William Hare

"Don't stop to think, tell me what you know!"
--Chicago teacher, 1892.1

A view has emerged lately, championed by influential philosophers, philosophers of education and educational theorists, which challenges what had become the orthodox position in the quite recent past. I am not sure that the view to be examined here has, as yet, become the received opinion, but I should like to disturb it, if I can, before it has a chance to settle in any further than it already has.

The view in question is frankly sceptical about what many have claimed to be the school's task of fostering critical thought, autonomy, open-mindedness and similar attributes, urging instead, the acquisition in school of a body of shared information. It is a view, I believe, which until very recently would have been quickly dismissed as traditional and unenlightened. Let us remind ourselves at the outset how the ideals, now apparently being set aside as not belonging to the school's proper mandate, came to capture a central place in statements concerning the aims of schooling in the early part of the twentieth century.

Dewey, Russell, Whitehead2

The rising tide of dissatisfaction with contemporary schooling in North America has made it tempting to cast about for a scapegoat, and a popular candidate for this role has been John Dewey. Some of Dewey's admirers only add to the confusion by suggesting, for example, that he "foresaw that education had to be redefined as the fostering of thinking rather than as the transmission of knowledge."3 This, of course, only reintroduces the kind of dualism which Dewey himself would have rejected. For various reasons, then, there is an idea abroad today that Dewey disdained information and deprecated facts as irrelevant in education.4 Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is easy, of course, to pull words and phrases out of context and to present an image of Dewey scorning the value of facts and information. For example, Dewey observed that in school "the aim often seems to be--especially in such a subject as geography--to make the pupil what has been called a 'cyclopedia of useless information.'"5 We also find in his writings many memorable images of mindless information-storing, such as the analogy he draws between the pupil's mind and "a cistern into which information is conducted by one set of pipes that mechanically pour it in, while the recitation is the pump that brings the material out again through another set of pipes."6

Dewey wrote a great deal, and it would not be difficult to go on in this way for some considerable time, suggesting that he opposed the piling up of information in the pupil's head. Such examples, however, would only disguise the fact that Dewey utterly repudiated the view that information was an unimportant part of one's education. Dewey, it is true, did as much as anyone to explain and promote the value of reflective thinking in schooling, but as he put it himself, "thinking cannot, of course, go on in a vacuum; suggestions and inferences can occur only to a mind that possesses information as to matters of fact." He labelled as false any opposition between information and understanding, and held that "the real desideratum is getting command of scholarship--or skill--under conditions that at the same time exercise thought." It was the mere accumulation of information, as an end in itself and disconnected from use, which Dewey opposed, not the acquisition of information in the context of judgment and thought.7 Dewey did not, as has been claimed,8 too hastily reject the piling up of information, because he did not reject it at all if it were viewed as the working capital of inquiry.

Where Dewey, especially in his earlier writings,9 tended to complain of neglect and confusion in the schools with respect to the development of the student's capacity for thought and independent judgment, Russell was more inclined to see the active suppression of criticism, independence and open-mindedness. Throughout his writings on education, as I have shown elsewhere,10 Russell deplored the fact that children were made to accept certain conclusions rather than encouraged to think for themselves. They were regarded, by various groups, as so much material to be fashioned into recruits for some cause.11 The methods employed inculcated the habit of passive acceptance, which Russell believed would be disastrous in later life,12 and served to encourage a blind, unthinking respect for the teacher and other authorities. Russell said explicitly that he would like to see the attitudes and practices which are common in universities, such as students disagreeing with their teachers, approached as closely as possible in earlier schooling.13

Like Dewey, Russell has had his share of unsympathetic readers. Some have claimed that Russell found the adjustment function and the liberating function of the school "logically contradictory and philosophically irreconcilable."14 Certainly, Russell did emphasize individuality and the virtues of independence of mind and critical judgment, and did so because, in his view, teaching in schools tended to be biased, dogmatic, propagandistic and authoritarian. Consequently, he devoted considerable efforts to explicating and defending those ideals which would offset such tendencies. He believed, however, that a "due proportion" needed to be determined between such tensions as imposition and freedom, and can hardly have held that these were irreconcilable.15 A due proportion would constitute a reconciliation.16 Referring to the two aims of making good citizens and good human beings, Russell said indeed that "conceived broadly and philosophically, these two aims do not conflict."17

