Materi 3 TLCT The Theory

Chapter 2
Chapter
and Learning in a Community
Teaching and
Teaching
of Thinking: The
of The Theory
One might say of the fifirst

say of rst part of this book that you
you can’t see trees for the forest.
this part, we’ll fi
In this finally — the community of thinking. Let us, however,
tree –
nally get to a tree however,
begin with its narrative. We won’t present the practice until the third part of the
book. An impatient reader might ask: ask: “Who needs this narrative foreplay? Why not
go However, in education the narrative is not a cover story
go straight to the practice?” However, story
nalrative is the
for the practice; the narrative the essence; it constitutes the
the practice.
The narrative of thethe community of thinking presents fi ve basic pictures —– “atomic
five
pictures” –— which support the third model and serve as an alternative to the fi five
ve
basic pictures that support the traditional and common schooling (fi (first)
rst) model.
The narrative of community of thinking can be translated into various frameworks
of the third model; community of thinking is only one example.
Traditional pictures
Traditional Alternative pictures
Alternative
•0 Learning :
Learning = listening • Learning : involvement (in
Learning = involvement
understanding
process) + understanding
the process)
•0 Teaching =
Teaching : telling product)
(as a product)
•. Knowledge =
Knowledge : object
object
• Teaching :
Teaching = providing
providing
conditions for good
conditions good
:>
learning
learning
•o mind =
The mind : container
container • :structure or a
Knowledge = structure
Knowledge
that works
story that
story works
•0 educated person
An educated person =
knows (or
:a • :
mind = interpretative
The mind interpretative
person who knows
person of making
activity of
activity making meaning
meaning
of
remembers; has a lots of
remembers;
his/her mind)
objects in his/her mind)
• educated person
An educated
person
:
person = a
knows how to
person who knows
work with knowledge
work and to
knowledge and
relate to it
relate
Harpaz, Teaching and Learning

Y. Harpaz,
Y. of Thinking:
Learning in a Community of Thinking: The Third Model,
Model, 57
Springer Science+Business
10.1007/978—94—007—6940—3_2, © Springer
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-6940-3_2, Media Dordrecht
Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
58 Teaching and Learning in a Community
2 Teaching of Thinking: The
Community of The Theory
2.1 The Pictures

The Pictures of the
the Community
Community of Thinking
The recognition that the traditional school model has exhausted itself and that there
same is gradually penetrating
sense in trying to improve it by doing more of the same
is no sense
the consciousness of many
many educational policymakers West and elsewhere.
in the West
What Edward Fiske wrote about the “industrial school” in the United States is appli-
cable to “industrial schools” everywhere (nothing is so universal, it seems, in our
postindustrial age
age as the school‘):
the industrial school1
):
After a decade
After decade ofof trying system work better
trying to make the system means as more testing,
better by such means testing,
higher salaries, and tighter
higher salaries, curriculums, we must now face up to the fact that anything
tighter curriculums, anything short
of fundamental
of fundamental structural change
change is futile. We are trying to use a nineteenth-century institution
nineteenth—centuryinstitution
to prepare
prepare young people for life in the twenty-fi
young people rst century. American
twenty—first American public schools grew
public schools
around an early industrial
up around industrial model
model that has outlived
outlived its usefulness
usefulness in education
education as well as
in the industry created it. The renewal
industry that created of public
renewal of education in this country
public education country requires
requires
frontal assault
nothing less than a frontal
nothing assault on every
every aspect of schooling
aspect of districts,
schooling —– the way we run districts,
classrooms, use time, measure
organize classrooms,
organize achievements, assign
measure achievements, relate schools
students, relate
assign students, schools to
their surroundings,
their surroundings, and hold people accountable. (Fiske 1991
people accountable. 1991,, p. 14, emphasis in original)
14, emphasis original)
While it is increasingly apparent that the ordinary “industrial model” of school

is on the verge survival power
verge of a fundamental structural change, the survival power of thethe school
is far greater than what was thought by the the thinkers who hastened to proclaim its
demise.22 Nonetheless, it appears
demise. pressure from
appears that strong pressure (the informa-
from the outside (the
economy in a competitive world; a “democratic sentiment” that penetrates every
tion economy every
cell; new
social cell; the area of digital commu-
new technological possibilities, especially in the
negative public image of the
new and fascinating theories of learning; the negative
nications; new
school; and more) and from within (“impossible” crowding and heterogeneity in
from within
achievement decidedly correlated with socioeconomic
classrooms; disappointing achievement socioeconomic
status,
status, increasing problems of discipline, and outbreaks of violence; decline in the
working conditions and status of teachers; an acute shortage of resources; and and more)
favorable conditions for “a frontal assault on every
creates favorable schooling.”
every aspect of schooling.”
Whereas
Whereas the criticism of schools is convincing,
criticism of convincing, persuasive alternatives are
persuasive alternatives
rare. Education is therefore trapped in a dead end:end: in the opinion of many
many critics —–
theorists and researchers, educational policymakers, parents and students, and
1
David Olson
David stated: “It becomes
Olson stated: schooling has long been
becomes clear that schooling institution in that
globalizing institution
been a globalizing
1
forms of
the forms of schooling increasingly borrowed
schooling are increasingly around the world.
imposed around
borrowed and imposed world. The rationality
rationality
of school
of school is not local cultural but rather
local or cultural generic and to some extent
rather generic universalizable […].
extent universalizable [. . .].
schools in the modern
Consequently, schools
Consequently, modern world
world are increasingly Schools are the vanguard
increasingly alike. Schools vanguard of of this
this
universalizing simply as a result
function, not simply
universalizing function, of cultural
result of cultural imperialism
imperialism but because effective
because they are effective
economical forms
and economical forms for introducing citizens to the norms,
introducing citizens rules, and procedures
norms, rules, dealing
procedures for dealing
within and between
diversity within
with diversity societies by making
between societies making behavior more or less predictable
behavior more predictable and
understandable” (2003, pp. 186–187).
understandable” 186—187). With respect spread throughout
respect to its spread world, the school
throughout the world,
indeed a huge success,
is indeed success, but it isn’t clear that we should
should include of wonders
include it in the list of wonders ofof the
world (Perkins
world l).
1992, p. 1).
(Perkins 1992,
22Zvi
Lamm, for example,
Zvi Lamm, decades ago: “The
wrote more than four decades
example, wrote “The school
school has not lacked
lacked detractors
detractors
in any period of its history.
period of What distinguishes
history. What distinguishes our own period
period from previous
previous periods
periods is the fact
that no one seems prepared defend it any longer. The school as we know
prepared to defend apparently reached
know it apparently reached
the end ofof one more stage in its history” (Lamm 1976,
history” (Lamm There are countless
1976, p. vii). There countless predictions
predictions such
frustrated educators.
as this made by frustrated educators.
2.2 Pictures from
Pictures of the School
from the Life of School 59
selective admission
Table 2.1 From selective admission to universal
universal promotion
promotion
process →
The process —>
period ↓L
The period Admission
Admission Promotion
Promotion
First period
period Selective
Selective Selective
Selective
Second period
Second period Universal
Universal Selective
Selective
Third period
Third period Universal
Universal From selective
From selective to universal
universal
informed observers —– schools “don’t work.” However, they do not suggest a realistic
However,they realistic
alternative for mass education.
alternative education. The voucher system, homeschooling,
homeschooling, distance
education, learning in the the workplace, and other alternatives all point in possible
directions, but so far they
they are not practical, in any scale, as a
any event not on a national scale,
solution to mass education. Nevertheless, there are are signs of preliminary agreement
regarding the general direction to go: go: the school has to be remade into a place that
supplies critical conditions for good learning —– learning bound up up with involvement
in the subjects of study and in understanding them.
Zvi Lamm argued (in conversation
conversation3) 3
) that the basic characteristic of such an
alternative school is flflexibility:
exibility: for universal education to be universal, the school
must make its structure more fl flexible
exible and respond to the the special abilities and dispo-
sitions of the students. He placed this statement in a historical context, dividing the
the school into three periods: The fi
history of the first
rst period —– all those centuries when
schools trained scribes for the monarch in antiquity, nurtured lovers of wisdom
(philosophers) in classical Greece, and prepared clergy for the church. The school
was selective in admission and promotion from level level to level.
level. The second period — –
the last quarter of the eighteenth century until the mid-twentieth century, from
from the
the French and Industrial Revolutions and the the advent of compulsory education.
During this period the school was nonselective (universal) in admission but selec-
tive in promotion. In our time, the school is in transition: universal admission and a
gradual transition from selective to universal promotion. That transition engenders
growing pains of various kinds (Table 2.1).
(Table 2.1 ).
Thus, there is reason to hope that the school is in the early stages of transition
from a rigid system to a fl flexible
exible one,
one, from a uniform system to one one that is adaptable,
and from a system that does not make good learning possible to a system that not
only makes it possible, but also encourages
encourages and guides it. What stands in the the way
way of
this transition are mainly the limitations of imagination and boldness.
Pictures from
2.2 Pictures from the
the Life of the
the School
When a teacher stands in front of her class, checks homework, lectures, writes on
the blackboard, tries to calm students down, refers to the textbook, leads a discus-
sion, assigns homework, announces that in two weeks there will be a test,
test, etc., what
“educational pictures” does she have in her mind? What pictures are reflected
reflected in her
3
conversations with Lamm
My conversations were published
Lamm were published in Pressure and Resistance
Pressure and Resistance in Education:
Education: Articles
Articles
and Conversations, Poalim (2000).
Sifriat Poalim
Conversations, Tel Aviv: Sifriat (2000).
actions about the elements —– the atoms —– of the the educational process:
process: learning, teach-
ing, mind, and the
knowledge, mind,
ing, knowledge, the purpose
purpose of of learning and teaching? One could of
course ask her:her: “What do you teaching...?” But the answers
you think about learning, teaching…?”
might not be relevant. More interesting are the answers refl reflected
ected in her actions.
actions.44
People express
express and shape their thoughts on two levels —– in words and action.
Since people are not angels, there is always a gap gap between these two levels. A per- per-
says that he believes in some principle (such as moral equality between men and
son says
women), but his behavior indicates a different belief (male chauvinism). Do our
actions alone reveal our true credo? In the educational context, we need not go that
far. For our purposes, sufficient
purposes, it is suffi cient to recognize that action is determinative, and if
we want to change action, we
we we have to identify its underlying assumptions, beliefs,
short, what pictures
and dispositions, in short, shape, but do not
pictures (representations that shape,
necessarily mirror, reality) support and enable it.
Assuming that human behavior isn’t entirely automatic or instinctive but, rather,
shaped by pictures (assumptions, concepts, beliefs, etc.), it appears the pictures
appears that the
that explain the typical behavior of teachers in their classrooms are the following: to
container;
knowledge is an object; the mind is a container;
learn is to listen; to teach is to tell; knowledge
and the aim of of teaching and learning is the the creation of students oror graduates
graduates who
are knowledgeable (or more precisely, remember the content studied in school).
These pictures are not clear and well articulated (exposing them triggers resis-
tance; they are effective when they they remain unarticulated), but they are deeply
imprinted in the minds of teachers and students and in the the patterns of action in
school: teaching is lecturing for the examination; learning is drilling in preparation
for the examination; assessment is summative and numerical; knowledge is orga- orga-
nized into school subjects; the organizational structure is hierarchical and central;
much group
group time is devoted to uniform assignments and there little time for indi-
vidual tasks; space defined
space is defined and bounded; and so on.
The fifirst
rst two pictures are descriptive —– they they describe the given situation. The
third and fourth pictures are metaphorical. The fi fifth
fth picture is prescriptive (or nor-
nor-
mative) —– it determines what ought to be, what the the goal of education is as personi-
fied
fi the educated person.
ed in the ideal of the person.
The basic pictures of schooling –— let’s let’s call them atomic pictures
pictures –— underlie the
school and are supported by it. Though they are are implied by what Seymour Sarason
((1982)
1982) calls “regularities” —– all the action patterns of schooling –— they are “framed”
by daily language in and and out of the
the school. Teachers say, “If you you don’t listen, you
you
won’t know”; “I’m repeating this, whoever didn’t understand should listen”; “that
student catches on quickly”; “he absorbs slowly”; “you have to cover the the material”;
“this class isn’t getting enough mathematics”; “I have to give on...”; and
give a lesson on…”;
like. These and
the like. and other expressions convey convey prevalent images of instruction,
4If,
4
If, as contemporary philosophy tends to do, one rejects
contemporary philosophy notion that people
rejects the notion people have pictures
pictures in
their minds,
their minds, and these pictures
pictures guide actions, one may ask: what are the assumptions
guide their actions, about
assumptions about
learning, teaching,
learning, teaching, knowledge, mind, and the purpose
knowledge, mind, purpose ofof the teaching
teaching and learning of information
learning of information
which are entailed
which entailed by the typical “teacherish” action
typical “teacherish” action in the classroom?
classroom?
2.3 Picture or the
The Big Picture the Mimetic Chain
Mimetic Chain 61
learning, knowledge, the the mind, and the goal of education. They are taken mainly
from the realm of static material objects and they
they reify human beings.
The atomic pictures are consistent with common sense senses;5; after all,
all, what is learn-
ing without listening? If somebody wants to learn something, he has to listen to the
words of somebody who knows it and to store them well in his his mind. And what is
your knowledge clearly (along with writing it on
teaching if not telling —– to present your
the board or a flflashy
ashy PowerPoint)? What is knowledge if if not a thing —– an object,
baggage —– that can be transferred
material, baggage
material, transferred by means of of speech from one mind
to another (though that “object” has a magical property –— the one one who transfers
knowledge is not deprived of it, and sometimes the act of transferring knowledge
even expands itit“)?
6
)? What is a mind if not a container for knowledge? And what is an
educated person
person if not a person person who has stored in his memory
person who knows, a person memory
valuable theoretical and practical information that guides his behavior and think-
pictures are not entirely
ing? Indeed, these pictures unfounded. They are merely very
entirely unfounded. very
simplistic and do not enable better instruction and learning.
The atomic pictures of schooling are bound up up with each other and derive from
they form the big picture.
one another. Together they
The Big Picture

