1. SESSION 2: PRAGMATISM How does pragmatism theorise education? How can we characterise that? And what does that imply? STEP 1: background information STEP 2: John Dewey’s theory of education STEP 3: analysis and discussion

2. STEP 1: WHAT IS PRAGMATISM? Charles Chanders Peirce (1839-1914) William James (1842-1910) John Dewey (1859-1952) George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) first ‘original’ approach developed in North America, BUT... - coincided with emergence of philosophy as Academic discipline (theology → British empiricism & Hegel → pragmatism) - rooted in Western philosophy distinctively pragmatist: - philosophy AND science - evolution theory: human being is part of world - anti-foundational (anti-metaphysical) ↓ focus on actions & consequences

3. Why pragmatism and not practicalism? Kant: practical: separation of thought and action pragmatic: connection of thought and action Peirce: ‘pragmaticism’ (‘ugly enough to be safe from kidnappers’) * * * Dewey: a philosophy of action “the old center was mind...” Descartes; philosophy of consciousness “...the new center is indefinite interactions” transaction (self-action; inter-action; trans-action) knowledge as “a factor in organic action”

4. a different starting point ‘EXPERIENCE’ ↓ transactions of organism and environment: effects change in environment and organism ↓ ‘doing and undergoing’ produces ‘habits’: predispositions to act trial and error + language (conceptual operations) = intelligent action knowledge concerns the relationship between actions and consequences, not information about ‘external’, pre-existing reality

5. STEP 2: DEWEY AND ‘THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION’ I. IN A NUTSHELL “the problem of education lies in the coordination of the individual and the social factors” (1895) individual factors: experience & growth [the continuous reconstruction of experience] social factors: meaning & culture they can be [only] co-ordinated through communication ↓ the making of something in common the task of education is to introduce the method of thinking (so as to transform habits into intelligent habits, action into intelligent action) the aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education and: democracy

6. II. THE PROBLEM OF EDUCATION AND IT’S CONTEXT traditions in (American) education: child-centred (developmental; psychological) curriculum-centred (transmission; sociological) [Froebel vs Herbartianism] problem with child-centred: development without direction and meaning problem with curriculum-centred: adaptation without freedom the individual and the social are part of one encompassing process; not a compromise but a ‘dynamic balance’: “so that the child can express her/himself in a way that can serve social purposes” (1895) background: ‘progressive education’ in Europe and North-America ↓ criticism of education driven by curriculum alternative: education ‘driven’ by the child Dewey: child-centred is un-educational (i.e., it’s ‘really stupid’)

7. The Child and the Curriculum, The School and Society, Interest and Effort in Education, Experience and Education III. EDUCATION AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EXPERIENCE experience (the close connection between doing and undergoing) is a learning process (a lifelong process) ↓ the continuous reconstruction of experience note: reconstruction, not replacement all learning ‘trajectories’ are individual: the continuity of experience teaching needs to ‘connect’ to the ongoing reconstruction of experience (as it starting point, not its endpoint) experience → habits (predispositions) ↓ knowledge that lives in the muscles

8. IV. THE REFLECTIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF EXPERIENCE: MEANING, CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION from action to intelligent action: the intervention of thinking ↓ conceptual operations conceptual ‘tools’ (meanings) How can the child get access to the conceptual tools of a culture? How does a child learn the meaning of a traffic light? Through experimentation with objects? (e.g., Montessori) Where is meaning located? In the social practices in which things (including sounds) mean something. the ‘mechanism’ for the co-ordination of the individual and the social factors is participation

9. participation: not being in a social environment but having a social environment: “A being whose activities are associated with others has a social environment.” ↓ not physical proximity not working together but “when all are cognizant about the common end and are interested in it” training: done to; education: done by ↓ communication: the making of something in common traditional theory of communication: sender-receiver model: transmission of information which relies on the assumption that there are already formed ‘minds’ and that they already know what the information means (here common understanding is a condition for communication)

10. Dewey: How is education possible? How is communication possible? ↓ co-ordination of action: creates the ‘need’ for developing a shared understanding ↓ results in ‘agreement in action’ creation of a common (but not identical) world: practical intersubjectivity ↓ common understanding as the outcome of communication underlying ‘mechanism’: the ‘ability’ to respond to the meaning of the action of the other, not the action itself ↓ anticipatory, not sequential (see Mead: symbolic interactionism) ‘the creativity of action’

11. a communication centred theory of education (rather than child- or curriculum centred) a practice centred theory of education ↓ bringing the world into the school (instead of representing the world through books) (but see Osberg & Biesta) ↓ ‘occupations’ in the laboratory school ↓ Kilkpatrick: project method also: experiential learning & problem-based learning

12. V. THE METHOD OF THOUGHT acquisition of cultural tools is a necessary condition for the transformation of experience into reflective experience, inquiry into reflective inquiry, action into intelligent action ↓ need for “the production of good habits of thinking” “thinking is the method of an educative experience” the ‘essentials’ of method (1916; ch. 12) “(1) that the pupil has a genuine situation of experience: continuous activity in which he is interested for its own sake (2) that a genuine problem arises within this situation as a stimulus to thought (3) that he possesses the information and makes the observations needed to deal with it (4) that suggested solutions occur to him, which he shall be responsible for developing in an orderly (5) that he has opportunity and occasion to test his ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to discover for himself their validity” = inquiry collaborative problem-solving increases the number of conceptual resources and thus has the potential to make action more intelligent ↓ see democracy

13. VI. THE AIMS OF EDUCATION AND THE AIMS OF EDUCATORS Dewey’s critique of education as unfolding: growth, not development growth: “the cumulative movement of action toward a later result” non-teleological, but open and experimental ↓ “the educational process has no end beyond itself” a continuous reconstruction of experience (lifelong) “the aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education” (1916) “education as such has no aims (...) only persons, parents, and teachers, etc. have aims” “Education is itself a process of discovering what values are worthwhile and are to be pursued as objectives” (1929) ↓ distinguishing between what is desired and what is desirable

14. VII. DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION “A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience.” (1916) ↓ the democratic form of life as the optimal form of communication and participation ↓ and therefore the optimal environment for growth: the moral self the democratic ‘standard’ (1916) (1) How numerous and varied are the interests which are consciously shared? (2) How full and free is the interplay with other forms of association?

15. STEP 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION What kind of theory is this? Didaktik or Pädagogik? Anglo-American construction or Continental constructio? theory of learning or theory of education? How does it theorise intervention and interaction? How does it theorise content? How does it theorise freedom/subjectivity?

16. A POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION more Didaktik than Pädagogik more Anglo-American (interdisciplinary study of ‘schooling’) than Continental (although with some idea about the purpose and teleological character of education) more a theory of guided learning It theorises intervention and interaction as communication It theorises content as practice (with a risk of being a-political) It theorises subjectivity in terms of growth, reflection and ability to distinguish between desired and desirable