which has been at the core of the education of the European ruling classes for years is based on the belief that "self-knowledge is the only basis of true knowledge." "In this system at every age, the child finds himself alone with a problem to solve."
In the American system, time is taken away from the children to develop self-knowledge. Children must be trusted with independent study from a very early age. Their privacy and solitude must be respected. They must be allowed to cultivate self-reliance and self-knowledge..
The teaching function must be respected. "In this country we have the topsy-turvey situation that a teacher must devote himself to satisfying the administrator and finacier rather than doing his job, and a universally admired teacher is fired for disobeying an administrative order that would hinder teaching." (Goodman)
In our highly organized system of machine production and its corresponding social relations, the practice is, by 'vocational guidance' to fit people wherever they are needed in the productive system. It has been shown in Russia, Germany and China that it is possible to condition great masses to perform as desired. ( Goodman 75)
'Passive teaching'- teaching as if information must be poured into childrens' heads - is destructive for children. They are judged on the basis of their ability to learn passively. The passive teacher makes a claim to a monopoly of the knowledge he teaches. (Goodman 77)
In the society and the school system, we take away from the children the time which they need to develop self-knowledge. Children must be trusted with independent study from a very early age. Their privacy and solitude must be respected. Curricula must be developed which enable children to cultivate self-knowledge and self-reliance. Children's sense of responsibility can be enhanced by making community service a part of schooling. The family becomes the main arena for education. The understanding teacher will be respected.
Unfortunately "in this era of malice and greed, teaching requires a moral courage that is tragically unfashionable and widely ridiculed." (Paul Goodman 77)
Education in the true sense is an art. Human nature demands liberty, equality, fraternity. "Each person can become a poet and philosopher in the real sense." Goodman page 7)
"There still have to be changes in our society and culture so as to meet the appetites and capacities of human nature, in order to grow up." (Goodman 11)
Growth like any ongoing function requires adequate objects : "Our society is simply deficient in many of the most elementary objective opportunities and worthwhile goals that could make growing up possible." (Goodman 12)
The "society is lacking in honest public speech and people are not taken seriously". This thwarts aptitude and corrupts ingenuous patriotism. It corrupts the fine arts and shackles science. It has no honor. It is a waste of humanity. "In our society, bright lively children, with the potentiality for knowledge, noble ideals, honest effort and some kind of worthwhile achievement are transformed into useless and cynical bipeds..." (Goodman 14)
"Pre-empting of the means and the brains by the organization and the shutting out of those who do not conform, can go as far as to cause delusions." When the sorganization has too much power, "people put up with a system because there are no alternatives. And when one cannot think of anything to do, soon one ceases to think of it at all." (Goodman, preface p. ix)
"In the greast interlocking system of the corporation people live not by attending to the job, but by status, role playing and tenure and they work to maximize profits, prestige or votes.
"The system is inefficient; the overhead is high, the task is rarely done with love, style and excitement, for such beauties emerge only from absorption in real objects; sometimes the task is not done at all; and those who could do it best become either cynical or resigned." (Goodman,)
"The official pedagogy is motivating students against intellectual work." (page 5 Politics of Education)
Students refuse to perform and the resulting power struggle (students vs. teachers and administration) leads a stalemate in schools- called "student mediocrity."
The banking approach to education teaches the individual to accept without questioning. It prevents the individual from thinking. In the interests of the oppressors, banking education is the exercise of domination which stimulates the credulity of students. OFTEN NOT PERCEIVED BY EDUCATORS, THE IDEOLOGICAL INTENT IS TO INDOCTRINATE THE STUDENTS TO ADAPT TO THE WORLD OF OPPRESSION This explains the almost instinctive reaction against educational 'experiments' which would stimulate the student's critical faculties and encourage a critical consideration of reality. By mythologizing, the banking method of education reinforces the individual's fatalistic perception of reality. He becomes resigned to his situation and perceives it as unalterable. (Paulo Freire. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 65)
"If we are to accept our commitments seriously, educators have a special concern for helping ust to be liberated from the various conditions that oppress us, particularly those of ignorance and illiteracy. There is a powerful relationship between power and knowledge. "People hold on to their domination in part because the oppressed do not have the critical intellectual skills to overcome the powerful continued forces of acculturation which lead the weak to internalize the ideology of the strong." (1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed,. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos, New York: Herder and Herder. 124)
Harris, Kevin. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1979 chapter 5, On Education
Education as instruction: its cultural significance Pedagogy as instruction...a 'scientific' formulation of a 'pedagogical theory' must include consideration of the political, economic and social setting of the 'educational process' under consideration.
"Education, by serving the ruling interests in a class society, and by doing this in a disguised way, actually gives people a distorted view of the world, and offers a misrepresentation of reality. Through its process, its content and its political power in bestowing social rewards, it presents a conceptual scheme and methodologies- ways of perceiving the world - that largely ensure that people will take their place in the existing world as well-fitting members of the status quo, without questioning the status quo or perceiving the real relations on which it is built ...Education promotes a distorted and illusory view of reality in the name of enquiring into truth. And since it does this in a deliberate and systematic way, its offerings and products can properly be characterised as a structured misrepresentation of reality." (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1979 chapter 5, On Education 164)
"Instruction is a specialized artifact of human culture. It reflects the species-typical character of human culture and the requirement of passing on that culture by extragenetic means." (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1979 118)
Education is essentially concerned with the transmission of knowledge within "the material conditions of existing social relations, which determine what shall be transmitted, and how; such that education serves as a major factor in the production of certain kinds of knowledge, which in turn serve the particular interests of particular societies. In this way eduction is, first and foremost, a political act." (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1979 chapter 5 education 137)
In a class society, the function of education provided by the ruling class is to help maintain the status quo by stabilising the functioning of the society which would serve the interests of the ruling class. If the society in question is a capitalist society, "then education would serve the ruling class by helping to ensure the stabilisation and continuation of the capitalist mode of production, which requires that the majority of the population live and work in a manner that is against their own best interests. .If the society is a liberal democracy and/or espouses the ideals of liberal democracy, them this mass of people have to be coànvinced, by 'positive' means, that what is occurring in society is in their best interests too. Thus education, in exercising its stabilising function, has to do two specific things regardless of whatever else it might do. It has to disguise certain things, like the real basis of social relations, and it has to deal in ignorance as well as the transmission of knowledge. In short it must keep some things hidden away, and transmit other things in a disguised and distorted form." (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. 139-140)
Education is provided by the state to serve the ruling interests in a society (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1979 chapter 5 education 128-164. 139).
'Education' is an act that always encompasses and is built on a particular theory or view of man and the world, and on particular interpretations of what is good for man and the state; and it is an act that necessarily brings into play and involves economic and political power in fostering , producing and perpetuating these particular views. (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1979 chapter 5 education 128-164. 139)
"The function of education in any society is the socialization of youth into the prevailing culture. On the one hand, schooling serves to integrate individuals into society by institutionalizing the dominant value, norm and belief system. On the other hand, schooling provides the individual competencies necessary for the adequate performance of social roles. These educational systems are fundamental to the stability and functioning of any society."(Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. 123) See Gintis in R.C. Edwards et al(eds) The Capitalist System. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972 123)
"Education in a class society is a political act having as its basis the protection of the interests of the ruling class. It is a 'mechanism' for securing the continuation of the existing social relationships, and for reinforcing the attitudes and beliefs that will help insure that those social relationships will continue to be accepted. Education is thus more than a 'mechanism' - it is an ideological force of tremendous import. On the one hand, it is a lived-ideology which in moden liberal capitalist democracies, everyone is compelled to live through for a long period of time. On the other hand , it generates theoretical ideology, as all lived-ideologies do, but in the most influential and insidious of ways. ...Education's very function is to instil in people a particular way of seeing the world; it takes those 'tender,impressionable minds of the new generation' and implants in them the master mental set - see the world this way....Education is the manipulation of consciousness. ...It legitimates itself and the wy of seeing the world that it promotes and produces. When it is universal and compulsory, it emerges as the major means for securing and promoting the consciousness that will perpetuate and secure the existing social relationships, out of which the institution of education itself grows. According to Althusser, it is the "dominant ideological State apparatus" of the present day. (L. Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy. London: New Left Books, 1971) Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. 153)
It "forms and reinforces the dominant ideological views in a society and the consciouness that accompanies them: it can never 'raise consciousness' or create the conditions or promote the 'critical awareness' whereby the dominant ideology of an era can be recognised for what it is, let alone be attacked." (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. 141)
"The conduct and process of education in a capitalist society corresponds neatly with the conduct and process of the workplace; and so what is learned via the process of education can be carried over directly by individuals as part of the ongoing perpetuation of the existing modes of production and social relations. The state makes such education compulsory, and provides massive economic support for it, creating a monopoly, and monitoring it carefully. Education then produces people who either positively accept or are positively resigned to their future given conditions of work and living; for ten years or more they have lived an ideology, and are ready to continue on in a smilar one with the same principles....Education, in process, is essentially and decidedly political; and this would hold in all types of societies. In a capitalist society education simply produces a particular consciousness; one suited to the capitalist mode of production." (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. 144)
"The particularly insidious thing about this in a capitalist liberal democracy is that education must ensure the growth of capitalism, which is against the direct best interests of the non-capitalist classes, and it must give the overt impression of liberalism and democracy. To achieve both ends it must fool most people most of the time. Education has to instil the belief in all, workers and capitalists, that the status quo is 'given' and immutable; and it must instil the belief in workers that the status quo is not working against their best interests but is serving them rightfully. Further, it has to indicate, again to all, that the status quo and the education itself, are democratic and do not favor any particular interests. Thus education in a capitalist liberal democracy is an ideological instrument which promotes false consciousness, promulgates distorted representations of reality, keeps people ignorant of those things that otherwise might enable them to recognise and challenge the actual social relations underlying the status quo, not by repression, not by overt indoctrination, but by disguising what it does behind proclamations of liberalism, enlightenment and equality. (Kevin Harris. Education and Knowledge: The Structured Misrepresentation of Reality. 147) 75)
Horney, Karen, M.D. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization, New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. 1956.
..................... The Neurotic Personality of Our Time
..................... Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization
On Freud...
"Freud had a pessimistic outlook on human nature.... He had no clear vision of constructive forces in man... he denied their authenticity." (Horney, Karen, M.D. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization, 377)
"The human being's healthy striving toward self-realization was regarded by Freud as an expression of 'narcissistic libido' Freud did not see the tragedy in neurosis."
On normal growth.. or 'normalization' - the result of unhampered psychic human growth.
Working for one's personal growth is a law of nature.
the 'self': "that central inner force, common to all human beings and yet unique to each, which is the deep source of growth." "Like any other living organism, the human individuum needs favorable conditions for his growth 'from acorn to oak tree'; he needs an atmosphere of warmth to give him both a feeling of inner security and the inner freedom enabling him to have his own feelings and thoughts and to express himself. He needs the good will of others, not only to help him in his many needs but to guide and encourage him to become a mature and fulfilled individual. He also needs healthy friction with the wishes and wills of others. If he can thus grow with others, in love and in friction, he will also grow in accordance with his real self." (Horney, Karen, M.D. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization, 18)
"Disciplinary measures are injurious to growth. Through growth, one outgrows undesirables attitudes. Growth is a function of increased understanding of one's human nature. Self-knowledge is the means of setting free those forces which are responsible for growth. Self-realization is the natural product of growth through freedom to learn. Working for one's personal growth is a law of nature.
"The criteria for morality depend on the needs for individual growth. Attitudes which are conducive to a person's growth are 'moral' and those which are obstructive to a persons growth are 'immoral.' Growth and self-realization are not possible without truthfulness to oneself." (Karen Horney. Neurosis and Human growth 366?) ....
On abnormal growth or 'neurosis'....
"The neurotic process is a special form of human development, and because of the waste of constructive energies which it involves - is a particularly unfortunate one. Under favorable conditions, man's energies are put into the realization of his own potentialities." (Horney, Karen, M.D. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization, 13)
Neurosis - manifest 'basic anxiety - derives from environmental factors which obstruct a child's normal psychic growth and development". (Horney, Karen, M.D. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization, 366)
"Anxiety feelings arise in children whose parents fail to give them genuine warmth and affection (ususally because of their own neuroses). These children do not experience the 'blissful certainty of being wanted'".
"Under inner stress, a person may become alienated from his real self. He will then shift the major part of his energies to the task of molding himself, by a rigid system of inner dicates into a being of absolute perfection. He idealizes the image he has of himself. This neurotic development illustrates the strong human striving for 'perfection'." (Horney, Karen, M.D. Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization)
"Unconditional love is an essential for the child's normal development, and when this is refused, the environment comes to be dreaded..." - it is perceived as a menace to his individuality, his development, his instinctive strivings to grow, his freedom and his happiness. "In an environment in which the basic anxiety develops, the child's free use of energies is thwarted, his self-esteem and self-relaince are undermined, fear is instilled by intimidation and isolation, his expansiveness is warped through brutality or overprotective 'love'." The fear is grounded in reality. (New Ways in Psychoanalysis) ...
On psychology...
" There is no such thing as a universal normal psychology; behavior regarded as neurotic in one culture may be quite normal elsewhere, and vice versa. What constitutes normality or abnormality can only be decided when we consider the culture within which the individual is functioning. The mental conflicts of the neurotic are not fundamental conflicts of human nature arising from biological foundations (Freud's belief). They are based on the motivating forces and conflicts of the society and the culture within which the individual is functioning. Energized by childhood anxieties resulting from obstruction to inner freedom, security and healthy psychological growth, "the neuroses of modern industrial man are therefore based on conflicts inherent in our own culture". (Horney, K. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. 141)
Illich, Ivan. Deschooling Society New York, London: Harper and Row, 1971
"In education, intellectual education is not enough. Education is for both intellectual and emotional development. Education for maturity as well as knowledge is the only protection against abusive manipulation of the public mind... ...the organization of human communities and the establishment of freedom and peace are not only intellectual achievements but spiritual and moral achievements as well, demanding a cherishing of the wholeness of the human personality.." (Ivan Ilich. Deschoolong Society. 3)
The ills of the society are symptomatic of the ills of the schools ...Illich
Although credited with the principle function of 'forming critical judgment', school enslaves systematically and profoundly.
The term 'schooling' can be defined as an "age-specific, teacher related process requiring full-time attendance at an obligatory curriculum." (Illich 26)
Illich's thesis: public education would profit from the deschooling of society; "Deschooling is at the root of any movement for human liberation."(47)
School combines the expectations of the consumer, expressed in its claims, with the beliefs of the producer, expressed in its ritual. (45)
Politics of poverty
The American educational system is based on a set of assumptions which are rooted in the belief systems of American culture. (Illich Deschooling Society 7)
Their historical origins stem from the rejection of the idea that people deserve a better life because they are better 'educated'. Their version of American 'nationalism' is based on ideals of 'democracy' and 'equality' as 'equal opportunity for all.' Their traditional aversion to elitisim and aristocracy accounts for their characteristic suspicion for so-called 'serious education'. Understanding the power of education to change existing power arrangements, they have avoided discussion of the wider issues of educational philosophy. In the American educational system, schools "represent a powerful force of social, intellectual and personal oppression."(Illich 20)
"The poor have always been socially powerless. The increasing reliance on institutional care adds a new dimension to their helplessness: psychological impotence, the inability to fend for themselves." (Ivan Ilich. Deschoolong Society. 3)
"Ignorance, poverty and crime in society will not be solved by more of the same 'old education' - forcing children to learn under the systematic repression of adult-controlled instruction. Despite the billions of dollars and lip service efforts at 'reform' this type of traditional education remains as ever a part of the problem - not the solution. Instead, we must create a 'new education' to free the human spirit - true education which is based entirely on fundamental principles of nature." Illich
(See Paulo Freire on education for domination: education as expression of power and politics power as a form of domination: mythification of reality Ignorance and illiteracy are necessary ingredients of poverty, hunger, misery and oppression. "If we are to accept our commitments seriously, educators have a special concern for helping us to be liberated from the various conditions that oppress us, particularly those of ignorance and illiteracy. There is a powerful relationship between power and knowledge. "People hold on to their domination in part because the oppressed do not have the critical intellectual skills to overcome the powerful continued forces of acculturation which lead the weak to internalize the ideology of the strong." (Freire 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed,. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos, New York: Herder and Herder. 124) (
The educator - teacher and 'technical expert', is responsible for the state of the culture. The responsibility of educators is to empower all students, not just the few. (124) The responsibility of educators is to reach every individual student - to foster their 'individuality in the cultural context'. a. power as mystification (mythification) of reality: propaganda
Focusing on the reproduction of the values of a consumer culture, the schools have been unprepared to meet the challenges of a changing global community. The resulting 'educational crisis' has inspired discussion and debate about the wider issues of the nature and purposes of education
Schools are inefficient in arranging the circumstances which encourage 'liberal education' - "the open-ended , exploratory use of acquired skills" (17)
The American educational system has become the educational machine of the knowledge industry. School directly or indirectly employs a major portion of the population. It keeps people for life, and makes sure that they will fit into its institutions. (Illich 47) Paradoxically, school makes "learning about oneself, about others, and about nature depend on a prepackaged process." (47)
Many self-styled revolutionaries are victims of school.
Institutionalized education or 'school' and myths of schooling:
"As an institution education does what all institutions do - it becomes an instrument of social control by manipulating the content of man's imagination."
"The school system today performs the threefold function common to powerful churches throughout history. It is simultaneously the repository of society's myth, the institutionalization of that myth's contradictions, and the locus of the ritual which reproduces and veils the disaparities between myth and reality." (37)
Like a 'world church,' the school serves to promote the discrepancy between social principles and values from the social realities of the world. "School serves as an effective creator and sustainer of social myth because of its structure as a ritual game of graded promotions." (Illich 44)
As the 'new world religion' for consumer societies, it is the "world's fastest growing labor market." (Illich 46)
'education industry'
Illich argues that there are two curricula - the overt curriculum and the 'hidden curriculum'. An analysis of the 'hidden curriculum' of school and the 'educational machine' of obligatory instruction: The hidden curriculum of school: school is the 'knowledge industry. "The present educational 'crisis' has pointed up the inadequacy of the expected role of 'educator' as technical expert. It makes "learning about oneself, about others, and about nature depend on a prepackaged process." (Illich 47)
in the context of capitalism and the consumer society, 'free' schools resort to methods of 'seduction' rather than authoritarianism as their means of control over the consumer-students. The fundamental assumption forming the basis of all schools (those using 'seductive' pedagogicl methods as well as those using authoritarianism): "the idea that one person's judgment should determine what and when another person must learn." (42)
Modern society and the institutionalisation of values... nonmaterial needs are transformed into demands for commodities; education is defined in terms of the results of 'services.' Institutions are created for the 'services' required for education - leads to 'psychological impotence' - inability to fend for oneself."
As institutionalized education, schooling is based on three premises: children belong in school, children learn in school, children can be taught only in school.... disaparities between myth and reality." (Illich Deschooling Society 37).
The issue is 'schooled' learning versus 'non-schooled' learning; 'inhumane learning versus 'humane' learning.
Credited with the principle function of 'forming critical judgment' school enslaves systematically and profoundly.Paradoxically, school makes "learning about oneself, about others, and about nature depend on a prepackaged process." (47)
Americans need to examine their culture critically. They need to reconsider their basic assumptions and reexamine their way of being.
What is needed is sophisticated educational 'dialogue' which is broad in scope, dealing with cultural, moral and spiritual issues. What is needed is a social-cultural critique of today's educational practices. What is needed is a fundamental reconceptualization of 'education' and the schooling process. What is needed is a critique of the roots of the educational 'crisis'. Educators must analyse the cultural context in which they are doing their work of 'educating'. (Illich Deschooling Society 20)
The current educational crisis has pointed up the necessity of recognizing the real relationship between education and culture; correlation between character orientation and social structure.
"As long as people are not aware of the ritual character of schooling as the initiation into the consumer society, they cannot begin to conceive of educational reform. Under the power of the ritual of the educational 'machine', they remain under the spell of the economy. (capitalism- consumerism) Once that spell is broken and only after it is broken, can they reform the educational system within a new paradigm."(Illich)
School as the initiation into consumer society
In the context of American culture, the function of the schools is to foster conformity to the cultural values of a consumer society.
The present school system continues its function of reproducing the cultural values of a consumer society. In keeping with the traditional ideal of the individual's right to pursue happiness ('pursuit of happiness')(American Constitution), schools have promoted the myth of an "earthly paradise of never-ending consumption" (Illich 45).
