Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as Educators

5. The Philosopher as Educator Today

CHAPTER FIVE The Philosopher as Educator Today Observe, too, that prudence is something more than a knowledge of genet'al principles. It must acquire familiarity with particulars also, for conduct deals with particular circumstances, and pmdence is a matter of conduct. This accounts for the fact that men who know nothing of the theory of their subject sometimes practise it with greater success than others who know it. I The research persons connected with school systems may be too close to the practical problems and the university professor too fur away from them, to secure the best results. The former may get too entangled in immediate detailed problems for the best work. Minor problems for immediate solution may be put up to him and not leave him time for investigations having a longer time-span. The latter may not have enough first-hand contact to discriminate the important problems from the secondary and the conditions which render them problems.2 What, then, are we to make of the practical involvement of these three philosophers in education? It cannot be said that any of them proved to be an outstanding practitioner. Russell, for one, seemed to treat the problem of the education ofhis son and daughter and the other young children at Beacon Hill as a pressing issue for several years. After that, his interest waned, his marriage broke up, and he moved on to other causes. He began to speak quite disparagingly about Beacon Hill School and in later years refused to discuss it at all. He was thoroughly dismayed with this part of his life. Some of her father's anguish (and her own as a young child seeing her parents drift farther and farther apart) is conveyed by his daughter Kate when she says in her book that at Beacon Hill she began to feel more and more that she was being driven out from the gates of paradise forever. Dora Russell remains adamant in her defense of what the school accomplished . She helps to balance our view of the school by pointing to Russell's favorable attitude toward it at the time. She continued to operate the school and was actively involved in educational reform organizations such as the New 102 The Philosopher as Educator Today 103 Education Fellowship.3 Russell did retain a critical interest in the problems of education, and throughout the rest of his life he wrote about such topics as the ideal university education and the role education must play if we are to avoid a nuclear holocaust. It is not clear that he radically altered any of his theories because of the Beacon Hill experience. Dewey was the thinker most insistent upon the need to test one's theories in practice. This was supposed to result in sharper, more realistic ideas, as well as better direeted, more thoughtful practices. For all his talk of maintaining a scientific, problem-solving attitude and engaging in a community inquiry that featured much trial and error, Dewey shared with Russell an impatience with failure. Both men tended to regard undesirable or unforeseen results a<; the fault of the practitioners rather than the theory. When things did not work out as planned, the response was usually to increase the effort to get the staff to understand what it was they were supposed to be doing. There are few indications of Dewey's having revised or reconstructed his educational theories because of the findings of the Laboratory School experiment.4 This steadfastness in the face of difficulties undoubtedly had an inhibiting effect on the critical attitudes of the teaching staff. Both Dewey and Russell tried to run their schools in their own way. Neither seemed eager to enlist the aid of staff(other than a chosen few, such as Ella Flagg Young for Dewey) as coinvestigators in a project which was to test various hypotheses about education. Weekly discussions among the staff at the Laboratory School were often "entangled in immediate detailed problems." At Beacon Hill, Russell and his wife were often away and left things up to the staff; upon returning, they quickly made it clear when they felt that things were not being done properly. The major involvement of their wives in these educational ventures could only fUlther the impression that each man was determined to be completely, unassailabIy in charge. Although neither Dewey nor Russell claimed to have a good head for administration, there is little evidence thateither made much of an effort to seek outside help in this regard. Dewey, in fact, seemed too distrustful ofthe Parker staffin general and Wilbur Jackman in patticular to gain the kind of assistance he needed to run the school more efficiently. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that the claim that theOlY and practice should interact does not entail any assurance that a single individual will necessarily be both the best theoretician and the best practitioner. There seem to be various psychological requirements for being a successful educational practitioner that need not be present in a leading educational theorist. Dewey's point is perhaps best understood in terms ofa community of inquirers whose relative talents can be brought together into some kind of organic unity. The fact of the matter is that he (and 104 The Philosopher as Educator Today Russell as well) could have done more to make his experiment in education into a joint inquiry of this sort.:; Having made this criticism, I must in fairness add that both the Laboratory School and the Beacon Hill School had a numberofconspicuous successes with pupils and developed a core of dedicated teachers. Whether this is due to the correctness of the underlying theories or to some other factor is not so clear. Being part of a self"styled educational experiment run by a famous philosopher might have drawn out that strong sense of commitment and plain hard work shown by some of the staff. An additional positive element in the Laboratory School was the intellectual and financial support of the parents. There is little worrying in Dewey's writings about having to deal with problem children and problem parents of the kind Russell had to contend with at his schooL Being part ofthe University ofChicago meant that Dewey had resources at his disposal that would have been the envy of any elementary school principal in the country. Russell, too, with his brother Frank's house and the surrounding countryside, had a congenial setting for the kind of free"spirited education he hoped to promote. The special locale and unusual student group at each school make it even harder to extrapolate from the results ofthese experiments to today's large, inneHity public schools. Whitehead's practical concern for education took quite a different turn from that of Dewey and Russell, though by his own admission it was very time" consuming. Few details are available about his tenure as dean and member ofthe Academic Senate in London. From all repOlts he was a good committee member: observant, patient, critical yet cooperative. His appointment to a national committee and his work on local educationcommittees show more than a typically professorial interest in education. He may well have seen these as opportunities for avoiding "mental dryrot" in his own ideas of how, why, and what subjects the young should be taught. Even at Harvard, where his philosophical writings turned to more cosmological topics, there are still traces of this more concrete, pragmatic outlook. His role in the establishment of the JuniorFellows Program and his enthusiastic support for the aims and activites of the Harvard Business School can be taken as examples of this.6 Because he thought it important that men and women of ideas concern themselves with the practical problems of education, Whitehead is included in this study of the philosopher as educator. As a contributing member of an education committee or actively working within an administrative structure, he was kept aware of what was actually going on in our schools and also given the opportunity to offer his own point of view on what ought to be done. Consequently , his successes as well