Philosophy of Education A Beginners Guide

Philosophy of Education: A (Rather Unusual) Beginners Guide
John Clark
2012
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Contents
Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One...................................................................................................................................................... 3 Philosophys First Problem What is Philosophy? ...................................................................... 3 Chapter Two ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 A Short History of Philosophy .............................................................................................................. 6 Chapter Three ................................................................................................................................................ 14 Philosophy of Education: Past, Present, Future. ........................................................................ 14 Chapter Four .................................................................................................................................................. 20 Philosophy of Education in New Zealand ...................................................................................... 20 Chapter Five ................................................................................................................................................... 24 One Philosophers Views on Education .......................................................................................... 24 Chapter Six ...................................................................................................................................................... 35 A Philosophical Journey ........................................................................................................................ 35 Chapter Seven................................................................................................................................................ 42 Philosophy of Education Resources ................................................................................................. 42 References ...................................................................................................................................................... 48
Philosophy of Education A Beginners Guide
Introduction
Education is what goes on in schools and classrooms, in families and in a host of other social institutions. The study of education explores what education is all about, and involves standing back from educational policies, processes and practices to think more deeply about them and subject them to serious and systematic critique. This requires the development of theories to explain how things are and why, as well as offering alternative points of view about how things ought to be and why. What emerges is a range of theories, sometimes complementary and other times in conflict, which help us both to understand education in new ways and also at times to confuse us. It is important, then, that those who study education have a sound grasp of the various theories which have been generated about education. To start with, where do our educational theories come from? Our theories about education rarely arise from within the study of education itself but more often than not draw off other disciplines to inform our thinking about education. The foundation disciplines include the following: history of education, philosophy of education, psychology of education and sociology of education. Each discipline contributes to how we think about education and taken together they provide an evolving body of theory which helps to illuminate the past, inform us about the present, and give guidance for the future. This book provides a brief introduction to one of the foundation disciplines of education philosophy. It does not offer a comprehensive coverage of the many key educational concepts and ideas as other student texts in philosophy of education seek to do. Since philosophy of education does not sit in an intellectual vacuum but is firmly located in its parent discipline of philosophy and draws heavily from the more general work of philosophers working in other branches of philosophy, then it is important that students in philosophy of education have an understanding of the wider philosophical traditions within which their studies are located. So, we begin with a brief discussion of philosophys first question: What is philosophy? In addressing the question it quickly becomes clear that there is no one simple answer universally accepted by philosophers, but rather there are a variety of different views. And what goes for this question goes for all the other questions of philosophy as well. This is followed by a very short romp through the history of philosophy from the ancient times to the present and is very much a faces and places approach with only the briefest discussion of the thought of selected great thinkers in philosophy but it will go some way towards introducing those studying philosophy of education to those who have left their mark on the growth and development of philosophy. While the first two chapters are primarily about philosophy, the following two chapters (three and four) focus much more on philosophy of education itself. A broad
overview of the field is explored by looking at its past, present and future within a wider international context. Although philosophy of education is often associated more directly with work in the English-speaking world, especially Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Great Britain and the United States of America, it is now very much established on the global scene and philosophers are to be found in many countries across all of the worlds continents. Philosophy of education in New Zealand is part of this international movement and draws from and contributes to the philosophy of education community which provides and supports the fields literature and professional activities. The next two chapters (five and six) are of a more personal nature and may be of more interest to some readers than others. They set out one philosopher of educations philosophical position and the intellectual journey taken to get there my own. Written primarily for students who take my courses in philosophy of education, the autobiographical account gives philosophy of education a bit more of a human face. The final chapter (seven) provides students with some additional resources which should help them to acquire a deeper and better understanding of philosophy of education.
Chapter One
Philosophys First Problem What is Philosophy? What is philosophy? This is philosophys first question and, being a philosophical one, requires a philosophical answer. Immediately we strike a paradox. To be able to answer the question we need to do some philosophy but how can we do philosophy if we do not know what philosophy is? Before we ponder how to extract ourselves from this apparent impasse, we might think that similar sorts of questions could offer a way out. So, we might think about such questions as What is physics? or What is geography? But we soon conclude that these questions are not answered by doing physics or geography. One would not be able to give an account of what physics is by setting up an elaborate laboratory experiment or describe the nature of geography by exploring landscapes. Any answer would be conceptual in nature, probably philosophical, but not empirical. One way forward is to note that the question What is philosophy? elicits no agreed upon answer. On the contrary, as is usually the way with philosophical questions, multiple answers have been produced, often in conflict with one another. We might very quickly come to the view that there is very little philosophical agreement on anything at all, and perhaps this is about the only thing that philosophers do agree on! Several meanings of philosophy can be put to one side reasonably quickly, especially those conveyed by such expressions as Ones philosophy of life or Being philosophical about things. We all have a view of who we are and our place in the world, and some more than others are stoical or resigned in their views. Philosophy, as an intellectual activity, is something different. One place to start is with the origins of the word philosophy. From the ancient Greek usage of philo and sophy comes the love of wisdom. There is some merit in this, but not too much. Socrates, one of the wisest of men, held himself to be the least wise of men. And much philosophy has failed to exhibit much wisdom. Yet the connection to wisdom remains an important characteristic of philosophy for it goes some way towards defining what philosophy is. Another way of perhaps getting a little clearer about what philosophy is might be found in the debate in the latter half of the 20th Century over philosophical puzzles and philosophical problems. Wittgenstein held that philosophy deals with linguistic puzzles such that philosophical questions arise out of our use of language. Popper, on the other hand, was firm in his view that philosophy addresses real problems, that philosophical questions are located in the empirical world. Wittgenstein and Popper met once, in 1946 at Cambridge University, with their disagreement captured in the waving of a poker (Edmonds & Eidinow, 2001). Munz (1985), a student of both Popper (at the University of Canterbury) and Wittgenstein (at the University of Cambridge) who
witnessed the event, later attempted a rapprochement of their views. This dispute over puzzles and problems introduces a further thought about what philosophy is. Philosophy is about language but it is not philology (the study of linguistics) for it is the concepts which the words convey about the world which are important, not the words themselves. Philosophy has an interest in the relation between language and the world, of using language to understand the world. Getting clear about education, for example, is not enough; nor is being able to offer a compelling justification of education sufficient. Judgements are also to be made about educational practices in institutions and by nation states. So, philosophy is not just descriptive (as science is) but is also normative (concerned with arguments about what is good, right, true, worthwhile, ought to be, and so on e.g., What is it to be an educated person? What are the qualities of being educated? Why do some activities have educational value and others not?). This normative aspects leads to another feature of philosophy. Whereas empirical studies tend to ask questions we dont know the answers to, so investigators do original explorations, experiments and the like (and students read what scientists have discovered), philosophy tends to work somewhat differently. When tackling a philosophical problem, philosophers usually have a pretty good idea of the sort of answer they are going to give in advance of setting out their answer in full, for philosophy is about developing a reasoned argument to support or justify a conclusion, and unless one has a reasonably clear idea of the conclusion then one is hardly in a position to develop an argument whose premises entail the conclusion. There is another way of seeing how philosophy has developed, one summarised as the isms approach. To answer philosophical questions, different philosophical traditions have emerged, each developing its own particular take on things. So, for example, we have positivism, empiricism, idealism, rationalism, relativism, Marxism, pragmatism, existentialism, postmodernism and the like, all vying for a place in the philosophical sun. A comparative study of these philosophical traditions will give a good understanding of the complexity of philosophy; whether it will lead to a better understanding of philosophy, or doing philosophy, is less clear. Having a general understanding of these philosophical traditions will, however, provide further insight into the philosophical writings of particular philosophers who work within these traditions. Finally, a mapping out of the branches and fields of philosophy might add to a picture of what philosophy is. The branches of philosophy include: ontology what we say there is, and what the world consists of, in the most general sense. This includes questions about physical reality (is there a real world); metaphysical qualities (are their minds, gods, souls, time) as well as numbers, and whatever else we posit exists.
epistemology our theories of the world. This includes questions about the nature and possibility of knowledge of the world, the truth value of what we say, and how we might acquire and justify knowledge as well as our beliefs. ethics - what is good, right or proper, what we ought or ought not to do, and why. This includes questions about the basis of ethical judgements and actions and pursuit of the good life. logic the analysis of arguments, to establish the validity of the premises and the entailment of the conclusion. The chain of reasoning from a set of premises to a conclusion can be analysed by propositional logic (sentences) or symbolic logic (algebraic formulations). Fields of philosophy are probably as broad as the nature of enquiry itself, but for simplicity the following are a good representation: o Philosophy of science o Philosophy of social science o Philosophy of mind o Feminist philosophy o Political philosophy o Social philosophy o Aesthetics, and, of course, o Philosophy of education.
And if you think this pretty well exhausts the list of possibilities you are very much mistaken, as the following Wiley-Blackwell Philosophy For Everyone book titles indicate: Beer: The Unexamined Beer Isnt Worth Drinking Cannabis: What Were We Just Thinking About? Coffee: Grounds for Debate Food: Eat, Think and be Merry Dating: Flirting With Big Ideas Gardening: Cultivating Wisdom Porn: How to Think With Kink Whiskey: A Small Batch of Spirited Ideas Yoga: Bending Mind and Body
Chapter Two
A Short History of Philosophy Quite when philosophy started is lost in the mists of time. However, a good starting point is the ancient Greeks whose thinking has had such a profound influence on subsequent philosophical thought, right up to the present day. What follows is no more than a very brief outline of the philosophical ideas of a selection of the most influential western philosophers. They have been chosen to highlight some of the major philosophical achievements in order to locate contemporary philosophy of education within a long and rich tradition of philosophy. Thales of Miletus (620-540B): One of the earliest philosophers, he rejected the authority of Homerian gods, relying instead on observation. It was this sort of approach which later set science on its way. Ontologically, Thales held that the fundamental nature of the world is water upon which the earth, as a disk, floats. Pythagoras (570-500BC): Best known for his mathematical discoveries and the theorem which bears his name, Pythagoras held that the universe could be explained in mathematical terms. 10 is the perfect number. He is also credited with discovering that the morning star and the evening star are the same thing (Venus), a much used example in philosophical discussion of meaning and reference (the terms morning star and evening star have different meanings even though they refer to the same thing). Heraclitus (535-480BC): The world is in a constant state of flux, or becoming. Fire is the primary element which controls earth and water. With humans, those who are weak possess watery elements such as stupidity and vice, while virtuous people survive their physical body and become fire. Parmenides (510-440BC): Explored a number of ideas which still puzzle philosophers today. He drew a distinction between the world as it is and the world as we perceive it. The world as it is, is unchanging (contrary to Heraclitus); it is our ideas about the world which change. Sense experience is misleading, so reason alone can lead us to the truth. Zeno (490-425BC): A student of Parmenides, Zeno is best known for his paradoxes designed to deny the ideas of the plurality of things and of motion. His most famous paradoxes include: the arrow when flying through the air, at any one moment is it moving or at rest? It cannot move at an instant so must be at rest.
the heap one grain of sand does not make a heap. Adding a grain does not make a heap. Adding another and another ad infinitum does not make a heap, so it is impossible to make a heap by adding a grain.
