LECTURE № 1 Basics of Pedagogics. Subject and tasks of Pedagogics
v The Concept of Pedagogics.
v Main Categories of Pedagogics.
v Pedagogical science and Pedagogical practice.
v System of Pedagogical Sciences.
v Pedagogics and Medicine.
The Concept of Pedagogy
The word Pedagogy comes from the Greek παιδαγωγέω (paidagōgeō); in which παῖς (paнs, genitive παιδός, paidos) means “child” and άγω (бgō) means “lead”; so it literally means “to lead the child”. In Ancient Greece, παιδαγωγός was (usually) a slave who supervised the instruction of his master’s son (girls were not publicly taught). This involved taking him to school (διδασκαλεῖον) or a gym (γυμναστήριον), looking after him and carrying his equipment (e.g. music instruments).
Pedagogic Practice
Pedagogues work with all age groups, starting from the early years up to the aged. They work iurseries and kindergartens, schools, children’s and youth services, play settings, children’s homes and youth clubs; they work in adult services engaging with communities and disadvantaged adults, such as ethnic minorities, substance misusers, homeless, unemployed or imprisoned persons; and they are employed in palliative care, supporting older people at home or in care.
It is only logical that the practical methods in all these settings will differ, depending on the target group. Therefore within the general discipline pedagogy we can distinguish various approaches. Some of these are named after key thinkers like Frцbel or Montessori who have created a very specific pedagogic concept for the context of their work, while others are termed according to the medium they are utilising, such as play, circus, music, or theatre pedagogy.
Despite these differences in approach, what combines all pedagogies is the way of thinking, the philosophy, the attitude with which these different methods are used – and this is what makes practice social pedagogic: as Hдmдlдinen (2003) points out, ‘social pedagogy is not a method, nor even a set of methods. As a discipline it has its own theoretical orientation to the world. An action is not social pedagogical because certain methods are used therein, but because some methods are chosen and used as a consequence of social pedagogical thought.’ So social pedagogy is not what we do, it is rather how we approach practice, with what attitude and aims. This also means that social pedagogy is not something we do or don’t do – the question to ask ourselves is to what degree we are working in a social pedagogical way! In that sense, social pedagogy is an ongoing journey of learning and development, not just for the people we work with but also for ourselves. Fortunately, as human beings our potential to develop is only limited by our imagination.
v To conceptualize the various elements that form part of pedagogy, we have developed the model of the Pedagogy Tree.
Pedagogy Tree symbolizes that pedagogy has organically grown out of societal conditions. It is solidly rooted in society, with the different roots representing different strands of particular influences on social pedagogy, such as theories from related disciplines or influential key thinkers that have shaped the development of social pedagogy.
The trunk forms the core of what social pedagogy represents in theory and in practice: the holistic approach to education in the broadest sense, the centrality of relationships, and the use of observation and reflection as a tool for continuous development of all (systems and people) that are included in the pedagogic process.
The branches outline various predominant elements that form part of pedagogy, and each of them is underpinned in its significance by theory and research. This makes it helpful to apply theory to practice. For instance, the knowledge of communication models makes practitioners more self-reflective about and conscious of how they communicate.
As with every tree, growth takes place in two opposite directions, both away from and further into the ground. This reflects how social pedagogy interacts between society and the individual. Social pedagogy aims to provide nurturing conditions that support children’s growth in both directions, towards independence and interdependence. In Goethe’s words ‘childreeed two things from their parents: roots and wings’.
Similar to this is the growth of social pedagogy itself: through dialogue, social pedagogy takes influence on how society is constructed, and in reverse these constructions take influence on how social pedagogy is shaped. Because of this vital relationship with society, social pedagogy cannot simply be transplanted. It flourishes best when embedded into the culture and existing practice, and therefore it takes time and constant care to grow.
Pedagogy offers many practical and accessible concepts that describe how social pedagogy can be applied. Here we would like to introduce those that participants have found most interesting and useful.
v To conceptualize the various elements that form part of pedagogy, we have developed the model of the Pedagogy Tree.
v The Common Third is a Danish model that describes the use of activities in order to develop positive relationships with children.
v The Learning Zone Model was developed by Senninger to illustrate in what situations learning takes place.
v The Zone of Proximal Development, a concept developed by Vygotsky, depicts the social aspects of learning and offers an explanation why learning together with others helps us develop further.
The Diamond Model symbolizes one of the most fundamental underpinning principles of pedagogy – that there is a diamond within all of us. As human beings we are all precious and have a rich variety of knowledge, skills and abilities. Not all diamonds are polished and sparkly, but all have the potential to be. Similarly, every person has the potential to shine out – and social pedagogy is about supporting them in this. Therefore, pedagogy has four core aims that are closely linked: well-being and happiness, holistic learning, relationship, and empowerment.
Well-being and happiness:
The overarching aim of all social pedagogic practice is to provide well-being and happiness, not on a short-term needs-focused basis, but sustainably, through a rights-based approach. While the terms ‘well-being’ and ‘happiness’ are sometimes seen as one and the same, in our understanding they are notionally different: happiness describes a present state whereas well-being describes as a long-lasting sense of physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. In combination we can get a holistic view of a person’s well-being and happiness. Importantly, well-being and happiness are very individual and subjective: what makes us happy is very different from person to person. As a result social pedagogic practice is very context-specific and highly responsive to the individual rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all approach.
Holistic learning:
‘Learning is the pleasant anticipation of one’s self’, according to the German philosopher Sloterdijk. In this sense, holistic learning mirrors the aim of well-being and happiness – it must be seen as contributing to, or enhancing, our well-being. Learning is more than what happens at school, it is a holistic process of realizing our own potential for learning and growth, which can take place in every situation that offers a learning opportunity. Holistic learning is a life-long process involving ‘head, heart, and hands’ (Pestalozzi). Social pedagogy is about creating learning opportunities, so that people get a sense of their own potential and how they have developed. As we are all unique, so is our potential for learning and our way of learning and development.
Relationship:
Central to achieving these two aims is the pedagogic relationship. Through the supportive relationship with the social pedagogue a person can experience that someone cares for and about them, that they can trust somebody. This is about giving them the social skills to be able to build strong positive relationships with others. Therefore the pedagogic relationship must be a personal relationship between human beings – social pedagogues make use of their personality and have to be authentic in the relationship, which is not the same as sharing private matters. So the pedagogic relationship is professional and personal at the same time, thus requiring from the social pedagogue to be constantly reflective.
Empowerment:
Alongside the relationship, empowerment is crucial in order to ensure that we get a sense of control over our life, feel involved in decisions affecting us, and are able to make sense of our own universe. Empowerment also means that we are able to take on ownership and responsibility for our own learning and our own well-being and happiness, as well as our relationship with the community. Pedagogy is therefore about supporting people’s empowerment, their independence as well as interdependence.
Positive Experiences:
In order to realize these core aims, social pedagogy has to be about providing positive experiences. The power of experiencing something positive – something that makes us happy, something we have achieved, a new skill we have learned, the caring support from someone else – has a double impact: it raises our self-confidence and feeling of self-worth, so it reinforces our sense of well-being, of learning, of being able to form a strong relationship, or of feeling empowered; and by strengthening our positives we also improve our weak sides – negative notions about our self-fade away…
Conclusions:
Social pedagogy offers a conceptual framework that can help guide professional practice. As an academic discipline, social pedagogy uses related research, theories and concepts from other sciences such as sociology, psychology, education or philosophy to ensure the holistic perspective. This means that in realizing those core aims there is a lot of inspiration to be taken from what research and concepts tell us about related areas. All four aims point at the fact that social pedagogy is about process. Well-being and happiness, holistic learning, relationship, empowerment – none of these is a product that, once achieved, can be forgotten. This is why it is important to perceive them as fundamental human rights that we all constantly need to work on if we want to ensure that nobody’s rights are violated or neglected.
The notion of Haltung in pedagogy
“Children are not the people of tomorrow, but are people of today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with respect, as equals. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be – the unknown person inside each of them is the hope for the future.” Janusz Korczak (1879-1942)
In the life of Janusz Korczak, Polish-Jewish doctor and pedagogue, these words were more than an expression of his fundamental world view, his belief that respecting a person’s dignity is central to their development – they were what he lived his life by and what underpinned his practice in the orphanages he set up in
They would also have felt Korczak’s dedication on one of their darkest days, in August 1942, when the occupying Nazi forces deported the children to the concentration camp in Treblinka. Declining offers by the German soldiers to spare Korczak himself from the gas chambers, he went with them on their last march. His determination to be with his orphans in the moment when they needed him most, to give them hope in a situation of despair is a vivid reflection of Korczak’s ‘Haltung‘ – a term crucial for understanding social pedagogy.
As a German term, ‘Haltung‘ roughly translates as ethos, mindset or attitude. But, as the example of Janusz Korczak demonstrates, ‘Haltung‘ is more about how we guide our actions by what we believe in. Therefore it can be more or less distinct, depending on the extent to which we actually live by our moral convictions. This ranges from everyday decisions of whether we take our bicycle instead of the car if we’re concerned about global warming, or drink fair-trade coffee if we believe in the importance of combating exploitative labour conditions, to considerations more relevant to social pedagogic practice.
For instance, if we think of children in Korczak’s terms, as equal human beings, do we then value their ideas equally to our own? Wieninger (2000) points out that our ‘Haltung‘ is influenced by our concept of children (or of mankind in general), by how we think about them, what notions we hold about who they are. As a result, ‘Haltung‘ is very subjective and not necessarily what we might judge as ‘good’: some people have a very different concept of children compared with Korczak’s. In our interactions with others, our ‘Haltung‘ will have an influence, because the way we think about others – and our relationship with them – affects the way in which we engage with them. Most children, for example, will know when we genuinely care about them or when we pretend to care. In a sense, our ‘Haltung‘ shines through in our relationships with others, which in turn colours their behaviour towards us.
