Education
What We're Doing and the Time at Which We're Doing It
Public dissatisfaction with education is evident in newspapers, on television, in professional studies, and in everyday talk. Our school systems are said to produce students who can't read or write. Employers say that they must start from scratch in training new employees. Many people say that they are concerned that education today is inferior to education in other countries, and to what education once was in America.
We take this dissatisfaction seriously, and we propose to begin work to address what it points to as the failures of education. We single out two areas of failure. First, education does not produce practical competence. Whether they are educated in economics, business administration, chemistry, or literature, graduates of the educational system in our country are not ready to go to work outside the academic world.
Second, education does not produce creative thinking. Innovation and invention are the exception, not the norm, for graduates of the traditional American educational system.
All of us today have inherited a traditional, popular conception of learning. It operates in our school systems and in our everyday lives for the most part without our even noticing it.
This traditional, popular conception of learning has two parts. The first is that learning about a phenomenon requires that we acquire an accurate description of it. For example, to learn about the stock market, one would suppose that we must paint an accurate picture of what the stock market is of what elements it is made up, and how those elements fit together. The second part is the application of the description putting the description to work. In the stock market example, we apply the description by studying and recommending investment strategies in the actual market.
Our educational institutions, grounded in this popular conception of learning, do not produce people who have practical competence. Training periods extend beyond formal education. We all complain of something we vaguely understand as "lack of real experience" or "lack of exposure to the real world." There is clear public dissatisfaction with the results our educational institutions produce, but there is no solid consensus on what is wrong.
We intend to address this dissatisfaction with an innovative understanding of learning. We question the two part traditional conception of learning that knowledge consists of possessing and applying accurate descriptions.
We propose a fresh rethinking of what learning is, what practical skills are, and of what human knowledge consists. This paper is the beginning of that rethinking. Our ultimate goal is to design educational projects that will produce graduates with both practical competence and the capacity for creative thinking.
What Is Learning?
We've already given a brief sketch of the traditional conception of learning. Why does this conception fail? The popular conception of learning embodies an understanding of human knowledge that usually goes unexamined in education. Human knowledge, as embodied. in that conception of learning, is a process of composing and refining theories. A "theory," in the popular conception of learning, is a representation of reality. It is a set of assertions about what elements constitute a phenomenon and how those elements are related to one another. For example, if you are studying economics, your theory of economics might consist of assertions about what kinds of objects make up the world of economics (money, banks, treasuries, the stock market, and so on) and about how those objects are related to one another (how banks and money interact, how money affects the stock market, and so on). In developing a theory, a person constructs a model of the real world that accurately pictures what goes on in the real world.
Most of us assume that those theories enable people to make practical interventions in reality. The representations provide a blueprint, armed with which a person can calculate what actions will have what consequences. Thus, to find out what you should do in some situation, you use your theory to predict what consequences your alternative actions will have. The action that will produce the best consequences is the action to take. If things turn out wrong if what you predicted would happen doesn't happen then that would mean that your theory was inaccurate, your calculations of consequences were flawed, or you neglected some possibility in your predictions.
Here, we offer a more radical diagnosis of failure. The popular understanding of knowledge itself, we say, is wrongheaded. To know is not to possess an accurate theory of some phenomenon, or some part of reality. Rather, we say, to know is to be successful in action in some particular domain. Knowledge is an assessment a speaker makes of someone, that that person performs actions effectively. Thus, for example, knowledge in the domain called "mathematics" is not possession of an accurate theory of mathematical reality. Rather, it is action that is publicly assessed as effective in the domain of mathematical calculation, derivation, and so on. The successful, knowledgeable mathematician is one who can perform certain actions competently in the assessments of other mathematicians, fulfilling requests that are made of him. Thus, to learn is to become effective in action in some particular domain.
What grounds effectiveness in action? In the traditional understanding, the answer is accurate theory possession of an accurate description of the part of the world in which you are planning to act. From this perspective, effectiveness in action is not itself knowledge, but rather only the application of knowledge. Knowledge, in that understanding, consists in possessing the accurate description of the world.
