Transformation and Education: The Voice of the Learner in Peters’ Concept of Teaching

Introduction

The connection between the transformation of the individual and learning in classical and
contemporary philosophical discourse.

The notions of discontinuity and interruption are central to understanding transformational learning
process.

Peters’ thought:

1. Analysing his notion of teaching

2. Examining the ideas of learning and transformation embedded in his concept of teaching
3. Inquiring onto how these issues relate to his idea of philosophy of education as a central part
of teacher education

Main Ideas

Peters’ account of teaching: teachers are implicated in an intersubjective (shared between conscious
minds) + intergenerational relationship with learner.

However, this account underscores the idea that the teacher has the task of passing on knowledge
while at the same time allowing knowledge that is passed on to be criticised and revised by the
learner.

Peters opposes two models of teaching:

1. Moulding: the view that the teacher imprints a fixed body of knowledge onto the learner’s
mind and leaves no room for the learner’s individuality and critical thought.
2. Growth: the view that teachers naively emphasise the learner’s self-realisation without
acknowledging their own role in aiding the learner’s acquisition of knowledge and
understanding the world.

Education involving transformation does not amount to mere self-realisation, nor involve conforming
to the existing view of the teacher.

Teaching that recognises the transformational aspect of learning involves a teacher who recognises:
(a) the otherness of the learner, and (b) the need to pass on the heritage of humankind.

Questions:

1. How do these two tasks come together in teaching?

2. What it means for the teacher to recognise the difference and otherness of the learner?
3. How to conceive the connection between transformation and learning?

Transformation and the Negativity and Discontinuity in Learning

Learning as a transformational process is a process that takes place between right and wrong and
changes how we conceive the right and wrong.

Negativity of experience: an interruption in experience, which occurs when we encounter something

unfamiliar, strange, different, unexpected in our experience. When the world defies our expectations
in some ways.
  In education, the experience of the unexpected has productive meaning (= does not refer to
something unpleasant). In learning one moves towards something unfamiliar. It is in this
precarious situation of dealing with the unfamiliar that negativity of experience arises. Thus,
negativity plays a constitutive role in all experiences of learning.

 The term ‘negativity’ describes philosophically the human being’s experience of the limits of his
own knowledge and experience.
- Kate Meyer-Drawe: a confrontation with one’s own experiential history.
- Hans-Georg Gadamer: speaks of experiences as ‘negative’ when they do not confirm
previous experiences. For him, the ‘negativity of experience’ is productive: - not only
corrects how we view the newly experienced object, but at the same time also
thoroughly transforms our knowledge.

Modern educational theory has also emphasised various forms of negativity in aesthetic, cognitive,
and moral learning.

Rousseau in Emile, emphasises that negativity of experience is part of the child’s processes of
sensory-formation from the earliest stages of the child’s life.

This can be seen, for example, in a child’s perplexity and disillusionment when he
thinks he can grasp an object that is within his field of vision, but beyond the reach
of his outstretched arm.

Dewey’s theory of reflective learning – draws out the moment of suspense between the interruption
in experience and the location of the difficulty in thought or action that may have led to the
interruption. This part of the experience of learning is an opening, a space for learning between
known and unknown, a space where we dwell between old and new experiences. This space is
located between the pre-reflective and reflective forms of negativity.

When we encounter the unexpected, we become perplexed, frustrated, or confused because we are
stuck in an ‘indeterminate situation’.

Pre-reflective negativity can be defined as the interruption that occurs when something unforeseen
and unexpected happens in an individual’s experience, but she is not yet sure what has happened.
Once we begin to ask ourselves, ‘what happened?’, we begin to reflect on the interruption in
experience and inquire into it. Therefore, the situation changes from an ‘indeterminate’ to a
‘problematic’ situation.

Reflective inquiry transforms pre-reflective interruptions in experience into reflective forms of

negativity of experience, which we can define then as ‘problems’ for examining and exploring.
Therefore, reflective inquiry into the interruption is just as necessary for learning to take place, as is
the interruption that it pre-supposes.

It is only by the reflection on the interruption that we realise that the boundaries of what we already
know have been unexpectedly interrupted. Our previous experiences require expansion, correction,
or both. When our experiences are interrupted, this space opens, and opportunities arise for
reflectively exploring and experimenting with new ideas and new modes of practice.