as his failures as an educator are harder to document; but his concern with the practice ofeducation is certainly consistent The Philosopher as Educator Today 105 with his dicta that "knowledge does not keep any better than fish" and that "theoretical ideas should always find important applications with the pupil's curriculum."7 Like Dewey, he saw education as a good place to test or utilize one's ideas. The fact that some contemporary thinkers still make use of some of Whitehead's educational ideas, such as the rhythm of education, is some indication oftheir freshness, part ofwhich may be attributable to his taking care to find out what really was taking place ill education.8 He shares with Dewey and Russell the desire to theorize about education and to consider the practical ramifications of one's theory. What has all this to do with the philosopher of education today? The purpose of my detailed examination of these three philosophers as educators has not been to set them forth as model practitioners; nor has it been to promulgate any specific pedagogical techniques they may have advocated; nor has it even been to defend anyone of their educational theories. My intention throughout has been to suggest a way out of the current impasse in the philosophy of education by reopening a conversation regarding a more productive role for philosophers to play, rather than merely analyzing concepts and policing arguments. My claim has been that philosophers of education can learn from their past, that we can see in Dewey, Russell, and Whitehead instances ofa productive approach to educational problems through thought and action. Each of them took a philosophical look at educational theories and practices. Any theory of education rests upon certain assumptions, such as a view of the nature of man, what knowledge is most worth having, and how it might best be taught. Most fundamental of all is a notion of the ideal society. For Dewey, this was to be a truly democratic society wherein individuals contributed their own special ideas and opinions and shared in the joys and frustrations that form part ofthe common experience ofhuman beings living together. Problems were to be dealt with in a scientific manner: gathering the pertinent information, framing a hypothetical solution, putting one's ideas to the test. Thinking of this sort required and reinforced his view of the school as a miniature community whose members participated in a joint inquiry. The process ofeducation was to develop in our students those dispositions of thought and feeling which would promote the growth of full, humane experience throughout the rest of their lives. Russell was suspicious of the indoctrinating tendencies of state and church schools and sought to encourage an international perspective in the young based on an open-minded consideration of differing points of view. Like Dewey, Russell saw the school as an environment in which we can attempt to create our ideal society in miniature and thereby train the individuals who will go out and reform society as a whole. Unlike Dewey, he seemed quite naive about the way children actually behavc in groups; fUliher, once his experiment in education 106 The Philosopher as Educator Today was underway, he stayed somewhat aloof from the whole proceeding. Russell quickly tired of his idea that the way to world peace was through the proper education of small children and eventually shifted his concern to rousing citizen protest against nuclear arms and the critical roasting ofpoliticians for not acting in the best interests of mankind. His practical experience served to shift the focus of his energies but did not dampen his fervor for world peace. Whitehead stressed the need to utilize our ideas lest they wither away in abstraction from life. He fully appreciated the importance of precision in thought but saw it as most fruitful when it stemmed from a stage of romantic excitement and led on to a stage of the generalized use of rules and procedures. His local and national educational contacts provided him with the background and quite often the occasion for spelling out his views on the necessity for handas well as head-work in our schools and the desirability of achieving a style of thinking and a reverence for life. It may well be that Whitehead's long exposure to the practical problems ofinner-city schools accounts for the fact that his ideas on education seem to have a more solid basis and a greater relevance than do Russell's. All three men had a general awareness of how an educational scheme should function to promote an ideal society. To varying degress, each tempered his theory with an acknowledgement of what wa,."l actually taking place in the schools. At their best, as educational philosophers, Dewey, Russell, and Whitehead struck a reasonable balance between the theoretical and the practical, avoided many of the untenable dualisms that accrue to a hard-and-fast distinction between thought and action, and managed to convey in their generalizations some of the romantic excitement of possibilities and the precision of thought that Whitehead advocated. These characteristics would go a long way toward rehabilitating the philosophy of education today. Dewey was by far the strongest proponent of such an approach to the philosophy of education. He constantly inveighed against the study of philosophy "in itself," where it is taken as "so much nimble or severe intellectual exercise-as something said by philosophers and concerning them alone." For Dewey, theory should not be divorced from practice, especially in education. "If a theory makes no difference in educational endeavor," he said, "it must be artificial." That is to say, if the auditing of past experience and the program of values set forth by a philosophy did not (or indeed could not) take effect in conduct, then for Dewey it was merely symbolic orverbal or arbitrary dogma, or "a sentimental indulgence for a few." All too often in reading or listening to the latest batch of research by philosophers of education, I get the feeling I am an observer at a meeting of an elite chess club whose members regularly congregate to talk ~f new opening gambits and winning strategies and comment on The Philosopher as Educator Today 107 each other's moves. If you do not see the point or do not want to play that particular game, then you are reminded that you are free to go elsewhere. Little eff011 is made to relate what is said and written to what is actually taking place in the classroom. Abstractness is taken as a sign of rigorous thinking. What distressed Dewey so much about such a state of affairs was the fact that he believed education provided the philosopher with an ideal opportunity to connect thought with action. It offered "a vantage ground from which to penetrate to the human, as distinct from the technical, significance of philosophic discllssions." The connection between philosophy and education was so intimate in Dewey's eyes that the one tended to merge into the other. Thus, he claimed that "if we are willing to conceive education as the process of forming fundamental dispositions, intellectual and emotional, toward nature and fellowman , philosophy may even be defined as the general theory (ifeducation."9 A far cry indeed from the more aloofcontemporary view which locates philosophy safely on a higher level gazing down upon educational theories and activities in search of unclear concepts and faulty reasoning. I have great sympathy with Dewey's notion that philosophy should matter to more than one's fellow professional philosophers and that education is an area of human experience especially well suited for philosophical scrutiny because it provides a context where it is very difficult to ignore the demands of practical applicability. He strikes me as overstating his case, however, when he tries to equate philosophy with the theOlY of education. Surely there are legitimate branches ofphilosophy, such as decision theOlY or formal logic that have little to do with the formation of dispositions toward nature or one's fellow humans. Then, too, not all philosophic considerations of nature and