Session Information
13 SES 08 A, Education, Culture and Time
Paper Session
Contribution
In this paper I will study the question of goal determination in education. This paper is part of two wider projects. On the one hand, it builds on the philosophical research of educational thinking traditions (Siljander) and on the other hand it is part of the program of semiotics of education (Stables, Pikkarainen).
It is a common starting point that in education we are striving for some good or valuable ends; that we are trying to realize some values. From the view point of action theoretical semiotics we are always trying to realize some values when we are acting. Actually all our meanings or sense makings are based on or at least connected with values or at least goals of action. Contrary to many other practical areas of life and action, the question of goals in education is quite problematic because of two special features of educational action. The first feature is the especially mediated nature of educational action, its complex social structure. The second feature is the long time span from the activities of the action to the possible appearance of the goals. This can be called the futurological aspect of educational action.
I will study these both features especially in a relationship to two historical thinking models of on the one hand the Bildung tradition and on the other hand the growth model of pragmatism. Common to these both models are firstly that the role of the educator has been seen limited and the role of the educated or growing person is very important and secondly that the goals of education are seen necessarily quite abstract and undetermined. So the goals of educational action become more similar to classical axiological values like justice, truth and beauty than to the concrete aims of many other practical everyday actions. After all there remains the complex problem that the activities of education take place with very concrete operations: teaching, guiding, studying, commanding, forbidding, practicing etc. and the relationship from these little concrete operations to the long term goals and values is quite uncertain.
One basic difference between the previously mentioned Bildung and growth models is connected with ontological assumptions. While the previous has more or less dualistic conception the latter is stressing a monistic view. The poles of the dualism are of course material and ideal reality, but in context of education they are seen as nature and culture. The Bildung or human growth has been mainly understood as freedom from the sphere nature and initiation or transition to the sphere of culture. The pragmatist stance tries to define the goal of education as some kind of basically naturalistic growth, which can be maybe compared with evolutionary adaptation processes. In semiotics certain kind of dualities has been assumed to be indispensable for meaning making. The concept of action for example could not exist without a duality between what is and what should be. For Greimas, the other one of the two basic value dualisms are just between Nature and Culture.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Greimas, A. J. & Courtés, J. (1982) Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary. (Bloomington, Indiana University Press). Hintikka, J. (1999) Inquiry as inquirya logic of scientific discovery. (Dordrecht, Kluwer). Kant, I. (1992) Kant on Education. (Bristol, Thoemmes Press). MacIntyre, A. (1988) Whose justice? Which rationality? (London, Duckworth). Pikkarainen E. (2010) The Semiotics of Education: A New Vision in an Old Landscape. Educational Philosophy and Theory Pikkarainen, E. (2000) Kokemus ja kasvu: John Deweyn kasvatusfilosofia sivistysteoriana. (Experience and Growth: John Dewey's Educational Philosophy as Bildung Theory) In: P. Siljander (ed.) Kasvatus ja sivistys. (Helsinki, Gaudeamus). pp. 109-127. Siljander P. (2010) Educational Theory and Traditions – Integration of Educational Theories on "Bildung" and Growth . (http://wwwedu.oulu.fi/bildungandgrowth 2010: 1/15.) Stables, A. (2005) Living and learning as semiotic engagement: a new theory of education. (Lewiston, Edwin Mellen Press). Tarasti, E. (cop. 2000) Existential semiotics. (Bloomington, Indiana University Press).
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