With respect to the specific issue here of the provision of information in schools, Russell's position is clear. It is true that he regarded a good deal of the information presented in school as sheer propaganda, and he believed that much that was now regarded as settled information was destined for the scrap heap.18 Nevertheless, Russell thought it vital that the schools transmit information. He took the view, for example, that teachers should enjoy the very widest degree of personal and professional freedom, "so long as the actual instruction is satisfactory." There must, that is, be no fault found with the actual knowledge of the students.19 He held that the very basis of the educational system was the imparting of that necessary minimum of knowledge, without which we cannot play a part in the community.20 Russell stated categorically that he did not think it possible to train intelligence without imparting information;21 and he dismissed the idea of the school as a place for spontaneous development as "too individualistic and unduly indifferent to the importance of knowledge."22 What was central for Russell was the spirit in which instruction was given.23

Whitehead too was part of the same general philosophical movement early in the twentieth century which sought to make schooling more critical and reflective. Learning is sensible, straightforward and clear, said Whitehead, if only you keep at bay the suggestiveness of things.24 Awareness of opposing ideas forces one to rethink conventional views. As with Dewey and Russell, however, a superficial reading can leave the impression that Whitehead neglected the value of information. After all, his opening remark in The Aims of Education was to the effect that scraps of information have nothing to do with culture. This was immediately followed by his often quoted comment that "a merely well-informed man is the most useless bore on God's earth."25 His most telling criticism of education, moreover, was captured in the notion of "inert ideas," which he used to signify the passive reception of disconnected information, the aimless accretion of facts which children are made to learn so that examiners may set neat questions.

Whitehead's condemnation of inert ideas, however, needs to be seen in the context of his account of education as the acquisition of the art of the utilization of knowledge.26 Get your knowledge quickly and then use it, was his watchword; but knowledge could only be put to use if one possessed it. Whitehead echoed Dewey in pointing out that you cannot educate a mind in vacuo,27 and, like Dewey, drew a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. He observed that it is easy to acquire knowledge yet remain bare of wisdom, but he prefaced this by reminding us that one cannot be wise without a basis in knowledge.28 It was not the acquisition of knowledge itself which Whitehead opposed, but the pointless accumulation of details -- pointless if they were not to be put to use in the solution of problems.

Whitehead distinguished between a hard and soft element in every curriculum, with the hard element consisting of the attainment of exact knowledge: "...education is a patient process of the mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. There is no royal road to learning through an airy path of brilliant generalizations."29 The stage of precision was, in his words, the time for pushing on, for knowing the subject exactly, and for retaining in the memory its salient features.30 It is equally important, however, to notice that Whitehead did not have in mind postponing critical reflection until the details had been mastered. He urged his readers not to exaggerate the distinction between the three stages of romance, precision and generalization, since all three were present throughout education, constituting minor eddies which ought to swirl through every lesson, every unit, every term.31 Above all he believed that, as educators, we could not postpone the life of the mind until, like a knife, it had been sharpened.32

Peters, Scheffler and Passmore33

The philosophers who wrote on education in the early part of the century defended a judicious balance of information and criticism in schoolwork. However tempting it may have been for them, given the excesses of rote learning, there was no mindless adoption of critical thinking as the goal of schooling at the expense of information. Dewey's lesson about either-or reasoning had been taken to heart. And this same balanced view is to be found, I believe, in the philosophers of education who occupied centre stage during the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s at the height of the analytic period in philosophy of education.

Not that these philosophers were always entirely clear themselves about the achievement of their predecessors in this regard. R. S. Peters, for example, did eventually acknowledge that it was a complete misunderstanding of Dewey's position to infer that he neglected the value of subject matter in favour of the child's interests,34 but the misunderstanding was one which Peters had himself shared and to some extent perpetuated. In an earlier essay, for example, he had made the point that critical thought is a rationalistic abstraction without a body of knowledge to be critical about; and he had implicated Dewey in this confusion by adding that, for Dewey, being educated was more or less co-extensive with being critical.35 Peters believed that under the influence of progressive educators, school teachers had veered too far in the direction of critical thinking in the absence of anything concrete to be critical about. He redirected teachers to what he saw as the middle road with his aphorism: Content without criticism is blind, but criticism without content is empty.36

He followed Dewey in holding that critical thinking did not come easily or naturally,37 and he saw it as fundamental to the aim of schooling to teach others how to think, not simply to tell them what to think.38 Peters viewed the teacher as having a provisional authority, an authority which would be justified if teaching also provided the critical equipment which would enable students to evaluate what they were learning and to continue on their own. For Peters, the promotion of critical thought had to be a gradual process since children do not become adults overnight: "There is no magical age at which a sudden transformation takes place. Neither does the transformation occur by magic. It will only occur if children are treated progressively as if they are persons...."39 It is this emphasis on the gradual development of critical procedures which saves Peters from the charge that he ascribed to the school the essentially conservative function of preserving and transmitting a society's values.40 In his own words, "the teacher is an agent of change and challenge as well as cultural conservation."41