Socrates (470-399BC): Perhaps the first of the great philosophers, Socrates gave his name to his method. As captured in Platos dialogues, Socrates asked questions and subjected the views of others to rigorous criticism. He would ask others to define a word and then through reasoned argument show that the definition led to a paradox or absurdity. He was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens; his speeches at his trial and death are contained in Platos Apology, Crito and Phaedo. His maxim, the unexamined life is not worth living, has guided philosophy ever since. Plato (428-348BC): A student of Socrates, who founded the Academy, a fore-runner of the later university. Plato presented his ideas as dialogues, with Socrates as the central character. We can only have knowledge of eternal and unchanging things; of everyday things which change we can only have true belief. To understand our sensory experience of the world we must have some knowledge of the eternal forms which provide the perfect and unchanging ideas of things of which the things in the world are imperfect parallels. The Forms can be experienced only through reason. Best known for The Republic, with its focus on justice where in a utopian society philosopher-kings (gold) rule, soldiers (silver) guard and common folk or artisans (bronze) produce. The good of the whole over-rides individual freedom and rights. Aristotle (384-322BC): A student of Platos, Aristotle founded the Lyceum. He wrote on a wide range of subjects biology, psychology, ethics, physics, politics, and metaphysics and in them sought as much precision as each subject would allow. Unlike Plato, he placed great weight on observation rather than relying on reason alone. Aristotle identified four types of cause: of a statue, what is it made of (marble material cause), what sort of thing is it (a statue formal cause), who made it what it is (sculptor efficient cause), and what is it for (decoration final cause). In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle emphasised the excellence of human virtues and the choosing of the mean between two extremes (foolhardy rashness and cowardice). The good life requires friendship, fellowship with equals, and sometimes self-sacrifice. He was one of the first to formalise the rules of logic, especially deduction, or what it is for a conclusion to follow from the premises, this giving rise to the syllogism: for example, all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, and therefore Socrates is mortal. (And so we leave the ancient Greeks, arriving in the medieval era, where religion and theology were to impact greatly on philosophical thought).
St. Anselm (1033-1109): Born in Italian Piedmont, Anselm was a monk in France who eventually became Archbishop of Canterbury. Influenced by the rediscovery of the writings of Plato and Aristotle, Anselm set out to justify the existence of God based on rational argument rather than by appealing to scripture or doctrine. The ontological argument for the existence of God attempted to show that the existence of God follows logically from the concept of God - that is, it is a contradiction to deny the existence of God, for once we understand the concept of God then to deny Gods existence is to commit a logical fallacy. Anselms argument is clever in its simplicity, but critics find it problematic. The ontological argument is still used to justify Gods existence. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Aquinas set out to reconcile philosophy and religion. Persuaded by the correctness of Aristotelian philosophy he tended to locate disagreement in misinterpretation of biblical text. Embraced by the Catholic Church, Aquinas produced five proofs for Gods existence. First, things change but do not change by themselves but rely on something else to cause the change, ad infinitum. There must be something which is the cause of change but itself does not change God. Second, causes operate in series but there must be a first cause God. Third, all things come and go, in which case there would have been a time when nothing existed. If this is the case nothing could come into existence. Therefore something has always existed God. Fourth, there must be some good thing which brings about other good things God. Fifth, all things are directed at some ultimate end but this implies some entity directing that purpose God. William of Occam (c1285-1349): Against Aquinas, Occam argued in favour of the separation of church and state. However, he is best known for his support of nominalism, or the denial of universals. Concepts such as redness are inventions of human understanding all we have are red things. Occam applied his logic to metaphysical concepts like time and soul. Occams razor is a methodological principle: entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. If we can explain human behaviour by brain states why posit mental states? (Medieval philosophy came to an end with the Renaissance and the rise of science. This marked the beginning of what is now called modern philosophy). Francis Bacon (1561-1626): Bacon was critical of traditional metaphysicians who held that knowledge could be gained by examining the meaning of words and of empiricists who thought that if they collected enough data they could generate empirical hypotheses. Recognising that induction is no guarantee of predicting future events, Bacon settled on the search for negative examples rather than confirming ones. He identified false idols which obstruct science. The idols of the tribe we see the world through our own eyes (theories) and so can be wrong. The idols of the cave we make
errors based on our biases, preferences and misconceptions. The idols of the marketplace language can deceive us, for while we have words for things this is no guarantee such things exist. Finally, the idols of the theatre previous philosophical systems are no better than theatrical performances as guides to truth. Science was on its way. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): Influenced by the idea that the natural sciences might be underpinned by laws of nature, Hobbes sought to apply this to the realm of human affairs, particularly politics. The natural state of humans is one of conflict our lives would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short! Accordingly we require a social covenant with order imposed by an absolute power. In Leviathan, Hobbes explores three laws of human nature: we desire peace rather than living in a state of nature, to achieve peace we must give up a share of our freedom for equal freedom for all, and we must keep to our social contract, with the absolute power of the monarch ensuing this. Ruling monarchs have gone but social contracts remain. Descartes (1596-1650): In physics, Descartes discovered the law of refraction in optics; in mathematics, he introduced many conventions still in use, such as indices to indicate powers 23; but it is his philosophical work which brought philosophy into the modern era and broke with the past. Descartes adopted a sceptical approach to knowledge. He sought the same degree of certainty as mathematics provides, but instead of accepting beliefs he employed the method of doubt. He rejected any belief open to doubt, looking for one belief which is beyond doubt. Our senses can be deceptive. One might be dreaming. A malicious demon might be confusing us. One belief remains, summed up in his famous expression cogito ergo sum I think, therefore I am. On the basis of this does Descartes rebuild a series of true beliefs? From this emerges Cartesian dualism the mind and the body are distinct things, for the mind thinks and the body occupies space. How the two interact is never made clear, and remains a deeply troubling philosophical problem, as does the problem of scepticism. John Locke (1632-1704): Deeply influenced by the scientific work of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton, Locke rejected the rationalism of Descartes and others, and instead of relying on reason argued that ideas are not innate but acquired through experience. We are born with a blank mind (tabula rasa) and experience alone is the source of our ideas, although reflection on these may produce new ideas. There are simple ideas singular impressions and complex ideas comprised of simple ideas, (horse + cone = unicorn). Locke also distinguished between the primary and secondary properties of things. Primary properties are inherent in all subjects solidity, shape, motion or at rest, etc. Secondary properties are those produced in our minds taste, smell and colour. This empiricist approach was to have far-reaching consequences for philosophy.
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George Berkeley (1685-1783): Berkeley rejected Lockes empiricism and proposed an alternative - idealism. The seeing of something is a construct or an idea inside ones head. It follows that what we actually see is not the cause of the idea some object but only the idea itself. Accordingly, we cannot be sure that the object resembles our idea; indeed, we cannot be sure that there are any objects in the external world at all. Everything is mind-dependent, so if something fails to be an idea in someones mind, it fails to exist. Berkeley expressed it thus: to be is to be perceived. Now we are left with the problem of do things continue to exist when not perceived or do they exist if never perceived. Berkeley invoked God who perceives everything at all times to explain this difficulty. Thus was the empiricist rationalist debate started. David Hume (1711-1776): Hume sided with Locke in defence of empiricism, and he advanced a number of important points. He distinguished between relations of ideas and matters of fact. Ideas are built on thought alone, such as mathematical propositions and logical rules. Facts require experience to determine their truth. Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames. In short, mathematics and science are in; ethics, metaphysics and religion are out! The causes of things puzzled Hume, for we rely on induction and constant conjunction but can never locate the cause itself. But the accumulation of many cases does not allow us to predict the next case with certainty (the sun may not rise tomorrow) and that one thing invariably follows another does not reveal the causal mechanism. In ethics, Humes distinction between the is and the ought, such that values cannot be derived from facts, continues to have a significant impact on moral philosophy. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): Like Hobbes, Rousseau was interested in the natural state of humans and a social contract, but he offered a very different account. He began with the idea of the noble savage who knows neither good nor evil. Vices emerge when humans begin to live in social groups, with private property lying at the heart of inequality. Hence his claim man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. In a society, the ruler is the agent of the people, not the master. While democracy is important, citizens have a duty to abide by the greater good of the state. Individual rights are over-ridden by the general will. The corruption of innocent youth by the evils of society is well captured in Emile, his treatise on education. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Somewhat in reaction to Hume, Kant wrote three important works: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason , and Critique of Judgement, covering metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. Kant argued that, unlike Lockes blank state, the mind is active in shaping experience. The mind categorises experience within such categories as time and space, cause and substance. Since objects
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must conform to our conceptual categories, our knowledge of objects is the knowledge of appearances. Hence Kant distinguished between the noumenal (things-inthemselves) and the phenomenal (things as they appear to us). We cannot know thingsin-themselves, but only by their appearances. In ethics, for Kant, doing the right thing is a matter of doing ones duty according to the moral law which must be categorical do this or dont do that. Hence his categorical imperative: Act only on that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Keep promises, for if everyone gave false promises promising would not be possible. George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831): Hegel responded to Kants transcendental idealism which left the gap between appearance and reality wide open; a situation he found untenable. He proposed a notion of absolute truth uncovered through the evolution of ideas. His method embodies the dialectic. A thesis, taken to be true, produces a contrary view, the antithesis. Their incompatibility leads to a new position, the synthesis, which in turn becomes a new thesis and so the dialectic continues. Hegels account of truth is not concerned with a match between words and things (correspondence) but with the completeness of ideas (coherence). John Stuart Mill (1806-1873): Although he wrote important books on logic and scientific method, Mill is perhaps best known for his defence of utilitarianism and liberty. In ethics, the Greatest Happiness Principle applies; actions are right if they tend to promote happiness and wrong if they tend to produce unhappiness and pain. On some occasions an act may produce considerable pleasure and at other times little; some pleasures are of greater value than others: it is better to be a human being dissatisfied then a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. His essay On Liberty champions individual freedom over the power of the state in thought, word and deed: the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. Gottlob Frege (1848-1925): Best known for his work in logic and philosophy of mathematics, Frege replaced Aristotelian logic based on syllogisms with the quantification of language. Using the model of mathematical equations, parts of sentences are reduced to functions and expressed in symbolic form. He drew an important distinction between the reference and the meaning of an expression; the author of On Liberty and the son of James Mill refer to the same person but e xpress different ideas or have different meanings. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): Influenced by Frege, Russell set out to show how mathematics is grounded in logic. He was particularly concerned with semantic problems of meaning and reference whether to call a sentence true or false when it
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does not refer. For example, The present king of France is bald. There is no present king of France so is the sentence true, false or meaningless. Russells solution was to say such a claim is a conjunction of three separate claims: there is some person who is the king of France, there is only one such person, and that person is bald. The first claim is false; since a conjunction of claims is false if one of the claims is false then the whole conjunction is false. Thus we can speak meaningfully of non-existent things. This set the foundation for the logical analysis of language and its relation to the world. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951): Influenced by Russell and Frege, Wittgensteins Tractatus sets out a picture theory of meaning. The world is made up of atomic facts and propositions are logical pictures of these facts. The underlying logical structure of sentences mirrors the structure of the world. Later, in Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein offered a very different account of language, thought and reality. Language has many functions to state, promise, question, etc. We employ words, like tools, for many different purposes. We engage in different language games linked to different activities or forms of life. The meanings of words are given in the context of their use rather than in isolation. Both books were to have a major impact on philosophy. Moritz Schlick (1882-1936): Although not a major philosopher, Schlick was the founder of the Vienna Circle and with Rudolph Carnap and others established an influential line of philosophy logical positivism. Adopting Humes distinction between analytic truths (true by definition mathematics) and synthetic truths (true by experience - science), then in science sentences are true only if there is some method of verifying them, hence the verification principle. Meaningless statements can never be confirmed (ethics, metaphysics, religion), giving rise to the emotive theory of ethics and aesthetics (I like...). One problem is that the verification principle itself is neither analytic nor synthetic, and so must be meaningless. Further, Quines attack on the divide between the analytic and synthetic there isnt one, - reduced logical positivisms philosophical life, with Popper claiming to have put logical positivism to its death! Karl Popper (1902-1994): The clash between Popper and Wittgenstein was not just about the waving of a poker but was a fundamental difference over the nature of philosophy. For Wittgenstein, philosophical puzzles rooted in language were of central concern; for Popper, philosophical work lay in real philosophical problems such as induction. In The Open Society and its Enemies, Popper defended freedom and the open society against authoritarian rule (Plato, Marx), but he is best known for his philosophy of science. With Hume, he argued that induction can never provide enough empirical evidence to confirm a theory, but one counter example can falsify a theory. Hence he advocated bold conjectures which are subject to falsification.
