CORRECT APPROACH TO EDUCATION

THE POST IS MY OUTLINE FROM THE SECTION ON MODERN EDUCATION(CHAPTER 7) IN "THE DIM HYPOTHESIS :WHY THE LIGHTS OF WEST ARE GOING OUT"[1] BY DR PEIKOFF

Its focus will be on developing conceptual faculty, because as Ayn Rand said – For animals survival is primarily physical, for man its epistemological(that is survival depends on his method of thinking). [“For The New Intellectual”].
 
1. Nature of conceptual faculty: Conceptual faculty [being volitional] can cover both valid and invalid operations. It does not operate automatically. It may be directed towards reality or directed away from it. And it may be based on observation, or may be independent of it.
Nature of rational education: Education can develop or derail child's mind. Purpose of the teacher across years is to teach the perceptual level toddler. Teaching him to become a rational, conceptual level thinker.

2. Content of rational education delimited to four subjects – science with emphasis on physics, mathematics, history, and literature: Physics teaching basic facts of nature and how to integrate them, giving student full grasp of connection between the percept and the concept.
Mathematics exhibiting method of thought separated from content[Like integration as addition, abstraction as numbers].
History being empirical workshop of human nature, and acting as foundation to college courses on Humanities.
Literature being art, presenting concretization of philosophic view of life. Thus acquainting child with highest level of abstractions.

3. What such curriculum excludes: A rational curriculum deliberately does not include time consuming subjects like music, foreign languages etc. These can undercut school's ability of achieving its primary objectives[elaborated in 1.].
It also excludes college level subjects like Politics, Economics, Psychology. Since student cannot excel in these without proper foundation in Humanities through History and Literature. And Philosophy is not presented directly but in the form of preliminary data[like Literature described before and methods we will see later].

4. Primary qualification of teacher: He should be an expert in particular subject matter and its presentation. So lecturing being his primary activity, where he carefully selects and structures the topics he covers.

5. Elaborating on the structure of subject matter presented: Logical structure in this context being hierarchical integration. Starting from percepts to lower level generalizations to more abstract and underlying principles. Level of highest abstractions being so far as the student at any given age can understand these.

6. Cross reference between subjects being other form of integration: That is relationships between points taught in one subject to those in other subjects. Dr. Peikoff regards this aspect of teaching as critical, especially when the points and subject areas first appear to be completely unrelated.
Not all issues are related, of course, but the conceptualizing student should learn to see (or at least seek) connections everywhere – for example, between King Tut and George III and Othello, between the inverse square law and Thomas Jefferson, and even between Mr Spock and geometry. Gradually, the child so taught comes to see the world not as a juxtaposition, but as a whole. Marva Collins is a champion teacher in this regard.[Elaborating the examples in the footnote].

7. Content and method of integrating content being the primary teaching material: However methods of thinking like induction and deduction are not directly presented, but applied in structuring the lecture topics. And thus communicated indirectly. The student can grasp these methods explicitly later, since explicit grasp requires sophistication[of adult] and intellectual independence.
The same approach can be used for teaching values.[Like methods of Thinking, Ethics also taught indirectly].

8. Concluding on the approach: Its specific goals, the subjects, the methods are integrated by a single ruling purpose. Purpose being to develop pre-conceptual child's conceptual faculty.

ELABORATING CROSS RELATIONSHIP EXAMPLES

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The section elaborates the following portion of outline
“6.Cross reference between subjects being other form of integration ….Not all issues are related, of course, but the conceptualizing student should learn to see (or at least seek) connections everywhere – for example, between King Tut and George III and Othello, between the inverse square law and Thomas Jefferson, and even between Mr Spock and geometry. ”

- King Tut was King in ancient Egypt[3], George III[4] was the king of England around 18th century end, and Othello[5] was the fictional General with lifestyle similar to kings. So co-relation can involve the facts like big responsibilities, lifestyle involving interacting with wide range of people, surrounded by conspirators like Iago etc.