‘Haltung‘ is fundamental to social pedagogy, because it demonstrates the importance of the professional being authentic. In our ‘Haltung‘ the professional and the personal are intrinsically interwoven (cf. 3Ps) , as ‘Haltung‘ is not something we can adopt just for a particular situation. It explains why social pedagogy is not a method, not about what is done but how it is done, how ‘head, heart and hands’ are connected through a social pedagogical ‘Haltung‘. In social pedagogic terms, the ‘Haltung‘ of the professional should be based on an emotional connectedness to other people and a profound respect for their human dignity.
In this sense, a social pedagogic ‘Haltung‘ is characterised by Carl Rogers’s core conditions: congruence, empathic understanding, and unconditional positive regard. Mьhrel’s (2008) philosophical reflections on a professional ‘Haltung‘ in social pedagogy and social care underpin this point. Drawing on various philosophers – most notably Hans-Georg Gadamer, Emmanuel Lйvinas and Jacques Derrida – he suggests two pillars for a social pedagogical ‘Haltung‘: comprehending and regarding.
The notion of comprehending refers to understanding the way of life of a person and draws on the hermeneutic ideas of Gadamer, which highlight empathy and dialogue as leading us towards a better understanding of others. By ‘regarding’, Mьhrel refers to accepting the otherness in people different from ourselves who, as strangers, deserve our profound respect. He argues that we cannot understand the other (only what we recognise of ourselves in others), and accepting their strangeness means that we do not try to reduce them to what we are familiar with, what we know.
Following Mьhrelss logic, ‘comprehending’ and ‘regarding’ are diametrically opposed – in a sense social pedagogical ‘Haltung‘ moves between these two pillars like a trapeze artist swinging between two poles. Both are important for maintaining the trapeze’s equilibrium, and whilst swinging towards one pole the trapeze artist must already prepare to swing back towards the other pole. In a similar way, whilst we might aim to fully understand someone else’s life world, we should also be aware that there will always remain a part in other people that we cannot know or predict, that makes them different and demands our regard. And in our considerations about the otherness and strangeness of an individual we can still find something that we share with them, something that can help us ‘swing’ towards understanding them, something that could be our ‘Common Third’.
In this process of oscillating between understanding and regarding, dialogue becomes fundamental to our description of professional ‘Haltung‘. Dialogue allows us meet the other as our equal and to explore something together, without knowing where that journey might ultimately lead us. As Mьhrel emphasises, in dialogue we recognise the intrinsic humaneness in others. Social pedagogical ‘Haltung‘ therefore means that we must encounter others in a congruent manner, so that they can recognise our own personality and understand us better in return. Through this process we caurture a professional relationship that is based on trust and forms the foundation for social pedagogic practice, which Janusz Korczak brings to the point, “If you want to be a pedagogue you have to learn to talk with children instead of to them. You have to learn to trust their capacities and possibilities”. Everything else follows on from this.
v The Common Third is a Danish model that describes the use of activities in order to develop positive relationships with children.
The Common Third
The concept of the ‘Common Third’ is central to social pedagogic practice. Essentially the Common Third is about using an activity to strengthen the bond between social pedagogue and child and to develop new skills. This could be any activity, be it cooking pancakes, tying shoelaces, fixing a bike, building a kite, playing football together, going on a fishing trip together. Any of these activities can be so much more than merely doing something – it is about creating a commonly shared situation that becomes a symbol of the relationship between the social pedagogue and the child, something third that brings the two together: they are sharing an activity, and to be sharing something, to have something in common, implies in principle to be equal, to be two (or more) individuals on equal terms, with equal rights and dignity.
The Common Third also means that the social pedagogue is authentic and self-reflective, bringing in their own personality as an important resource. It is about finding an activity in which the social pedagogue and the child are both genuinely interested. In this sense, the Common Third suggests a child-centred approach and full participation of the child into every step – the child has to be involved on equal terms in all project phases, from the beginning to the end.
What makes the Common Third especially likeable is an understanding of holistic education that also includes the social pedagogue themselves. An equal relationship means that both share also a common potential of learning, on a basis of activity and action.
v The Learning Zone Model was developed by Senninger to illustrate in what situations learning takes place.
The Learning Zone Model (Senninger, 2000)
In order to learn we have to explore: we already know our environment, our Comfort Zone – this is where things are familiar, where we feel comfortable, where we don’t have to take any risks. The Comfort Zone is important, because it gives us a place to return to, to reflect and make sense of things – a safe haven.
Yet, in order to get to know the unknown we have to leave our Comfort Zone and discover the Learning Zone, which lies just outside of our secure environment. Only in the Learning Zone can we grow and learn, live out our curiosity and make new discoveries, and thus slowly expand our Comfort Zone. Going into the Learning Zone is a borderline experience – we feel we’re exploring the edge of our abilities, our limits, how far we dare to leave our Comfort Zone.
However, beyond the Learning Zone lies the Panic Zone, wherein learning is impossible, as it is blocked by a sense of fear. (Any learning connected with negative emotions is memorized in a part of the human brain that we can access only in similar emotional situations.) This is why, in the transition from Comfort Zone to Learning Zone we need to be careful when taking risks that we don’t go too far out of our Comfort Zone – beyond the Learning Zone – into the Panic Zone, where all our energy is used up for managing/controlling our anxiety.
Importantly, these three zones are different for different situations and different for each person – we all have our own unique Comfort Zone – Learning Zone – Anxiety Zone. This means that we must never push someone into their Learning Zone, as we cannot see where it starts or begins. All we can do is invite them into it, value their decision, take them seriously and give them support so they won’t enter their Panic Zone.
The Zone of Proximal Development
The Zone of Proximal Development is a model developed by the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. It states that learning is most successful in a social context, meaning that people learn more and develop further when they are supported by somebody who is more advanced in a certain area and functions as their mentor (or pedagogue).
Vygotsky defines the zone of proximal development as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers”. In this sense the pedagogue could be a practitioner or another child!
According to Schwartz (2001), the Zone of Proximal Development can be extended through four different scenarios of supporting children in their learning:
· Starting from the child’s motivation to learn
· Children want to learn and are interested in finding out new things – this provides a great opportunity for pedagogues to support their learning.
· Starting from where the pedagogue thinks the child ‘is’
· The starting point for learning is where the child is at, and the pedagogue can assess this through observations, reflection and dialogue.
· Mutual process of learning together, e.g. Common Third
· Learning can also be a mutual process, in which both the pedagogue and the child learn something new and support each other in this.
· Necessary development, things that need to be learned
· There are things that we all need to learn in order to lead a happy life in dignity, be part of society and make use of our resourcefulness.
The 3 Ps – The professional, personal, and private pedagogue
The pedagogic role can be split into three dimensions: the professional, the personal, and the private.
· The professional pedagogue helps you explain and understand the child’s behav-iour through the use of law, policy, research, practice evidence and theory. The professional pedagogue supports and protects you in having a professional & per-sonal relationship with the child; it helps you make sense of the child’s actions and reactions, relating them to various theories and using professional concepts to di-rect and reflect your own practice.
· The personal pedagogue represents what you offer to the child in your developing relationship with them. This is based on reflections: you know what you aim to achieve through the relationship, why that will help the child/young person do what in the relationship, and you know that it requires authenticity and may involve some thought out self-disclosure used in the relationship with a child.
· The private pedagogue sets the personal boundaries of what is not shared with those you work with and should therefore not be involved in the relation with a child you care for or work with. The private pedagogue is who you are with those closest to you, and the experiences you have had that may have shaped who you are but which you do not share with a child.
The 3Ps are constantly in play during practice. Social pedagogues are aware of the inter-play between each P and use the 3P model in supervision and on their own to reflect upon practice, understand the impact the child/young person may be have on them and in the search to improve practice and the relationship with the child.
Although the Private P is something which social pedagogues do not share with the child or young person, it may well be impacted upon by a child or other’s behaviour; it is im-perative that practitioners are:
· able to recognise when their reactions to a child may have something to do with what is private to them, and
· able and open to discussing this in professional supervision so that a deeper under-standing of self is gained and practice is improved.
Pedagogics is a normative science with its own subject of research. The historical development of pedagogical thought shows strong relations with philosophical-anthropological principles and with historical-cultural characteristics. Education today is confronted with, among other things, postmodern developments in society (‘Hauslosigkeit‘) and a change in patterns of youth behavior (from a standard career to a chosen career). For pedagogical analysis, a renewed appeal to reason is advocated. A suitable method is the triadic-pedagogical analysis, which reflects on the parent-child relation in connection with historical-cultural developments.
We can safely assume that everyone is aware that children cannot be left to fend for themselves and that they cannot become adult on their own. However, not everyone is convinced that the process of growing up and gradually growing into society requires an on-going pedagogic relationship based on more or less pronounced concepts of what it is to be a civilized human being. “It can’t be allowed!” people cry when they hear that school children are carrying weapons and that they use them on a regular basis. A father will say that his childreeed a “good education” so that they can come to occupy a “good position” in society. While a mother might say that as far as she is concerned, the most important thing is that her children should be “honest” and that they should learn to be prepared to help one another.
In all of these cases there is clearly some notion of the relationship between education and the socio-cultural environment, of the current state of society and society as it might be, of what should be considered normal or abnormal in terms of human behavior and of the kinds of things that education can strive towards. But not everyone is willing to accept the practical pedagogic consequences that these notions imply — in other words, the need to maintain an on-going pedagogic relationship in which educators care for the children in their charge, are aware of their responsibility and are also ethically responsible, relating to the surrounding culture critically and consciously and making every effort to enable children to take part in society responsibly and effectively in their own way.
Consciously or otherwise, educators allow themselves to be guided by all kinds of values regarding human existence on a daily basis and these values are concretized in their dealings with the children they are educating through the setting of various standards. If educators do not allow themselves to be guided by values, there will be no rules or any rules that do exist will be arbitrarily applied. Or there will be a naive faith that with a bit of good will’s everything will work out all right on its own. This kind of attitude means that the child is indeed left to fend for itself and fails to learn to make choices and to be responsible for them. A child may well be able to grow up in such a situation, but is not given enough assistance in the process of becoming an adult. For, like Langeveld, we are also of the opinion that while growing up the child simultaneously engages in a process in which it determines and shapes the values that it has learned or discovered while growing up increasingly independently (Langeveld, 1979, p.23).