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W. V. Quine (1908-2000): Committed to science as the arbiter of truth about the world, Quines empiricism did not extend to the Kantian/ positivist analytic/synthetic distinction, nor to the primacy of sensory experience. Using the metaphor of a web, Quine advocated holism to deny that analytic and synthetic sentences can be neatly separated. While, with Popper, he held to falsification he also noted that it is a conjunction of sentences which imply an observation sentence and so it is open to judgement as to which statement to reject. Consistent with his empiricism he sought to naturalize epistemology by reducing it to a normative psychology. Michel Foucault (1926-1984): The founder of postmodernism, Foucault set out to show how power and knowledge interact to bring about the knowing subject or the self. He demonstrated how the categorization of people with particular selves or identities lead to different institutional practices (mental insanity, criminals), and how power is used to coerce and produce knowing subjects, which he called bio-power. Use is made of Wittgensteins language games (e.g. by Lyotard) and this has led to criticism over the relativism of postmodernism (all views are equally valid or true since there are no criteria for judging their truth or falsity). And all the others: There are many other philosophers, ancient and modern, eastern and western and all points between, who could be included but were not. To name but a few: Spinoza, Leibniz, Bentham, Kierkegaard, Marx, Peirce, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Rawls, Kuhn and..... For a good lay-persons introduction to the history of philosophy and its great thinkers, the following books (with photos and text) are worth perusing: King, P. (2004) One Hundred Philosophers. Hove, UK: Apple Press. Stokes, P. (2004) Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers. London: Arcturus Publishing Ltd. Strongroom, J. & Garvey, J. (2005) The Great Philosophers. London: Arcturus Publishing Ltd. And if you really must, there is a cartoon book: Osborne, R. (1992) Philosophy for Beginners. Publishing Inc. New York: Writers and Readers
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Chapter Three
Philosophy of Education: Past, Present, Future. Quite when philosophy of education began is not all that clear, but Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were certainly among the earliest thinkers, in three important ways. First, Socrates gave his name to a pedagogical method which is still used today, or at least is still referred to. The asking of a series of questions based on a students responses is found in Platos dialogues, especially Meno where a young boy is questioned by the master. Second, Plato was a student of Socrates and founded the Academy which taught a wide range of subjects. Aristotle entered Platos Academy and later found the Lyceum. (Both Dewey and Russell founded schools while at one point in their lives both Popper and Wittgenstein were school teachers). Third, all three of them had important things to say about society, young people and their learning. For example, Platos Republic explores the role of philosopher-kings, guardians and the artisans who produce, along with the training required for each position. John Locke had a significant impact on educational thinking. He argued that we are not born with innate ideas, but rather that each one of us is born with a blank slate (what he called tabula rasa) upon which experience is written. In other words, while we possess the innate ability to reason, the source of our knowledge is what we observe through our senses; however, we can use our reason to go beyond our sensory experience (from our experience of horses and cones we can have the concept of a unicorn). Lockes empiricism generated a particular set of educational insights, such as exposing children to sensory experience, and a wide range of it, in order to develop and extend their knowledge. Certain pedagogical procedures were also implied if children had blank slates or were empty vessels then it is the job of the teacher to fill these up with instruction. This is a very teacher-centred or subject-centred approach to school now associated with a traditional model of teaching. David Hume, as a precursor to the logical positivism advocated by Schlick, Carnap, Ayer and others in the 1930s, had a marked impact on philosophy of education. The distinction between analytic (true by definition) and synthetic (true by observational evidence) statements not only shaped the character of educational research (only science counts) but was also introduced into philosophy of education by OConnor (1957). Another of Humes ideas to influence this field was his distinction between is and ought: one cannot derive a prescription from a description even though ought implies can. Rousseau, a contemporary of Hume, provided us with a rather different picture of educating the young. His novel, Emile, set out his educational theories which advocated a much more liberal, child-centred approach to schooling. Starting from the premise that children are born free but society places them in chains, Rousseau
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narrated Emiles education at the hands of a tutor in isolation from the corrupting influences of society. Rousseaus influence was particularly evident in the educational theories of Froebel and Pestalozzi, well captured in the kindergarten (childrens garden) where children are encouraged to grow at their own pace according to their particular needs and interests. A philosopher of education who, in recent times, advanced a vision of child-centred education is P. S. Wilson. But it was John Dewey who did so much to set philosophy of education on its twentieth century path. Influenced by pragmatism (loosely, something is true if it works); Dewey linked education to science in a particular way. Education is about growth, but not just any old growth. Our experience is to be guided by thinking directed at the canons of scientific method to solve problems we need to clearly formulate the question and be able to generate solutions which will work. This can only occur within a democratic school and society which permit debate over ideas and possibilities. Dewey put his views into practice, starting up an experimental school in Chicago with a curriculum built around children experiencing the world in a spirit of inquiry and democratic participation. However, post-World War Two witnessed a surge of academic interest in philosophy of education, the development of which somewhat resembles an hour glass of pluralism, monism, pluralism. Isms In the 1950s and early 1960s, philosophy of education was characterised by pluralism on two fronts. One approach was that of isms which were explored for their implication for education. So books were written and courses taught where the key ideas of, for example, realism, idealism, rationalism, Marxism, pragmatism and the like were mined for insights which could provide teachers with guidance for their classroom practice. How they were to select from the competing isms was never made clear. The philosophical ideas were usually taken for granted and guides for practice squeezed from them. While the reader was certainly introduced to a wide range of philosophical traditions, there was very little doing philosophy. A second approach was to introduce the reader to a variety of great thinkers on education who were also widely respected for their philosophical scholarship. These included Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke, Rousseau and Dewey amongst many others. More often than not their ideas were laid out in systematic ways to indicate the implications for educational practice. There is still much to learn from studying the works of the great thinkers on education but the history of educational ideas once more falls short of doing philosophy.
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Ordinary Language The early 1960s marked a change of direction in philosophy of education. Influenced by the likes of Harry Broudy (University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), Richard Peters (University of London Institute of Education) and Israel Scheffler (Harvard University), philosophy of education took a linguistic turn. Developments in philosophy were adopted by philosophers of education: the work of Wittgenstein (University of Cambridge) and Austin and Ryle (University of Oxford) promoted ordinary language analysis to examine the concepts captured by the words of everyday talk. So, when we use such words as education or teaching we need to get clearer about their meaning by clarifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for their use. Consider a simple example, the mathematical word square. A mathematical shape is a square if it possesses all of the following characteristics - four straight lines of equal length which are closed with four internal right angles. Similarly, for something to count as education, what must it possess? Now, with education it is not quite so clear-cut since people are inclined to disagree over what is required for something to be educational. On this account of philosophy, philosophy is a second-order activity. Things such as science, politics, art, education and the like are first-order activities that people engage in. So, a teacher might be teaching children about a poem. The philosopher asks, What is teaching? in order to clarify the concept of teaching and may want to distinguish teaching from other related concepts such as conditioning, indoctrination, instruction and the like. This way of doing philosophy is very much characterised by the expression talk about talk and while there is value in gaining conceptual clarity there is more to philosophy than conceptual clarification alone. By simply analysing language and the meanings of words, philosophy leaves everything as it is (Wittgenstein). But then philosophers can say very little about practice. A useful parallel can be found in ethics. Meta-ethics examines the meanings of ethical words such as good and ought. However, people seek guidance on what things are good and make judgements about what they ought to do, and here normative ethics comes to the fore. Similarly, talk about the meanings of words such as education and teaching, interesting as it may be, has little practical use unless it is employed in the context of improving policy and practice. This was also a time of great enthusiasm in philosophy of education. Philosophers of education were appointed to university positions, increasing numbers of students took courses in the subject, learned societies were formed (Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia), new journals were established (Educational Philosophy and Theory) and a raft of books were published. In a very real sense, the social and institutional base of philosophy of education was firmly established as a global enterprise.