Addressing this very tension between conservation and change, Israel Scheffler argued that the issue was not whether there was to be cultural renewal, but in what manner such renewal was to occur. One of Scheffler's lasting achievements has been to articulate and defend a conception of teaching which emphasizes a certain way of promoting learning, namely one which relies on reasons which are open to the student's critical assessment.42 Teaching is to be carefully distinguished from propaganda, indoctrination, force and suggestion which are all designed to prevent critical reflection. By contrast, the teacher submits his or her views to the judgment of the student--who is entitled and encouraged to raise searching questions and to expect honest answers.43

Notice, however, that there is no implication that the acquisition of information is unimportant or in any way incompatible with the goal of fostering a critical outlook. As an example of analytic techniques at work, Scheffler returned to the dichotomy which Dewey had explored in The Child and the Curriculum, and showed that the assumption built into the slogan "we teach children, not subjects," taken literally, leads to absurdity.44 To be teaching at all, we must be trying to teach something. For Scheffler, this content included not only skills, dispositions, attitudes, appreciation and so on, all of which were subject to critical review, but also factual information: "...any improvement in the efficiency with which factual knowledge can be processed and disseminated is, I should think, clearly a good, taken in itself."45

Perhaps the finest discussion of the nature, value and teaching of critical ability to appear in the main analytic period is to be found in the work of John Passmore.46 He argued that being critical is comparable to a character-trait in telling us something about the kind of person who is so described, specifically someone committed to employing his or her reasoning and deliberative skills to evaluate beliefs, values and performances, including those which generally seem settled, indeed perfectly acceptable. Passmore quickly pointed out, however, that it would be foolish to react against authoritarian schools, which do not allow for critical thinking at all, by favouring schools ourselves which exclude instruction. Students have to "bring themselves abreast of the knowledge that has already been acquired. Only thus can they put themselves into a position fruitfully to criticize, usefully to suggest alternatives."47

Passmore had no quarrel with the view that imparting information was not the sole business of the teacher but was equally insistent that this did not entitle one to infer that it was not a substantial part of the teacher's business. In The Philosophy of Teaching, which dealt at some length with the value of information and attempted to answer the most widely canvassed objections to imparting information, he offered as his main reason for publishing his views a desire to find a middle way, one which would show the need for both a critical spirit and for information.

When his book appeared in 1980, Passmore claimed that "modern educational theorists are all but unanimous in objecting to information-imparting."48 It would appear, at least with respect to several important philosophers of education, that that was an exaggeration, pardonable no doubt given then recent rhetoric from educational pundits which had waxed lyrical about open education, discovery learning, and children's interests to the virtual exclusion of the acquisition of information. If it was an exaggeration then, however, it could not be made with any plausibility today, for the 1980s witnessed a remarkable and unexpected return in a number of quarters to a view which had seemed on the verge of extinction, namely that the central, possibly the sole, task of schooling is to impart information.

McPeck, Hirsch, Rorty

A number of influential writers today, including John McPeck, E. D. Hirsch, and Richard Rorty, categorically reject the view that schooling should promote critical thinking. I do not claim that McPeck, Hirsch and Rorty present a unified front; in fact, they disagree quite sharply on the matter of the age when it is suitable to introduce critical thinking. Still, there is considerable overlap in their views. McPeck, in his latest work, clearly sees Hirsch as an ally, and Rorty explicitly defends and elaborates on Hirsch's position. We shall see that the chief objections to these ideas were largely identified in the writings of the philosophers of education whose views were sketched earlier. Our first task, however, must be to assemble the various arguments which this side advances.

McPeck believes that critical thinking should not be introduced into the elementary schools, and has recently suggested postponing it until grade 10, or about age 16.49 His various arguments can be usefully placed into three broad categories, conceptual, practical and moral. First, he appeals to the very nature of critical thinking and, in particular, to the fact that it presupposes the possession of information. This shows, he argues, that time must be spent first imparting information, apparently nine full years of schooling. You don't, he observes, race a pony until its legs are strong enough to take it; you don't teach the exception until the rule has been mastered. Second, at a practical level, the extent of illiteracy and the lack of basic information in children is a pressing problem, and the schools are fully occupied in the task of teaching basic knowledge. There simply isn't time early on to offer critical thinking; the time for criticism will come in the later grades and beyond. He rejects as irrelevant any appeal to evidence that young children can think critically, and counters that this does not show that they ought to engage in critical thinking. Third, following Hirsch, McPeck claims that children enjoy acquiring information, and he recalls with pleasure his own elementary schooldays when information about the great explorers excited his interest. The point would seem to be that the child's desires should be respected, and any moral concern we might feel about possible indoctrination is assuaged when we bear in mind that it is only the acquisition of basic information, not the inculcation of doctrine, which is recommended.