In this respect, to continue to think along the lines of Langeveld’s pedagogics, we are concerned with development, education and self-forming within a context of relatively constant personal relationships. However, the pedagogic relationship never exists entirely independently of the historical-cultural context. Thus in this respect we also share Imelman’s view that the educator and the child being educated are also affected by the formative influence of the cultural environment. Ultimately, the task of pedagogics is to act as a mediator within this process.
Concerned as it is with the legitimization of pedagogic procedures, theoretical pedagogics has always had to account for the reasons for education and even the necessity for education. Pedagogics per se, that is, for while those who are purely concerned with the therapeutic side of pedagogics — questioning the effectiveness of certain approaches and strategies, such as how to deal with bed-wetting, eating disorders or social anxiety — are covering important ground for the practice of pedagogics, they are not obliged to account for their actions from the point of view of cultural pedagogics, nor are they considered to have any responsibility towards the child in question in the longer term. However, the discipline of pedagogics per se — in other words, the aspect of pedagogics that cannot be reduced to psychology (or any other behavioral science) — cannot evade the issue of legitimization.
Beekman states it in the following lofty terms “A science of education that does not make any value judgments is a valueless science of education.” In 1826 Friedrich Schleiermacher, one of the founders of academic pedagogics, went as far as to characterize pedagogics as applied ethics. It is worth bearing in mind that Schleiermacher conceived of ethics as cultural philosophy as an evolutionary process (‘progress’), but all the same!
In the tradition of pedagogics as an aspect of the humanities it is common practice to base pedagogical reasoning on statements regarding the human being taken from philosophical anthropology. Some of these statements have since become such established ideas in pedagogic theory that their origin is no longer known. Here, by way of example, we look at the anthropological ideas expounded by Scheler, Portmann and, above all, by Gehlen, who is so widely quoted in the formulation of pedagogic theory. With reference to Nietzsche, Gehlen describes man as “the not-yet-determined animal”. Who and what man is or must become still remains to be seen.
According to Gehlen (1940) this fact, which is an unusual phenomenon withiature, makes man “a creature of discipline”. This notion implies a clear task for education, suggesting that without the imposition of discipline the human being will not become a true human being or in any event will not be given his due. Similar ideas had already been voiced earlier, by Kant, for example, in his Vorlesung ьber Pдdagogik (1776): “We understand by education namely care, discipline and instruction besides cultivation”.’ (Kant, 1803, p. 697: “Unter Erziehung nдmlich verstehen wir die Wartung, Disziplin, Unterweisung nebst der Bildung“)
The quotation from Gehlen referred to above is one of a series of statements regarding the human individual that attempt to clarify man’s special status withiature and in the world. The human being is considered to differ from the animal in that he comes into the world incomplete and has to act in an open world in order to be able to survive, for, unlike the animal, the human being is unable to rely on the safety of innate instincts. A newborn infant is unable to act on its own. It needs assistance and therefore needs to be educated. Yet even when man is fully grown the task is still not complete, for as an adult the individual is called upon to make something of him and must continue to act in order to be able to maintain this position.
However, like children, adults do not need to do this on their own. For — to pursue Gehlen’s argument — human beings are also characterized by the fact that together they create a culture which functions as a second nature within which they can live a human life especially with the aid of institutions (defined as a collection of models of action and/or patterns of behaviour, examples of which include the state, the legal system, the family, school, work and religion). According to this way of thinking the human individual comes into the world unspecialized and finds within himself, as it were, the mandate to act. Initially the child is unable to act independently and until it can act independently it needs help. Pedagogues adopt this anthropological finding as the rationale for educational action. Thus we come to one of the fundamental principles of pedagogic action, which may or may not be explicitly stated.
Gehlen’s anthropology does not stand alone. It exists within the context of a series of anthropologies, being preceded by the work of Scheler and Plessner, among others, which also had an effect on pedagogics, and followed by the work of Sartre, Levinas and Derrida, among others. Research into the fundamental principles of pedagogics might seek to examine such a series of anthropologies not only in terms of the way in which they have been received by pedagogics but also in terms of their (practical) utility.
To a certain extent the history of pedagogics is a history of concepts of man in relation to education. But, one might object, isn’t all education highly individual and situational in practice, embedded in the historical-cultural environment, which is not derived from all kinds of general anthropological systems? And to pursue this line of thinking still further: Isn’t the theory of education excessively divorced from the practice of education which is essentially self-governing and relatively autonomous? The tradition of the humanities goes as far as to speak of theoretical clarification in retrospect, thereby acknowledging the primacy of practice. To some extent the praxis itself determines its own course (Schleiermacher speaks of the “dignity of praxis”).
Given that this is the case, the theory of education is increasingly being assigned the task of critically reflecting on what has already occurred and acting as an ‘interlocutor’ for future practitioners. One thing is certain, when it comes to the discipline of pedagogics the question of theory and practice caever be reduced to the simple application of scientific conclusions in practice. Among other things, scientific opinions are too divided for this to be possible, there being very little consensus from one paradigm to another. As a result, the scientific nature of pedagogics is constantly subject to discussion. The relationship between philosophy and science has yet to crystallize.
To return to the question of the unique and unrepeatable nature of each educational situation this is another aspect covered by philosophical anthropology that is regularly considered in pedagogics. The various personalistic notions in pedagogics are interesting in this respect. In the twentieth century in particular examples of this kind of thinking can be seen in various countries, in the work of Pascal, Kierkegaard and in the Judeo-Christian tradition (Buber, Maritain), among others.
Personalistic thinking centers on the human individual as a person. As a person-in-the-making the child is charged with the task of realizing its intention in a dialectical relationship with the other. Again this is considered to justify the existence of education, for childreeed help in order to be able to do this. The process of self-realization, which is less concerned with capitalizing on one’s potential than with finding one’s specific purpose in life (which may or may not be interpreted in a religious sense), does not really lend itself to empirical research within the context of developmental psychology, nevertheless it has consistently inspired the thinking regarding education. In this case the human being is considered to be the architect of his own destiny and, as a pupil or student, is partly responsible for his own education.
This view has been convincingly elaborated by the Italian pedagogue Guiseppe Flores d’Arcais who is not as well-known as he should be in the
Above all,
In addition to elaborating on the education of the individual and the kind of assistance that promotes personal development, triadic pedagogics also elaborates on the process involved in the transmission and renewal of human culture. Thanks above all to Imelman, the transmission and renewal of human culture has been extracted from the relatively obscure and ambiguous atmosphere in the relationship between the educator and the child and subjected to a clear analysis in the triadic model. Something (a certain point of view) is always communicated. The point of view (or aspect of knowledge) in question is partly reflected in the pedagogic analysis.
In this case, rather than focusing on a theory regarding the pedagogic relationship, we are concerned with an analysis of the triangular relationship between the child, the educator and the point of view being communicated. It hardly needs to be emphasized that such an analysis is also likely to include anthropological factors. A rational and objectifying approach to the transfer of knowledge within the context of the teaching-learning process encourages the pupils to process knowledge critically and helps to prevent the unquestioning absorption of knowledge. The anthropological principle that applies in this case is that the human child should be educated as a rational (and responsible) being.
The considerations outlined above are some of the standard issues addressed by program-oriented theories of education, particularly within the tradition of the humanities. Pedagogues who lean towards conceptual analysis can therefore claim that they have already dealt with this aspect, given that conceptual analysis is concerned with distinguishing between meaning and nonsense, fiction and reality. In the same way, descriptive scientists can question the empirical and practical relevance of the entire anthropological body of thought. In this respect we are all too well aware of the theoretical diversity that exists within the field of pedagogic science.
So to sum up the ideas set out above:
Pedagogic reasoning is often based on ideas developed by philosophical anthropology. Dominant anthropological principles in pedagogics are man as the not-yet-determined animal and man as a creature of discipline; the human being as an unspecialized being living in an open world; the human being as a rational being. Educational theory is often based on anthropological reflections, seen from the point of view of natural development, cultural philosophy or personalism. An analysis of the central question addressed by pedagogics (what needs to be taught to whom, when, how and why?) is likely to be enhanced by an anthropologically based study of educational reality.
In the introduction, taking our lead from Langeveld, we wrote that the purpose of education is to promote development and self-forming within the context of relatively constant personal relationships. In most cases the education that occurs within the context classic family education is conveyed within the home. In traditional pedagogics the kind of education that takes place within the household is adopted as the model for residential forms of education. Pestalozzi uses the terms “Wohnstubenerziehung” (living-room education) and the “Wohnstubengeist” (living-room atmosphere) that should ideally prevail in professional education. Domesticity involves a certaiaturalness (Schleiermacher describes education within the home by the child’s biological parents as the “natural starting point of education”) and also includes emotional-affective factors and a coherent community in terms of concepts and attitudes.
Today — two centuries on — the home is still the main scene of action, though there have been a number of essential changes in the intervening period. For one thing, children of a very young age now spend one or more days a week at crčches and day care centers, children are made to start school younger and younger, the large number of divorces and second and third marriages mean that many children grow up in a number of (step) families, older children leave the family earlier to live in lodgings, or, alternatively, they continue to live at home for longer, or leave the family home only to return again and again (the so-called boomerang kids). In other words, the family home is increasingly characterized by huge diversity.
In addition to this, from the point of view of transmission the ‘home’ represents something far more fundamental. In this respect Buber speaks of Hauslosigkeit (homelessness in a figurative sense) as a characteristic feature of modern culture. According to Buber, the home — in the sense of a shared ideology — has gradually been demolished. This has implications for interpersonal relationships and life within society at large. Shared values and standards cao longer be taken for granted.