In contrast, we claim that effectiveness in action is grounded in linguistic distinctions that make action possible. This is a radically different claim from the traditional understanding of knowledge. Some illustrations will help to make our claim clearer.
The traditional view is that terms like "electricity," " engineering," swimming," and such stand for ideas that, when well defined, accurately represent objects in the world; the job of such ideas is to mirror reality. Our claim is rather that "electricity," "engineering," "swimming," and so forth are linguistic distinctions invented by human beings in conversations. Such distinctions do not mirror reality they specify domains of actions for human beings.
Words are not labels for objects in the world. Words are used by human beings, as speakers and listeners, to make distinctions together for the sake of coordinating their actions. Human beings invent distinctions for the sake of the conversations for action the requests and promises that they make possible.
For example, once you have distinguished the "backstroke" in swimming from other swimming strokes, you can ask someone to perform the backstroke. In making the distinction, you produce the possibility of those with whom you share the distinction in taking a specified action.
Knowledge, then, is grounded in linguistic distinctions, in facility with the distinctions that make human action possible. To learn, to acquire knowledge, is to become proficient in a language.
Consider an analogy. Suppose we are traveling and we arrive in a new city where we don't know our way around. According to the popular theory of knowledge, we would buy or construct an accurate map of the city, then plot a course from one point to another. Our map would be our theory of the city. If we could memorize the map, we would "know" the city.
According to our proposal, however, to learn our way around the city is to acquire a language of distinctions for following directions, for locating landmarks, and for making requests in terms of streets, buildings, left, right, straight ahead, and so on. No map is presupposed; we require only facility with the linguistic distinctions; we need to follow directions and make requests. We learn by moving around in the city, not by memorizing the map.
Competence and Thinking
We said that traditional education fails to teach people practical competence or creative thinking, and we said that those two
are related. We've talked a little bit about the first failure, but so far we have said nothing about "thinking."
Thinking is inventing. It is inventing new distinctions which make new actions possible. Ordinarily people speak and listen competently within a familiar language of distinctions. In your everyday life, you operate smoothly with general distinctions among actions (such as making the coffee, taking a telephone message, driving a car), and with special distinctions for your own work (such as writing a report or signing a contract). You don't even stop to reflect about those distinctions among actions you just perform according to them.
Thinking is adding to or changing this language of distinctions. When something is invented say, the tape recorder it is invented linguistically; a new distinction is introduced into the language people speak. Now people can ask someone to loan them a tape recorder, request that meetings be tape recorded, and so on. A tape recorder isn't an object. It isn't a machine that was invented when a tape recorder was invented. Rather what was invented were possibilities for action.
Nothing is ever invented out of nothing. To invent new distinctions, we must already speak a language. New distinctions are always invented as new distinctions in an old language. They modify, extend, or complement the distinctions of the old language. The tape recorder was invented as a possibility for new actions within a language which already included "meetings," "writing," "taking notes," "reviewing," and more. As a new distinction, the tape recorder adds to and modifies those old distinctions it changes the action "taking notes," it adds a new possibility for reviewing a meeting or an event, and on and on. So, to invent new distinctions, you need competence in a language already spoken by people.
You also need freedom to invent. You don't have that freedom if you understand knowledge in the traditional manner. All that you can invent according to that traditional understanding is more description description that is confined by the reality it must match. We must all take ownership of the historical conversations in which distinctions are invented such a sense of ownership permits us to continue those conversations, inventing new distinctions to open new domains of action.
If we understand the human accumulation of knowledge as a history of linguistic invention, and learning as initiation into an historical conversation in which those inventions have been and are being produced, we become potential participants in that conversation. We have the ability to invent. The conversation of linguistic invention becomes our conversation to continue.
Standard Practices
We stress this point that learning is a conversation, a special kind of conversation. In this conversation, the learner is initiated into a new language. The teacher must lead the learner into this new language from a language that they share. The two must already share a common language of distinctions before the learner can begin to listen to the new distinctions to which the teacher introduces him.