In fostering the values of the consumer society, the schools promote the social myth of "unending consumption of services." Expectations are substituted for self-reliance and hope. Children are taught to accept the expectations inherent in the school curriculum. Responsibility for their learning and growth is transferred to the schooling institution; In the process, children are taught the 'myth of measurement of values'. They are taught that only those values which can be measured... 'measurable'... values are rewarded in the consumer society... Personal growth, imagination and creativity cannot be measured and are not valued Although personal growth, imagination and creativity cannot be measured, children are taught that 'Myth of packaging values'. As a product of the educational machine, values are packaged in a 'curriculum' of subject matter. The 'distributor-teacher' delivers the consumer product to the 'consumer-students', who are "to make their desires conform to marketable values."(Illich 41)
In a process of consumer research, students' reactions are evaluated to provide data for the design of an improved product - an 'innovative' curriculum which is 'student-centered' or 'team-taught' - and so on. Children are taught the 'myth of self-perpetuating progress'. (Illich 42) Students are taught to perceive their personal growth in terms of increased consumption of the curricula of knowledge produced by the educational machine. "Each subject comes packaged with the instruction to go on consuming one 'offering' after another, and last year's wrapping is always obsolete for this year's consumer." (Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society. page 42)
In schools of the consumer culture, children are taught the 'need to be taught' and the need to be consumers of the services of 'teaching' and the 'educational machine.'
'Schooling,' and 'teaching' as 'skill instruction' is confused with education and learning, grade advancement is confused with progressive learning, diploma with competence, etc. 'Equal educational opportunity' is made synonymous with 'obligatory education.' Obligatory schooling as obligatory attendance, becomes schooling for the sake of 'schooling' and not for the sake of education.
Nonmaterial needs are transformed into demands for commodities; education is defined in terms of the results of 'services.' Institutions are created for the 'services' required for education."
Equal educational opportunity' is not equivalent to 'obligatory education.' "Most people acquire most if their knowledge outside school."(Ivan Illich 12) "Obligatory schooling inevitably polarizes a society" (Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society. 9) 'Paradox of the schools' - "increased expenditure escalates their destructiveness"(9
" School makes alienation preparatory to life, thus depriving education of reality and work of creativity. School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition. And school directly or indirectly employs a major portion of the population. School either keeps people for life, or makes sure that they will fit into some institution." (Ivan Illich. Deschooling Society47)
In the culture of capitalism and consumerism, schools serve to initiate children into the consumer society. As preparation for a life of never ending consumption, children learn to become alienated from the realities of life. Their 'education' is deprived of reality and creativity. They learn to adapt to the alienating institutionalization of values and belief systems. They learn to close themselves off to the surprises which life offers. Eventually they lose their incentive to grow in independence. They become 'psychologically impotent', unable to fend for themselves.
"Only recently has schooling been confused with education and peoples' competence been judged by their diplomas. The 'professisonal' major qualification of the 'professional' is that he/she can pass a licensing examination."
School combines the expectations of the consumer, expressed in its claims, with the beliefs of the producer, expressed in its ritual.(45)
Rituals of schooling: graduations, diplomas, certificates, licenses, grades, honors lists etc. According to Max Gluckman (reference): Ritual "hides from the participants the discrepancies and conflicts between social priinciple and social organization." As long as people are not aware of the ritual character of schooling as the initiation into the consumer society, they cannot begin to conceive of educational reform. Under the power of the ritual of the educational 'machine', they remain under the spell of the economy (capitalism- consumerism). Once that spell is broken and only after it is broken, can they reform the educational system within a new paradigm.
The schooling system systematically and profoundly enslaves the individual's thought and behavior patterns within the framework of the cultural belief system.
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The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy l897
The Principles of Psychology Great Books volume 53:83
The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York, New America Library, l958
Talks to Teachers on Psychology: and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
Essays in Radical Empiricism
University of California Santa Barbara, "The Santa Barbara scientists take inspiration from early experimental psychologists such as William James who proposed more than 100 years ago that human intelligence surpasses that of other animals because our minds includes a constellation of 'faculties' or 'instincts' that directs learning, reasoning and behavior. Science News vol 145, no.5 65-80 January 1994
In his book 'Essays in Radical Empiricism', William James "sets forth a metaphysical notion of 'pure experience' that rejected ancient dualisms betwen thought and object, knower and known, in favor of a unitary view in which 'the parts of experience hold together... (Lawrence A. Cremin "The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education l976-l957" Vintage Books, Random House l964 p.108)
William James, Preface to "The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy" l897
The self-adjusted man of American culture could be conceived as representing the ideal and over-belief of American psychological theory. Abraham Maslow's scientific approach to the nature of the human being can be considered one of the outcomes which is profitable to mankind.
According to William James, "The most interesting and valuable things about a man are his ideals and over-beliefs. The same is true of nations and historic epochs; and the excesses of which the particular individuals and epochs are guilty are compensated in the total, and become profitable to mankind in the long run." (William James, Preface to "The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy" l897 )
William James was one of the earliest and most eminent psychologists who recognized and acknowledged the multiplicity of conscious states. "...our normal waking consciousness ...is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it parted from it by the filmiest of screens , there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through lifewithout suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus and at a touch they are there in all their completeness... No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciouness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality". (The Varieties of Religious Experience, New York, New America Library, l958 cited by Walsh page 298)
On human nature: "Man is conceived as a biological creature whose behavior is founded upon certain instintive tendencies to react. Upon these tendencies rest both habitual and voluntary action. As a result of the repetition of acts, habits emerge, testifying to the plasticity and modifiability of the human nervous system. Once formed, they increasingly govern behavior until eventually they become the overwhelming determinants of social and personal character. Obviously a central task of education is the early inculcation of as many good and useful habits as possible
"There is a paradox about habit, though, for the more the details of life are given over to it, the further the higher powers of mind are released to do their own proper work. Here James' key concept is consciousness, or the 'stream of thought' as he called it. Insisting that life itself, rather than any formal notions of mind or soul, is the starting point of psychology. James pictured consciousness as an intensely active phenomenon continually engaged in attending, emphasizing, ignoring, and interpreting the raw data of immediately felt experience. Mind is ever the 'theatre of simultaneous possibilities' and it is the fate of each individual to be constantly choosing - what he perceives, what he knows, and ultimately which of several possible selves he will become. Once again the knower is an actor whose very act of knowing helps transform the world"
The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. (William James. Principles of Psychology 1, p. 127. cited in Cremin page 107)
Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leave its never so little scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count it this time!" Well! he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-cells and fibres, the molecules are couting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Of course this has its good side as well as its bad one. As we become permament drunkards by so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral sphere, and authorities and experts in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many separate acts and hours of work.if one keeps faithfully busy each hour of the working day...one can safely leave the final result to itself...one can count on waking up some fine morning, to find oneself one of the competent people of one's generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Silently, between all the details of one's work, the power of judging in all that mass of work will have built itself up as a possession that will never pass away. Nothing we ever do is, in strict scientific literalness, wiped out. Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be. If he keep faithfully busy each hour of the working day, he may safely leave the final result to itself. He can with perfect certainty count on waking up some fine morning, to find himself one of the competent ones of his generation, in whatever pursuit he may have singled out. Young people should know this truth in advance. The ignorance of it has probably engendered more discouragement and faint-heartedness in youth embarking on arduous careers than all the other causes put together". (William James 1842-1910, The Principles of Psychology, Great Books volume 53:83)
Here James' key concept is consciousness, or the 'stream of thought' as he called it. Insisting that life itself, rather than any formal notions of mind or soul, is the starting point of psychology. James pictured consciousness as an intensely active phenomenon continulally engaged in attending, emphasizing, ignoring, and interpreting the raw data of immediately felt experience. Mind is ever the 'theatre of simultaneous possibilities' and it is the fate of each individual to be constantly choosing - what he perceives, what he knows, and ultimately which of several possible selves he will become. Once again the knower is an actor whose very act of knowing helps transform the world" (Cremin 106-107)
In 1892, two years after the publication of the Principles, the Harvard Corporation invited James to deliver a series of lectures to the teachers of Cambridge, thereby affording him opportunity to extend his formulations more directly in the field of pedagogy. The result was "Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on some of Life's Ideals": (Cremin 107)
"Referring to Darwin's own work, he insisted that while mind is obviously molded by environment, it also reacts upon environment in an actively creative way. The business of intelligence is not merely to adapt to circumstances, but to change them as well. The knower is more than a mirror passively reflecting the world he comes upon, James declared; the knower is an actor who helps transform the world of which he is a part. Voluntarism, not determinism (see Spencer and Hall) is the crucial fact of human affairs" James' was "... a new functional view of psychology (see Edna Heidelbreder The Seven Psychologies NY 1933)
Man is the only animal able to formulate concepts. Thoughts color our perceptions of the world outside. Our perceptions are influenced by our upbringing, culture and past experiences. These all help to create a mental framework for our thoughts. The mental frameworks are called "concepts." They become our guideposts in life and help us to interpret events and circumstances in our environment. Everything is compared to how we think the world is or should be and we react accordingly. The person with inner freedom is able to adapt to the environment as it is rather than as he thinks it should be.
"The child is presented as a behaving organism, whose mind is given to aid him in adapting to this world's life. Hence the purpose of education is to organize his powers to conduct so as to fit him for his social and physical milieu. Interests must be awakened and broadened as the natural starting points of instruction. The will must be trained to sustain the proper attention for productive thought and ethical action. The right sorts of habits must be early inculcated to free the child for his role as an intelligent being, and his ideas must put wherever possible to the practical test. In the end the job of the teacher is to turn the 'sensitive, impulsive, associative and reactive organism' that is the child into a purposeful, thinking, adult who will use his talents to the fullest in the struggle for a better life." (Lawrence A. Cremin "The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education l976-l957" Vintage Books, Random House l964 p.108)
James' was "...a new functional view of psychology (see Edna Heidbreder The Seven Psychologies NY l933).
"A teacher who wishes to engage the attention of his class must knit his novelties on to things of which they already have preperceptions. The old and familiar is readily attended to by the mind and helps to hold in turn the new, forming, in Herbartisan phraseology, an 'apperceptionsmasse' for it. Of course it is in every case a very delicate problem to know what 'apperperceptionsmasse' to use. Psychology can only lay down the general rule".(William James, The Principles of Psychology, Great Books volume 53: 290)
The physiological study of mental conditions is thus the most powerful ally of hortatory ethics.
On associations in the nervous system: In his study of the physiological basis of the brain's capacity for making associations, William James referred to the so-called 'nerve tracts'. "Objects once experienced together tend to become associated in the imagination, so that when any one of them is thought of, the others are likely to be thought of also, in the same order of sequence and of coexistence as before. This statement we may name the law of mental association by contiguity.... (As a phenomenon of mental habit) the most natural way of accounting for it is to conceive it as a result of the laws of habit in the nervous system; in other words, it is to ascribe to it a physiological cause. If it be truly a law of those nerve-centres which coordinate sensory and motor processes together that paths once used for coupling any pair of them are therefore made more permeable, there appears no reason why the same law should not hold good of ideational centres and their coupling paths as well. Parts of these centres which have once been in action together will thus grow so linked that excitement at one point will irradiate through the system. The chances of complete irradiation will be so strong in proportion as the previous excitements have been frequent, and as the present points excited afresh are numerous. If all points were originally excited together, the irradiation may be sensibly simultaneous throughout the system, when any single point or group of points is touched off. But where the original impressions were successive - the conjugation of a Greek verb for example - awakening nerve-tracts in a definite order, they will now, when one of them awakens, discharge into each other in that definite order and in no other way. The reader will recollect all that has been said of increased tension in nerve-tracts and of the summation of stimuli. We must therefore suppose that in these ideational tracts as well as elsewhere, activity may be awakened, in any particular locality, by the summation therein of a number of tensions, each incapable alone of provoking an actual discharge. Suppose for example the locality M to be in functional continuity with four other localities K, L, N, and O. Suppose moreover that on four previous occasions it has been separately combined with each of these localities in a common activity.M may then be indirectly wakened by any cause which tends to awaken either K, L, N or O. But if the cause which awakens K, for instance, be so slight as only to increase its tension without arousing it to full discharge, K will only succeed in slightly increasing the tension of M. But if at the same time the tensions of L, N and O are similarly increased, the combined effects of all four upon M may be so great as to awaken an actual discharge in this latter locality. In like manner if the paths between M and the four other localities have been so slightly excavated by previous experience as to require a very intense excitement in either of the localities before M can be awakened, a less strong excitement than this in any one will fail to reach M. But if all four at once are mildly excited, their compound effect on M may be adequate to its full arousal. The psychological law of association of objects thought of through their previous contiguity in thought or experience would thus be an effect, within the mind, of the physical fact that nerve-circuits propagate themselves easiest through those tracts of conduction which have been already most in use. Descartes and Locke hit upon this idea which modern science has not yet succeeded in improving. (William James, The Principles of Psychology, Great Books volume 53, 367-368)
"Man is conceived as a biological creature whose behavior is founded upon certain instintive tendencies to react. Upon these tendencies rest both habitual and voluntary action. As a result of the repetition of acts, habits emerge, testifying to the plasticity and modifiability of the human nervous system. Once formed, they increasingly govern behavior until eventually they become the overwhelming determinants of social and personal character. Obviously a central task of education is the early inculcation of as many good and useful habits as possible.
On teaching: In 1892, two years after the publication of the Principles, the Harvard Corporation invited James to deliver a series of lectures to the teachers of Cambridge, thereby affording him opportunity to extend his formulations more directly in the field of pedagogy. The result was Talks to Teachers on Psychology and Students on some of Life's Ideals. (Cremin 107)
"A teacher who wishes to engage the attention of his class must knit his novelties on to things of which they already have preperceptions. The old and familiar is readily attended to by the mind and helps to hold in turn the new, forming, in Herbartisan phraseology, an 'apperceptionsmasse' for it. Of course it is in every case a very delicate problem to know what 'apperperceptionsmasse' to use. Psychology can only lay down the general rule." (William James, The Principles of Psychology, Great Books volume 53: 290) .
Kohlberg Lawence. Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization. In In D.A. Goslin (ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago: Rand McNally 1969. (pp. 347-480)
...... "The Moral Atmosphere of the School" Chapter 13 Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 196-220
.... "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 176-195
.... Child Psychology and Childhood Education: a Cognitive-Developmental View. New York, London: Longman, 1987 296-297)
Theme: COGNITIVE AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT GO TOGETHER... MORALITY IS A FUNCTION OF SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
SOURCE OF DATA "In 1955 I started to redefine and validate (through longitudinal and cross-cultural study) the Dewey-Piaget levels and stages...
."Kohlberg's thesis on the stages of moral development emerged from a twenty year long study of American boys and men commencing in 1956. Seventy two boys aged 10 to 16 were interviewed every three or four years on nine hypothetical dilemmas. Their responses constitute the data in the study of changes in the moral reasoning of these subjects as they grew older. The changes in their moral reasoning led to changes in the conceptualization of moral stages. These changes are reflected in revisions in scoring systems used to organize these data. A list of moral issues, values and norms found in every society or culture: : laws and rules, conscience, personal roles of affection, authority, civil rights, contract-trust and justice in exchange, punishment and justice of punishment, the value of life, property rights and values, truth, sex and sexual love. Scoring systems were used to organize the data. Revisions of the scoring reflected the changes in conceptualization of morals. Interviews were conducted on some of the moral issues, values and norms found in every society or culture laws and rules, conscience, personal roles of affection, authority, civil rights, contract-trust and justice in exchange, punishment and justice of punishment, the value of life, property rights and values, truth, sex and sexual love.
Also a six-year study of Turkish village and city boys and a variety of cross-sectional studies in Canada, Britain, Israel, Taiwan, Yucatan, Honduras, India (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 178)
"VALUE SYSTEM BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF WHAT Albert Schweitzer called the 'reverence for life'. Valuable or good is all that which contributes to the greater unfolding of man's specific faculties and furthers life. Negative or bad is everything that strangles life and paralyzes man's activeness."
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE EDUCATION Cognitive developmentalists "describe the successive elaboration of more complicated and differentiated structures out of simpler ones in terms of 'stages'. The developmentally 'lower' stages are prerequisites of the 'higher' stages; the more complicated higher stages deal more effectively with problems of wider scope and intricacy than do the lower stages. Hence stages are sequenced in a certain order because the earlier stages are less difficult and are attainable before the later stages. Higher stages are said to be 'better' than lower stages in the sense that the higher structural organizations can do a better job in analyzing problems, tracing out implications, and integrating considerations." (Rest, James. "Developmental Psychology as a Guide to Value Education: A Review of 'Kohlbergian' Programs" in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory David Purpel & Kevin Ryan (eds.) Berkeley CA: McCutchan Publishing Co. 1976 255)
KOHLBERG AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 'cognitive-developmentalist'
Kohlberg's thesis: The process of natural learning is directly connected with the natural development of morality: development of morality,
See moral development studies of Kohlberg: Physiological needs - ages 0-4 Mental self emerges and differentiates from the body-ages 4-7
KOHLBERG CLASSIFICATION OF MORAL JUDGEMENT: stages of moral development or 'MORAL STAGES'
'cognitive-affective parallelism' ...there are stages or directed structural age-changes in the area of social-personality development just as there are in the cognitive area... age-development trends in moral judgement have a formal structural base parallel to the structural base of cognitive development. What is being asserted is that...the existence of moral stages implies that moral development has a basic structural component. While motives and affects are involved in moral development, the development of these motives and affects are largely mediated by changes in thought patterns..." (Kohlberg, L. Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization. In In D.A. Goslin (ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago: Rand McNally 1969, 390)
Kohlberg delineated six sequential stages of ethical reasoning through which an individual may progress as part of his mental maturation. .
STRUCTURAL BASIS OF MORALITY "The core of the cognitive-developmental position is the doctrine of cognitive stages with the general characteristics: 1. stages imply distinct and qualitative differences in children's modes of thinking or of solving the same problem at different ages. 2. These different modes of thought form an invariant sequence, order, or succession in individual development. While cultural factors may speed up, slow down or stop development, they do not change its sequence.. 3. Each of these different and sequential modes of thought forms a 'structured whole'. A given stage-response on a task does not just represent a specific response determined by knowledge and familiarity with the task or tasks similar to it. Rather it represents an underlying thought-organization e.g. 'the level of concrete operations' which determine responses to tasks which are not manifestly similar. At the stage of concrete operations, the child has a general tendency to maintain that a physical object conserves its properties of various physical dimensions in spite of apparent perceptual changes. This tendency is 'structural', it is not a specific belief about a specific object. The implication is that both conservation and other aspects of logical operations should appear as a logically and empirically related cluster of responses in development. 4. Cognitive stages are hierarchical integrations. Stages form an order of increasingly differentiated and integrated structures to fulfill a common function. ....If the child goes through qualitatively different stages of thought, his basic modes of organizaing experience cannot be the direct result of adult teaching or they would be copies of the adult thought from the start." (Kohlberg, L. Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization. In D.A. Goslin (ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago: Rand McNally 1969, 352-354)
The concept of stages implies the following characteristics: 1. Stages are 'structured wholes', or organized systems of thought. Individuals are consistent in level of moral judgement. 2. Stages form an 'invariant sequence'. Under all conditions except extreme trauma, movement is always forward never backward. Individuals never skip stages; movement is always to the next stage up. 3. Stages are 'hierarchical integrations'. Thinking at a higher stage includes or comprehends within it lower-stage thinking. There is a tendency to function at the highest stage available." (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, p.178)
According to Kohlberg's classification of moral judgement there are three levels for the basis of moral judgement each with two stages of moral development. Each level comprises two stages. Level one comprises stages 1 and 2; Level II comprises stages 3 and 4; Level III comprises stages 5 and 6. On the first level, Level I...the basis of moral judgement: "moral value is defined by punishment and reward"... The first stage of moral development is defined by "obedience to rules and authority to avoid punishment." The second stage of moral development is defined by the "conformity to obtain rewards and to exchange favors." On the second level, Level 2..."moral value resides in filling the correct roles, in maintaining order and meeting the expectations of others." The third stage is defined by "'good-boy orientation': conformity to avoid dislike and rejection by others". The fourth stage is defined by "'duty orientation': conformity to avoid censure by authority, disruption of order, and resulting guilt." On the third level, Level 3 "moral value resides in conformity to shared standards, rights and duties." The fifth stage is defined by the ":legalistic orientation: recognition of the value of contracts, some arbitrariness in rule formation to maintain the common good." The sixth stage is defined by "conscience or principle orientation: primary allegiance to principles of choice, which can overrule law in cases where the law is judged to do more harm than good."