2.3 The Picture or the Mimetic
01' the Chain
Mimetic Chain
the atomic pictures, the big picture is not explicit either but,
Like the but, rather, implicit in
copying. According to
the practice of schools. The underlying principle is that of copying.
this principle, everyone
everyone is engaged in copying: scientists copy world; curriculum
copy the world;
experts copy
copy the sciences; teachers copy
copy the curriculum; and the students copy
copy the
teachers and textbooks. (The students alone are are forbidden to copy
copy from each other.)
other.)
After the students have copied the teachers and textbooks in school subjects for
12 years, they hold a predetermined
12 years, predetermined representation
representation ofof the world in their heads.
They are educated graduates.
From the behavior of of teachers in their classrooms and from the general conduct
of the school, we
of we can extract a comprehensive and systematic picture, a kind of
philosophy of schooling that supports and enables the behavior of
philosophy of teachers and
administrations. In this big picture (see Table 2.2
school administrations. 2.2),
), (1) the world consists
of facts, and facts have inner qualities. For example, the facts relating to the past
of
of human groups
of groups are historical
historical facts, the facts relating to the structure of society
are sociological facts, the facts relating to the structure of the human mind are
psychological facts, the facts relating to bodies in motion are physical facts, the
psychological
processes are biological
facts relating to organic processes biological facts, and the facts relating to
relations between numbers are mathematical
mathematical facts. (2) Scientists observe the
55Which
often wrong,
Which is often Nelson Goodman
wrong, as Nelson “Much of
Goodman said, “Much of common
common sense is actually common
actually common
nonsense.” Pierre
nonsense.” Pierre Bourdieu
Bourdieu defi
defined common sense as the belief
ned common belief that what is also must be.
be.
t"Indeed,
6
teaching strengthens
Indeed, teaching strengthens learning. teach. You also can switch
learning. You learn well when you teach. switch the
pictures: teach is to listen.
pictures: to learn is to tell; to teach listen. These
These switched
switched pictures
pictures have some validity
validity (see
Meier 1995,
Meier 1995, p. xi).
Table 2.2 The big picture of schooling

picture of schooling
scientific educational
educational lesson student's
student's
world knowledge knowledge plans mind
Scientists
Seienlists
Curriculum Designers
Teachers
Teachers
Facts
Facts Disciplines
Mathematics Subjects
Mathematical
Mathematical Mathematics
Physical
Physical Physics new
. M a th e-
Mathe- know
Biological
Biological Biology -ledge
matics
matics old
Sociological
Somological Socwlogy
Sociology Biology know-
ledge
Psychological
Psychological Psychology
Psychology History
History gluing
Historical .'
Historical History
History
.
Literary
Literary Literature
Literature
. .
.
. .
. .
observati0n7),
world (meticulous, objective observation 7
), more precisely, a certain segment of the
world that contains the facts of interest to them, and they create the disciplines —–
the areas of knowledge that investigate those facts with their distinctive methods.
responsible for designing the curriculum.
(3) Now comes the turn of the educators responsible
They observe the disciplines,
They observe disciplines, copy
copy and them, and create
process them,
process school subjects
create the school subjects – —
areas of knowledge intended for teaching

knowledge intended teaching and learning
learning in schools (see the next
difference between
chapter for the difference
chapter between a scientifi
scientificc discipline
discipline and a school subject).
subject).
(4) And now
(4) now the teachers: they copy copy and process
process the subjects of study and turn
of information —– lesson plans –— and adapt them to fi
them into bits of of the
fitt the size of
openings in the students’ minds. They must make these bits of knowledge enter
the students’ minds. However, there are gates at the entrances into the mind, and
those gates are usually closed. You have to open open them! To that end, the teachers
employ various tactics whose purpose
purpose is to stimulate attention (e.g., the tactic of
seduction: “Children, I want to tell youyou a very
very interesting story,” if that doesn’t
story,” and if
work, then there’s the threat tactic: “What I’m telling you you now
now will be final
on the fi nal
exam!”). Once the gates are open, you
open, you have to cram in a new bit of knowledge.
And that’s not all.
all. The knowledge that has been crammed in can leak out. You have
7
Glasersfeld, in his book Radical
Ernst von Glasersfeld, Radical Constructivism
Constructivism (1995), chose two appropriate
appropriate epigrams:
epigrams:
Roland Barthes,
one from Roland Barthes, “the only given is the way ofof taking,” other from
taking,” and the other from Heinz
Heinz von
Foerster, “objectivity
Foerster, delusion that observations
“objectivity is the delusion observations could
could be made without
without an observer.”
2.4 Beyond Pictures of
Beyond the Pictures of the School
School 63
new piece of knowledge to the

to glue the new the old ones that were crammed in during
(e.g., chlorophyll, which was
earlier lessons (e.g., today, has to be connected to
was learned today,
photosynthesis, which was studied last week). For that purpose,purpose, discussion is held
in the classroom, homework is assigned and, and, above all,
all, a test is given. In the course
of preparing for the examination, the great gluing together takes place ((StraussStrauss and
Shiloni 1994). difficult
1994). (5) After a prolonged and diffi cult process
process of teaching and learning,
the chain of copying reaches its successful conclusion: pieces of of knowledge in
one subject join together, and they join the pieces of knowledge in other subjects.
The knowledge that has accrued over 12 years of learning creates a reliable picture
12 years
of the world in the minds of students and graduates. They know the the various aspects
the world. They know how how the world works.
This description of schooling, albeit satirical, is accurate enough: when you you
examine schools and their complex relations between learning, instruction, and
knowledge, you find
you fi nd that this is more or less how schools “think.”
“think.”
The big picture (or the mimetic chain) authorizes thethe teacher to instruct everyone
everyone
in a uniform, authoritative manner, and it underlies the practice that gave Iise to the
gave rise
modern school: one teacher manages
manages many students.88
many students.
the Pictures
2.4 Beyond the Pictures of the
the School
2.4.1 To Learn
Learn Is Listening: To Learn
Than Listening:
Is More Than Learn
Is to Be Involved and
Is and to Understand
to Understand
study, but listening, especially the sort com-

Listening is an important component in study,
mon in schools (fragmented and interest"),
and without interest9
one component in the
), is merely one
complex system of good learning. What is good learning?
88
instruction –
Group instruction
Group teacher instructing
— one teacher students —– is a relatively
instructing many students method. Originally
relatively new method. Originally
instruction was individual
instruction teacher taught
individual —– one teacher student while
taught one student while the other
other students
students in the class
class
performed some kind
performed of task or ran about
kind of about unsupervised, paintings by Ambrosius
unsupervised, as we can see in paintings Ambrosius
Holbein, “Schoolmaster’s Signboard,”
Holbein, “Schoolmaster’s School for Boys
1516, or by Jan Steen, “A School
Signboard,” 1516, 1617
Boys and Girls,” 1617
(Olson 2003, pp. 196–197).
(Olson 2003, instruction emerged
Group instruction
196—197). Group emerged for reasons of economy
reasons of control (look
economy and control
commotion in Steen’s classroom!)
at the commotion classroom!) and not for pedagogical reasons. It generated
pedagogical reasons. generated new patterns
patterns
of behavior
of behavior in the classroom
classroom and new patterns of communication,
patterns of communication, thinking, Someone
thinking, and study. Someone
once remarked teacher in her
remarked that the teacher teaches all the students
classroom, who teaches
her classroom, students the same subject
subject in
doctor in a ward who, one morning,
the same way, is like a doctor “today everyone
morning, gives the order, “today everyone gets
an enema,” and the next day, “today“today everyone transfusion.” Just
everyone gets a transfusion.” Israeli bus drivers
Just as Israeli drivers some-
some—
times tell the passengers
times passengers in the front of of the bus to “move
“move forward
forward to the rear,” we need to “move
“move
forwar ” to the past,
forward” individual instruction
past, to the individual of former
instruction of former centuries.
centuries.
99“Even
teacher acts like a broadcasting
“Even when a teacher doubtful that all the pupils
station, it is doubtful
broadcasting station, tuned
pupils are tuned
in. A more plausible model is that
plausible model teacher is in communication
that the teacher communication with different
different individuals
individuals for
brief, moments and that these
sporadic moments
brief, sporadic these pupils
pupils are responding
responding to other stimuli of the time”
stimuli the rest of time”
(Jackson 1968/1990, p. 83). It’s possible
(Jackson 1968/1990, possible that many disorders, including
learning disorders,
many learning attention defi
including attention deficit,
cit,
have a contextual, institutional dimension,
contextual, institutional outside of
dimension, and outside of schools
schools they would
would not exist at all.
define
Let us defi involvementin the process
ne good learning as involvement process and understanding as
the product.
product. Mental events can be described from two perspectives —– from the
process and from the
process the outcome. With respect to the process,
process, good learning is engaged
learning, learning in which the learner is interested in what she is learning, is excited
by it, even —– at its best –— completely immersed in it, or, to use the language of
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ((1990), flow.
state of fl
1990), in a state ow.
1989) distinguished between two types of involvement: ego
John Nicholls ((1989)
involvementand
involvement involvement. . In ego
and task involvement ego involvement, a person
person is motivated to do
something by anxiety or hope that touches him: “What will happen to me if I do or
don’t do what has been assigned to me?” In task involvement, a person person is motivated
by interest in the task, and he tends to forget himself. School learning is mainly
bound up ego involvement. Good learning, in contrast, is bound up with task
up with ego
involvement. Task involvement means a positive experience of learning. A positive
experience in learning stimulates the desire to recreate it, and it lays the foundation
learning.10
for lifelong learning. 10
As we sawsaw in the previous chapter, understanding can be conceived of as two

representational and presentational.
different mental activities –— representational representa-
presentational. As a representa-
understanding is conceived of as representation
event,, understanding
tional event representation:: a person
person under-
representation in his mind of a state of affairs in the world.
stands when there is a representation
For example, he understands how to get to the central bus station if if he has a map
map
of the city “in his head.” The world, to use Carl Bereiter’s terminology, includes
of
artifacts”“11 —– ideas, attitudes, theories, etc.
“conceptual artifacts” – and people also understand
etc. —
they are represented properly in their minds. The representation includes
them when they
location,, which is to say placing the
location the understood concept within a complex of con-
representation “chair” receives
(representations), which give it meaning (the representation
cepts (representations),
its meaning from the representations
representations “table,” “furniture,” and, ultimately, as
Wittgenstein has taught us, us, from “the form of of life”). The richer the network of
person places a concept, the deeper is her understanding
concepts in which a person understanding of it.
1"Study
10
alienation —– and this is the trap —– is a condition
alienating; alienation
Study in school is alienating; condition for success
success and
school. Imagine
survival in school. student who is inspired
Imagine a student inspired by Dostoevsky’s Crime and
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment.
Punishment. That
is, instead of reading
instead of reading some abridged version or summary
abridged version prepare for the test, she read
summary to prepare whole
read the whole
book
book and was swept off off her
her feet by it. She asks her mother,
mother, “Did Dostoevsky write any other
Dostoevsky write other
books?” mother gives her more books.
books?” Her mother student is in trouble:
books. Now the student trouble: she has over-invested
over—invested in
literature. What
literature. What will happen
happen to her now in her math, math, English,
English, and chemistry classes? She starts to
chemistry classes?
Dennis Clark Pope’s Doing
slip. Dennis School: How We are Creating
Doing School: Generation of
Creating a Generation Stressed Out,
of Stressed
Materialistic,
Materialistic, andand M iseducated Students
Miseducated describes alienated
Students (2001) describes alienated schooling concrete and
schooling in concrete
fashion. Similarly,
frightening fashion.
frightening Robert Fried,
Similarly, Robert Fried, in The Game of of School (2005), children
(2005), shows how children
school game”
play “the school without experiencing
game” without experiencing true learning, what he calls
learning, what calls “authentic”
“authentic” learning.
learning.
1‘
11
“conceptual artifact,”
The “conceptual which exists
artifact,” which exists in World 3 (see the chapter
chapter “A Community
Community of of Knowledge
Knowledge
Building” previous part),
Building” in the previous “dangerously” close to the metaphorical
part), is “dangerously” metaphorical picture of knowledge
picture of knowledge as
which we wish to challenge.
object, which
an object, challenge. However, therethere is a principled difference between
principled difference between knowl—
knowl-
which we criticize,
object, which
edge as an object, criticize, and Bereiter’s of knowledge
Bereiter’s idea of artifact.
conceptual artifact.
knowledge as a conceptual
former simply
The former connection to the mind.
exists, with no connection
simply exists, mind. The latter
latter is a product
product ofof the mind
mind and
meant to be dealt
meant dealt with by the mind.
mind.
24 Beyond
2.4 Pictures of
School 65
As a presentational
presentational event person understands when he is capable of performing
event,, a person
intellectual acts utilizing
intellectual utilizing knowledge
knowledge (“the performance conception of
performance conception of under-
12
standing”). The second approachapproach12 has a pedagogical advantage: by externalizing
understanding and making it observable behavior, it allows teachers to work on, on,
build, and evaluate it.
Three comments are in order regarding the defi definition learning: (1) The
nition of good learning:
definition
defi value-laden13
nition is value-laden 13 —
attn'butes value
– it attributes involvement and
value to involvement and to understanding
understanding
and denotes the type of learning to strive for. In principle, there could be learning
that did not entail involvement and understanding —– in the case of a propagandist
preacher, for example. (2) There is reciprocal dependency
or a preacher, dependency between the two
components of the defi definition
nition —– involvement in the process process and understanding as
involvement facilitates
the outcome —– because involvement facilitates understanding
understanding and understanding
understanding
involvement. (3) The
promotes involvement. definition
The defi nition of understanding as the desired outcome of
good learning may “conservative.” One might be inclined to defi
may seem “conservative.” definene its outcome
and/0r creative
as critical and/or creative thinking. But, But, as stated in the previous chapter,
chapter, as the
infrastructure of thinking,
infrastructure thinking, understanding subsumes these and other qualities.
understanding subsumes Moreover,
qualities. Moreover,
aspiration that learning
the aspiration understanding is radical enough in comparison
learning embody understanding comparison to
takes place in schools,
what actually takes “material” is taught to be retained and
schools, where “material”
recycled. Teaching necessitates far-reaching
understandingnecessitates
Teaching and learning for the sake of understanding far-reaching
school.
organization of the school.
changes in the patterns of work and organization
Good learning (involvement in the process process + understanding as the the product) is a
complex process. difficult
process. It is diffi cult to plan it and ensure it, but it is possible and neces-
sary to provide the conditions for
sary it.. What are the conditions vital for the emer-
for it
gence
gence of good learning? Here, for example, are 12 12 conditions for good learning.
Some of them encourage
encourage involvement, some encourage encourage understanding, and most
encourage
encourage both. This list does not exhaust all or even most of the the conditions neces-
sary learning.14
sary for good learning.
14
In general, we we may
may divide the conditions necessary
necessary for
good learning into three categories –— some relate to motivation, some to congruity
(between thethe student and the contents, the student and the the teacher, the student and
environment (the organizational structure,
the pattern of teaching, etc.), and some to environment
the climate, etc.).
Relation Between
Between Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation: well when they
Motivation: People learn well they
(they do something because it is enjoyable or
are driven by intrinsic motivation (they
l2This
12
approach does not necessarily
This approach necessarily deny the representational conception of
representational conception of understanding,
understanding,
though it is certainly
though certainly possible understand in a behavioristic
possible to understand behavioristic manner without any
alone, that is, without
manner alone,
mental representations
mental representations (e.g., to express oneself well without
express oneself without knowing
knowing the laws ofof grammar).
grammar).
l3Academic
13
makes use of
psychology makes
Academic psychology of general, “scientific”
general, “scientifi definitions
c” defi of learning,
nitions of which are not
learning, which
value—laden, but these are not very fertile
value-laden, fertile with respect education. In education,
respect to education. definition
education, the defi of
nition of
leaming is necessarily
learning value—laden.
necessarily value-laden.
l4Recent
14
books that address
noteworthy books
Recent noteworthy address other
other necessary conditions for good learning
necessary conditions David
learning are David
Perkins’ Making
Perkins’ Making Learning Daniel Willingham’s
(2009) and Daniel
Learning Whole (2009) Willingham’s Why Don’t Students
Why Don’t Students Like
(2009).
School (2009).
(they do something because they want a

valuable) and by extrinsic motivation (they
reward or fear punishment), but extrinsic motivation is much weaker than intrinsic,
because strong extrinsic motivation destroys intrinsic motivation. That is to say,
both motivations are important for good learning, but only on condition that the the
correct relation between them is maintained
maintained1515
1989; Perkins 1992
(cf. Nicholls 1989; 1992).).
Underminz'ng:: People learn well when they are