Hirsch describes himself as an educational activist, and his mission is to emphasize the importance of shared literate information in education.50 He contends that there is a great deal, though by no means an impossible amount, of basic information which all members of society need to learn if they are to thrive. Hirsch's zeal, however, leads to a dichotomy in his thinking, a dichotomy which at times he himself deplores, between cultural literacy and critical thinking. He states explicitly that the teaching of shared information is the principal aim of schooling, especially elementary schooling, which should aim to complete basic acculturation by about age 13. Such teaching is our "fundamental duty," our "fundamental acculturative responsibility," "the essence of the education of our children." He sees the goal of teaching shared information as under attack by the "critical thinking" movement, and he advocates using texts with cultural content rather than "developmental" texts that develop abstract skills.51 Such phrases, coming together with a rejection of the ideas of philosophers such as Dewey who championed critical thinking, inevitably create the impression that a choice must be made between cultural literacy and critical thinking. A single disclaimer towards the end of the book about unnecessary polarization cannot offset this impression.52

Richard Rorty also holds that education at school should aim primarily at communicating to children enough of what is held to be true by the society to which they belong to enable them to function as citizens of that society.53 Rorty closes the door on any compromise which Hirsch's disclaimer might have been thought to have left marginally open, for Rorty believes that it is simply not the purpose of schooling to go beyond socialization. It is not, and never will be, he tells us, the function of lower-level education to challenge the prevailing consensus. Education as a critical process, what he calls individuation, only comes later at the college level, and he suggests that nineteen is about the age when young people should have completed the process of socialization.

His main argument is that education is not a continuous process, but refers rather to two quite distinct processes, socialization and individuation. His view that the former must precede the latter parallels McPeck's. What comes first, according to Rorty, is the shaping of an animal into a human being by a process of socialization which is followed, if it is followed, by a very different process of self-individuation. For Rorty, the real problem is a practical one, namely trying to determine when socialization should end and individuation begin, and he resolves this to his own satisfaction by drawing the line at the end of high school. In his reply to criticisms, Rorty claims that he does not think that one has to choose between cultural literacy and critical thinking, but any reasonable interpretation of his argument shows that he maintains precisely that one must make such a choice, and make it in favour of cultural literacy, as far as schooling is concerned. The denial can only mean that both will be satisfied in the long run.

In turning now to review these arguments, our first serious concern must be with McPeck's claim that the nature of critical thinking, its emptiness in the absence of relevant content, determines in large measure that critical thinking must be deferred until the necessary content has first been acquired. Let it be agreed at once that information is necessary for critical thinking. This is not in dispute at all. As Passmore noted, however, questions can be raised with children about information as it is being imparted. Although open capacities may depend upon closed capacities, it does not follow that the closed capacities must be learned first, since a good teacher will intersperse routine training with opportunities for the student to branch out.54 Much as teachers need to exercise authority in accordance with the spirit of liberty, as Russell put it, so too teachers can introduce information in a critical manner. The nature of critical thinking does not demand "endless preliminaries," to use Passmore's phrase, before we introduce a critical dimension to teaching. McPeck's mistake is what Whitehead labelled the uncritical application of the principle of the necessary antecedence of some subjects to others, a move which had led, Whitehead thought, to the dryness of the Sahara in education.55

Moreover, McPeck himself makes a conceptual observation which effectively destroys the claim that there is a necessary sequential order with the communication of information coming first, to be followed much later by the fostering of critical thinking. McPeck allows that critical thinking can enter into a wide variety of activities, from mathematics to mountain climbing, and maintains explicitly that critical thinking, creativity and imagination are "the concomitants of other pursuits, since they are related to the way in which something is done."56 It follows, surely, that critical thinking can characterize the way in which teaching is carried out, which is Scheffler's point about teaching in the critical manner, so that we do not find critical thinking coming after the imparting of information but together with it. It appears in the very manner in which information is imparted.

This same point calls into question the practical argument which alleges that teachers are already fully occupied communicating information without adding to their burden the task of teaching critical thinking. The suggestion, obviously enough, is that there is no time in the crowded curriculum to do anything more than impart information. It is, moreover, well documented that even this is not done effectively. The idea of critical thinking as something additional, however, is fraudulent. Critical thinking is a matter of doing something in one way rather than another.57 We exercise thought at the same time as we communicate or acquire information, as Dewey pointed out, and so the practical objection collapses. McPeck only confuses matters when he slips from talk of critical thinking to talk of a critical thinking programme, a term which is apt to suggest putting on an extra course. For reasons he himself has given, we do not have to think of critical thinking in terms of a special and separate programme.