human beings need be of the applied, problem-solving type that Dewey espouses. As Israel Scheffler has pointed out, theory is rightly connected with practice but "it is also autonomous; it has its own career and life." For Scheffler, "theories serve not simply to guide practice, but to afford us an intelligible and coherent representation of fundamental natural processes." Scheffler would modifY Dewey's view by insisting lIpon the value of maintaining a kind of theoretical distance in education. He argues that in searching for deeper insights and broader pet'spectives the theoretician "may need to back away from the detail of phenomenal change, and practical urgency in ordcr to strive to 'see through' to underlying elements and patterns." Dewey was right to stress the impol1ance of problemsolving , but Scheffler criticizes him for down-playing the value of problemfinding . Even in science, says Scheffler, "scientific thought of the highest significance is expended in seeking, formulating, and elaborating questions that have not yet intruded on practice."10 I agree with this criticism of Dewey, who seems to want us to go from one 108 The Philosopher as Educator Today extreme to another, thereby positing a kind of dualism of his own; that is, either philosophy takes education seriously and concentrates all its critical attention on practical problems, or it sinks to the level of trivial mental gymnastics. My own view of philosophy is that it is a persistent attempt by man to understand himself, his fellow man, and the world around him. Such an attempt can be both critical and comprehensive. The philosopher is critical of arguments, seeks clarity in concepts, and wants to make presuppositions more explicit. He also tries to spell out in a general way how he sees things, to incorporate the data from more specialized disciplines into an overview. All the while, the philosopher displays a loyalty to reason in though and practice. I I This loyalty to reason is displayed dramatically in those mcn from Socrates to Russcll who have gone to jail for their beliefs, but also less dramatically by those who, like Thomas Aquinas, will criticize arguments by their fellow Christians and tum to "unorthodox" sources such as Aristotle, Avicenna, or Maimonides in the quest for truth. In doing so, Aquinas spurred the bishop of Paris to condemn some of his ideas as heretical. I2 Loyalty to reason has never made for overwhelming popularity. It would be foolish to depict philosophers as having any kind ofmonopoly on information and insight pertinent to education. What they can contribute at their best is this dedication to thinking things through. Perhaps we can adopt from Dewey the notion of community inquiry and see the philosopher as a working member of a team of investigators looking at education. Dewey insisted that he be made the chairman at Chicago of a Department of Philosophy, Psychology, and Pedagogy. He was familiar with the research being done on education by nonphilosophers and wanted to utilize all these resources for education. Dewey also decried the waste in education due to isolation, with different parts of the educational system operating in ignorance ofthe other parts. I would extend this objection to the academic disciplines themselves. Within philosophy we disagree about what we are doing and about the worth of what we have done in the past. And yet so often do I find the ideas of past philosophers to be relevant to current issues in education that I am inclined to agree with the view of one's intellectual forebears that was expressed in the twelfth century by John of Salisbury: "We can see more and further than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and bome aloft on their gigantic stature."13 I have argued at some length elsewhere that philosophers should stop treating the history of our own discipline as a liability and come to appreciate the sense ofcontinuity of ideas and fruitful suggestions that flow from thinkers who have come before US. 14 We need not work in isolation, cut offfrom our fellow philosophers, from the history of our discipline, from those in other disciplines, and from what is The Philosopher as Educator Today actually happening in the classroom. Contemporary philosophers of education should make more of an effort to find out the facts and to acknowledge the relevance of the work of other thinkers to the investigation of questions about the aims, methods, and content of education. A notable exception to this tendency to neglect the ideas and findings of social scientists as they pertain to education is the work of Robert Brumbaugh and Nathaniel Lawrence, who take a serious look at Freud, Skinner, Piaget, Bruner, and Erickson. 15 Richard Peters has displayed a similar appreciation for the work being done in psychologyI6 and has issued a call, largely unheeded by some ofhis devoted followers, for the development of a new phase in educational theory in which contributing disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, sociology, and history are integrated around concrete problems. 17 Participation by philosophers with social scientists and educators in a joint inquiry would certainly be in the spirit of Dewey's call for the wedding of thought to action. The commitment to thinking things through, the sense of logical rigor, the ability to generalize from more specialized information to a comprehensive overview, these would be some of the assets the philosopher could bring to such an enterprise. Lest we be too faint-hearted about resuming traditional tasks and engaging in general theorizing, we should recognize the fact that social scientists seldom share these qualms. Psychologists such as Bruner, Maslow, Rogers, Kohlberg, and Piaget do not hesitate to move beyond their experimental bases and propound general theories about the nature of man or the ideal society or the best kind ofeducation for everyone. At times they even make explicit reference to philosophical positions from the past which suit their own outlook. Why, then, should philosophers whose training and tradition seem so useful for this type of thinking about education politely back off on the grounds of"professionalism" or even hostilely reject all such attempts at general theorizing as fantasy or nonsense?'8 Dewey himself was led to wonder why philosophers in general, although they were usually practicing teachers, did not take education sufficiently seriously to appreciate the fact that "any rational person could actually think it possible that philosophizing should focus about education as the supreme human interest in which, moreover, other problems, cosmological, moral, logical, come to a head."I9 My contention in this book has been that Dewey, Russell, and Whitehead brought to their consideration of education a general perspective not often found in studies by psychologists and sociologists. By attempting to locate educational ideas and practices within the context of the development ofan ideal society, they are not bound to any specific experimental technique or explanatoly model. By rising above details while still taking account of them, they can supply us with an educational philosophy we can utilize in our own thinking and IIO The Philosopher as Educator Today acting about education. As such, I find them good role models for a revived philosophy of education. Some recent books in the field may well signal a return to these more fruitful tasks.20 Especially welcome is The Aims ofEducation Restated (1982), by John White, a leading member of the so-called London school headed by Richard Peters. White states that little has been fOlthcoming from philosophers on this important topic because they have been engaged in more piecemeal, analytically oriented studies in which they have been "chary of saying what they think aims ought to be because they have felt this kind of question lies outside their discipline." To his credit, White feels that the question of the development ofoverall aims ofeducation is too important to remain untouched by philosophical thinking.21 Another move in the right direction is the recent Paideia Proposal of Mortimer Adler.22 