Undermining cognitively, when the
are undermined cognitively,
“world” contradicts their schemas (concepts and expectations). People whose ideas
have been undermined are motivated to learn so as to restore thethe cognitive equilib-
rium that was disturbed. In other words, people want to be happy. Happiness, in the
cold terms of neo-Piagetist cognitive psychology, is a situation of cognitive equilib-
the world behaves in accordance with our concepts and expectations.
rium, in which the
When the world contradicts them, we are motivated to learn in order to recover the
1996).l6
lost equilibrium (cf. Fosnot 1996). 16
Resonance:
Resonance: People learn well when the subject being studied resonates with their
provisional thoughts and their inchoate aspirations (an existential resonance) or
with their practical goal (a practical resonance). A subject is learned well if it is
meaningful; meaning also derives, perhaps principally, from the “baggage” that the
(the child is not a tabula rasa).17
learner brings with him (the rasa).17 The concept of the resonance
of learning is more positive than thethe concept of undermining, whereby a person person
learns when his preconceptions are
are upended. Rather than supplanting the concept of
undermining, resonance offers a positive counterbalance.
Intelligences: appropriate to
Intelligences: People learn well when the content of what they learn is appropriate
their profile
profile of intelligences. According to Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple
intelligences(1993,
intelligences 1999b), people have
(1993, 1999b), distinct intelligences:
have eight distinct intelligences: linguistic,
linguistic, logical-
logical-
mathematical, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and
15
15If, literature department
example, the literature
If, for example, department of of some university decides that it will only
university decides only accept
accept
students with pure
students interest in literature
pure interest literature (inner motivation) therefore. it does not offer a BA to
motivation) and, therefore,
(external motivation),
graduates (external
its graduates doubtful whether
motivation), it is doubtful whether it will attract candidates. And if, for
attract candidates.
example, parents
example, parents who want their childrenchildren to love reading (inner motivation)
reading (inner motivation) buy themthem a mountain
mountain
bike
bike after they’ve fi finished book (external
nished a book (external motivation), undermine their love of
motivation), they will undermine of reading;
reading;
they’ll read
the next time, they’ll book on condition
read a book condition that they’ll
they’ll be taken
taken to Disneyland.
Disneyland. In short, the
reward
reward for reading reading; the reward
reading is reading; learning is learning.
reward for learning learning.
1"’For
16
when a person
example, when
For example, person goes to a restaurant, schema “restaurant”
employs the schema
restaurant, he employs “restaurant” (not
“museum” or “football
“museum” “football fi eld”). The restaurant
field”). schema arouses
restaurant schema arouses a series of of expectations:
expectations: a polite
polite
waiter will greet him and his spouse
waiter spouse when they enter, and he will lead them them to a vacant
vacant table;
table; then,
then,
he will present
present them with a small text, the menu, them time to examine
menu, and he will give them examine and discuss
discuss
it; afterward, dishes will appear
afterward, the dishes appear in proper from appetizer
proper order, from dessert; fi
appetizer to dessert; finally,
nally, the bill will
be presented reasonable price.
presented for a reasonable price…. when they enter, the waiter
assume that when
. .. But let us assume waiter coarsely
coarsely
customer and his spouse
shoves the customer table or disagrees
spouse to a table disagrees with an opinion customer has
opinion that the customer
expressed to his spouse,
expressed unreasonable amount
spouse, or he asks for an unreasonable amount of of money
money or for no moneymoney at all
house today!”)….
(“On the house customer will be shaken
today!”). . .. Our customer shaken (“what
(“what the hell is going here?”). He is
going on here?”).
motivated learn.
motivated to learn.
17In
17
In response
response to the sparse demanddemand for his books, Schopenhauer, the bitter
books, Schopenhauer, bitter philosopher
philosopher of of pessi—
pessi-
mism, wrote,
mism, “If a head
wrote, “If head bumps
bumps into a book, hollow sound
book, and a hollow sound is heard,
heard, that is not necessarily
necessarily the
fault ofof the boo
book.”
School 67
naturalist.“18 Among the criteria for a behavior to be regarded as an intelligence

naturalist.
(defined
(defi ned by Gardner as the ability to solve problems or to create products valued by
the community) is the expression or implementation of a symbol system. When a
person learns some symbol system —– a fi
person field
eld of knowledge, an art,
art, an activity —
–
which is appropriate to her intelligence profile, the learning is more productive.
profile, the
Thinking Styles
Learning and Thinking Styles:: People learn well when their stylestyle of learning and
thinking corresponds to the style evaluation in which they
style of teaching and evaluation they are taught
evaluated. People process
and evaluated. process their experience in various modes and styles.
styles. Different
theories of learning and thinking try to locate and describe the the different styles
styles of
Sternberg’s theory of “mental self-
learning and thinking. According to Robert Sternberg’s self-
and thinking styles are divided according
( 1997), for example, learning and
government” (1997),
to the forms of political regimes (we govern like we govern
govern our minds like states):
govem our states):
legislative,
legislative, executive,
executive, judicial, monarchic, hierarchic, oligarchic, anarchic, liberal,
conservative styles of thinking and learning. People learn well
and conservative well when the style
style of
teaching and evaluation takes account of their typical style of learning and
and evaluation and thinking.
For example, lecture-style teaching and multiple-choice tests requiring specifi specific c
with an executive,
answers are suited to people with executive,hierarchical, conservative style.
hierarchical, and conservative 19
style.19
of Development:
Stage of Development: People learn well when content is chosen and presented in a
cognitive development
manner suited to their level of cognitive development and the characteristics of their
understanding at a given age. Egan’s theory of
age. For example, according to Kieran Egan’s
cognitive tools (1997, five
(1997, 2008), there are five types of understanding, which develop
with age developmental stages of human culture (recapitu-
age and are appropriate to the developmental
revives): somatic, mythological, romantic, philosophical,
theory, which Egan revives):
lation theory,
and ironic understanding. When content of studystudy is adapted to the typical type
type of
'8 Gardner
18
added the eighth
Gardner added naturalist, at a later date, a few years
eighth intelligence,
intelligence, the naturalist, publishing
years after publishing
his important
important book,book, Frames
Frames of of M ind (1983).
Mind attribute its discovery
(1983). I attribute discovery (a conjectural,
conjectural, perhaps
perhaps prepos—
prepos-
terous attribution)
terous question that I asked him
attribution) to a question him at the end of of a lecture
lecture in which
which he presented
presented the
“Professor Gardner,
intelligences: “Professor
seven intelligences: Gardner, what kind kind ofof intelligence
intelligence do you have?” other words,
have?” (In other words,
what is the dominant
what dominant intelligence
intelligence of of a person invents a theory
person who invents theory like multiple
multiple intelligences?)
intelligences?)
Gardner saidsaid nothing at fi first,
rst, thought for for a while, and then made
and then made some noncommittal answer.
some noncommittal answer.
afterward he published
A short time afterward article entitled
published an article entitled “Intelligence which he added
Reframed,” in which
“Intelligence Reframed,” added
eighth intelligence.
the eighth intelligence. He later published
published a book book with that title (Gardner
(Gardner 19991999). Despite the huge
). Despite huge
popularity
popularity of of the theory of multiple
theory of multiple intelligences
intelligences among educators, its utility
among educators, field
utility in the fi of educa-
eld of educa—
been limited,
tion has been limited, because doesn’t specify
because it doesn’t specify what to teach or which which intelligence
intelligence to develop.
develop.
Moreover, classroom with 30 students
Moreover, in a classroom students or more, intelligence profiles,
more, and as many intelligence difficult
profiles, it is diffi cult
anything with this theory
to do anything theory (except
(except experience
experience frustration). Gardner is well aware
frustration). Gardner aware of of this.
Hence, in his books
Hence, books on education, Unschooled Mind
education, The Unschooled Mind (1991), Disciplined Mind
(1991), The Disciplined (1999), and
Mind (1999),
Minds for
Five Minds for the Future (2006),
(2006), the theory
theory ofof multiple
multiple intelligences
intelligences occupies
occupies a marginal
marginal place.
place.
l9There
19
reliable research
There is no reliable research that supports theory of
supports the theory of multiple
multiple intelligences
intelligences or (even moremore so)
theories of
the theories of learning
learning and thinking
thinking styles (cf. Willingham
Willingham 2009,2009, pp. 147–168).
147—168). The main impor- impor—
of these theories
tance of
tance theories is that they call our attention
attention to the personalized character of
personalized character of thinking
thinking and
learning –
learning thinking and learning
— that thinking conditioned by and vary according
learning are conditioned whole personal—
according to the whole personal-
context. As one rabbi
specificc context.
ity in its specifi summed it up in explaining
rabbi summed Judaism’s view of
explaining Judaism’s of the afterlife:
afterlife:
“According to our religion,
“According death we all go somewhere
religion, after death somewhere to study Talmud.Talmud. For some it’s heaven,
heaven,
for some it’s hell.”
understanding and the given

understanding given stage
stage of development, learning is better.
development, the learning example,
better. For example,
in the mythological stage, children respond best to a binary presentation
mythological stage, presentation of characters
(good or bad), and at the philosophical stage
and events (good late adolescence —
– late
stage — – young
young
people respond to schematic, abstract, and systematic presentations.
Positive Attribution
Positive Theories:: People learn well
Attribution Theories well when they theories that vest
develop theories
they develop
them with mastery over their lives and attribute learning to their effort.
and attribute effort. According to
attribution theory (2000),
Dweck’s attribution
Carol Dweck’s “incremental learners” learn well because
(2000), “incremental
attribute achievement,
they attribute achievement, success,
success, and learning
learning cumulative effort. “Entity
to cumulative learners,”
“Entity learners,”
by contrast, well, because they
contrast, do not learn well, achievement, success,
they see achievement, success, and learning as
“either you
a matter of “either you get it or you
you don’t.”
don’t.” Learners of the first
first kind relate to their
intelligence as a fl
intelligence flexible developing experience,
exible and developing experience, whereas learners of the second
kind tend to relate to their intelligence
intelligence an inborn and infl
as inflexible entity. Learners of
exible entity.
the first kind are persistent; learners of the second kind give up
first up easily.
easily.
Feedback: they receive continuous, informative, and forma-
Feedback: People learn well when they
tive feedback ((Perkins 1992;; Brooks and Brooks 1993;
Perkins 1992 1993; Hattie 2012). Feedback is
vital to good learning when it is continuous, an integral part of the learning process
process
(and not a climactic event that occurs at the end –— the examination); informative,
providing the learners with precise information on the way way they have performed
some task (and not just an enigmatic mark in red ink); and formative, its intended
purpose is to get the students to improve (and not to rank them).
purpose
Participation, Choice:: People learn well when they share in the
Participation, Ownership, and Choice
formation of goals and methods of study (Perkins 2009 ). When people choose what
2009).
study, their study has a different quality. People not only choose what
and how to study,
love; they
they love; love what they have chosen. Choice not only charges what was
they love was cho-
the process
sen with new meaning, it also enables people to take responsibility for the process
maturity.20
of learning; responsibility is a sign of maturity. 20
Apprenticeship:
Apprenticeship: People learn well when they they take part in the work of a master –— a
craftsman, professional, expert (Gardner 1991 this participation, they