The commonsense examples introduced by McPeck to show that early attention to critical thinking is simply bad pedagogy are much too weak to carry the argument, and the fact that no one could possibly disagree with the claims involved ought to arouse suspicions. They are calculated to suggest that deferring critical thinking is plain commonsense. You don't race a pony until its legs are strong enough to take it. Agreed. But do you give it exercise and gradually build up its strength and abilities? One is immediately reminded of Whitehead's remark about postponing the life of the mind. You don't teach exceptions before the rule is understood. No, but can we not intimate that the rule is a general one which is not to be applied mechanically? Is it seriously being suggested that children cannot grasp this point before they are teenagers? An alternative strategy is to convey the limitations of the rule gradually in the light of situations which they understand.

Young children, especially, are inclined to ask questions, and the philosophy for children's literature has also made clear that they are capable of engaging in critical thinking if given the opportunity. McPeck makes the point that being able to do something does not entail that one should do it, but this is a specious appeal to the is-ought distinction and nicely illustrates the danger, which McPeck himself has emphasized, of ignoring context in drawing on a general principle. If a child asks a legitimate question about a certain piece of information, on what grounds would a teacher refuse to respond? Perhaps the child has come across evidence which seems to count against what is presented in class. The teacher, Russell observed, has the opportunity to instil certain mental habits, in this case respect for evidence, truthfulness, curiosity, and open-mindedness. Basic respect for the child as a person would require that such questions be dealt with honestly. This is not to say, as some have said, that the teacher has an obligation to provide reasons whenever they are demanded. Scheffler is closer to the mark in his comment that such demands are not uniformly appropriate at every stage, and thus the teacher has to exercise judgment.

Hirsch's plea for cultural literacy clearly touched a nerve. It will hardly do to maintain, as one critic did in 1990, that countries such as the U.S.S.R. are powerful and secure without a common culture.58 That remark looks very odd today. Hirsch's error is to invent a conflict between cultural literacy and critical thinking, suggesting that the latter, at least in the early stages of education, undermines the former. He offers, for example, a list of names, including oceans and mountains, and remarks that no course in critical thinking, however masterful, could ever generate the list in question. The reader's problem is to discover whom this is meant to enlighten, since nobody would contest the claim. One might as easily argue, if the concern is with educational priorities, that no list in itself will generate the ability to ask what is omitted from the list, nor convey the skills to pursue that question. Such a response, however, would be to fall in with the very polarization which Hirsch professes to reject but in fact promotes. The list and the ability to reflect on the list are both important, and learning the one can, and should, go hand in hand with learning the other. Moreover, if Hirsch is right in thinking that only a few hundred pages of information stand between the literate and the illiterate, it is impossible to understand how anyone could think that covering this material would require the whole of one's schooling.59

Rorty takes himself to be a fairly faithful follower of John Dewey, but Dewey would not, I think, endorse Rorty's view that education refers to two quite distinct, albeit equally necessary, processes. Dewey maintained that education is a unified process and believed that such a view was essential if continuing intellectual and moral momentum was to be satisfied.60 Of course, Rorty is right to claim that socialization and individuation are different. Every thing is what it is, and not another thing, said Bishop Butler, who quickly pointed out that being distinct did not mean being opposed.61 Rorty has given us no reason whatever to view socialization and critical thinking as two processes which must be pursued in sequential order rather than two aspects of one process which may be pursued simultaneously. Dewey, incidentally, described as reactionaries those who held that the main business of education is the transmission of the cultural heritage.62

Rorty believes that the exclusion of critical thinking in elementary and secondary education is mitigated by two factors. First, many students will go on to higher education; second, the very tradition being handed on in school contains a strong element of social criticism. These considerations, however, do not justify deferring critical thinking to the arbitrary point which Rorty has selected. Most students do not proceed to college or university; about 30% in North America fail to complete high school. These students will not have been offered an opportunity to develop the critical ability which, Rorty claims, we want them as citizens to possess. Here we see the wisdom of Whitehead's remark about a mythical, far-off end of education, and of Dewey's reminder that education is a process of living, not a preparation for future living. Reflecting on the fact that the majority of students do not stay in school after about age 17, Whitehead observed that general education must find its justification in what it has done for the student at its termination.63

About Rorty's second point, it needs to be said that the study of historical individuals who challenged the conventional wisdom of their day is not the same as, nor a substitute for, learning to think critically for oneself. A student might, after all, conclude that while it was necessary for Susan B. Anthony to challenge the status quo with respect to the rights of women in the late nineteenth century, such criticism is no longer necessary.