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Reaction By 1970 reaction to conceptual analysis, particularly the work of Hirst and Peters and their colleagues at the London Institute of Education, had well and truly set in. Critical literature began to appear in journals and books and at conferences. In the United Kingdom, Robin Barrow grounded his work in utilitarianism; in Australia, Kevin Harris and Michael Matthews adopted a strong Marxist line while Colin Evers and Jim Walker were influenced by Quine. Later, other positions emerged, notably postmodernism and feminism. The growth of philosophical pluralism has had two important consequences, one good and the other perhaps less so. On the positive side, philosophy of education has certainly benefited from the rich insights on offer from within the various philosophical traditions. Different ways of seeing things can help us to conceptualise educational policies and practices in novel directions. Marxist critiques drew attention to the need to locate philosophical discussion in the concrete social conditions of schooling; the postmodern challenge alerted us to the social context of the knowing self. The downside of all of this is the fracturing of the field into competing camps with a measure of incommensurability. Conceptual analysts, Marxists, postmodernists, neurophilosophers and so on often fail to understand what their colleagues in other traditions are doing and why. The splits are often most evident at conferences where those attending tend to go to papers which best match their own perspectives. The increasingly diverse range of topics written about, while welcome as a broadening of the field, should also alert us to a slightly troubling point. Who do philosophers of education write for, or, who is their audience? To be sure, sometimes it is directed at practitioners and policy-makers in an effort to confront them with challenges to policies and practices. However, often it is directed towards fellow philosophers, and sometimes in a style that is difficult for others to understand. Some topics are clearly enough central to education but some are at the very edge of educational relevance and interest. The Future? The social location of philosophy of education has waxed and waned in different ways. Philosophy of education societies continue to flourish the Philosophy of Education Society in the US, the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia and the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain all hold annual conferences and publish reputable journals, respectively Educational Theory, Educational Philosophy and Theory and the Journal of Philosophy of Education. Other societies and journals also exist. The Canadian Philosophy of Education Society meets regularly and publishes Paideusis while the International Network of Philosophers of Education holds conferences around the world every two years and supports Ethics and Education. Then there are the
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philosophy of education streams at the annual conferences of the American Educational Research Association, British Educational Research Association and the European Educational Research Association. So, there is plenty going on for those interested in philosophy of education. Institutionally, the future of philosophy of education may be less secure. There have been times when some universities had a host of philosophers of education. Now, some have a few (University of London Institute of Education and University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign), more have perhaps one, or two if they are lucky, and many more have none at all. As philosophers of education depart through retirement or promotion their positions are either not replaced or if they are then they are occupied by nonphilosophers. The declining numbers herald a slow death of the academic community of philosophers of education in the universities. But there is also some good news. Over the years, philosophers of education have occupied senior academic positions where they have exercised leadership and influenced decision-making. What the future holds for philosophy of education remains to be seen. Hopefully it will survive as an academic discipline in the universities and as a learned activity for a long time to come. It deserves to. Literature There are a number of reviews of philosophy of education, now largely out-of-date but of considerable historical interest, which are worth reading for a deeper understanding of the growth and development of the discipline around the world. Aspin, D. (1982) Philosophy of education. In Cohen, L., Thomas, J. & Manion, L. (eds) Educational Research and Development in Britain 1970-1980. Windsor: NFER. 118. Crittenden, B. (1987) Philosophy of education in Australia. In Keeves, J. (ed) Australian Education: Review of Recent Research. Sydney: Allen &Unwin. 3-28. Dearden, R. (1984) Philosophy of education 1952-1982. In Dearden, R. Teaching and Practice in Education. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 22-36. Ericson, D. (1992) Philosophical issues in education. Encyclopaedia of Educational Research. (6 ed). New York: Macmillan. 1002-1007. Harris, K. (1988) Dismantling a deconstructivist history of philosophy of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 20(1), 50-58.
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Hayden, G. (1998) 50 Years of Philosophy of Education: Progress and Prospects . London: University of London Institute of Education. Hirst, P. (1982) Philosophy of education: the significance of the sixties. Educational Analysis. 4(1), 5-10. Kaminsky, J. (1986) The first 600 months of philosophy of education 1935-1985: a deconstructivist history. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 18(2), 42-48. Kaminsky, J. (1988) Philosophy of education in Australasia: a definition and a history. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 20(1), 12-26. Kamisky, J (1993) A New History of Educational Philosophy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Peters, R. (1983) Philosophy of education. In Hirst, P. (ed) Educational Theory and Its Foundation Disciplines. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 30-61. Phillips. D. (1985) Philosophy of education. In Husen, T. & Postlewaite, N. (eds) International Encyclopaedia of Education. (vol 7) Oxford: Pergamon Press. 38593877. For more recent reviews: Noddings, N. (2009) Philosophy of education. Encyclopaedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education. New York: Sage. Phillips, D. (2008) Philosophy of education. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
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Chapter Four
Philosophy of Education in New Zealand Although a small player on the larger international scene of philosophy of education, New Zealand nonetheless has a good record of contributing to the field. Some earlier accounts of the development of philosophy of education in New Zealand include: Clark, J.A. (1980) Philosophy of education in New Zealand; retrospect and prospect. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 17(2), 103-118. Marshall, J. (1982) Philosophy of education in New Zealand. Educational Analysis. 4(1), 19-24 Marshall, J, (1987) Positivism or Pragmatism: Philosophy of Education in New Zealand. Palmerston North: New Zealand Association for Research in Education More recent discussions of philosophy of education in New Zealand, to celebrate 40 years of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia, are to be found in: Clark, J. (2009) The leaning tower of PESA. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 47(7), 808-810. Marshall, J. (2009) An educational journey. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 47(7), 774-776. Roberts, P. (2009) Hope in troubled times? PESA and the future of philosophy of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 47(7), 811-813. Snook, I. (2009) Reflections on PESA 1969-2009. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 47(7), 757-760. See also: Clark, J.A. (2010) Philosophy of education in New Zealand. In Oppy, G. (ed) Companion of Philosophy in Australasia. Melbourne: Monash University Press. What follows is a condensed history which draws from these and other sources to give some account of the who, the what, the how and the why of philosophy of education in New Zealand in the past, present and future.
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Philosophical Traditions What is evident from the literature is the wide range of philosophical traditions which have shaped philosophy of education in New Zealand. Some of these are broad movements (eg analytic, postmodernism) while others are more closely aligned to particular philosophers such as Freire, Quine and Wittgenstein. These various strands all contribute to the rich tapestry of philosophical thought about education in New Zealand which in many ways is a microcosm of the wider international philosophical landscape. Analytic Philosophy If we take as our starting point the appointments of Stuart Ainsworth, Jim Marshall and Ivan Snook to lectureships in Education at the Universities of Waikato, Auckland and Canterbury respectively in the late 1960s, then the first tradition to make its mark in New Zealand was analytic philosophy of education. Early on, they analysed a variety of concepts such as needs, education and indoctrination. Later, they broadened the philosophical scope of their work. While the narrow approach of conceptual analysis has long been left behind, there remains a place for sound analytic work in philosophy. Scientific Philosophy One form of analytic philosophy, broadly conceived, which continues to have an influence is scientific philosophy (for want of a better name). The early work of Brian Haig at Canterbury and Michael Matthews at Auckland has been continued by John Clark at Massey. The general thrust of this philosophical tradition is rooted in realist philosophy of science, particularly the work of Popper and Quine. Rejected is constructivism (we construct reality so that what exists is what we say exists) and relativism (since there can be no independent and objective access to reality against which to assess the truth or falsity of rival theories then all theories are equally true or valid). The idea that science is a first-order activity while philosophy is a second-order activity which takes a conceptual scalpel to scientific concepts is also rejected. They are held to be continuous science is subject to philosophical scrutiny, and rightly so: philosophy is limited by the constraints of empirical reality. Philosophical talk of education cannot ignore the empirical side of schooling including internal processes and external forces.
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Marxism/Critical Theory Marxist philosophy of education never gained a foot-hold in New Zealand as it did in Australia. But a neo-Marxist form did, at least for a while, when John Codd (Massey) adopted Jurgen Habermass critical theory to develop his critique of assessment and administration/leadership by building on Habermass account of the three human interests which give rise to three forms of knowledge. There is the human interest to control our environment which gives rise to empirical science, there is a normative human interest which gives rise to interpretation and there is an emancipatory human interest leading to enlightenment and the use of power to secure freedom. Although Habermasian critical theory has waned, at least in philosophy of education in New Zealand, a residual effect remains. There is a general acceptance that education ought to be geared to social justice and human betterment. Peter Roberts (Canterbury) has a particular interest in the work of Paulo Freire while Deb Hill (Canterbury) has been very much influenced by the thinking of Antonio Gramsci. Postmodernism Like other philosophical traditions, postmodernism is not all that easy to define. The term is used here to capture a broad canvas of philosophical thought with its origins in European intellectual engagement. Although postmodernism is sometimes linked to Lyotards analysis of knowledge and the postmodern condition, it is far wider in scope than this. Three philosophers of education, all associated with the University of Auckland, have made and continue to make major contributions to postmodern philosophy of education in New Zealand. The collaborative work of Jim Marshall and Michael Peters has influenced the work of Peter Fitzsimmons, amongst others. Other Influences A number of other philosophers have influenced the thinking of various New Zealand philosophers of education. John Rawlss Theory of Justice was important to the work of Graham Oliver (Waikato) while Popper shaped the writing of David Corson (Massey). Wittgenstein played a central role in the work of Jim Marshall and Michael Peters while Nietzsche, Heidigger and Focault loom large in the thinking of Robin Small (Auckland) and Robert Shaw (Open Polytec).
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Where to Next? Philosophical traditions come and go as do the philosophers who create and maintain them. Logical positivism has faded away, the philosophy of science was at its height with Popper and Kuhn but has since dimmed a little, Wittgenstein and Rawls are no longer quite so fashionable. Yet, the influence of philosophies and philosophers of the past have left their mark on the philosophical landscape and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. Who, a hundred years ago, could have predicted the course of twentieth century philosophy and philosophy of education? Who, now, could possibly predict what will happen over the rest of this century. New branches are beginning to grow on the philosophy tree. Some will bear fruit; others will turn out to be far less fruitful.