Kohlberg's six moral stages regarding the individual's concept of 'justice': At stage one, the concept of justice is of the type 'eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth'; at stage two, justice is exchanging favors and goods in an equal manner; at stage three and four, justice is treating people as they desire in terms of the conventional rules; at stage five, it is recognized that all rules and laws are designed to protect the equal rights of all; they result from a social contract between the governors and the governed; at stage six, personally chosen moral principles are also principles of justice, the same which any members of a society would choose for that society if he did not know what his position was to be in the society and in which he might be the least advantaged. (taken from Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, page 183)
In formulating his moral stage theory, Kohlberg emphasized but not exclusively, the function of 'role-taking' (term coined by Margaret Mead). Characteristics of role-taking: 1. It emphasizes the cognitive as well as the affective side. 2. It involves an organized structural relationship between self and others. 3. It emphasizes that the process involves understanding and relating to all the roles in the society of which one is a part. 4. It emphasizes that role-taking goes on in all social interactions and communication situations, not merely in ones that arouse emotions of sympathy or empathy. (See Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach. Rosen, H. The Development of Sociomoral Knowledge: A Cognitive -Structural Approach. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.p. 49)
"The awareness that the child's behavior has a cognitive structure or organizational pattern of its own which needs description independently of the degree of its correspondence to the adult culture is as old as Rousseau, but this awareness had only recently pervaded the actual study of cognitive development. "
"Learning does not provide, in our opinion, a ready-made 'lattice' or lens which organizes the child's perceptual world. Rather, the lattice is constructed in the process of the development of intelligence, i.e. through the actions of the child on the environment and the interiorization of these actions to form 'operational structures'." This is to say that "the child acts upon the world and builds internal models of the nature of reality on the basis of these actions and their results."(Slobin 115)
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PERCEPTION OF REALITY 1.function of language (see Whorf) 2. function of stage of cognitive and moral development (Rosen On KOHLBERG
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE EDUCATION Kohlberg's thesis: The process of natural learning is directly connected with the natural development of morality The so-called 'cognitive-developmental theory of learning' makes the following assumptions: "...basic development involves basic transformations of cognitive structure which must be defined by parameters of organizational wholes or systems of internal relations; development of cognitive structure is the result of processes of interaction between the organism and the structure of the environment; cognitive structures are always structures of action; the direction of development of cognitive structure is toward greater equilibrium in the organism-envronment interaction ... a balance in interaction which represents truth logic, knowledge or 'adaptation'; affective development and functioning and cognitive development and functioning are not distinct realms - they represent different perspectives and contexts in defining structural change; social development is in essence the restructuring of the concept of self in its relationship to concepts of other people; social cognition involves 'role-taking' awareness that the other is in some way like the self...; the direction of social or ego development is always towards an equilibrium or reciprocity between the self's actions and those of others toward the self. In its generalized form this equilibrium is the end point or definer of morality, conceived as principles of justice, etc...." (Kohlberg, L. Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization. In In D.A. Goslin (ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago: Rand McNally 1969, 348)
"Moral education is something of a revolutionary activity." (Kohlberg, L., and Turiel,E. "Moral Development and Moral Education." Psychology and Educational Practice, edited by Lesser.G. Chicago il: Scott Foresman, 1971, 214)
"In the cognitive-developmental view, morality is a natural product of a universal tendency toward empathy or role taking, toward putting oneself in the shoes of other conscious beings. It is also a product of a universal human concern for justice, for reciprocity or equality in the relation of one person to another."
(Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 189) (See Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1971)
MORAL EDUCATION Moral education in American education: teaching specific sets of morals..
According to the cognitive-developmental theory of learning... "moral education should not be aimed at teaching some specific set of morals but should be concerned with developing the organizational structures by which one analyzes, interprets and makes decisions about social problems" (James Rest. "Developmental Psychology as a Guide to Value Education: A Review of 'Kohlbergian' Programs." in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory David Purpel & Kevin Ryan (eds.) Berkeley CA: McCutchan Publishing Co. 1976 254)
This is known as 'cognitive-developmental value education'. It aims at developing capabilities in decision making and problem solving ( Kohlberg, L., and Turiel,E. "Moral Development and Moral Education." Psychology and Educational Practice, edited by Lesser.G. Chicago il: Scott Foresman, 1971.)
"Moral education is something of a revolutionary activity." (Kohlberg, L., and Turiel,E. "Moral Development and Moral Education." Psychology and Educational Practice, edited by Lesser.G. Chicago il: Scott Foresman, 1971, 214)
"Education is the work of supplying the conditions which will enable the psychological functions to mature in the freest and fullest manner."
"Aims of education are conceptualized in terms of cognitive development and cognitive 'structures' which are not specific performances. Cognitive 'structures' provide the framework for the individual's interpretation of affective experiences. To foster stage development, children must be exposed to a stage of reasoning one stage higher than their current stage." (Kohlberg, L., and Turiel,E. "Moral Development and Moral Education." Psychology and Educational Practice, edited by Lesser.G. Chicago il: Scott Foresman, 1971.) .
The goal of education is to "stimulate development step by step through the stages" (Rest, James. "Developmental Psychology as a Guide to Value Education: A Review of 'Kohlbergian' Programs" in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory David Purpel & Kevin Ryan (eds.) Berkeley CA: McCutchan Publishing Co. 1976 255)
"The aim of education is growth and development, both intellectual and moral. Ethical and psychological principles can aid the school in the greatest of all constructions - the building of a free and powerful character. Only knowledge of the order and connection of the stages in psychological development can insure this. Education is the work of supplying the conditions which will enable the psychological functions to mature in the freeset and fullest manner." Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 176-195
Children reach stage 6 if they are educated in a social environment which encourages self-responsibility, self-discipline, freedom of expression, opportunities to take responsibility, make decisions etc.
The function of the educator is to facilitate the development of the stages - to Kohlberg's stage 6 - mature moral judgement.
SCHOOL'S FUNCTION OF SOCIALIZATION Lawrence Kohlberg "The Moral Atmosphere of the School" Chapter 13 Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976,196-220
Rest, James. "Developmental Psychology as a Guide to Value Education: A Review of 'Kohlbergian' Programs" in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory David Purpel & Kevin Ryan (eds.) Berkeley CA: McCutchan Publishing Co. 1976 252- 274
Kohlberg, L. Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach to Socialization. In In D.A. Goslin (ed.) Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research. Chicago: Rand McNally 1969 347-480
The term 'hidden' or 'unstudied curriculum' was invented by Philip Jackson to refer to ninety percent of what goes on in classrooms. "In his book Life in Classrooms (1968) Philip Jackson summarizes three central characteristics of school life: the crowds, the praise, the power. Learning to live in the classroom means first, learning to live and be treated as a member of a crowd of same-age, same-status others.... second, learning to live in a world in which there is impersonal authority, in which a relative stranger gives orders and wields power." (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Moral Atmosphere of the School" Chapter 13 Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 197)
Jackson's perspectives derive from the educational psychology founded by Emile Durkheim (See Emile Durkheim. Moral Education. New York: Free Press, 1961) in France at the end of the nineteenth century. His is "the most philosophically and scientifically comprehensive, clear, and workable approach to moral education..." (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Moral Atmosphere of the School" Chapter 13 Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 200)
DURKHEIM "In order to commit ourselves to collective end, we must have above all a feeling and affection for the collectivity. We have seen that such feelings cannot arise in the family where solidarity is based on blood and intimate relationship since the bonds uniting the citizens of a country have nothing to do with such relationships. The only way to instill the inclination to collective life is to get hold of the child when he leaves his family and enters school. We will succed the more easily because in certain respects, he is more amenable to this joining of minds in a common consciousness than is the adult. To achieve this tonic effect on the child, the class must really share a common collective life...The most powerful means to instill in children the feeling of solidarity is to feel that the value of each is a function of the worth of all.
There is a great distance between the state in which the child finds himself as he leaves the family and the one toward which he must strive. Intermediaries are necessary, the school environment the most desirable. It is more extensive than the family or the group of friends,. It results neither from blood nor free choice but from a meeting among subjects of similar age and condition. In that sense it resembles political society. On the other hand it is limited enough so that personal relations can crystallize. It is groups of young persons more or less like those of the social system of the school which have enabled the formation of societies larger than the family. Even in simple societies without schools, the elders would assemble the group at a given age and initiate them collectively into the moral and intellectual patrimony of the group. Induction into the moral patrimony of the group has never been conducted entirely within the family." (See Emile Durkheim. Moral Education. New York: Free Press, 1961 page 231)
"The educational use of the 'hidden curriculum'...is to bring the dialogue of justice into the classroom." (Kohlberg, L., and Turiel, E. "Moral Development and Moral Education." Psychology and Educational Practice, edited by Lesser. G. Chicago IL: Scott Foresman, 1971. 214)
Kohlberg did not agree with the philosophy of complete freedom in the classroom as suggested by Neill of Summerhill. Neill's objective: "We set out to make a school in which we allow children freedom to be themselves. Neill understood that 'freedom' entails a sense of responsibility to the community.
(Lawrence Kohlberg "The Moral Atmosphere of the School" Chapter 13 Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 200) ???(Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 173)
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL STAGES HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PERCEPTION OF REALITY 1.function of language (see Whorf) 2. function of stage of cognitive and moral development (Rosen, Kohlberg, Piaget)
The scientific study of the human organism 'as-a-whole' requires a wholistic perspective... possible with the recognition that language is a fundamental psychophysiological function. We in fact live our lives entirely on the objective level which includes our 'feelings' and 'emotions.' The verbal levels are auxiliary.
"Say whatever you choose about the object, and whatever you might say is not it." (Korzybski Science and Sanity 35)
(Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 173)
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE EDUCATION COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL STAGES COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE EDUCATION
Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL VALUE EDUCATION
According to the cognitive-developmental theory of learning... According to 'cognitive-developmentalist' Kohlberg, "moral education should not be aimed at teaching some specific set of morals but should be concerned with developing the organizational structures by which one analyzes, interprets and makes decisions about social problems". This is known as 'cognitive-developmental value education'. It aims at developing capabilities in decision making and problem solving." (James Rest "Developmental Psychology as a Guide to Value Education: A Review of 'Kohlbergian' Programs." in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory David Purpel & Kevin Ryan (eds.) Berkeley CA: McCutchan Publishing Co. 1976 254) ( see Kohlberg, L., and Turiel, E. "Moral Development and Moral Education." Psychology and Educational Practice, edited by Lesser.G. Chicago IL: Scott Foresman, 1971.)
Cognitive developmentalists "describe the successive elaboration of more complicated and differentiated structures out of simpler ones in terms of 'stages'. The developmentally 'lower' stages are prerequisites of the 'higher' stages; the more complicated higher stages deal more effectively with problems of wider scope and intricacy than do the lower stages. Hence stages are sequenced in a certain order because the earlier stages are less difficult and are attainable before the later stages. Higher stages are said to be 'better' than lower stages in the sense that the higher structural organizations can do a better job in analyzing problems, tracing out implications, and integrating considerations.The goal of education is to "stimulate development step by step through the stages" (Rest, James. "Developmental Psychology as a Guide to Value Education: A Review of 'Kohlbergian' Programs" in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory David Purpel & Kevin Ryan (eds.) Berkeley CA: McCutchan Publishing Co. 1976 255)
Moral education in traditional paradigm of American education: teaching specific sets of morals...
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL STAGES
Kohlberg (Harvard) built on the insights of Piaget and the educational views of Dewey. (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 173)
"Moral education is something of a revolutionary activity." Socrates was executed for 'corrupting' the Athenian youth; Martin Luther King was assassinated for preaching justice etc.
"In the cognitive-developmental view, morality is a natural product of a universal tendency toward empathy or role taking, toward putting oneself in the shoes of other conscius beings. It is also a product of a universal human concern for justice, for reciprocity or equality in the relation of one person to another". (Lawrence Kohlberg "The Cognitive Developmental Approach to Moral Education" chapter 12 in Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley, CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976, 189)
SCHOOL'S FUNCTION OF SOCIALIZATION Lawrence Kohlberg "The Moral Atmosphere of the School" Chapter 13 Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976,196-220 The function of the educator is to facilitate the development of the stages - to Kohlberg's stage 6 - mature moral judgement. Kohlberg (Harvard) built on the insights of Piaget and the educational views of Dewey.
COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENT AND MORAL STAGES HUMAN DEVELOPMENT PERCEPTION OF REALITY 1.function of language (see Whorf) 2. function of stage of cognitive and moral development (Rosen, Kohlberg, Piaget)
Kohlberg emphasized the "indisociable nature of affect and cognition.".There exists no pure cognition without affect, just as affect cannot arise in a vaccuum without being chanelled by cognitive structuration.." For both Piaget and Kohlberg, cognition and affect together determine the mental state. "The purest act of cognition relies upon interest from the affective side to energize it. An emotion generated from within the moral sphere will derive its meaning to the individual from the sociocognitive stage of moral development that he is at."
BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AND VALUE EDUCATION Objectives of the behavioral approach to education make ethical relativity the cornerstone of value education. According to behaviorists, moral education should be aimed at teaching some specific set of morals. The objectives of the behavioral approach to moral education are based on the 'socialization' or indoctrination approach, which aims at producing conformity with the state's, the teacher's, and the school's values. (See also Durkheim 1925)
"The awareness that the child's behavior has a cognitive structure or organizational pattern of its own which needs description independently of the degree of its correspondence to the adult culture is as old as Rousseau, but this awareness had only recently pervaded the actual study of cognitive development. "
The classification of moral judgement into levels and stages of development: Kohlberg delineated six sequential stages of ethical reasoning through which an individual may progress as part of his mental maturation. Kohlberg's method is to record and children's responses...
Kohlberg's viewpoint is structuralist and specifically Piagetian, and therefore not yet related to the remainder of biology. Piaget has used the expression 'genetic epistemologgy and Kohlberg 'cognitive-developmental' to label the general concept. However, the results will eventually become incorporated into a broadened developmental biology and genetics.
Korzybski Science and Sanity
The scientific study of the human organism 'as-a-whole' requires a wholistic perspective... possible with the recognition that language is a fundamental psycho-physiological function. We in fact live our lives entirely on the objective level which includes our 'feelings' and 'emotions.' The verbal levels are auxiliary. "Say whatever you choose about the object, and whatever you might say is not it." (Korzybski Science and Sanity 35)
Scientific study of man as a whole would "mark the beginning of a new era, the scientific era, in which all desirable human characteristics would be released from the present animalistic, psychophysiological, aristotelian semantic blockages, and that sanity would prevail". (Korzybski Science and Sanity 18)
"Identification is a rigid form of adaptation and a mental process characteristic of animals but does not necessarily have survival value... Identity is invariably 'false-to-facts' and so identification produces non-survival semantic reactions and therefore must be considered pathological for modern man". (Korzybski Science and Sanity 196)
"A human civilization living by the principles of democracy presupposes a sane 'intelligence' of the masses and a general feeling of cooperation rather than animal competition. A 'civilization' based on commercialism, greed and ignorance can be neither democratic nor even human. Respect for the potential intelligence of the human organism and for children as they mature results in the capacity of proper evaluation, adjustment and decision making on personal, social and political levels. Our present commercial civilization, appealing to infantile gratification of the need to self-indulge provides an inadequate and improper semantic environment for children to develop into mature, intelligent, well-balanced, well-adjusted and socially responsible human beings and citizens of a true democracy - of democratically thinking citizens. Instead they want to be praised and refuse blame without realizing that a critical attitude insures a proper evaluation. They become self-satisfied, and complacent in their ignorance, unable to respect the needs of the young. Citizens of such a society assume that their institutions are superior and believe in the "righeousness of their own conduct" On the national level, they standardize whatever they can, remain hostile to individualism and prefer to regulate life by legislation so that the degree of injustice increases and life becomes impossible without expensive lawyers. Unable to distinguish the essential from the unimportant, they depend on their intense likes and dislikes to make their often incorrect evaluations, and create further injustice. They are impelled to copy others in their prejudices, make weak judgements, become oversuggestive and easy to manipulate, have an exaggerated sensitivity and moodiness which makes it easy for those in control to gain or divert their attention. The overall result is a general disintegration of human relationships and generally poor educational standards. Children must struggle to grow up into mature adults with proper evaluation of themselves and their place in the insane society into which they are born. We need to educate our children with a view to their needs for adjustment to life in a democracy and therefore with respect for their potential intelligence. (Korzybski Science and Sanity 516).
"If we had no language by means of which to convey our thoughts and store our knowledge, we would be little different from the lower animals" "If we had no language, we would have no misunderstandings." (3) Words can be dangerous if their meanings are not clear. Three kinds of danger: l.The danger arises from the attempt to hide ignorance behind vague words with vague meanings. "In philosophical arguments vague words are extremely popular. This way we convey a general feeling for what we mean, but we do not become sufficiently precise so that the error in our reasoning could be detected. This of course is a dangerous practice." 2. There are words which have too many meanings ('democracy' for example). 3. Words arouse emotions. Calling a Third World nation 'backward' or 'underdeveloped' arouses different emotions. In a philosophical discussion such words should be avoided, or at least defined in order to discourage emotional reactions. A separate language should be constructed for discussions in science and philosophy of science. See Tyranny of Words by Stuart Chase
Scientific study of man as a whole would "mark the beginning of a new era, the scientific era, in which all desirable human characteristics would be released from the present animalistic, psychophysiological, aristotelian semantic blockages, and that sanity would prevail". (Korzybski Science and Sanity 18)
"A human civilization living by the principles of democracy presupposes a sane 'intelligence' of the masses and a general feeling of cooperation rather than animal competition. A 'civilization' based on commercialism, greed and ignorance can be neither democratic nor even human. Respect for the potential intelligence of the human organism and for children as they mature results in the capacity of proper evaluation, adjustment and decision making on personal, social and political levels. Our present commercial civilization, appealing to infantile gratification of the need to self-indulge provides an inadequate and improper semantic environment for children to develop into mature, intelligent, well-balanced, well-adjusted and socially responsible human beings and citizens of a true democracy - of democratically thinking citizens. Instead they want to be praised and refuse blame without realizing that a critical attitude insures a proper evaluation. They become self-satisfied, and complacent in their ignorance, unable to respect the needs of the young. Citizens of such a society assume that their institutions are superior and believe in the "righteousness of their own conduct" On the national level, they standardize whatever they can, remain hostile to individualism and prefer to regulate life by legislation so that the degree of injustice increases and life becomes impossible without expensive lawyers. Unable to distinguish the essential from the unimportant, they depend on their intense likes and dislikes to make their often incorrect evaluations, and create further injustice. They are impelled to copy others in their prejudices, make weak judgements, become oversuggestive and easy to manipulate, have an exaggerated sensitivity and moodiness which makes it easy for those in control to gain or divert their attention. The overall result is a general disintegration of human relationships and generally poor educational standards. Children must struggle to grow up into mature adults with proper evaluation of themselves and their place in the insane society into which they are born. We need to educate our children with a view to their needs for adjustment to life in a democracy and therefore with respect for their potential intelligence. (Korzybski Science and Sanity 516).
Maslow A.H. ed. 'New Knowledge in Human Values' Harper, 1959
..... Motivation and Personality. l954
...... The Psychology of Science: A Reconaissance. New York and London: Harper and Row 1966
...... Toward a Psychology of Being. Van Nostrand Reinhold and Company, New York, l962
..... Farther Reaches of Human Nature
Abraham Maslow was a psychologically healthy scientist of human nature. He used the scientific analytical approach and contributed a convincing argument for the biological basis of morality and ethics. He showed that the guiding principles for morality and ethics are biologically rooted within the consciousness of the human species
Morality is a function of maturity or self-actualisation... 'social intelligence'
A 'scientific' knowledge of human nature provides a basis for the formulation of a natural 'science of ethics.'
The objective study of fully developed and healthy individuals reveals information about human nature - the end result of normal human growth... man has a 'natural personality' which is basically good.
Maslow concludes from his scientific study of human nature... "One conclusion from all these free-choice experiments, from developments in dynamic motivation theory and from examination of psychotherapy, is a very revolutionary one, namely that our deepest needs are not, in themselves, dangerous or evil or bad... Consequently we can reject the almost universal mistake that the interests of the individual and of the society are of necessity mutually exclusive and antagonistic, or that civilization is primarily a mechanism for controlling and policing human instinctoid impulses. All of these age-old axioms are swept away by the new possibility of defining the main function of a healthy culture as the fostering of universal self-actualization. All these age-old axioms are swept away by the new possibility of defining the main function of a healthy culture as the fostering of universal self-actualisation " (Towards a Psychology of Being l59) 9 )
Perception of human nature: The old philosophical question 'what is the nature of man?' cannot be answered unless man's conscious mind is expanded to its full capacity. Then the answer can be found scientifically. (Abraham Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being " P. 128)
"There has been a special tendency in Western culture, historically determined, to assure that these instinctoid needs of the human being, his so-called animal nature, are base and evil. As a consequence, many cultural institutions are set up for the express purpose of controlling, inhibiting, suppressing and repressing this original nature of man." (Psychology of Being 164)
"Traditionally, throughout the history of philosophy, theology, psychology, natural desires have been considered annoying and even threatening....Theologians , political philosophers and economic theorists have conceived of various strategies to remove, deny or avoid peoples' unwanted desires and needs. People's happiness has been considered in terms of improving their conditions with a view to eliminating their needs." (Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being 28)
"So far as philosophical theory is concerned, many historical dilemmas and contradictions are resolved by this finding."
