Education and Worthwhile Activities
EDUCATION AND WORTHWHILE ACTIVITIES - some thoughts
1. CONNECTION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND WORTHWHILE
The arguments of such people as Peters describe the word education as functioning in different ways - as verbs, adjectives etc and as having different meanings therefore - a process, a condition, an achievement, an aim of another process (e.g.teaching)....
Worthwhile is seen as an adjective which relates closely to the concept of education in its various forms, as well as being classificatory in its own right.
Peters rejects the connection between schooling (he talks about training) and education in much the same way as he rejects the connection between popularity of activities and the quality worthwhile being ascribed to activities.
It is important that the difference between training as seen by Peters, and schooling is made. In Peters' notion of training there is room for endless pursuit of excellence, satisfaction from the pursuit rather than the attainment, and other qualities which Peters considers essential to education. It is the differences upon which he focusses and argues. It is easy to forget that he has chosen two very close concepts to heighten his ability to argue. If, on the other hand, Peters had chosen what might be seen as extremes, education and schooling, less confusion may have arisen in readers' minds.
Peters fails to discuss schooling in more than a cursory fashion but by implication sets it far from his interests. It is by people like Snook that the differences are explained.
2.WHAT IS EDUCATION?
Peter’s definitions of education distinguish it from training and schooling mainly on the classifications which he sees as relevant to the definition of it.
With training Peters associates qualities which may be described as having extrinsically quantifiable characteristics. He does not hesitate to praise the contributions of the great scientists and others whom he considers to have reached great heights in training.
The qualities of training are capable of external quantification, as are the achievements of the trained. To be trained to this degree means to have surpassed the normal levels of competence and be participating in a discipline at a significant level - to be likely to make significant contributions to that discipline.
When a man is educated he may not in any field of endeavour reach the same levels of excellence as the highly trained man, yet this would not detract from his description as an educated man.
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The qualities which Peters associates with education are not easily capable of external measurement or recognition. They are not quantitative in the same sense at all. Very often Peters suggests that only those who are themselves educated may be capable of understanding what the quantifiers might be, and even then, would not be able to apply them to other people.
Education is then related to training but not in a way that makes it possible to separate the two concepts by merely striking a cut-off point on some particular scale. The separation that is important is that which exists between the scales which must be used to quantify training and education.
Considering schooling/training/education in this context may in fact clarify the difference.
Here is a reference grid which, if completed, might highlight some of the significant differences:
education training schooling
% population in this classification
% population who know what it is
% population who consider it to be good
population who strive for it
is it quantifiable-absolutely?
externally? internally? in each case who sets the quantifiers?
is it quantifiable in specific contexts? externally?
internally?
in each case, who sets the quantifiers?
what order do the 3 concepts come in -temporally in one's development?
order the 3 according to value to the person order the 3 according to value to the world
order the 3 according to the importance other people place on them when assessing a person's worth to society
order the 3 according to the value one person places on them when assessing another person's value to himself
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order the 3 according to the value one person places on them in assessing the attraction to himself of another person
there must be hundreds of others too
Then do a repartory grid to see how these three concepts are seen in a given context, e.g. a school, by the dominant characters, the FIN, the loudmouths, the power-pushers, the fence-sitters, the career ambitious, etc.
3.WHAT IS WORTHWHILE?
The sorts of considerations related to this concept are in the same category as those related to education by such writers as Peters.
The quantifiers are again internal to the situation and incapable of external assessment although they may be recognizable by those familiar with making such internal assessments.
Worthwhile must therefore be at the opposite end of the scale from the values which are attached to the better products of schooling. The values are set in advance for schooling and the efforts are directed towards attaining those predetermined standards. The standards could be described as institutionalized because they are independent of the situation, they have absolute value. Many of these values of schooling are dtermined originally from standards tested and accepted by trained people; they are dictated externally as well as assessable externally. They are achieved in an external way too. The purest forms of schooling instill concepts in people without explanation or the need for it. The values ane concepts are accepted because of what they are, not for any justification which accompanies them. The population to be schooled must be prepared so that it will accept without question, or doubt, what are given to it as values and concepts.
(There are some generalizations being made here which are defensible but not in this restricted place.)
To achieve good schooling, there is a need for value being given to such things as institutionalized values and concepts. Achievement must be seen as something which has a value greater than questioning. There must be acceptance of the notion of external quantification of value. The relevance of a particular situation must not be seen as significant because that can cause undermining of the belief in the given values and concepts.
This is merely a hint at the implications of the opposite extreme of education on the definition of education itself.
