History, Philosophy and Lobster
Welcome to this week’s issue of Traversing, as always if you find this newsletter to be interesting, if it helps to inform your thinking about progressive education or if you think it might help others, please subscribe, share it with your friends and neighbors and share your comments and questions.
Thank you to everyone who read, shared and explored my discussions about starting a school. Although I ended after three parts, I am sure there is more to say and if you have questions or want more information about specifics, please reach out.
Plato, Aristotle, Bent Flyvberg
This week I am going to begin a series with a bit of a philosophical and historical turn, to explore some of the ideas that underlay both the current educational systems and then those of a more progressive leaning, such as those represented at City of Bridges High School.
It can be argued that the foundations of modern American educational thought begin with the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. They both considered education, epistemology and learning with great depth and specificity and many books have been written on their contributions to modern educational thought. In “An Introduction to Philosophy of Education” by Robin Barrow and Ronald Woods the birth of the modern American educational model is placed firmly in antiquity in Athens during the fifth century BCE. The early examinations around the nature of learning and education developed into modern systems of schooling based upon the ideas of Plato and Aristotle.
Plato’s thoughts on education were intertwined with the context of his vision for civil society. He believed that education should serve the primary purpose of providing competent adults to society. He sorted people into three categories: artisans, guardians and rulers. A system of education and examination was put in place to facilitate the process of categorization. In Plato’s view the top category was the philosopher rulers and who deserved to live “the good life”. Nel Nodding’s notes one of the major criticisms of this model that also demonstrates the impact of Platonic ideas on modern school systems:
…Plato had very definite ideas about the good life and what we call today “self-actualization.” Only those who had the leisure to think long and deeply, to continue study, could participate in the truly good life. The contemplative life was closely identified with the good life. Because only a select few of the population were though capable of real contemplation and because the manual work of society had to be done, justice decreed that students be prepared for work consonant with their capacities. 8
This model of an idealized life of contemplation reserved for a select few remains a reality in the narrative of ethos of the modern schoolhouse. Again, as described by Nodding’s:
A Particular way of life-one marked by high salary and prestige-is thought to be best, and all children are given opportunities to learn the subjects that will prepare them for such a life. If they fail to succeed at these opportunities, their failure is not a violation of justice. 9
It is not a violation of justice, because it their failure to achieve the good life was due to their lack or effort, instead of the larger contexts of society.
Another way to consider the Platonic model is described by Robin Barrows and Roland Woods, “Plato put forward the view that while no stick could be said to be perfect, there is an Idea of Form of a stick (or of stickness) to which all everyday sticks conform to an imperfect extent…” (19) The singular Idea of stickness separates itself from the acceptable variation of stickness. Sticks are either able to live up to stickness or they are not. This stratification is still present in schooling models and a strong line of genesis can be drawn to the current struggles with class stratification in all aspects of society. Plato’s vision for a utopian model for education is built a system of rigid class distinctions, not based on the context of the individual, but on their efforts and their essential worth.
Aristotle was a student of Plato and provides a set of virtues which also are a foundation of modern educational systems. In Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”, he discusses three virtues: Episteme, Techne and Phronesis.
Episteme is the virtue most closely associated with scientific knowing; it is the empirical and verifiable truths that are independent of context. (55-56)
Techne is the craft of knowing, the production and application of thought with a deep awareness of the relevant context that is required for production. (56)
Phronesis is the ethical and practical considerations of knowing. (56-57)
Bent Flyvbjerg, a Danish social scientist and researcher, discusses Aristotle’s intellectual virtues in his book, “Making Social Science Matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again.” Phronesis as understood by Flyvberg “…focuses on what is variable, on that which cannot be encapsulated by universal rules, on specific cases. Phronesis requires an interaction between the general and the concrete; it requires consideration, judgment and choice.” (57) Furthermore, Flyvberg suggests four questions to considered when Phronesis as a framework:
(1) Where are we going?
(2) Is this desirable?
(3) What should be done?
Who gains and who loses; by which mechanisms of power? (60)
This communitarian element of Aristotelian thought allows for a different understanding of the role of the individual and the role of the society. As noted by Nodding’s, because of this difference in thought “A community’s needs and welfare can, and should…sometimes override individual rights, and a good citizen expects to contribute to the state, not simply demand its protections of individual rights.” (11) This is reflected in the discussion of Phronesis, one of the virtues that provides a foundation for this research project defined as it was by Pearson “…practical wisdom on how to address and act on social problems in a particular context.” (1) A phonetic frame is present in the structure and shape of schooling in the same way that it is present in the fabric of research. The current reform narrative though does have as its fabric Phronesis, but instead places emphasis on two other virtues of Aristotle. As contemplated by Flyvberg, they are Episteme the virtue most closely associated with scientific knowing; it is the empirical and verifiable truths that are independent of context. (55-56) The second is Techne the craft of knowing, the production and application of thought with a deep awareness of the relevant context that is required for production. (56) The balance of virtues has shifted in the current school reform narrative, with phronesis pushed to the side in the interest of episteme, episteme attached to techne, but in name only.
