coursework > critical
issues > midterm
The major themes of the first half of the semester seemed to revolve around the first two of the four analytical tools -- ontology, epistemology, ideology and methodology -- introduced the first week. Ontology, defined as "the nature of being, of what's considered real in the world" is often closely intertwined with epistemology, which is "how things are known, and are come to be known" (definitions based on notes from class discussion September 12, 2002).
Thomas M. Skrtic (1995), in his book Disability and Democracy, uses a matrix with axes of scope and subjectivity to categorize radical humanist, radical structuralist, interpretivist, and functionalist. While the matrix eases one into an understanding, it also over-simplifies and generalizes their definitions. Nonetheless, we seem to use generalizations every day in order to simplify an ever more complicated world, and so I will do the same here, placing the suggested analytical categories of ontology, epistemology, ideology and methodology, that underpins each reading in Skrtic's matrix.
subjective |
Conflict (Macroscopic) |
objective |
|
Radical Humanist |
Radical Structuralist |
||
Interpretivist |
Functionalist |
||
Order (Microscopic) |
|||
In Functionalist ontology, knowledge is objective. This view is also called objectivist, realist or positivist, and lends itself to a mind/body duality. The mind mirrors reality; the Truth is out there for us to find. Their epistemology requires an interaction with it, through a methodology based on facts and laws that is verifiable, measurable, and generalizable. Ideologically, they maintain that knowledge and its structures are pure and unbiased. Functionalists might generally embrace modernism, a 'bottom up', and reason-ruled paradigm of rationalism that thrives on quantitative evidence.
For Interpretivists, ontology is subjective. Its epistemology suggests that we are individual and socially conscious beings and groups, and it is through our lived experiences that we make sense of the world. Methodology includes reflexive and discursive means such as journaling, stories, and discussion. Their ideology tends to focus on the individual's conscientious decisions based on neutral intentions and shared experience. Interpretivists might typically follow a bottom up paradigm built upon an individual's value stance. Pragmatists like John Dewey are most likely Interpretivists.
Radical Humanists, like Interpretivists, have an ontology that understands knowledge to be subjective, but not based on individual experience (the free will that Interpretivists claim). Rather, their epistemology is based on socially constrained and inter-subjective experiences -- a dialectic of both discourse and practice. Methodology focuses on socially constructed processes, such as semiotics and discourse analysis. Ideologically, radical humanists look at knowledge and being open and shared. Vygotsky, Foucault (despite his objection), and Habermas might be considered Radical Humanists.
Radical Structuralists, like Functionalists,use an ontology where knowledge is objective, however, they also feel it is also malleable. They use an epistemology where knowledge is socially constructed. This confuses me a bit. Their ideology suggests that knowledge is power and is valued -- it is not neutral. An example of their methodology is in using statistics to bring about social change. Marxism and its kin (Apple, Bordieau, etc.) are probably mostly aligned with the Radical Structuralists.
Fully realizing the connotations of following such a structured approach, I feebly add the disclaimer that I'm not sure what other methods of synthesis exist for a midterm paper, and am hesitant to risk venturing out without societal guidance on this. Although I'd box myself as a Radical Humanist is I were forced to choose one, I again, feel that these categories are dangerous and limiting if not understood as rough generalizations meant to simplify -- and not absolute. I feel that we probably all drift between all four throughout our life, and topics.
Cuban attempts to tackle a difficult topic, arguing that the Silicon Valley California "is an excellent place to study teacher and student use of computers, their use in schools, and the consequences" (p.19) because of its "stunning" wealth (p.25) and "abundance of technological wealth" (p.34), and broadly defining "technologically-rich schools" to include those with a computer to student ratios of 1:30 (p.50), where a defective mouse disables a computer for three months (p.57), and where nine of eleven teachers couldn't fix a broken mouse or crashed software (p.57). He reminds us that: "Children do not universally wake up on their seventh birthdays …. to find they have arrived a the period of concrete operations" (p.61). He suggests that the use of computers in early childhood education depends on many things (p.65), and argues that "contemporary pressures" get in the way of the bonds that traditional families once offered, and computer/child interaction doesn't help (p.66). Then he finally implies that "computers in classrooms" is a largely symbolic endeavor that actually has little effect in education (p.66-67).
Cuban continues his odyssey chronicling Stanford's forays in classroom technology. Here I realized he honed specifically on computers in the classroom -- not the role of computers in education. This seems superfluous to me, as I continue more and more in broadening my definition of the classroom far beyond physical walls of a socially constructed definition of "classroom".