Even though I disagree with some of his conclusions, I applaud Adler's efforts to reopen the debate on the general objectives, worthwhile content, and appropriate methodology for educating citizens in a democracy. He has traveled extensively throughout the United States, defending and explaining his proposals to groups of educators, businessmen, politicians, students, professors , and the public at large and has urged school boards to take steps to implement his suggestions and put his ideas to the test. This concern for translating thought into action may well account for the fact that Adlerdedieates his book to John Dewey, among others. Their overall philosophical views are quite different, but they share a questioning spirit about the foundations of education and a determination to take their ideas to the public. This is not to say that no respectable work will be forthcoming from contemporary philosophers of education unless they are willing to mount the public podium, engage in popular debates, or be interviewed on television. Nor do I insist that philosophers set up small experimental schools to test their theories. I am not so naive as to believe that those who seem temperamentally so inclined toward abstract theorizing can (or should) be miraculously transformed into world-shaking activists. My point has rather been in support of a change of attitude to the whole endeavor of philosophizing about education, along the lines followed by Dewey, Russell, and Whitehead. By paying more attention to practical problems in education and by participating with other investigators in the analysis and discussion of their causes and the implementation ofproposed solutions, we can avoid the abstruseness in our own ideas that Whitehead warned against and achieve the meaningfulness of philosophical inquiry that Dewey promoted. One way to accomplish this might be to follow the lead taken by recent work in ethics, making extensive use of "case studies."23 Particular cases of ethical The Philosopher as Educator Today III decision making are presented for comment by philosophers, social scientists, health care professionals, and other professionals. The cases are based on real events and the commentators are forced to apply their ethical theories to reallife , day-to-day problems, as well as to become aware of alternative approaches to these problems. They discuss what they would do when faced with such dilemmas and give the reasoning behind their decisions. The goal of the enterprise is "the pursuit ofreflective, well-thought-out solutions to real human moral dilemmas based upon more systematic ethical analysis."24 Something like this could be done in education with examples drawn from actual classroom situations, as well as depictions of teaching and learning experiences from works of literature or proposals of goals and means from government reports. Whitehead's participation on the many educational committees was an instance ofsuch an interdisciplinalY approach to specific cases as well as to general objectives and the reasoning behind them. I contend that the philosopher has much to offer and to gain from such an inquiry. It is a way out of our current impasse. Once freed of the shackles of the interminable disputes about our proper "professional" role, we can move on to more pressing matters. There are topics that have arisen in modern-day education that would indeed benefit from philosophical analysis and the broader view. I briefly list some of these as a kind of agenda for a newly revived philosophy of education. AN AGENDA FOR THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION TODAY Computers and Education It is quite clear that computers will play an increasingly large role in education. They have become legitimate objects of study, as well as being touted as the most efficient means of education. Even in these days of tight budgets, school boards invariably find the funds to purchase the latest in computer hardware and software; and whole new courses have been created to deal with the programming, servicing, and selling of the computer. Computer literacy now ranks alongside the traditional three R's as part of the minimal level of achievement that every student can reasonably be expected to attain. The media bombard us with futuristic scenarios in which vittually all our waking and sleeping hours are to be made more joyful and productive thanks to the computer. As philosophers of education we should be concerned that this growing enthusiasm for the computer as the newest educational panacea be tempered by some further reflection on what it is we are trying to accomplish in education, what knowledge is of most wOlth, and how we might best set about teaching it. We need to raise once again the perplexing questions about the nature ofman, II2 The Philosopher as Educator Today the structure of knowledge and reality, and the construction of an ideal society, questions that have no easy answers. The fact that the computer has become so versatile, portable, inexpensive, and easy to use should not lull us into thinking that itcan solve all our educational problems. Too many educationalinnovations have corne and gone in the past twenty-five years to justifY such a sanguine attitude.25 The widespread use of educational technology in the classroom can generate new problems for the people already operating in the present system. We must get clear as to what the computer can do for us and then what tasks we want to assign it in the context of teaching and learning. A useful introductory study shows how the computer can function as tutor, tool, and tutce.26 As a tutOt; the computer can be the kind of teacher that not even Rousseau dreamt about: ever-patient, all-knowing, constantly on call, rigorously logical, inexhaustible. Ivan Illich, a radical educator who might be seen as a spiritual descendant of Rousseau, advocates the use of the computer as a means of returning the initiative of learning to the student and overcoming the limitations of.a particular physical plant or the restricted access to educational resources. The computer constitutes a powerful new force in the instructional domain, but will it serve or rule the human beings who are presently teaching there? Eric Hoyle suggests that many educational innovations have failed in the past because they have run afoul of the prevailing values of the teachers. Most teachers are what Hoyle calls "restricted professionals" who derive their job satisfaction from "the personal encounter with pupils, the here-and-now urgency of the classroom, the autonomy which allows them to respond to the palticular nature and needs of a class."27 Such teachers are less interested in making instruction more efficient than in keeping it more personal. They rely more on intuition and personal interaction with their students, less on objectiveoriented aids and programs. They cherish the immediacy of classroom life and resist intrusions from without, even when these are well-meant and rationally defensible. It is on the values of restricted professionals, says Hoyle, that so many educational innovations have foundered, among them programmed learning , team teaching, and resource-based learning. He concludes that we should see the computer as a solution in search of a problem, that is, we should first make an honest effort to find out what our teachers see as problematic before we foist the computer upon them as a pedagogical cure-all. Nor should we minimize the importance for the learner of face-to-face contact, the vividness of the human encounter, and the value of spontaneity and improvisation. Much of our learning is social in nature; we learn from and with other people. In a classroom we learn from what the teacher says and does, but we also learn from the kind ofperson he or she is. A teacher conveys facts, ideas, The Philosopher as Educator Today II3 questions, criticisms, suggestions and the like, but also moods, enthusiasms, mistakes, likes and dislikes. At times the personal idiosyncrasies of the teacher help us to connect the subject matter to life. This is merely to make the point that we teach by manner as well