Philosophy and Education

Transcription

1 ENHANCING HUMANITY

2 Philosophy and Education VOLUME 9 Series Editor: Robert E. Floden, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, U.S.A. Kenneth R. Howe, University ofcolorado, Boulder, CO, U.S.A. Editorial Board David Bridges, Centre for Applied Research in Education, University of East Anglia, Norwich, U.K. Jim Garrison, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, U.S.A. Nel Noddings, Stanford University, CA, U.S.A. Shirley A. Pendlebury, University ofwitwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Denis C. Phillips, Stanford University, CA, U.S.A. Kenneth A. Strike, University ofmaryland, College Park, MD, U.S.A. SCOPE OF THE SERIES There are many issues in education that are highly philosophical in character. Among these issues are the nature of human cognition; the types of warrant for human beliefs; the moral and epistemological foundations of educational research; the role of education in developing effective citizens; and the nature of a just society in relation to the educational practices and policies required to foster it. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any issue in education that lacks a philosophical dimension. The sine gua non of the volumes in the series is the identification of the expressly philosophical dimensions of problems in education coupled with an expressly philosophical approach to them. Within this boundary, the topics-as well as the audiences for which they are intended-vary over a broad range, from volumes of primary interest to philosophers to others of interest to a more general audience of scholars and students of education. The titles published in this series are listed at the end ofthis volume.

3 Enhancing Humanity The Philosophical Foundations of Humanistic Education by NIMROD ALONI Hakibbutzim College ofeducation, Tel Avh~ Israel ~ Springer

4 A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN-I (PB) ISBN (PB) ISBN-I (HB) ISBN (HB) ISBN-I (ebook) ISBN (ebook) Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved 2007 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed in the Netherlands.

5 For Sima My wife and fellow musketeer

6 CONTENTS Preface Acknow ledgments xi XIII Introduction: Contradictory Encounters with Humanistic Education 1 Chapter I Between the Classical and Post-modern: Milestones and Central Approaches in Humanistic Education 9 1. The Initial Question: How to be a Human Being 2. The Cultural-Classical Approach and the Longing for Human Perfection 3. The Naturalistic-Romantic Approach and the Yearning for the Authenticity of Self-Actualization 4. The Existential Approach and the Yearning for the Authenticity of Self-Creation 5. The Critical-Radical Approach and the Yearning for Empowerment and Emancipation 6. Humanistic Education in the Age of the Repudiation of "Man": The Postmodern Challenge Chapter II An Integrative and Normative Model for Humanistic Education at the Advent of the 21st Century Introduction 1. Humanism as a Worldview and Moral Stance: A Normative Definition 2. Humanistic Education: An Integrative and Normative Definition 3. Three Principal Goals: Quality of Culture, Autonomous and Critical Thinking, and Authentic Personality (a) Quality of Culture (b) Autonomous and Critical Thinking (c) Authentic Personality vii

7 VIII 4. The Ways of Humanistic Education 104 (a) Balanced Combination Between Approaches and Goals 105 (b) Between Orientation and Information 107 (c) Educational Climate 108 (d) The Curriculum 110 (e) Connective and Communicative Teaching or the Tree of Knowledge as the Tree of Life 111 Chapter III Education Towards Humanistic Morality in an Era of Value Crisis Point of Departure The Sphere of Morality and its Manifestations in Everyday Life 122 (a) Values 126 (b) Qualities of Character 128 (c) Moral Principles Characteristics of a Value Crisis The Sources of the Authority of Moral Judgment The Methods and Limitations of Moral Humanistic Education 142 (a) Reciprocity as a Point of Departure for Moral Consideration 145 (b) Nurturing the Moral Point of View 146 (c) Sensitivity to Justice and Ensuring that Justice be Done 148 (d) Nurturing the Love of Fellow Humans, Benevolence and Amiability 154 (e) Nurturing a Striving Towards Perfection 154 (0 Nurturing a Positive Self-Image and a Feeling of self-worth 156 (g) Reinforcing Character and Personality 157 (h) Sensitive Caring for the Other, Empathic Understanding, Compassion and Tenderness 157 (i) Nurturing Moral Knowledge of Good and Bad Pedagogical Means 162

