Thinking, Caring and Acting: The Liberal Arts as Education for Democracy

Thinking, Caring and Acting

The Liberal Arts as Education for Democracy

4/22/16 Jane Fried, Ph.D.

Dewey’s Legacy• John Dewey, one of America’s foremost

philosophers, wrote about education as training for democracy.

• Dewey’s philosophy of education relied on the formation of dispositions, consistent tendencies to react in specific ways to addressing problems of individual and community life.

• We would probably call dispositions habits, asking ourselves what we typically do when we face a problem.


Problem Solving Strategies

• Do we act on impulse?

• Do we have a drink?

• Do we take a deep breath and try to figure out what’s going on and what a good resolution might be?

• Do we get angry at the world and try to find somebody to blame?


Education for Intellect or Character?

• Do we really have to choose?

• Education must involve the development of dispositions, including the habits of acquiring knowledge, developing long range aims and learning to act on the basis of reflection. “To have this complex disposition…is to have character. (Dewey as cited in

Frankena, 1965)


What learning habits have your students developed?

• Thinking seems to go along with thumb twitching;

• Answers are equivalent to filling in ovals on bubble sheets;

• Instantaneous response is expected;

• Is this going to be on the test?

• How long should this paper be?


• Do your students know how to explain what answers they think are accurate and why?

• Do they know how to respond to others in class who disagree with them?

• Are they still looking for Truth?

• What do they do when confronted with ambiguity?

• What do you do when confronted with all of these behaviors and expectations?


• What is the role of the liberal arts in character formation?

• What do the liberal arts contribute to reflective thinking?

• Does our political process reflect an educated electorate that has a propensity to think long term and consider the welfare of our society?

• Or not??????


WHAT’S MISSING?


Self Authorship

• Self-Authorship is the current term that is roughly equivalent to Dewey’s character.

• Self-Authorship involves cognitive (knowledge and meaning), interpersonal (relational) and intrapersonal (identity formation)elements.

• (Baxter-Magolda, 1999)


• Self authorship connects a person’s ability to think about problems, engage in conversations with others about problems, maintain their sense of personal values and identity while simultaneously remaining open to other experiences, identities and value systems.

• Does this describe what you are trying to accomplish in your classes?



Who are You in your Classroom?

Learning, Science and Culture

• Every culture has methods for teaching, training and enculturating its youth;

• Every culture has an idea about wisdom, the sources of wisdom and the people in the group who are wise;

• The Western enlightenment story of learning is cognitive, individualistic and does not necessarily involve wisdom or relationship skills.


• The Western story of academic learning is largely based on science and the evidence it produces as the source of reliable knowledge.

• Science bases its truth claims on the availability of material evidence.

• Other cultures have other stories about reliable knowledge which are based on intuition and congruence between personal experience of the elders and current circumstances.


Different Ways of Knowing

• In some cultures learning always involves self- how do I know, why do I care, does it matter to me or my group?

• In other cultures mixing self and learning is considered confusing. Emotions interfere with fact recall. Knowledge is acquired from the outside and housed within a mind.

• Fried, J, 2016


• Some cultures think/feel slowly, contextually, historically, personally and communally. Members talk about what they know. Listening is highly valued. Knowledge is co-constructed.

• Others cultures describe learning as impersonal, cognitive, individual, relatively non-contextual, linear and relatively non-historical. Members listen to facts and demonstrate knowledge by speaking about facts.

• Chavez, A. & Longerbeam,S. (2016)


• Cultural Stories of Learning

• Separated

• Cognitive

• Linear

• Connected

• Affective

• Contextual

• Universal

• Scientific Evidence of Learning

• Knowledge acquisition

• Affective Engagement

• Brain plasticity

• Metacognitive


Two Ideas About LearningIndividuated

• Private, compartmentalized, contextually independent.

• Based on the notion of separate self.

• Purpose of learning is individual competence.

• Mind as primary funnel of knowledge.

Integrated

• Interconnected, mutual, reflective, contextually dependent.

• Based on group self.

• Purpose of learning is wisdom, betterment of self and community.

• Mind/body/spirit/emotions/relationships are conduits of knowledge.