"Creativeness, spontaneity, self-hood, authenticity, caring for others, being able to love, yearning for truth are embryonic potentialities belonging to his species-membership as much as his arms and legs and brain and eyes. This is not a contradiction to the data already amassed which show clearlty that living in a family and in a culture are absolutely necessary to actualize these psychological potentials that define humanness. (l60-l61)
The infant and the psychologically mature person are examples of individuals whose valuing process is in harmony with their own experiencing. A child's proper inner development depends on proper relationships with adults. He must be prized as a separate person with the freedom to experience his own feelings and those of others without feeling threatened. The adults should be able to understand with empathy the child's need for freedom of self-expression.
Operative values are related to the organism's inborn capacities and talents. They are indicated by preferences of behavior which lead to the fulfillment of basic physiological and psychological needs of the human organism. Denial or frustration of any of these needs, capacities or yearnings leads to psychopathology which can be manifested as 'evil'.
...themselves and also of human beings in general. This tends to be true of the average human being in his 'highest' moments, his so-called 'peak experiences,' when he can readily look at nature for itself and not as if it were a playground put there for human purposes; when he can refrain from projecting human purposes upon it; when he can "see it in its own Being...rather than as something to be used, or something to be afraid of, or to be reacted to in some other human way." (Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being. New York Van Nostrand, l962 p. 70-72
"The looking within for the real self is a kind of 'subjective biology' for it must include an effort to become conscious of one's own constitutional, temperamental, anatomical, physiological and biochemical needs, capacities and reactions i.e. one's biological individuality. It is also the path to experiencing one's specieshood, one's commoness with all other members of the human species. That is, it is a way to experiencing our biological brotherhood with all human beings no matter what their external circumstances." (Maslow Psychology of Being, 185)
Psychoanalysis as contributing to understanding of human nature... inner biological core of the human personality or 'human nature' revealed by psychoanalysis. Maslow describes psychoanalysis as an 'uncovering' therapy, revealing or exposing the inner biological - instinctoid - core of human nature. "The inner biological core of human nature is revealed and exposed by psychoanalysis, described as an 'uncovering' therapy". (Maslow Psychology of Being, 177)
"Psychoanalytic therapies help the individual uncover the biologically based intrinsic values with which he naturally prefers to identify. They help the individual to 'search for his identity'. An individual's search for identity is essentally a search for his own intrinsic value system, his own authentic nature, his humanness, the human core which he shares with other members of the human species".
Maslow concludes from his scientific study of human nature:
Psychoanalysis can be regarded as a process for formulating a 'science of values' or 'science of ethics.'
"The overemphasis of traditional psychology on the pathologies, neuroses, psychoses etc. has provided abundant evidence that men's bad and evil behavior results from frustration in his efforts toward self-actualization".
Providing important data in the search for values, psychoanalysis could be regarded as a significant process in the efforts of philosophers to formulate a 'science of values' or 'science of ethics.' The 'science of ethics' refers to the study of the development of the individual's intrinsic value system. An individual's value system is the product of the totality of the individual's thought processes within the context of experiences in a changing social environment. A 'science of values' would constitute a significant basis for the formulation of a 'science of education.'
Human nature as manifest in the 'self-actualized' individual is good and productive. "The scientific study of self-actualized individuals teaches that human nature must not be despised. As a complete human being, the individual instinctively strives towards the complete development of his own humanity. The basic premise for a 'science of ethics' becomes 'human nature is good.' Some of the age-old philosophical questions could be resolved if asked on the basis of the new premise and within the framework of the new consciousness - the new reality, worldview or paradigm".
"Happiness is man's greatest achievement; it is the response of his total personality to a productive orientation toward himself and the world outside."
We all have an 'intrinsic conscience' which is based on the "unconscious and preconscious perception of our own nature, of our own destiny, of our own capacities, of our own 'call' in life." (Maslow, A. Toward a Psychology of Being, Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. New York: 1962 7)
"As the essential Being of the world is perceived by the person, so also does he concurrently come closer to his own Being, to his own perfection, of being more perfectly himself." (Abraham Maslow Towards a Psychology of Being page 95)
Man has within him "a pressure ...toward unity of personality, toward spontaneous expressiveness, toward full individuality and identity, toward seeing the truth rather than being blind, toward being crdeative, toward being good, and a lot else." (Abraham Maslow. Toward a Psychology of Being. l968, p. l55)
Man demonstrates this "pressure toward fuller and fuller Being, more and more perfect actualization of his humanness in exactly the same naturalistic, scientific sense that an acorn may be said to be 'pressing toward' being an oak tree, or that a tiger can be observed to 'push toward' being tigerish." (Abraham Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being. l968. p.l60)
self-actualisation:
"We can certainly now assert that at least a reasonable, theoretical and empirical case has been made for the presence within the human being of a tendency toward, or need for growing in a direction that can be summarized in general as self-actualization, or psychological health, i.e. he has within him a pressure toward unity of personality, toward spontaneous expressiveness, toward full individuality and identity, toward seeing the truth rather than being blind, toward being creative, toward being good and a lot else. That is the human being is so constructed that he presses toward fuller and fuller being and this means pressing toward what most people would call good values, toward serenity, kindness, courage, honesty, love, unselfishness, and goodness." ("The Science of Value' Robert Hartman in Maslow A.H. ed. 'New Knowledge in Human Values' Harper, 1959, 155) (Abraham Maslow Towards a Psychology of Being 2nd. ed., New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., l968,page 155)
With a vision for humanity, Maslow has suggested that as each member of the human species becomes 'self-actualized,' he is guided in his personal life by the biologically rooted principles of morality and ethics. "With 'self-actualization' of humanity as a whole there is hope for peace and community throughout the world." (Maslow, Abraham "Toward a Psychology of Being." Van Nostrand Reinhold and Company, New York, l962)
At this stage of development, the autonomous individual engages in the productivity which defines his full individuality and 'true' freedom. Leading his life according to the 'Being-values' of freedom, love, truth, justice etc. the individual is responsible to himself and simultaneously responsibile to the rest of humanity.
The self-actualizing person sees the world as the 'ordinary' man perceives it in the 'peak experience.' Perceived as a complete unit, as a whole, without evaluation or judgement, an event or person is detached from relations or usefulness and seen 'with care,' with selfless love. In accordance with his principles of human nature, Maslow was a critic of 'official' science and proposed "a religionizing of all that is secular." (Abraham Maslow, "Religions, Values and Peak Experiences" Ohio State University Press l964 p.l8)
Rewarded with such 'peak-experiences' and 'Being-cognitions,' the 'psychologically healthy scientist' does not seek the rewards of research grants and professional chairs. As a self-actualizing person seeking the truth of nature, he is a good scentist without trying to be one, seeking the truths of nature. When the conditions of the psychological 'environment' are suitable, the innate motives for human behaviour emerge to the surface of human consciousness in a predetermined order based on the so-called 'hierarchy of prepotency.'
So-called 'self-actualized' individuals share the following characteristics: superior perception of reality; increased acceptance of self, of others and of nature; increased spontaneity; increased problem - centering; increased detachment and desire for privacy; increased autonomy and resistance to enculturation; greater freshness of appreciation and richness of emotional reaction; higher frequency of so called 'peak-experiences'; increased identification with the human species; improved interpersonal relations; more democratic 'character structure'; greatly increased creativeness; 'ethical' value system. Self-actualized people generally enjoy life in all of its aspects and in so doing they lead ethical lives. Characteristically independent of other people, the self-actualized individual is autonomous and self-sufficient. He is able to perceive others objectively as unique individuals. Capable of a holistic perception of reality, his reasoning transcends the opposites, the dichotomies, the polarities, the contradictions and incompatibles. Perceiving these as interpenetrating facets of a whole, the self-actualizated person values the higher needs, the 'Being-values' (B-values) of wholeness, perfection, truth, justice, aliveness, richness, simplicity, beauty, goodness, uniqueness, self-sufficiency etc.
"In healthy people only is there a good correlation between subjective delight in the experience, impulse to the experience, or wish for it, and 'basic need' for the experience ('it's good for him in the long run). Only such people uniformly yearn for what is good for them and for others, and then are able to wholeheartedly to enjoy it, and approve of it. For such people virtue is its own reward in the sense of being enjoyed in itself. They spontaneously tend to do right because thatis what they want to do, what they need to do, what they enjoy, what they approve of doing, and what they continue to enjoy."(l59)
ultimate reality:
The psychological development of the human organism presupposes the cultivation of positive 'healthy' mental components and the discouragement of negative 'unhealthy' ones. The degree of a person's mental health is determined by the balance of 'healthy' and 'unhealthy' psychological factors. The 'metaneeds' are associated with healthy psychological development which is the prerequisite to the person's full functioning as a socially intelligent being. The 'B-Values' are defined as truth, goodness, justice, beauty etc. The 'metamotivation' which arises from the biological 'metaneeds' for the value-life, 'B-values', 'Being-values', spiritual values, determines the individual's perception of 'ultimate reality' at the 'highest' levels of consciouness. In other words, at the highest levels of personality and cultural development, a reality is perceived which is independent of distorted human perceptions. This is the 'ultimate reality' which is described in terms of the 'B-Values'. The words which are used to describe the 'ultimate reality' are the same as those used to describe B-Values.' The reality is described as true, good, just, beautiful etc. Thus in the context of ultimate reality the 'B-Values' become identical with 'B-facts.' In the transcendental realm of consciousness, facts and values fuse and the words used to describe them are called 'fusion- words'. Contemplating the nature of the universe becomes equated with contemplating the ultimate values, the B-values. The aim of philosophers, scientists, artists and spiritual leaders is to achieve the same objective perception of 'ultimate reality', a perception which is devoid of any contaminating effects of the observer's fears, wishes, calculations etc.
Buddhism and values of transcendence - The Buddha defines the 'First Noble Truth of Buddhism' thus: "all life is imbued with suffering." In order to reconcile life with the inevitability of death, the individual must understand three truths: first, 'the cause of all suffering is attachment'; second, 'the relief of suffering comes from the cessation of attachment'; and third, the cessation of attachment comes from following the eightfold path, a prescription for ethical living and mental training aimed at attaining full enightenment'. With the understanding of the three 'truths', the individual can live on the transpersonal level of consciousness, beyond the ego and existential level. "Once a person has awakened to the transpersonal dimensions of existence, life itself is held in a different perspective."
"The actually mature person....mature in personality development, is not afraid of his humanness...his own nature... able to accept human nature...characteristically open to experience... postambivalent - able to love wholly, able to give himself over to emotion of love and anger, fascination and total surrender to a scientific problem."(38)
Reality and perception free from distortion (optimal mental health 'wellness')... require for full self-realization and effective adaptation to changing environment... 'adaptability'...
"Improved self-knowledge (and clarity of one's values) is also coincident with improved knowledge of others and of reality in general (and clarity of their values)" (Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being l77)
'An individual's search for identity is essentally a search for his own intrinsic value system, his own authentic nature, his humanness, the human core which he shares with other members of the human species'. (Hartman R. 'The Science of Value' Robert Hartman in Maslow A.H. ed. 'New Knowledge in Human Values' Harper, 1959)
Self-actualised human being and motivation by the spiritual needs or 'metaneeeds'... 'metamotivation': motivation is 'being motivation' or 'metamotivation' as opposed to 'deficiency motivation ' of the human individual who is motivated by the so-called 'deficiency needs' The biologically based 'metaneeds' of the value life -spiritual needs for ethical and moral values - must be satisfied in order for a person to become mature, to become 'human', to manifest the potentialities of human nature. Failure to satisfy basic human needs is 'dehumanizing' and leads to mental and physical illness.
Motivated by the Being needs for growth, he can be described as 'growth motivated.' He becomes independent of other people for the gratification of his growth needs. Characteristically autonomous and self-sufficient, he experiences 'true' freedom and enjoys the pleasure of insight and production. He has the capacity for 'self-actualization': to make decisions in his 'true' self interest; to perceive other people in terms of their intrinsic qualities; to have a non-judgmental, non-interfering attitude towards others; to perceive reality holistically. His comprehensive understanding of other human beings forms the basis for his meaningful interpersonal relations.
As the result of a culturally fostered human development, the individual becomes 'self-actualized,' living according to the 'higher' Being values which comprise his natural system of ethics. .
A healthy culture can provide the necessary conditions for fostering proper human growth and development if the individual's human needs are recognized and respected. Proper human growth and development can be fostered in a healthy social environment which recognizes and respects the individual's human needs - both the 'lower' and the 'higher'. As the result of a culturally fostered human development, the individual becomes 'self-actualized,' living according to the 'higher' Being values which comprise his natural system of ethics. The definition of a healthy culture as one which fosters universal self-actualization is revolutionary in its implications for ethics.
In the process of successfully adapting to a changing social environment, the 'self-actualized' individual is capable of making decisions in his own 'true' interest. At the same time, the decisions are in the 'true' interest of the society. Thus he lives in accordance with natural biological laws and the evolutionary process. And the 'science of ethics' becomes a natural value system formulated on the basis of natural laws of human nature and human existence.
It appears that the 'metaneeds' of the value-life, spiritual, ethical and moral values, are instinctive and have a biological basis. Motivation for the gratification of the 'metaneeds' of 'humanness' is referred to as 'metamotivation'. 'Metamotivation' is an intrinsic part of human nature. A full definition of the human organism, the person and the individual must include 'metamotivation' for gratification of the metaneeds. Metamotivation is biologically based and instinctive. Gratifications of the instinctive 'metaneeds' are necessary for the prevention of 'illness' or 'metapathology,' best defined as 'diminutions of humanness.' The 'metaneeds' along with the basic psychological needs are all biologically based. They are all components of our biological life. Consequently the spiritual or value-life of the human organism is natural and fact based, legitimately qualified for scientific analysis. This notion lends itself to the potential transcendence of unnecessary dichotomies such as good and evil. Rather than belonging to a domain external to human nature, spiritual values and the value-life are components of the biological basis of human nature. (Maslow)
Values of self-actualising people and the religions:
"The most beautiful proof of an instinctive love of knowledge in the human organism is the universality of religious aspirations. These are equivalent to the characteristics of complete human development to maturity - self-actualization of the human organism". Maslow on the values of self-actualizing people and the religions:
The various extant religions may be taken as expressions of human aspiration providing further evidence for the fact that all people yearn toward self-actualization or tend toward it.
"If the various extant religions may be taken as expressions of human aspirations, i.e. what people would like to become if only they could, then we can see here too a validation of the affirmation that all people yearn toward self-actualization or tend toward it. This is so because our description of the actual characteristics of self-actualizing people parallels at many points the ideals urged by the religions." (Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being p.128)
The actual characteristics of self-actualizing people are the same as the ideals urged by the various religions. Some of these are the "transcendence of self, the fusion of the true, the good and the beautiful, contribution to others, wisdom, honesty and naturalness, the transcendence of selfish and personal motivations, the giving up of "lower' desires in favor of 'higher' ones., increased riendliness and kindness, the easy differentition between ends (tranquility, serenity, peace) and means (money, power, status), the decrease of hostility, cruelty and destructiveness (although decisiveness, justified anger and indignation, self-affirmation, etc. may very well increase.)" (l58)
"...The main function of a healthy culture (is) the fostering of universal self-actualization." (Maslow Toward a Psychology of Being 15)
The person's intellectual and spiritual needs, like the basic needs, have a biological basis. The 'basic needs' of hunger and thirst are physiological needs for the physical survival of the human organism. The 'basic needs' for reproduction are physiological needs for the survival of the human species. For the human species, 'homo sapiens' the intelligent animal, the basic psychological needs are for parental love and affection, for self-respect and self-esteem and for a sense of belongingness. The so-called 'higher needs' for transcendance, religion, esthetics and philosophy, are intrinsic to every human organism and therefore must have a biological basis. Consisting of mental components, 'the metaneeds' are psychological and related to consciousness, determining the human organism's perception and level of awareness. For the social human organism, they are basic needs for the successful adaptation to a social environment.
scientific formulation of 'system of ethics' or science of ethics:
A 'science of ethics' can be formulated on the basis of the discovery of those highest values which people yearn and struggle for as they grow and improve themselves
The objective study of fully developed and healthy individuals reveals information about the end result of normal human growth and provides a basis for the formulation of a natural 'science of ethics.'
For centuries the attempts to formulate a system of ethics have been based on the mutually exclusive contrast between 'what is' and 'what ought to be.' This dichotomous concept of ethics has resulted from teaching people that their intrinsic animal instincts are immoral, evil and not to be trusted. This is the false premise upon which many seemingly insoluble social problems are based. It has led to the mistaken idea that the interests of the individual and of the society are mutually exclusive and antagonistic, that civilization is primarily a mechanism for controlling and policing human instinctive impulses. But when people are taught that they should despise their human nature ("I am only human") then they cannot have respect for their own needs and the impulses towards their gratification. Without respect for their own needs, they cannot have respect for the needs of others, the necessary basis of a scientific value system. For proper growth and development, an individual's instinctive primary needs must be respected, as well as the so-called 'higher' spiritual needs.
Using a scientifically objective approach, it is possible to formulate a so-called 'science of ethics,' a value system based on the natural laws of human nature and human existence. It requires an investigation into the real nature of the individual human being both as a member of the human species and as a unique specimen. As a member of the human species, each human being has a biologically inherited 'intrinsic conscience' based on the unconscious perception of his own human nature. In addition to the conscience, each individual has a unique potentiality manifested in a personal decision making process which is based on his own will, responsibility, strength, courage and needs.
For the scientific formulation of a natural value system it is necessary first to make the distinction between 'higher' and 'lower' needs. Both 'higher' and 'lower' needs are shared by all members of the human species. The 'lower' needs include the basic physiological needs, the need for safety, the need for belongingness, the need for love and the need for respect. With varying strength in terms of urgency they are related to each other in a hierarchical fashion. The need for food is more pressing, more prepotent, than the need for safety, which in turn is more prepotent than the need for love etc. Also known as the 'deficit' needs (D-needs), the 'lower' needs rely on sources outside the individual and depend on other people for their gratification. An individual makes personal decisions on the basis of the need which must be gratified before he can be motivated by another 'higher' need. He naturally makes decisions within the framework of an equivalent value system, that of the so-called 'deficit-values' (D-values). Motivated by deficiency needs, he can be described as 'deficiency motivated.' He perceives other people in terms of their usefulness as sources of gratification for his need deficiencies rather than perceiving them in terms of their own intrinsic values. Dependent on other people, he must be flexible and responsive to their reactions. Thus relying on changeable factors in a non-reliable social environment, the 'deficiency motivated' individual is prone to anxiety, to hostility and ultimately to a lack of freedom. His interpersonal relations are limited and interchangeable because they are based on need gratification. Once the individual has gratified his basic 'lower' needs during a normal growth process, he becomes less dependent on others for the gratification of the 'higher' needs for growth, creation and production, also known as 'Being needs' (B-needs). For gratification of the B-needs, the individual relies on his own inner resources. Making his personal decisions on the basis of B-needs, he naturally makes his choices within the framework of the equivalent value system, that of the 'Being-values' (B-values). .
The 'higher' values are those biologically based constitutional ethical impulses revealed during the proper development of psychological health. They enable the individual to adjust to the realities of a social environment.
In the style of Aristotelian logic (A and not-A), age-old axioms maintain the 'deficiency motivated' perception of reality in terms of classes and concepts which are mutually exclusive (male-female, selfish-unselfish, adult-child, kind-cruel, good-bad etc.).
"Neurosis seems to be a deficiency disease"..