I have a difficult time pigeonholing Cuban into one of these four categories, but his emphasis on the social elements of education and clever use (abuse?) of statistics in order to slow the tide of computers in classrooms, suggest to me that he would mildly fit as a Radical Structuralist.
Oppenheimer sounds the alarm that school reformers are pushing computers as the latest style in emperor outfits. He offers that lots of money has been spent (p.45), but promoters' promises have failed (p.46), and extracurricular courses are being replaced with computer classes (p.46). He notes that today's tests of student achievement are shockingly crude (p.48). He highlights technical problems (p.51), and quotes experts like Jane Healy, and Clifford Stoll (p.51), he warns that "the less committed frequently get seduced [bias] by electronic opportunities to make a school paper look snazzy" (p.52). He carefully crafts his writing to transfer the promises of unnamed promoters to inanimate programs such as Logo (generally failed to deliver on its promises) (p.52), and to interpret the opinions of experts in order to support his views ("Healy and other psychologists think that the computer screen flattens information into narrow, sequential data" (p.53). He suggests that computers ought be used primarily for short-term technical training for jobs (p.54). He uses sweeping generalizations such as "simulations…are oversimplified if not highly questionable." (56). He implies that kids should not have to learn to think critically about the information they receive in school, but should learn (and trust) that all information they are given is accurate (61). He further suggests that computer advocates are experts (62).
Oppenheimer seems to rely on an 'all-or-nothing' philosophy, where promoters are experts, and their promises become absolute promises of technology. If computers cannot substitute entirely for teachers, and do so at budget prices, they are worthless. This seems to fit well within the Functionalist paradigm.
Ong writes a historical piece on the technology and ideology of language. He suggests that computers face the same censures that Plato heaped on texts (p.78). He notes that a little knowledge/literacy is a dangerous thing in some societies (93). Ong argues that the reference to some 'absolute' time was a revolutionary step in literacy (97). He proposes that writing is solipsistic (101), and reminds that early writing used tricks to situate the reader in the text (103). Regarding gender roles, he notes that rhetoric was for men, so women's writing was different (111), adding that much of written text was developed to be performed (115).
Although Ong's historical piece minimizes his own values, his remark on solipsism, the use of literary 'tricks', and gender difference in writing leads me to believe that his ontology tends toward subjectivism, and may well push him into the Radical Humanist category.
By baldly stating that there are [only] two modes of thought, Bruner sets himself up in either/or territory, as an absolutist (11); but the text that follows doesn't really support this. He suggests that stories need not be true, only believable; arguments must be testable (14). By citing multiple theories such as the Michotte (p.18), Heider and Simmel (p.18). Burke (p.20), and Jakobson (p.21), Todorov (p.31), Reader Response (p.32), Aristotle (p.38), and others, Bruner argues for an epistemology through presupposition, where narrative guides a search for implicit rather than explicit meaning among a spectrum of possible meanings (p.25). Ontology is subjective, where narrative creates reality through subjectification (the consciousness of protagonists in a story) (p.25), but also social, where setting plays as much a role in a story as character and plot, and social circumstances brings about Todorovian transformations (p.39). The ideology narrative hides its fabula in its sjuzet (plot), but it is also social, paralleling the move from emphasis on plot (folktale) to emphasis on character (psychological novel) (p.37). His methodologyin this article mirrors that in a narrative, where multiple perspectives code a story (p.26).
Bruner seems to walk the line between being an Interpretivist and a Radical Humanist. The fuzzy part is in how much of the effect that society has on sense making I read into this piece. I suspect it's more than he intended.
Greene writes and ideological plea to increase the arts in education. She cites Dewey, Arendt, and Habermas as authorities promoting democracy, relationship, and understanding through the arts (p.327). She suggests that teachers teach fundamental skills; then people must teach themselves, and defines teaching as "creating situations that impel people to reach beyond themselves, to act on their own initiatives" and "enabling persons to perceive…a better condition of life", set in opposition to training for mastery -- an unreflective, semi-automatic movement (expertise) (p.327). There is no ultimate pinnacle of knowledge, but is always more to learn if we let ourselves. Rather than defining "literate" in quantitative terms, she suggests it means being able to argue and think critically (p.328). Is Ntozake Shange's choreodrama fiction or fact? (or perception?) Does it matter? (p.329).