- Inverse square law[6] is discussed for Gravitational field here. Newton started with observation of planets and his experimentally established laws of motion. Using geometry and differential calculus he deduced intermediate, relatively lower level concept, an equation for the law of circular motion. He then combined it with one of Kepler's empirical laws of planetary motions(his predecessor) to get the resultant equation using algebra.
And concept of Individual Rights in constitution written by Jefferson[7] also required looking into observable facts like man pursues values in different businesses, and criminals hindering that pursuit. Lower level concept derived from these like right to self defense, and co-relating it to general historical facts of government's role(similar to Kepler's laws for Newton). Where government has faltered and succeeded in history and why[Magna Carta, Roman laws, Greek system etc.], and finally arriving at the right to "Life, Liberty, and pursuit to happiness".

- Spock[8] the character in fictional "Star Trek" series. How his thought process might involve moving from abstract purpose(saving Romulans from rogue Supernova) to concrete actions. Similar to moving from abstract problem statement to specific proofs in geometry using geometric axioms.


[1]http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451234812
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori#Educational_philosophy_and_pedagogy
[3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_tut
[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_iii
[5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello
[6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_square_law
[7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_jefferson
[8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spock

PROGRESSIVISM

THE POST IS MY SUMMARY FROM THE SECTION ON MODERN EDUCATION(CHAPTER 7) IN "THE DIM HYPOTHESIS :WHY THE LIGHTS OF WEST ARE GOING OUT"[1] BY DR PEIKOFF

Started by Dewey[2], this movement is still influential at all levels, and has changed education radically. Dewey held that action has primacy over thought. Implication on education being that child learns by doing, like making things, growing plants, etc. Emphasizing that there should not be lecturing or structured lessons by teachers. Education in this vision is no longer the process of transmitting acquired knowledge in order to prepare child for life. Education instead is participation in life. Since certainty according to him is impossible, so teacher can only give non-compulsory suggestions and moderate the discussions of students. Parents also should not discipline the child, but allow him to do whatever he feels like doing. Child's interest, desires, and impulses being fundamental, because child develops by internally directed self-development. Contrasting from Aristotle and previous educators who regarded education as a painful process, Dewey wants child to learn by playing, so that he can experience full range of feelings.

More fundamental than child's feelings however is adaptation to interests and desires of the peers. Such that the child realizes himself as a servant of a larger entity, instead of nurturing traditional individualism. To implement such requirements, group projects are given where each individual in the group is given common grade regardless of individual contribution. Often the grade and also school rules, policies etc. are decided by students' majority vote, where no weightage is given to the experience of teachers. Thus child soon learns another aspect of social adaptation, that his peers collectively have near absolute power over him. So while initial years will involve self-gratification, school will gradually reshape child so that he is not able to gain such satisfaction on his own. For Dewey, child and teachers alike are uncertain actors deprived of contact with an independent reality, and thus left with no option but to make decisions together, by consensus. But still individual can dissent and try to change consensus. Either way he will identify himself with collective unit.

Teaching principles and intellectual systems like scientific theories may sometimes have an auxiliary role. But as a rule these are just the words to a student, because they are irrelevant to his immediate projects. The real problems of life, the student learns, are too complex for any neat set of words to be dealt with. The wide abstractions are unrelated to concrete requirements of today's action, since child for particular project might need inputs from several subjects. Therefore we need to make the system child centered by scrapping or at least making subjects auxiliary.

In teaching of traditional subjects also commitment to concretes apart from abstractions is applied. Child learns whole word as a concrete without learning the sounds of individual letters. No principle[like principle of phonics discussed just after] is taught to relate sound of one word to the sound of other word[which is possible only after learning individual letters]. Phonics requires focus on individual letters, each grasped by selective attention, abstraction that is, and then integrated with other, similar letters[integration implicit in the concept of vowels and consonants]. Phonics are rejected because they are regarded as unreal, unreal here meaning conceptual. In science concrete experiments are performed without any theoretical context. In mathematics, abstract principles [like borrow] are not emphasized enough, leading to cases where even for double digit subtraction child used drawing of men.

Progressives accept the criticism that child in their system does not graduate knowing the body of facts and truths. But they reject its evaluation as negative. They reject because there is no social motive in acquirement of learning. Thus progressive program is a demolition of fundamental system of education which includes subjects, facts, lessons, structure, intellect, teaching and learning. It is anti-conceptual mentality embracing the pre-conceptual child, and training him to remain in that state for life.

[1]http://www.amazon.com/dp/0451234812
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dewey#On_education