Bent Flyvbjerg discusses Aristotle’s intellectual virtues in his book, “Making Social Science Matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again.” Flyvbjerg explores the three virtues examined in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; Episteme, Techne and Phronesis. Episteme is the virtue most closely associated with scientific knowing; it is the empirical and verifiable truths that are independent of context. (55-56) Techne is the craft of knowing, the production and application of thought with a deep awareness of the relevant context that is required for production. (56) Phronesis is the ethical and practical considerations of knowing. (56-57) Phronesis as understood by Flyvberg “…focuses on what is variable, on that which cannot be encapsulated by universal rules, on specific cases. Phronesis requires an interaction between the general and the concrete; it requires consideration, judgment and choice.” (57) This virtue has always driven my work and my beliefs, but typically not my scholarship. Flyvberg presents four questions that are considered when Phronesis is the foundation of scholarship:
(4) Where are we going?
(5) Is this desirable?
(6) What should be done?
(7) Who gains and who loses; by which mechanisms of power? (60)
Personally, I strive to ask these questions in all of my work. In the recent collection on Phronesis, “Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis”, Bent Flyvberg, Todd Landman and Sanford Schram describe phronesis as “…practical wisdom on how to address and act on social problems in a particular context.” (1) Furthermore, this framework does not put the emphasis on “…particular research methods or types of data…” but instead on “…producing research that can help develop phronesis by increasing understanding and effecting change in specific contexts rather than questing after the ghost of an abstract knowledge of law-like processes.” (2)
I’ll talk more about the goal of increasing understanding and effective change next week, when I delve into the birth of the “Progressive Education” era.
With Gratitude
People, Places and Things
In this section of the newsletter I share people, places and things that have inspired and taught me valuable lessons about rethinking learning.
I am a vegetarian and have been so for many years. (My wife will correctly remind me that there was a point in time in my life that seeking out a high-quality burger was an important part of any journey to a new city or town.) This people, places or things is not a judgement but an observation about suffering.
David Foster Wallace wrote an article for Gourmet magazine in August of 2004. He was asked by the food and culture magazine to travel to the Maine Lobster Festival and write an essay on the experience. The essay that he produced, “Consider the Lobster”, is an argument for not eating animals, not because it is a polemic scree for animal rights, because it is not, but instead because it is a genuine grappling with the reality of suffering. Wallace delves deeply into the moral morass of pleasure and pain, suffering and happiness through the lens of the lobster. As he contemplates the lobster in one’s kitchen, franticly thrashing in the pot of boiling water he states:
Standing at the stove, it is hard to deny in any meaningful way that this is a living creature experiencing pain and wishing to avoid/escape the painful experience. To my lay mind, the lobster’s behavior in the kettle appears to be the expression of preference; and it may well be that an ability to form a preference is the decisive criterion for real suffering. 8
A preference against suffering serves as a succinct definition of the nebulous nature of suffering. Suffering then can be an individual’s preference not to experience something that is unpleasant. Wallace wrestles with considering the suffering of the lobster and his own appreciation and pleasure he derives from eating it. He laments:
…. I believe that animals are less morally important than human beings; and when it comes to defending such a belief, even to myself, I have to acknowledge that (a) I have an obvious selfish interest in this belief, since I like to eat certain kinds of animals and want to be able to keep doing it, and (b) I have not succeeded in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient. 8
I clearly remember reading this article two decades ago and it has stuck with me ever since and has been a moral compass that I return to in my own decision-making process.
See you next week!
Barrow, Robin and Ronald Woods. An Introduction to Philosophy of Education. 4th ed. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.
Flyvbjerg, Bent. Making Social Science Matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Boston: Cambridge University Press. 2001. Print.
Flyvbjerg, Bent, Todd Landman and Sanford Schram. Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Boston: Cambridge University Press. 2012. Print.
Flyvbjerg, Bent, Todd Landman and Sanford Schram. Real Social Science: Applied Phronesis. Boston: Cambridge University Press. 2012. Print.
Nodding’s, Nel. Philosophy of Education: Boulder: Westview press. 2013. Print.