Two Ideas (cont.)

Individuated

• Learning is a private individual activity.

• Learning is compartmentalized, abstract and measurable.

• Taken from Chavez and Longerbeam, 2016, pp.8-9

Integrated

• Learning is a shared activity, each responsible for the learning of all.

• Learning is connected. Everything affects the whole.

• Understanding connections is fundamental to learning.


Who is in Your Classroom?

• Students from both types of cultures are in your classroom and they process information very differently.


Where Science meets Self• Recent research (Zull, 2002) indicates

that the integrated approach to learning is a more accurate description of the kind of learning we would like to support, learning that matters to students, that they remember and use, that they incorporate into their own stories about who they are and what they have to offer society.


Science and Learning

• Zull describes “emotion molecules” that must be engaged for meaningful learning to occur. “ More connections run from the amygdala to the cortex than run the other way…emotions tend to overpower cognition” (74), not the other way around.


Dewey in the 21st Century

• Zull is speaking to those of us who teach in the Western individual mode in our own language.

• He’s telling us that the integrated mode of teaching/learning is supported by our scientific observations of brain activity in the learning process.


Learning Takes Time

• Learning, on a scientific level, is a biochemical process. It takes time to acquire, integrate and connect new information into previously existing neural networks of data that are connected to the new information.

• Everybody’s neural networks are different.


Neural Networks

• Networks that fire together wire together.

• Our strongest neural networks are composed of information related to who we think we are and what we care about.

• If you want students to learn anything, it must be connected to previous neural networks, theirs and yours. Specific information has to matter to everybody.


Self and Learning:The Power of Narrative

• Take some time to think about something very important you have learned….

• Where, when, with whom?

• What made this learning powerful?

• Did it transform your ideas about yourself or your world?


What does the word Learning mean to you? Define.

• How is your teaching related to student learning?

• What do you really want them to learn?

• Is that related to self?

• In your experience does self enhance or confuse learning?


Descartes and the Western Narrative

• As it turns out, Descartes was correct in a limited domain, the domain of what we now consider science and empirical, positivist research.

• Our understanding of our world has become more complex, nuanced and sophisticated.

• Descartes can take us only so far.4/22/16 Jane Fried, Ph.D.

Descartes and Zull

If you want to take your students on your journey of learning, discovering and using what you know to enhance our world, you have to move beyond Descartes to applied cognitive science and our collective search for meaning.

It’s really not that hard and is often a lot more fun.4/22/16 Jane Fried, Ph.D.

Pause for Reflection


Engaged, Transformative Learning

• Is a process which includes both academic information and connections to students’ sense of self;

• Students learn to be curious, involved and questioning.

• They begin to understand that knowledge may be external (factual) but the meaning of knowledge is internal (phenomenlogical/personal).


• Since learning is biological and physical, students need time and opportunities to reflect on what they are learning, so they can construct reasons why they need to know.

• Methods use to accomplish this goal are typically contemplative.

• Contemplative methods include journaling, alternative modes of expression such as poetry,drawing or music4/22/16 Jane Fried, Ph.D.


They also need practice…

• In self expression

• In active listening

• In asking questions and responding to the questions of other students

• In emotional control

• In self-disclosure


Your Pedagogy

• You are an expert in your discipline;

• You may need a bit of support in discussion process and reflection;

• If you show students why you care about your subject, why it matters to you,

• And then give them an opportunity to reflect on why it could matter to them, nobody will be bored and life will get …


MUCH MORE INTERESTING

• Students will see connections between self and knowledge;

• They will be curious about different beliefs because they don’t have to defend themselves;

• Dewey’s dispositions will begin to develop;

• They will be able to think before they vote.



References

• Baxter-Magolda, M. Creating Contexts for Learning and Self Authorship,Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 1999

• Chavez, A. & Longerbeam, S. Teaching Across Cultural Strengths,Stylus, 2016

• Frankena, W. Three Historical Philosophies of Education, Scott Foresman, 1965

• Fried, J. Of Education, Fishbowls and Rabbit Holes, Stylus Publications, 2016

• Zull, J. The Art of Changing the Brain. Stylus, 2002
