Making Sense of Education-for Whom?

Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2004 REVIEW ARTICLE Making Sense of Education—for Whom? GRAHAM HAYDON AND JANET ORCHARD Making Sense of Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Theory of Education and Teaching David Carr, 2003, London, RoutledgeFalmer. Pp. xiii 1 294. Hbk. d60.00 and Pbk d18.99. A book that ‘aims to make philosophy of education relevant to the professional practice of teachers and student teachers, as well as of interest to those studying education as an academic subject’ deserves to be reviewed from more than one perspective. Hence the form of this review: by a teacher of philosophy of education, and by a school teacher who is also pursuing a research degree in education. I Imagine a group of academically able students in higher education who have already encountered philosophy and are, if not actually fired by the subject, then at least sufficiently intrigued by some of the questions it raises to want to put in the effort to take it further. Suppose these students are starting on a course in philosophy of education. They might be finalyear undergraduates taking an option, or Masters students, or they might be research students seeking a broad grounding in philosophy of education before refining their focus. The tutor wants to acquaint the students with certain broad themes and influential arguments within philosophy of education as it has been pursued in the English-speaking world in the past few decades. This book would make a good companion to such a course. It would not, of course, be the sole reading for such students, but its ample references would enable them—or their tutor—to follow further many of the issues it raises. David Carr offers an introduction to philosophy of education which is up-to-date while ‘still in the broad analytical tradition of previous introductory works’ (p. ix). That piece of shorthand will be meaningful enough—if not necessarily to all potential readers, at least to potential course tutors. Such people will also find in the book many of the topics they would expect, distributed between three parts: ‘Education, Teaching and Professional Practice’; ‘Learning, Knowledge and Curriculum’; r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 150 G. Haydon and J. Orchard ‘Schooling, Society and Culture’. The chapters cover, more or less in this order, the following topics: the concept of education; the nature of teaching; teaching as a profession; theory and practice; moral education; learning and concept development; the linguistic and social nature of concepts; the nature of knowledge; curriculum planning; educational assessment; education in liberal societies; communitarianism; justice and equality; progressivism and traditionalism; the political control of education. This list is over-simplified and somewhat unfair to Carr both because there is much more to each chapter (both in coverage and in philosophical depth) than these crude headings indicate, and because the topics are in no way treated piecemeal. There is, as Carr claims, the cumulative development of a consistent and ‘joined-up’ view. The approach to education is recognisably a liberal one, not entirely unconnected with that associated with Richard Peters, but it stresses that education is centrally concerned with personal formation, rather than initiation into subjects for their own sake, and it recognises that education as such can be only one of the aims of schooling. To my mind, the emphasis on education as a normative task of personal formation is one of the strengths of Carr’s approach, not least because of the place it gives to moral education, which is, of course, one of the areas in which Carr’s work is well known. Indeed, while Chapter 5 tackles moral education directly, as an unavoidable aspect of a teacher’s role, it is mentioned at many points in the book. If this were the central interest of a tutor or a course, it would make a lot of sense to read Part 3 continuously with Part 1, since it is in Part 3 that issues of values education in liberal multicultural societies are chiefly addressed. As noted, this book claims to constitute an update to earlier introductions. This is so chiefly, I would say, in its taking account of the increasing social turn of recent decades, in which I would include: renewed attention to Dewey, receptiveness to social constructivist views, the influence of Alasdair MacIntyre, communitarianism, and the increasing importance of political philosophy within philosophy of education. In taking account of these broad and varied tendencies, Carr rightly stresses the existence in many fields of multiple perspectives and competing interpretations: among the cases to which he gives some attention are the nature of dance and the place of religion in human life. But at the same time he wants to hold on to the possibility of objectivity in at least some areas of human life and enquiry. Careful students will have much to learn from the way Carr handles the tensions arising. Carr himself is never less than careful to give a hearing to competing sides of an argument and to consider whether they might be reconciled. His two chapters on liberalism and communitarianism, for instance, could be read with profit by anyone interested in that debate, though what follows fails to get to grips with the contemporary political debates over such issues as private schooling, educational markets and faith schools. One way in which a philosophical updating of earlier texts might have been attempted is left largely unexplored by Carr, despite some discussion of post-structuralism and a few references to postmodernism. True, all of r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. Making Sense of Education—for Whom? 151 the following twentieth-century theorists are mentioned: Habermas, Adorno, Marcuse, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gadamer, Derrida, Foucault, Levinas, Lyotard and Baudrillard. But since, with the exception of Foucault (who gets a couple more mentions) the only place where they appear is in just two rather breathless sentences on page 184; this can hardly be said to introduce the student to alternatives to the ‘analytic tradition’. There is something of a missed opportunity here, since it is no longer the case that such writers can be lumped together as something quaintly called ‘Continental philosophy’; several of them (notably Habermas, Gadamer