For example, say you want to teach someone how to type. If he is not already familiar with "keys" and "striking keys," you cannot simply start by giving him instructions in that language of typing. You have to teach him these new distinctions in language with which he is already familiar. For example, you might say to him, "These plastic squares with letters on them are the 'keys' of the typewriter. You 'strike' one of the keys by pushing it down with your finger. When you do that, the letter on the key is printed on the piece of paper."
Thus, although the learner is entering a new domain of distinctions, he must do so on the ground of an old domain within which he already has facility. The new domain of distinctions for typing can be introduced in a language of "letters" and "moving your fingers."
In other words, the learning conversation demands standard practices as a prerequisite. Standard practices are actions we can already perform, conditions of completion to which we can already listen, breakdowns that we can already recognize as possible they are domains of actions and possibilities in which we are already competent. In the example of teaching someone to type, your learner already performs competently standard practices such as identifying letters and pushing buttons. You can ask him to pick out the 'W' and to push the button labeled 'W" It is on the basis of these standard practices that you teach him to perform the new actions in the domain of typing.
Facility with standard practices is itself linguistic facility; it is facility with the linguistic distinctions for making requests and declaring possibilities within a particular domain. Thus, a gardener will have facility in a language of "hoes," "seeds," and "planting," and with requests for actions such as "planting seeds," "killing weeds," and so on.
In summary, to initiate someone into a new domain of distinctions, you must begin with shared standard practices. You can't begin to instruct someone in typing by asking him to strike different keys, unless he is already competent with the distinctions of "keys" and "to strike." You must build new linguistic competence on top of the old.
Teaching and Learning Conversations
To expand our understanding of learning and knowledge, we will present a set of distinctions for carrying out teaching and learning conversations. This is not a set of instructions telling you how to teach or how to learn; rather, it is a set of distinctions we claim are constitutive of teaching and learning.
The word "ontology" is intimidating to most people. We will use it in this paper for the set of distinctions you need for acting in some domain. Thus, the ontology you need for acting in the domain of typing includes "keys," "striking," "spacing," "letters," and so on. The ontology of a domain is analogous to the furniture of a room you need to know what and where the furniture of a room is before you can move around, sit down, or work in the room.
Participating in the first part of the learning conversation is like learning the furniture of a new room you are learning the fundamental distinctions that constitute a new domain. For example, to learn about money, you must first learn new distinctions such as those of "interest," "loans," and "banks."
Remember, however, that these distinctions are not labels for new objects. They enable you to take actions in the new domain, and they have no "meaning" apart from the possibilities for action that they bring. A "loan," for example, isn't an object; it is a possibility for action going to the bank, filling out an application, talking with a loan officer, asking for money to buy a car.
Announcing a New Domain
These constitutive distinctions are the ontology of the new domain, and facility with them is facility in the standard practices of the new domain.
A teacher doesn't start a learning conversation in a new domain by immediately constructing the appropriate detailed ontology, however. Rather, he announces the domain in terms of a direction he and the learner can see from the vantage point of a present domain of practice. For example, the teacher might announce the domain of typing to his learner by saying that there is a way for the learner to produce his letters and other written materials faster, yet in a form more readable for other people.
The teacher uses a breakdown as an opportunity to announce a new domain to his learner. The learner has met a breakdown some interruption in what he was doing. Here, his breakdown is that he has produced a letter that is unreadable for others. The teacher uses the breakdown as a chance to show the learner a new domain of action as in the case of typing, to take care of the breakdown.
Domains of human action are constituted by breakdowns. A breakdown occurs when someone declares that something some action or the consequences of some action is missing. Domains of action take care of recurring breakdowns. The domain of typing takes care of, for example, the breakdown of unreadable letters. The domain of mathematics is a domain of actions for taking care of recurring breakdowns such as the determination of fair exchanges of goods, the anticipation of seasonal weather changes, and so on. All domains of action are constituted by recurring breakdowns in human life. They are domains for providing what is missing in breakdowns.
Thus, the teacher introduces a new domain of action for the sake of some human breakdown, a breakdown in which the learner is himself a participant. The teacher introduces the domain in terms of that breakdown, in a language with which the learner is already familiar.