1991).). During this they
move from the margins of the the activity to its center, from simple to complex tasks
(Lave and Wenger 1991).1991). Learning, thinking, and understanding in the context of
social action areare qualitatively different from those that take place in school, which
artificial
is an artifi cial environment, divorced of context.
Effective Mediation: People learn well when contents are medi-
Teachers and Efiective
Good Teachers
teacher, according to Lamm, is someone who
ated to them by good teachers. A good teacher,
involvement in the subject of study and
is endowed with four characteristics: positive involvement
lives, awareness of the goals and purposes
the students’ lives, flexibility
purposes of instruction, flexibility in
and supportive
performance, and supportive leadership (Lamm 1976).
1976 ). Lee
Lee Shulman defines
defi nes a good
20Consider
20
difference between
Consider the difference between a recruit
recruit who runs around an army base
runs around base and a civilian
civilian who runs
runs
in order to stay in good physical
physical shape and look young.
young. Both ofof them run,
run, but there of
there is a world of
difference between
difference between the two kinds of running.
kinds of students do not participate
running. The fact that the students participate in
decision—makingor
decision- assume responsibility
making or assume school infantilizes
responsibility in school infantilizes them.
them. No wonder
wonder students
students at the
of 17
age of 17 or 18 themselves kids.
18 still call themselves kids.
24 Beyond
2.4 Pictures of
School 69
teacher as someone who possesses “pedagogical-content knowledge,”

possesses “pedagogical-content knowledge,” which
includes knowing the field
the fi field
eld she is teaching, the representation of the fi stu-
eld in the stu-
dent’s mind, and the bridge between the fi field
eld and its representation in thethe mind
). By either of these analyses, a student is likely to develop toward his
2004).
(Shulman 2004
“zone of proximal development” with the help of a guide who knows how how to lead
him to it ((Vygotsky
Vygotsky 2003) or how how to mediate between newnew areas of knowledge and
student experience (Feurstein 19981998).).
A
A Supportive Intellectual Climate: People learn
Supportive learn well
well when they safe, when they
they feel safe, they
encouraged,
are permitted, even encouraged, to make mistakes
mistakes (Rogers
(Rogers 1969);
1969 ); when positive atti-
atti-
toward learning and intellectual
tudes toward intellectual effort are fostered within them (Marzano (Marzano 1992 1992););
intellectual environment
when they enjoy an intellectual environment that encourages
encourages dispositions
dispositions to think
deeply, systematically,
deeply, systematically, critically,
critically, etc. (Ritchhhart 2002
etc. (Ritchhhart 2002);); and when they they are the object
expectations
of high expectations and belief in their ability
ability to think and investigate and attain intel-
investigate intel-
achievement: “The
lectual achievement: variable that has been found to be most infl
“The variable influential
uential on stu-
dents’ achievement is the social
dents’ achievement school” (Oplatka
social climate of the school” (Oplatka 20072007,, p. 68).
68).
As noted, the aforementioned 12 12 conditions are far from exhausting the condi-
tions vital for good learning; there are others (cf. (cf. http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/
http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/
en_leaming/good-learning.pdf) .
en_leaming/good-learning.pdf ) . However,
However, this
this is the essential point: good learning
is a process
process that involves thinking, imagination, emotion, and body with the content
of study and in constructing its understanding. To motivate and shape such a pro- pro-
the various components of the educational environment —
cess, the – teaching, evaluation,
curriculum, students, organization of time and space, space, the climate, and more —– must
all be structured to provide the necessary
necessary conditions.
The call to establish a school based on the principle of conditions conditions for learning is a
call to stand
call school on its head or, rather,
stand the school Traditional schools
feet. Traditional
rather, on its feet. schools are
conditions for instruction,
designed on the principle of conditions instruction of a certain kind –—
instruction, instruction
“talk and chalk” kind of teaching. Schools Schools are arranged to have a teacher lecture to
students, who are “packaged”
dozens of students, “packaged” in the unit of the class. class. This
This is (ostensibly)
(ostensibly) an
efficient
effi inexpensive
cient and inexpensive system of instruction.
instruction. In such
such schools,
schools, the order of things
has been reversed.
reversed. Learning is in the service instruction. This
service of instruction. This is like a shopping
shopping
center where selling has priority over buying, where the conditions are good for
sellers but not for buyers. However, instruction is a means
However, instruction means for learning and not vice
versa. In other words,
versa. should be given
words, priority should instruction. A rational
given to learning over instruction.
shopping
shopping center is built on the principle of providing good conditions
conditions to the buyers:
buyers:
the customer is always right. Dewey wrote that only
Dewey wrote only in a school was it possible to sell
without buyers —– to teach without learning. A logical school, school, one that served served good
would be radically different
learning, would different from existing
existing schools (Harpaz ).21
2008).21
2008
2‘
21
organized today
“The school is organized today mainly around the need to manage
mainly around demands and the
manage the many demands
derive from universal
uncertainty that derive
uncertainty universal education, around the question
education, and less around of the optimal
question of optimal
organization of
organization of signifi
significant learning[. . .] In such a conception
cant learning[…] conception [which acknowledges
acknowledges and encourages
encourages
differences among
differences people] the question
among people] correct process
question is not, what is the correct of instruction,
process of instruction, but what
what
is the true process of learning.
process of accent must pass
learning. The accent of instruction
questions of
pass from questions instruction to questions of
questions of
teaches, but how one learns[…]
leaming. Not, how one teaches,
learning. learns[. . .] The system of instruction
system of instruction must
must reflect
reflect the
ways ofof learning versa” (Inbar 2000,
learning and not vice versa” 2000, pp. 13–21).
13—21).
way to sum up this chapter is to recall the words of Jerome Bruner in his
A good way
well-known article “The Will to Learn”:
intrinsic motive,
The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that fifinds
nds both
both it source and its rewards
rewards in its
exercise. The will to learn
own exercise. learn becomes under specialized
“problem” only under
becomes a “problem” circumstances
specialized circumstances
like those
like those of
of a school, where
where a curriculum
curriculum is set, students
students confi
confined,
ned, and a path fi fixed.
xed.
The problem learning itself, but in the fact that what the school imposes
problem exists not so much in learning imposes
often fails to enlist the natural
often natural energies sustain spontaneous
energies that sustain learning —– curiosity,
spontaneous learning curiosity, a
desire for competence,
desire emulate a model,
aspiration to emulate
competence, aspiration model, and a deep-sensed commitment to the
deep—sensed commitment
of social reciprocity.
web of reciprocity. (Bruner 1966,, p. 127)
(Bruner 1966 127)
The concept of good learning, therefore, first

therefore, refutes the first atomic picture: learning is
listening. Learning that is based only on listening (typically shallow and distracted
inefficient,
learning) is not only ineffi cient, it is also not educational, since it teaches young
young
initiative.22
people shallow and obedient learning, devoid of interest and initiative. 22
2.4.2 Teaching Is More Than

Than Telling: Teaching
Is
Is Providing Conditions for
Providing Conditions for Good Learning
As commonly understood, teaching is a complex of actions that are are intended to

advance learning. When learning is interpreted as listening, teaching, as its mirror
However, if
image, is interpreted as telling. However, if learning is interpreted as involvement
and understanding, teaching must be interpreted differently, as something more
complex.
The second atomic picture —– to teach is to tell —– is based on our direct life experi-
ence: someone asks us, “What time is it?”; it?”; we answer: “Five o’clock”; he listened,
we told, and he learned something new. Teaching and learning of that kind can suc-
we suc-
ceed only when the subject being learned is contained in a simple unit of informa-
if we want to teach a complex idea, not to mention a character trait or a
tion, but if
insufficient
value, stating it is insuffi cient (even when we bolster it by dispensing punishments
comprehensive.. Rather
and rewards to the learners). Good teaching is indirect and comprehensive
than direct and limited instruction –— reciting the the “material” –— it strives to create
conditions for good learning. It does not entirely deny direct instruction. It merely
limits its role in the complex conditions vital for good learning. (Surely it is useful
complex of conditions
22
nineteenth—centuryEngland,
In nineteenth-century doesn’t matter
slogan: “It doesn’t
England, there was a slogan: matter what you teach,
teach, so long as
it’s boring!” behind that slogan was healthy:
boring!” The logic behind schools prepared
healthy: the schools students for hard,
prepared students hard, bor—
bor-
industrial factories.
ing work in the new industrial factories. But why do we continue
continue to bore
bore young
young people
people in our
schools while
schools while life outside
outside school
school might
might be so meaningful
meaningful and interesting? Philip Jackson
interesting? Philip argued in
Jackson argued
schools do, in fact, prepare
Classrooms that our schools
Life in Classrooms students for life. They teach them
prepare students them three
three
lessons: to stick with the crowd,
important lessons:
important evaluative environment,
crowd, to live in an evaluative environment, and to experience
experience
power relations.
power “Thus, school might
relations. “Thus, really be called
might really called a preparation
preparation to life, but not in the usual sense
which educators
in which educators employ
employ this slogan” 1968/1990, p. 33). The school of
(Jackson 1968/1990,
slogan” (Jackson of thought called
thought called
“critical pedagogy”
“critical theme –
developed this theme
pedagogy” developed schools prepare
— schools prepare students play their role in the
students to play
depressing capitalistic
depressing capitalistic society
society mostly
mostly through their hidden
through their curriculum.
hidden curriculum.
School 71
71
and effective to hear an organized lecture by an expert in a fi field

eld from time to time,
but it’s possible to gain even more from such a lecture if if it is just one component
in indirect and comprehensive instruction.) A basic assumption of good teaching is
the learner. The essence of teaching, therefore, is not what the teacher
that it involves the
does but what she causes the students to do. do.23
23
And what the teacher causes the
students to do derives from the complex
students complex of of conditions
conditions for good learning
learning that
she creates.
The relations between teaching and learning are complex and dependent upon upon
social and educational ideology. The fi first
rst model of education (the (the “old education”)
assumes a positive causal relation between teaching and learning: teaching causes
learning.24
learning. 24
“new education”) assumes a direct negative rela-
(the “new
The second model (the
tion between teaching and learning: teaching impairs learning, intervenes in the
child’s self-regulatory mechanism and subverts it. The third model, of which the
community of thinking is oneone variant, takes a more complex view. It seeks to restrain
teaching as telling but not to eliminate it entirely. It seeks to transform most of it into
guidance (not therapeutic but intellectual, meaning guidance for the purpose purpose of
critiquing and creating knowledge), and it seeks to make guidance into one one compo-
compo-
nent in the complex of conditions for good learning.
Carl Rogers, one of the theorists of the second model, of open, open, child-centered
education, despaired of teaching. He He wrote, with typical candor:
(a) My experience has been that I cannot teach another person how to teach. To attempt it is for
me, in the long run, futile.
run, futile.
anything that can be taught
(b) It seems to me that anything another is relatively
taught to another relatively inconsequential
inconsequential
significant
and has little or no signifi influence
cant infl behavior […].
uence on behavior [. . .].
(c) IIrealize
realize increasingly interested in learning
increasingly that I am only interested which signifi
leaming which significantly influences
cantly influences
behavior. Quite
behavior. Quite possibly simply a personal
possibly this is simply personal idiosyncrasy.
idiosyncrasy.
come to feel that the only learning
(d) I have come which signifi
learning which significantly
cantly infl uences behavior
influences behavior is
self—discovered,self—appropriatedlearning.
self-discovered, self-appropriated learning.
self—discoveredlearning,
(e) Such self-discovered been personally
learning, truth that has been appropriated and assimi-
personally appropriated assimi—
cannot be directly
experience, cannot
lated in experience, communicated to another
directly communicated another […].
[. . .].
(D As a consequence
(f) consequence of of the above, I realize
realize that I have lost interest in being
being a teacher.
When I try to teach,
(g) When teach, as I do sometimes,
sometimes, I am appalled results […].
appalled by the results Hence IIhave
[. . .]. Hence have
come to feel that the outcomes of of teaching are either unimportant or hurtful.
23
When the teacher
When teacher enters classroom with a question
enters the classroom “What will I have the students
question “What students do?” rather
rather
egocentric question
than with the egocentric “What do I have to do?” her teaching,
question “What teaching, like her preparation
preparation for it
evaluation of
and her evaluation of it, is likely
likely to change
change in far-reaching
far—reaching ways.
ways.
24
The pattern of teaching
pattern of teaching in the fi first
rst model, scholastic pattern
model, the scholastic pattern ofof teaching, arouses a strong
teaching, arouses
metaphorical drive among
metaphorical theorists, who sought
among many theorists, sought to explain noted, Dewey compared
explain it. As noted, compared it
to a system
system ofof pipes
pipes with two lines of of flflow:
ow: pipes of one kind
pipes of material into the student’s
pushed material
kind pushed student’s
mind, and pipes
mind, pipes ofof the second
second type pumped 1933/ 1998, p. 261).
(Dewey 1933/1998,
pumped it out (Dewey Paulo Freire
261). Paulo Freire called
called
conception underlying
the conception underlying this pattern
pattern of of teaching
teaching the banking conception of
banking conception of teaching (Freire
teaching (Freire
1970/1993, pp. 52–67).
1970/1993, Teaching is taken as making
52—67). Teaching making a deposit,
deposit, the mind as knowledge
as a safe, and knowledge
metaphors had successful
as money. Two metaphors successful careers twentieth century:
careers in the twentieth of furniture
century: that of furniture and that
of the muscle.
of muscle. According former, knowledge
According to the former, furniture placed
knowledge is like the furniture placed in the space of the
space of
mind. According
mind. According to the latter, intelligence
intelligence is like a muscle; if you train it to learn by rote,
muscle; if rote, for
example, you’ll strengthen
example, strengthen its memory muscle.
memory muscle.
When I look back

(h) When back at the results of my past
results of teaching, the real
past teaching, real results
results seem the same —–
either damage
either nothing signifi
damage was done or nothing significant occurred. This is frankly
cant occurred. frankly troubling.
troubling.
(i) As a consequence, realize that I am only interested
consequence, I realize interested in being learner, preferably
being a learner, preferably
learning things
learning matter, that have some signifi
things that matter, significant influence
cant infl behavior.
uence on my own behavior.
0) I fifind
(j) rewarding to learn, in groups,
nd it very rewarding relationships with one person
groups, in relationships person as in therapy,
or by myself.
myself.
almost afraid
[...] I am almost
[…] afraid I may seem to have gotten of
discussion of
gotten away from any discussion
learning, as well as teaching
learning, teaching […]. If the experiences
[...]. If experiences of of others
others had
had been
been the same asas
mine, and if
mine, if they had discovered
discovered similar
similar meanings
meanings in it,it, many
many consequences would be
consequences would
implied:
implied:
(a) Such experience would imply
experience would imply that we do away with teaching
teaching […]
[. . .]
better stop here.
I think I had better here. (1969, pp. 152–155)
152—155)
From the perspective of the second model, Rogers is right: the second model
“significant
values “self-discovered, self-appropriated learning” that has “signifi influence
cant infl uence
on behavior.” (These terms received their systematic meaning from humanistichumanistic
existentialism.) He doesn’t value intellectual understanding of general truths that
influence
infl way people interpret their world. (Dewey,
uence the way (Dewey, as noted, was
was frightened by
anti-intellectualturn of the progressive
the anti-intellectual progressive movement,
movement, of which he was the intellectual
leader.) The second model is indeed close in spirit to psychological treatment.
approach”) But an
(Fenstermacher and Soltis, as noted, called it “the therapeutic approach.”)
educational approach that values general truths and seeks to encourage
encourage their under-
standing asserts that teaching is important but has to be less direct (transmitting
knowledge) and more indirect (guiding the construction of knowledge).
Ernst von Glasersfeld, whom I associate with the third model, believes that
interpreted, in terms of his radical
teaching has a place even when learning is interpreted,
process of constructing concepts and the relations among
constructivism, as a process among them
that takes place in the individual’s mind. When learning is seen that way, teaching
can and must guide it:
fundamental principle
The fundamental which most of
principle from which of my suggestions
suggestions for practice
practice of of teaching
teaching
derive is that concepts relations are mental
conceptual relations
concepts and conceptual mental structures cannot be passed
structures that cannot passed
mind to another.
from one mind another. Concepts
Concepts have to be built up individually each learner,
individually by each learner, yet
teachers have the task of
teachers of orienting students’ constructive
orienting the students’ constructive process. easier to
Clearly it is easier
process. Clearly
orient students
orient students towards
towards particular of conceptual
areas of
particular areas construction if
conceptual construction if one has some idea of of
structures they are using
conceptual structures
the conceptual using at present. other words,
present. In other order to modify
words, in order modify
students’ thinking,
students’ teacher needs
thinking, the teacher needs a model
model ofof how the student
student thinks. Because one can
thinks. Because
heads of
never get into the heads of others, these models
others, these models always remain conjectural
always remain conjectural […]. Sensitive
[. . .]. Sensitive
teachers will treat their initial
teachers initial model of a student
model of student like a weather
weather forecast:
forecast: generally useful,
generally useful,
though betterthan
though no better approximate. (1995, pp. 186–187)
than approximate. 186—187)
position of the third model with regard to the relation

