Filtering

At risk of overstating the issues of autogamy and the 20th century educational model, I would like to reiterate that the compartmentalized, fifty minute class, eight period day is a result of the assembly-line model. We see that this model not only affects education but also the disciplines themselves. However, the issue runs deeper than merely adopting an assembly-line practice that was the cultural, conventional way of doing things. The educational model used today is the result of efficiency and cost-effectiveness – it is a capitalist education model. As Hall makes the word adolescent common vernacular, educational reform adopts a policy of educating every child in the secondary school. This legal mandate poses budgetary and organizational issues. How can we teach the most students for the least amount of cost? Instead of one teacher teaching a handful of students all of the information needed, the tasks were industrialized. Have teachers specialize in an area. Then have students grouped in rows. The teacher will dictate information to the students who will memorize it as quickly and efficiently as possible. The teacher will teach to the greatest common denominator, ignoring the lowest achievers and the highest achievers. This is cost-effectiveness applied to culture and learning. Look at how our system is organized – elementary schools are made up of small classes with a single teacher instructing most of the day to the same students.

Those students are filtered into a middle school or junior high, where the classes become more specialized. At the high school, thousands of students are funneled into the most efficient assembly-line, autogamy. And finally, at the college or university level, students specialize in majors and only take courses relevant to that major (aside from a few 100 or 200 level gen eds). The current school system is not only a product of 20th century industrial models, but of American values. Capitalism is the root of much of America’s fundamental, driving principles. The education system is a direct product of that capitalist mantra. Now I am not calling for an anti-capitalist system, but what I am alluding to is that American ideals have changed. From this white paper, Rimer, Pink, Peat, Robbins, Wilner, Palmer and Zajonc have all pointed in a shift from the collective to the individual, from the individual to meaning, and from meaning to the collective. In my previous papers, Grace Lee Boggs, Robert B. Reich, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Dr. Betty Edwards, and Tom Kelley have all argued along the same lines – the culture of the Conceptual Age is developing vastly different from the industrialized culture of the 20th century. The current education system may be more cost-effective, but it is certainly less effective when compared to our competition in Europe and Asia. Americans, in general, have a great deal of pride and oftentimes are unreceptive to arguments based on Europe or Asia. But we are faced with a new age, where pride, in many ways, is just stubbornness. If we abandon autogamous schooling, and its cost-benefit structure, we are left with a blank slate. In my pervious white paper, I argued for a problem based learning system which used the cross-pollination of ideas to generate innovative solutions.

This, alone, would be a step in the right direction. But I would like to add to this allogamous educational architecture a component borrowed from Palmer and Zajonc: integrative education. In the current system, disciplines capture information in the parameters of their paradigm. Each discipline only captures a small fragment of the greater whole. “The divisions that fragment us and our world… [are] rooted in our failure to recognize the reality of interconnectedness [which] are found not only in the ontology, epistemology, pedagogy, and ethics that form a silent backdrop to university life [but] are reflected in the fragmentation of our personal relationships within the academy” (Palmer 127). Palmer and Zajonc argue that the paradigmic, fragmentation of learning is so deep rooted, it informs the fragmented visions of our own selves. Palmer and Zajonc identify five reasons education is unwilling to make an institutional change in order to remedy this issue of fragmentation (both of knowledge and of the person): 1) the current system is founded on weak philosophical arguments which claim the worlds of the inner person and the outer universe must be separated, 2) the myth that integrative education is haphazard and too hard to control, 3) the commonly held belief that emotions have no place in the classroom, 4) there is a resistance to community and a large emphasis of the self, and 5) the notion that rationality and empiricism are at odds with subjective, soulful pursuits (Pamer 23 – 47). They specifically combat this: “our current conception of education and the treatment of our students derive from such a fragmentary and incomplete understanding… we do not have the whole student in mind” (Palmer 65). When we ignore the whole student, we ignore the multidimensionality of the world – and we are left with inadequate solutions (Palmer 65).