A few more examples may help. If you want to teach someone to begin using the telephone, you may announce the new domain by saying that the telephone will allow him to speak to persons in other places, without the constraints of face to face conversation. That doesn't tell him how to use the telephone how to dial, how to deal with operators, what busy signals mean, and so on but it does tell him, in a language he already speaks, that some new action is possible for him, an action that can help him deal with a breakdown in life which he shares with the rest of us.
If you want to initiate someone into the domain of money, you might announce the domain in terms of new kinds of exchanges of goods or services. You may not need to mention obvious breakdowns in which those new kinds of exchanges will appear. You already share those breakdowns with the learner, by virtue of your both participating in the common breakdowns of modem life.
As we said, the announcement opens the new domain in a language the learner already speaks. It may be that the teacher even destroys that language as the two progress along in their conversation, but if he were to do so at the outset, the learning conversation would be rendered impossible.
Showing the Domain
Domains of action are real. People participate in them every day. The teacher has not introduced a new domain until he shows it to the learner in the real world.
At this point, the teacher is only showing the domain to the learner. He is not analyzing it, assessing it, describing it, or doing anything else to it. Least of all is he describing to the learner something he wants that learner to imitate. All the teacher wants to do is to expose his learner to the domain, to show the learner that there is some real phenomenon present about which he is talking.
At the same time, the teacher is looking ahead to his construction of the domain in an ontology of linguistic distinctions. It is this domain (as constituted by linguistic distinctions of actions) that he wants to show the learner.
To do this, the teacher will show the learner conversations. Say you are introducing someone to the domain of law. You won't show him empty courtrooms or shelves full of law books. You will show him conversations in which people practicing in the domain of law operate with the distinctions constitutive of action in that domain. You will show him lawyers at work, speaking to one another about cases, statutes, torts, trials, briefs, and so on.
Your aim is not to ensure that the learner understands what he is shown. It is only to make certain that he sees a new, concrete domain of action.
Constructing an Ontology of Distinctions
Within this announcement of a new domain, the teacher can begin to construct an ontology of distinctions. As we've emphasized, he must build on a language he and his learner already speak, but now he can begin to build a structure of distinctions with one level resting on another. For example, once he has distinguished "running" in the domain of exercise, he can build the distinction "sprinting" in terms of running sprinting is fast running. Or, in a discussion of money, once the teacher has distinguished Instruments of investment," he can build the distinction "treasury bills" in terms of instruments of investment treasury bills are special kinds of instruments of investment.
When the teacher constructs an ontology, he is presenting the distinctions essential for effective action in a domain. The domain is constituted by the actions a person can take, which are themselves constituted by the linguistic distinctions. So, in presenting the domain, the teacher is not describing it or producing a picture of it; he is generating it in the listening of his learner.
Let's return to our example in which you were teaching someone to type. The ontology of distinctions you produce for your learner will include "keys," "striking," "returning," "spacing," and more. You produce this ontology as you work with your learner, showing him what keys are, what it is to strike keys, and so on. You produce these distinctions in actions that he can take. You don't just describe what a key is; you produce in him the possibility of identifying keys and of striking keys.
Ground the Distinctions in History
The distinctions that constitute a domain of action have been invented in a history of conversations among people. We have said several times that our concern with education includes how people can learn to think to invent new distinctions. Part of the teaching and learning conversations, thus, consists of producing a domain of action in which the learner can become an inventor. The teacher takes the domain available to the learner as an historical conversation in which distinctions have been invented and in which that learner can become a participant.
Let's return to our example of the domain of law. Say that you, as the teacher, have already constructed an ontology of distinctions in this domain, and that now you set about grounding that ontology in historical conversations for the learner. So, you produce for him an historical account of the invention of codes of law, of the institutions of courts and trials, and so on. Your purpose is to make the ontological distinctions real as the inventions and enactments of people in concrete historical situations.
When we say we want to make a domain or an ontology of distinctions real, we are talking about something we want to produce in the learner. As a teacher, you intend to alter your learner's mood, or to change how he stands with respect to the domain and the distinctions constituting it. Before you introduced the domain, it did not exist for him, or it existed only as something unfamiliar or in which he didn't know his way around. What you do when you make a domain real for him is to bring it into the world of his possible concerns and actions. To make the distinctions concrete, or grounded in history, is to alter how your learner stands with respect to the distinctions, to make the domain no longer unfamiliar or unintelligible, but instead to show that it is a part of human history and practice open to the learner's participation.