The position relation between teaching
between teaching
and learning thus maintains that teaching does not effectuate learning (the fi first
rst
model) nor does it necessarily impair it (the second model); when it is indirect and
comprehensive —– providing the essential conditions for learning –— it is defi
definitely
nitely
conditions for learning
helpful. When the conditions learning touch upon
upon direct
direct interactionwith
interaction with students,
students,
teaching must be based on guidance; when they upon planning the entire
they touch upon
educational environment,
educational environment,teaching comprehensive and shape
teaching must be comprehensive shape an educational
environment that enables and encourages
encourages good learning.
School 73
73
The general rule is that teaching for the sake

sake of good learning does not generate
end. However,
learning directly; it mobilizes the learner’s mind to that end. However, this does not
superfluous.
make teaching superfl uous. It only makes it more complex. Nicholas Burbules
summed upup this important matter as follows:
pedagogical encounters,
In pedagogical encounters, we do not change other people.
change other people. They change minds, they
change their minds,
decide on alternative
decide alternative courses of action,
courses of redefine
action, they redefi [...]. But
priorities, and so on […].
ne their priorities,
beginning
beginning from this vantage
vantage point leads to a fundamentally
point leads different teaching
fundamentally different teaching stance,
stance, one
defined
defi ned less by “giving” students certain
“giving” students certain things,
things, “shaping” students in particular
“shaping” students particular ways,
ways, or
“leading” them to particular
“leading” conclusions, and more by creating
particular conclusions, creating opportunities occasions
opportunities and occasions
which students
in which students will, given their own questions, needs, and purposes,
questions, needs, construct
gradually construct
purposes, gradually
mature understanding
a more mature understanding of of themselves,
themselves, the world, others —– an understanding
world, and others understanding that
definition
by defi must be their own. (1993, p. 10)
nition must 10)
“Teach less, learn more!” and “Teaching

short, slogans such as “Teach
In short, “Teaching is dead, long
justified when teaching involves routine, instructional lectures in
live learning!” are justified
preparation for an examination. But when teaching adapts itself to the the conditions
and goals of good learning, it promotes better learning and is worthy of praise.
Good teaching is derived from thethe conditions of good learning, but the manner of
production is not as simple as many many learning psychologists suppose.
suppose. Robert
Marzano, for example, makes that case as follows:
believe that the “heart
I believe of the matter”
“heart of matter” ofof any educational
educational reform
reform or restructuring
restructuring is the
relationship between
relationship teaching and learning
between the teaching learning processes. know that effective
processes. We know effective teaching
teaching
mirrors effective
mirrors effective learning, educators we have not mounted
learning, yet as educators mounted a serious
serious effort to organize
organize
around the learning
teaching around
teaching learning process.
process. Instead, viewed education
Instead, we have viewed education as institution
as an institution
administrative system
or an administrative system or a set ofof instructional
instructional techniques. examined the
techniques. We have not examined
process and then built
learning process
learning instructional systems,
built instructional administrative systems,
systems, administrative systems, indeed, entire
indeed, entire
educational systems
educational support what we know
systems that support about the learning
know about learning process.
process. We have not
built education from the bottom
built education bottom up, so to speak. (1992,
(1992, p. 1)
1)
Building education from the bottom up, up, meaning to derive guiding rules for
teaching from the conditions of learning, is not a straightforward or simple action;
learning.25
it is not possible to distill teaching guidelines directly from the nature of learning. 25
25
We must be careful
We reification
careful to avoid reifi concreteness to the word
attributing concreteness
cation –— attributing word “learning”
“learning” as if if
there is only one experience
there experience ofof learning world. Language
learning in the world. Language is poor; reality is rich
poor; reality varied.
rich and varied.
There is a single
There “learning,” but there
word, “learning,”
single word, many kinds
there are many kinds ofof learning world: learning
learning in the world: learning
what processes
what processes take place in the cell of of an organism, learning how
organism, learning with two
equations with
how to solve equations
unknowns, learning
unknowns, learning how to drive a car, learning
learning how to appreciate Oriental music,
appreciate Oriental learning to be
music, learning
sensitive to the needs
sensitive of the other,
needs of learning to be aware
other, learning aware ofof oneself,
oneself, and learning think indepen-
learning to think indepen—
dently –
dently of these
— all of these are kinds of learning
kinds of learning bound various cognitive
bound up with various cognitive and psychological
psychological
processes different world
guided by different
processes and guided world views.
views. Among these kinds
Among these of learning,
kinds of learning, there family
there is a family
resemblance, but it is doubtful
resemblance, doubtful whether
whether they have any common common essence. Aharon Kleinberger
essence. Aharon Kleinbergerclas-clas—
sified
sifi various kinds
ed the various kinds ofof learning
learning according
according to their their objects
objects in the following
following way: learning
learning
how... perform, learning
how… how to perform, skill; learning
learning a skill; that... learning
learning that… leaming ofof verbal
verbal information,
information, learning
learning
what is there;
what there; learning norms... learning
learning norms… learning whatwhat is proper; learning to...
proper; learning acquiring habits,
to… acquiring habits, to greet
greet
people “good morning,”
people with “good throw garbage
morning,” to throw garbage in the pail;pail; learning understand and appreciate,
learning to understand appreciate,
for example, learning to understand
example, learning theory of
understand the theory of relativity
relativity or learning modern
appreciate modern
learning how to appreciate
dance (Kleinberger
dance (Kleinberger 1980, pp. 99–105).
99—105).
Such derivation must undergo at least two stages of processing: sublimation and
realization. Let us explain.
If, for example, research showed that electric shock had a positive effect on
learning, that wouldn’t provide guidance for teaching (“Shock your vari-
your students at vari-
lesson. . .”), because teaching is subject to ethical conventions.
ous times during the lesson…”),
sublimation,, it would be possible to educe some princi-
Perhaps, after appropriate sublimation
ples regarding the positive effect of punishments (reasonable ones, within norma- norrna—
tive limits) on learning. And if, for example, research demonstrated that students
they enjoy a deep personal relationship with a sensitive, well-
learn effectively when they
trained adult, we couldn’t derive instructions for teaching from that in real-world
schools, because in thethe real world it is not possible to develop a personal relation-
ship with every we demand such relationships, we
every student. If we we have to change the
reality of schools to effect a realization of the research fi findings they take account
ndings so they
the importance of a personal relationship for learning. In short, the
of the the derivation of
teaching from learning must undergo normative and and practical processing.
Now, having addressed this reservation, we can present the
Now, the following table with
a clear conscience. It illustrates the derivation of principles for teaching from the 12 12
conditions for good learning mentioned above (and they, they, as noted, are merely a
partial list) (Table 2.3).
(Table 2.3 ).
These, of course, areare rather preliminary guidelines for teaching, which do not
take account of the ethical norms (sublimation) and practical constraints (realiza-
tion). They are meant only to point out the logic of the process
process by which teaching is
derived from learning.
Why don’t we implement guidelines like like these in schools? Indeed, why is it that
almost everything that happens in schools contradicts them? It’s not because teach-
ers and principals are ignorant or ill-disposed. Rather, it’s because the basic givens
(e.g., and the patterns of action (e.g.,
(e. g., the proportion of teachers to students) and (e. g., matricu-
lation examinations) in schools do not make it possible (see below).
Indirect and comprehensive teaching, teaching in the strong sense, refutes the
second atomic picture –— teaching is telling –— and posits an alternative defi definition:
nition: to
teach well is to produce conditions for good learning. This defi definition
nition elevates learn-
ing over teaching –— the goal of teaching is to serve learning, to provide favorable
conditions for it (cf. on the nature of teaching: http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/en_
http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/en_
learning/good-teaching.pdf;; http://yoramharpaz.com/
learning/good-teaching.pdf http://yoramharpaz.com/pubs/en_learning/teaching—
pubs/en_learning/teaching-
and-learning-analysispdf).).
and-learning-analysis.pdf
2.4.3 Knowledge IsIs Not an Object: Knowledge IsIs a Structure

Structure
Works; The Mind
or a Story That Works; Mind Is Not a Container,
Container;
the Mind
Mind Is
Is Interpretive
Interpretive Activity
Activity
The third picture of schooling –— knowledge is an object –— is metaphorical: someone

who possesses
possesses knowledge can transfer it as if it were an object to someone who
does not possess
possess it. Educated people maintain many
many objects in their head; ignorant
School 75
75
Table 2.3 Derivation of principles

Derivation of principles for teaching conditions for learning
teaching from the conditions learning
Conditions
Conditions
learning
for good learning Principles for good teaching
Principles teaching
Relation between
Relation between Make sure there is strong inner motivation and weak outer motivation;
intrinsic and
intrinsic stimulate interest
stimulate interest in learning subjects and reward
learning the subjects reward it
extrinsic motivation
extrinsic motivation proportionally
proportionally
Undermining
Undermining Undermine students’ common
Undermine the students’ common sense assumptions
assumptions with
constructive provocations.
constructive provocations. Repeatedly facilitate restoration
Repeatedly facilitate restoration
of cognitive
of cognitive equilibrium undermine it again
equilibrium and undermine again
Reverberation
Reverberation “stories” (fi
Offer the students “stories” ctional, historical,
(fictional, scientific)
historical, scientifi c) that will
fascinate them and resonate
fascinate resonate with their initial thoughts
thoughts and feelings
Intelligences
Intelligences Design a curriculum,
Design method of
curriculum, method of teaching
teaching and assignments
assignments that
correspond to the eight intelligences
correspond intelligences
of learning
Styles of
Styles learning and evaluate the students
Teach and evaluate students in various
various styles that suit their
their
thinking
thinking learning and thinking
learning thinking styles
of development
Stage of development contents of
Design the contents
Design of the curriculum
curriculum and their presentation
presentation
students’ developmental
according to the students’
according developmental stage and their their
dominant type of
dominant of understanding
understanding
Theories of positive
Theories of positive Foster in the students’
Foster students’ minds
minds an existential
existential attitude
attitude according
according to
attribution
attribution which their quality
which of life depends
quality of depends primarily intentions
primarily on their intentions
achievement is an incremental
efforts, that achievement
and efforts, incremental process
process
Feedback
Feedback students continuous,
Give the students continuous, informative, formative feedback
informative, and formative feedback
Participation, ownership,
Participation, ownership, means of
Share the goals and means of teaching students
teaching with the students
choice
and choice
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship Let the students leam from participation
students learn participation in the work ofof experts
experts and
learn by doing
learn doing
Good teachers
Good teachers Develop mechanism for selecting
Develop a mechanism selecting and training teachers, mainly
training teachers, mainly
in—service, to bring
in-service, teachers into the educational
bring good teachers educational system
system
intellectual
supportive intellectual
A supportive Establish a supportive
Establish environment in which
supportive environment which every student is valued
every student valued
climate
climate encouraged to think and to learn
and encouraged
people have empty heads. The metaphorical picture of knowledge as an object thus
accompanies the fourth atomic picture (also metaphorical): the mind as a container.
Just as the picture of teaching is a mirror image of the the picture of learning, so, too,
the mind is a mirror image of the picture of knowledge.
the picture of the
(the familiar IRE pattern: the teacher initiates, the students
School instruction (the
respond, the teacher evaluates) reflects
reflects this picture. One of thethe meanings implicit in
objectification
the objectifi cation of knowledge is that knowledge is understood as a thing that
exists outside of anyany mind and
and is neither influenced
influenced nor touched by mind; it is
merely stored there. The human mind, for its part, is not infl influenced
uenced or touched by
“mindless” elements –— drives, emotions, interests, and social and cultural environ-
pure container waiting to be fi
ment; it is a pure filled
lled by the objects of knowledge.
When teachers transfer “closed” units of knowledge to their students; play a
perfunctory ping-pong game game of questions and answers (or the game game called “guess
what I have in mind”); refer to “neutral” textbooks that don’t reveal the authors’
interpretative attitudes (which
interpretative attitudes (which is why
why they are so boring);
boring); prepare
prepare for a test that gauges
gauges
give
the students’ ability to give uniform, predictable
predictable answers to uniform, predictable
predictable
questions (it is almost impossible to administer an examination comprised of original