Tying in with this, many of the French postmodernist thinkers (Lyotard and Derrida among others) claim that the “main storylines” (the grands rйcits) have lost their credibility. In saying so they are referring not only to the decline of the Christian world view, which was widely upheld in the past, but — more broadly — to all secularized forms of Judeo-Christian theology subscribed to in the past, to the myth of human progress being achieved by means of science and technology, and, more generally, to all of the stories that people have used to help make the world and their own lives more understandable. In the postmodern culture the human individual is forced to live without a home, as it were. And “a homeless person is a disoriented person!” (Sperna Weiland, 1999, pp. 347 and 364).
The postmodernists deny that there are any central truths; they emphasize the pluriformity of reality (differential philosophy) and thus confirm what Nietzsche said a century earlier: “There is no such thing as absolute truth.” On the other hand, there are countless perspectives from which to examine reality. The same applies to the understanding of text: there is no single meaning or no single truth. Similarly, deconstruction teaches that there is no text, there is only interpretation.
Postmodern principles are not confined to the philosophy of architecture, they also characterize social reality. This is not something that pedagogics can afford to overlook since these principles permeate the “Volk- und Zeitgeist” (Jean Paul). Faced with these postmodern principles we need to ask what are the pedagogic implications of these postmodern developments? Or, in the light of the ideas set out above, how does ‘Hauslosigkeit‘ affect “relatively constant personal relationships” and the child’s natural tendency to “determine and shape the values that it has learned or discovered increasingly independent” (Langeveld) and the endeavour to teach young people to think critically and to communicate an awareness of values (Imelman)?
What is ‘modern youth’?
Before we can answer the key question addressed by this article, we first need to have some idea of the distinguishing characteristics of modern youth. Sociologists concerned with juveniles frequently conduct research studies on this subject. The juvenile sociological research department in
According to Du Bois-Reymond the juvenile phase is under pressure. This phase now involves the characteristic aspects of individualization and pluriformity, freedom of choice and forced choices, a negotiation culture combined with informalization, and the movement from a standard career to an ą la carte career.
Young people now stay at school longer. The longer period of education and increased peer pressure is changing the relationship between young people and their parents. Parents increasingly have to compete with the standards and way of life of their children’s peers. The traditional nuclear family of father, mother and child now exists alongside other ways of living: communities of unmarried adults with children, divorced parents, single parents or guardians. There has been a wholesale extension of the youth phase with a distinction being made between post-adolescents and young adults. Young people now have more freedom of choice but have to be able to legitimize their choices.
Compared with a few decades ago juveniles no longer follow a set life pattern on their way towards adulthood. The sequence of status passages (the transition from one life situation to the next, such as the transition from school to higher education or the transition from living at home to living alone) is now unpredictable. There is no longer such a thing as a standard career — it is now more appropriate to think in terms of ą la carte career. The aspect of choice is also evident at secondary school. Du Bois-Reymond observes that “The compulsory national cultural curriculum […] is giving way in favour of more choice”.
“The relationship between parents and juveniles is now far more intimate, freer and more congenial than was previously the case.” “The present intimacy in families — call it domestic negotiation — has an aspect of uncertainty […] in the sense that future is now an uncertain factor for all members of society, regardless of their age.” “This has to do with the labor market which is now unpredictable.”
In addition to the research on the juvenile phase being carried out in
Though we may agree that it is helpful and possibly eveecessary to educate a child, we are still not sure precisely what kind of education we are talking about. A broad awareness of the need for education does not automatically imply that there is unanimity regarding the content of the educational activity. Above we saw that to some extent the definition of education is based on anthropological assumptions. Conditions, methods and objectives all vary depending on the prevailing view of the human individual, among other things. Arguing that naturalness was primary, Rousseau defended the idea that the child must be educated to become the human being that nature intended him to be since the child was unable to achieve this on its own and cultural influences simply had an adverse effect.
Writing at approximately the same time, Lessing claimed that a child could be educated given that education simply served to accelerate and facilitate the process of becoming a human being that was already underway. As far as Lessing was concerned, the belief in progress that was one of the main tenets of the Enlightenment included the idea of education. For this reason it was important to subject society to constructive criticism (and not to turn away from society as Rousseau advocated), for this would also accelerate the process of society becoming more rational.
Agreeing with the principles voiced by Rousseau and Lessing, Pestalozzi — who was also writing in around 1800 — was in favour of a method of education that drew on the natural development of the child and he also devoted a great deal of effort to the creation a better society. Accepting the biologically established incompleteness and unspecializedness of the human child who, in addition to this, also lives in an open world, one-and-a-half centuries later Gehlen felt it necessary to emphasize the need for discipline (see the first paragraph of this article).
However, pedagogics is usually more complex than this tends to suggest. For besides seeing the corruption of nature (which he wished to restore) Pestalozzi also saw an unjust society (which he wished to change) and in addition to this he was also an ardently religious man. As might be expected, all of these different aspects are reflected in his concept of education. The later interpretations of his work sometimes focus exclusively on one aspect, giving the impression that there were several Pestalozzis (or should we acknowledge that these interpretations are all true in the way that postmodernism recognizes the validity of different interpretations).
The confusion got worse still when in 1996 writers in
And it gets more complex still if we attempt to visualize education under conditions of postmodernity. Postmodernist theory may well help to clarify the issues faced by modern-day education, by establishing a connection between Hauslosigkeit, the sense of disorientation and the teaching of values. Yet it is difficult to conceive of a practice of education deliberately based on the body of postmodernist thought. For what does the educator have to offer the child if the educator constantly points to the wealth of perspectives, denying the existence of absolute truth and relativizing all explanatory associations?
The application of postmodernist theory in educational situations presupposes that any such theory would first be comprehensively formulated as a pedagogic approach before there could be any practical consequences. Generally speaking, leaving aside the question as to whether such an approach would actually be desirable, children are uncomfortable with uncertainty or with a wealth of perspectives and the relativization of values. For the rest, it is possible to conceive of an educational theory that draws on insights expounded by differential philosophy, for example. Even if it is only that on the basis of this philosophy the gender aspect of education can be elaborated in a new way.
If the attempt to define precisely what we mean by the term ‘education’ and to identify the kinds of assumptions are at issue proves problematic within the context of a single concept of education, it is hardly surprising that it will be even more difficult to arrive at unequivocality and unanimity within the science of education as a whole. History shows a kaleidoscopic picture of standard concepts of education and in our day the science of education is still characterized by a diversity of concepts and methods. The answer to the question “What is education?” gives rise to a picture of diverse activities. However, when it comes to a general description of the terrain, Kant’s definition (1803) still stands. Education encompasses the following four aspects: nurture and protection, the teaching of rules (discipline), instruction and training.
Education is a matter of “cheerful seriousness”, but serious all the same. In order to prevent a situation in which pedagogics lapses into unfortunate relativism (“there is no such thing as absolute truth”) or degenerates into a supermarket model (“every customer selects something to suit his taste”), it is necessary to establish certain a priori rights of the child being educated (possibly based on the UN declaration regarding the rights of the child, or on other respectable and broadly upheld principles, such as Albert Schweitzer’s maxim of “Respect for life”). As far as the science of education is concerned, it is important to state explicitly, as far as possible, the basic principles being subscribed to.
If it is true that young people have never been faced with as much uncertainty as they are in our time (in the sense of ‘Hauslosigkeit‘, looser family ties, unrelenting dictatorship of choice, uncertain expectations with regard to the future, a potpourri attitude towards values and standards, etc.), it is all the more necessary to subject education and training to the critical authority of reason. As formulated by Imelman and Meijer in triadic pedagogics: education in which pupils are taught to ask teachers to account for the subject matter being taught, and teachers are asked to account for what they are teaching by means of the game of reducing uncertainty. The idea is that pupils should be able to gain a thorough command of the subject they are being taught, in other words, that they should reflect on what they are learning and assume responsibility and in doing so create a hold on life. This is a prerequisite for the child to be able to develop into a person. And in a scientific sense a permanently critical outlook that does not shy from criticizing sacred cows in the interest of education.
Or, as formulated by Bollnow in his anthropological pedagogics, an education in which a permanent appeal is made to the (development of the) inner reason of the child. Education is more necessary than ever, an education that continues to be a true subject of conversation: “Since we are a conversation and can listen to each other” (Hцlderlin).
Pedagogy is also occasionally referred to as the correct use of instructive strategies (see instructional theory). For example, Paulo Freire referred to his method of teaching adult humans as “critical pedagogy”. In correlation with those instructive strategies the instructor’s own philosophical beliefs of instruction are harbored and governed by the pupil’s background knowledge and experience, situation, and environment, as well as learning goals set by the student and teacher. One example would be the Socratic schools of thought
The Latin-derived word for pedagogy: child-instruction, is in modern use in English to refer to the whole context of instruction, learning, and the actual operation involved therein, although both words have roughly the same original meaning. In English the term pedagogy is used to refer to instructive theory; trainee teachers learn their subject and also the pedagogy appropriate for teaching that subject. The introduction of information technology into schools has necessitated changes in pedagogy; teachers are adopting new methods of teaching facilitated by the new technology. The late Malcolm Knowles reasoned that the term andragogy is more pertinent when discussing adult learning and teaching. He referred to andragogy as the art and science of teaching adults.
THE present is the age of intellectualism. The intellect is that faculty of soul in the exercise of which man’s inner being participates least. One speaks with some justification of the cold intellectual nature; we need only reflect how the intellect acts upon artistic perception or practice. It dispels or impedes. And artists dread that their creations may be conceptually or symbolically explained by the intelligence. In the clarity of the intellect the warmth of soul which, in the act of creation, gave life to their works, is extinguished. The artist would like his work to be grasped by feeling, not by the understanding. For then the warmth with which he has experienced it is communicated to the beholder. But this warmth is repelled by an intellectual explanation.