and Foucault) are now almost routinely discussed by philosophers of education who are recognisably working in an analytic and mainly Anglophone tradition. Indeed, one lesson that might helpfully have been drawn from Gadamer (though it is not essential to have read Gadamer to appreciate the force of the point) is the extent to which we make sense of things from the perspective of our own prejudgements. While Carr makes every effort to be fair and judicious, there are inevitably attitudes which he brings to the discussion, and which he may too readily assume are shared by his readers (as they may indeed be shared by readers who already have the same sort of philosophical background). The assumed consensus of much analytical writing in philosophy—an appeal to what ‘we’ would say or what ‘we’ think—is often there. A superficial reading in places, especially in the first chapter, might suggest to some critics an ‘intellectualist’ prejudice, in favour of traditional disciplines. This would be unfair to Carr, who clearly has learned much from working with teachers of dance, for instance, and who is far from taking a rationalist approach to moral education. Yet in bringing out, quite rightly, the extent to which the practice of teaching cannot be reduced to the following of rules, he perhaps takes too reductionist a line with cookery and hairdressing (his own examples). While it is possible to produce a meal by mechanically following recipes (if the recipes leave no room for interpretation, though many do), it is also possible to exercise taste (literally) and judgement as one goes along. And I expect many people would prefer their hairdresser to have some sense of style and of what suits an individual. Carr does not overemphasise the intellectual at the expense of the practical, but he says rather little about the place of aesthetic sensibility in life, from everyday mundane concerns to high culture. There is, of course, only so much that can be adequately handled within one volume or by any one writer, and there is a lot to be said for writers sticking to what they do best. In Carr’s case, this is to show that many of the issues now discussed within philosophy of education have their roots in the mainstream Western philosophical tradition, at least as this tradition is standardly understood in Britain. If students already have a sense of the place that Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Wittgenstein have in that tradition, they will find a lot in this book on which they can hang their developing understanding of philosophy of education; if they do not, they stand to learn a good deal about that mainstream tradition. Carr has his own sense of what is needed here. Thus, where many writers might be r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. 152 G. Haydon and J. Orchard content with a brief sketch of the insights of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, Carr considers it necessary first to devote two pages, which could hardly be easy reading, to Frege’s key insights (pp. 107–109). Where some introductions might treat the ‘justified true belief’ account of knowledge as if it sprang from nowhere, Carr shows its roots in Plato, in a paragraph (p. 119) which also refers to St John’s Gospel (to explicate logos) and to the Aristotelian notion of formal cause (to explicate St John). All this is good stuff, if tracing connections between ideas is what you want to do. And to do just that, for the ideas which are central to education, is certainly one way of making sense of it. Graham Haydon II Imagine now an educational practitioner who is academically able, but isolated from contact with any research community, philosophical or otherwise. Suppose she is keen to study for a higher degree that helps her to reflect on her practice more deeply than she is currently able. She thumbs through the prospectuses but does not even consider a course in philosophy of education—assuming this option is available to her at the institutions she investigates—because she has mistaken beliefs about the content and nature of philosophy. Having missed the one, brief session on her PGCE course that ‘covered’ the philosophy of education, this practitioner has no idea how philosophy might be applied engagingly and relevantly to her professional concerns. She is interested to investigate further into the ways in which her pupils might learn. She understands that this might be related to educational psychology, and that some training in psychology could open up exciting, well-paid opportunities for alternative employment. She is also interested to reflect upon her teaching experiences in a multicultural environment, without any idea that she might find it intellectually stimulating to explore these issues theoretically rather than empirically. Carr’s book makes good sense of education for those with an existing interest in philosophy. A few teachers are graduate philosophers. Many more have read a little philosophy and are predisposed to find it interesting. For a teacher who is intrigued to see how philosophical arguments might be developed and applied in response to a broad range of educational concerns, Carr presents a satisfyingly comprehensive account. He links issues together, building from one chapter to the next within each designated section. He offers an account that is consistent and coherent which is an important consideration in an introductory text. Carr’s own interests and concerns can be detected through the text but not in an obtrusive way. If anything the most interesting passages are those in which Carr’s commitment infuses the text. He realises that to engage the interest of those practitioners he must be relevant and ‘maintain close contact with those key issues and problems of professional policy and practice that are to a great extent [their] raison d’etre’ (p. xi, Preface). A passage on page r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. Making Sense of Education—for Whom? 153 18—‘there is a cultural inheritance to which all young persons are entitled—irrespective of differences of ability, social background and vocational destiny—and into which it is therefore the sacred duty of schools to acquaint each and every child’—captures the passionate concern shared by many practising teachers that there is more to formal schooling than the acquisition of vocational skills, though some may balk at the word ‘sacred’. Carr’s introduction seems