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Chapter Five
One Philosophers Views on Education What philosophers have to say about education, and how they say it, will depend very much on which aspects of education interest them the most and the philosophical approach they take towards things educational. There are so many aspects of education of interest to philosophers, too many for any one philosopher to work on them all. Hence, like all other academics, philosophers of education make choices about what they will invest their research time and effort in, and upon this they proceed to build a research career. Many academics, especially those who undertake empirical research, tend to concentrate on a particular topic and study it in considerable depth. So, for example, an education researcher may have an interest in how children learn to read, why some children have great difficulty learning to read, and what can be done to help them learn to read. With this focus, publications largely consist of detailed studies into these related aspects of the problem. Philosophers tend to have a rather wider focus, drawing off their intellectual skills to address a range of questions, problems and issues. Sometimes these are tackled in a very systematic way so that the publications all contribute to the development of a distinct philosophical system, as is the case with Quine. Others, with a less systematic outlook, may use their philosophical skills to explore things that interest them at the time with no thought being given to their being part of a larger system of thought. My own philosophical work is a bit of both. My primary philosophical interest, ever since my postgraduate days, has been and remains epistemology or the theory of knowledge. Secondary interests include ethics and social philosophy. They have been put to work on a wide range of educational concerns including administration, curriculum, policy and research. Below is a reasonably complete list of my publications for the reader interested in finding out a little bit more about what I think on a number of educational concerns. What I think My thoughts on education can be gleaned from reading my publications listed below. What I think on the various issues will become clear enough. What is less evident is my underlying philosophical position. It can be captured by the expression holistic eliminative materialism. Holism: following Quine, from our sensory experience we posit things external to our bodily sensations to account for them. What caused my retina to react and my ear
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membrane to vibrate? Close to home, we posit light rays and sound waves while further out we posit objects deemed to exist as causes of our sensations. So our ontology takes shape as we acquire concepts of, for example, tables and chairs, cats and dogs and then more complex things like gravity and magnetism, black holes and molecules, and so on. We make ontological claims about the world as to what exists and what does not. And so we construct our sprawling and evolving theory of the world made up of our statements about what is real; it is more like a spiders web or a fishermans net, hence holistic, than like the pillars of an ancient temple of distinct types of theory. We put bits of our theory to the test, seeking out empirical evidence relevant to our claims. Sometimes the evidence we gather supports our theories, other times it does not. When it does not, we can do one of two things. Retain the theory and reject the evidence or accept the evidence and reject some part of our theory. Normally, we would need very good reasons to follow the first path. We can be mistaken in our simple observations (influence of drugs, misperception) and in more complex empirical data gathering using instruments (telescope, MRI scan) but more often than not our everyday observations are pretty reliable (it is raining or not raining). If we accept the evidence then we need to adjust our theoretical account in some way to accommodate the recalcitrant evidence by either revising or rejecting the particular theory being tested or some part of the supporting theory and replacing it with a theory which allows us to explain the anomaly. A simple enough example will illustrate the point. A young child learns that fish live in the sea a shark is a fish, so too is a flounder. Then the child says a whale is a fish and is surprised when told it is not. Like the shark the whale swims in the sea, has a fish shape and is to all appearances a fish. The anomaly needs to be resolved and if a whale is not a fish then what is it? Now the child learns some new concepts to add to her conceptual framework such as some creatures, being warm-blooded, are mammals and that the child herself is also a mammal and so, despite a physical fish-like appearance whales are biologically closer to humans than fish. There is more. All we have are our theories; those we take to be true, those we take to be false, and those yet to be determined. What makes a claim or a sentence or a statement true is a matter of ontology. A claim, sentence or statement is true if the world is as the sentence says it is and false if the world is other than what we say it is. Truth, then, is a property of sentences. To use Tarskis (1983) example: Snow is white is true if and only if snow is white. To find out whether the sentence snow is white is true or not we need to undertake empirical observations of snow and if our observations of snow are such that it is white then we take our claim to be true.
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Eliminative Materialism: this is a more controversial philosophical view. Some people prefer an ontology akin desert landscapes; the fewer things the better to account for our experience. Others prefer an ontology akin luxuriant jungle; more is better. The former may limit their ontology to physical things while the latter feel much more at home with additional metaphysical things. The physicalist, for example, claims that the only things in the world are physical or material things (although numbers do present a bit of a problem but can be dealt with as abstract entities). So, speaking of ourselves, all we consist of are bodies with brains and nothing else. Explanations of what we are, what we do and why we do things must be couched in terms of physical theories about brains and brain states, and nothing more. Others accept that we have bodies and brains but also posit metaphysical entities such as minds and mental states (and some add souls and spirits) to account for who we are, what we do and why. Hence the language of folk psychology, where people adopt attitudes to the propositions they hold; so we have, for example, I believe that it will rain or I hope that it will rain or I know that it will rain or I expect that it will rain, and so on. And there are many other similar terms such as I wish, want, desire and intend. In my view, these terms do no useful explanatory work since they are like the word unicorn they refer to nothing for, just as there are no unicorns in the world (apart from appearing in childrens story books) so too we do not possess minds and mental states so the words are fictions. If we really want to adequately explain ourselves then let the metaphysics go and keep to the physical. We have eliminated the concepts of folk physics, folk chemistry and folk biology in favour of scientific physics, chemistry and biology. Folk psychology will progressively be replaced by the theories of the neurosciences and we will one day come to talk about ourselves in very different ways and look upon our current folk psychology as quite odd. The more we learn about the brain the closer we will come to learning about ourselves. Such is the role of neurophilosophy where what we say philosophically about the world and especially ourselves, must be constrained by what the neurosciences tell us about ourselves. So, I dispense with terms such as knowledge and belief, knowing and believing; what is retained is our theories for which we seek evidence for their truth or falsity and this work is done by the brain.
Authored Books Adams, P., Clark, J.A., Codd, J., ONeill, A-M., Openshaw, R. & Waitere-Ang, H. (2000) Society and Education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press Clark, J.A. (1997) Educational Research: Philosophy, Politics, Ethics. Palmerston North: ERDC Press
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Codd, J., Brown, M., Clark, J.A., ONeill, H., ONeill, J., Waitere-Ang, H. & Zepke, N. (2002) Review of Future-focused Research on Teaching and Learning. Wellington: Ministry of Education Edited Books ONeill, A-M., Clark, J.A. & Openshaw, R. (eds) (2004) Reshaping Culture, Knowledge and Learning: Policy and Content in the New Zealand Curriculum Framework. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press Openshaw, R. & Clark, J.A. (eds) (2012) Critic and Conscience: Essays on Education in Memory of John Codd and Roy Nash. Wellington: NZCER Book Chapters Clark, J.A. & Jordan, B. (2005) The ethics of teachers relationships with parents and other professionals. In Adams, P., Scrivens, C & Vossler, C. (eds) Teachers Wor k in Aotearoa New Zealand. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 235-243 Clark, J.A. (1985) Competing claims, decision-making and administrative action. In L. Rattray-Wood (ed) Critical Practice in Educational Administration. Geelong, Australia: Deakin University Press. 18-32 Clark, J.A. (2001) Ethical issues in managing teacher performance. In J. West-Burnham, I. Bradbury & J. ONeill (eds) Performance Management in Schools. London: Pearson education. 64-81 Clark, J.A. (2004) Constructivism: an inadequate philosophy for the science curriculum. In ONeill, A-M., Clark, J.A. & Openshaw, R. (eds) (2004) Reshaping Culture, Knowledge and Learning: Policy and Content in the New Zealand Curriculum Framework. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. 161-175 Clark, J.A. (2004) Rigorous eclecticism: the Ministry of Educations bizarre philosophy of the curriculum. In ONeill, A-M., Clark, J.A. & Openshaw, R. (eds) (2004) Reshaping Culture, Knowledge and Learning: Policy and Content in the New Zealand Curriculum Framework. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. 127-139 Clark, J.A. (2005) Tensions in teacher-student relationships. In Adams, P., Scrivens, C & Vossler, C. (eds) Teachers Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 226-234
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Clark, J.A. (2005) The aims and functions of education in Aotearoa New Zealand. I Adams, P., Openshaw, R. & Hamer, J. (eds) Education and Society in Aotearoa New Zealand. (2 ed) Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 130-154 Clark, J.A. (2005) The ethics of teacher-student relationships. In Adams, P., Scrivens, C & Vossler, C. (eds) Teachers Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 217-225 Clark, J.A. (2005) The ethics of teaching. In Adams, P., Scrivens, C & Vossler, C. (eds) Teachers Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 60-70 Clark, J.A. (2006) Dogmas of ethnicity. In Rata, E. & Openshaw, R. (eds) Public Policy and Ethnicity: The Politics of Ethnic Boundary Making. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 170-184 Clark, J.A. (2006) The academic game. In Adams, P., Openshaw, R. & Trembath, V. (eds) Score More: Essential Academic Skills for Tertiary Education. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 91-93 Clark, J.A. (2007) The problem of truth in educational research: the case of the Rigoberta Menchu controversy. In Nozaki, Y. (ed) Comparative Minds, Critical Visions. (vol 2) Buffalo, NY: State University of New York at Buffalo. 6-11 Clark, J.A. (2010) Philosophy of education in New Zealand. In Oppy, G. (ed) A Companion to Philosophy in Australasia. Melbourne: Monash Press Clark, J.A. (2010) Privatisation. In Thrupp, M. & Irwin, R. (eds) Another Decade of New Zealand Education Policy: Where to Now? Hamilton: University of Waikato. 201214. Clark, J.A. (2012) Roy Nashs Structure-Disposition-Practice model to causally explain inequalities in school achievement: Adding a neourophilosophical theory of learning. In Openshaw, R. & Clark, J.A. (eds) Critic and Conscience: Essays on Education in Memory of John Codd and Roy Nash. Wellington: NZCER Jordan, B. & Clark, J.A. (2005) Ethics and issues of pedagogy. In Adams, P., Scrivens, C & Vossler, C. (eds) Teachers Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 244-251
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ONeill, A-M., Clark, J.A. & Openshaw, R. (2004) Mapping the field; an introduction to curriculum politics. In ONeill, A-M., Clark, J.A. & Openshaw, R. (eds) (2004) Reshaping Culture, Knowledge and Learning: Policy and Content in the New Zealand Curriculum Framework. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press. 25-46 Openshaw, R., Clark, J.A., Hamer, J. &Waitere-Ang, H. (2005) Contesting the curriculum in Aotearoa New Zealand. In Adams, P., Scrivens, C & Vossler, C. (eds) Teachers Work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Southbank, Vic., Australia: Thompson Press. 187-224 Refereed Journal Articles Clark, J.A. (1981) Three perspectives on educational research. Delta 29, 17-26. Clark, J.A. & Freeman, H. (1979) Clark, J.A. & Freeman, H. (1979) Michael Youngs sociology of knowledge: epistemological sense or non-sense? Journal of Further and Higher Education 3(1), 3-17 Clark, J.A. & Freeman, H. (1979) Michael Youngs sociology of knowledge: criticisms of the philosophers of education reconsidered. Journal of Further and Higher Education. 3(2), 11-23 Clark, J.A. (1982) Philosophy of Education in New Zealand: retrospect and prospect. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 17(2), 103-118. Clark, J.A. (1983) Towards a critical theory of educational administration. New Zealand Educational Administration Journal. 11, 23-26. Clark, J.A. (1985) Willower on philosophy. Educational Administration Quarterly. 21(1), 119-122. Clark, J.A. (1987) Is there a place for craft theory in educational administration? Yes, but not in the way Battersby suggests. Educational Management and Administration. 16(1), 65-68. Clark, J.A. (1989) Absolutism and science in educational administration. Interchange. 20(3), 68-73. Clark, J.A. (1990) Conceptual and empirical truth: Some brief comments on Wilsons notes for researchers. Educational Research. 32(3), 197-199.