In social life intellectualism separates men from one another. They can only work rightly within the community when they are able to impart to their deeds — which always involve the weal or woe of their fellow beings — something of their soul. One man should experience not only another’s activity but something of his soul. In a deed, however, which springs from intellectualism, a man withholds his soul nature. He does not let it flow over to his neighbour. It has long been said that in the teaching and training of children intellectualism operates in a crippling way. In saying this one has in mind, in the first place, only the child’s intelligence, not the teacher’s. One would like to fashion one’s methods of training and instruction so that not only the child’s cold understanding may be aroused and developed, but warmth of heart may be engendered too.
The anthroposophical view of the world is in full agreement with this. It accepts fully the excellent educational maxims which have grown from this demand. But it realises clearly that warmth can only be imparted from soul to soul. On this account it holds that, above all, pedagogy itself must become ensouled, and thereby the teachers’ whole activity.
In recent times intellectualism has permeated strongly into methods of instruction and training. It has achieved this indirectly, by way of modern science. Parents let science dictate what is good for the child’s body, soul and spirit. And teachers, during their training, receive from science the spirit of their educational methods.
But science has achieved its triumphs precisely through intellectualism. It wants to keep its thoughts free of anything from man’s own soul life, letting them receive everything from sense observation and experiment. Such a science could build up the excellent knowledge of nature of our time, but it cannot found a true pedagogy.
A true pedagogy must be based upon a knowledge that embraces man with respect to body, soul and spirit. Intellectualism only grasps man with respect to his body, for to observation and experiment the bodily alone is revealed. Before a true pedagogy can be founded, a true knowledge of man is necessary. This Anthroposophy seeks to attain.
One cannot come to a knowledge of man by first forming an idea of his bodily nature with the help of a science founded merely on what can be grasped by the senses, and then asking whether this bodily nature is ensouled, and whether a spiritual element is active within it. In dealing with a child such an attitude is harmful. For in him, far more than in the adult, body, soul and spirit form a unity. One cannot care first for the health of the child from the point of view of a merely natural science, and then want to give to the healthy organism what one regards as proper from the point of view of soul and spirit. In all that one does to the child and with the child one benefits or injures his bodily life. In man’s earthly life soul and spirit express themselves through the body. A bodily process is a revelation of soul and spirit.
Material science is of necessity concerned with the body as a physical organism; it does not come to a comprehension of the whole man. Many feel this while regarding pedagogy, but fail to see what is needed to-day. They do not say: pedagogy cannot thrive on material science; let us therefore found our pedagogic methods out of pedagogic instincts and not out of material science. But half-consciously they are of this opinion.
We may admit this in theory, but in practice it leads to nothing, for modern humanity has lost the spontaneity of the life of instinct. To try to-day to build up an instinctive pedagogy on instincts which are no longer present in man in their original force, would remain a groping in the dark. We come to see this through anthroposophical knowledge. We learn to know that the intellectualistic trend in science owes its existence to a necessary phase in the evolution of mankind. In recent times man passed out of the period of instinctive life. The intellect became of predominant significance. Maeeded it in order to advance on his evolutionary path in the right way. It leads him to that degree of consciousness which he must attain in a certain epoch, just as the individual must acquire particular capabilities at a particular period of his life. But the instincts are crippled under the influence of the intellect, and one cannot try to return to the instinctive life without working against man’s evolution. We must accept the significance of that full consciousness which has been attained through intellectualism, and — in full consciousness — give to man what instinctive life cao longer give him.
We need for this a knowledge of soul and spirit which is just as much founded on reality as is material, intellectualistic science. Anthroposophy strives for just this, yet it is this that many people shrink from accepting. They learn to know the way modern science tries to understand man. They feel he cannot be known in this way, but they will not accept that it is possible to cultivate a new mode of cognition and — in clarity of consciousness equal to that in which one penetrates the bodily nature — attain to a knowledge of soul and spirit. So they want to return to the instincts again in order to understand the child and train him.
But he must go forwards; and there is no other way than to extend anthropology by acquiring Anthroposophy and sense knowledge by acquiring spiritual knowledge. We have to learn all over again. Men are terrified at the complete change of thought required for this. From unconscious fear they attack Anthroposophy as fantastic, yet it only wants to proceed in the spiritual domain as soberly and as carefully as material science in the physical.
Let us consider the child. About the seventh year of life he develops his second teeth. This is not merely the work of the period of time immediately preceding. It is a process that begins with embryonic development and only concludes with the second teeth. These forces, which produce the second teeth at a certain stage of development, were always active in the child’s organism. They do not reveal themselves in this way in subsequent periods of life. Further teeth formations do not occur. Yet the forces concerned have not been lost; they continue to work; they have merely been transformed. They have undergone a metamorphosis. (There are still other forces in the child’s organism which undergo metamorphosis in a similar way.)
If we study in this way the development of the child’s organism we discover that these forces are active before the change of teeth. They are absorbed in the processes of nourishment and growth. They live in undivided unity with the body, freeing themselves from it about the seventh year. They live on as soul forces; we find them active in the older child in feeling and thinking.
Anthroposophy shows that an etheric organism permeates the physical organism of man. Up to the seventh year the whole of this etheric organism is active in the physical. But now a portion of the etheric organism becomes free from direct activity in the physical. It acquires a certain independence, becoming thereby an independent vehicle of the soul life, relatively free from the physical organism.
In earth life, however, soul experience can only develop with the help of this etheric organism. Hence the soul is quite embedded in the body before the seventh year. To be active during this period, it must express itself through the body. The child can only come into relationship with the outer world when this relationship takes the form of a stimulus which runs its course within the body. This can only be the case when the child imitates. Before the change of teeth the child is a purely imitative being in the widest sense. His training must consist in this: that those around him perform before him what he is to imitate.
The child’s educator should experience within himself what it is to have the whole etheric organism within the physical. This gives him knowledge of the child. With abstract principles alone one can do nothing. Educational practice requires an anthroposophical art of education to work out in detail how the human being reveals himself as a child.
Just as the etheric organism is embedded in the physical until the change of teeth, so, from the change of teeth until puberty, there is embedded in the physical and etheric a soul organism, called the astral organism by Anthroposophy. As a result of this the child develops a life that no longer expends itself in imitation. But he cannot yet govern his relation to others in accordance with fully conscious thoughts regulated by intellectual judgment. This first becomes possible when, at puberty, a part of the soul organism frees itself from the corresponding part of the etheric organism. From his seventh to his fourteenth or fifteenth year the child’s life is not mainly determined by his relation to those around him in so far as this results from his power of judgment. It is the relation which comes through authority that is important now.
This means that, during these years, the child must look up to someone whose authority he can accept as a matter of course. His whole education must now be fashioned with reference to this. One cannot build upon the child’s power of intellectual judgment, but one should perceive clearly that the child wants to accept what is put before him as true, good and beautiful, because the teacher, whom he takes for his model, regards it as true, good and beautiful.
Moreover the teacher must work in such a way that he not merely puts before the child the True, the Good and the Beautiful, but — in a sense — is these. What the teacher is passes over into the child, not what he teaches. All that is taught should be put before the child as a concrete ideal. Teaching itself must be a work of art, not a matter of theory.
The case method is based on a philosophy of professional education which associates knowledge directly with action (Boehrer, 1995). This philosophy rejects the doctrine that students should first learn passively, and then, having learned, should apply knowledge. Instead, the case method is based on the principle that real education consists of the cumulative and unending acquisition, combination and reordering of learning experiences.
There are two fundamental principles underpinning the case method. First, the best-learned lessons are the ones that students teach themselves, through their own struggles. Second, many of the most useful kinds of understanding and judgement cannot be taught but must be learned through practical experience. When instructors assign problems or papers in a course, they are motivated by a similar concern: by working through the problem set on their own or writing the paper, students reach a deeper understanding of the concepts and ideas than they would have if they only read the text or listened passively to lectures. Case method teaching extends this principle to make preparing for class and the class session itself an active learning experience for students. By using complex real-world problems as the focus, it challenges students to learn skills that will be appropriate to deal with the practical problems that they will face as economists, civil servants or private managers.
Teaching through the case method allows educators to address specific pedagogical issues and to develop higher-order skills in students. Velenchik (1995) highlights four pedagogical issues addressed by the case method:
Motivation to learn theory. In general, undergraduate economics courses tend to treat applications as secondary to the exposition of theory. In our teaching we often use examples to illustrate the application of particular theoretical concepts. However, we tend to use the example to reinforce the theory, having taught the theory first, rather than thinking of the theory as a set of tools for answering the question posed by the application. The focus, therefore, is on the theory itself, and the application is often perceived as incidental. When students do not understand the purpose of theory, the process of learning becomes more dry and difficult than it needs to be, and they often fail to grasp the tools they need. In the case method, the problem that the students are challenged to solve takes centre stage. They soon realise that they do not have the tools and they start looking for the tools. They want to learn theory.
Application of theory. The ultimate goal of economics education is to enable students to apply economic reasoning to particular policy issues. The focus is generally as much on the process of policy analysis as on the specific area of policy. One method for illustrating the process is through examples related to lectures. However, this is problematic. The example is often preceded by theory, so that students think of the application as a use of the theory, rather than seeing the theory as a tool for dealing with the issues raised by the application. Examples are commonly selected because they are good illustrations of particular theoretical concepts, but they do little to help students learn which theories are appropriate for which kinds of policy problem. On the other hand, the case method requires the student to identify the theory that best addresses the economic problem under investigation.
Use of evidence. Empirical analysis, guided by theoretical concepts and analytical tools, is central to many economics modules. Students are often required to develop an ability to use quantitative evidence. This often involves a number of tasks, including determining what types of evidence are relevant measures of particular phenomena, evaluating the credibility of available information, performing calculations to arrive at appropriate and useful measures, and finding the best way to convey this information using tables and graphs. In this respect, although the lecture and example method usually provides students with some exposure to quantitative information, it does not require them to do the work themselves. A prepared classroom example does not provide training in how to select, manipulate and present such evidence; nor does it help students learn to interpret evidence themselves. Case studies include raw data that students have to manipulate, represent and comment on in order to solve the problem.
