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Education or Pedagogy?
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Education or Pedagogy?
GEOFFREY HINCHLIFFE
INTRODUCTION
Ever since antiquity, there have always been two traditions in teaching
and learning. The first-instrumental learning, or, in a sense to be
explained, pedagogy-places learning at the service of government,
political power and the economy. The second-education-represents
that more disinterested endeavour in which teacher and pupil engage in
a form of enquiry. Whereas the former has specific objectives, the latter-
though it indeed must provide certain skills and knowledge-is
underpinned by the idea that the outcome of education is essentially
open. Just as we cannot predict the outcome of good conversation, this
inability being one of the prime reasons for engaging in the pursuit,
so the outcome of an educative experience must be left, in part, to
the interaction between learners and teacher. Construed as education,
the results of learning can never be measured according to a common
standard. But construed as a pedagogy, those results must be measur-
able because the whole point of learning is to equip people for specified
social, political and economic requirements. The implication is clear:
those interested in education have always had to fight their corner
against the proponents of pedagogy. Free spirits usually have a hard
time of it: but now, more than ever, is the time to recover and re-state
those ideals associated with the tradition of education against the time-
servers of pedagogy.
© The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
32 G. Hinchliffe
This view was proposed by the classicist, Oswyn Murray in a recent
Times Literary Supplement review (Murray, 1999). The review is of a
book entitled Pedagogy and Power (Too and Livingstone, 1998) which
contains a number of essays on the ways in which classical learning and
teaching have been used and deployed in a number of social and
political contexts since the times of antiquity. Murray uses the review to
advance the case (a case, it should be noted, not advanced anywhere in
Pedagogy and Power itself) that there are two traditions in education:
the pedagogic and the educative. And the tradition of pedagogy can be
traced back to Isocrates, who taught rhetoric and other arts to young
Greek aristocrats in order to equip them properly for a career in public
life. On the other hand, the tradition of education can be traced squarely
back to Plato, who (according to Murray) advocated that learning and
the pursuit of knowledge be unsullied by the pursuit of worldly
affairs.
It is difficult not to find Murray's view attractive. For who wants to
find themselves ranged against 'the freedom of the human spirit' apart
from those so mired in a world of assessment strategies and quality
reviews that they cannot see beyond it? And it is a good, anti-
Popperian move to enlist Plato on the side of free spirits in
opposition to Isocrates and his tracts on rhetoric. After all, who today
reads the latter apart from a few scholars? Of course, some might try
to argue that the Republic also serves political ends; but this seems
unfair. Its arguments cannot be construed as a set of guides and
prescriptions for future rulers since the Guardians are only entitled to
rule because of the knowledge and wisdom they possess. Those who
posses real knowledge take up the reins of power reluctantly because
they know that although their gaze is directed towards the sources of
wisdom, they are still of this world and cannot avoids its
imperatives.
Murray also urges certain etymological considerations: the Latin
educare means to lead out, to raise up, whereas the Greek paidagogia
means the leading of a slave or child. Thus the term 'pedagogy' seems to
be connected with ideas of training and discipline with the purpose of
developing the well-formed person. We are accustomed, perhaps, to
thinking of the aims of pedagogy as directed to certain 'micro-ends',
relating to individual discipline, comportment and norms of presenta-
tion. Nevertheless, what we are being invited to consider is an extended
meaning to 'pedagogy' so that the term incorporates the idea of training
for political, social and economic ends.
It is all too easy to see how the distinction has a reverberation today:
we need only examine the methods used to raise education standards to
realise very swiftly that what is involved is an exercise in pedagogy,
with specific means employed to hit identifiable targets. The importance
for the teacher of producing evidence of learning so that assessment
criteria can be applied-learning which has been deliberately structured
pre- cisely so that it can be assessed and monitored-shows us why so
many teachers are unhappy. They are no longer teachers or lecturers but
mere pedagogues. The introduction of the National Curriculum in
© The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
Education or Pedagogy 33
England
'function' of man is, declaring that there must be one in just the same
way that the eye's function is that of seeing. His conclusion that man's
function is that of rational activity implies that it is a natural, non-
negotiable end of human kind. We discover what our ends and purposes
are as human beings and through this discovery we can then realise our
own true natures. Those whose powers of discovery are deficient are not
complete human beings. This is why slaves deserved their fate, a fate of
enslavement being fitting for humans lacking self-mastery.