questions and answers); and evaluate them by means of a precise numerical grade,
they transmit the message
they students that knowledge is like an object —– something
message to the students something
that exists “out there,” with the concreteness of an object.
The teachers —– more accurately the patterns of instruction and evaluation that
they implement –— transmit other messages.messages. For example, questions are are imposed
externally, and they are intended to trip students up up or test them; questions have cor-
cor-
rect answers, and someone is the repository of those answers; learning means to
ingest and regurgitate, and it isn’t pleasant; it is forbidden and certainly not worth-
while to try to develop ideas or to think independently; and so on. on. One of the mes-
sages
sages is, as noted: “knowledge is an opaque opaque object that doesn’t speak and cannot
me, but I have to bear it in my
speak to me, memory and be prepared to demonstrate it
my memory
in response
response to teacher or examination questions.”
School knowledge is sealed at both ends: ends: detached from the student and detached
from the world. It is detached from the student because the student has no particular
interest in it; it is detached from thethe world because it has no connection with reality.
confirmation
It is not a candidate for refutation or confi rmation by observation or contemplation,
and it is not intended to explain the world or apply to it. Hence, school knowledge
is detached knowledge, devoid of affi affiliations.
liations. The student experiences it as some-
thing to be acquired and retained because that’s what school demands. This demand
is not capricious. It has instrumental logic:logic: acquiring and retaining knowledge pro- pro-
vides something that is “really” important: a high school diploma. A high school
diploma confers access to institutions of “higher education” and and the acquisition of a
“respectable” profession. In brief, knowledge has secondary utility that is not con-
nected with the knowledge itself; it is only dependent on it (the (the way
way the salivation
Pavlov’s dogs was
of Pavlov’s was dependent on the ringing of a bell). In thisthis respect, schools are
cynical institutions, and perhaps the most anti-educational message message that they convey
convey
is “education has no real value except as a means for achieving something really
career.”
valuable —– a lucrative career.”
The most outstanding cultural project of the second half of the the twentieth century
was to challenge this “objective” picture, the “objective object” of knowledge. After
Kant effected his revolution,” maintaining that “pure reason” con-
his “Copernican revolution,”
structs the world by means of the forms of time and space space and a priori categories,
and since Nietzsche asserted that reason is not at all pure, pure, but rather driven by the
will to power
power that splinters into an infi infinite
nite number of tremendous and capricious
wills at once, theorists and scholars in every every discipline began to compete amongamong
themselves to reveal the arbitrary –— subjective/interested/contextual/contingent —–
foundation of human knowledge. Philosophers, psychologists, historians, sociolo-
and scientists all pointed out that knowledge was lacking the
gists, and the solidity,
constancy, and disinterest of an object. Human knowledge is fragile, temporary, and
conditional. It depends on weak foundations such as “categories” (Kant), “perspec-
tives” (Nietzsche), “language games” (Wittgenstein), “paradigms” (Kuhn), “dis-
course” (Foucault), “contingency” (Rorty), and other “human, all too human”
(Ror’ty), and
cite Nietzsche, the great founder of this
categories, to cite this movement. The insight that
knowledge is conditional –— that, fact, there is no difference between knowledge
that, in fact,
School 77
and opinion —– has spread from university philosophy departments to the “street.”
Today, everybody knows that “everything is relative!” (This, of course, is dubious,
Today,
popular knowledge.)
everybody. Schools haven’t discovered this
Not everybody. this yet, they could
yet, although in fact they
gain a lot from this philosophical line of thought. Is knowledge relative? From an
educational standpoint, the answer to that question is not the the main issue. The main
issue is what does education gain from recognizing the the concept that knowledge is
relative. The cultural shift that gave
gave rise to the relativization (partial or absolute) of
knowledge humanized knowledge. Now it is something that people invent, not just
discover, to answer troubling questions and to act more wisely in the world. world. Such a
picture of knowledge supports an educational attitude that encourages
encourages active, criti-
cal, and creative involvement with knowledge. By
cal, By contrast, the dominant patterns of
teaching and evaluation in schools transmit and support a picture of knowledge that
is detached from human concerns. If knowledge is an objective object, a truth pro- pro-
scientificc method (a production line for truth)
duced by the neutral and effective scientifi
must be transmitted just as it is, top-down. Frontal teaching, therefore, is a direct
outgrowth of an objective picture of truth –— the repository of such truth is empow-empow-
ered, even obliged, to present it to everyone
everyone in authoritative lectures. The challenge
to the objective picture of knowledge undermines this hierarchical view view of teaching
and opens
opens up new possibilities.26
new educational possibilities.26
The alternative atomic picture proposed by the narrative of the community of
thinking is knowledge works.. Such a picture encourages
knowledge is a structure or a story that works encourages
the student to interpret and create knowledge. This alternative picture complements
the alternative pictures of learning as involvement and understanding and teaching
as an indirect and general activity: (1) good learning is active learning that creates
knowledge or its understanding and doesn’t simply absorb it as is; (2) good teaching
encourages learners to create knowledge or its understanding. This kind of learning
encourages
and teaching transmits a picture of knowledge as a human invention that is meant to
advance familiarity with the world.
Knowledge as a structure reflects
reflects a constructivist view of knowledge: knowledge
the world (the
is not a replica of the (the correspondence viewview of knowledge) but rather
constmction of the world by means of the categories that the human mind projects
construction
upon
upon it. The definition
The defi works alludes
nition of knowledge as a story that works alludes to the resemblance,
in certain respects, of knowledge to a narrative structure. A story is a structure with
and an end.
a beginning, a middle, and end. The beginning generates expectations, the middle
spawns
spawns complexities, and the fulfills
the end resolves them and fulfi lls the expectations. This
2"
26
According to Zygmunt
According Bauman (2003), in the era of
Zygmunt Bauman of “liquid
“liquid modernity”
modemity” knowledge
knowledge is not an
object anymore
object anymore – liquidated and lost its solid value: “Knowledge
— it was liquidated “Knowledge was of of value since it was
hoped education was of
hoped to last, and education of value in so far as it offered such knowledge
knowledge ofof lasting
lasting value.
Education [. . .] was to be an activity aimed at the delivery of
Education […] of a product
product which like all other posses—
posses-
desired to, be held forever. Here we come across the fi
could, and would be desired
sions could, first of many chal-
rst of chal—
lenges contemporary
lenges education needs to face and withstand.
contemporary education withstand. In our ‘liquid-modern’
‘liquid—modern’ times, durable
times, durable
possessions [. . .] have lost their past attraction.
possessions […] attraction. Once seen as assets, they are now more likely to be
viewed as liabilities.
viewed liabilities. Once the objects of desire, they have turned into objects
objects of of resentment”
objects of 19).
resentment” (p. 19).
pattern has an emotional effect on the listener. A story story has a unifying principle — – all
its parts are tightly interconnected. Indeed, a story is not “true,” “true,” not a reliable
description of
description of reality. A theory has a similar structure:
structure: it starts with questions;
questions;
the questions generate expectations and some tension; and the theory, theory, which
fulfills
responds to the questions, fulfi lls the expectations and resolves the With a
the tension. With
theory as well, all its parts —– the hypotheses, the the propositions, and the arguments — –
are closely interconnected. Theories, too, like stories, are not entirely truthful, not
too, like
entirely congruent with reality; they contain creative overfl overflows
ows that derive from the
human mind. Stories and theories derive from the the same human drive to understand,
to bring order and signifi
significance
cance into the world –— man is homo homo narrans
narrans..
However, this narrative picture of knowledge does not lead to vulgar relativism,
in which all stories are equal or unequal to the same degree, because the story has
to work –— it explains things and enables intelligent action with respect to them. So
we must seek a more complex picture of knowledge, which avoids vulgar relativ-
ism (or “foolish postmodernism,” Bruner 1996 1996,, p. 59) on the one hand and “dog-
matic Platonism” (Rorty 1997 other. The price of liberation from naive
1997)) on the other.
the conception that knowledge is a reflection
realism, from the reflection of the world, could be
the epistemological nihilism of “anything goes!” Therefore, it must be shown —– not
by preaching but by experiencing the systematic creation of knowledge —– that
despite the inevitable subjective component of knowledge, not all stories are are
equally good, and there are accepted and justified they, too, are
justified standards (true, they,
relative) for distinguishing between a good and a bad story; if if not like a mirror,
then they must be like a key to a door that can be opened by more than one key (to
[1984] metaphor; but even in this metaphor, some keys work
use Von Glasersfeld’s [1984]
better than others and open
open doors effortlessly). In short, the old dogma of “seeing
is believing” cannot be replaced by a new new one, “believing is seeing.” Between
believing and seeing, between concepts and data, between theories and observa-
tions, and between people and the world, there are complex connections, and that
complexity has to be transmitted to learners by means of experience and process- process-
ing, criticism, and creation of knowledge according to agreed-upon rules for creat-
ing and justifying
justifying knowledge.
The metaphorical picture of knowledge as an object goes goes hand in hand with the
metaphorical picture of thethe mind as a container, from which we must also free our- our-
selves. “Here we are in the Information Age, relying on a theory of mind that is
the wheel” —
older than the – thus Carl Bereiter began his book Education and the Mind
in the Knowledge
Knowledge AgeAge (2002, p. ix).ix). Cognitive psychology, “the mind’s new sci-
new sci-
ence,” consolidated the metaphor of the mind as a container by analogy to the the com-
memory, contains statements and logical rules to
puter. The mind, like a computer’s memory,
produce new propositions from old ones. “Yet a great deal of what we seem to know
does not plausibly belong in either category” (idem, p. 30). 30). Bereiter tries to liberate
us from the metaphor of the mind as a container with a theory called “connection-
ism.” This
ism.” This theory enables education to operate differently: “If, as some economists
say, the main wealth-generating activity of the future is going to be knowledge
production, it seems two things are required: (a) to conceive of knowledge as
School 79
something other than stuff inside individual people’s minds, and (b) to understand
the role of individual minds in societal knowledge production. Folk theory is not up
55).
to either of these requirements” (ibid., p. 55).
The folk theory
The container does
theory of the mind as a container does not permit us to relate to knowledge
knowledge
as a conceptual artifact that one can improve. Nor does it permit us to grasp grasp the
process of work upon
process upon knowledge as a social process.
process. In Bereiter’s connectionist
opinion, the conception of knowledge enables us to relate to thinking as a social
process that is subject to refinement.
process refinement. Only that kind of education, in his view, view, is
capable of meeting the challenges posed by our knowledge society.
society.
Indeed, Bereiter does write about knowledge as an object, but as a conceptual
object. The difference between an “object-object” and a “conceptual object” lies in
the location of the former outside of our mind, while the the latter is constructed by
the former; we create the latter.
society, and culture. We discover the
individuals, society, latter.
The container metaphor
The container metaphor of the mind, which predominates
mind, which predominates in schools, bases learning
schools, bases learning
and teaching on telling. Jerome Bruner writes: “Teaching, in a word, is
on listening and
inevitably based on notions about thethe nature of learner’s mind. Beliefs and assump-
assump-
tions about teaching, whether in a school or in any any other context, are direct reflec-
reflec-
tion of the beliefs and assumptions
assumptions the teacher holds about the learner”
learner” (1996,
pp. 46—47).
pp. 46–47). HeHe continues:
Stated boldly, the emerging
Stated thesis is that educational
emerging thesis educational practices classrooms are premised
practices in classrooms premised
of folk beliefs
on a set of beliefs about
about learner’s
leamer’s minds, of which
minds, some of which may have worked
worked advertently
advertently
toward or inadvertently
toward inadvertently against welfare. They need to be made
against the child’s own welfare. made explicit
explicit and
to be reexamined.
reexamined. Different
Different approaches
approaches to learning different forms
learning and different of instruction
forms of instruction —– from
from
imitation, to instruction,
imitation, instruction, to discovery, collaboration –
discovery, to collaboration — reflect differing beliefs
reflect differing beliefs and
about the learner
assumptions about
assumptions learner —– from
from actor, to knower,
knower, to private collabora—
experiencer, to collabora-
private experiencer,
thinker […].
tive thinker Advances in how we go about
[. . .]. Advances about understanding children’s minds
understanding children’s minds are, then,
then, a
prerequisite improvement in pedagogy.
prerequisite to any improvement (Idem, pp. 49—50)
pedagogy. (Idem, 49–50)
According to Bruner, four models of the mind guide teaching today, today, and each
goal“:
one entails a different educational goal 27
mind, a model that encour-
: (1) imitative mind,
ages demonstrative education and learning by practicing skills; (2) receptive mind,
ages mind,
a model that encourages
encourages lecturing (telling) and learning as absorption of (listening)
mind,, a model that encourages
information; (3) thinking mind and learning from
encourages teaching and
knowing mind,
view; and (4) knowing
the child’s point of view; mind, a model that encourages
encourages teaching
purpose of which is to help students distinguish between personal
and learning, the purpose
justified knowledge –— knowledge that has been confi
knowledge and justified confirmed
rmed by the
culture (in Popper’s and Bereiter’s terms this this model encourages
encourages transition from
World 3).
World 2 to World
Two theories of thethe mind dominate these four models: the external theory and the
theory.. The former looks at the mind from the outside; it asks what adults
internal theory
the child’s mind; the latter concentrates on what the mind alone can
alone can do for the
do for itself.
27I
27
these models
I give these models somewhat
somewhat different
different names Bruner’s.
names than Bruner’s.
Bruner believes that it is necessary