Limitation of theory. One of the most difficult aspects of applying economic analysis is understanding which parts of a question can be answered by economic analysis, and which are best addressed using other disciplines. In particular, students need to learn the difference between identifying economic consequences of a policy choice and considering these decisions in the broader social and political context in which policy-makers and business leaders find themselves. It is difficult to use a lecture and example to fulfil these goals, since classroom examples are often abstracted from their context. The case method forces students to be confronted with the broader (non-economic) consequences of economic decisions.
The case method can also be used in a very effective way in order to move students gradually up the cognitive skills ladder from the low skills levels of knowledge, comprehension and application to the higher and more desirable skills of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. This educational taxonomy was originally proposed by Bloom (1956) and, even if not uncontested, it provides a transparent and structured approach to the development of students’ skills. The following list describes this educational taxonomy and then explains how the case method helps in developing each of the skills.
Knowledge. This refers to the student’s ability to remember previously learned information. It involves the recall of a wide range of material but all that is required is bringing appropriate information to mind, not necessarily understanding its meaning. The case method is probably not the most efficient way to convey knowledge. However, in combination with some lectures, it can be used to broaden knowledge.
Comprehension. This skill is defined as the ability to grasp the meaning of material and it can be demonstrated by translating material from one form to another, by interpreting material and by extrapolating information. By basing knowledge within a real-world context, the case method supports and facilitates the comprehension of basic knowledge.
Application. This is the ability to use learned material iew and concrete situations. It may include the application of rules, methods, concepts, principles, law and theories. Through the analysis of policy decisions or business strategies, students develop an understanding of how theory is applied in real-world contexts.
Analysis. This identifies the ability to break down material into its component parts so that its organisational structure may be understood. The process generally includes identification of the parts, analysis of the relationships among the parts and recognition of the organisational principles involved. As already mentioned, analysis is at the centre of the case method. The case studies require students to break down complex information, establish relationships and identify issues.
Synthesis. This skill refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole. The process may involve, for example, the production of a unique communication (presentation) or a plan of operations (research proposal). Case studies foster this skill by requiring students to identify relevant information, summarise fundamental concepts and present a concise summary of main events.
Evaluation. Critical evaluation is concerned with the ability to judge the value of material for a given purpose. After having analysed and synthesised a particular case, students are required to engage in an evaluation of alternative policies or strategies available to policy-makers or business leaders. This can include an evaluation of decisions already taken against possible alternative solutions.
The case method is a rich and powerful approach to the development of cognitive skills in students. It is also a flexible approach, in the sense that lecturers can use it in alternative ways. These are discussed in the next section.
Pedagogy the science of the specially organized, goal-oriented, and systematic molding of a human being; the science of the content, forms, and methods of upbringing, education, and instruction.
The basic categories of pedagogy are personality formation, upbringing, education, and instruction. Personality formation, formerly called upbringing in its broad sense, is the process of shaping an individual by means of goal-oriented influence (upbringing in the true sense of the word) and of the varied and often contradictory influences of the environment. In contemporary foreign pedagogy the first group of influences is often called intentional upbringing, and the second functional upbringing.
In Marxist pedagogy, upbringing is a key concept referring to the goal-oriented activities of society and family directed toward forming a fully developed person, chiefly in institutions and organizations specially created by society. The concept of upbringing generally comprises intellectual, moral, labor, aesthetic, and physical upbringing as well as the formation of a world view. However, such distinctions are largely arbitrary, since upbringing in practice is a single, integrated process.
Education is the process and result of assimilating a system of knowledge and of developing skills and habits eventually ensuring a certain level of development of a person’s cognitive needs and capacities and his ability to perform some kind of practical activity. A distinction is made between general and specialized education. General education provides each person with the knowledge, skills, and habits he needs for overall development. These are the basis for a subsequent specialized education, whose goal is preparation for professional work. In level and scope, both general and specialized education may be primary, secondary, or higher. Polytechnic education is an integral part of general education.
A most important means for effecting education and upbringing is instruction, the process of transmitting and assimilating knowledge, skills, and habits and the modes of cognitioecessary for the realization of a continuous educational process. The process of instruction comprises the two interconnected parts of a single whole: teaching, the pedagogue’s transmittal of knowledge and his supervision of students’ independent work; and learning, the students’ mastery of a system of knowledge, skills, and habits. Pedagogy is one of the sciences studying man, human society, and the conditions of human life; thus, it takes its place alongside such disciplines as philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, psychology, political economy, ethics, sociology, history, anatomy, physiology, and medicine. It uses their hypotheses and research methods, including mathematical statistics and cybernetics, as well as the results of their empiric research.
Structure and system of pedagogic disciplines. Within the framework of pedagogy are a number of relatively independent divisions dealing with individual facets of teaching and upbringing. The development of the goals, tasks, content, principles, methods, and organization of education and instruction is the province of didactics, or the theory of education and instruction. The theory and methodology of upbringing concern themselves with the formation of moral qualities, political convictions, and aesthetic tastes, as well as with the organization of pupils’ and students’ activities. The discipline of school administration studies all organizational problems related to the management of public education and to the network, structure, and management of educational institutions.
In order to make use of pedagogical research and to study pedagogy thoroughly as a discipline, it is necessary to distinguish the features of upbringing and instruction of groups having different ages and professional orientations. Examples of these groups are preschool children; pupils and students in general-education schools, vocational schools, secondary specialized and higher educational institutions; and members of the military service. Here, such arbitrary designations as preschool, school-age, and higher-educational pedagogy are used, and under study are the organization and the upbringing and instructional methods for a given contingent of students. The specific pedagogic principles governing each group are taken into account.
Related to pedagogy as such are the teaching methods for individual disciplines. Defectology studies the psychophysiological development of abnormal children and the principles of their upbringing, education, and instruction. It includes such narrowly specialized branches as the theory and methods of bringing up, educating, and instructing deaf and hard-of-hearing children, children who are blind or have poor vision, mentally defective children, and children with speech defects. Also related to pedagogy is the history of pedagogy, a discipline that studies the development of the theory and practice of upbringing, education, and instruction during various historical periods.
Development as a science. The first attempts to interpret upbringing in terms of the needs of society were made during the period when slaveholding states flourished in the
During the Middle Ages, pedagogical views in
Pedagogical views of the 14th to 16th centuries reflected both a striving to free human thought from religious dogma and the revival of interest in man himself and in his everyday work. These were traits characteristic of the period of feudalism’s decline and the emergence of capitalist social relations. Writing in diverse genres, Renaissance humanists such as T. More, T. Campanella, Erasmus of Rotterdam, F. Rabelais, and M. Montaigne advanced ideas of an all-around harmonious development of man’s spiritual and physical resources. They favored a secular education based on the assimilation of the ancient world’s cultural legacy and on the achievements of science, which was developing rapidly.
The history of pedagogy as an integrated theory of educating man began at the time of the first bourgeois revolutions in
Beginning with the period of the English Civil War of the 17th century, two basic trends in the development of pedagogical thought may be distinguished. The feudal and clerical concept of upbringing continued to prevail, but at the same time a new, bourgeois interpretation of upbringing emerged, whose goal was to mold a man of action and prepare him for his struggle for personal well-being. A clear expression of the new ideals of upbringing is found in the works of the English Enlightenment philosopher J. Locke, who stressed the importance of moral and physical upbringing and originated the utilitarian approach to education and instruction. Locke’s opposition to the theory of innate ideas was of major importance.
In the 18th century theories of upbringing developed chiefly within the framework of the Enlightenment. Guided by Locke’s doctrine of the innate equality of man, such leading French thinkers as C. A. Helvetius, D. Diderot, and J.-J. Rousseau developed the hypotehsis of the decisive role of upbringing and environment in personality formation. Diderot, in particular, considered one of the basic tasks of upbringing to be the development of a person’s individuality. The French materialists substantiated and popularized the idea of a practical education that would eventually replace scholastic education. The greatest contribution to 18th-century pedagogical thought was made by Rousseau, who originated the concept of a natural, free upbringing. Rousseau undertook to outline the tasks, content, and methods of bringing up and instructing children, proceeding from the specific features of their physical and spiritual development at different stages of growth; he stressed the need for more active methods of instructing children. His influence is seen in the democratic plans for reforming public education in
Pedagogical thought in the 18th and 19th centuries was influenced by a number of theses of German classical philosophy as expounded in the works of I. Kant, J. G. Fichte, and G. W. F. Hegel. The Swiss democratic pedagogue J. H. Pes-talozzi played an important role in resolving pedagogical problems. He attempted to construct a theory of upbringing and instruction based on psychological data. His experience and thoughts dealt with child development during instruction and upbringing and with vocational instruction and methods of teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and other subjects at the elementary level. His work stimulated the development of the science of upbringing in the first half of the 19th century. Pestalozzi was the first theoretician of the public school.
During the first half of the 19th century the German pedagogue, psychologist, and philosopher J. F. Herbart attempted to present pedagogy as a scientific theory based on philosophy and psychology. In his view, philosophy laid the groundwork for the goals of upbringing, and psychology permitted us to find the correct ways of attaining these goals. A number of Herbart’s theses were used in the later development of pedagogy. These included his views on the role played by interest in instruction, on the educative nature of instruction, and on the structure of the learning process. At the same time, however, bourgeois pedagogues assimilated the conservative aspects of Herbart’s doctrine. These were expressed in his theory on handling children, which amounted to suppressing the child’s personality by means of a detailed and fully elaborated system of restrictions and punishments.
The 19th-century German democratic pedagogue F. A. W. Diesterweg contributed significantly to pedagogy in general and to didactics in particular. He maintained that one of the most important factors in upbringing was the principle of cultural conformity—the taking into account, during the process of upbringing, of all aspects of the culture, history, and economy characteristic of a country and its people. Together with the concept of conforming to nature in upbringing, originated by Comenius, Rousseau, and Pestalozzi though interpreted differently by each, Diesterweg’s principle of cultural conformity significantly enriched pedagogy.