as matter. Whitehead's "ignorant man thinking" or the Platonic Socrates may strike some as inefficient teachers, but to eliminate the waste in their approaches is to lose the vitality of the encounter. As Brumbaugh puts it, "Communication in a shared present is radically different from fixed messages beamed into the present from a completed past. . . . No film or written text [nor computer program, we might add] records the kind of jeopardy that present creative communication faces. And if periodic failures occur, so more frequently do successes."28 This is what Martin Buber has called the "dialogue principle" in education. For Buber, "Contact is the root and basis ofeducation. . . a connection between personalities, so that one human entity confronts another ... a truly reciprocal conversation in which both sidcs are full partners. The teacher leads and directs it, and he enters in without any restraint."29 Computers have become more "user friendly," and their programs are more creative and do call for a kind of reciprocal conversation with the students; nonetheless, there is still something to be said for the intersubjective elements of traditional education, the human components of teaching and learning. In a high-technology society such as ours we should remember that in school we continue to have the opportunity for human interaction and conjoint experience. Many classrooms fall short ofbeing Dewey's miniature community, and contact between teachers and students can be ofa perfunctory or even a hostile sort; yet the potential is there to develop an exciting atmosphere for teaching and learning. Perhaps the key is to assign the computer certain tutorial tasks rather than others. Mortimer Adler distinguishes three different teaching methods as appropriate for different goals and subject matters: I) didactic instruction (lectures, textbooks, other aids) for the acquisition of organized knowledge (as found in literature, mathematics, science, history, for example); 2) coaching (exercises, supervised practice, drill) for the development of intellectual skills (Le., skills of learning such as the three R's, problem solving, calculating); and 3) Socratic questioning (discussion, active palticipation, reciprocal conversation) for the enlarged understanding of ideas and values.30 Adler's point is that we should valY the methods of teaching according to our different aims and content. The computer seems well suited for didactic instruction and coaching. This could free the human teacher for more questioning and discussion of ideas and values. Not all subjects, nor all teachers, for that matter, are clearly definable in terms of one method or the other; but this is simply to recognize the fact that teaching is an art, not a science. Some blending of resources is in order if we are to 114 The Philosopher as Educator Today maximize the tutorial function of the computer while preserving the personal contributions of the human teache1: A less controversial function ofthe computer is as a tool. Its amazing capacity for statistical analysis, the calculation and projection of probabilities, word processing, map making, and even musical notation has justbarely been tapped. The computer as a tool makes it more feasible to fulfill Dewey's ideal of providing each student with the opportunity to test his or her ideas. By simulating experiments in chemistry or physics or making long-range economic forecasts, the comupter can expedite problem solving and let us see the results of our hypothetical solutions quickly and painlessly. Tool and die makers, and their counterparts in technical schools, now use the computer to test various designs, thereby bringing about a nearly instantaneous trial-and-error procedure and obviating the need for costly, time-consuming eff0l1s to construct working models. Whitehead's charge that we seek ways to connect head and handwork in our schools is well served by the use of the computer as a tool. The most exciting possibility seems to be that ofusing the computer as a kind of tutee to be "taught" by the student, who learns how to talk to the machine, instruct it in the performance of certain tasks, and, where necessary, "debug" a program that does not produce the expected results. Teachers often claim they learn better, come to understand their material more thoroughly, and think about it more critically when they must explain it to their students. This experience of "learning by teaching" can now be made available to our students by allowing them to be directly involved in programming the computer to function as a tutor or tool. By instructing the computer, students can come to a greater comprehension of the subject mat'r and a more vital appreciation of the process of teaching and learning. This is a variant ofDewey's learning by doing that would probably have his full support. There are other aspects of the computer and education that philosophers should reflect upon. We must avoid the assumption that all thinking can be modeled on the sequential, linear progression followed by the computer. Just as our students should not be regarded as having minds which are "blank tablets" to be filled in, so they should not be seen as machines to be programmed. Nor should we force every subject into a computerized mode. Grammar, mathematics , and logic all strike me as eminently programmable; poetry, fine arts, and metaphysics much less so. The humanities will undoubtedly come under increasing pressure to fit the technology that becomes available; we must take care lest the tail wag the dog. The greatest benefit ofthe computerrevolution as it pertains to the philosophy of education is that it should provoke us into reexamining some of the larger issues as to the nature of the human mind and how we come to know, the role of the human element in schooling, and the kind The Philosopher as Educator Today IIS of society we want to construct. This is a prime example of an area ofeducation that could use more thinking things through. Gender and Education The reemergence of feminism in our day has roused a number of persons in academic disciplines from their dogmatic slumbers and caused them to reconsider their priorities and procedures. Traditional ways of speaking and thinking and dealing with the sexes in education have been severely challenged. There are demands for equal access to educational opportunities and affirmative action programs to redress previous imbalances along sexual lines. Textbooks are being scrutinized to detect evidence ofsexual bias and avoid the promulgation of sexual stereotypes. Classes in nontraditional occupations are now available for both males and females. Female accomplishments are beginning to receive greater recognition from historians, art critics, social scientists, and the like. Philosophers of education have not been immune to such controversies. Indeed, in the past there have been important philosophical theories that made a determined effOlt to come to grips with the question of education and gender. Plato certainly made it clear that he thought his ideal state could be ruled by a man or a woman and consequently that his educational proposals were applicable to either sex. It should be noted, however, that he saw fit to abolish the family for his potential guardians and stressed the development of traits that have usually been regarded as masculine, such as courage in battle, physical prowess, and facility in abstract speculation. Some critics claim that the sexes are indeed equal in Plato's eyes, so long as they both think and act like males. Rousseau took another tack. He stressed the natural differences between the sexes and proposed a radically different education for Sophie from that to be given to Emile. Whereas his training sought to bring out political, vocational, and intellectual qualities, hers centered on social, domestic, and emotional characteristics. She was to be subservient to his needs and wishes; yet, she was also to take over from the tutor the rule of Emile. Rousseau saw the sexes as complementary factors making up a unit of ideal humanity. Each contributed a distinctive way of thinking and