necessary to merge
merge these four viewpoints (four models
of the mind) into a single outlook: “In the end, the four perspectives on peda-
end, then, the
gogy are best thought of as parts of a broader continent, their signifi
gogy significance
cance to be
understood in the light of their partialness” (idem, p. 65). A harmonizing approach
the models of the
like this one –— all the the mind and the teaching and learning practices
that derive from them are are combined together – — is a convenient way way to circumvent
conflict
the confl ict but not one that is always desirable. In any event,
always possible or desirable. event, whereas the
first
fi rst model of education (the (the “old education”) tends toward models 11 and 2 of the
mind (and its its external theories);
theories); and the second model of of education
education (the “new
education”) tends toward model 3 of the mind (and its internal theories); the third
model, that embodied by the the community of thinking, tends toward model 4 and and to
an inner and outer theory of the mind —– that is, a model according to which the mind
is determined by the relations between the interior and the exterior. Unlike Bruner,
who believes that “real schooling, of course, is never confi confined one model of the
ned to one
learner or one model of teaching” (idem, p. 63) 63) of the mind, I believe that good
schools must adopt a dominant, if if not an exclusive, model of the the mind and corre-
sponding models of teaching and learning. “Pedagogy is never innocent. It is a
medium that carries its own message” (idem, p. 64), and precisely for that reason,
education must convey
convey a single clear and consistent message
message and not contradictory
messages
messages that derive from competing models of the mind.
The atomic picture of the the mind from which teaching and learning in a commu-
nity of thinking derives and the other four atomic pictures describe the mind as
meaning,, or as striving for
activity,, as making meaning
interpretive activity understanding.. In other
for understanding
words, the mind is not a static entity (a container) but active and striving. (Postman
and Weingartner [1969][1969] suggest talking about “minding” rather than “mind”.) The
mind’s main activity is interpretation for the purpose
purpose of understanding, interpreta-
tion of the data of the the senses, phenomena, and ideas. Interpretation is neither the
clarification
clarifi cation nor illumination of that which is —– a text or phenomenon —– but rather its
“creation,” making it meaningful. Nietzsche’s famous battle cry, “there are no facts,
“creation,”
only interpretation,” may may have been exaggerated. Nevertheless, there do not appearappear
to be facts without interpretation, and interpretation that strives for meaning and
understanding is the main work of the mind. At any any rate, it is the work that the com-
munity of thinking seeks to develop and guide.
Again, let us remember: in education, which is a practical area that seeks to
change the world and not just to think about it, the truth of a theory or metaphor
is not the only issue, nor even the most important one; the most important issue is
what the theory or the metaphor enables us to accomplish and what quality of
learning it advances. The mind as an interpretative activity is a “fact” that no lon-
ger needs justification;
ger any discipline in the natural or human sci-
justification; there is hardly any
interpretation, to this
ences that does not contribute some aspect, meaning some interpretation,
understanding. Moreover, and this is the main point, it enables us to deliver educa-
understanding.
processor, and a creator of knowl-
tion in which the student is an investigator, a processor,
edge and not just someone who absorbs it passively. Such a student suits the needs
and values of the democratic and humanistic knowledge society or a society that
aspires to be such.
School 81
2.4.4 of Teaching Is
The Goal of Is Not a Student Who Knows
Student Who
a Lot But a Student Who Knows How to
Student Who to Relate
to and
to and Manipulate
Manipulate Knowledge
influence
What infl uence do the pictures of knowledge and the mind have on the goal of
teaching and learning knowledge? When knowledge is grasped as an object and the
mind is grasped as a container, the goal of education is inevitably understood as the
transfer of as much information as possible; the good student or desired graduate is
one who knows a lot –— he has a lot of objects in his container.
container.28
28
In such a case, a race
develops in the precincts of curriculum (a running track, in Latin), in which the
“containers,” orga-
designers try to cram as much information as possible into the “containers,” orga-
(the various contents are organized along some particular
nized in linear fashion (the
axis –— a logical one
one in mathematics, a conceptual one in physics, a thematic one in
literature, a chronological one in history, etc.).
etc.). The principle is cramming and accu-
mulation: to stuff as much “material” as possible into the the curriculum, under the
assumption that it accumulates in thethe student’s mind and creates “cultural cargo” or
“knowing a lot.” Here,
a “broad education” or that the student ends up “knowing imaginary
Here, in an imaginary
the Israeli Ministry of Education, is what the curriculum based on the
discussion at the
like:
atomic pictures might look like:
learn how to read
You have to learn write, and you have to learn
read and write, learn arithmetic.
arithmetic. That’s clear!
clear!
English is also important;
English important; English
English is a global
global language, connection with the world.
language, the connection world.
Arabic is also important,
Arabic important, if if there is ever going
going to be peace neighbors. Physics,
peace with our neighbors. Physics,
chemistry, biology, too.
chemistry, and biology, natural sciences
too. The natural sciences are known
known to be the basis of an advanced
basis of advanced
society and quality
society of life. (We have already
quality of already won fi five Nobel prizes
ve Nobel science, and we can
prizes in science,
more.) True, but history,
win more.) also bases of
literature, and art are also
history, literature, of quality
quality ofof life.
life. We want
want
citizens with broad
citizens horizons and with a common
broad horizons cultural heritage.
common cultural society is full of
heritage. Our society of
divisions and urgently
divisions needs a common
urgently needs cultural foundation.
common cultural foundation. OfOf course
course it’s also very impor-
impor—
tant to learn Jewish
Jewish history, emphasis on the history
history, with emphasis of Zionism
history of Holocaust...
Zionism and the Holocaust…
Hebrew literature
and also Hebrew literature (world literature is important,
(world literature important, but less). And good thing
And it’s a good thing for
national spirit to include
the national include some JJudaism:
udaism: Bible
Bible and some rabbinic texts. Maybe
rabbinic texts. students
Maybe students
important. After all, we’re Jews,
don’t like that, but it’s important. Jews, not Japanese...
Japanese… But some of of us are
Arabs... right,
Arabs… Arabs should
right, so Arabs should study their own culture.
culture. The main
main thing should
thing is that they should
respect law. . .. All the subjects
respect the law…. mentioned are important,
subjects we’ve mentioned without doubt,
important, without doubt, but sports
important —– “a sound mind
are also important mind in a sound body”body” (we’ve won some Olympic medals,
Olympic medals,
and we could win more). more). Also, life skills are important. children will become
important. Not all the children become
athletes or physicists,
athletes relate to other
they’ll have to relate
physicists, but they’ll other people.
people. So you have teach them
have to teach them
about relationships,
about about family
relationships, about things like that.
family life, about sex and things that. And forget, it’s
And let’s not forget,
important to devote
important lessons to road
devote some lessons Every day in the
road safety. Every the news we read about
read about
accidents. And also preserving
accidents. environment; they can go out to clean
preserving the environment; clean up a nearby beach
nearby beach
or rehabilitate
rehabilitate a ravine school... And
ravine near the school… drugs... Yes, today
And drugs… there are drugs
today there almost
drugs in almost
every school, and
every and soft
soft drugs leadlead to hard
hard drugs. And what about
And what about computer science?science?
almost forgot!
We almost future our whole
forgot! In the future whole lives will be led on the computer;
computer; the computer
computer
28
In this picture, definition
picture, the defi of the good student
nition of student as one who knows
knows a lot is not accurate.
accurate. A good
good
student is someone
student someone who knowsknows the material
material that is taught school —– that is, someone
taught in school someone who can
demonstrate his knowledge
demonstrate knowledge in tests someone who
tests and someone who behaves school rules.
according to the school
behaves according rules.
definition
The defi of a good student
nition of student is, therefore,
therefore, essentially institutional.
essentially institutional.
important! And
is important! about philosophy?
And what about philosophy? No discipline teaches people
discipline teaches think well
people how to think
better
better than philosophy! philosophy in elementary
philosophy! You have to start with philosophy school, maybe
elementary school, maybe even
in kindergarten. if you want to teach
kindergarten. And if teach philosophy,
philosophy, why not teach thinking,
thinking, directly?!
directly?! We
live in the midst of an information
midst of information explosion. Information isn’t so important.
explosion. Information important. You have to
inculcate thinking
inculcate thinking skills. But thinking
thinking isn’t everything; there are also emotions.
everything; there emotions. Emotional
Emotional
intelligence —– remember?
intelligence remember? WhatWhat do we do about about emotional
emotional intelligence?
intelligence? You have to teach teach
children to express
children emotions, in writing,
express their emotions, example... Yes, you have to teach
writing, for example… teach creative
creative
writing. And
writing. theater is also important:
And theater important: not just to see a lot of of plays
plays but also to learn
learn to act,
teach children
to teach children to express themselves. Cinema
express themselves. Cinema is also important.
important. It’s the most popularpopular
medium today. Not everybody
medium theater or reads
everybody goes to the theater reads books, everybody goes to the
books, but everybody
movies and
movies watches television.
and watches television. You havehave to teach
teach children
children how to express themselves
express themselves
by means
means of of cinema.
cinema. But don’t
don’t forget,
forget, self-expression
self—expression and all that that won’t
won’t pay your bills.
pay your bills.
enable children
You have to enable children to experience
experience the high information professions
high information professions ofof the future.
future.
example... Yes, to teach them
For example… them how to market;
market; today
today everything
everything is marketing.
marketing. And also,also,
what the stock exchange
what exchange is and how to buy and sell stock (we can get support support from a bank).
bank).
stocks are important,
marketing and stocks
True, marketing important, but with all due respect, education isn’t prepara—
respect, education prepara-
Education is fi
tion for a career. Education first of all the fostering
rst of of values.
fostering of values. You have to inculcate
inculcate values
children... For example,
in the children… tolerance of
example, tolerance of one another.
another. True, tolerance of
True, tolerance of the Other…
Other...
but if there’s
but if much tolerance
there’s too much tolerance for the Other,
Other, young people may try to avoid
young people avoid serving
serving in
important to teach
the army. So it’s important teach them love of of country;
country; why the fathers
fathers ofof Zionism
Zionism
country and built
yearned for this country
yearned here. We have no other
doing here.
built it and what we’re doing other land….
land. . ..
((Harpaz 2005a, p. 70)
Harpaz 2005a,
When the metaphors “knowledge is an object” and “the mind is a container”

prevail in educational thought, curriculum planners –— agents of the leaders, the
elites, and the prevailing ways
ways of thinking —– try to cram all the “important” content
into the curriculum. But when knowledge is interpreted as a structure and the mind
activity, the curriculum must undergo corresponding
is viewed as interpretive activity,
changes. In this case,
case, the goal of the curriculum is not to transmit as much “valu-
able” content as possible but to encourage
encourage and guide students to interpret, process,
process,
and invent knowledge. The subjects and their contents will be considerably reduced
they will be organized
(in the spirit of Sizer’s famous dictum: “Less is more!”), and they
problems.”29 The curriculum will be open
around “big ideas” and “essential problems.”29 open and
flexible.
fl exible. It will not enforce covering as much “material” as possible, but it will
29
example, it is possible
For example, possible to construct curriculum around
construct a curriculum around “eternal
“eternal questions” cluster into
questions” that cluster
where do we come from and where
question: where
a single question: where are we going?
going? John Casti built his Paradigms
John Casti Paradigms
Lost formulated six pairs
(1990) in this spirit. He formulated
Lost (1990) of opposing
pairs of claims and put them on trial in the
opposing claims
of evidence
light of evidence from the natural
natural sciences
sciences and other
other disciplines.
disciplines. The pairs of claims
pairs of claims are as follows:
follows:
life emerged natural processes
emerged from natural earth/life was brought
processes on the earth/life brought to earth from outer outer space; pat-
space; pat—
terns of
terns of human
human behavior dictated by genes/patterns
behavior are dictated genes/patterns of of human
human behavior dictated by the
behavior are dictated
environment; linguistic
environment; linguistic ability comes from special
ability comes special properties
properties ofof the brain/linguistic derives
ability derives
brain/linguistic ability
learning; computers
from learning; unable to think;
think/computers are unable
computers can think/computers there is other intelligent
think; there intelligent life in
galaxy/there is no other intelligent
our galaxy/there intelligent life in our galaxy;
galaxy; and there is objective
objective reality independent
reality independent
of the observer/there
of observer/there is no objective
objective reality independent of
reality independent of the observer. Peter Atkins
observer. Peter Atkins ((2003)
2003)
science book
organized his science
organized (Galileo ’s Finger)
book (Galileo’s around “The Ten Great Ideas of
Finger) around of Science”: “Evolution
Science”: “Evolution
proceeds natural selection”;
proceeds by natural “Inheritance is encoded
selection”; “Inheritance encoded in DNA”;
DNA”; “Energy conserved”; “All
“Energy is conserved”;
change is consequence
change consequence of of the purposeless
purposeless collapse of energy
collapse of matter into disorder”;
energy and matter “Matter is
disorder”; “Matter
atomic”; “Symmetry
atomic”; limits, guides,
“Symmetry limits, drives”; “Waves behave
guides, and drives”; behave like particles particles behave
particles and particles behave
like waves”; universe is expanding”;
waves”; “The universe expanding”; “Spacetime curved by matter”;
“Spacetime is curved “If arithmetic
matter”; “If arithmetic is con-
con—
sistent then it is incomplete.”
sistent incomplete.”
School 83
83
encourage actively dealing with what it does present. The “material” will
encourage will not be a
litany of facts, concepts, and laws in a given subject but presentation of ideas and
problems in a given discipline with the aim of stimulating thought and inquiry in
that area. The principle of cramming and accumulation will be replaced by the prin-
ciple of gaps leaps.. The essence of the curriculum will be the lacunae, the facts
gaps and leaps
that are missing: ideas and problems will motivate and guide the students to locate,
process, and craft new
process, new knowledge — – meaning that they the curriculum or
they will create the
“supplement” it in unexpected directions in light of questions they they frame or actions
they perform on it. This will accomplished on the assumption that learning is not
based on the gradual accumulation of knowledge but, but, rather, on leaps of understand-
ing and insight. These leaps are diffi difficult
cult to program,
program, but favorable conditions for
Weingartner wrote, in response
them can be created. (Postman and Weingartner response to Bruner’s well-well-
known proposal to replace the the linear curriculum with a spiral curriculum:
“Unfortunately, students aren’t spiral any they are
any more than they are sequential” [Postman
Weingartner 1969,
and Weingartner 1969, p. 30].
30]. In their opinion, children ask questions naturally and, and,
therefore, the curriculum should be based on their questions.)
the focus of the curriculum will be shifted from the covering and recy-
Hence, the recy-
cling of content to its interpretation and creation. This shift is by no means a dimi-
the importance of knowledge. As noted with respect to teaching thinking,
nution in the
the community of thinking subscribes to the third approach —– the understanding
approach. This approach regards the understanding of knowledge as the basis of the
complexity, depth, systematicness, criticality, creativ-
various qualities of thinking —– complexity,
on. The shift from cramming and accumulation of knowledge to gaps
ity, and so on. gaps and
leaps reflects
reflects the view that focusing on coverage
coverage of thethe fragmented curriculum to
get through the content, rather than on the the process
process of working with the the content,
sabotages learning. In other words, in a school where the the curriculum is central, the
curriculum is the victim.
David Perkins (1992) calls the knowledge learned in the traditional school, the
curriculum-centered one, fragile knowledge and the
fragile knowledge the thinking that is fostered poor poor
thinking view, the problem is not the lack of information, because the stu-
thinking.. In his view, stu-
dents are given a lot of information via the method”;
the covering method 30
; however, school
“fragility.”The students don’t remember or understand the
knowledge is in a state of “fragility.”
information they have supposedly learned, and they they don’t use it. Indeed, the the prob-
lem isn’t that the students don’t think in school, but their thinking is “trivial.”
“trivial.” That
is, thinking deals mainly with the search for more information without thinking
about it or by means of it. “Fragile knowledge” —– the the product of schools centered on
3”
30
Perkins writes
Perkins writes about
about “the conspiracy of coverage”
conspiracy of which extends
(1992, p. 33), which
coverage” (1992, extends from
from the class-
class—
room textbook industry.
room to the textbook industry. Since we have entered of conspiracy,
entered the spirit of conspiracy, it is possible speak
possible to speak
of a conspiracy
of whose goal is to prevent
conspiracy whose prevent thinking conflicts.
gloss over confl
thinking and to gloss icts. The race to cover the
material prevents
material about the material
thinking about
prevents thinking material and conceals
conceals the tensions
tensions inherent
inherent in it. Matthew
Matthew
Lipman writes: “A cynical
Lipman writes: observed that human
commentator once observed
cynical commentator human beings invented speech
beings invented order
speech in order
conceal their thoughts.
to conceal observer might
thoughts. The same observer might have added that they send their
have added their children
children to
school to learn
school them from thinking”
learn in order to keep them thinking” (Lipman
(Lipman 1991, p. 1).l). The school of thought
school of thought
called “Critical
called “Critical Pedagogy”
Pedagogy” gave this cynical rather serious
comment a rather
cynical comment serious basis.
basis.
naive.. and ritualized knowledge: knowledge