"It is as if less developed people lived in an Aristotelian world in which classes and concepts have sharp boundaries, and are mutually exclusive and incompatible, e.g. male-female, selfish-unselfish, adult-child, kind-cruel, good-bad etc. A is A and everything else is not-A in the Aristotelian logic, and never the twain shall meet. But seen by self-actualizing people is the fact that A and not-A interpenetrate and are one, that any person is simultaneously 'good' and 'bad', 'male' and 'female', 'adult' and 'child'. One cannot place a whole person on a continuum, only an abstracted aspect of a person. Wholenesses are non-comparable." (Abraham Maslow. Toward a Psychology of Being. 40)
"The attachment to any particular experience or attempts to change one experience for another - e.g. the frantic pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain - invariably results in continuing frustration and disappointment." (186)
"Feelings of 'natural dominance' or 'self-esteem' lead to beneficial and creative behaviour. Feelings of 'compensatory dominance' become 'over-compensatory' - 'sham dominance' - when they are derived from the crippling effect of insecurity and low self-esteem. Such feelings of sham dominance lead to domineering or haughty behaviour. Feelings of sham dominance can explain the wickedness ('evil') of human behaviour".
science of education:
"So-called 'learning theory' in this country has based itself almost entirely on deficit-motivation with goal objects usually external to the organism, i.e. learning the best way to satisfy a need. For this reason among others, our psychology of learning is a limited body of knowledge, useful only in small areas of life and of real interest only to other 'learning theorists'. This is of little help in solving the problem of growth and self-actualization." (Maslow "Toward a Psychology of Being"
"To the sense that experiences (of discipline, deprivation, frustration, pain and tragedy) reveal, foster, and fulfill our inner nature, to that extent are they desirable experiences. These experiences have something to do with a sense of achievement and ego strength and therefore with the sense of healthy self-esteem and self-confidence." (Maslow. Toward a Psychology of Being)
Experiential richness in principle should be 'teachable': "It should be possible to design an educational curriculum around the instinctive needs of 'subjective biology' - the metaneeds as well as the basic physiological and psychological needs. The curriculum would be based on children's instinctive motivation to satisfy the basic needs for self-respect and self-esteem in the process of self-actualization. The curriculum would include opportunities for experiential enrichment through metamotivation to satisfy metaneeds".
Both a 'science of education' and a 'science of ethics' can be formulated on the basis of the natural unfolding of human nature during proper psychological development towards full 'humanness,' towards so-called 'self-actualization.'
Education for the individual's proper human development is to foster his instinctive sense of self-responsibility - reponsibility to himself and to his own needs. Education for self-responsibility depends on an environment which cultivates self-discipline, self-actualization and the full development of 'humanness' - the natural ethical core of every human being.
The basis for faith in others - in human potential - is faith in oneself or 'self-esteem'. Self-esteem is self-respect i.e. "... a stable, firmly based, usually high self-evaluation... a desire for strength, achievement, adequacy, mastery, competence, confidence, independence and freedom".(Abraham Maslow. Motivation and Personality. l954 p.90)
...inborn biological necessity and basic human needs led to his conception of 'instinctoid' human nature....
"Science has its origins in the need to know and to understand (or explain), i.e. cognitive needs ....curiosity, exploring, manipulating ...(20)
"Science is knowledge through Being-love... The ability to B-love is characteristic of a higher level of personal maturity. Therefore personal maturity is a pre-condition for this kind of perspicuity, and one way to improve this kind of knowing would be to improve the maturity of the knower. What could this imply for the education of scientists?" (Maslow, A. The Psychology of Science: A Reconaissance. New York and London: Harper and Row 1966 page 118)
Classical science:
"Our classical science wisely tossed out of its study of the physical universe the projection of purposes, whether of a God or of man himself. ..In the physical sciences the projection of purpose ...is harmful to full understanding. But the case is completely different with human beings. They have purposes and goals...This simple fact makes classical science less appropriate for studying human behavior. It does not differentiate between means and ends. ...the puroposes can be unknown to the person himself." (18)
"The term 'scientific objectivity' has, in effect, been preempted by the physics-centered theorists of science and bent to the use of their mechanomorphic 'Weltanschauung'. It was certainly necessary for astronomers and physicists to assert their freedom to see what was before their eyes rather than having truth determined a priori by the church or state. This is the kernel of sense in the concept 'value-free science'. But is this generalization, uncritically accepted today by many, that has crippled so many human and social scientists.....classically 'scientific objectivity' has been most successfully achieved when its objects were most distant from human aspirations, hopes, and wishes. It is easy to feel uninvolved, detached, clear-eyed, and neutral if one is studying the nature of rocks, or heat, or electrical currents. One doesn't identify with a moon. One doesn't 'care' about it as one does about one's child. It is easy to take the laissez-faire attitude with oxygen or hydrogen and to have non-interfering curiosity, to be Taoistically receptive, to let things be themselves. To be blunt about it, it is easy to be neutrally objective, fair, and just when you don't care about the outcome, when you can't identify or sympathize, when you neither love or hate...if you love something or someone enough at the level of Being, then you can enjoy its actualization of itself, which means that you will not want to interfere with it, since you love it as it is itself... you will be able to see it as it is...you will (not) be prone to judge, use it, improve it or in any other way project your own values onto it. This also tends to mean more concrete experiencing and witnessing; less abstracting, simplifying, organizing, or intellectual manipulation. Leaving it alone to be itself also implies a more holistic, global attitude and less active dissecting. ... This is possible in Being-Cognition and Being-Love.. difficult to put into words" (Maslow Psychology of Science)
"As a philosophical doctrine, orthodox science is ethnocentric, being Western rather than universal." (1)
He called orthodox science a "crippled half-science" and orthodox religion a "crippled half-religion." Giving short shrift to values and emotions, science cripples itself. Taught that 'values' are subjective evaluations and 'emotions' cannot be trusted, scientists are led to believe that both distort the world of objective fact. They should not be taken into account in descriptions of 'reality.' The orthodoxy of the scientific institution has created a desacralized science, devoid of values and feelings of "humility, reverence, mystery, wonder, and awe." (Abraham Maslow, Psychology of Science p. l39)
Denying the reality of these feelings, scientists have cut themselves off from the most real aspects of the 'reality' of the world. The job of the scientist is to see reality for what it is. A self-actualizing human being, the 'psychologically healthy scientist' approaches his work "with love, devotion, and self-abnegation, as if he were entering a holy of holies. His self-forgetfulness can certainly be called a transcendence of the ego. His absolute morality and honesty and total truth can certainly be called a 'religious' attitude, and his occasional thrill or peak-experience, the occasional shudder of awe, of humility and smallness before the great mysteries he deals with-all these can be called sacred." (144)
Science of ethics as science of values
"Humanists for thousands of years have attempted to construct a naturalistic, psychological value system that could be derived from man's own nature, without the necessity of recourse to authority outside the human being himself. Many such theories have been offered throughout history. They have all failed." (Maslow Psychology of Being 149)
'Problem of ethics' as search of values... philosophical formulation of a 'science of values'...
"The crucial question to be asked is: can science discover the values by which men should live? I think it can and I have advanced this thesis in various places supporting it with whatever data I could muster (Maslow : New Knowledge in Human Values, Toward a Psychology of Being,
Notes on Being-Psychlogy, "Fusions of Facts and Values" American Journal of Pschoanalysis XXIII, 1963, 117-131; Religions, Values and Peak Experiences, "Criteria for Judging Needs to be Instinctoid", in Human Motivation: A Symposium, ed. M.R. Jones. Lincoln, Nebraska: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1965; Eupsychian Management: A Journal. Homewood , Illinois: Irwin-Dorsey, 1965)
"The data I turn to first are the accumulated experiences of dynamic psychotherapy, starting with Freud and contnuing up to the present day in most therapies that have to do with discovering the identity or Real Self...'uncovering therapies' they purport to uncover (more than to construct) the deepest self which has been covered over by bad habits, misconceptions, neuroticizing etc. All these therapies agree in finding that this most real self partly consists of needs, wishes, impulses and instinctlike desires. These may be called needs because they must be fulfilled or psychopathology results. ...
It is these needs, 'instinctoid' in nature', that we can also think of as 'built-in values', values not only in the sense that the organism wants and seeks them but also in the sense that they are both good and necessary for the organism. It is these values which are found, uncovered - recovered, perhaps we should say, in the course of psychotherapy or self-discovery. We may then regard these techniques of therapy and self-discovery as being also cognitive tools or scientific methods (in the sense that they are the best methods we have available today to uncover these particlar kind of data.) It is in this sense at least that I would maintain that science in the broadest sense can and does discover what human values are, what the human being needs in order to live a good and happy life, what he needs in order to avoid illness what is good for him and what is bad for him. ...What the healthy human being chooses, prefers, and values out of own deepest inner nature, is also most often good for him. " Maslow, A. The Psychology of Science: A Reconaissance. New York and London: Harper and Row 1966 page 114-118) ....
"It looks as though there were a single ultimate value for mankind, a far goal toward which all men strive. This is called variously self-actualization, self-realization, integration, psychological health...but they all agree that this amounts to realizing the potentialities of the person, that is to say, becoming fully human, everything that the person can become" (Abraham Maslow. Toward a Psychology of Being. 2nd. ed., New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., l968, p. 153)
Man demonstrates this "pressure toward fuller and fuller Being, more and more perfect actualization of his humanness in exactly the same naturalistic, scientific sense that an acorn may be said to be 'pressing toward' being an oak tree, or that a tiger can be observed to 'push toward' being tigerish. (Abraham Maslow "Toward a Psychology of Being" 2nd. ed., New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., l968, l60)..
"If these asssumptions are proven true, they promise a scientific ethics, a natural value system, a court of ultimate appeal for the determination of good and bad, of right and wrong." (Maslow, A. Toward a Psychology of Being page 4
Naturalistic value system: "It is the free choices of such actualisng people (in those situations where real choice is possible from among a variety of possibilities that I claim be descriptively studied as a naturalistic value system with which the hopes of the observer absolutely have nothing to do .e. it is 'scientific'. I do not say 'he ought to choose this or that' but only 'healthy people, permitted to choose freely, are served to choose this or that' but only 'healthy people, permitted to choose freely, are served to choose this or that. This is like asking 'what are the values of the best human beings?' rather than ' 'what should be their values.?', or 'what ought they be?' Furthermore I think these findings can be generalised to most of the human species because it looks to me (and to others) as if most people (perhaps all) tend toward self-actualisation (this is seen most clearly in the experiences in psychotherapy, especially of the uncovering sort) and as if in principle at least most people are capable of self-actualisation (l58) ...the guiding principles for morality and ethics are biologically rooted within the consciousness of the human species. When the conditions of the psychological 'environment' are suitable, the innate motives for human behaviour emerge to the surface of human consciousness in a predetermined order based on the'hierarchy of prepotency.'
This opens up the prospects of resolving the splits within the person between Apollonian and Dionysian, classical and romantic, scientific and poetic, between reason and impulse, work and play, verbal and preverbal, maturity and childlikeness, masculine and feminine, growth and regression. 2. The main social parallel to this change in our philosophy of human nature is the rapidly growing tendency to perceive the culture as an instrument of need-gratification as well as of frustration and control. 3
WHOLISTIC BRAIN-BASED LEARNING AND SCIENCE OF ETHICS Wholistic brain-based education for the optimal use of the brain's capacities forms the natural foundation for human intellectual and moral development...
The values which form the guidelines for living result from the individual's educational experiences.
Capitalist culture fosters mental dishonesty which is not conducive to growth
...capitalist culture fosters mental dishonesty... devalues the natural integrity of the human organism. beliefs .. deception and hypocrisy 1) are absolute 'evils' which the virtuous person suppresses to a minimum level ... 2) are residual animal traits which need to be erased by further social evolution... 3) "very human devices for conducting the complex daily business of social life"...
"The economic theories of capitalism place limitations on human experience. The life of the intellect and the quest for self-realization are not valued. The natural development of moral and spiritual self-reliance is discouraged. The life of contemplation and meditation is misunderstood and devalued. True spiritual freedom is considered undisciplined and punishable. The spontaneous and self-expressive behaviour of the natural human being is repressed. The impulsive, intuitive and emotional aspects of human nature are restrained. Social problems are understood not in terms of inherent deficiencies of fundamental institutional practices. They are perceived in terms of personal moral failure. Attempts are made to resolve them through discipline and the rule of law. Social reforms are understood not in the context of necessary institutional changes but in terms of the individual's moral responsibility."
"The success of capitalism depends on the denigration of human values. Without realizing it, the people in a capitalist society are instruments of capitalism. In order to adapt to their social environment, people in a capitalist society must live by the 'values' of capitalism. 'Happiness' is based on material 'success.' A person in a capitalistic society is judged in terms of the requirements of the 'job.' The criteria of a person's health and worth are based on the person's suitability for 'the job,' the 'workplace'. Their 'adjustment' to the 'society' is the cause for their neuroses which result from the unsuitability of humanness in a materialistic society. The intrinsic human values are not valued in a society which measures the individual in terms of material 'success.' Concentrating on his efforts to 'adjust' to the demands of capitalism, the individual loses sight of his own intrinsic values which make him human. Maslow says " we must not fall into the trap of defining the good organism in terms of what he is "good for" as if were an instrument rather than something in himself, as if he were only a means to some extrinsic purpose." (Toward a Psychology of Being l79)
Miller Ron (editor). The Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of our Times. Brandon,VT: Holistic Education Press, 1993
..... What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in American Culture. Brandon, Vermont, Holistic Education Press. 1990
"The practice of American education has been profoundly influenced by the American worldview, and its characteristically hostile attitude toward nature and human nature." (Miller, Ron. (1990) What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in American Culture. Holistic Education Press. Brandon Vermont. Chapter 1, Themes of American Culture.)
"Surely an educational system designed for the nineteenth century industrial society does not address the needs of our time. Our schools do not speak to the confused, fearful condition of the young generation who must inherit this troubled culture and this threatened planet. Consequently, American education has entered a period of upheaval and conflict from which it cannot emerge unchanged. Corporate leaders call for 'excellence' and accountability, while mainstream politicians seek to educate for a gobally competitive economic system; teachers demand greater professional autonomy, and minority communities and progressives work to make education responsive to a diverse multicultural society. Religious conservatives desert the public schools for more disciplined Christian academies and homeschooling, while more child-centered parents and educators seek greater freedom and meaningful learning for young people, sometimes througn homeschooling as well. Some factions advocte greater choice, through vouchers or magnet schools, while others warn against ababndoning the vision of common schooling. This last group will ultimately be the most disappointed, for the conflicts over education today result from the bare fact that there is no longer a societal consensus supporting the nineteenth century model of common schooling. A radically different paradigm, not yet clearly defined, is emerging." ( Ron Miller, 1993. Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of Our Times. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press.)
Many of the social ills of the society are symptoms of a maloriented educational system. Children are required to learn within a framework of adult controlled instruction. "Ignorance, poverty and crime in society will not be solved by more of the same 'old education' - forcing children to learn under the systematic repression of adult-controlled instruction. Despite the billions of dollars and lip service efforts at 'reform' this type of traditional education remains as ever a part of the problem - not the solution. Instead, we must create a 'new education' to free the human spirit - true education which is based entirely on fundamental principles of nature." Miller, Ron. (1990) What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in American Culture. Holistic Education Press. Brandon Vermont. Chapter 1, Themes of American Culture.
"For four hundred years the goals of science have been directed to the control of nature and human nature. Scientific paradigms have produced the root metaphors of modern Western culture. Overemphasis on the metaphors of a man-centered mechanistic universe, dualistic reality, neutral technology and individualism has resulted in today's multifacted global crisis. The major purpose of schooling until now has been to preserve the hegemony of the established culture to induct each new generation into the dominant worldview. The recent so-called 'holistic education movement' is the manifestation of the concern for an education which 'draws forth' (from the Latin 'educare') the "latent capacities and sensitivities of the individual..... Surely an education designed for the nineteenth century industrial society does not address the needs of our time. Our schools do not speak to the confused, fearful condition of the young generation who must inherit this troubled culture and this threatened planet. Consequently, American education has entered a period of upheaval and conflict from which it cannot emerge unchanged.....A radically different paradigm, not yet clearly defined, is emerging." ( Ron Miller, 1993. Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of Our Times. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press.
"The practice of American education has been profoundly influenced by the American worldview, and its characteristically hostile attitude toward nature and human nature." (Miller, Ron. 1990. What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in American Culture. Holistic Education Press. Brandon Vermont. Chapter 1, Themes of American Culture.)
"The major purpose of schooling until now has been to preserve the hegemony of the established culture to induct each new generation into the dominant worldview." (Miller R. et al. The Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of our Times Brandon,VT: Holistic Education Press, 1993)
global crisis. The major purpose of schooling until now has been to preserve the hegemony of the established culture to induct each new generation into the dominant worldview. The recent so-called 'holistic education movement' is the manifestation of the concern for an education which 'draws forth' (from the Latin 'educare') the "latent capacities and sensitivities of the individual..... Surely an education designed for the nineteenth century industrial society does not address the needs of our time. Our schools do not speak to the confused, fearful condition of the young generation who must inherit this troubled culture and this threatened planet. Consequently, American education has entered a period of upheaval and conflict from which it cannot emerge unchanged.....A radically different paradigm, not yet clearly defined, is emerging." ( Ron Miller, 1993. Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of Our Times. Brandon, VT: Holistic Education Press."The human mind is capable of transcending apparent empirical 'facts' and can penetrate to the 'world of formative ideas'. Through the power of imagination, we are able to integrate the empirical with the ideal, to place the concrete facts of our experience into a larger context of meaning, evolution and purpose. Physicist David Bohm calls this context 'undivided wholeness in flowing movement'. Gregory Bateson called it the 'pattern which connects'. Spiritual traditions have called it the Absolute, the Tao, or God. It is the infinitely creative source of Being." (Miller et al. The Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of our Times 16)
The findings of Psychiatry and Psychology have shown that sound psychological health is measured by the degree to which people relate to other people. Hatred and fear result from emotional immaturity and psychological ill health. Love is affirmation of the other person not possession of the other person. Love is granting the other person the full right to his own humanhood.
Montessori Maria The Absorbent Mind. Translated from Italian by Claude A. Claremont. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1967
...... To Educate the Human Potential Adyar, Madras, India: Kalakshetra Publications, 1961.
...... From Childhood to Adolescence New York: Schocken Books, 1973
...... Education and Peace Chicago: Regnery, 1972
Mario Montessori. Education for Human Development. Schocken Books, New York. 1967
Dr. Maria Montessori, the first woman physician in Italy, was Professor of Anthropology and Hygienics at the University of Rome ......she was a life-long advocate for the cause of the child... she referred to herself as an 'ambassadress for the cause of the hild'... Trained in the scientific approach from her medical background, Montessori based her theories of human development on direct observation of children. (Mario Montessori Education for Human Development.44)
As physician and anthropologist, she had a global view of 'man' - the human organism. Montessori believed that as a species, mankind has been abandoned during its formative period and for this reason is a threat to its own survival. ....What is the use of transitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?" (4)
Maria Montessori was a genius. "All children are born geniuses...genius does its own thinking; it has confidence in its own exploratory findings, its own intuitions, in the knowledge gained from its own mistakes.... Maria Montessori fortunately was permitted to maintain, sustain, and cultivate her innate genius. Her genius invoked her awareness of the genius inherent in all children. Her intuition and initiative inspired her to discover ways of safeguarding this genius while allaying the ignorant fears of parents." (ix-x)
Child as 'spiritual embryo'... "The greatest danger lies in our ignorance. We know how to find pearls in the shells of oysters, gold in the mountains and coal in the bowels of the earth, but we are unaware of the spiritual germs, the creative nebulae that the child hides in himself when he enters our world to renew mankind." (The Absorbent Mind)
"To know, to love, and to serve is the trinomial of all religions, but the child is the true maker of our spirituality. He teaches us the plan of nature for giving form to our conduct and character, a plan fully traced out in all its details of age and work, with its need for freedom and intense activity in accordance with the laws of life. What matters is not physics, or botany, or works of the hand, but the will, and the components of the human spirit which construct themselves by work. The child is the spiritual builder of mankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in the wall by which the soul of man has become imprisoned." (Maria Montessori The Absorbent Mind 221)
education for construction of human normality... 'normalisation' "The knowledge of the little child's mental development has to become widely diffused, for only then will education be able to speak with a new voice, and say to the world with authority: 'The laws of life are such and such. They cannot be ignored. You must act in conformity with them, for they proclaim the rights of man which are universal and common to all... As well as of a physical order, child development is of a psychological order because it requires the active participation of the individual... What is needed is a peaceful revolution for the defense of the construction of human normality - defense for the child's inner development. (Maria Montessori. The Asorbent Mind )
"The first esential for the child's development is concentration. It lays the whole basis for his character and social behaviour. He must find out how to concentrate, and for this he needs things to concentrate upon. This shows the importance of his surroundings, for no acting on the child from the outside can cause him to concentrate. Only the child can organize his own psychic life. None of us can do it for him. It is here that the importance of our schools lies. They are places in which the child can find the kind of work that permits him to do this." (Absorbent Mind Montessori 222)
Problem of motivation to work: 'intrinsic motivation' "The 'normalized' child's activities of work (are) related to the inner construction of the personality. The motivation to learn derives from this source. Teaching which corresponds to this motivation is functional in the child's development. The child's response is the best guide for the teacher. The child's interest and concentration indicates the extent of effectiveness of the teaching methodology in practice. The child loses motivation when the work is directed to an external goal. Teaching for external goals is not functional in the child's development." (Mario Montessori. Education for Human Development.page 67.)