acting; together they constituted a totality of desirable human characteristics. Again, this has been criticized as an attempt to preserve male dominance, all the more objectionable because it is presented under the guise of following the dictates of nature,31 The whole question of gender and education might be seen as an offshoot of the old nature/nUlture controversy. Do we educate the young to fulfill their natural potential, which is seen as a relatively fixed, God-given essence that with proper encouragement will simply unfold in a kind ofpreordained manner; or do we stress the impact of the environment on the organism, restraining Il6 The Philosopher as Educator Today c!31tain tendencies and reviving others? Do we treat males and females differently in school in accordance with their "natural" differences, or do we seek to develop a certain kind ofperson regardless ofsex or race or economic status? Ruth Jonathan has criticized the kind of ethical essentialism that holds that women must be educated to fulfill a predetermined nature. She points out that "we are not automatically committed to maximising the defining characteristics of things, unless those tl1ings are objects (like lawmnowers) for which prime function constitutes sole I)Urpose."32 She goes on to reject the view that we can draw up,a list of defining sexual characteristics that have major 'equcational significance. It is one thing to distinguish biological differences between the sexes but quite another to claim that these determine the kind of education and thus the kind of person who should be developed. For Jonathan, "anatomical equipment and hormones do not cause behaviour; they make ranges ofphysical experience possible."33 Ifwe are to value autonomy as an educational goal, then we cannot say to the females in our classes that they, and they alone, must follow the dictates of biology. Just as we would not tellmale students that reproduction was a necessary element in whatever they eventually chose to do with their lives, because, after all, their bodies were made to propagate; so too, we must beware of leading females to believe that they have no choice in the matter. The point of education would seem to be that we all, males and females, do have a choice and that our biological functions do not constitute our sole purpose. Otherdifferences between the Sexes, such as size and shape, are ofdecreasing importance as our technological control of the environment increases. Even the distinctively female reproductive system, with its accompanying nurturant qualities of care, sensitivity, and support, need not lead us to different educational content or practices for the sexes; ifsuch qualities are seen to be valuable, then it would be in society's interest to foster them in all human beings. To the claim that the development of such nurtural qualities in males violates wellestablished cultural norms, Jonathan replies that human beings develop in a cultural nexus not merely responsively but in a way that also produces and modifies the nexus.34 This is a view of an organism interacting with its environment that is very close to Dewey's notion of growth. Another aspect ofthe gender and education controversy centers on the notion of the educated person. Jane Roland Mmtin has criticized Richard Peters for advocating an ideal of the development of the educated mind rather than the educated person. Peters's educated person is noticeably lacking in empathy, intuition, sensitivity to others, and care and concern for interpersonal relationships . His ideal coincides with our cultural stereotype of the male: cool, objective, analytical, interested in things and ideas more than people. Little is The Philosopher as Educator Today 117 said about nurture and supportiveness. Not unlike Plato, Peters has come up with a very masculine version of the educated person.35 Martin objects to the forms of knowledge theory of Paul Hirst for the same reason: "it conceives of liberal education as the development of mind, restricts the development of mind to the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, and restricts knowledge to hue propositions."36 She chides Peters and Hirst for defining education in terms of an initiation into forms ofknowledge or modes of experience that incorporate an almost exclusively male cognitive perspective. The content of education reflects the productive processes of society (e.g., man's political, economic, scientific, and artistic activity), while the reproductive processes involved with the bearing and rearing of children are seen as peripheral. Martin argues that in order to give the reproductive processes their due, we must rethink the domain of the philosophy of education.37 In addition, she criticizes Hirst for resurrecting the very sort ofdualisms between reason and emotion, thought and action, education and life, that Dewey sought to lay to rest.38 She calls upon philosophers to develop a gender-sensitive ideal of the educated person, "one which takes sex or gender into account when it makes a difference and ignores it when it does not."39 It is hard to object to such an ideal, since the alternative seems to be to adopt an avowedly sexist stance toward education.40 There are some problems that would still have to be faced even if we all agreed to pursue Martin's ideal. For one thing, it is not obvious when gender does make a difference and therefore should be taken account of in education. To say the sexes are equal is not to say they are identical, or that they should necessarily receive identical treatment in school. Ruth Jonathan suggests that given the current cultural nexus within which we operate, we should take steps to provide a kind of compensatory education for boys and girls to rectity past wrongs in their upbringing or mistaken perceptions of socially approved attitudes and activities. She recommends that educators take special care to foster achievement motivation and independence of mind in girls and cooperation and sensitivity in boys.41 Such deliberate singling out of what each sex lacks strikes me as promoting a stereotypical view as much as alleviating it. Can we assume that students need such compensatory treatment solely because of their sex? Does this not serve to highlight precisely those differences that we are claiming should no longer be part of nurture? This might indeed have the unintended result of fixing such differences in our minds and making the problem worse. Others have argued that we should educate the young in a manner in which gender is simply ignored or not attended to. This seems to enforce the prejudice that sex could not possibly make a difference in education. To espouse an ideal of androgyny is, according to some, to open the door to a monolithic pattern of 118 The Philosopher as Educator Today human development and to possible psychological and social tyranny.42 We should also recognize the possibility that there may be hormonal differences between the sexes that call for different educational treatment. I do not think the issue of sexual differences has been settled and that instead of attributing them all to nature, we can now confidently assert they are all due to environment. We must, prodded one may hope by philosophers, continue to think the matter through and not close ouselves to evidence or alternative practices that go against the newly accepted common view.43 There is a growing body of analysis dealing with the alleged causes as well as the proposed remedies for sexism. Some want to place oursexual attitudes in the broader context of our political or economic systems. Very early in the debate, Simone de Beauvoir attempted to locate the relationship of men and women within the context of a Marxist critique of society. More recently, Ivan Illich has joined the fray by describing the advent of capitalism, industrialization, and scientific progress as the passage from gendered lifestyles to sexist role playing .44 As usual, the practical educational problem of how we are to educate males and females forces us to consider more general, theoretical issues such as the nature of human beings, the role of the individual in