In the late 19th century the movement of progressive education arose. Its adherents expressed the interests of various strata of the bourgeoisie then hostile to one another but united in their opposition to the proletariat and its ideology. The followers of the movement also criticized the scholastic content and dogmatic instructional methods in schools suppressing the personality of pupils and students. The representatives of such currents of progressive education as the new upbringing, the labor school, the movement for art training, and the pedagogy of the personality advocated the free development of each child’s individuality. These educators wanted to develop new organizational forms and methods of instruction, to reform curricula, and to place greater emphasis on upbringing in schools. The ideas of such exponents of progressive education as J. Dewey, G. Kerschen-steiner, L. Gurlitt, H. Scharrelmann, O. Decroly, M. Montes-sori, and A. Ferriиre dominated bourgeois pedagogy until the mid-20th century and, to an extent, have been influential to the present time.
In Russia during the 16th and 17th centuries, the old Christian and feudal concept of upbringing as a means of overcoming man’s original sin and developing feelings of humility, submission, and religiosity was challenged by expanding humanistic views of man, although often expressed in concepts and terms of Orthodoxy, and expounded by Simeon Polotskii, Epifanii Slavi-netskii, and the monastic scholars.
The first state system of schools was established in
Before the 1860’s, progressive pedagogical ideas in
The development of the emancipation movement that began in the mid-1850’s engendered a widespread antiserfdom movement in pedagogy. Prominent scholars, authors, and educators of the time, including N. I. Pirogov, L. N. Tolstoy, and N. Kh. Vessel’, discussed problems of upbringing and of the impending school reform. Of central importance were questions of the purpose of schools, the humanization of upbringing, and changes to be made in education and teaching methods. Indiscriminate application of foreign pedagogical theories and educational systems was attacked, and a movement for the establishment of a national system of upbringing emerged. All this contributed to pedagogy’s development into an independent professional discipline.
The establishment of pedagogy as a science in
Ushinskii observed the difference between unintentional molding of human personality by the society and upbringing as a purposeful activity for the social reproduction of man. He used the phrase “upbringing in the broad and narrow sense of the word” to define the process. These observations led him to define the subject of pedagogy and to divide pedagogy into a number of branches. By taking a many-sided view of man in the light of information provided by all the sciences studying man and his life, Ushinskii was able to found the discipline of pedagogical anthropology, which he considered the science of educating man as he develops, or pedagogy as such.
Research into these fundamental problems provided the basis for a substantiated theory of education and instruction, which in turn was the basis for the best prerevolutionary public-school textbooks and for the development of teaching methods. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, general problems of pedagogy and didactics were studied by P. F. Kapterev, V. P. Ostrogor-skii, V. P. Vakhterov, N. F. Bunakov, I. N. Ul’ianov, and P. F. Lesgaft and teaching methods by V. Ia. Stoiunin, V. I. Vodovo-zov, and D. D. Semenov. These fields developed extensively at this time under the influence of Ushinskii’s ideas and as a result of his adherents’ work. Ushinskii’s pedagogical ideas also influenced pedagogic through among other peoples of
The turning point in the establishment and development of a truly scientific system of pedagogy was the creation of the theory of dialectical and historical materialism by K. Marx and F. En-gels in the mid-19th century. The founders of scientific Communism stated that man is essentially the sum of social relations, which he “transfers” to himself during the process of social and practical activity. They declared that even while men influence their natural environment and social milieu, they change their own nature. These discoveries revealed the means and factors involved in the social molding of the personality. The works of Marx and Engels disclosed the class character of upbringing in a class society. Their works examined in general the content and methods of molding a fully and harmoniously developed person; the tasks, content, and methods of polytechnic education; the forms and methods of combining instruction with productive work; and the correlation between family upbringing and that of society. Marx and Engels developed the theory of Communist education for the new man. They pointed out that this theory can be realized only after the power of the working class is established.
The basic tenets of the Marxist doctrine of upbringing were developed and defined concretely by V. I. Lenin, who maintained that in a socialist society the younger generation should be inculcated with a materialist world view, Communist convictions, and high moral qualities. The means for achieving this goal are a broad scientific education on a polytechnic base, the linking of instruction with productive work, and the participation of young people in the work of building a new society. Lenin’s doctrine of socialist culture, enlightenment, and Communist education became the basis of modern pedagogy.
Pedagogy in the
The solution of theoretical problems of Soviet pedagogy dealing with the relationship of pedagogy to other sciences and with the definition of its subject, tasks, and methods has called for a critical review of the pedagogical concepts and theories of the past. As early as the 1920’s, the People’s Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR founded research institutes in
In the second half of the 1920’s pedagogical research institutes were founded in the
The establishment and development of Soviet pedagogy is linked with the names of such well-known pedagogues as P. P. Blonskii, A. P. Pinkevich, B. P. Esipov, M. A. Danilov, Sh. I. Ganelin, L. V. Zankov, M. N. Skatkin, I. T. Ogorodnikov, and S. G. Shapovalenko (didactics); V. A. Sukhomlinskii, I. F. Svadkovskii, I. A. Kairov, N. K. Goncharov, E. I. Monoszon, and N. I. Boldyrev (theory and methods of upbringing); and N. A. Konstantinov, E. N. Medynskii, V. Z. Smirnov, F. F. Korolev, D. O. Lordkipanidze, I. K. Kadyrov, M. M. Mekhti-zade, A. A. Kurbanov, S. Kh. Chavdarov, A. E. Izmailov, and S. R. Radzhabov (history of pedagogy). In the years of Soviet power, scholarly editions have been published of the pedagogical works of many outstanding thinkers of the past who contributed to the founding of pedagogy, among them Comenius, Diester-weg, Locke, Pestalozzi, Herbart, Fourier, Owen, Belinskii, Herzen, Chernyshevskii, Dobroliubov, Pisarev, Ushinskii, and Lesgaft. In addition, such trends of the age of imperialism as modern upbringing, the labor school, pragmatism, and experimental pedagogy have been critically analyzed. Textbooks and teaching aids on pedagogy and history, as well as such reference works as the Pedagogical Encyclopedia (vols. 1–3, 1927–29), the Pedagogical Dictionary (vols. 1–2, 1960), and the Pedagogical Encyclopedia (vols. 1–4, 1964–68), have helped summarize and systematize the attainments of Soviet pedagogy.
The chief aim of modern research in Marxist pedagogical science is to find the best ways to mold a fully and harmoniously developed personality, one which is spiritually rich, highly moral, and physically perfect. Pedagogy shows how to develop the content of education and make it correspond to the needs of socialist economy, culture, and science. The age of the scientific and technical revolution is marked by a rapid growth of knowledge in all fields of science, requiring a wider scope of scientific education. Schools must supply this even while their own means and those of the students remain almost the same. Factors to be taken into account include the length of the period of study and of the academic day, as well as the students’ energy and their fatigue factor. Pedagogy develops new principles and criteria for selecting the content of general education: it studies the expansion of learning units, the generalization of knowledge applicable to the needs of general education, the reinforcement of system and theory in general education, and the consistent implementation of the polytechnic principle as a leading criterion in the selection of material for study.
Research in the field of instruction seeks ways to stimulate students and to develop their independence and initiative as they acquire knowledge. Thus, research is being carried on which aims to modernize the canonical forms of the lesson by introducing various types of group and individual student work while retaining the teacher in the role of leader. Other studies are being conducted that seek to perfect means and methods of instruction in order to maximize students’ cognitive interests and abilities and to develop their ability to organize work rationally. An important trend in pedagogical research is the study of the political, ideological, and moral upbringing of youth and of inculcating in them a communist world view. Such research investigates the content and natural laws of the process of molding communist views and convictions, as well as effective pedagogical means to ensure the development in young people of communist consciousness and conduct. The further progress of pedagogy as a science depends to a great extent on defining more precisely the subject itself and its categories and terminology, on improving research methods; and on strengthening ties with other disciplines.
Other current topics of pedagogical research are the history of individual pedagogical problems and their solution, as well as the origin of various pedagogical concepts, theories, methods, and ideas. Such an approach makes the history of pedagogy a true history of the science of upbringing and gives historical research in the field a prognostic significance.
In other socialist countries as well, much attention is devoted to the study of pedagogy. A number of pedagogical research institutes have been founded, such as the
Contemporary bourgeois pedagogy. In the
In contemporary bourgeois pedagogy there is no unity of approach to the basic problems of upbringing, owing to dependence on different schools of idealist philosophy and on various religious doctrines. This absence of unity is reflected in the very names of different pedagogical trends: neopositivism (B. Russell, T. P. Nunn), existentialist pedagogy (J. P. Sartre, O. F. Boll-now), Catholic or neo-Thomist pedagogy (J. Maritain, F. X. Eggersdorfer), and evangelical pedagogy (M. Stalmann, K. Schaller). These are not true schools of pedagogy but the views on education of proponents of these philosophical and religious doctrines. There is also a tendency to divide pedagogy into separate, often self-contained disciplines. These include comparative pedagogy (Y. Bereday, W. Brickman, J. Lauwerys, F. Hilker. L. Frese), cybernetic pedagogy (F. von Cube, H. Frank), and group pedagogy (M. Kelber, E. Hofmann).
In contemporary bourgeois pedagogy, the chief topic studied is didactics. In particular, researchers are trying to elucidate the psychological mechanisms governing instruction and learning (J. Bruner, J. Piaget, H. Roth). They are attempting to adapt education to the needs of each student; the goal of their efforts approaches individual instruction. To help realize these aims the audiovisual-aid method has been developed. Programmed instruction, fashionable in the 1950’s and 1960’s, did not justify the expectations it had raised: special research conducted in the
In many countries, and particularly in the
A brief history of Pedagogy
Although pedagogy varies across European countries, there are similar roots that have developed into differing strands of contemporary thinking in pedagogy. Hдmдlдinen (2003) explains that “historically, social pedagogy is based on the belief that you can decisively influence social circumstances through education” – and importantly, education does not only refer to children but includes educating adults, for instance in order to change their idea of children. While philosophers of Classical antiquity like Plato and Aristotle discussed how education could contribute to social development, social pedagogy in theory and practice only emerged through the influence of modern thinking in Renaissance, the Reformation and later in Enlightenment (Hдmдlдinen, 2003), when children started to come into the picture of social philosophy.