8 IX Chapter IV (a) Personal Example and the Inculcation of Habit 162 (b) Nurturing Cultural Literacy 164 (c) Nurturing Critical Literacy 165 (d) Teaching that Nurtures Moral Awareness and Sensitivity 168 Humanistic Education in the Test of Current Events 173 Introduction The Goal of Education and its Manifestations in the Professional Ethics of Educators and Teachers Education Toward Peace and Democracy Education Toward Culture or Submission to the Culture of Ratings The New Literacies and their Possible Contribution to Humanistic Education 204 Epilogue 215 Bibliography 219

9 PREFACE In Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea, Roquentin feels bound to listen to the sentimental ramblings about humanism and humanity by the Self-Taught Man. "Is it my fault," muses Roquentin, "in all he tells me, I recognize the lack of the genuine article? Is it my fault if, as he speaks, I see all the humanists I have known rise up? I have known so many ofthem!" And then he lists the radical humanist, the so-called "left" humanist, and Communist Humanist, the Catholic humanist, all claiming a passion for their fellow men. "But there are others, a swarm of others: the humanist philosopher who bends over his brothers like a wise older brother with a sense of his responsibility; the humanist who loves men as they are, the humanist who loves men as they ought to be, the one who wants to save them with their consent, and the one who will save them in spite of themselves..." Quite naturally, the skeptical Roquentin ends by saying how "they all hate each other: as individuals, not as men." Fully aware of the misuse and false comfort in the use of the term, Professor Aloni proceeds to restore meaning to the word as well as appropriate its educational significance. There is a freshness in this book, a restoration of a lost clarity, a regaining of authentic commitment. No longer oriented to an "essence" of what it means to be human, "humanism" in the context of this book cannot be used to paper over what has become a kind of wasteland where values are concerned. Nor can it be used to suggest that contemporary education (public or private or religious) is governed by identifiable principle or communally defined and accepted ideal. Perhaps most important in the pages that follow is the light cast on the problem of human existence in these days of blank indifference on the one hand, a search for sensation on the other. Professor Aloni is as interested in individual uniqueness as he is in community, and in what it means to become human in a postmodem moment of receding universals and an emptying out ofmeaningful purposes and goals. He knows as well as anyone the importance of empowering students to be not only wide-awake but also critical in their adoption ofworld-views. Beginning as he does in classical times, concluding with open questions regarding education - and the prospects of humanism - in the face of postmodemism, Professor Aloni weaves the past of humanism into the present. For him, the past does not press down upon the present or determine what we think and dream and try to teach today; but the possibilities in a revised humanism remain -sfor the individual as well as for the community. Xl

10 XII Preface We can only hope that under the deceiving brightness of an oversimplified and conventional "humanism," there are fewer instances of professed love for "humanity" coupled with hatred of particular persons. Professor Aloni hopes to pull aside the screens of obfuscation that have allowed so much of a so-called humanist education hide an erosion of ethical concern as well as concern for the individual self. At once he hopes to point the way towards the thus far undiscovered: a new philosophical consciousness in education, a humanism that works to liberate and at once to bring together, to make visible and palpable heretofore undefined possibility. Maxine Greene Professor ofphilosophy and Education (Emr.) Teachers College, Columbia University

11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Kibbutzim College of Education and Beit Berl College of Education for providing me academic and material support without which this work would not have come to completion. The Gilo Familiy Foundation has provided me with a generous grant that enabled me to concentrate on this work and bring it to successful completion. For this I am most thankful. Two good philosophers-friends have made important contribution to the book: Maxine Greene, of Teachers College-Columbia University, who was my mentor during my doctoral studies, has inspired me since then with her sensibilities and sensitivities, and wrote the Preface to this book; and Zvi Tauber, of Tel Aviv University, with whom I have discussed many of the ideas presented in the book and who contributed insightful comments on early versions ofthe various chapters. Finally, my mother, Shulamit, my wife Sima, and my sons Adam and Tal have always given me the emotional and intellectual backing that is so needed in the long and lonely odyssey ofwriting a book. I love them. XIII