The point to these observations lies in the suspicion that all learning,
including the learning of citizens, may end up being pedagogic rather
than educative. Is this simply because the kind of learning Aristotle has
in mind is simply a means to an end, the end here being citizenship?
This thought, I believe, accounts for part of the suspicion. For
though it is true that the life of a citizen involves wider and more
varied concerns than a life solely concerned with business occupations,
one still needs to be trained and fashioned for citizenship. The fact that
one's horizon's are much wider qua citizen need not, of itself, prevent
the kind of learning at issue being pedagogic in character. We
observed earlier on that pedagogy can be seen as learning which
serves political ends. On this definition, it does not matter if those
ends are of an impeccably democratic kind: what we have is still
pedagogy rather than education. But there are further considerations
which strengthen the suspicion that what we are dealing with here is,
after all, a species of pedagogy. These arise from the observations
made with respect to the way in which rational activity is made a
natural, functional quality of human kind. For what is striking about
Aristotle is the way in which he advocates the development of rational
powers but not really a critique of those powers. There is lacking in
Aristotle the element of reflexivity, of reason's awareness of itself and
of its willingness to put itself into question. And maybe it is just this
that differentiates pedagogy from education. Pedagogy is always sure
of itself, it always knows where it is going and it takes for granted that
what it takes to be knowledge really is knowledge. Pedagogy, by its
very nature, can never be self-critical. Of course, pedagogy will-
especially these days-emphasise the need for students and learners to
develop critical powers. But these powers of critique are ultimately
concerned with developing the learner in a certain direction so as to
develop the appropriate personal qualities of creativity, adapt- ability
and flexibility. What pedagogy can never do is develop a radical
critique of itself and its aims.
I want to suggest that what can be said of pedagogy can be said in the
same way of an Aristotelian concept of education. It too does not carry
within itself a critique of its own aims. It too is oriented towards the
production of a certain type of individual whose character and comport-
ment serve ends of a socio-political nature. Of course, we might well
prefer the ends that such an education serves, compared with those of
pedagogy. For example, it seems indubitable that education is more
likely to produce a type of character with a broader range of concerns
and sensibilities than pedagogy ever could. If one accepts the
But whatever form the enterprise association takes, agents are related in
terms of a common substantive purpose. However, we must not suppose
that the decisions and actions of particular persons in an enterprise
association are anything more than only contingently connected with the
common purpose of the association. Oakeshott does not suppose that
each individual has permanently within his or her sights the common
purpose of the association. Hence there is a need for some kind of
managerial engagement which attempts, either well or badly, to relate
individual decisions to the overall purpose and well-being of the
association. It need scarcely be added that the precise character of this
management is not dictated by the concept of the enterprise association
itself, and therefore the managerial role can take many different forms,
including a democratic one.
But the type of practice which most interests Oakeshott (though he
freely conceded the importance of enterprise associations) is the kind
where there is not an extrinsic substantial purpose to the practice.
This type of practice is typified above all by what is termed as ars
artium, namely a morality. Because a morality is not governed by a
substantive purpose, it cannot prescribe performances. Nevertheless,
it is by means of a practice that agents can undertake certain
performances in certain circumstances, and can devise for
themselves rules of conduct. Oakeshott says that a practice must be
understood as a series of adverbial quali- fications of conduct; and
action may be said to be done considerately, kindly, gracefully or
charmlessly. And he defines a moral relationship as one 'solely in
respect of conditions to be subscribed to in seeking the satisfaction of
any want' (ibid., p. 62). These conditions could be thought of as
meanings and interpretations which may be shared or contested but
which are nonetheless understood. For Oakeshott, it is precisely the
lack of a common substantive purpose which enables a practice to be
used and explored by persons. It is through a practice that we
become agents.