"Motivation from within -intrinsic motivation- is manifest at certain critical periods or 'sensitive periods' which end when the function of work is perf... recognized maturational stages of development...called them the 'sensitive 'periods...include stages of physical, emotional and cognitive development.
Montessori was interested in meeting the needs of the child which they (sensitive periods) represented... interested in "aiding the child's development in its sensitive periods"...interested in devising materials to meet the recognizable needs of the child during various sensitive periods. "If the sensitive periods are not hindered by inner anxieties resulting from repressive pedagogies, then the intensive attraction to the environmment continues to be mediated through the individual's authentic striving to work."
Education as the fostering of natural human development... Education is ...should be ...an aid to life. "Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgement, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear." (Maria Montessori. To Educate the Human Potential. Adyar, Madras, India: Kalakshetra Publications, 1961.3)"Adults must help the child to function freely in this environment. This help corresponds to the intrinsic needs inherent in the pattern of development, and follows his own tempo. Montessori demonstrated that under these conditions the child is urged from within towards certain specific activities which he performs with great concentration and joy. These activities are linked to the inner formation of functions that only later are integrated and appear as manifest characteristics. Material added to the environment is stimulating to the child. If it has always been there it becomes part of the scenery and is not noticed." (The Absorbent Mind 71)
"If religion is born with civilisation, its roots must lie deep in human nature." (Montessori The Absorbent Mind 485)
Need for maturity of humanity "I believe that humanity is still far from that stage of maturity needed for the realization of its aspirations, for the construction, that is, of a harmonious and peaceful society and the elimination of wars. Men are not yet ready to shape their ownn destinies; to control and direct world events, of which-instead-they become the victims."(The Absorbent Mind 3)
"There is only one problem, and it is human development in its totality; once this is achieved in any unit - child or nation - everything else follows spontaneously and harmoniously." (Maria Montessori. To Educate the Human Potential. p.13)
Aims of education: the 'new education' "Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgement, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear." Maria Montessori. To Educate the Human Potential.Adyar, Madras, India: Kalakshetra Publications, 1961.3)
"The new education is a revolution, but a revolution without violence. It is the nonviolent revolution." (215)
The 'new education' philosophy: to help children's auto-construction. The old education philosophy: children have to be 'taught' the values which adults admire.
"Virtues and the value life are of survival value and therefore biologically based. The philosophical analysis of 'virtues' becomes equivalent to the biological analysis of the social values." (Maria Montessori Absorbent Mind 231) 15)
"Obedience is no mechanical thing, but a natural force of social cohesion, intimately related to the will, even its sublimation. Obedience of the right kind is a sublimation of the individual's will, a quality in the human soul without which society could not exist. But an obedience without true self-control, an obedience which is not the consequence of an awakened and exercised will, brings whole nations to disaster." (Maria Montessori To Educate the Human Potential 123)
Teacher preparation: the thing we should cultivate in our teachers is more the spirit than the mechanical skill of the scientist... the direction of the preparation should be towards the spirit rather than towards the mechanisms.... "The scientist is not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of nature...(Maria Montessori Montessori Method 8-9)
"The attitude toward human nature and human experience that has come in our time is new." (H.A. Overstreet)
HENRY OVERSTREET Human nature as the 'mature mind'
H. A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. 1949, 1954)
Peoples' immaturities "explain much in our history for which we have hitherto had no sufficient explanation." (H.A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.1949 page 15)
MATURITY AS SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE: MORAL UNIVERSALITY "The insight of moral universality - 'man is a creature of moral law' - Mature men (people)can live together in peace and justice because they naturally do what is right and necessary for communal living".
"Throughout human history, great insights are degraded by minds too immature to understand them and put them into mature practice. One obvious example is the universal degradation of the idea of One God as the source of truth rather than a multiplicity of gods leading to confusion. The concept of God was degenerated into a mystery beyond man's comprehension. Even worse 'God' was made into a national possession and rallying point for nations in their wars with other nations. A second example: The Decalogue - Ten Commandments - was a statement of the one moral law for all human beings as opposed to the several 'codes' of laws which applied to separate groups and cultures."
"The picture of Moses descending from Mt. Sinai bearing the tablets of the law is a symbol of the revelation to man of his own uniquely human nature. Because in the days of Moses men were still mostly immature, morality was first expressed as commands: Thou shalt not. The voice of Moses was the voice of moral reason itself. To lie, steal, covet, commit adultery, dishonor the older members of the group, worship idols, if practised widely and with impunity, would make impossible the sort of social structure within which men could live with confidence. In his moral reason, the mature person would naturally refuse to do these things".
Insight of Christ for universal love as universal brotherhood: "In some respects, the most audacious of all the great insights that have come into the world was the apparently absurd conviction of Jesus of Nazareth that men must love one another. 'A new commandment I give unto you that ye love one another.' A commandment for universal love. 'Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you'. This was the most profound insight into human nature - man's social nature. (Overstreet, H.A. The Mature Mind. 95)
The immature mind is the product of thwarted human development.
"The most dangerous members of our society are those grownups whose powers of influence are adult but whose motives and responses are infantile." (H.A. Overstreet, The Mature Mind, W.W. Norton & Co. Inc. New York 1954 44)
For the human organism, normal psychological development involves the growth from immaturity to maturity. "The proper psychological undertaking of man is to move from immaturity to maturity." (H.A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.1949. 17)
The mind which has developed its human powers - its potential humanity - is the mature mind. A study of human nature is based on a study of the mature mind; the immature mind is the product of thwarted human development. Human nature and maturity are equivalent.
"A mature person is a 'maturing person' - one whose linkages with life are constantly becoming stronger and richer because his attitudes are such as to encourage their growth rather than their stoppage." (Overstreet The Mature Mind page 43)
"Maturity is having a philosophic sense of the whole.... It takes a 'whole' person to feel keenly the absence of wholeness, and a mature person to feel keenly what is lost to life where maturity is never experienced." (H.A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.1949. 125)
"A mature truth told to immature minds ceases, in those minds, to be that same mature truth. Immature minds take from it only what immature minds can assimilate.In the end, even though they may give it li-service and may raise institutions in its name, they turn the mature truth into an applied immaturity. Thius fate of psychological depreciation has been the fate of all our greatest human truths. Uttered by mature minds, and for the puprose of maturing minds, they have been received , for the mostnpart , by less mature minds - and have thus been only partially comprehended . Being jonly partially comprehended , they ave found expression in ways that have perpetuated as much misunderstanding as understanding , as much error as truth. (Overstreet, H.A. The Mature Mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Cio. Inc. 1949. 88)
"The most recent of the great insights that have invited man to maturity came with the development of science. The scientific method is not commonly regarded as an insight into human nature; but this, in its essence, is what it is. It is a systematized expression of the fact that man is a species capable of transcending his own limitations of sense and of subjectivity". (Overstreet The Mature Mind)
"The proper psychological undertaking of man is to move from immaturity to maturity." (H.A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.1949. 17)
"The psychological growth of man must keep pace with his physical powers; every increase in power must be matched by an increase in understanding." (H.A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.1949 114)
AMERICAN ECONOMY CULTIVATES ADULT IMMATURITY
In the capitalistic consumer society of American culture, the task-oriented perception of the environment results in limited imagination and incomplete cognition.
"The American economy has never been interested din the whole human being but obnly in those aspects of his nature from which some monetary profit can be derived. An individual might be important to the system as a worker - a person who could be hired to make certain motions of his hands that would contribute to the production of sable goods. He might be important as a consumer - a person who could be be important as a a investor- a person with surplus money that could be 'hired'to work for a corporation. He might be important as an inventor, possessor of know-how, ambitions, a 'name' , and so on - all things which could be converted into programs for spending, things or qualitiies considred as 'marketable.' Man's 'humanity' - his growth to full maturity has held slight interest for the economy. "For him to grow into full maturity might mean that he would have rich inner resources with which to entertain himself; and that he would be unsusceptible to those competitive prestige appeals that are the delight of advertisers; and that he would feel a deep insistent concern about the rights of the dispossessed; for him to grow into such full maturity would, therefore, make him far less valuable as a source of profit-making than he is in his adult immaturity." (Overstreet 178)
"The economy of the culture encourages immaturity on two counts. First, it discourages the fulfillment of the natural capacities of human nature... It discourages man from using to the limit his human capacity for foresight and over-all planning... Through its advertising, it has persistently tried to make immediate temptation so irresistable that the individual will spend what he has - even though this may mean the diversion of his funds from more important ends. Through its structure of credit buying and installment buying, it has persistently encouraged families to accept the illusion that large payments are small - thus persuading them to mortgage their futures. The image of man as a 'good consumer' is often more compatible with that of man as a perpetual impulsive child than with that of man as a mature being of foresight and responsibility. Second, the economy fosters mental dishonesty. The notion of 'free enterprise' has popular appeal, especially for those who intend to control the market through monopolies. They utilize the notion of 'government interference' to make profits in the form of 'protective tariffs.' American civilization is not a human civilization. It is a 'business civilization.'" (Overstreet 179) Dependent on the 'business ethics' of the business civilization, educational institutions prevent the individual's personal and psycholgical growth to maturity. Few individuals become mature in a culture which makes 'common sense' out of mental dishonesty.
"American civilization is not a human civilization. It is a 'business civilization.' Dependent on the 'business ethics' of the business civilization, educational institutions prevent the individual's personal and psycholgical growth to maturity. Few individuals become mature in a culture which makes 'common sense' out of mental dishonesty." (Overstreet. Mature Mind 175)
"Conflicts inherent in the culture produce effects which are relevant to the problem of maturity of the individual in the American culture. The individual is a divided self, with doubts, fears and inner tensions manifest in the 'mentl illness, violence, crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, anxieties, prejudice, etc. Conditioning influences of the culture are conflicting. Cultural conflicts include the faith in education and contempt for educated people, apathy and driving ambition,etc. When there is a lack of wholeness in the conditioning influences, the individual cannot grow into a psychologically whole, mature human being. The individual is a compartmentalized self, trying to harmonize the various 'selves' of his experience - the domestic self, the business self - the religious self, the political self etc. all housed in one physical self. In the face of the cultural conflicts, the compartmentalized and divided self has difficulty maturing into a psychologically whole human being. The individual has difficulty building sound linkages of responsibility with the world when education in the cultural atmosphere education is both exalted and despised. It is difficult for a child to grow to maturity in a culture in which "the natural hazards of life are vastly multiplied by the confusions of the culture and in which he faces an abnormal temptation to remain dependent and irresponsible."
The inherent cultural confusion comes from the competition of the two conflicting philosophies: rational liberalism and antirational materialsm. "Authoritative religion might want man to remain a child in his obedience and dependence, whie nineteenth century antirationalism might want him to remain a child in egocentric aggrandizement; but in an emergency the two would accurately feel that they had more in common than either with a philosophy that asked man to put his childhood behind him and to achieve the spirital independence of maturity." (Overstreet 142)
"where the same two parents send him to school, want him to bring home grades they can view with pride, talk ablut the inmpracticality of what is learned in school, admore,people less for what they know than for what they own, and make it clear that teachers ar nobodies compared with business men and movie stars." (Goodman?)
"The attitude toward human nature and human experience that has come in our time is new." (H.A. Overstreet The Mature Mind New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc.1949)
David Purpel The Moral and Spiritual Crisis in Education: A Curriculum for Justice and Compassion in Education. Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc. Massachusetts, 1989.
.... Moral Education: It Comes With the Territory (Ed) David Purpel and Kevin Ryan, Berkeley,CA: McCutchen Publishing Co. 1976
...... "Holistic Education in a Prophetic Voice" in Miller et al. The Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of our Times.
"Western tradition of critical rationality...reflected in the notion of the Socratic techniques. ....Socratic tradition ... particular reference to Socrates of the Apology in which Socrates attempts to describe the meaning of his life and death....The work is a pivotal part of the narrative of Western Civilization since it speaks so eloquently and poignantly to the human passion for freedom and truth in the face of the forces of conformity and expediency. There is an extremely important dimension of Socrates' story as told in the Apology that is often neglected if not forgotten. There are passages in which Socrates makes it clear that he is on a spiritual journey and insists that his intellectual engagement with the citizen of Athens is connected to that journey. He is convinced that his search for greater clarity and understanding is sanctioned and required by the gods and his queries, reflections, and debates represent sacred responsibilities and obligations. In response to his indictment: "Gentlemen of the jury, I am grateful and I am your friend, but I will obey the gods rather than you and as long as I draw breath and am able I shall not cease to practise philosophy....Be sure this is what the gods order me to do, and I think there is no greater blessing for the city than my service to the god. For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in reference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul... " See the orientation - keen intellectuality is integrally and symbiotically related to a spiritual and moral vision." (David Purpel. "Holistic Education in a Prophetic Voice" in Miller et al. The Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of our Times. 74)
Purpel...goal of education: "that which facilitates love, justice, community and joy."(xi)
Educational crisis In American education, the term 'educator' was conceived as a technical 'expert'. The teacher, as an educator, is expected to be an expert about teaching and about what he teaches.
Current crisis in education: The current educational crisis has pointed up the necessity of recognizing the real relationship between education and culture.
The current educational crisis is a reflection of a general cultural, political and moral crisis. The present crisis is "the latest instance of the phenomenon of the trivialization of educational issues."(2)
"Focusing on the reproduction of the values of a consumer culture, the schools have been unprepared to meet the challenges of a changing global community. The resulting 'educational crisis' has inspired discussion and debate about the wider issues of the nature and purposes of education. It is the latest incidence of the 'trivialization of educational issues.'(2) People are given the message that "schools and education can make serious changes without parallel changes in the basic conception of schooling and changes in cultural beliefs." (3)
A major theme of the book(Purpel): "the educator's broad responsibility for the state of the culture as it relates to the specific responsibility for the quality of the 'educational program.'"(2) Fundamental assumption of the book: "educational discourse must focus on the urgent task of transforming many of our basic cultural institutions and belief systems."(3) Basic proposition of the book: "..we must make some drastic changes in our culture to forestall disaster and facilitate growth. Educational institutions must be a part of that process."(3)
Educational discussion and debate has stressed the technical issues of the educational system rather than the wider social, political and moral issues of educational philosophy. In American education, the term 'educator' was conceived as a technical 'expert'. The teacher, as an educator, is expected to be an expert about teaching and about what he teaches. The present educational 'crisis' has pointed up the inadequacy of the expected role of 'educator' as technical expert. It has pointed up the necessity of recognizing the relationship between education and culture. Education and culture are interrelated. "When most professional educators examine the social setting they tend to use the very narrow and limited perspectives of the accessible present and of vocational preparation and economic need." (2) The present crisis is "the latest instance of the phenomenon of the trivialization of educational issues."(2) Educators must analyse the cultural context in which they are doing their work of 'educating'. The current educational crisis is a reflection of a general cultural, political and moral crisis. Such crises have existed before.
The educator - teacher and 'technical expert', is responsible for the state of the culture. The responsibility of educators is to empower all students, not just the few. (Purpel 124) The responsibility of educators is to reach every individual student - to foster their 'individuality in the cultural context'.
Americans need to examine their culture critically. They need to reconsider their basic assumptions and reexamine their way of being. "What is needed is sophisticated educational 'dialogue' which is broad in scope, dealing with cultural, moral and spiritual issues. What is needed is a social-cultural critique of today's educational practices. What is needed is a fundamental reconceptualization of 'education' and the schooling process. What is needed is a critique of the roots of the educational 'crisis'. Educators must analyse the cultural context in which they are doing their work of 'educating'." (David Purpel, 7)
"In avoiding the complex questions about the nature and purposes of education, educational problems have been defined in terms of their 'implicit moral dilemmas' and 'dichotomies'. Focusing on the dilemmas of the educational system has caused confusion about the 'priorities.' Should we emphasize 'vocational education' or 'general education'? What should we have in our 'curriculum'? The confusion about priorities has resulted in unrealistic and even contradictory expectations of the schools. "We want our schools to discipline our children and at the same time support and encourage their independence....Educational discussion and debate has stressed the technical issues of the educational system rather than the wider social, political, and moral isses of educational philosphy. The confusion about purposes and priorities has resulted in an educational 'crisis' and a need for educational 'reform'." (Purpel 6)
"With the discussion of education within the narrow scope of pragmatism, the theoretical aspects of education have been deemphasized. With the focus on the political ideals of the 'nation', the 'purposes of educaton' have been defined in terms of ideological principles and economic theory. Theoretical alternatives have been overlooked. When most professional educators examine the social setting they tend to use the very narrow and limited perspectives of the accessible present and of vocational preparation and economic need... Overemphasis on techniques and technologies in an overtechnologized consumer society has led to the present educational crisis and the need for educational reform. (Purpel 2)
"If we are to accept our commitments seriously, educators have a special concern for helping ust to be liberated from the various conditions that oppress us, particularly those of ignorance and illiteracy. There is a powerful relationship between power and knowledge. "People hold on to their domination in part because the oppressed do not have the critical intellectual skills to overcome the powerful continued forces of acculturation which lead the weak to internalize the ideology of the strong." (124)
The educator - teacher and 'technical expert', is responsible for the state of the culture. The responsibility of educators is to empower all students, not just the few. (Purpel 124) The responsibility of educators is to reach every individual student - to foster their 'individuality in the cultural context'.
Americans need to examine their culture critically. They need to reconsider their basic assumptions and reexamine their way of being. "What is needed is sophisticated educational 'dialogue' which is broad in scope, dealing with cultural, moral and spiritual issues. What is needed is a social-cultural critique of today's educational practices. What is needed is a fundamental reconceptualization of 'education' and the schooling process. What is needed is a critique of the roots of the educational 'crisis'. Educators must analyse the cultural context in which they are doing their work of 'educating'." (David Purpel, 7)
"With the discussion of education within the narrow scope of pragmatism, the theoretical aspects of education have been deemphasized. With the focus on the political ideals of the 'nation', the 'purposes of educaton' have been defined in terms of ideological principles and economic theory. Theoretical alternatives have been overlooked. When most professional educators examine the social setting they tend to use the very narrow and limited perspectives of the accessible present and of vocational preparation and economic need... Overemphasis on techniques and technologies in an overtechnologized consumer society has led to the present educational crisis and the need for educational reform. (Purpel 2)
"There is a new 'paradigm' - a change in consciousness from seeing the world in a mechanical way (Newtonian paradigm of regularity, order, precisipon, and predictability). New dialectic between 'phenomenon and perception' - puts more emphasis on human response and subjectivity. In this new paradigm, our understanding of the world - reality - is mediated by language, beliefs, values, and ways of being. "Our perception and images of the world affect our experience of the world." (Purpel.133)
A fundamental shift is taking place in the philosophical paradigm of education. The institutionalized form of education with its emphasis on conditioning, and behavioral outcomes is no longer relevant in the times of mass comunications and the 'global village'. "For four hundred years the goals of science have been directed to the control of nature and human nature. Scientific paradigms have produced the root metaphors of modern Western culture. Overemphasis on the metaphors of a man-centered mechanistic universe, dualistic reality, neutral technology and individualism has resulted in today's multifacted
"There is a new 'paradigm' - a change in consciousness from seeing the world in a mechanical way (Newtonian paradigm of regularity, order, precisipon, and predictability). New dialectic between 'phenomenon and perception' - puts more emphasis on human response and subjectivity. In this new paradigm, our understanding of the world - reality - is mediated by language, beliefs, values, and ways of being. "Our perception and images of the world affect our experience of the world." (Purpel.133) Freedom for the individual in a cultural context depends on his ability to search for meaning in his cultural environment - to criticize the cultural belief systems, values and institutions of his social and cultural environment. It depends on his capacity for '
The term 'science of education' refers to the scientific inquiry into the formulation of educational and pedagogical theory.
