Educating for Humanity in Today's World
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EDUCATING FOR HUMANITY IN TODAY’S WORLD: Towards a new model of education to meet the challenge John Bernard Marshall Institute of Education, University College London Submitted for the degree of PhD (2020) 1 I, John Bernard Marshall confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information is derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract It is generally accepted that schools should be concerned not just with imparting particular intellectual or technical skills, but also with the wider character development of children, including their moral and social growth. However, after decades of well- meant but rather scattered initiatives (often launched in response to the unsettling effect of widespread social change) this study reviews the whole rationale for and feasibility of work in this area, and tries to set it onto firmer foundations. After looking at how the curriculum in most state systems is organised, and why there is frequently a gap between the reality and the rhetoric here, it is argued that if education is to play a more meaningful part, a rather different perspective on the main forms of human knowledge and experience that schools usually address is needed: a more radical breakdown which does justice both to traditional curriculum subjects and the more amorphous, but vitally important, ‘base’ of life. Three ways in which the human engagement with the world does appear to separate into its more primary modes are identified: direct experience in the everyday lifeworld (including social interaction); particular bodies of knowledge and skill; and the evaluative or wider meaning-making aspects of our functioning. The significance of each is explored, and in so far as they appear to be central to our human way of being, it is suggested that these might in themselves provide some solid ground on which to base the whole business of educating the young. It is argued that, if schools are to engage more constructively with this wider area of human development, they will have to contribute far more effectively to the first, in particular, of these dimensions of our functioning. Realistic possibilities for such work are explored along with the considerable challenges that can arise. 3 Impact Statement In this study I suggest a radical approach that schools may need to adopt if provision for the wider character development of children (including their social and moral development) is to be put onto a firmer footing, with practitioners able to gain a sense that they are basing their work on solid foundations and able to justify what they are doing in the face of what has been seen (particularly in Britain and the USA) as a narrowing of the curriculum in favour of a more exclusive focus on driving up standards of academic attainment. Each chapter explores fundamental issues which need to be understood and addressed if schools are to come to terms more effectively with this area of provision - a task which, in view of the weakening or breakdown of many once strong social and moral structures in society at large, appears to be one of the most urgent, if difficult, that education faces, both in Britain and now increasingly across the world. In view of this, besides Britain and the USA, I have also addressed challenges that China and other countries in the Far East face in this respect, as their schools continue to rely solely on academic results as the criterion of educational success in systems which stress memorisation, repetition and testing, often at the expense of promoting what might be seen as the ethical underpinnings of human life (including, for instance, such qualities as courage, honesty and integrity; kindness, compassion and tolerance; and a sense of justice and fair-play). Given the present rather uncertain status of this type of educational endeavour, and the generally patchy, variable and sometimes perfunctory nature of provision, the content is relevant not only to academics, educational policy makers and school administrators, but also to teachers and other practitioners working directly with young people – in fact it is hoped it will be of interest to anyone concerned with the way young people develop as social and moral beings. I hope to disseminate my work by contributing articles to relevant journals, by submitting papers to conferences concerned with this area of educational work, and by keeping in touch with the research community at the Institute of Education in London. 4 Table of Contents Abstract p.3 Impact Statement 4 Introduction and Overview 6 Chapters: 1 Making sense of turbulent times: the pressure on schools. 15 2 The shaping of education: what happens to the best of intentions. 39 3 Perspectives on the curriculum: the need for a fresh approach. 64 4 Back to basic ground: some crucial dimensions of human life. 85 5 Implications for educating the wider character: a challenging task. 120 6 A suggested framework for practical work. 156 7 Managing the powerful human dynamics. 172 8 Reviving a uniquely ‘practical’ type of human discipline. 193 9 Concluding thoughts. 207 Bibliography 232 5 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW The general theme of this work is relevant to what appears to be a growing number of initiatives being launched in schools across the world, which are variously designated ‘values education’, ‘emotional literacy’, ‘character education’ (USA), ‘dou toku’ (Japan), ‘deyu’ (China) – both usually translated as ‘moral education’- , ‘Personal, Social and Health Education’ and/or ‘Citizenship’ in Britain, etc. I have resisted the temptation to limit the focus of attention here to just one or two of these ‘brand-names’, as it were, because essentially they all seem to be catering for the same sort of educational concern, to be facing similar problems, and to be in a similar state of fluctuation and experimentation. Three features in particular of this common ground seem to stand out. Firstly, they all point to a realization that school education should be concerned not just with imparting particular intellectual of technical skills, but also with the wider character of the child – with how (s)he is more generally disposed towards the world and towards others in particular: with social and moral attitudes, and the formation of a sense of right and wrong. As a ‘lowest common denominator’ here, one can perhaps say that these approaches would all be concerned to foster the development of (among other things) a basic ‘humanity’, defined as ‘the quality of being humane’ (Penguin English Dictionary); and this is, perhaps, best expressed in terms of a maxim found in many cultures – and which came out well ahead of the rest in a large poll conducted in Britain a some years ago to find a new set of ‘commandments’ to live by: “treat others as you would like others to treat you” (cited in Snow, 2005). Secondly, there seems to be a growing sense that this sort of task is becoming more pressing now, in view of the apparent breakdown of many of the traditional agents of socialization which were once operating in society at large. With former ways of living and patterns of family life being disrupted, the school is being left, increasingly it seems, to pick up the pieces. This is a trend I shall expand on shortly, but for the moment we may note that, if this is a problem which has most markedly affected the affluent West, the same sort of trend seems to be increasingly affecting societies around 6 the rest of the world as the tide of globalization, and the market-driven forces frequently accompanying this phenomenon, take hold. Finally, it seems sensible to look at these areas together because, in spite of educational systems frequently having such broad aims which in theory cater for the wider personality development of their charges, whether they can actually be said to be getting to grips with such aims - in the sense of making provision which is at all equal to the task – is another matter. If it was true in 1997 that “during the past decade there has been a world-wide surge of interest in moral education” (Damon and Gregory p.119), with, as these authors pointed out, a rich diversity of approaches and theoretical perspectives, it is also true that, as they themselves imply, and as John Wilson pointed out long ago (and Kat Arney more recently), our difficulty lies not in devising educational packages claiming to deal with ‘living’, ‘relating’, ‘citizenship’, ‘values’, etc. - there was already an abundance of them - but in the fact that we do not, in general, know what all these various approaches actually achieve (Wilson (1974, p.140; Arney 2016). In fact one suspects that there may be something rather cavalier about the way many of them are adopted, as though one were to rush in to construct a building by seizing on likely-looking pieces of material and erecting them here and there, without understanding the nature of the site on which one is to work, or whether the materials and methods are suitable for the task in the first place (cf. Kristjansson 2004, p.214 on certain best-selling works in this field). To see these developments in a wider context, we should remember that, although there has been this flurry of recent activity, most educational systems can point to a long history of attempts to make provision in this general area. And, on the face of it, there are good reasons for doing so. What, one might ask, is the point of enabling a child to acquire certain intellectual abilities or technical skills if those parts of the personality which will determine whether these abilities are put to constructive or destructive use are left out of the picture? Nor need one necessarily be deterred by reservations about ‘tampering’ with a child’s basic temperament or by qualms about unhealthy ‘conditioning’.