Practice for Competence in a New Domain
When you learn competence in a new domain, your body changes. Learning alters the learner's body. When the learner becomes competent in a new domain of action, he moves differently in the world. His "dance" his performing of actions and his coping with situations in the world has changed. He dances in a new domain without needing to deliberate about what to do and without having to follow any rules or instructions.
Consider learning to drive as an example. You are the learner. At first, you follow your teacher's directions, going over carefully with yourself and with him what to do and when to do it. When you develop competence, you no longer need to follow rules or to think about what the next thing to do is. You approach a stop sign, your foot goes to the brake pedal, and you stop the car. All that happens in your body. In learning to drive, you have modified the way your body moves in the world. All your newly acquired actions become automatic. Developing competence in a new domain is producing such a modification of your body.
This modification of the learner's body is produced in practice. If you are learning to type, you learn the distinctions of keys, striking keys, and spacing by sitting down in front of a typewriter, seeing the keys pointed out, touching them, and pushing them. As you perform the actions of typing, they become, with time, automatic to you. You no longer need to hunt for the "A" your finger just moves to it.
Practice can consist of playing games. In learning about money and, more specifically, about loans, you might play a "loan game" by simulating a conversation between an applicant and a loan officer. In the game, you would practice the distinctions which constitute the loan conversation. At first, you would follow instructions given to you by a teacher. For example, the teacher might say, "Ask the applicant about his collateral." You might have to ask the teacher what collateral is before you can follow his instructions. At first, you would constantly rehearse what to do next in a conversation with yourself. With time and repetition, this internal conversation would disappear and your reliance on instructions disappears also. The loan conversation would just "happen."
Levels of Competence
Learning requires time and practice. And, a learner moves through levels of competence in a domain. These are levels of assessment, according to the standards of competence recognized by those people already competent in the domain. As we have said, domains of action are historical. Within the history of a domain are traditions of assessing performance in that domain. A learner enters this tradition when he sets out, as a beginner, to develop competence in a domain.
Below the level of beginner, we distinguish two levels. These are the bull in a china shop and the jerk. A bull in a china shop is someone who fails even to recognize the domain in which he is acting while he is acting. Bull in a china shop is something that someone else, someone who does recognize the domain of action, says about him. The bull produces breakdowns which other people recognize without his being aware that he has done so. An example of a bull is a person who walks into a sales meeting in his own company and interrupts everyone else with irrelevant questions and jokes. The salespeople say that he destroys their sales opportunities without even knowing that he's doing so.
The person who disrupts the sales meeting would be a jerk if he were aware of the domain called "sales," distinguished it for himself at the time he walked into the meeting, and, nevertheless, acted in the same way. He refuses to accept what the salespeople say about him. He is aware of the domain in which he is acting, but he does not accept the assessments that those practicing in the domain make of his actions. According to people practicing in the domain, the jerk produces breakdowns over and over, but he neither ceases to act nor agrees to learn something about the domain and about what are appropriate actions in it.
The beginner is completely aware of the distinctions constituting the domain of actions, and he is aware that he cannot perform effective actions in that domain. He is willing to be taught by someone he accepts as an authority in the domain. He recognizes that there is an historical tradition of acting and assessing actions in that domain, and it is in that historical tradition that he is willing to be a beginner. This person might be the person hired to sell a company's product who declares himself incompetent as a salesperson and asks to be trained.
Someone who is a minimally competent person within a domain has begun to act in the domain, under supervision and usually following procedures given to him. He does not yet trust himself to act independently he recognizes that he could produce major breakdowns if left to himself, and he can sometimes anticipate when such breakdowns are about to occur. He relies on directions and supervision from someone competent in the domain who is available to answer questions and to spot breakdowns as they are about to occur. He might be a salesperson who has observed other salespeople for some time, who can readily distinguish the actions performed by a salesperson and who has begun to conduct some sales conversations himself. His level of competence, however, does not allow him to be left on his own.