The earlier philosophers made much of the importance of habits which would turn into lifelong dispositions. Passive acceptance, Russell believed, was likely to diminish independence of thought later in life. Dewey thought that the greatest of all pedagogical fallacies was the belief that the student is only learning the specific subject at hand, ignoring collateral learning in the form of enduring attitudes. Everything the teacher does, said Dewey, as well as the manner in which it is done, incites the child to respond in some way or other. Passmore regarded it as a fatal policy to restrict critical thinking to the university level, and cited research in Australia showing the problems students experienced when they were expected to make such an abrupt transition.

In response to the argument from the effects of habit, Rorty demands to know if, for example, Japanese students find it impossible to shift to a different way of learning at university. Presumably, the implication is that Japanese students survive the rote learning of information at school and function successfully in the university environment. The problem with this rhetorical move, however, is that it rests on an assumption which detailed observation has recently called into question.

Harold Stevenson's work challenges a number of popular myths about Japanese schooling, including the stereotypical belief that teaching methods in Japan stress rote learning and mindless drill in basic skills.64 His research, which compares elementary schools in different cultures, indicates that Japanese elementary teachers place great emphasis on student reflection, posing questions so as to stimulate thought, whereas American teachers pose questions to get the correct answer. Stevenson also reports a greater willingness on the part of Japanese teachers to allow students to generate ideas and to evaluate suggestions made by fellow students. Considerable attention is paid to different possible ways of approaching problems in mathematics, with the actual solution deferred until the various alternatives have been fully explored. Stevenson also found that Japanese teachers made more effective use of student errors than American teachers who tended to go on asking the question until the right answer was supplied. Rorty's appeal, then, to the example of Japan appears to have begged the question. Moreover, Stevenson's research would suggest that teaching in a critical manner actually brings gains in terms of the acquisition and retention of information.

Conclusion

Contrary to what is often held, the general philosophical position throughout the century has argued for a judicious balance between content and criticism with respect to the aims of schooling. Philosophers of education have overwhelmingly defended the need for a strong information base if critical thinking is to be a meaningful goal, but they did not make the mistake of ordering these sequentially. It may be that in practice the schools have at times neglected the value of information in their pursuit of higher-order skills, but such an imbalance does not call for an opposite reaction of the kind openly defended of late. McPeck, Hirsch and Rorty have reintroduced a dualism which earlier generations of philosophers laboured to eradicate.65

Endnotes

1 Noted by Joseph Mayer Rice, the remark is cited in Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961: 5.

2 A very reliable introduction to their educational ideas can be found in Brian Hendley, Dewey, Russell, Whitehead: Philosophers as Educators Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986.

3 Matthew Lipman, Philosophy Goes To School Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988: 4.

4 See, for example, E. D. Hirsch, Jr., Cultural Literacy New York: Random House, 1988. Hirsch, to be fair, does suggest in places that it is the way in which Dewey's ideas were applied in practice which caused the decline in literacy; that it is Dewey's disciples who bear the real responsibility; and that Dewey's ideas concerned a new emphasis rather than a choice between mutually incompatible aims. Hirsch also allows that Dewey's general goal can be seen as generous and humane. Nevertheless, these are concessions which occur in the midst of a general impression created that Dewey saw little value in the transmission of specific information. There were, of course, followers of Dewey who presented a one-sided view. See, for example, Harold Rugg and Ann Shumaker, The Child-Centred School New York: World Book Company, 1928.

5 John Dewey, How We Think revised edition, reprinted in Boydston (ed.), John Dewey, The Later Works, 1925-1953 Vol. 8, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986: 163. (Originally published, 1933.) Presumably, it is this kind of comment which leads Richard Rorty to say that Dewey tipped the balance much too far toward the "critical thinking" side. See "Richard Rorty replies," Liberal Education 75, 4, 1989: 29. Other commentators, however, have argued that a conservative reading of Dewey is closer to the mark. See Eamonn Callan, "John Dewey and the two faces of progressive education," in E. Brian Titley (ed.), Canadian Education Calgary: Detselig, 1990: 83-93.

6 How We Think revised edition, op. cit.: 327.

7 The various quotes and references here are to How We Think revised edition, op. cit.: 163. It is worth noting, however, that although the remark about a "false opposition" appears to be an addition in the 1933 revised version, perhaps reflecting Dewey's sense that such an opposition had emerged or strengthened since the first edition of his book in 1910, the other points about thinking requiring a basis in facts, and about the integration of information and thought, are plainly stated in the earlier version. There is no suggestion that Dewey in 1933 was trying to back away from an earlier exaggeration of his own.

8 Hirsch, Cultural Literacy op. cit.: xv. I should add, however, that I do not mean to suggest that Dewey always got the balance right in his own practice. Some of the teachers at the University Elementary School run by Dewey and his wife at the University of Chicago from 1896-1904 felt that insufficient attention was paid to imparting information. See, for example, Jerald Katch, "John Dewey's School," in Kathe Jervis and Carole Montey (eds.), Progressive Education for the 1990s New York: Teachers College Press, 1991: 61-70.