the acquisition of knowledge —– is inert, naive
that students don’t make use of, intuitive and erroneous knowledge, which pre- pre-
school children produce and which remains in the mind during and and after schooling
(Why is it cold in thethe winter and hot in the summer? Because the the Earth is farther
away from the sun in the winter and closer during the summer. Why are there wars?
away
Because bad people attack good ones.), and knowledge without understanding,
detached from sensation, knowledge meant to be displayed during classes and on
tests (a child reports her strategy for solving arithmetic problems: “If there are only
two numbers, I subtract. If there are are a lot of numbers, I add.”).
summary, we have posited that the purpose
In summary, purpose ofof teaching and learning is not to
know (remember) a lot but to know how how to relate to and manipulate knowledge
knowledge.. By
knowledge we mean both thinking through knowledge about phenom-
manipulate knowledge
ena in the world and thinking about the knowledge itself —– about its connection with
other information, about its strengths and weaknesses, about ways ways of improving it.
By knowledge we mean mainly three kinds of relationships: a favorable
By relating to knowledge favorable
knowledge,, i.e.,
attitude toward knowledge i.e., curiosity, interest, and enthusiasm about new new
knowledge“; critical attitude toward knowledge
knowledge31; a critical knowledge,, i.e.,
i.e., healthy skepticism, cautious
suspicion, to ask, “What are the sources of the the information?” “Is this this conclusion
knowledge,, i.e.,
necessary?”; and a creative attitude toward knowledge i.e., the desire to work with
information, to contribute to knowledge, to improve it, and to ask, ask, “What can I do
with this argument?” “What is my issue?”32
my position on this issue?”
32
The concept ofof manipulating knowledge could be interpreted mechanically and,

in fact, such an interpretation is liable to emerge
emerge from the the conception of under-
standing as performance (Perkins 1992 1992,, 1998)
1998) – — to understand means to perform
processes with knowledge. Hence, it is worth emphasizing that the

certain thought processes
concept of understanding refers to a broader, more existential kind of understand-
ing. A good student is someone who understands herself and the world deeply,
someone who interprets herself and the the world by means of complex systems of
understanding and insight.
understanding insight. The main object of of working with knowledge is not
information but rather the world and the person
the information understand.
person we are trying to understand.
final
In the fi nal analysis, the purpose
purpose of teaching and even the the essence of education are
cant knowledge, or, in Dewey’s words: “We thus reach a technical defi
significant
signifi definition
nition
of education: It is that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds
3‘
31
Bernard Shaw once said, “At the age of
Bernard of six I had to cut my studies
studies and go to school.
school. The only
education was interrupted
time my education when I was in school.”
interrupted was when
32
To encourage
encourage attitudes of this kind,
attitudes of developed “A tool for thinking
kind, I have developed while reading”
thinking while (Harpaz
reading” (Harpaz
Whenever students
2004). Whenever
2004). students read a text in class, should ask six questions
class, they should questions ofof it: Issue:: What is
it: Issue
which the text deals?
subject with which
the main subject deals? Causes What is the causal
Causes:: What causal network
network described
described in the
what acts upon
text, who or what whom or what?
upon whom what? Perspective: of view
point of
Perspective: From what point View is the text writ-
writ—
ten, and what position trying to strengthen
position is it trying weaken? Reasons
strengthen or weaken? What reasons
Reasons:: What reasons and proofs
proofs does
the text present information and opinion
present for the information included in it? Creation
opinion included What can I, the reader,
Creation:: What reader, do
create after reading
and create created in me? Refl
reading this text, and what was created Reflection: What happened
ection: What happened to me
while I was reading
while (metacognition)?
reading this text (metacognition)?
School 85
85
the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of
to the
subsequent experience” (1916/1944, p. 76).
The disappointed reader is likely to ask:ask: “Is this the only or main purpose
purpose of
teaching —– to impart the ability to relate to and manipulate knowledge? Do working
with knowledge and developing some kind of relation to it exhaust the the entire image
of the educated person? What about molding character and teaching values, for
example?” The answer is that, indeed, the main, albeit not the the sole,
sole, purpose
purpose of
teaching is to cultivate the students’ ability to work with knowledge and to develop
some relation toward it, because this largely is what characterizes the educated per- per-
son. Character formation and inculcating values is effected by dealing with knowl-
son.
edge and not by transmitting it. Let us explain.
Teaching is education by means of, or through, knowledge. Some knowledge
mediates between the teacher and the students. However, instruction is not just
education through knowledge but also, and probably essentially, education by
knowledge –— lecture, engaged lecture,
means of the method for dealing with knowledge lecture, guidance,
etc. Children are educated not only by means of knowledge but mainly
facilitation, etc.
by what they are are encouraged to do with it. Compared to the dominant form of
instruction, which transmits knowledge in authoritative fashion for it to be remem-
bered (until the test), instruction that strives to develop the ability to manipulate
knowledge and develop a good attitude toward it is an overarching and ambitious
goal. A graduate who has learned that knowledge explains phenomena and makes
it possible to interact intelligently with respect to them, and that knowledge is
interesting, even if
interesting, if it is suspect (a principle of education for critical thinking is
“all information is guilty –— dubious —– until proven
proven otherwise”) but always susceptible
to improvement, has learned very very important things, unimaginably important in
comparison to what is learned today in school.
As to values formation, it bears repeating: values are not transmitted by direct
messages (or, to put it bluntly, by indoctrination), but by the pattern in which teach-
messages
Values education is mainly indirect education; it is
ing and learning take place. Values
accomplished by the educational environment and the the pattern of teaching and not by
its contents. In McLuhan’s famous words, “the medium is the message.” He He was
referring to communications, but Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner applied it
to education:
“The medium
“The medium is the message”
message” implies
implies that the invention of a dichotomy
invention of dichotomy between content
between content
method is both
and method dangerous. It
both naive and dangerous. It implies that
that the critical
critical content
contentofof any
any learning
experience is the method or process
experience through which the learning occurs
process through Almost any sensi-
occurs.. Almost sensi—
ble parent
parent knows effective top sergeant.
knows this, as does any effective sergeant. It is not what you say to people
people
them do […].
counts; it is what you have them
that counts; [...]. What students do in the classroom
What students classroom is what
what
would say), and what
Dewey would
they learn (as Dewey what they learn to do is the classroom’s
classroom’s message
message (as
McLuhan would
McLuhan would say). Now, what is it that students
students do in the classroom?
classroom? Well, mostly, they
listen to the teacher.
sit and listen teacher. Mostly, required to believe
Mostly, they are required authorities, or at least
believe in authorities,
pretend belief when they take tests. Mostly,
pretend to such belief Mostly, they are required remember.. They are
required to remember
almost never required
almost required to make observations, formulate defi
observations, formulate definitions,
nitions, or perform intel—
perform any intel-
lectual operations
lectual beyond repeating
operations that go beyond what someone
repeating what (Postman and
someone else says is true. (Postman
Weigartner 1969,, p. 19)
Weigartner 1969 19)
Zvi Lamm wrote something very the same year:

very similar in the year:
McLuhan, a person
According to McLuhan,
According person is the product
product ofof the tools that he uses, first
uses, fi of all –— the
rst of
tools for transmitting
tools information. This principle
transmitting information. educators long before
accepted by educators
principle was accepted before
McLuhan formulated
McLuhan formulated it: method is the means.
it: the method means. But, since the principle articulated,
principle was articulated,
teachers know
teachers know that the system,
system, no less than the contentcontent that is taught means of
taught by means of it, makes
it, makes
mark on the learner’s
its mark learner’s personality.
personality. That is, one does not only learn learn by means
means of of it;
it; it in
itself is the content
itself of learning
content of learning […]. means of
[. . .]. By means of the method
method the learner
learner develops
develops the ability
ability
think, ways of
to think, of learning, attitude toward
learning, an attitude toward learning,
learning, the courage examine the world
courage to examine world
construct a view of
and to construct of it for oneself, criteria for evaluation,
oneself, criteria criteria for examining
evaluation, criteria examining the
criteria one uses, etc. All of
criteria of these things
things are not taught
taught directly
directly by virtue of some content.
virtue of content.
though this principle
However, even though
However, accepted by teachers,
principle is accepted tend to abandon
teachers, they tend abandon it as
students grow more
the students more mature [. . .]. The older the student
mature […]. student gets, more the emphasis
gets, the more emphasis is
transferred from the method
transferred method to the content, from the means
content, from means to the messages. (Lamm 2000a
messages. (Lamm 2000a,,
32—33)
pp. 32–33)
The medium —– the educational environment (Postman and Weingartner) or the

pattern of teaching (Lamm) –— is not transparent; the medium has its own messages,
messages,
influential
they are more infl
and they the direct messages
uential than the the content –
messages —– the the agents
— that the
(principals, teachers, textbooks) transmit to the the consignees (students) in texts,

classes, and recesses. The medium of the community of thinking —– the the framework
of fertile question, research questions, and concluding performances (see the third
part) —– is embedded with rich educational messages.
messages.
T0 Sum Up
2.5 To
Schooling is based on fi ve atomic pictures that guide it and are reflected

five reflected in all its
actions. These fifive
ve pictures are:
are: learning is listening; teaching is telling; knowledge
the mind is a container; and to be an educated graduate is to be a gradu-
is an object; the
ate who knows. In place of these fi
ate five
ve pictures, we propose:
propose: learning is involvement
(in the process) and understanding (in the product); teaching is producing condi-
story that works (explains phenom-
tions for learning; knowledge is a structure or a story
ena, facilitates intelligent behavior); the mind is an interpretative activity (it creates
meaning, going beyond information given); a good graduate is someone who knows
how to work with knowledge (to locate it, apply it, criticize it, create it) in order to
favorably, critically, and creatively.
understand the world and to relate to it favorably, creatively.
The alternative atomic pictures are linked to an alternative big picture, which
is at variance with the mimetic chain. According to that alternative picture, the
world is not made up up of objective facts that present themselves to the unbiased
human mind, which copies them, and scientists do not copy copy a world which imposes
itself upon
upon them. Scientists do not merely discover the create it by
world; they create
means of their theoretical structures. They write the book of nature —– they do not
Curriculum designers
simply read it. Curriculum designers do not copycopy samples of of truths from the
scientificc disciplines and create the subjects of study. Rather, they organize the
scientifi
knowledge, which was developed by the theoretical disciplines, for pedagogical pedagogical
purposes,
purposes, to think critically and creatively with knowledge (see below on the
2.5 To Sum Up 87
concept ofof the “pedagogical discipline”). In the alternative big picture teachers do
of knowledge –— lesson plans —– from the school subjects and
not cut little pieces of
cram them through the closed gates of of the students’ uniform minds; they guide the
students in working with knowledge according to the interests it arouses in them.
The students do not glue new knowledge onto old knowledge. Rather, like scien-
tists and theoreticians,
tists theoreticians, they ask and then grapple
grapple with questions create
questions and create
new knowledge “originality” is a relative
knowledge (some is known, some not —– “originality” relative term).
They learn how to manipulate knowledge and how to relate
manipulate knowledge relate to it. While doing
discover and cleave to their personal
so, they discover personal areas ofof interest
interest and establish
establish
their identities.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, John Dewey wrote:
wrote: “Why is it, in spite
of the fact that teaching by pouring in, learning by passive absorption, are are univer-
sally condemned, that they are so entrenched in practice?” (1916/1944, p. 38). 38).
Remarkably, a century later we are still asking the same question. We answer it
with a well-known statement by Ludwig Wittgenstein: “A picture held us captive.
And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to
repeat it to us inexorably” (Philosophical Investigations, no. 115). Schooling is
no. 115).
imprisoned in fifive
ve pictures and cannot free itself from them, because they
they dwell in
the common sense and patterns of school action, and these patterns are invoked
repeatedly. Only by liberating ourselves from those pictures by means of alternative
pictures –— pictures appropriate to today’s more enlightened conceptions of learning,
teaching, knowledge, the mind, and the purposepurpose of education —– can we we create
environments in which better learning fl flourishes.33
ourishes.33
33
33I mind determines
arguing that the mind
I am not arguing determines experience pictures must be changed
experience or vice versa. The pictures changed
mind, and the experience
in the mind, experience – of action
patterns of
— patterns action in schools
schools —– must be changed time.
changed at the same time.
The current situation appears
current situation appears to be that many educators and teachers
many educators teachers have changed
changed the pictures
pictures (or
the disk), but reality changed correspondingly,
reality has not changed which weakens
correspondingly, which weakens and confuses
confuses practitioners.
practitioners.
Changing the pictures
Changing of reality
pictures of assure a change
reality does not assure change in reality. A few more steps are necessary.
necessary.
(see below).
below).

Materi 3 TLCT The Theory

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Materi 3 TLCT The Theory

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chapter 2

One might say of the fiﬁrst

Harpaz, Teaching and Learning

2.1 The Pictures

While it is increasingly apparent that the ordinary “industrial model” of school

The Big Picture

Table 2.2 The big picture of schooling

areas of knowledge intended for teaching

new piece of knowledge to the

study, but listening, especially the sort com-

As we sawsaw in the previous chapter, understanding can be conceived of as two

(they do something because they want a

Underminz'ng:: People learn well when they are

naturalist.“18 Among the criteria for a behavior to be regarded as an intelligence

understanding and the given

craftsman, professional, expert (Gardner 1991 this participation, they

teacher as someone who possesses “pedagogical-content knowledge,”

The concept of good learning, therefore, ﬁrst

2.4.2 Teaching Is More Than

As commonly understood, teaching is a complex of actions that are are intended to

and effective to hear an organized lecture by an expert in a fi ﬁeld

When I look back

position of the third model with regard to the relation

The general rule is that teaching for the sake

“Teach less, learn more!” and “Teaching

2.4.3 Knowledge IsIs Not an Object: Knowledge IsIs a Structure

The third picture of schooling –— knowledge is an object –— is metaphorical: someone

Table 2.3 Derivation of principles

questions (it is almost impossible to administer an examination comprised of original

Bruner believes that it is necessary

When the metaphors “knowledge is an object” and “the mind is a container”

naive.. and ritualized knowledge: knowledge

The concept ofof manipulating knowledge could be interpreted mechanically and,

processes with knowledge. Hence, it is worth emphasizing that the

Zvi Lamm wrote something very the same year:

The medium —– the educational environment (Postman and Weingartner) or the

(principals, teachers, textbooks) transmit to the the consignees (students) in texts,

Schooling is based on fi ve atomic pictures that guide it and are reﬂected

You might also like