In the France of the 1700s, children were seen as mini-adults – they wore the same clothes as adults and their ‘childhood’ had little similarity with contemporary attributes of childhood as a cherished period of learning, a period of innocence and safety. Born in
His influential novel Йmile, published in 1762, described the education of the fictitious character Йmile in line with what Rousseau considered the principles of natural education, emphasising wholeness and harmony with nature. His intention was to preserve the child’s ‘original perfect nature’, “by means of the careful control of his education and environment, based on an analysis of the different physical and psychological stages through which he passed from birth to maturity” (Stewart & McCann, 1967). With this concept of children as perfect due to their proximity to nature, Rousseau radically changed society’s notions that being a child was something to quickly grow out of and replaced it with something worth preserving in its unspoilt state. Whereas teaching – and education was reserved for a small minority of children – had previously aimed to form children into adults, Rousseau innovatively “argued that the momentum for learning was provided by the growth of the person (nature) – and that what the educator needed to do was to facilitate opportunities for learning,” Doyle and Smith (1997) note.
While Rousseau did not achieve to put his educational philosophy into practice, his groundbreaking ideas inspired many following pedagogues, notably the Swiss Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827), who refined Rousseau’s thoughts by developing a method of holistic education, which educates ‘head, heart, and hands’ in harmonious unity. Stimulating children intellectually and arousing their curiosity of the world around them would, as Pestalozzi stated about the ‘head’, form their cognitive capacity to think. The moral education of the ‘heart’ constituted the basic aim to ensure a “sense of direction, […] of the inner dignity of our nature, and of the pure, higher, godly being, which lies within us. This sense is not developed by the power of our mind in thought, but is developed by the power of our heart in love.” (Pestalozzi, cited in Heafford 1967) As the third and complementary element, the ‘hands’ symbolise that learning is also physical, involving the whole body and all senses: “physical experiences give rise to mental and spiritual ones”, analyses Heafford (1967).
The three elements ‘head, heart, and hands’ are inseparable from each other in Pestalozzi’s method: “Nature forms the child as an indivisible whole, as a vital organic unity with many-sided moral, mental, and physical capacities. […] Each of these capacities is developed through and by means of the others”, Pestalozzi argued (cited in Heafford, 1967). Based on Pestalozzi’s philosophy, his German student Friedrich Frцbel initiated the kindergarten movement, which raised international awareness of young children’s capacities for learning and inspired childcare and pedagogy of the early years at a large scale.
Frцbel’s and Pestalozzi’s ideas sparked interest across continental Europe, culminating in the New Education Movement, which looked at ways of transferring these pedagogic concepts into various contexts: the Italian Maria Montessori, the Austrian Rudolf Steiner and the German Kurt Hahn all developed their own coherent educational philosophy and founded schools based on their principles; the Pole Janusz Korczak led two orphan’s homes with great respect to children’s rights and participation; and in youth work Montessori’s method was also practiced widely. Thus the New Education Movement contributed to a continental pedagogic discourse, which gradually established pedagogy as a way of working with children and young people.
In this discourse, children came to be conceptualised as equal human beings – Korczak declared that “children do not become humans, they already are” – and as resourceful, capable and active agents – the Italian Loris Malaguzzi talked about the “rich child” stating that “a child has a hundred languages”. Furthermore, there was increasing recognition for child participation and children’s rights, for instance in the pedagogic method of Montessori and the ideas and practice of Korczak who was one of the leading children’s rights advocates and founded in his orphanages a Children’s Republic, where children formed a Children’s Court and a Children’s Parliament (see Lifton, 1988).
The New Education made two fundamental points which demonstrate its ambition to use pedagogy for social change: “First, in all education the personality of the child is an essential concern; second, education must make for human betterment, that is for a New Era” (Boyd & Rawson, 1965). In many European countries, these pedagogic concepts and philosophies fell on fertile ground and did not only inform future education in the classroom but also led to the provision of social pedagogic welfare services, growing into many different pedagogic approaches.
Yet, even though the New Education Movement was very influential in
Especially in education, there has been great openness towards ideas of social learning, namely by the Russian Lev Vygotsky, and the Plowden Report (Central Advisory Council, 1967) is possibly the most outstanding example of attempts to adopt pedagogic ideas into school. But the ensuing changes in schools towards child-centred learning were politically and publicly seen as too radical in a culture where the Victoriaotion that “children are seen, but not heard” is still alive, which shows that cultural acceptance for pedagogy in this sense has overall been low.
Although pedagogy was early on concerned with changing social conditions through education – Rousseau is most famous for his Social Contract (1762) – the term social pedagogy was first used by the German educationalist Karl Mager in 1844. One of the first key thinkers, Paul Natorp, “claimed that all pedagogy should be social, that is, that in the philosophy of education the interaction of educational processes and society must be taken into consideration (Natorp, 1889; 1907; 1920)” (Hдmдlдinen, 2003: p.73). His social pedagogic theories were influenced by Plato’s doctrine of ideas, together with Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative of treating people as subjects in their own rights instead of treating them as means to an end, and Pestalozzi’s method. In the 1920s, with influential educationalists such as Herman Nohl, German social pedagogy was interpreted from a hermeneutical perspective, which after World War II “became more critical, revealing a critical attitude towards society and taking the structural factors of society that produce social suffering into consideration” (Hдmдlдinen, 2003). Consequently, contemporary social pedagogy in
Main categories of pedagogy
The basic categories of pedagogy are personality formation, upbringing, education, and instruction. Personality formation, formerly called upbringing in its broad sense, is the process of shaping an individual by means of goal-oriented influence (upbringing in the true sense of the word) and of the varied and often contradictory influences of the environment. In contemporary foreign pedagogy the first group of influences is often called intentional upbringing, and the second functional upbringing.
In Marxist pedagogy, upbringing is a key concept referring to the goal-oriented activities of society and family directed toward forming a fully developed person, chiefly in institutions and organizations specially created by society. The concept of upbringing generally comprises intellectual, moral, labor, aesthetic, and physical upbringing as well as the formation of a world view. However, such distinctions are largely arbitrary, since upbringing in practice is a single, integrated process.
Education is the process and result of assimilating a system of knowledge and of developing skills and habits eventually ensuring a certain level of development of a person’s cognitive needs and capacities and his ability to perform some kind of practical activity. A distinction is made between general and specialized education. General education provides each person with the knowledge, skills, and habits he needs for overall development. These are the basis for a subsequent specialized education, whose goal is preparation for professional work. In level and scope, both general and specialized education may be primary, secondary, or higher. Polytechnic education is an integral part of general education.
A most important means for effecting education and upbringing is instruction, the process of transmitting and assimilating knowledge, skills, and habits and the modes of cognitioecessary for the realization of a continuous educational process. The process of instruction comprises the two interconnected parts of a single whole: teaching, the pedagogue’s transmittal of knowledge and his supervision of students’ independent work; and learning, the students’ mastery of a system of knowledge, skills, and habits. Pedagogy is one of the sciences studying man, human society, and the conditions of human life; thus, it takes its place alongside such disciplines as philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, psychology, political economy, ethics, sociology, history, anatomy, physiology, and medicine. It uses their hypotheses and research methods, including mathematical statistics and cybernetics, as well as the results of their empiric research.
Structure and system of pedagogic disciplines.
Within the framework of pedagogy are a number of relatively independent divisions dealing with individual facets of teaching and upbringing. The development of the goals, tasks, content, principles, methods, and organization of education and instruction is the province of didactics, or the theory of education and instruction. The theory and methodology of upbringing concern themselves with the formation of moral qualities, political convictions, and aesthetic tastes, as well as with the organization of pupils’ and students’ activities. The discipline of school administration studies all organizational problems related to the management of public education and to the network, structure, and management of educational institutions.
In order to make use of pedagogical research and to study pedagogy thoroughly as a discipline, it is necessary to distinguish the features of upbringing and instruction of groups having different ages and professional orientations. Examples of these groups are preschool children; pupils and students in general-education schools, vocational schools, secondary specialized and higher educational institutions; and members of the military service. Here, such arbitrary designations as preschool, school-age, and higher-educational pedagogy are used, and under study are the organization and the upbringing and instructional methods for a given contingent of students. The specific pedagogic principles governing each group are taken into account.
Related to pedagogy as such are the teaching methods for individual disciplines. Defectology studies the psychophysiological development of abnormal children and the principles of their upbringing, education, and instruction. It includes such narrowly specialized branches as the theory and methods of bringing up, educating, and instructing deaf and hard-of-hearing children, children who are blind or have poor vision, mentally defective children, and children with speech defects. Also related to pedagogy is the history of pedagogy, a discipline that studies the development of the theory and practice of upbringing, education, and instruction during various historical periods.
This study examines the pedagogical training process of medical professors at a Brazilian university, the meanings attributed to it, and the positive and negative aspects identified in it. This is a descriptive-exploratory study, using a qualitative approach with a questionnaire utilizing open-ended and closed questions and a semi-structured interview. The majority of queried individuals had no formal teacher training and learned to be teachers through a process of socialization that was in part intuitive or by modeling those considered to be good teachers; they received pedagogical training mainly in post-graduate courses. Positives aspects of this training were the possibility of refresher courses in pedagogical methods and increased knowledge in their educational area. Negative factors were a lack of practical activities and a dichotomy between theoretical content and practical teaching. The skills acquired through professional experience formed the basis for teaching competence and pointed to the need for continuing education projects at the institutional level, including these skills themselves as a source of professional knowledge.
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