Greene seems to fit best into the category of Interpretivist, although her views of teaching fundamental skills hearkens to the "teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for life" adage, which in class we stuck into the Radical Humanist category.
In an article that predates the use of computers in education, Hawkins argues for a Deweyian sort of play-to-learn Kindergarten atmosphere in education (66). His system incorporates three phases: the ¡ Phase (messing about) (p.67); the ê Phase (guided messing about) (p.70); and the o Phase (lecture/discussion attending to deeper issues that would not be understandable without the earlier phases (p.74). He suggests that evidence of boredom is a criteria in judging goodness/badness (p.68), and that by age 5-6, what one has learned, outweighs what one learns the rest of one's life (p.69), which suggests that he might fit into the category of Interpretivist. However, his penchant for social guidance and continuity might nudge him into the category of Radical Humanists -- "The Fates lead the willing; the unwilling they drag" (p.72).
Thomas M. Skrtic neatly lays out arguments and beliefs of the four groups of the matrix I use in this synthesis. In doing so, he carefully minimizes his own belief system and values in the text until chapter 3, where, in describing and critiquing Functionalism, he offers critical pragmatism (a blending of the best bits of naïve pragmatism and critical incomprehensibility, which entails both critical practice and critical discourse (p.91). This minimally blurs the borders of the matrix he had set up by adding a reflexive element to Functionalism.
In Chapter 10, Skrtic breaks school failure into categories of discourse on equity, and of discourse on excellence (p.244). Skrtic compares these two discourses, and blasts them both because they "ultimately retain the assumptions they question" (p.246). The contradiction of Public education Skrtic refers to is between capitalism and democracy (p.247). "Traditional schools cannot accommodate diversity" (p.249). He suggests that there is an alternative: "Achieving the adhocratic ends of inclusive education and school restructuring requires merging theory and practice and eliminating specialization and professionalism, which means eliminating classrooms and uniting theory and practice in multidisciplinary teams of specialists and consumers" (p.250). Skrtic agrees with Reich (1990) saying: "what is needed is" education where "skills and insights add up to something more than the sum of their individual contributions" (p.258). This is "bottom up" epistemology.
Skrtic's imperative for social change, and belief that a better structure of schools will create it suggests that he is Radical Structuralist.
"Context, not content underwrites interpretation" (6) suggests that Brown and Duguid's ontology is interpreted by all the experiences one has, rather than only with specific encounters. Their epistemology seems one of context, or genre — words scrawled on a post-it note carry a different meaning than those embossed on the cover of an annual report (10).
Brown and Duguid suggest the continuity (material properties) of the artifact must remain recognizable while the community of practice negotiates and defines its social context (20). Problems occur when merging technology force artifacts to change; yet they must retain a string of continuity lest they alienate their social context (22). They introduce social demassification — the disruption of continuity on social practice (24). Lurking beneath the surface is the ideology of newspapers -- that the social context of the physical newspaper is that it's "the tuna that everyone else is eating", and is therefore socially defined as what's important to people (24). New technologies need not "kill the old", but augment them (30). The authors note that the social construction of artifacts is often ignored (31).
The specifics I got out of it, after discussion with Huey-Ting, are that for Brown and Duguid, their ontology is a subjective, or inter-subjective one; that is, what is considered real is what communities agree is real through their epistemology which suggests that not only is it socially constructed, but it is continuously negotiated and renegotiated. The methodology they espouse is one of good design that takes into account the shifting center, border, and periphery. After a discussion of ideology, where I felt it was more power (as seen through the effects of the newspapers controlling the news), and Huey-Ting considering it philosophy and discourse (very Foucaultian of her), we decided it's probably dialectic rather than dichotomous. These place Brown and Duguid squarely into the Radical Humanist category.
I hesitate to refer to this section as a conclusion, as there is much more left unaddressed that falls outside the scope, or rather, using Brown and Duguid's (1994) terms, outside the center, of the structure I use in this paper. This is ultimately A Good Thing for now, although I suspect we will shift and consider what currently lies in the border regions of this analysis.
One aspect not addressed in this analysis, which I strongly feel needs to be addressed at some point, is the dialectic view of these categories. It seems a narrow disservice to pigeonhole some of the authors. Oppenheimer might relish his position, although a careful analysis of his rhetoric might suggest that he actually falls into a category other than that which he seems to claim. These sorts of interests lie on the border or periphery. I hope to address some of them in the second half of the semester when we focus more on ideology and methodology.
My Fall 2002 "Critical Issues in Educational Technology" with Michael Streibel.