society, the aim of life, and so on. Philosophers can make a definte contribution to such theoretical discussions. I urge them to do so. Adult Education One ofthe results ofproviding greater access to educational opportunities has been the rapid expansion of the area known as adult education. Adults seek education for various reasons: social or recreational, vocational, remedial, or simply personal development. They seek it through different media: classroom lectures, clubs, professional associations, television broadcasts, correspondence courses, or logging on to their home computers. They study different things, from wine making to calculus, and do so for differing periods of time. For all its apparent expansion, the area of adult education rarely intrudes upon philosophical considerations of what we mean by education and how we ought to go about it. Most contemporary philosophers of education take their lead from Richard Peters and see education as a process by which the initiated pass on knowledge and skills to the uninitiated. Peters encapsulates this in his children-as-barbarians -outside-the-gate motif(see Chapter 2, p.OO); the problem ofthe educator is "to get them inside the citadel of civilisation so that they will understand and love what they see when they get there."45 There are two things I find bothersome about this view. First of all, it conveys a notion ofthe content ofeducation as something fixed and solid, unassailable and fortresslike. This is not an apt The Philosopher as Educator Today II9 description of much that is included in adult education. Secondly, the implication seems to be that learning is a one-way conveyance from the "haves" to the "have-nots". Instructional roles are clearly defined. One is either inside or outside the citadel; the teacher's job is to get students inside. Once again, this description falters when we try to apply it to mature students who may have more real-life experience, better vocational skills, more enthusiasm for the subject and even more knowledge ofsome of it than their teachers. By extending the term "education" to cover the manifold educational activities of adults, we can see that it has been too narrowly conceived by Peters and his followers. The content is more flexible and the process more reeiprocal than they will admit. The whole issue of interpersonal relationships between teachers and students also comes to the fore. To my knowledge, Martin Buber is one of the few to attempt to spell out the elements involved in a teacher's encounter with mature students.46 The education of adults adds a dimension to the discussion of society's stake in education. Paulo Friere sees the education of poor adults as a key to the overthrow of their oppressors. His "pedagogy of the oppressed" spells out a theory whereby adults who learn to read and write can be brought to a new awareness of themselves and begin to look critically at their social situation.47 Less revolutionary is the approach ofR. W. K. Paterson who bases his philosophy ofadult education 011 the notion ofthe making ofpersons. For Paterson, this is best accomplished through liberal education and is vitally important in a democracy because it is a form of government based on the meeting and interaction of persons. Paterson claims that "it is in the liberal education of its adult members, its citizens, that democracy can behold itself in its clearest and most appropriate mirror."48 Many ofthe activities of Mortimer Adler on behalf ofthe study ofthe so-called "great books" can be seen as part of his commitment to adult education.49 The multifarious aims, content, and methods ofadult education should make us more cognizant of the fact that teaching and learning should not be understood solely in the context of certain arbitrary constraints of time and place. Some psychologists now describe human life in terms of a series of stages or passages, each of which has its own special needs for resources or support. The idea of lifelong learning has been developed to take account of this. Ivan IIlich's call to "de-school" society is based on the view that education is not limited to a legally specified time spcnt in an officially sanctioned place under the guidance offormally celtified teachers, but rather should be seen as a continuous process drawing upon the resources of the entire community. Students should not be thought of as gaining entrance to a citadel but as being invited to join in a community activity or contributing to a common experience. Dewey's point 120 The Philosopher as Educator Today about eliminating waste by overcoming the isolation of the component parts of the educational system from one another and from the community at large also seems apropos here. Taking adulteducation as our model, we can reconstruct a11 of education so that it is more flexible and makes better use of institutional and community resources. Finally, I think that philosophical scrutiny of the means and ends of adult education will shed some light on the question of educating the young and help us to a better understanding of the dynamics of individual growth within a society. If we are indeed educating for life, we must realize that this cannot be done once and for all and that the child's needs and interests will change as he or she matures. Rather than try to do all things for all people in the school system, as we presently have it, we should begin to explore ways of making educational resources available and attractive throughout a lifetime: at home, on the job, in formal and informal settings. Some of the spirit of adult education should permeate all our pedagogical endeavors. This could well lead to new arguments for greaterbreadth in early education, less specializaton for a future that may see a variety of changes: Whitehead's notion of the value of generalization leading on to a new stage of romance may be helpful in this regard. Part of the task as philosophers of education should be to take a more thorough look at its later stages to get a better sense of what we should be doing at the earlier ones. Peace Education None of these issues can match the urgency that comes from the very real threat ofnuclear devastation we all face today: As educators, we can argue about goals and methodologies, defend a theory of the ideal society or a view of what knowledge is most worth knowing, puzzle over the subtle interplay of freedom and discipline in the classroom; but all the while we are assuming that we, or at least our successors, will still be here to carry out our proposals. Many current writers are trying to shock us out of such a complacent assumption by warning ofthe danger posed to human survival by the huge arsenal ofnuclear weapons in the East and the West. Father Theodore Hesburgh bluntly describes the kind of "future" that may be in store for mankind: all our institutions that we have labored to perfect, all learning, all science and technology, all art, all books, all music, all architecture, every human treasure, everything, but especially millions of men, women, and children, all their future and all futures, utter obliteration at worst, a return to the Stone Age at best.50 For those of us concerned with education, the nuclear threat cannot be ignored. It runs counter to the basic presuppositions of educating: a commitment to rational procedures and a belief in the perfectibility of man. To seek to The Philosopher as Educator Today 121 pass on a cultural heritage or certain skills and dispositions is to presume that human beings can improve and grow and progress. To teach the young and old things they do not know, while respecting their own outlooks, is to encourage thinking and communication. To look for sound reasons for what we say and do is to stand on the side of rational argument and to eschew violence as an acceptable means of settling disputes. The attitudes that underlie education as a human enterprise are the opposite to the urge to annihilate one's enemies and the despair at the human condition that can be found in a more militaristic approach to life. Education by its nature should clearly be an education for peace. What is not