This suggests that there is a difference between learning as mere correction of error and learning as
transformation of self and world.
  Gunther Buck argues that the productive meaning of negative experience lies in the fact that
it allows us to become conscious of ourselves. In the moment an individual is interrupted by
the unexpected and unanticipated, he becomes conscious of the ‘unquestioned motives that
were guiding his experience up to that point’ (Buck, 1969, p. 71).

 Deborah Kerdeman emphasises similarly that in our encounters with the unexpected, we
become aware of our otherwise hidden ‘attitudes, qualities, and behaviours’ embedded in
our pre-reflective understandings such that our ‘blind spots’ are exposed (Kerdeman, 2003,
p. 296).

 Meyer-Drawe points out that when learning brings about true change in the sense of a
transformation, it is experienced as a ‘painful turn-around’, in which one breaks with one’s
prior knowledge, and also with oneself as a person.

This negativity and discontinuity make a different type of learning possible: learning becomes a
transformative restructuring of one’s entire horizon of foregoing and possible experience (Umlernen).

There types of learning are difficult to conceptualise; after one has learned something, one forgets
the difficulties encountered along the path of learning.

The connections between negativity, learning, and transformation with reference to Plato’s allegory
of the Cave:-

The prisoner's journey out of the cave represents the path of learning, where they
initially struggle with the unfamiliarity and discomfort of the outside world. The
allegory highlights the negativity of this new experience and the difficulty of relating
to others who have not undergone the same transformation. Upon the prisoner's
return to the cave, they can no longer see the shadows on the wall as truth, showing
how their perception has changed. This demonstrates that in the process of learning,
what was once familiar becomes strange, and what was once strange becomes
familiar.

Recognising the Other as Learner: On Peters’ Concept of the Teacher as Educator

For Peters, the notion of teaching is a concept that brings with it certain implication of the underlying
relationship between people (between a teacher and a learner).

He problematises the notion of teaching by showing how the concept of teaching is tied to the
notion of learning. Teaching, according to Peters, can be seen in two ways: as a specific task or
activity that a teacher performs, and as a desired outcome or achievement that the teacher is
seeking out. When we emphasize the task aspect, teaching is viewed as an ongoing process that
teachers engage in, regardless of the specific result they aim to achieve.

 The concept of teaching implies success but the success implied is not just the success of the
teacher, but also that of the learner. Peters explains that ‘the teacher’s success…can only be
defined in terms of that of the learner’ (Peters, 1967, p.3).

Peters defines teaching as a part of an educational process. Educational processes connect processes
of teaching and learning and thus connect the teacher and learner in a particular way. He also speaks
of the teacher as an educator – takes conscious account of the connection between teaching and the
education of the learner.
The teacher is concerned with the education of the learner when the teacher imparts valuable
knowledge (‘worthwhile’), promoting cognitive perspective regarding various forms of human
knowledge and awareness, and ensuring the learner’s acquisition of knowledge and understanding
of the underlying principles of what he is learning. For teaching to be educational it must lead to a
certain type of transformation of the learner’s perspective.

Two ways Peters makes explicit connection between education and transformation:

1. Peters’ criteria of worthwhileness sheds light upon the responsibility and moral obligation to
the relationship between teacher and learner. This implies that as an ‘educator’, the teacher
is not solely focused on assessing specific instances of a child’s learning, but also takes a
broader perspective to understand how what the child is learning in the present relates to
their potential future development. This criterion highlights the teacher’s obligation to
determine the content of education on the basis of both the present and the future needs,
concerns, abilities, and questions of the child.
- Pursuits associated with liberal education: history, philosophy, and literary
appreciation. These studies have a transformational, rather than simply instrumental
value.
- These types of studies open up new ways of thinking about the world and transform
how learners see the world, such that life outside the classroom developed different
dimensions for them.