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Clark, J.A. (1992) MORSTs Glossary of Scientific Terms: A bad case of conceptual confusion. New Zealand Science Review. 49(1), 9-12. Clark, J.A. (1993) The new philosophy of science and educational research. Australian Educational Researcher. 20(2), 15-22. Clark, J.A. (1993) The theory movement in educational administration and the administrative reform of New Zealand education: Are there parallels to be drawn? Educational Philosophy and Theory. 25(2), 21-30. Clark, J.A. (1994) Educational research and the testing of empirical theories. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. 38(2), 123-127. Clark, J.A. (1994) Objectivity, subjectivity and relativism in educational research. Curriculum Inquiry. 24(1), 81-94. Clark, J.A. (1995) Beyond the bounds of reason. Curriculum Inquiry. 25(3), 331-339. Clark, J.A. (1996/7) Constructivism and the New Zealand science curriculum. Delta. 48(2)/49(1), 173-186. Clark, J.A. (1998) Education as a public good or in the public good? Implications for social justice. Delta. 50(1), 3-16. Clark, J.A. (1998) EROs The Capable Teacher: An inadequate model for teacher education. Delta. 50(2), 187-200. Clark, J.A. (1999) The strange case of the Ministry of Educations mysterious philosophy of the curriculum. Delta. 51(2), 41-53 Clark, J.A. (2000) Boards of trustees and school principals: A flawed policy-management relationship. Directions. 22(1), 85-96. Clark, J.A. (2000) Hypothetico-deduction and educational research. Educational Research. 42(2), 183-191. Clark, J.A. (2000) In defence of childrens rights. Social Work Now. 16, 13-18. Clark, J.A. (2000) The Tooley Report on educational research: Two philosophical objections. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 32(2), 249-252.
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Clark, J.A. (2001) Against the parental right to use corporal punishment to discipline children: Implications for early childhood and primary school teachers. New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education. 492), 177-188 Clark, J.A. (2001) Sex education in the New Zealand primary school: A tangled skein of morality, religion, politics and the law. Sex Education. 1(1), 23-30. Clark, J.A. (2001) Values education in New Zealand: Past, present and future. Delta. 52(1), 71-75. Clark, J.A. (2002) Cultural sensitivity and educational research. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 37(1), 93-99. Clark, J.A. (2002) The Education Review Office report on teacher education in New Zealand: A critical response in light of its endorsement by the Education and Science Select Committee. New Zealand Journal of Adult Learning. 30(2), 75-89. Clark, J.A. (2003) Educational myths as a framework for educational policy: towards a new myth. New Zealand Annual Review of Education. 13, 5-19. Clark, J.A. (2004) Against the corporal punishment of children. Cambridge Journal of Education. 34(3), 363-371. Clark, J.A. (2004) Beebys intellectual legacy. Delta. 56(1), 5-11 Clark, J.A. (2004) Enterprise education, or indoctrination? New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 39(2), 321-332. Clark, J.A. (2004) Its about time that teacher education began to critically examine the school curriculum: against philosophical naivete and political conservativism. ACCESS 23(1), 35-42. Clark, J.A. (2004) PIRLS: explaining and closing the gaps in reading achievement. Delta. 56(2), 3-7. Clark, J.A. (2004) Teaching and research: the Canterbury Declaration and Poppers legacy for teacher education. New Zealand Annual Review of Education. 14, 111129. Clark, J.A. (2004) The Curriculum Stocktake report: a philosophical critique. Teachers and Curriculum. 7, 73-78.
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Clark, J.A. (2004) The ethics of teaching and the teaching of ethics. New Zealand Journal of Teachers Work. 1 (2), 80-84. Clark, J.A. (2005) Curriculum studies in initial teacher education: the importance of holism and project 2061. Curriculum Journal. 16(4), 509-521. Clark, J.A. (2005) Explaining learning: from analysis to paralysis to hippocampus. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 37(5), 667-687. Clark, J.A. (2006) Michael Peters Lyotardian account of postmodernism and education: epistemic problems and naturalistic solutions. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 38(3), 391-405 Clark, J.A. (2006) Philosophy of education in todays world and tomorrows: A view from Down Under. Paideusis. 15(1), 21-30 Clark, J.A. (2006) Privatising education and the voucher as a mechanism for resourcing schools: implications for teachers and principals. Delta. 58(1), 57-79 Clark, J.A. (2006) Social justice, education and schooling: some philosophical issues in educational policy. British Journal of Educational Studies. 54(3), 272-287 Clark, J.A. (2006) The gap between the highest and lowest school achievers: Philosophical arguments for downplaying teacher expectation theory. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 41(2), 367-382. Clark, J.A. (2007) The problem of truth in educational research: the case of the Rigoberta Menchu controversy. 34(1), Australian Educational Researcher, 1-15. Clark, J.A. (2008) Ethical issues for an editorial board: Kairaranga. Kairaranga. 9(2), 4751 Clark, J.A. (2008) Moral education in Asia: pressures, contradictions and future directions. New Zealand Journal of Teachers Work. 4(2), 105-110 Clark, J.A. (2008) Social justice and moral education in China. New Zealand Journal of Teachers Work. 5(1), 44-53 Clark, J.A. (2009) Leaning tower of PESA. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 41(7), 808-810
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Clark, J.A. (2010) National standards: are they up to standard? New Zealand Journal of Teachers Work. 7(1), 15-28 Clark, J.A. (2010) National standards: the public debate what was it all about? New Zealand Journal of Teachers Work. 7(2), 106-124 Clark, J.A. (2011) Explaining differences in school achievement: A commentary from the neurozone. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 46(2), 89-94 Eley, E. & Clark, J.A. (1999) Vouchers and the privatisation of New Zealand education. Waikato Journal of Education. 5, 3-12. Snook, I., ONeill, J., Clark, J., ONeill, A-M. & Harker, R. (2010) Critic and conscience of society: A reply to John Hattie. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 45(2), 93-98 Snook, I., ONeill, J., Clark, J.A., ONeill, A-M, & Openshaw, R. (2009) Invisible learnings? A commentary on John Hatties book Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-analyses Relating to Achievement. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 44(1), 93-106 Responses to my Refereed Journal Articles Barone, T. (1994) Different forms of life: A reply to Clark. Curriculum Inquiry. 24(1), 99104. Chamberlain, M (2004) New Zealand curriculum Te Anga Marantanga o Aotearoa project: a response to Clark. Teachers and Curriculum. 7, 79-80 Eisner, E (1994) Response to Professor Clark. Curriculum Inquiry. 24(1), 95-98. Grace, G. (1998) Education and the public good question: A response to John Clarks paper. Delta. 50(1), 17-20. McGee, C. (2004) Curriculum revision critique: a response to Clark. Teachers and Curriculum. 7, 81-83. Peters, M. (2006) Je mexcuse, Monsieur Lyotard: response to Clark. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 38(3), 407-410.
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Tooley, J. (1998) Review of John Clarks paper: Education as a public good or in the public good? Implications for social justice. Delta. 50(1), 21-26. Willower, D. (1985) Towards philosophic choice. Educational Administration Quarterly. 21(1), 23-127. Wilson, J. (1990) Conceptual and empirical truth: A reply to Best and Clark. Educational Researcher. 32(3), 200-201. Non-Refereed Journal Articles Clark, J.A. & Snook, I (1992) The universities view of research priorities. Input. 14(1), 13 Clark, J.A. (1994) The new right and educational research. Input. 16(2), 1-8. Clark, J.A. (1996) Creation versus evolution: Competing theories in the science curriculum? New Zealand Science Teacher. 81, 26-29 Clark, J.A. (1999) The Tooley Report on educational research: Implications for New Zealand. Input. 21(2), 3-4 Clark, J.A. (2000) Values education and the right to criticise other cultures values . New Zealand Journal of Social Studies. 9(2), 22-26. Eley, E. & Clark, J.A. (1999) Educational vouchers and the privatisation of state schools. New Zealand Principal. 14(2), 18-22. McKenzie, J & Clark, J.A. (2003) The ethics of the teacher-pupil relationships. New Zealand Principal. 18(2), 26-30
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Chapter Six
A Philosophical Journey It is unusual for introductory books on academic subjects to have a chapter devoted to the authors intellectual life. I have done so for two reasons. First, it begins t o explain why I hold the views that I do, by discussing the seminal experiences which have shaped my philosophical journey. Second, the intellectual life is a rewarding one and in recounting my philosophical journey, perhaps there will be a reader or two who, as I followed in the footsteps of others, they too will follow in mine, by taking up an academic career in a university. Third, what was available to me is available to others; it is a matter of some planning, taking opportunities and having a bit of luck. Early Years I suppose that I asked philosophical questions when I was young, as children do, but I have no recollection of doing so. No doubt my parents, like many parents, were not quite sure how to answer such questions anyway. That they had some views on the nature of the world they lived in, possessed some understanding of it, and lived in accordance with a set of ethical convictions, was evident in the family environment I was brought up in. These were passed on to me; some remain to this day while others were cast off. Young children often ask Why? questions about all manner of things, sometimes out of curiosity and other times for their nuisance value. I was no different, I suspect, but since my philosophical interest did not come until later in my life I can only conclude that the answers to my questions satisfied me at the time. Perhaps this reflected what New Zealand was like at the time: Gods own country was a very conforming place to live in. Schooling As I recall, I liked my years of schooling. My father worked in a bank so we moved around the country on a regular basis and so I attended a number of schools. The first was Patea Primary. Patea was, during the mid 1950s, a flourishing small Taranaki town, but sadly no longer is. We lived at the back of the school so I was never late for class. Then it was on to Te Aroha Primary School for most of my primary schooling until my final year which was spent at Wanganui Intermediate School. And then to five years as a boarder at New Plymouth Boys High School. This transition through three different types of schools in three successive years left a lasting impression on me about schooling, education and wider social/political matters which had a significant impact on my subsequent intellectual journey.