Palmer and Zajonc say: “we can choose the way we teach” (Palmer 89). We do not need to continue to uphold the fragmented belief system, and we can embrace integrativeness. Currently, most integrative education is simply a juxtaposition of disciplines, lacking breadth. Palmer and Zajonc are critical of this form of integrative work, feeling that the richness of learning and true breadth is lost (Palmer 89). The type of integrative learning they call for is outlined similarly in the article Curriculum and Assessment: Two Sides of the Same Coin by Jean Eklund Shoemaker and Larry Lewin. Shoemaker writes, integrative education "cuts across subject-matter lines, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into meaningful association to focus upon broad areas of study" (Shoemaker 55). Shoemaker, Curriculum Coordinator at Eugene School District 4J in Oregon, says that integrative education must reflect the integrated world we live in – this is the real world, not the philosophical representation of the real world. Learning experiences based on this integrated real world "provide a greater understanding than that which could be obtained by examining the parts separately" (Shoemaker 55). Integrative education is based in the human learner who is him/herself an integrated entity part of a vast integrated system. Rather than fragmenting this entity and this world into disciplines, integrative education has no separation. The disciplines of old are compartmentalized into subjects by use of textbooks, seat work and lectures in the most autogamous of ways – a teacher having the idea and forcing it on the learner. Integrative education, instead, immerses the student in a learning environment which shows the true complexity of the world through problem solving (Shoemaker 56). Shoemaker designed a curriculum based on completely different goals than simply memorizing, understanding and applying facts. This curriculum was based on two components: 1) learning conceptual knowledge and strategic processes and 2) determining whether conceptual knowledge and strategic practices have been learned (Shoemaker 56). The conceptual knowledge component was framed by “several concepts within conceptual themes like communities, systems, change, power, interactions, form or structure, relationships, and identities” (Shoemaker 56).

Then, to develop strategic processes, instructors used a problem based learning strategy allowing the students to develop “conceptual understanding by constructing personally meaningful yet plausible answers to the key questions” (Shoemaker 56). Students and instructors participate in the evaluation process of success. In each problem based project, the student undergoes a four part process: 1) plan ahead, 2) make a first attempt at implementing the plan, 3) evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and 4) share the solutions with others (Shoemaker 57). In this practical model of integrative education, we see that the disciplines themselves are never mentioned. School subjects are abandoned in favor of problems, processes and solutions. If we combine this methodology with Palmer and Zajonc’s premises, we find that integrative education has nothing to do with the subject matter itself – it is student centered. This means, that the education provided is intended on helping a student personally grow. For Palmer and Zajonc the problems and framework presented to students should help them focus on: developing values, cultivating humanism, nurture compassion, foster altruism, and promote personhood in the community. Integrative education allows for the exploration of humanity’s most intimate aspirations through a serious, academic process (Palmer 70 – 75). This seems to compliment Shoemaker’s curriculum which is framed by relationships, systems, communities, interactions and the like. Integrative education is like Poincaré’s work – theories and ideas which are simultaneously philosophical, abstract, mathematical, realistic, logical, artistic, and imaginative. Poincaré’s work was so rich and so integrative, that when it was dissected by Einstein and Picasso it led to incredible advancements. Just think what the work could have produced if it had never been dissected in the first place? Some argue that the split of subjects allows for expertise and specialization. Without this specialization, advancements would never come about, or if they were to come about, they would do so at a crawling pace. The speed and progress which we enjoy today would have taken centuries to develop without specialization. This may or may not be true. But I like to think of the splitting of subject matter as a step in the process. Einstein and Picasso split Poincaré’s work up, and today we are seeing it re-unified under integrative system approaches. Descriptions of the universe borrow from a variety of worldviews and ideas demonstrating interconnectedness. So instead of arguing that specialization is necessary, I would argue it was necessary.

We are where we are because of 20th century specialization. But now we have a unique moment to reintroduce symbiosis. We can start fresh. We can build an educational model that does not need subjects, just questions and framing, big pictures and themes. Then students can pull from the different disciplines and create innovative, cross-pollinated solutions. I am not saying we should erase all the work done by our predecessors. Instead, let’s start anew, with new goals and new structures. And when students need information they can rely on our predecessor’s resources, but use these resources in a new normal education.

references

1. Rimer, Sara. "Study: Many College Students Not Learning to Think Critically." The Hechinger Report January 18 (2011). Print. Teachers College, Columbia University

2. Pink, Daniel H. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead, 2006. Print.

3. Peat, F. David. From Certainty to Uncertainty: the Story of Science and Ideas in the Twentieth Century. Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry, 2002. Print.

4. “Grow up? Not so fast,” By Lev Grossman. Time, January 16, 2005.

5. Robbins, Alexandra, and Abby Wilner. Quarterlife Crisis: the Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. New York: J.P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2001. Print.

6. Palmer, Parker J., Arthur Zajonc, and Megan Scribner. The Heart of Higher Education: a Call to Renewal. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Print.

7. Shoemaker, Jean Eklund, and Larry Lewin. "Curriculum and Assessment: Two Sides of the Same Coin." The Changing Curriculum Number 8 50.May 1993 (1993): 55-57. Print.

8. Fiero, Gloria K. Landmarks in Humanities. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.

9. Tufte, Edward. "PowerPoint Is Evil; Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely." Wired Sept. 2003. Print. Issue 11.09

10. Reynolds, Garr. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. Berkeley, CA: New Riders Pub., 2008. Print.

11. Reynolds, Garr. "Storytelling Lessons from Bill Cosby." Rev. of Keynote Speeches and Comedic Career. Web log post. Presentation Zen. Garr Reynolds, 28 June 2011. Web. 30 June 2011.