Principles, Goals, and Value of Learning: Contributions of Some Educational Thinkers
Educational Psychology
Principles, Goals, and Value of Learning: Contributions of Some Educational Thinkers
© 2007
Concerning my reflections, I would speak well of some educational thinkers for their invaluable learning theories and models. Although there is a passing presentation of my ideas overriding some important details of their works, an eclectic approach would bring to light the initial conceptions of my own thoughts about learning—its underlying principles, goals, and value.
Schools and Their Methods
Montessori’s method, I believe (mostly in preparatory and elementary schools), is fundamentally influential beyond mere rote (and brute) learning of facts and concepts. Indeed, situated fashioning of the child-learners’ acquisition of first-hand and hands-on experiences of the ordinary, colorful, and unique ‘worlds’ begets “absorbent,” creative minds and affections. Inferably, the richness of the learning milieu and the intra- and interpersonal, high-energy bond among teachers, learners, and learning engender an institution that is, in its own right, a Montessori trademark. On the other hand, Reggio Emilia’s school in Italy is an ‘esoteric and elitist’ learning institution. Its geographical setting is ‘ideally’ built upon a built-in idyllic scenario unreplicable by most learning institutions in the world. By way of a mental, virtual tour, the school is ‘primordially’ sophisticated, with ‘wallless’ classrooms, and the learners’ documentation of their lives by mentors re-creates detailed “biographical synthesization (BS).” For the child-learners, their BSs critically highlight gradations throughout their schooling. Lastly, on methods, I believe that both make use of multivariate approaches, such as collaborative, coaching, Socratic, developmental perspectives, and the like. Thus, these two innovative, hallmark, and sterling schools of thought are way ahead of the general or common learning institutions.
The Learner, Teacher, Methods, and Curriculum (LTMC)
The Multiple Intelligences of Gardner are, serendipitously, one of a kind. He is, to me, an individual who ‘did not just stand on the shoulders of giants’ but has a binocular-kaleidoscopic, synthesizing mind. His breakthrough diverges from a g (general intelligence), encompassing not just intelligence quotient tests—verbal and computational—but also a multitude of others—spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, and (intra- and inter-) personal intelligences. Knowingly well, his encouragement of the preferred (core) intelligence reconsiders incipiently the other ‘minor’ intelligences most learners have as well. Accordingly, the core intelligence branches radially to the ‘remaining, minor’ intelligences that operate dependently, concurrently, and complementarily with one another. Thus, the learners’ manifold intelligences are entireties of the learners’ learning potentialities, processes, growth, and development. The only standoffs I found worth mentioning here are, viz.: How does MI deal with those who are intellectually disabled, such as those with cognitive impairments? Is Stephen Hawking’s standout in linguistic (e.g., A Brief History of Time) and logical-mathematical intelligences, though physically impaired in bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, his true and only intelligence? In brevity, I really admire Gardner’s MI for learners at all levels.
How about learners, teachers, and curriculum according to David Perkins? I found an answer: his so-called key term meta- (knowledge and curriculum), which, to me, means ‘going beyond the usual.’ Other terms that belong to his list are thoughtful thinking (generative knowledge) and its opposite (fragile knowledge), opportunity and motivation (Theory One and its incarnations—coaching, Socratic and didactic teaching), and beyond Theory One (Intrinsic motivation, Constructivist, MI, situated learning, etc.), and teaching choice. In addition, I find his versatile notion of understanding performances that build mental images and mental images that enable performances most interesting. He thus goes on to mention explanation, exemplification, application, justification, comparison and contrast, contextualization, and generalization—that learning is a product of thinking out of the reciprocal relationship of performances and mental constructs, up to powerful representations.
Distinctively, Gardner’s MI, along with Perkins’ Smart Schools and Outsmarting IQ, brings a converging universality of learning thoughts and models. MI combined with metas (aside from the usual learning, teaching, and curriculum) are significantly contributory factors for educators’ concerns.
LTMC, Intelligence, and Society
Montessori and Emilia have their unique but somehow overlapping methods—centered upon child-learners and situated interactions. On the other hand, Gardner’s and Perkins’ intelligences are prescriptive—the former, for the multiplicity of intelligences; the latter, from neural, experiential, and reflective intelligences. Noteworthy as these may be, they touch upon operational intelligences, that is, ‘translational versus societal learning,’ ‘MI versus distributed intelligence,’ ‘learning to learn,’ ‘(mild) thinking about cognition (for most thinkers mentioned, except Perkins),’ or simply, ‘generative knowledge (for Perkins, but insipidly I believe also thought of by others but not to such intensity).’
Bereiter: On Focus
Bereiter (even Gardner and Perkins, and most psychologists) believes in the neural origin of intelligence and the role of culture. There is, of course, neither contention nor elaborative reflection on this since most educational thinkers, psychologists, and laymen have an/either explicit or/and implicit affirmation of this. What I noticed was Perkins and Bereiter cited in their books “knowing your way around” and reflective intelligence. Is this borrowing of terms to scaffold (or back up) one’s learning theory or a similar case of a ‘Leibnizian-Newtonian calculus’—working independently yet coming up with the same discovery? Of course, there is again no need for furthering this superficiality of thought-inquiry.
Bereiter’s Education in a Knowledge Society was surprisingly in line with my mental construction of worlds of human cognition, which is not basically akin to his three worlds. As I read his article, I was personally aware of a unifying worldview of the different theories of learning—an eclectic approach to human learning, which is, seeing all the mosaic individual worlds as converging upon each human. Each human, consequently, draws a self-world, and whirling around it are its constituent parts—the inner and outer worlds of learning. The self-world is the individual itself, with all its consistencies (e.g., genetic blueprint, physical makeup, neurophysiological connections, and like connections that compose a learner). The individual’s outer world is his external learning milieu. These include people with whom he has contact and non-contact, including books, toys, and everything that draws the line for his development—physico-cognitively, affectively, and socially. As I see it in my mind’s laboratory, the interaction of his world and with the outer worlds is incremental to his ever-flowing and continual development. Of course, the preceding statements are mine.
What is true is that Bereiter’s World 3 is different from mine (although we have mild similarities). For the most part, what I can say is that I admire his insightful presentation of his EKS. He mentioned futuristic business literature (FBL) and cognitive learning science (CLS). Without elaboration on FBL and CLS, what I personally synthesized was that education (CLS) must be the novel science-research facility (knowledge-builder) while at the same time manufacturing-production plants (FBL) as translators of CLS’s ingenuities and designs. The two must go hand in hand. Thus, I noted that this is analogous to making education a real success. That learning must have a holistic, amorphous approach that is pragmatically metamorphic to continual changes so as to attain its ideal form according to the demands of humans, society, and technology.
Finishing Touch
The principles, goals, and value of learning laid out by educational thinkers are mostly novel in the field of educational psychology. This, I believe, must be the gist of furthering our thoughts—that learning is a continually evolving science and art, where the best thrives.
References:
EDFD 302 Lecturettes (3, 10, and 17 July 2007); Perkins’ Outsmarting IQ (1995) and Smart Schools (1992) books; http://www.insmkt.com/absorbing.htm; http://www.montessori.edu/FAQ.html; http://zerosei.comune.re.it/inter/reggiochildren.htm; http://ericae.net/edo/ED410226.htm; http://www.newhorizons.org; http://home.comcast.net/~erozycki/Perkins.html; http://www.21learn.org/slideshow/e/18.pdf; http://www.cocon.com/observetory/carlbereiter/preface.pdf (URL accessed on 07/2007).