"It is questionable whether pedagogical theory is principally a scientific theory in the explanatory sense." (Purpel 100)
Americans are suspicious of intellectual work.The suspicion of the intellectual process stems from the knowledge that the power of education could be used to "challenge existing institutions and power arrangements." (Purpel 7)
"One of the most important issues of 'education' in its broad context - developing the mind - revolves around the matter of faith in the educability of humanity. There are those who do not have this faith in people's educability. They believe in the 'inherent inequality' of people - only some people can be responsible with an 'education'. and the rest should be 'acculturated and socialized'. There are others who do have faith in peoples' educability. They believe that everyone can be educated to be free and responsible. They believe that it is the responsibility of the 'educators' to provide the necessary conditions which allow all people to develop their human potential." (Purpel 10)
The issue is 'schooled' learning versus 'non-schooled' learning; Most people acquire most of their knowledge outside school."(12) 'inhumane' learning versus 'humane' learning. Schools are inefficient in arranging the circumstances which encourage 'liberal education' - "the open-ended , exploratory use of acquired skills"(17)
The issue of school reform is debated in the context of America's cultural history. Rooted in American historical tradition isthe fear of the powerlessness which comes from a lack of education. Fearful of those who would challenge their basic assumptions, Americans have tended to mask that fear with "scorn, avoidance, and self-deception." (Purpel 8)
"In the current discussion and debate about educational 'reform', the schools are still considered in terms of their function to reproduce the American values of American culture. Schools must be reformed to adapt to changing economic conditions. All students must have an equal educational opportunity for success in the consumer culture. All students must succeed for America to succeed in the new global economy of international competition. (Purpel 7)
"Educational discourse must focus on the urgent task of transforming many of our basic cultural institutions and belief systems... we must make some drastic changes in our culture to forestall disaster and facilitate growth. Educational institutions must be a part of that process." (Purpel 3)
.goal of education: "that which facilitates love, justice, community and joy."(xi) Current crisis in education:
Educational discussion and debate has stressed the technical issues of the educational system rather than the wider social, political and moral issues of educational philosophy.
.. power as mythification of reality ...propaganda. Ignorance and illiteracy are necessary ingredients of poverty, hunger, misery and oppression. Illiteracy is not only the inability to read, but the inability to read with a critical consciousness. The ability to 'read' does not constitute 'literacy.' Reading without a critical consciousness is...
Being able to read
"Human dignity entails responsibility and responsibility entails being critical." (132) People must be critical in order for them to continue to be critical.(132) Critical consciousness is "crucial for freedom, autonomy and justice."(122)
"To Freire, the development of 'critical literacy' represents hope in that it provides a way in which humanity can freely and peacefully struggle for freedom." (Purpel 132)
"To be uncritical is to be unaware of the human character of our culture, to see the world's condition as 'natural' or inevitable and one's particular condition as a function of uncontrollable forces."(132) To be uncritical one has to be ignorant of historical processes and of the nature and significance of knowledge. "One can remain uncritical by maintaining a primitive language and by refusing to learn how to analyze language and to analyze with language."
According to Freire, an act of violence is "any situation in which some men prevent others from the process of inquiry." any attempt to prevent human freedom is an 'act of violence.' Any system which deliberately tries not to foster the capacity for critical consciousness is guilty of oppressive violence. Any school which does not foster students' capacity for critical inquiry is guilty of violent oppression.(74)
DEHUMANIZATION: ... "a distortion of being more fully human... the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed."(28)
The great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well." Oppressors oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power. They cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. In an attempt to 'soften' their power with a paternalistic false 'generosity', the oppressors perpetuate the injustice which creates the oppressed. True generosity is fighting to destroy the causes of injustice. This fight is an act of love. In the process of liberating the oppressors, the oppressed liberate themselves. Freedom is "the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion."(31) Dehumanized because they dehumanize others, the oppressors cannot lead the struggle for freedom. The oppressed must first 'critically' recognize the causes for injustice and create a new situation to remove the causes for their oppression. Central problem: "how can the oppressed participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?" (33)
Freire's notion of 'conscientization' represents a pedagogy of liberation from the oppression of 'illiteracy' and an uncritical consciousness. His word 'conscientizao' meant "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality." (Paulo Freire 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed 74)
According to the so-called 'revisionist critics' of current American educational practice, the "poor quality of American education is functional and consistent with what is at best, an American ambivalence toward education, and, at worst, a conscious effort to maintain the existing class structure." (Purpel 20)
According to the 'revisionist critics' of American educational methodologies, a fundamental transformation of the culture's consciousness must occur in order for significant changes to be made in the schools. ( Purpel 20)
The revisionist critics subscribe to a 'liberation theology' which stresses the humanity of Jesus and his teachings as a prophet and social critic. Jesus was critical of a society which was more concerned with the accumulation of wealth and the exercise of power than with the suffering of the poor.( 86) In his teachings he emphasized love, compasssion, justice, mercy and profound concern for the poor and the oppressed. "Liberation theology pictures Jesus as a daringly active leader who challenged the power elite by undermining their moral and religious authority, and in true prophetic tradition, by raising the consciousness of the poor and oppressed and presenting extraordinary images for the possibility of hope and redemption."(87) "The movement inspired by liberation theology combines ideals with practice. Known as 'praxis', the integration of theory and practice is perceived as the necessary instrument for purposes of change and liberation."(86) Liberation theology "emerges out of a struggle to overcome centuries of poverty and oppression rooted in colonialism and exploitation" (85) - traditions common to American culture, most particularly the tradition of Christianity."(87) Liberation theology advocates peaceful revolution through critical literacy. Liberation theology advocates peaceful revolution through critical literacy.
"The most eloquent advocate of liberation theology is the compelling educator Paulo Freire. Freire emphasized the close relationship between human freedom and critical literacy. In the context of liberation theology, the meaning of the term 'literacy' is not simply the ability to read and write but the ability to read and write critically. Critical literacy is the ability to read and write with a 'critical consciousness'. Freedom for the individual in a cultural context depends on the ability to search for meaning in the cultural environment - to be critical of the cultural belief systems, the cultural values and the cultural institutions." (Purpel.)
Freedom for the individual in a cultural context depends on his ability to search for meaning in his cultural environment - to criticize the cultural belief systems, values and institutions of his social and cultural environment. It depends on his capacity for '
The term 'science of education' refers to the scientific inquiry into the formulation of educational and pedagogical theory.
"It is questionable whether pedagogical theory is principally a scientific theory in the explanatory sense." (Purpel 100)
Americans are suspicious of intellectual work.The suspicion of the intellectual process stems from the knowledge that the power of education could be used to "challenge existing institutions and power arrangements." (Purpel 7)
"One of the most important issues of 'education' in its broad context - developing the mind - revolves around the matter of faith in the educability of humanity. There are those who do not have this faith in people's educability. They believe in the 'inherent inequality' of people - only some people can be responsible with an 'education'. and the rest should be 'acculturated and socialized'. There are others who do have faith in peoples' educability. They believe that everyone can be educated to be free and responsible. They believe that it is the responsibility of the 'educators' to provide the necessary conditions which allow all people to develop their human potential." (Purpel 10)
The issue is 'schooled' learning versus 'non-schooled' learning; Most people acquire most of their knowledge outside school."(12) 'inhumane' learning versus 'humane' learning. Schools are inefficient in arranging the circumstances which encourage 'liberal education' - "the open-ended , exploratory use of acquired skills"(17)
The issue of school reform is debated in the context of America's cultural history. Rooted in American historical tradition isthe fear of the powerlessness which comes from a lack of education. Fearful of those who would challenge their basic assumptions, Americans have tended to mask that fear with "scorn, avoidance, and self-deception." (Purpel 8)
"In the current discussion and debate about educational 'reform', the schools are still considered in terms of their function to reproduce the American values of American culture. Schools must be reformed to adapt to changing economic conditions. All students must have an equal educational opportunity for success in the consumer culture. All students must succeed for America to succeed in the new global economy of international competition. (Purpel 7)
"Educational discourse must focus on the urgent task of transforming many of our basic cultural institutions and belief systems... we must make some drastic changes in our culture to forestall disaster and facilitate growth. Educational institutions must be a part of that process." (Purpel 3)
.goal of education: "that which facilitates love, justice, community and joy."(xi) Current crisis in education: Educational discussion and debate has stressed the technical issues of the educational system rather than the wider social, political and moral issues of educational philosophy.
.. power as mythification of reality ...propaganda. Ignorance and illiteracy are necessary ingredients of poverty, hunger, misery and oppression. Illiteracy is not only the inability to read, but the inability to read with a critical consciousness. The ability to 'read' does not constitute 'literacy.' Reading without a critical consciousness is...
Being able to read
"Human dignity entails responsibility and responsibility entails being critical." (132) People must be critical in order for them to continue to be critical.(132) Critical consciousness is "crucial for freedom, autonomy and justice."(122)
"To Freire, the development of 'critical literacy' represents hope in that it provides a way in which humanity can freely and peacefully struggle for freedom." (Purpel 132)
"To be uncritical is to be unaware of the human character of our culture, to see the world's condition as 'natural' or inevitable and one's particular condition as a function of uncontrollable forces."(132) To be uncritical one has to be ignorant of historical processes and of the nature and significance of knowledge. "One can remain uncritical by maintaining a primitive language and by refusing to learn how to analyze language and to analyze with language."
According to Freire, an act of violence is "any situation in which some men prevent others from the process of inquiry." any attempt to prevent human freedom is an 'act of violence.' Any system which deliberately tries not to foster the capacity for critical consciousness is guilty of oppressive violence. Any school which does not foster students' capacity for critical inquiry is guilty of violent oppression.(74)
dehumanization ... "a distortion of being more fully human... the result of an unjust order that engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the oppressed."(28)
The great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed is to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well." Oppressors oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power. They cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. In an attempt to 'soften' their power with a paternalistic false 'generosity', the oppressors perpetuate the injustice which creates the oppressed. True generosity is fighting to destroy the causes of injustice. This fight is an act of love. In the process of liberating the oppressors, the oppressed liberate themselves. Freedom is "the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion."(31) Dehumanized because they dehumanize others, the oppressors cannot lead the struggle for freedom. The oppressed must first 'critically' recognize the causes for injustice and create a new situation to remove the causes for their oppression. Central problem: "how can the oppressed participate in developing the pedagogy of their liberation?" (33)
Freire's notion of 'conscientization' represents a pedagogy of liberation from the oppression of 'illiteracy' and an uncritical consciousness. His word 'conscientizao' meant "learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality." (Paulo Freire 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed 74)
"I believe that the single most powerful contribution that the holistic education movement is making to the field of educational theory is the power of the metaphor of holism, i.e. of being aware of the parts, the sum of the parts, and that which is more than the sum of the parts. Further work is obviously needed to develop a more comprehensive theoretical framework that gives sufficient attention to all the important dimensions of human experience and education." (David Purpel. "Holistic Education in a Prophetic Voice" in Miller et al. The Renewal of Meaning in Education: Responses to the Cultural and Ecological Crisis of our Times. 83)
############################################################################################## CARL ROGERS
Rogers Carl. Freedom To Learn From chapter l2 "A modern approach to the valuig process" 239-257 Charles Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus Ohio l969
American psychotherapist - originator of 'client centered therapy' and 'personal encounter groups'...The total personality is conceived of as two overlapping circles, one of self-structure and one of experience. When self-structure includes experience, the person and what he/she says are 'congruent'. When self-structure excludes experience the person and what he/she says are 'incongruent'. Such a persons rigid externally imposed self-structure impedes full awareness and consciousness. Communication which allows the personality to change from such incongruent functioning causes a shift of the source of evaluation from from an external point to a point within the self; congruence between the self structure and experience becomes possible and the personality grows and matures. The mature personality is able to make sincere efforts to in increaing self-awareness, understanding other peoples' frames of reference, formulate correct evaluations, express with immediacy, and communicate spontaneously. Their awareness becomes communicable. The personal maturity and increased awareness of a critical number of people somehow results in the expansion of consciousness to others. "That part of self-structure which is outside experience remains distorted and rigid, while experience that is denied and not incorporated by the self-structure remains alien and threatening. As a result, when highly incongruent persons communicate, they are not 'present' in what they say. Since their experience is unassimilated and unowned, they are unlikely to find understanding for a self that does not understand and a vicious circle results." The process of mutual understanding, a vital but rare and near heroic feat is relevant for all personal relationships on all social levels. Rogers asks, "can I care while still allowing the other to be separate?" His method of counselling and communication aims to allow the personality to change from incongruent to congruent functioning. The person learns to function with immediacy and to communicate spontaneously those feelings which are unowned, unrecognized and unexpressed. The rigid self-structure changes to a 'sense of integrity, wholeness, reconciliation, relief from tension, and a trust in one's own organism. External evaluation shifts to a point within the self, with the development of a positive sense of worth, personal direction and a capacity to take risks." Fostering the congruent personality involves an "increasing self-awareness of one's entire field of experience, the realization of one's ideals, a greater independence from social pressures to conform, a growing capacity to understand other peoples' frames of reference, an increasing acceptance of oneself and others, and the expansion of consciousness into richer and more complex fields of meaning." If I can accept the world another peron sees, then I could help him change within his own frame of reference from a 'non-congruent to a congruent personality, and help him gow in maturity, break down the barriers between him and the world, raise his level of consciousness and contribute to the expansion of consciousness to others. he natural valuing process, or organismic valuing process is a part of normal human development. 'organismic valuing process.' "there is an organismic base for an organized valuing process within the human individual." In accordance with the biological need for self-preservation and adaptation, the human organism has the natural capacity to adjust its behavior and reactions to a continuously changing environment - the operative values. "The valuing process in the human being is effective in achieving self-enhancement to the degree that the individual is open to the experiencing which is going on within himself." The infant and the psychologically mature person are examples of individuals whose valuing process is in harmony with their own experiencing. A child's proper inner development to maturity depends on his/her being prized as a separate person with the freedom to experience his own feelings without feeling threatened. The freedom of self-expression insures development to maturity and inner freedom.
data on the valuing process in the developing human being. .. 'organismic valuing process'. Rogers' observations provide data on the behavioural characteristics which emerge as persons become more mature.
The organismic valuing process allows for adaptation to changing social environment.... 'human adaptability'. With the recognition of the potential universality of the organismic valuing process of the human being, the perplexing issues of 'values' and ethics could be resolved.
"The living human being has, at the outset, a clear approach to values. He prefers some things and experiences and rejects others. We can infer from studying his behaviour that he prefers those experiences which maintain, enhance, or actualize his organism, and rejects those which do not serve this end. (242)Watch him for a bit... The infant's 'values' are clearly obvious to anyone observing his behaviour and his reactions. Hunger is negatively valued and food is positively valued. But when the hunger is satisfied then food is negatively valued. Security is positively valued. Affection is positively valued because it communicates security. New experience is valued. Pleasure is gained from the satisfaction of curiosity. Pain, bitter tastes and sudden loud sounds are negatively valued. The infant reacts overtly and gives expression to his likes and dislikes. He naturally likes what is good for him dislikes what is bad for him. The approach to 'values' which is demonstrated by the infant is a "flexible, changing, valuing process, not a fixed system." Unlike many of us, he knows what he likes and dislikes and the origin of these value choices lies strictly within himself. He is the center of the valuing process, the evidence for his choices being supplied by his own senses...He likes a food and then dislikes the same food. He values security and then rejects it in favor of new experience. He is not influenced by anyone but is reacting as a biological organism operating within an environment in which it must satisfy its ultimate need for self-actualization. The approach to 'values' which is demonstrated by the infant is a flexible, changing, valuing process, not a fixed system....(242-243)
The 'values' expressed by the infant are 'operative' values. . The 'operative values' are the values chosen on the basis of the organism's inherent tendency toward self-actualization. "The values chosen on the basis of the organism's inherent tendency toward self-actualization are the 'operative' values".
Characteristics of human nature and the natural valuing process are discovered in psychotherapy. One can observe a number of value directions which appear to be common to all human beings, regardless of cultural influences. They all have in common the tendency "to favor the development of the individual himself, of others in the community and to contribute to the survival and evolution of his species." He speculates that with complete freedom to choose his own value directions, the mature human being would tend to live by a valuing process with the following characteristic tendencies: Negatively valued are pretense, defensiveness, imperative behavior ("I ought") and concern with expectations of others. Positively valued are an individual's authenticity, self-direction in decision-making, sense of worthiness of self and feelings, excitement in the process of growth and of potentialities in the process of unfolding, openness to own feelings, sensitivity to and acceptance of others, deep relationships, openness to all his inner and outer experience and to the realities of the objective world. These and others constitute an underlying thread of commonality observed in human beings who grow to maturity within an environment of respect for their inner freedom and prizing of their individuality.
Those objects and experiences which contribute to the individual's own growth and development, and the growth and development of others are naturally valued. In a growth promoting climate, regardless of culture, the human organism seems to prefer goals which contribute to his own self-actualization and socialization. Given the opportunity to grow to maturity in a climate of freedom and respect, the individual would be devoid of conceived values. Making choices and decisions according to his own organismic valuing process, the individual lives by values which facilitate his own survival, adaptation, self-enhancement and the enhancement of the human race.
Educational policy based on child interest: "If effective learning is the goal of the educational process, then child interest is the orienting center of any effective educational policy".
Children must be allowed to develop their individual personalities and potentialities as well as their mental and intellectual capacities in an educational climate of freedom and respect. Such a climate is the requisite condition for effective learning because it fosters the unfolding of their natural potentialities and their inner development towards inner freedom and rational thought. Freedom in the eductional process insures the proper functioning of a free and democratic society made up of citizens who are free and democratic in their thinking.
The goal of education is inward freedom:
Some practical experience and empirical knowledge: children prefer responsible freedom and self-imposed limits to the licence of chaos and aggression. A.S. Neill in his school Summerhill. The success of the experiment was due to Neill's sincerity and genuineness, his faith in the potential of each individual, his firm respect for each child and for himself. He had the courage to trust the individual and his natural desire to learn. The experiment demonstrated that children can learn to be free, the core philosophy of the progressive education movement, frequently debased into turning education into a sugar-coated pill".(Carl Rogers Person to Person: Some Efforts to Permit Freedom in Education, Real People Press Lafayette CA l967 57)
The function of the teacher is to concentrate on creating a classroom climate to facilitate self-initiated learning, the freedom to learn and learning to be free. First the students must be allowed to face real problems. If they are to learn to be free and responsible then they must confront real life problems. The teacher who is genuine and sincere, with a confident view of man and a profound trust in the human organism, functions effectively in a student-centered setting for education. Able to accept his feelings as his own, he has no need to impose them on others. He can be angry, sensitive, sympathetic and a real person in his relationship with people. He values the feelings and opinions of his students whom he regards as imperfect human beings with many potentialities. Never denying a child's feelings, he has an empathic awareness of the process of learning and education from the student's point of view. Equally important to these attitudes is the teacher's function as a provider of resources and raw materials which the students can use, as well as a guide to channels, human or otherwise, by which students can avail themselves of resources relevant to their own needs. The teacher offers himself as the main resource and the degree to which he is used is up to the student. In this student-centered educational setting, students discover what it means to be autonomous, spontaneous, creative, and self-disciplined in their efforts to reach their own goals. With hard work, frustration and perseverence they learn the satisfaction of responsible freedom. They gain in personal psychological maturity, learn mutual respect and the values of cooperation and friendship". (Carl Rogers Freedom To Learn)
Carl Rogers describes "man's tendency to actualize himself, to become his potentialities ...(to manifest) the directional trend which is evident in all organic and human life - the urge to expand, extend, develop, mature - the tendency to express and activtate all the capacities of the organism." (Carl Rogers, "Toward a Theory of Creativity" in Creativity and its Cultivation. New York: Harper, l959 page 72)
Natural curiosity is the source of 'intrinsic motivation' for learning. "...It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail." (Albert Einstein cited in Carl Rogers. Freedom To Learn. Columbus, Ohio: Charles Merrill Publishing Co. 1969)
Carl Rogers "Freedom to Learn" Charles Merrill Publishing Company, Columbus Ohio l969
"...It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiostiy of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to rack and ruin without fail."
'Education' is futile if it involves the learning of material which has no personal meaning. Learning which does not involve the learner's feelings has no relevance for the whole person and is insignificant. Significant learning involves thought and feelings. Left to his own devices a child learns rapidly and effectively he learns from experience. Learning with a quality of personal involvement - This is called 'experiential learning.' From chapter l2 "A modern approach to the valuing process" 239257 Carl Rogers provides data on the valuing process in the developing human being.