© The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
Education or Pedagogy 43
A SELF-CRITICAL PRACTICE
Oakeshott's account of a practice helps us to get to a position where we
can understand the pedagogy/education contrast rather more deeply.
It seems superior to the account of the contrast provided by the
Aristotelian interpretation because it is less dependent on local historical
factors (such as the structure of the Greek polis, the position of the
aristocracy, the cultural status of skilled work). But how does the idea of
an open practice help us to go beyond the Aristotelian idea of rational
open practice are not like architects and they do not have a blueprint
of a new building in front of them as they set about demolishing the
old one. It would be better to think of a practice as having no internal
structure and no centre. Thus the questioning of terms should not
imply that agents are unduly motivated to build up an entirely new
set of terms. They are not inspired to build an even bigger and better
practice. Since the 'end' of this practice is nothing more than the
critique of its terms, such a 'new' or 'superior' practice would itself be
immediately subject to the most searching interrogation.
Since we are dealing here with the recycling of interpretations and the
creation of new meanings, it must not be thought that proposed under-
standings must submit immediately to the full rigour of evidential
requirements. For whilst, in the course of certain activities, evidence is
required in order to help us decide what it is that counts as knowledge,
this requirement must be handled with care lest interesting and (who
knows) fruitful lines of enquiry are suppressed at birth. The use of
evidence can also have a controlling and even policing function which
though entirely appropriate in the sphere of pedagogy (because of the
way in which learning must be demonstrated to be fit or adequate to
some purpose) may easily have an inhibiting effect when misapplied in
the context of an open practice.
Oakeshott also draws our attention to the emancipatory possibilities
of an open practice in the following way:
CONCLUSION
Oakeshott's emphasis tended to be placed on the opening up and
recovery of existing or past understandings. Yet if an open practice is to
have within itself that element of self-criticism, as I have suggested, then
Mythical thought for its part is imprisoned in the events and experiences
which it never tires of ordering and re-ordering in its search to find them a
meaning. But it also acts as a liberator by its protest against the idea that
anything can be meaningless with which science at first resigned itself to
a compromise.
In this spirit, in which both the engineer and the bricoleur have a role, I
propose the following:
classics one hundred years ago with that played today). What Oakeshott
never seemed to countenance was that instrumental and open practices
could both be embedded within certain institutional settings. He was
unable to see this since he held that education, considered as an open
practice, must be pursued in its own location-'School'-set apart from
the pressures and cares of economic life. Whether this was ever
historically the case is a difficult question which I cannot pursue here.
But the suggestion that instrumental and open practices can be pursued
together in the same institutional-even departmental setting-does not
seem far-fetched.
Moreover, it seems inevitable that the profile of pedagogy will be
raised in proportion as the number of students in higher education
increases. The way to deal with this, I have suggested, is not to defend a
retrenched position of liberal learning but to adopt an openly self-critical
position as to what counts as knowledge and learning. In this way,
attempts to formulate sets of expectations and outcomes in the
pedagogic endeavour of ensuring a 'fitness for purpose' will never be
complete. If education is to survive, it must keep ahead of the game.
REFERENCES
Althusser, L. (1971) Lenin and Philosophy, trans. Ben Brewster (London, New Left Books)
Aristotle (1948) Politics, trans. Sir Ernest Barker (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
Aristotle (1980) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross (Oxford, Oxford University Press)
Foucault, M. (1988) Care of the Self (Harmondsworth, Penguin)
Fuller, T. (ed.) (1989) The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education (Princeton,
NJ, Yale University Press)
Irwin, T. H. (1988) Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
Le' vi-Strauss, Claude (1972) The Savage Mind (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Murray, O. (1999) The voice of Isocrates, Times Literary Supplement, August 6th, pp. 3-4
Oakeshott, M. (1967) Learning and teaching, in: R. S. Peters (ed.) The Concept of Education
(London, Routledge & Kegan Paul)
Oakeshott, M. (1975) On Human Conduct (Oxford, Clarendon Press)
Rogers, Carl (1983) Freedom to Learn (Columbus, OH, Merrill)
Too, Yun Lee and Livingston, N. (1998) Pedagogy and Power (Cambridge, Cambridge University
Press)