Training lies between these extremes. The trained man does not accept all given values and concepts but struggles to reconcile them within a context - the fairly broad context of his discipline. He does however have to accept that there are given
values and concepts which must be considered axiomatic and beyond which no questioning should take place. It is the concepts and values which actually define his discipline that he is forced to recognize.
kt the other end of the extremity pole, is the educated man who can not afford to accept without question any given concept or value. His task is to reconcile all his values and concepts acroos his total perception and cognition of the world. He does this at once in terms of the situation and the world. T-Te cannot rest satisfied by either the external value or the internal value, he must be satisfied by both at once.
The educated man cannot afford to be motivated by a feeling of proximity to achievement, or even achievement itself. If he were to accept either value, he would be negating the task or the existence of the multiplicity of relevant factors, ane this would negate his position as an educated man.
The role of worthwhile activities is significant in the life of the educated man, and therefore should be in the process of education too.
To again draw on the extremes, all the activities associated with schooling would or could be valued, externally - there are standards to which they should he related and these depend on the extrinsic merits of each activity. In a limited time span, children who are being schooled can only he exposed to a limited number of events and thse should be chosen according to their extrinsic merit - to how they contribute to the production of the "schooled" man.
The schooled man has adopted to a satisfactory level the values and concepts of the "schooling" and does not need to make internal assessments about what he does. He is not free to make choices other than according to the prescribed rules.
On the other hand, the educated man has no given sets of references, he has no resort to prescribed rules, and is forced on every issue to make decisions and take full responsibility for them. This does not mean that his reasons will necessarily convince even another educated man - there is no external assessmant which can be make as the relevant judgment is the internal one and only the person involved is in the unique position. However the sort of reasoning that he uses should be recognizable by another educated man.
If children are to be educated in this way they must learn at an early age to make responsible decisions. They must be able to justify to themselves, in their total life context, what they are doing. They should he able to justify to others the reasoning they have applied in making their decisions. This ability to make internal judgments which relate to the total situation is the skill that differentiates education from schooling, and in a fine way, from training.
The trained man can make internal judgments but they refer to the
discipline in which he is operating and do not necessarily relate
to the situation outside it. The trained man can draw upon the
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prescribed rules for the discipline, or seek justification for what he does by adding new rules to the discipline, and these may not accord with the outside situation.
The educated man has to be able to justify what he does with no boundaries, and therefore the reference to any limited set of rules detracts from the value of his judgment.
This is why all activities can be described as worthwhile, and there are no activities which could be denied the classification.
The educated man has not chosen the easy path. There are no external aids for the educated. man. He cannot resort to given values or concepts because they must have an origin and that cannot be him. The institutionalized values and concepts are so described because they can be measured externally and seen to contribute to an externally determined set of values or situation. For the educated man, all concepts and values have internal implications, to him as well as to his situation, and so the values must be created for that situation uniquely, and the concepts too.
The educated man cannot rest on the support of others. Others are not in his situation and therefore have no contribution to make which is more than relevant. No externally generated advice can be given more than consideration - it should not at any time be assumed without questioning.
4.WHEN DOES THE EDUCATING PROCESS START (OR WHEN DOES IT GET AVOIDED?)
If education is about engendering in people the importance of asking questions and the need for decisions about concepts and values to be made on a situational basis rather than an institutional one, on intrinsic rather than extrinsic considerations, then it would seem likely that this process must start very early.
If children are taken through their early years with a belief in the value of achievement and that external acclaimation is the significant test of quality, then to suggest the reverse at a later date seems doomed to failure.
much of what is currently done and applauded in primary schools fits into the schooling category. It is clean, satisfying for the teacher, measurable, contributes to an ordered school environment and home environment, supports several sets of standards at once, and generally causes few waves. The process for teaching in this way is ordered too, and therefore predictable and not stressful for those involved.
Encouraging children to become actively involved in their teaching, which is when most of their learning takes place, can quickly lead to a situation where they assume responsibility for much of their learning. They may go so far as to steer the teaching towards the concepts and interests which they have. This sort of teaching then opens the way to chaos, to stress for a teacher who has enjoyed the satisfaction of changing the rules to maintain his position, who cannot find satisfaction in the quest for learning and yearns for the relief of achievement. This sort of teaching does require courage and freedom. It does involve allowing the children a chance to participate in the situation and its definition. It does satisfy those who like learning more than those who like teaching. It does not give one person pre-eminence because they could set the scene and control the boundaries.
But it does offer an alternative to schooling and mediocrity.
5.WHY IS EDUCATION LIKELY TO BE THE TEACHING OF AN EDUCATED PERSON ONLY?
who else could stand it?
6.WHAT IS THE CONNECTION BETWEEN INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATION? WHAT IS INTELLECT?
CAN A TRAINED PERSON BE DESCRIBED AS INTELLECTUAL?
Why doesn’t Peters use such a word? Piaget does?