A Synthesis of Posts During the Module and a New Vision for Education

In pooling my ideas for this final blog, I spent some time going through my posts so far and there seems to be a narrative that has been emerging. I’d like to frame this in the context of my previous blog on the traditionalist and progressivist divide in education, but rather than putting forward Kieran Egan’s Imaginative Education approach as a third, potentially integrative position as I did then, I would like to suggest something slightly different, simpler and even more firmly rooted in research.

In going over all my blogs for this module, it became clear to me that they can each be categorised as representing either traditionalist or progressivist values in education. To recap on the definitions of these positions, traditionalist approaches normally place an emphasis on the material to be communicated from teachers to students as the most important factor in education, whilst progressivists normally place the emphasis on the student, in terms of their development, unfoldment and wellbeing (e.g. Dewey, Palmer, Piaget, & Vygotsky) . My blogs on mathematics processing, where I considered the development of cognitive representations in arithmetic tasks; language, where I discussed how recent findings from the field of cognitive neurolinguistics has underscored the need for high quality linguistic education so as to allow students to fully ground concepts in cognition; and music education, where I discussed the transfer effects of music training on intellectual ability, listening skills, language skills, literacy, numeracy and so on, were all blogs that took a more traditionalist approach in that they placed the emphasis on the information to be communicated, and the importance of it. Where the arguments outlined in these blogs might be considered to have made novel contributions to the traditionalist approach might be in terms of their grounding in modern cognitive neuroscientific and cultural research. It is my feeling that this type of approach, where that which is taught in schools is supported and driven by empirical research, will hopefully characterise the future of traditionalist approaches to education. The Brainology program that Shannah blogged on last week is an excellent start in this regard.

Conversely, my blogs on mindfulness, where I introduced recent research on the implementation of mindfulness in schools and suggested that it might play a valuable role in modern PSHE; democracy in schools, where I outlined Kohlberg’s research, which suggests that democratic engagement of students in school management not only promotes moral development into post-conventional stages but might also be important in our educational system’s production of more politically engaged and interested individuals; and on eco-education, where I suggested that exposure to and education on the workings of natural ecosystems might promote the capacity for systems thinking and other sophisticated cognitive developmental capacities, are all examples of blogs where a more progressivist approach was taken, in terms of the fact that the emphasis was laid on the wellbeing and development of the students. Again though, where these blogs have made novel contributions to modern progressivist perspectives in education lies in the fact that they were rooted not in idealistic and philosophical conceptions regarding the value and ‘innate gifts’ of the child, but in modern developmental literature.

There must surely, though, be some way in which these two perspectives, traditionalist and progressivist, can find some integration, without resource to yet another nebulous theory that is more conjecture that empiricism. I believe there is, and I believe this can be found in a new conceptualisation of intelligence, one that is drawn from modern neurocognitive research, and which is supported by a new vision of education where we hold a much broader perspective on valued outcomes. The present system was instituted in the Industrial Revolution, and the traces of these roots are visible all through the modern factory-style education system. The needs of today, however, are very different, and it was Ken Robinson’s discussion of intelligence, the hierarchy of subjects, creativity and the needed educational revolution that really inspired this for me. This led me to consider Howard Gardner’s research on multiple intelligences, something which inspired much debate, but which we seemed to find an overwhelming agreement on in terms of the need for a broader conceptualisation of intelligence and ability in education.

It is this broader conceptualisation of intelligence and ability that I believe may be able to reconcile the traditionalist and progressivist positions. It speaks to the traditionalist position owing to its basis in the detailed understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms of processing, memory and learning that we are establishing in the literature, where we understand that semantic codes, motor codes and perceptual codes, for instance, all entail different types of representation and thus different forms of intelligence; and it speaks to the progressivist position in its recognition that student’s capacity to reason about, mature and understand the world is very much dependent on their cognitive, emotional, personal and social development, as these provide the contextual framework within which they engage with their studies.

None of this is particularly complicated. All of it simply involves a clear consideration of the research literature in some of its most pertinent areas, and a willingness to consider where applications could be made within the educational system. It is my feeling that as long as such an approach is taken, it is inevitable that such developments will take place, and it is my sincere wish that the relationships between scientists, theorists and policy makers will mature and be coloured by sufficient quality, that a clear, well-grounded and socially supported science of education, one that is able to transcend and include all perspectives on education in its empirical basis, may be born.