Subject: re purpose of education (a corrected version)
From: Ania Lian (ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au)
Date: Thu 13 Apr 2000 - 04:31:46 MEST
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 12:31:46 +1000 (EST) From: Ania Lian <ania@lingua.arts.uq.edu.au> Subject: re purpose of education (a corrected version)
List address to send message to everyone: ifets-discuss@LISTSERV.READADP.COM
Details of current discussion: http://ifets.ieee.org/discussions/discuss.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 10 Apr 2000, Bill Ellis wrote:
> The ongoin discussion has been most revealing.
> It seems that the consensus is "power" personal power is the reason we
> educate.
> But isn't the root of learning something much more satisfying than that?
> [...] I don't see that reading Poe or Shakespeare gives us power any
> more than walking in the forest, listening to birds or watching a sunset
> has anything to do with power. There is a deep feeling of belonging
> that comes from such experiences.
> A feeling of awe, wonder, and participation in a
> great mystery. This is what Einstein called his cosmic religion. It too
> comes from knowing; from comprehending and understanding the cosmos.
> Isn't that what drives our curiosity, our motive to learn? Just knowing.
It seems to me that sensations like curiosity and wonder, and sensations
like that one knows something, are not independent of the power mechanisms
around us which structure, or shape, the kinds of things about which we
are curious or which give us a sense of understanding things. If power is
thought about as a system of forces in relation to which things are done,
then curiosity turns out to be a product of logics and as such it is not
independent but a part and parcel of the forces which structure it and
which give us a sense of achievement, for lack of a better word. This may
not be the only way to talk about curiosity, but, in the context of
education, questions arise regarding the sources of those contexts (or
logics) in relation to which our sense of achievement (or learners' sense
of achievement) is to arise. What role do educators play and should play
in regard to those contexts which regulate learners' understanding and
their sense of achievement?
Is knowledge something, as Corrie Bergeron (10, April) asserts, a form of
reality that we all share and hence a form that educators must give to
learners with the tools that do this best? If, to follow Corrie Bergeron,
the WHAT of knowledge seems pretty fixed, she writes:
"Humans (at least by their observable behavior) all seem to seek the same
kinds of things",
what form (source) of logic renders it fixed? Does this mean that reality
is the way it is because we read it in ways that follow from some
algorithm that dictates our understanding of things? In other words,
understanding seems to be a product of application of the algorithm that
we all have access to. Not-understanding then would be the lack of such an
algorithm or ...?
Or, maybe, reality is the way it is because diversity and conflict rule
and hence diversity and conflict prevent us from ever knowing things? All
we can do is hope that we can achieve things without necessarily claiming
a greater power behind our knowledge than it deserves. Therefore, to
return to Bill Ellis, the concept of power may not refer to blind
assertion of one's ability to UNDERSTAND. It may refer to a management
process in which learners are given a chance to experience their own power
(achievement/wonder/ability to pose and answer questions) through
educational contexts (like the forest walk or formal classroom and other
settings). But in such context, it cannot be the KNOWLEDGE (as some
abstract category held by no-one) which functions as the reference which
taps us on our shoulder every time we get it right. It has to be something
else which is more personal while at the same not divorced from reality,
which is Corrie Bergeron's concern. It has to be a sense of achievement
which is real and it is based in a true experience of achieving. But if it
is not the KNOWLEDGE that taps us on our shoulder to give us confidence,
what is it and how can we systematise our thinking about a learning
environment that enables this process? If technology allows us to do
things better, or in a richer way, how can we systematise our thinking
about technology-based environments where learners' power derives from a
true achievement backed by a wonder rather than from a tap by a magical
and abstract category? Does on-line fix our problem automatically? Or to
put the question differently, if we were given a chance to make education
better, would we tell the government that the problem is that not everyone
is on-line?
Ania Lian
---------------------------------------------------------
Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/
Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz
Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html
---------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2a24 : Thu 13 Apr 2000 - 05:42:53 MEST