2. Peters’ criteria of knowledge and understanding implies that a teacher’s consideration of the
education of the individual involves considering more than learners’ mere positive
acquisition of knowledge and skills. He explains that the learner’s ability to give correct
answers in each of the differentiated realms of knowledge that were deemed ‘worthwhile’
does not suffice to qualify him as educated.
- A person can possess factual knowledge about a subject, such as history, and provide
accurate answers in academic settings. However, true education goes beyond mere
knowledge. It involves developing a broader perspective and the ability to connect
one's knowledge to real-world experiences.
- Education implies a transformative impact on a person’s outlook and world view.
- Robert Dearden: the knowledge and understanding that one acquires through
education ‘are ingredients in one’s perception and revelatory of reality’ (Dearden, 1986,
p.71).
- When teaching is an educational practice, it cannot merely consist in the transmission
of knowledge as inert facts and information that the learner receives passively, only to
repeat back with accuracy.

Peters’ concept of education as initiation. Teaching is connected to the initiation of others in two
respects.

1. Initiating, as in setting in motion, the learning processes of another person. According to

Peters, ‘the tasks of the teacher consist in the employment of various methods to get
learning processes going’ (Peters, 1967, p.3).

2. Initiating others in the sense of getting them ‘on the inside’ of the differentiated modes of
human thought and awareness. According to Peters, ‘the learner is initiated by the teacher
into something which he has to master, know, or remember’ (Peters, 1967, p.3).
 - This idea of getting the learner from the ‘outside’ to the ‘inside’ of thought and
knowledge is central to the role of the teacher in the learner’s transformation through
education.
- Peters emphasises that a ‘transformed perspective’ is a result of education that the
teacher should in some way be initiating and seeking out in the learner.

Implications for Teaching

Transformational learning always necessitates the individual’s inward and outward turn.

 The Inward Turn: when the individual begins to reflectively think about the pre-reflective
interruption in his experience and thereby to make it into a conscious moment he can
examine.

 The Outward Turn: involves the changed outlook on the world that arises out of coming to
understand oneself and the world differently or otherwise than before the learning
experience.

The negativity of experience in learning had many implications for pedagogical interaction.

I. By acknowledging the negative aspects of learners’ experiences, teachers can adopt a

different approach towards them. They can understand that disruptions in learners'
experiences are inherent to the process of understanding and learning. This shift in
perspective allows teachers to focus on recognizing the moments of confusion, perplexity,
frustration, doubt, surprise, or awe that accompany learners' encounters with new and
unfamiliar concepts. Examining the learning process itself, rather than solely focusing on the
outcomes, becomes a central aspect of teaching. This requires the ability to assess whether
learners are actively engaging in critical thinking and understanding how their thoughts
relate to the results of their learning.

II. The negativity experienced in the process of learning also applies to teachers. Teachers
encounter interruptions in learners' experiences that simultaneously disrupt their own
teaching process. When teachers reflect on these interruptions, such as unexpected
questions or challenges arising during interactions with learners, they embark on a journey
of self-discovery and professional growth. Through this reflection, teachers gain insights into
their own teaching practices and develop strategies to support learners in navigating
perplexing situations. They learn to identify areas where learners' experiences require
further development or adjustment and acquire the skills to assist learners in finding
solutions.

III. The unfamiliarity and negative experiences that learners encounter do not inherently lead to
education. These factors can resist a child's efforts to understand and potentially change the
world around them. In order to transform the world into an educative experience, teachers
must assist learners in dissecting and exploring realms that may otherwise be overlooked or
intentionally avoided due to fear or disinterest. To achieve this, teachers need to create
situations where learners become productively confused, perplexed, and intrigued. Through
a teaching approach centred on questioning, teachers provide opportunities for learners to
explore new ways of thinking and engage in reflective actions. This form of teaching is closely
tied to morality, as the teacher's questions prompt learners to question their own beliefs,
think critically, seek new knowledge, and take a proactive stance.
This type of teaching opposes both models of teaching as ‘pouring in’ to a passively receptive learner
and models of progressive education that see the learner as the primary arbiter of what is to count
as worth doing.

As Meyer-Drawe writes, ‘the child sees not ‘‘nothing’’, he also doesn’t see everything, he sees things
otherwise’ (Meyer-Drawe, 1987, p. 72). To see that the child sees things otherwise involves
recognition that the voice of the learner is one that educators, at times, have to help them find.

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