"The living human being has, at the outset, a clear approach to values. He prefers some things and experiences and rejects others. We can infer from studying his behaviour that he prefers those experiences which maintain, enhance, or actualize his organism, and rejects those which do not serve this end. Watch him for a bit." (242)The infant's 'values' are clearly obvious to anyone observing his behaviour and his reactions. Hunger is negatively valued and food is positively valued. But when the hunger is satisfied then food is negatively valued. Security is positively valued. Affection is positively valued because it communicates security. New experience is valued. Pleasure is gained from the satisfaction of curiosity. Pain, bitter tastes and sudden loud sounds are negatively valued. The infant reacts overtly and gives expression to his likes and dislikes. He naturally likes what is good for him dislikes what is bad for him. The approach to 'values' which is demonstrated by the infant is a "flexible, changing, valuing process, not a fixed system." (242) "Unlike many of us, he knows what he likes and dislikes, and the origin of these value choices lies strictly within himself. He is the center of the valuing process, the evidence for his choices being spplied by his own senses." (243) He likes a food and then dislikes the same food. He values security and then rejects it in favor of new experience. He is not influenced by anyone but is reacting as a biological organism operating within an environment in which it must satisfy its ultimate need for self-actualization. The 'values' expressed by the infant are 'operative' values. CARL ROGERS Person to Person, Real People Press Lafayette CA l967 Some Efforts to Permit Freedom in Education: The goal of education is inward freedom. Some practical experience and empirical knowledge: children prefer responsible freedom and self-imposed limits to the licence of chaos and aggression. See experiment of A.S. Neill in his school Summerhill. The success of the experiment was due to "Neill's sincerity and genuineness, his faith in the potential of each individual, his firm respect for each child and for himself." He had the courage to trust the individual and his natural desire to learn. The experiment demonstrated that children can learn to be free, the core philosophy of the progressive education movement, frequently debased "into turning education into a sugar-coated pill." (57)
The function of the teacher is to concentrate on creating a classroom climate to facilitate self-initiated learning, the freedom to learn and learning to be free. First the students must be allowed to face real problems. If they are to learn to be free and responsible then they must confront real life problems. The teacher who is genuine and sincere, with a confident view of man and a profound trust in the human organism, functions effectively in a student-centered setting for education. Able to accept his feelings as his own, he has no need to impose them on others. He can be angry, sensitive, sympathetic and a real person in his relationship with people. He values the feelings and opinions of his students whom he regards as imperfect human beings with many potentialities. Never denying a child's feelings, he has an empathic awareness of the process of learning and education from the student's point of view. Equally important to these attitudes is the teacher's function as a provider of resources and raw materials which the students can use, as well as a guide to channels, human or otherwise, by which students can avail themselves of resources relevant to their own needs. The teacher offers himself as the main resource and the degree to which he is used is up to the student. In this student-centered educational setting, students discover what it means to be autonomous, spontaneous, creative, and self-disciplined in their efforts to reach their own goals. With hard work, frustration and perseverence they learn the satisfaction of responsible freedom. They gain in personal psychological maturity, learn mutual respect and the values of cooperation and friendship.
Steiner, Rudolph. Philosophy of Freedom: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The Basis for a Modern World Conception. Some results of introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970.
"The discoveries of Rudolf Steiner concerning the interrelationships of body, soul and spirit represent a new educational paradigm which ... can provide a secure theoretical and practical foundation for a holistic education that directs itself to educate the whole person for the whole of life." (Gerald Karnow "Educating the Whole Person for the Whole of Life" Holistic Education Review, Spring, 1992)
FREEDOM AND HUMAN NATURE "...the 'free spirit' - the moral being - is the purest expression of human nature." "We are men (human) in the true sense only in so far as we are free. Knowledge of one's human nature - self-knowledge - overcomes the division between the subjective self and the objective world. During normal growth and development - with self-knowledge- the individual "brings the concept of himself to expression in his outer existence." (Steiner, R. Philosophy of Freedom: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The Basis for a Modern World Conception. Some results of introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science. London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970, page 141)
AUTONOMOUS NATURE OF ETHICS': "The free man acts morally because he has a moral idea; he does not act in order that morality may come into being. Human individuals, with the moral ideas belonging to their nature, are the prerequisites of a moral world order. The human individual is the source of all morality. State and society exist only because they have arisen as a necessary consequence of the life of the individuals. ...the social order arises so that it in turn may react favorably upon the individual." (Steiner, R. Philosophy of Freedom: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The Basis for a Modern World Conception. (Some results of introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science). London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970. page 144)
Concerning the supposed dichotomy between freedom and social responsibility: "How is a social life possible for man if each one is only striving to assert his own individuality? This objection is characteristic of a false understanding in moralism. Such a moralist believes that a social community is possible only if all men are united by a communally fixed moral order. What this kind of moralist does not understand is just the unity of the world of ideas. He does not see that the world of ideas working in me is no other than the one working in my fellow man....A moral misunderstanding, a clash, is impossible between men who are morally free...To live in love towards our actions, and to let live in the understanding of the other person's will, is the fundamental maxim of free men."( Steiner, R. Philosophy of Freedom: Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. The Basis for a Modern World Conception. (Some results of introspective observation following the methods of Natural Science). London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1970 139)
It is based on the premise that one has to know the ature of man in order to formulate valid ethical codes. Based on the validity of man's autonomy, valid ethical norms are formed by man's reason.
Walsh, Roger and Frances Vaughan Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology J.P. Tarcher, Inc. Los Angeles l980
Walsh, R and D.Shapiro eds. Beyond Health and Normality: Explorations of Extreme Psychological Well-being. New York, Van Nostrand Rheinhold
Western psychology
"Traditionally, psychologists and philosophers have tended to avoid defining the highest good for humanity, resorting to negative terms in defining 'health' as the absence of disease, and 'good' as the absence of 'evil'. Health by such a definition is only 'not sick'. Such a definition involves a number of assumptions and limitations. For example, it ignores the possibility that the healthy may display ways of being, modes and depths of experiencing, interests and motives that do not show up at all in pathology. Similarly the very healthy might not do some things that are so widespread in the remainder of the population that they have been accepted as universal and intrinsic to human nature. This raises the interesting question of whether the extremely psychologically healthy might not at times appear mysterious or bizarre to the rest of us. In other words, we must be wary of assuming that they will fit our cultural stereotypes of health or that we will easily and automatically recognize them for what they are." (Walsh 119)
"...our normative cultural reality is state-specific. Insofar as 'reality' is a consensually validated, but arbitrary, convention, an altered state of consciousness can represent an anti-social, unruly mode of being... This fear of the unpredicatable may have been a major motivating force behind the repression in our own culture of means for inducing altered states- e.g. psychedelics- or for a more general suspicion of techniques such as meditation." (Walsh)
"Psychologies produce a reality.." ('The Social Construction of Reality.' Berger and Luckmann l967 p. l78)
"The Western pathology of view is to equate 'reality' with the world as perceived in waking state awareness, so denying access or credibility to reality as perceived in other states of consciousness. The complementary Eastern pathology is to see reality as wholly other than that of waking awareness, and so dismisses the physical world as illusory." (Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology edited by Roger Walsh, M.D. Ph.D and Frances Vaughan Ph.D. J.P. Tarcher, Inc. Los Angeles l980 p. 34)
"Perception of 'reality' in cultural and psychological context. Freedom as accurate perception of reality - perception free from distortion (optimal mental health). Reality is a function of the individual's level of consciousness and extent of self-realization. Learning is a dynamic process involving the engagement of the personality as a whole.
"Psychoanalytic thought gives a prominent place to the concept of reality-testing, which from the viewpoint of the relativity of states of consciousness is a state-bound test of 'reality', but does not deal with a conception of levels of reality or altered states of consciousness.." (Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology edited by Roger Walsh, M.D. Ph.D and Frances Vaughan Ph.D. J.P. Tarcher, Inc. Los Angeles l980 p. 34)
"Within the Western model, we recognize and define 'psychosis' in a distorted way which does not recognize the distortion. It is therefore significant to note that from the mystical perspective, our usual state fits all the criteria of psychosis in that it is suboptimal, has a distorted view of reality, and does not recognize that distortion. Indeed, from the ultimate mystical perspective, psychosis can be defined as being trapped or attached to, any one state of consciousness, which by itself is necessarily limited and only relatively 'real'.
"The attachment to any particular experience or attempts to change one experience for another- e.g. the frantic pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain- invariably results in continuing frustration and disappointment." (Walsh, Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology p. l86)
"It has frequently been suggested that the pursuit of self-knowledge is inherently a selfish one that detracts from an involvement with, and contribution to, society. However such criticism is not valid inasmuch as the product of this work is necessarily a transcendence of limited self-interest. Concern with the general good of one's fellow beings and a desire for harmony with the broader universe is intrinsic to the work. Eric Schumacher writes: 'It is a grave error to accuse a man who pursues self-knowledge of 'turning his back on society.' The opposite would be more nearly true: that a man who fails to pursue self-knowldege is and remains a danger to society, for he will tend to misunderstand everything that other people say or do, and remain blissfully unaware of the significance of many of the things he does himself. (Schumacher, E "A Guide for the Perplexed." New York, Harper and Row, l977) " (Walsh 199)
"Fully developed mystics state unequivocally that our usual state of consciousness is not only suboptimal, it is dreamlike and illusory. They assert that whether we know it or not, we, as untrained individuals, are prisoners of our own minds, totally and unwittingly trapped by a continuous fantasy-dialogue that creates an all-consuming illusory distortion of perception or 'reality'. However, this condition goes unrecognized until we begin to subject our perceptual-cognitive processes to rigorous scrutiny such as meditation." (Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology edited by Roger Walsh, M.D. Ph.D and Frances Vaughan Ph.D. J.P. Tarcher, Inc. Los Angeles l980 37)
...psychologists are extending their domain to include the study of consciousness "What do ..states of consciousness have to do with education? Quite a bit, both at the immediately applicable level and in long-range possibilities. Surprising as it seems, teachers and counselors find no problem in figuring out how to use transpersonal techniques in their day-to-day work. Enough books of games and techniques for classroom use have appeared to justify the label "transpersonal education." The immediate uses (of transpersonal psychology) stem from applying insights from transpersonal psychology to our ordinary awake state of consciousness (and consequently our ordinary schooling) rather than anything requiring an altered state of consciousness.
Research data on the transpersonal dimensions of mental health
psychological well-being? Several approaches are possible. One way is to examine the major dimensions of transpersonal models of human nature and describe the positive ends of these dimensions. Another involves reviewing the suggestions and anecdotal descriptions available in the literature, and a third approach is experimental, researching those people thought to be most healthy. Research data on the transpersonal dimensions of health is very limited, so we are left for the time being with the theoretical and anecdotal approaches. In the absence of empirical support, the following descriptions must be considered as preliminary hypotheses for future thinking and research rather than as established principles." (ll9)
"The most frequently mentioned dimension in transpersonal models of human nature is consciousness. Probably we would expect healthier individuals to have greater access to a wider range of states, especially those possessing greater numbers and degrees of state-specific capacities, i.e. higher states. The most advanced individuals might be expected to have greater degrees of voluntary control and even to be able to enter a wide number of states at will." (l20)
Maslow "How then are we to determine the characteristics of called 'metaneeds or B-(being) needs.'" (120)
"Our current educational systems are almost entirely addressed to the mode of reason. Training in the observational and contemplative modes and affective dimension is almost completely lacking. Even within the mode of reason, most emphasis is placed on the acquisition of data and less on actual training and developng skill in reasoning itself... One of the goals discussed by Tom Roberts in 'Education and Transpersonal Relations' is therefore the expansion of the educative process into these other dimensions. Roberts suggests that though the field is very young, a number of useful and enjoyable techniques exist for facilitating the attainment of traditional and nontraditional goals. One of the most important tasks awaiting transpersonal educators is the exploration of the optimal goals and potentials of such an expanded educational curriculum." (Walsh Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology p 198)
"there is emerging awareness that our current educational psychology is not so much wrong as so very limited." "... psychologists are extending their domain to include the study of consciousness" "What do ..states of consciousness have to do with education? Quite a bit, both at the immediately applicable level and in long-range possibilities. Surprising as it seems, teachers and counselors find no problem in figuring out how to use transpersonal techniques in their day-to-day work. Enough books of games and techniques for classroom use have appeared to justify the label "transpersonal education." The immediate uses (of transpersonal psychology) stem from applying insights from transpersonal psychology to our ordinary awake state of consciousness (and consequently our ordinary schooling) rather than anything requiring an altered state of consciousness. Americans are suspicious of intellectual work.
'Reality' as function of consciousness: perception free from distortion with full self-realization.
"In the dimension of perception, attributes of health might include perceptual sensitivity, clarity, and relative freedom from distortion. 'The fully realized human is one whose doors of perception have been cleansed.' (See Smith, H. The Sacred Unconscious." In R. Walsh and D.Shapiro eds. "Beyond Health and Normality": explorations of extreme psychological well-being." New York, Van Nostrand Rheinhold) This is the ability to see things as they are, free from distorting influences of desire, aversion, ignorance and fear." (l20)
...associated with state-specific properties, functions, and abilities... Perceptual sensitivity and clarity, attention, responsivity, sense of identity, affective, cognitive, and perceptual processes may all vary with the state of consciousness in apparently precise and predicatable ways.
"The readings included in this section include Western and Buddhist perspectives. In "A Theory of Metamotivation: The Biological Rooting of the Value-Life," Abraham Maslow lays out a number of hypotheses about the nature and experience of selfactualizers and self-transcenders. He first describes the hierarchy of needs and suggests that higher needs (metaneeds, B for being- Values) for truth, beauty, transcendence, etc. are just as biologically based as are the lower, more obviously physiological ones. Further, he proposes that the failure to satisfy metaneeds may result in corresponding forms of pathology (metapathology) analagous to those resulting from unsatisfied lower needs. Thus he concludes that transcendant, religious, esthetic, and philosophical facets of life are as real and intrinsic to human nature as any biological needs. (Walsh Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions of Psychology121)
"A new vision of social interaction and lifestyle emerges as we learn to integrate all aspects of human experience, inner and outer, Eastern and Western, personal and transpersonal. The capacity of human beings to transcend the limitations of social conditioning and to take responsibility for designing their lives in harmony with nature and others becomes increasingly apparent to those individuals who commit themselves to the self-exploration necessary for direct experience of the deeper nature of their being. (Walsh 200)
"Several traditions make the suggestions that attachment (addiction) to having one's needs gratified is the source of suffering and that highly developed individuals are likely to be motivated by a desire to contribute to and serve others. Health might thus be associated with fewer attachments and a higher ratio of service-oriented versus egocentric behaviour. Although they do not necessarily fit neatly into any particular formal model, various other qualities have been widely assumed to be characteristic of optimal mental health. These include the recognition that one is responsible for, and the source of, one's experience and one's sense of well-being; greater sensitivity towards others as manifested by enhanced love, compassion, empathy, and generosity; an appreciation of the awesomeness and mystery of life shown by attitudes of reverence, gratitude, wonder and ecological sensitivity; and a wholehearted participation in life, opening fully to the joys as well as to the sorrows of the human condition. " (Walsh pp 120-121)
REALITY AND PERCEPTION FREE FROM DISTORTION - OPTIMAL MENTAL HEALTH and full self-realization...
The Buddha defines the 'First Noble Truth of Buddhism' thus: 'all life is imbued with suffering.' Consequently the individual must live in a transpersonal 'level' of consciousness, beyond the ego and existensial 'levels', in order to confront and reconcile life with its apparent inevitabilities of loss and death. The individual must understand the three truths which the Buddha claimed would help to lead the way out of the dilemma: first, 'the cause of all suffering is attachment', second, 'the relief of suffering comes from the cessation of attachment', and third 'the cessation of attachment comes from following the eightfold path, a prescription for ethical living and mental training aimed at attaining full enlightenment'.(l86. "Once a person has awakened to the transpersonal dimensions of existence, life itself is held in a differnt perspective." (This must be an aspect of healthy psychological and intellectual growth.
"At the highest levels of well-being-in the transcendent realms where we experience ourselves as pure awareness transcendant to space, form, and time- very different possibilites for describing health become apparent. This realm is clearly transcendent to any existing concept of health. Like the other subjective dichotomies (personal freedom and social responsibility), the distinction between health and illness collapses in the deepest levels of being. As various consciousness disciplines have maintained for centuries, who we are behind our illusory identificatons is beyond health and illness." (from Walsh p. 121)(see Walsh,R and Shapiro D eds. "Beyond Health and normality: explorations of extreme psychological well-being," New York Van Nostrand Rheinhold)
"The healthy person's sense of identity would be expected to extend beyond the usual ego self-sense. On one hand we would expect health to be associated with recognizing, owning and integrating the shadow, that component of the psyche comprising attributes judged to be negative and inconsistent with one's self-image. On the other hand we might expect the very healthy to live in the presence of the numinous (filled with a sense of the presence of divinity), the 'sacred unconscious,' the transpersonal self, or pure awareness, and to realize that they are that too." (Walsh page 120)
"A number of seeming paradoxes follow. Because this essential nature of our being continues to exist beyond any illusory constrictive identifactions, it follows that it remains transcendant to the health/illness dichotomy at all times. Thus a movement toward health does not entail changing what we are but rather recognizing what we are. Indeed there is not even any need for movement. As the 'perennial psychology' would have it, "there is nothing to do, nothing to change, nothing to be." (Walsh 121) "It follows, then, that the transpersonal perspective on the quest for psychological well-being is very different from the traditional Western view. Changes in behaviour, thought, affect, and personality are seen not only as goals in themselves but also as means to facilitate awareness of transcendant dimensions of being." (Walsh l2l)
"In his later years, Maslow maintained that beyond self-actualization lay the need for self-transcendance. In this Maslow saw a drive towards modes of experiencing and being that transcended the usual limits of human experience and identity, i.e. the drive toward the transpersonal realms. Similar hierarchical models with transcendent components are also found in a number of non-Western psychologies such as Sufism and Hinduism(l20) . "Hinduism's specific directions for actualizing man's fullest nature come under the heading of 'yoga.'" Walsh 33)
"A mature individual does not resent correction, for he identifies himself more with the long range self that grows through correction than with the momentary self that is being indicted. " (Walsh 49)
"If life and living are experienced as an unbroken pattern of interconnection that extends from the most minute details of daily existence to the largest scale features of the cosmos, then withdrawal from worldly responsibility is not possible. If a person engages life consciously and directly, there is literally no place to go where one can escape the experiencable connection with all of life...The task then becomes one of bringing one's life, in all of its diverse expressions, into increasingly conscious and harmonious alignment with the changing web of relationships of which one is an inseparable part." (Duane Elgin. 'Voluntary Simplicity'. New York, William Morrow, date? from Walsh 200)
"In the 'Tao of Personal and Social Transformation,' Duane Elgin suggests that expanded awareness is reflected in a quality of life that seeks harmony with nature, both inner and outer, rather than domination over it. For the person working in these areas there is no question of their connection with, and responsibility for, the larger whole of which they experience themselves to be an inseparable component. For a person beginning to experience what was formerly 'other,' as 'self,' it makes no sense not to acknowledge responsibility and the need for ethicality and service. With the attendant reduction in egocentric desires, there is less wish to impose one's will on nature and others and more interest in harmonizing with them in an ecological and Taoistic manner. Fewer desires means less desire for consumerism or susceptibility to advertising pressures, resulting in a tendency toward a choiceful life of voluntary simplicity." (Walsh l99-200)
Paradigm shift
"Kuhn uses the term 'paradigm' in one sense to denote 'the entire constellation, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community.' In this sense-as a set of shared constructs - a paradigm in science is on the same order as other community-shared world views-e.g. Buddhism. The means by which paradigms are perpetuated and transmitted are akin to the process odf socialization into any other group-specific reality... Professional training is a secondary socialisation whereby the fledgling scientist acquires a role-specific paradigm." (Beyond Ego ETranspersonal Dimensions in Psychology edited by Roger Walsh, M.D. Ph.D and Frances Vaughan Ph.D. J.P. Tarcher, Inc. Los Angeles l980 p 30).
Americans are suspicious of intellectual work.
CONNECTION BETWEEN SCIENCE OF MAN (HUMAN NATURE) AND PERCEPTION OF REALITY (SCIENCE) "REALITY" IS FUNCTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
PARADIGM SHIFT IN EDUCATIONAL THEORY
"It is not just the existence with multiple states which is held to be important, but the fact that they may be...
HEALTH-ILLNESS DICHOTOMY AND OTHER 'SUBJECTIVE DICHOTOMIES'.
AS VARIOUS CONSCIOUSNESS DISCIPLINES HAVE MAINTAINED FOR CENTURIES, WHO WE ARE BEHIND OUR ILLUSORY IDENTIFICATIONS IS BEYOND HEALTH AND ILLNESS" (from Walsh p. 121)(see Walsh,R and Shapiro D eds. "Beyond Health and normality: explorations of extreme psychological well-being," New York Van Nostrand Rheinhold, date?)
Dichotomies disappear with increased mental health If the individuals in a society remain attached to that level of consciousness dealing with gratification of physical and emotional needs, then they would perceive a dichotomy between personal freedom "to pursue happiness" and their responsibility to the society, their social responsibility. If those same individuals' level of consciousness is raised to a healthier state, then they would be motivated by so-called 'higher needs' to serve others and to contribute to society. They would not perceive a dichotomy between personal freedom "to pursue happiness" and their responsibility to society, their social responsibility.