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What I learned at school was marked by a breadth of learning and a love of learning. The primary school curriculum included all of the traditional curriculum plus more we had class gardens and time devoted to their tending, nature rambles opened our eyes to the world around us, and at a time pre-TV there were games, library visits and much make believe fun. Out of all of this, through my secondary schooling and university education, I benefitted from a broad curriculum which gave me a rather liberal view of life. English, geography, psychology and the like opened up to me realms of thought which continue to fascinate and inform my current thinking about what sort of education leads to people becoming educated. Pre-school, while in my family I knew nothing else, but once at school I became aware of the haves and the have-nots and where I was located in this scheme of things somewhere in the middle. I was puzzled as to why some children come from wealthy families, lived in expensive looking homes and had all the material trappings while other children had far less than I. Much of my intellectual life has been concerned with explaining this social and economic inequality in the context of education provision. As a society, we seem as far away as ever from adequately redistributing the nations wealth so that all receive a fair measure of the social good. Hence, social philosophy has been a powerful driver in the forming of my philosophical outlook. A third facet of experience which shaped my view of the world occurred during my secondary schooling. As a boarder, compulsory church attendance every Sunday, in formal school attire, was imposed on me. That, I could tolerate, up to a point. What began to irk me, increasingly so, was the after-church roll-calls to check attendance and consequential punishment if one was caught bunking. Surely, I thought, God would only want me to attend church if I freely chose to do so. Doubts grew, and by the time I left school and went to university I had become an atheist, and was well on the way to becoming philosophically committed to naturalism. University Years The years spent at university as a student were, in many ways, some of the best years of my life. I began undergraduate studies at the University of Waikato in 1968. This was a new university founded only two years earlier. I was going to become a primary school teacher, so enrolled in the BEd degree. The first two years were largely intellectually uneventful. Things changed in 1970 for this was the year I took my first philosophy of education paper. Stuart Ainsworth had just arrived to take up an appointment in the Department of Education, having graduated with a BA in philosophy from Oxford University. As an undergraduate of St. Johns College he had studied under J. D. Mabbott, and I was later to benefit from this influence. A whole new world opened up to me as I was introduced to the philosophical work in education being pursued by Richard Peters, Paul Hirst, Robert Dearden and John White, amongst others, at the University of London
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Institute of Education. Ideas previously accepted were now put to the sword of conceptual analysis: What is education? What is wrong with indoctrination? What knowledge is of most worth? These and many more questions ignited an intellectual passion in me which has never dimmed. The following year I took a paper on educational problems taught by Phil Gawne. Although a historian, he had studied philosophy under John Anderson at the University of Sydney, and brought his philosophical thinking to bear on his teaching. The problems we explored were contemporary ones yet rooted in the philosophical work of some of the philosophical greats Plato, Locke and Roussea loomed large. If there was one lifelong lesson I learned from Phil Gawne it was this: do not just read what others write about, for example, Plato - go away and engage in a philosophical dialogue with Plato himself. And so my undergraduate studies ended. Now I had to choose: teaching or postgraduate study. I chose the latter. There were two of us enrolled in education in 1972, Richard Piper and myself, and we both took Stuart Ainsworths philosophy paper. We would meet all day Saturday on Richards farm near Cambridge, under the trees when fine and sunny and inside by the fire when cold and wet. His wife Kate kept us supplied with food and drink as we discussed and argued for hours over questions arising from reading G. E. Moores Principica Ethica, Humes Treatise, Mills Utilitarianism and On Liberty and the Hart/Devlin books debating morality and the law. 1972 was also the year the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia held its first conference in New Zealand. Organised by Ivan Snook at the University of Canterbury, the Christchurch conference had Richard Peters as its keynote speaker. Richard Piper and I, as hard-up students, hitched rides to Christchurch over two days, just making it in time for the conference opening. The event had two highlights for me. It was the first occasion that I met in person people who were previously just names to me, and I confess to then being a little in awe of them. The symposium with Ivan Snook and Richard Peters, along with two psychologists, left a lasting impact on the importance of not disconnecting philosophy from the other foundation disciplines of education (and to this day I work happily with colleagues who are historians, psychologists and sociologists). The end of 1972 brought to a close my formal study of philosophy of education at the university, at least for the time being, but I was to have further contact with all those named above in later years. In 1973 I went teaching, first at Morrinsville Intermediate School where I lost contact with philosophy as I grappled with the daily demands of 12/13 year olds. A teaching position in Hamilton the following year gave me the opportunity to get to the University of Waikato library on a regular basis and keep up to date with new books and journals. If ever there was a serendipitous moment in my life it came in 1976. While browsing the new journals on display in the university library I came across a pamphlet in one of the journals. It was for the Diploma in Philosophy of Education at the
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University Of London Institute Of Education. I took the brochure home, wrote a letter of application and sometime later received a letter of acceptance. With my life savings, cashed in superannuation and substantial winnings from one of only a few visits to horse racing, I flew to London in September. At Heathrow, I was subjected to a customs search what they made of my suitcase of few clothes but all my philosophy of education books I do not know and was too tired to ask! There were 5 of us studying for the diploma, one each from England, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and Romania. The Department of Philosophy of Education at the University of London Institute was, at the time, housed in a delightful Georgian terraced house in Bloomsburys Woburn Square, a short distance from the glass and concrete main building. After completing the diploma I went on to the MA in Philosophy of Education, and over these two years I took key papers in ethics, epistemology and social philosophy and electives in the philosophy of primary education and the philosophy of science/social science. Thus it was that I learned much from Richard Peters, Robert Dearden, Ray Elliot, Reynold Jones, Terry Moore, John and Pat White, and Helen Freeman. I found it an intellectually exciting place, all the more so since I could also go to nearby colleges (Birkbeck, Kings, University and LSE) for lectures on topics of interest given by those with international reputations (e.g. Ted Honderich). At the time, the department organised an annual student conference at Hoddleston, north of London. At the 1978 conference I presented a paper on Michael Youngs sociology of education which later formed one of the chapters of my thesis and also led to Helen Freeman and I co-authoring two papers on Youngs work. This was my first venture into academic publishing and it was exciting to receive copies of the journal containing our articles. I am sure they helped me to secure my first academic job. But other things were also happening. I organised a small conference in the department with Rom Harre (a New Zealander who taught philosophy of science at Oxford) and Paul Hirst giving presentations. New Zealanders also visited. Bill Renwick, Director-General of Education and a friend of Bill Taylor, Director of the Institute, hosted a social event for Kiwis and I made myself known to him, for I knew not what lay ahead career-wise and he might be someone to know in the future. Jim Marshall came on sabbatical leave and together we attended lectures at Birkbeck College. Graham Bassett, from Massey University, also visited, and it was only later that I came to appreciate the deeper significance of our conversations. What I would do upon the completion of my master degree in late 1978 started to assume some importance, for I did not have the financial resources for further study in the UK. I applied, unsuccessfully, for a doctoral scholarship at Keele University. But as luck would have it, my parents mailed me an advertisement for a Junior Lectureship in Education at Massey University in New Zealand. I applied and upon receiving an offer immediately accepted (Graham Bassett later told me one of the reasons for his visit to the Institute was to informally interview me for the position). With my degree completed, I flew to and took Greyhound buses across the USA, from Boston to LA,
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spending a week with Helen Freeman who had just taken up a Visiting Professorship at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign (Sadly, a little later Helen took her own life while a visiting academic at the University of Sydney in Australia). Upon arriving in New Zealand, I assumed my academic duties at Massey University where I remain to this day. An Academic Career As a young academic at Massey, I was quickly initiated into the traditions of the Department of Education. Clem Hill, as the foundation professor, had since the 1960s built up a strong academic unit with particular strengths in the foundation disciplines of education. At the time of my arrival, there were a number of colleagues who were well on the way to establishing flourishing careers and acquiring well deserved national and international reputations. In the history of education, Harry Beresford laid the foundations which have subsequently been built upon by Professor Roger Openshaw, who was later joined by Paul Adams, Dr Graham Hucker and Professor Howard Lee. The growth of the sociology of education was given an initial boost by Professors Ray Adams and Graham Fraser; now both long retired, they were joined by others who have since left: Professors David Battersby, Richard Bates, Richard Harker and Roy Nash. Anne-Marie ONeill remains. Philosophy of education, too, flourished early on. Alan Cooper to begin, joined by Dr Graham Bassett and Dr David Stenhouse. Later, Professor John Codd and Professor Ivan Snook were to carve out influential careers. Now, none remain bar myself. All of my colleagues, past and present, have left their mark on my own intellectual development perhaps their over-riding legacy is to be found in our shared view about the importance of inter-disciplinary inquiry in education coupled with a drive for a critical edge to our work. Our efforts at being the critic and conscience of society did not always endear us to academics in other universities nor to politicians and policy-makers whose work we so deeply rejected and roundly criticised, but such is the price to be paid for being heirs to Socrates. For the first fifteen years of my life at Massey, Ivan Snook and I jointly taught the philosophy of education papers to undergraduate and postgraduate students. It was sad to see Ivan retire when he did. Since then, I have carried the teaching responsibilities alone. Fortunately, I also had John Codd as a colleague who did much to subject education policy to philosophical critique in his published work. Sadly, John took early retirement in 2007and died at the end of that year,. I have had the good fortune to attend a number of conferences in many places around the world American Educational Research Association (Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco), British Educational Research Association (Liverpool, Manchester), Asia-Pacific Network for Moral Education (Guangzhou, China), Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (Armidale, Brisbane, Hawaii, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney). However, three conferences I have attended stand out, all in philosophy. At
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the 1986 Royal Institute of Philosophy conference at Reading University, some of the worlds greatest philosophers - Donald Davidson, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Anthony Quinton and W. V. Quine - captivated the audience. I had the good fortune to have a short conversation with Quine on some of his key ideas. Then, closer to home, the 2002 Popper conference at the University of Canterbury hosted Alan Musgrave (Otago) whose co-edited book with Imre Lakatos had in my postgraduate days opened up my eyes to the work of Popper, Kuhn and Feyabend. Also there was Peter Munz (Victoria), in his younger days a student of both Popper and Wittgenstein and a witness to the famous poker incident. The third was the 2007 conference at the University of Otago on knowledge and reality: Frank Jackson, J. J. C. Smart and Hugh Mellor (Cambridge) presented. In 2004 I was appointed a Visiting Scholar in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. For several months I revelled in quiet study, the resources of the facultys library, lectures and meetings of the Moral Sciences Club. Along with this I was also a Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, a graduate college where I had a room in delightful surrounds. I enjoyed the walks into the centre of Cambridge, especially taking in the architecture of Kings and Trinity Colleges. The river walk to Grantham was always rewarded with a visit to the Rupert Brooke pub. I also managed to squeeze in weekly trips to London for philosophy seminars at the Institute of Education. Over the years I have taught many students, most by extramural study since Massey is a distance education university. Some have been internal students. Hopefully all went on to graduate and lead worthwhile lives. Our paths rarely cross but it is always a pleasure when the occasional former student, long forgotten, reminds me of my teaching them. I have always sought for my teaching to be research-led; students should read both the best in the field and also that research produced by those who teach them. This requires keeping up with current literature, made a little more difficult by the recent arrival of e-journals rather than paper copies on the shelves. It also requires that university teachers are research active, able to share their thinking with their students while being open to challenge. There is, however, normally a bit more to academic life than teaching and research; there is usually a service component which can bring both pleasure and frustration. Over the years I have done my share, little things to begin with but building up over time. Minor committee work in department and faculty gave way to greater responsibility at the university level. So, I completed six years as the Vice-Chancellors appointee to the Universitys human ethics committee, and recently stepped down as Research Director and the College of Education representative on the university research committee and the leave and ancillary appointments committees, chair of the college research committee and research management group, and the college executive committee. Research is a significant part of academic work, and the introduction of the Performance-Based Research Fund to allocate research funds on the basis of research achievement has certainly raised the profile and the stakes for research. However, this
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and all that has followed in the wake of the tertiary education reforms has increased the level of accountability and made universities overwhelmingly managerial in their practices. This, sadly is one of the least attractive features of the modern university, in New Zealand and internationally. On and off I have also involved myself in the affairs of various external organizations. For a few years I organised the New Zealand session at the American Educational Research Association annual meetings. I was co-convenor of the 1999 joint Australia/New Zealand Associations for Research in Education conference in Melbourne and joint organiser of the 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) conference in Wellington. At one time I rose to higher office in PESA: Treasurer (19857) and then New Zealand Treasurer (1985-94) followed by Vice-President (1994-96). Final Decade Thirty years have I been an academic, and as I begin what will probably be the fourth and final decade of my university career, now is the time to engage in a little bit of crystal-ball gazing into what might lie ahead. Universities, since I was an undergraduate student, have changed in many ways, and will continue to do so. Student elitism has been replaced by mass enrolments. Staff-student ratios have risen significantly; utilitarian vocationalism has pushed aside educational curiosity, while student loans are now a fact of life. The heady days of the late 1960s/early 1970s are long gone, sadly so; but perhaps nostalgia plays tricks with the memories of ones youth! The future of philosophy of education at Massey, as elsewhere, is far from secure. As philosophers have left their universities, through retirement or to a professorship elsewhere, they have tended to not be replaced. The consequences of this are several, and troubling. The nature of education inquiry is slowly shifting from discipline-based to practice-based (curriculum areas, technology and special education). Students are therefore deprived of the opportunity to study education from a philosophical point of view. A critical edge is lost so that policy and practice escape rigorous scrutiny. When the time comes for my own departure from Massey, whether I am replaced and by a philosopher, is by no means certain. If so, then philosophy of education will continue to flourish; if not, it will die a quiet death, and Massey will be the poorer for it.