clear is exactly what we can do to bring this about. Too often we get graphic descriptions ofthe problem with meager accounts of how it might be solved. For example, in his influential book The Fate of the Earth, Jonathan Schell details the horrors of a nuclear holocaust and the desperate straits we are all in; but his answer is far too simple: We are to "lay down our arms, relinquish sovereignty, and found a political system for the peaceful settlement of international disputes."5 I Such advice is unexceptionable but impractical. How are we to get friend and foe to disarm and to trust one another to live up to such an agreement? Should we disavow all armaments, or only nuclear arms? Do we have the right to relinquish our sovereignty, and to whom should we relinquish it? What kind of political system will be able to peacefully resolve international disputes? Schell's suggestions remind me of Russell's persistent pleas to promote international understanding by having all history textbooks written by foreigners . There are deeper factors at work than the spreading of false propaganda. Why do men fear and distrust one another and try to get the better oftheir fellow men? Can we reeducate humans so that they will be cooperative, not competitive , compassionate, not aggressive, helpful, not harmful? Russell devoted much of his life to the cause of peace and the advocacy of a world government. At times he made comments and criticisms of political leaders and whole countries that were strident, emotional, and unfair. He felt deeply about the issue of nuclear arms; and yet he recognized the complexity of the problem and managed to retain a sense of the need for careful thought that was not always manifested by his compatriots. For instance, when nearly ninety, he wrote a preface for a booklet entitled "Schools for Non-Violence" in which he chided some of his more ardent followers to remember that "all of us can work more strongly if we have thoroughly thought out our position and understood its implications."52 A call for loyalty to reason that we could all take to heart. This is not to say that all men are going to be reasonable in dealing with the nuclear threat and that international tensions will dissolve under the light of philosophical scrutiny. It is to challenge us to think about education in terms of I22 The Philosopher as Educator Today man's awesomepotential to destroy the entire world. One ofPeters's more telling objections to Dewey was that life contains predicaments as well as problems, that not all ofthe difficulties men face can be treated as amenable to solution by testing hypotheses and acting upon them. Death, love, and perhaps even peace may be seen as aspects of the human situation that will not be "solved" but must be accommodated to as best we can. Pcters also complained thatDewey virtually ignored man's irrational side.53 This is relevant to the question of peace education. We must try to present our students a picture ofman as he is. It is not just our nation's history that may be biased to reflect only our best accomplishments and feelings; the history of mankind often passes over our darker moments and thereby leads to an unrealistic approach to the world's problems. Philosophers should join with psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and the like to develop a theory ofhuman nature that incorporates all we know about ourselves. This is another occasion where interdisciplinary research is required. We might try to do more through education to develop cooperative attitudes. Neither life nor education should be seen as a competitive struggle in which only the fittest deserve to survive. All our emphasis on grades and performance judged against that of one's peers runs against the obvious need to produce caring, sensitive, helping individuals. Russell said we need knowledgewielded through love, and he attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to put this into practice in his school. He underestimated the latent hostility of the children and overestimated the effectiveness of preaching to the staff on his educational principles; but this does not mean his ideal was wrong. Dewey said that the school should be a miniature community wherein democratic procedures could be experienced at first hand. We must give more thought to the question of how to educate for peace in regard to the manner as well as the subject matter of schooling. Russell W'dS a~are of the dangers inherent in a·scientific society like our own where "habits ofthought cannot change as quickly as techniques, with the result that, as skill increases, wisdom fails. "54 He wondered whether such a society must inevitably destroy itself. His hope resided in education as a means of liberating the human spirit. Whitehead shared this eoncern for vision and not just technique. He would wantus to utilize our ideas about man and the world to create a peaceful society and a reverence for lite. Dewey felt that personal interaction in the classroom should be the means to a fuller, more humane experience for all. Each man had specific goals in mind for the theory and practice of education; but none of these would supersede the need to avoid W'df and find the way to peace. From the vantage point ofthe philosophy ofeducation, the nuclear threat is an issue that calls for our most creative thinking. We must find ways to teach our The Philosopher as Educator Today 123 students to appreciate the worth ofevery human being and to learn to cooperate and preserve, rather than attack and destroy. We must draw upon the findings of others to work out a theory of man which will guide us toward peace and the establishment of a just society. What greater challenge could there be for those who are dedicated to thinking things through about education? Ifwe fail to meet the challenge, we may find ourselves, assuming that we survive at all, in a world where everyone is left in the state of the barbarian outside the gates.55 CONCLUSION In yet another of the spate of retrospective studies now appearing on the recent past ofthe philosophy ofeducation, D.C. Phillips claims that many in the field would like to make more of a contribution to educational policy and practice. According to Phillips, there has been a growing discontent with the sterility of analytical philosophy and its remoteness from practical affairs, together with an undiminished interest in metaphysical and normative questions . Phillips is not so sure that the philosophy ofeducation can be revived, and so he titles his article in the form of a question: "Philosophy of Education: In Extremis?"56 My book has been an attempt to answer such a question. I have argued that we should look back to three of our predecessors, Dewey, Russell, and Whitehead, to regain a sense of the importance of applying philosophical insights to concrete educational situations. Their theories and practices provide us with a model for a more productive approach to the philosophy of education. I then suggested that we now look to the future and consider a new agenda consisting of such topics as the computer and education, the need for a gender-sensitive ideal in education, the ramifications of the aims, methods, and content of adult education, and the overarching need to contribute to an education for peace. Each of these offers us an opportunity to penetrate to what Dewey called the human significance of philosophical discussions. In addition, I have urged philosophers to join with researchers in other fields to attempt to formulate a new theory of what man is and what he might become through education. All of this stems from my own conviction that philosophers of education have more to offer than they have displayed in the recent past. Our loyalty to reason and our determination to get to the root causes and goals of human endeavor are sorely needed in education today. We have more than enough to engage our critical attention. I hope to have reopened a conversation as to how this might come about. In doing so we will have produced an appropriate response to Phillip's query: "Philosophy of education: semper vivens." Notes Bibliography Index ...