A competent person is someone who can perform independently in the domain, who can anticipate and deal with breakdowns on his own. He performs without a great deal of deliberation about what to do, and he does not need to follow instructions or rules to perform the standard practices of the domain. According to the assessments of other people who represent the historical traditions in the domain, he performs well. An example is the salesperson who now handles sales conversations on his own, and who produces results that other people in the field regard as good results. He does not produce major breakdowns; he deals efficiently with whatever confronts him in his sales conversations.
A virtuoso excels in a domain of action. He acts without deliberation, rules, or instructions. He freely dances in the domain. He performs whatever action is needed, when it is needed, to prevent breakdowns from happening or to respond successfully to breakdowns that have occurred. Other people practicing in the domain admire his performance. He does more than simply produce good results he raises the standards that have been accepted historically in a domain. This is the super salesperson who produces superior results in the assessments of other salespeople. He is the one other people look up to and seek to learn from. He may exhibit what his colleagues call his own style of selling.
Finally, there is the master the person of historical excellence. What sets him off is that he participates in the ongoing historical invention of the domain in which he acts. He can produce radical innovations in the standard practices of the domain in the usual actions participants in the domain perform, in the way they perform them, and in the results they produce. He is not only able to perform in the domain, he is also able to create a revolution in the history of the domain. As an example, this would be the salesperson who invents a new way to sell, and sells at a new level the inventor of mass advertising, to give an example.
An Obstacle to Learning
What prevents people from learning? It is not that learning is "hard." "Hard" is just something an assessment that someone says when he does not develop competence in a domain of actions he has set out to learn, or when he develops competence more slowly than he had expected.
The obstacle we identify here is self characterization. All of us, in our time and with our history (what is usually called Western culture"), are participants in conversations about ourselves, about how we appear in public in such domains as intelligence, diligence, friendliness, attractiveness, and so on. Sometimes we have these conversations with other people; often we hold them privately, with ourselves.
It is the domain of intelligence that is particularly important here for learning. When a person sets out to learn competence in some new domain, he puts himself at risk in the domain of intelligence. He exposes his incompetence in the new domain to the public, particularly to his teacher.
In the conversation of self characterization into which we all tend to fall, again in our time and with our history, we fear exposure of our incompetence. People interpret incompetence as a stupidity which cuts across all domains of life. Showing ourselves to be incompetent in some domain, we tend to suppose, shows us to be incompetent in all domains to be incompetent or stupid persons.
Our ability to learn in a new domain depends on our acceptance of incompetence in that domain. If a person does not accept himself as appearing in public as incompetent in a domain, he cannot declare himself a beginner in that domain. Perhaps he will withdraw from the domain rather than show his incompetence. Or, perhaps, he will enter the domain, pretending to be competent, with the hope that he will be successful in hiding his incompetence. Such a person, if he is not successful in hiding his incompetence, will be what we have called a jerk in the domain; he will act in the domain, will produce breakdowns, but will refuse to become a learner.
What is incompetence? When we assess someone to be incompetent, we are saying that he is unable to take effective actions in some particular domain. That's all. And no one is competent in all domains.
To learn, you must declare yourself and accept yourself as incompetent in the domain in which you want to learn. Accepting yourself as incompetent in a particular domain, and accepting another person as competent to assess your effectiveness and ineffectiveness in that domain, is not resigning yourself to stupidity. Rather, it is prerequisite to opening a new domain where you have the potential to acquire competence.
What We've Done in this Paper
In this paper, we've begun a new ontology of education. We've produced a set of distinctions which we claim are constitutive of learning. Our ontology, and even our discussion of it, is incomplete. We have not discussed directly what a teacher is, although implications can be drawn from what we have said. We have not discussed what are often called the "basic skills" reading and writing in education. With this paper, we have opened the possibility of a new understanding of education. We believe this understanding can lead to producing teachers who are effective at helping learners to acquire practical competence while maintaining the freedom to participate in creative thinking.
From a brochure written by Fernando Flores