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Chapter Seven
Philosophy of Education Resources Every academic discipline and area of study has a set of resources and philosophy of education is no exception. Resources may include, but not be limited to, books and journals, learned societies and conferences, and the like. While some resources are generally available, especially on learned society websites, many other resources are restricted to academic staff and students books and journals in university libraries and access to electronic versions of journals subscribed to by university libraries. This chapter contains information of particular relevance to students at Massey University who study philosophy of education, either taking undergraduate or postgraduate papers or undertaking research in the discipline. Learned Societies Many disciplines have learned societies some are national while others are international. They usually have web sites which contain more detailed information about their activities, such as conferences, journals, membership and the like. The following is a reasonably comprehensive list of philosophy of education societies. Philosophy of Education Society (USA) Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Canadian Philosophy of Education Society International Network of Philosophy of Education
A number of educational research associations also have branches or sections or special interest groups in philosophy of education. Books A considerable number of books in philosophy of education have been written and more are yet to come. There are far too many to list individually. The Massey University libraries hold most of these which tend to be located at 370.1 which is where American Educational Research Association British Educational Research Association European Educational Research Association
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philosophy of education books are shelved, while some are to be found in other areas of education such as educational research or in philosophy such as professional ethics. Some books are primarily student texts written to introduce students to the central topics, concepts and debates in philosophy of education while others books are more scholarly and written for other scholars to advance the discipline. For those new to the subject, student texts are more readable as they introduce the novice to basic understandings. Some books are older and some are more recent. Some are worth reading and others less so. Some of the more well known student texts include: Barrow, R. & Woods, R. (2006) (4 ed) An Introduction to Philosophy of Education. London: Routledge. Hirst, P. & Peters, R (1970) The Logic of Education. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Kleinig, J. (1982) Philosophical Issues in Education. London: Croom Helm. Noddings, N. (2007) Philosophy of Education. Boulder, CO.: Westview Press There are also many books which explore topics at a higher level of understanding. Some of these may be difficult for undergraduate students but more appropriate for graduate study. There are also some very good edited books on philosophy of education which contain contributions from leading philosophers of education these include: Bailey, R., Barrow, R., Carr, D. & McCarthy, C. (eds) (2010) The Sage Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Los Angeles: Sage Blake, N., Smeyers, P., Smith, R. & Standish, P. (eds) (2002) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Education. Oxford: Blackwell Carr, W. (ed) (2004) The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Philosophy of Education. London: RoutledgeFalmer Curren, R. (ed) (2003) A Companion to the Philosophy of Education. Malden, MA.: Blackwell Hirst, P. & White, P. (eds) (1998) Philosophy of Education: Major Themes in the Analytic Tradition. London: Routledge (vols 1-4)
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Siegel, H. (ed) (2009) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press The main problem with books in the library is that demand by students, especially for assignments, may exceed the available supply held by the library. Journals Whereas once academic journals appeared in print form, were shelved in university libraries and could be accessed by anyone who went into the library, increasingly they are now published in electronic form and are only available through the university web site by staff and enrolled students. E journals have both advantages and disadvantages for the library it means less space is required for journals and for the student they can be easily accessed with articles downloaded and printed off. But unlike print journals on the new journal shelves available for anyone to read, electronic versions have more restricted access. The main philosophy of education journals held by Massey include: Educational Philosophy and Theory* Educational Theory* Ethics and Education* Journal of Philosophy of Education* Paedeusis Philosophy of Education (annual conference proceedings) Studies in Philosophy and Education
Massey subscribes to all of these with the exception of Paedeusis (Google Canadian Philosophy of Education Society). Those marked with an asterisk can be accessed electronically through the Massey library website (going directly to the journal website will not allow access to the journal articles which are restricted to individual and institutional subscribers). Articles in e-journals subscribed to by Massey can be accessed, downloaded and printed off. Go to the Massey library home page and select journals. Enter the journal title and bring up the electronic holdings, ensuring current provider is clicked. The journal home page will normally list the volumes/issues which brings up table of contents and then click on articles.
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Conferences All of the philosophy of education societies hold conferences, usually annually. Some are held in one location the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain meets annually at the University of Oxford: the Philosophy of Education Society holds meetings in various major cities around the United States: the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia organises conferences in various counties, especially Australia and New Zealand (Auckland, Christchurch, Palmerston North, Wellington) and more recently in Hong Kong and Hawaii. Papers presented to recent conferences are generally available for public access on the societies web sites. Studying Philosophy of Education in New Zealand Some, but not all, of New Zealands eight universities offer philosophy of education papers at the undergraduate and/or postgraduate levels. University of Auckland Professor Robin Small, School of Critical Studies in Education, Faculty of Education AUT University Associate Professor Nesta Devine and Dr Andrew Gibbons, School of Education University of Waikato Professor Michael Peters and Professor Tina Besley, School of Cultural, Social Studies in Education, Faculty of Education Massey University Associate Professor John Clark, School of Educational Studies, College of Education Victoria University of Wellington currently nothing University of Canterbury Professor Peter Roberts, School of Educational Studies and Human Development, College of Education Lincoln University currently nothing University of Otago currently nothing Papers in philosophy of education are usually available to internal students; Massey also offers them by distance education.
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Research opportunities in philosophy of education for masters or doctoral theses are available at Auckland, AUT, Waikato, Massey and Canterbury. Seven of the eight universities (excluding AUT) also have philosophy programmes, ranging from quite small (Lincoln) to middle size (Canterbury, Massey, Otago, Victoria, Waikato) to quite large (Auckland). Some papers in philosophy may be of interest to students taking philosophy of education papers. More information is available on the university websites. Philosophy of Education at Massey University Philosophy of education is contained in taught papers from 100 level through to postgraduate. 254101 Introduction to Social and Cultural Studies in Education 254201 Philosophy of Education 1 254301 Philosophy of Education 2 254330 Philosophy for Children 254701 Ethics and Education Research opportunities are also available for thesis supervision in topics in philosophy of education or with a philosophical component. International Benchmarking: It is important that papers in philosophy of education at Massey University are benchmarked against those offered in the very best overseas universities to establish international parity and set a standard of excellence to be achieved. Very few overseas universities offer undergraduate papers in philosophy of education; one that does is the University of Cambridge whose BA in Education consists of, as with Masseys BA in Education, papers in the four foundation disciplines of education, including philosophy of education. Further, Cambridges degree is ranked first in education in the UK so it sets a high standard to emulate. The paper outlines for the four disciplines can be accessed from the University of Cambridge website (Faculty of Education homepage undergraduate qualifications). The University Of London Institute Of Education has also established a BA in Education which is also built on the four foundational disciplines. So,
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in New Zealand the structure of the Massey University BA in Education is unique insofar as it consists almost entirely of the disciplines and is in good company with the very best universities in the world offering the BA in Education based on the disciplines. This is worth keeping in mind if you have any thoughts of embarking on post-graduate study in NZ or overseas, since one of the reasons for benchmarking Massey University papers in philosophy of education against the best in the world is to ensure that Massey University students are not only taught to the very highest international standards in the subject but that they are also academically and intellectually equipped to undertake postgraduate study at the very best universities in the world. More details on taught papers and student research supervision are available from: Associate Professor John Clark School of Educational Studies Massey University Palmerston North J.A.Clark@massey.ac.nz
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References
(References have been kept to a bare minimum and include only those authors in the book with dates) Edmonds, D. & Eidenow, J (2001) Wittgensteins Poker: The Story of a Ten Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. London: Faber Munz, P. (1985) Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein? London: Routledge. OConnor, D. (1957) An Introduction to Philosophy of Education. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Tarski, A. (1983) Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938. (2 ed. Edited and translated by J. Corcoran). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co.

Philosophy of Education A Beginners Guide

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