9 Writing in 1937, Dewey did agree that it was a fact that a great deal of indoctrination was going on in the schools. See his "Education and social change," in Boydston (ed), John Dewey, The Later Works, 1935-7 Vol. 11 Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987: 408-17.

10 See my "Russell's contribution to philosophy of education," Russell 7, 1, 1987: 25-41.

11 Bertrand Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction London: Allen and Unwin, 1916: 144.

12 op. cit.: 163.

13 Bertrand Russell, "Education for democracy," Addresses and Proceedings of the National Education Association 77, 1939: 533.

14 P. L. Smith, "Socialization and personal freedom: The debate between Boyd H. Bode and Bertrand Russell," Educational Theory 29, 3, 1979: 187-93.

15 Smith, following Bode, ridicules the "due proportion" idea as vacillation, but a more sympathetic reading would take it to mean that judgment is required in particular educational contexts to strike a balance between aims which are always in danger of coming into conflict.

16 See Bertrand Russell, Education and the Social Order London: Unwin Books,1977: 21. (Originally published, 1932.)

17 Bertrand and Dora Russell, Prospects of Industrial Civilization New York: Century, 1923: 256.

18 Russell did not, however, embrace epistemological scepticism. He thought that truth was attainable to a certain degree, if only with difficulty.

19 Prospects of Industrial Civilization op. cit.: 252.

20 op. cit.: 257

21 Bertrand Russell, On Education London: Unwin Books, 1971: 41. (Originally published, 1926.)

22 Bertrand Russell, "Education and discipline," in Russell, In Praise of Idleness New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972: 203. (Originally published, 1935.) It was comments such as this, scattered throughout his writings, which led me to say that Russell is not to be convicted of romantic tender-mindedness, a point which others have disputed. See my paper , "Russell's contribution to philosophy of education," op. cit.: 39. I think Alan Ryan is on firm ground when he observes that Russell "was sure that the point of education was to teach children what they could not find out for themselves and that the process demanded a good deal of old-fashioned discipline." See his Bertrand Russell: A Political Life New York: Hill and Wang, 1988: 106.

23 Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction op. cit.: 146.

24 A. N. Whitehead, "Harvard: The future," reprinted in A. H. Johnson (ed.), Whitehead's American Essays in Social Philosophy Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1959: 156-76. (Essay originally given as a lecture in 1936.)

25 A. N. Whitehead, The Aims of Education New York: Macmillan, 1967. (Essay entitled "The aims of education" originally published in 1916.) R. S. Peters, I think, did not help by quoting this remark and quibbling with it on the grounds that he always found encyclopaedias interesting. Whitehead's point was not that items of information are not interesting, but that education involved using one's knowledge. see Peters, "Education as initiation," in R. D. Archambault (ed.), Philosophical Analysis and Education London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965: 104.

26 Whitehead, The Aims of Education op. cit.: 4.

27 op. cit.: 18.

28 op. cit.: 30.

29 op. cit.: 6.

30 op. cit.: 34.

31 op. cit.: 27. Joe R. Burnett makes the point that Whitehead's stages continue to have an appeal if we take them as referring to the manner in which one approaches a subject, not as armchair developmental psychology. see Burnett, "Whitehead on the aims of schooling," Educational Theory 2, 4, 1961: 269-78.

32 Whitehead, The Aims of Education op. cit.: 6. Also Whitehead, "Science in general education," reprinted in A. N. Whitehead, A Philosopher Looks At Science New York: Philosophical Library, 1965: 42.

33 Discussions of Peters and Scheffler, and also of Russell and Dewey, can be found on the cassette tape Twentieth Century Philosophy of Education, edited by William Hare, and available from Dalhousie University School of Education.

34 R. S. Peters, "John Dewey's philosophy of education," in Peters, Essays on Educators London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981: 78. It is significant, I think, that this statement came in the context of a paper devoted to Dewey's ideas when Peters would have gone back to the original sources in a careful study.

35 R. S. Peters, "What is an educational process?," in Peters (ed.), The Concept of Education London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967: 19. One might say with equal justification that, for Dewey, becoming educated was co-extensive with becoming an inheritor of the funded capital of civilization. See John Dewey, "My pedagogic creed," in Archambault (ed.), John Dewey on Education op. cit.: 427.

36 Peters, "Education as initiation," op. cit.: 104.

37 Peters, "What is an educational process?," op. cit.: 19. For Dewey's view, see How We Think revised edition, op. cit., ch. 2.