less successful if he is serious in his attempt to make philosophy of education accessible to the general reader with little or no prior knowledge or understanding of the field. Teachers and student teachers represent such a ‘mixed-ability’ audience with regard to their philosophical abilities, it is ambitious to introduce them to the discipline with a single text. Philosophers cannot assume for example, that phrases like ‘sociocultural constituencies’, ‘rationally coherent and defensible interpretation’, ‘steer a course between reasonable pluralism and indiscriminate relativism’ will be comprehensible to all intelligent non-philosophers on the first page of an introductory text (p. 3). Someone with little or no formal philosophical training, a teacher with ‘specific learning difficulties’ in the philosophy of education, will not understand what is being described. Nor will they recognise on this basis any relevance of philosophy to their daily practice. Some teachers believe philosophy to be an abstract and tedious distraction from the practical concerns of curriculum ‘delivery’. They have no desire to reflect on their professional practice beyond the confines of the school gates, preferring football, deep personal relationships or foreign travel. They may need more help than anyone to make sense of education, or they may have made good sense already of current fashions in formal schooling and made an informed choice to do other things. In either case this book is unlikely to reach them. While this may be a matter of regret, in particular to philosophers of education, it does not seem worth expending a great deal of effort attempting to engage the interest of this perhaps relatively small group of individuals. It does matter, however, if teachers who are inclined to reflect on their practice, but are unfamiliar with philosophical argument, cannot make sense of education through an introductory text. The danger with philosophy, as with mathematics perhaps or a modern foreign language, is that those who teach understand it with ease, as Carr clearly does, and this affects the form and structure of their explanation. Carr’s commitment to engagement with practice is well-known and commendable. He can claim teaching experience in both primary and secondary phases. He continues to observe the classroom practice of student teachers. But how well does he draw on this experience in his writing here? Good teachers think carefully about the presentation of their ideas when trying to arouse the interest of a reluctant learner; yet the cover of this book would not ‘leap off the shelf’. This is not a trivial point: a teacher would need to be sufficiently attracted to this book to buy it in order to read it, unless already attached to an academic institution. Does the image r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. 154 G. Haydon and J. Orchard on the cover convey the impression that philosophy offers an invigorating, if demanding, opportunity to think about teaching in dynamic ways? More significantly still, how well does this image actually reflect Carr’s challenging account of their practice? Carr or his publishers have chosen a curiously conventional image. The deliberate blurring of the children is a clever attempt to represent people inclusively in a photograph, but they are sitting, listening to the teacher amidst rows of wooden tables. A dull fraction has been chalked on the (black) board. Beneath is some kind of literacy exercise on a sheet of sugar paper. Carr claims to offer a contemporary account of education. It could be argued that contemporary educational practice has returned to traditional practices, but where is the interactive white board, overhead projector or video player? This image does not capture the slickness with which the current literacy and numeracy strategies are delivered. Besides, a key attraction of this book to practising teachers is precisely the opportunity to consider philosophical objections to such strategies. How would they be able to judge this from the cover? When working with learners who lack confidence or motivation it is important to consider lively and creative ways of presenting information. Purist academic philosophers may find difficulties with the numerous attempts to introduce general philosophy to a wider audience, including Philosophy for Beginners, Sophie’s World and The Simpsons and Philosophy, but such works do provide a step on to the ladder for the interested novice. The challenge for philosophers of education is to think of ways to maintain the intellectual integrity of Carr’s ‘consistent and coherent’ account, maintaining clarity and structure with a lively and engaging style, as for example in Adam Swift’s introduction to political philosophy (Swift, 2001). There are good examples already of philosophers of education who communicate clearly. Patricia White’s writing has philosophical integrity and is accessible to practitioners. Her fascinating account of playground democracy at work among children in Camden, North London, was written over fifteen years ago but is still highly relevant to concerns about behaviour and citizenship (White, 1988). She has taken a relevant, practical issue as her starting point and probed the theory. For some practitioners at least, a reader with examples of contemporary issues explored by philosophers of education might prove a better introduction than a fast track to the coherent and consistent theoretical underpinning. The second author of this review is a part-time research student in the philosophy of education not because she happened upon a theoretical explanation of the concept of education. What drew her into the discipline was a chance dialogue with a philosopher of education who was able to demonstrate the relevance of a theoretical approach to practice by drawing philosophical questions out of the particular problems that concerned her. In Socratic style, he showed her how little she actually knew about education by using careful questions to draw conceptual issues from practice. Philosophers need to show how their subject sheds light on the issues that are of the utmost concern to practitioners before enlightening them with more philosophy. r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. Making Sense of Education—for Whom? 155 The advantage of a conversation over a text is the opportunity for the teacher to break substantial questions down into smaller ones while