38 R. S. Peters, Authority, Responsibility and Education Revised edition London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973: 48. Cf. Russell, Principles of Social Reconstruction op. cit.: 164.

39 R. S. Peters, Ethics and Education London: George Allen and Unwin, 1966: 289.

40 See, for example, Kevin Harris, "Peters on schooling," Educational Philosophy and Theory 9, 1, 1977: 33-48.

41 Peters, Ethics and Education op. cit.: 261.

42 Scheffler's account of teaching first appears in his book The Language of Education Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1960, though there is a hint of what is to come in a 1956 paper on "Educational liberalism and Dewey's philosophy" where Scheffler, paraphrasing Dewey, says that "the teacher must always remember that learning is not passive reception but involves, at its best, active participation governed by perception of meanings in a problematic situation." See Scheffler, Reason and Teaching Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973: 153. Peters follows Scheffler's account of teaching very closely, quoting at length from The Language of Education. See Ethics and Education op. cit. 39.

43 The emphasis on honesty in teaching is reminiscent of Russell's emphasis on truthfulness, though Scheffler himself does not draw the parallel. See, for example, Russell, "Freedom versus authority in education," in his Sceptical Essays London: Unwin, 1985: 149. (Originally published, 1928.)

44 Scheffler, The Language of Education op. cit., ch. 2. Arthur Bestor reported in the 1950s that superintendents and principals could be heard endorsing this slogan, and scorning the need for teachers to have a solid academic preparation. See The Restoration of Learning New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955: 206.

45 Scheffler, "Concepts of education: Reflections on the current scene," in Reason and Teaching op. cit.: 59. He continued to worry, however, that an overemphasis on the transmission of information to the exclusion of critical thought would result in a view of the teacher as a minor technician.

46 John Passmore, "On teaching to be critical," in R. S. Peters (ed.), The Concept of Education op. cit.: 192-211. An extended treatment of these themes appears in Passmore, The Philosophy of Teaching Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.

47 Passmore, "On teaching to be critical," op. cit.: 203.

48 Passmore, The Philosophy of Teaching op. cit.: 86.

49 His views on this matter and the arguments in question can be found in John McPeck, Critical Thinking and Education Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981, ch. 7, and John McPeck, Teaching Critical Thinking New York: Routledge, 1990, ch. 3. As far as I can tell, his position has not fundamentally changed during the 1980s, becoming more rigid if anything, despite numerous criticisms.

50 See E. D. Hirsch, Cultural Literacy op cit., especially chs. 1 and 6. See also E. D. Hirsch, "Cultural literacy," American Scholar 52, 2, 1983: 159-69.

51 Hirsch, Cultural Literacy op. cit.: 27

52 op. cit.: 133.

53 Rorty's views on education relevant to this issue can be found in "Education without dogma," Dissent 36, 2, 1989: 198-204, "Richard Rorty replies," Liberal Education 75, 4, 1989: 28-31, and "The dangers of over-philosophication: Reply to Arcilla and Nicholson," Educational Theory 40, 1, 1990: 41-44.

54 John Passmore, The Philosophy of Teaching op. cit.: 47-8. McPeck makes no effort to address these points.

55 Whitehead, The Aims of Education op. cit.: 16-7.

56 McPeck, Critical Thinking and Education op. cit.: 5.

57 I made this point in my review of McPeck's Critical Thinking and Education in Canadian Journal of Education 7, 4, 1982: 107-110. Robert Ennis has recently made a similar point in his review of McPeck's Teaching Critical Thinking in Educational Studies 23, 4, 1992: 462-72

58 Decker F. Walker, "Back to the future: The new conservatism in education," in Educational Researcher April 1990: 35-8.

59 Hirsch, Cultural Literacy op. cit.: 143.

60 John Dewey, "Anniversary address," in Jo Ann Boydston (ed.), John Dewey, The Later Works Vol 11 op. cit.: 171-80.

61 Joseph Butler, Sermons in L. A. Selby-Bigge (ed.), British Moralists New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964: 193. Butler, of course, was speaking of self-love and benevolence.

62 John Dewey, Experience and Education New York: Macmillan, 1963: 78.

63 Whitehead, "Science in general education," op. cit.: 43-4.

64 Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler, The Learning Gap New York: Summit Books, 1992. Also Harold W. Stevenson, "Learning from Asian schools," Scientific American 267, 6, 1992: 70-76.

65 An earlier version of this paper was presented as a Noted Scholar Lecture at the University of British Columbia, July 20, 1993. Another version was presented at the Annual Conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Oxford University, April 1994, and published in the Papers of the Annual Conference, Friday 8 - Sunday 10 April 1994, New College, Oxford.

Reprinted with permission of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.