the learner struggles to comprehend the teacher’s meaning or intent. If Carr did construct the questions he poses at the end of each chapter in the ‘Activities’ section with a particular student audience in mind, this is not apparent. The idea of including tasks to aid reflection is an excellent one but some activities are poorly structured and, therefore, difficult to undertake. The task of identifying individuals who might make good teachers and the qualities that might contribute to their success is a useful one (p. 34) that could stimulate discussion amongst a group of teachers beginning to think through philosophical issues as well as in any individual reader. To ‘identify what might constitute a reasonable set of aims for a broadly liberal education in a culturally pluralist democratic society’ (p. 181) could be a good task for an MA essay. It is a broad, open question with plenty of scope but for a general reader rather overwhelming. Sometimes the phrasing of the tasks is unnecessarily complicated, as in the following case: ‘In the light of the comparisons explored in this chapter between teaching and such other occupations as doctor, minister, nurse, social worker, tradesperson and businessperson (to which one might add others such as police office, therapist or prison warden), try to identify the key features of teaching that have sustained these comparisons’ (p. 50). The language of others is difficult, as demonstrated by this excerpt: ‘Consider some of the possible difficulties or drawbacks inherent in any attempt to conceive individual education or formation as a matter of initiation into fundamentally liberal-democratic principles of human association’ (p. 181). A task encouraging the reader to formulate a ‘policy for school discipline’ is based on a sound idea (p. 229) although a ‘behaviour policy’ would be more common in practice: exploring the potential differences between the two titles would be an interesting exercise in itself. The purpose of the activity is to explore the tensions between progressive and traditional approaches to schooling in a practical way. The task, appearing as it does at the end of the chapter, acts as a fairly traditional summative assessment of the reader’s understanding of the chapter. Perhaps a better use of activity boxes for philosophical novices would be to locate them at the beginning of the chapter as a hook, suggesting a practical issue highly relevant to teachers. The question could then be broken down into smaller, staged questions that gradually opened up the pertinent issues and gave a context within which the reader could consider the theoretical issues discussed. David Carr is undertaking an important and necessary task in attempting to extend the appeal of philosophy of education amongst the teaching profession. Educational practice would be much richer if it were influenced by philosophical insight, yet attempts to encourage teachers to become researchers are overwhelmingly biased towards empirical, particularly quantitative, research. r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. 156 G. Haydon and J. Orchard Philosophy of education as an academic discipline cannot afford to rely upon recruitment by chance, allowing potential research students to stumble upon it. It needs to reach potential recruits with greater sensitivity. Philosophy is difficult and should not be ‘dumbed down’, but the onus lies with philosophers writing at introductory level to make their work relevant; consistent and coherent certainly, but engaging and accessible too. Janet Orchard III This dual review has presented two views which are contrasting but by no means incompatible. Both parts of the review have sought to evaluate Making Sense of Education against its own claim to be an introduction to philosophy of education which is relevant to professional practitioners. That these two rather different assessments are possible illustrates the scope for interpretation allowed by the terms ‘relevant’, ‘making sense of’ and indeed ‘introduction’. Janet Orchard does not question the relevance of the issues explored by Carr to professional practice; but she does suggest that a different sort of introduction would be needed to make their relevance readily apparent to the teacher in front of the interactive whiteboard. It is initially, she suggests, within the busy professional context that a teacher has to be able to make sense of what philosophy offers. Making sense of something will always be a matter of grasping and interpreting it within some context; in this book, though an acknowledgment of the professional context is far from absent, it is philosophy itself that provides the primary context. Thus the claim on the back of the paperback—that this ‘introduction should assist all those studying and/or working in education to appreciate the main philosophical sources of and influences on present day thinking about education, teaching and learning’—is exactly right. Finally, there are introductions and introductions. There are scholarly introductions which, within reason, offer a comprehensive guide to a field of enquiry. And there are—increasingly within the last few years—brief and sometimes provocative tasters with titles such as ‘A very short introduction to y ’ or ‘An invitation to y ’. The two sorts of book will appeal to different people or to the same people at different stages within the development of a new interest. Despite the understandable motivation of publishers to claim that one book can fulfil rather different purposes, the definitive introduction to philosophy of education is surely a chimera. We can welcome Carr’s book for what it does well, while hoping that there will be other introductions doing different things well. Graham Haydon Correspondence: Graham Haydon, School of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. Email: [email protected] r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004. Making Sense of Education—for Whom? 157 Janet Orchard, School of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK. Email: [email protected] REFERENCES Swift, A. (2001) Political Philosophy, A Beginners’ Guide for Students and Politicians (Oxford, Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd). White, P. (1988) Appendix 1: ‘Having Fun in the Playground’, in: H. Lauder and P. Brown (eds) Education in Search of a Future (London, Falmer). r The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2004.