1 ABC « 4 Dictionary of Concepts

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Acts (of parliament):

“….. (2) The Curriculum for a maintained school satisfied the requirements of this section if it is a balanced and broadly based curriculum which – (a) promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society; and (b) prepares such pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life”.

Education Reform Act 1988 (UK) , Chapter 40, Part, Schools, Chapter 1, The Curriculum

Act/ing (behaviour):

Expression of a thought, feeling or attitude via the body (and some would say via speech). The will to act is not sufficient – the will to act must be followed by a perceivable action even if the action is a failure when compared to relevant criteria. Acting is part of the feeling-knowing-acting triad.

Actions are outcomes of perceptions, of feeling and knowing and rationality, but also flow from the irrational part of the self They are not just evidence to others of the states of being of an individual but are also the means through which s/he gains knowledge of the world, and can be the spurrings to self-understanding – “Why do I do that?” Teaching, particularly through story work, can model reflection and introspection, and lead to deeper self understanding and self-possession.

Thoughts can be seen as actions, as in the higher-order, meta-thinking sense of PFC, Professor Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children. PFC is one of the three processes in SunWALK, that in turn relate to what are seen as the three primary ways of engaging with self, others and the world at large; Caring, Creativity and Criticality. These three Cs are seen as the three ‘primary colours’ of the human spirit out of admixtures of which all abilities are developed.

Acting is seen as vital in SunWALK as a form of learning. i.e. the experiential, action learning etc, since it is vital for all children and essential for those for whom it is the natural way to learn SEE the work of Howard Gardner.

Activate

Much is in the child all education needs to do is to activate each major human concern.

Much is in the child; all education needs to do is to activate each major human concern. To ‘activate is another way of saying educe or elicit – the point being that in these important matters wisdom, care, courage and a whole range of important defining human attributes need experience, sometimes only vicarious experience, sometimes direct experience to be made manifest. Other necessary learning needs include reflection and dialogue, expression and repetition.

Acts as Transactions of Learning:

Q1 What is the basic unit in the teaching relationship? Is it the lesson? The task? The module? Q2 What in your view constitutes a learning transaction – the ‘atom’ or ‘unit’ within the learning process – is it an act of personal communication? Between teacher and at least one pupil? Or between any two people that bears upon the learning of at least one pupil (e.g. pupil and parent, or pupil and another child?)?

Q3 Or is the unit a transaction of personal communication as in the therapeutic process called Transactional Analysis?

Teachers can experience more than a thousand interactions in a single working day. Many of these are interactions such as,

“Can we write on both sides of the paper?”,

“Can I go to the toilet?”,

“Peter are you listening?” “Yes.” “Well you weren’t, because you were talking to Jenny!”

are minor, but apart from the fatigue from the sheer quantity, many are more demanding.

Q4 Would you justify any, or all of, these as learning transactions?

Q5 Is the ‘unit’ any decision the teacher makes that bears upon the learning of at least one pupil? What about the decisions of governors, politicians, and parents?

Q6 In what ways might the transactions, and all of the decisions, of a Holistic Education teacher differ from other teachers?

Aesthetic/s; SEE Art and Beauty

Aims of education in SunWALK:

“I have come strongly to believe that it is the cultivation of imagination which should be the chief aim of education, and in which our present systems of education most conspicuously fail, where they do fail.”

Warnock, Mary, (1976), Imagination, London: Faber & Faber Ltd.

The aims of education, via the SunWALK model, are seen as:

To develop ‘technical’ learning in a human, moral, spiritualizing context. By technical is meant everything from functional literacy to an MSc in engineering. The triad we suggest is caring, creative and critical, (the I, WE and IT voices, plus the interpersonal/social) as opposed to the intellectual, moral and spiritual suggested by Elliott in the passage that follows;

“If we construe education as a process of induction into knowledge that is related to the things which matter for living then its intrinsic goods can be classified according to three of its interrelated dimensions of personal development: the intellectual, moral and spiritual. The intellectual goods consist of the development of the powers of human understanding in relation to the problems of living. The spiritual goods consist of the development of wisdom through the exercise of these intellectual powers, and the moral goods consist of those virtues or attitudes which are necessary conditions for developing the powers of the understanding and discovering solutions to the fundamental problems of living.”

John Elliott, p.148, Action Research for Educational Change, OPUS, Buckingham, UK, 1992

SunWALK is a process to develop Wise and Willing Action through Loving and Knowing, in community and in the light of higher-order values. Hart (2001) follows Lawson in seeing the promotion of wisdom as the task of education;

Lawson (1961, vii) concludes that, “wisdom lies in human action which possesses both intellectual and ethical orientation; and the promotion of such wisdom is the task of education.”

The full paper, Hart, Tobin, (2001), Teaching for Wisdom, in Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice Vol. 14 (2): 3-16, is available at; http://www.great-ideas.org

The aim of education is the making of persons. The purpose of the educator should be to guide the developing nature of the child to that unique perfection which makes the self complete in its inward life. Other aims may seem of more immediate purpose or practical importance – education for livelihood, education for leisure, education for service or for citizenship – but these must always remain secondary and subordinate to the making of persons, with their unique freedom, responsibility and immortality. Beck in Aims in Education p 122

SEE: What’s Wrong with Education?; Wisdom, Caring Creativity and Criticality

Alienation:

“Freire shows us how the concept of extension leads to actions which transform the peasant into a “thing”, an object of development projects which negate him as a being capable of transforming the world.”

Jacques Chonchol p.88, Education: The Practice of Freedom

In SunWALK alienation is primarily seen as the condition of severe and prolonged estrangement in which the individual feels her/him self to have no place, in one or more relevant groups, and who feels (violent) antipathetic to those groups. Such estrangement can be very expensive for the individuals and for the groups.

SunWALK is concerned with minimizing alienation through effectively equipping the individual to claim a place in her/his society and this starts with Lipman’s notion of the class as ‘a community of inquiry’, including a high degree of democracy in its processes.

Alienation, according to Tom Heaney, is oppositional otherness–the simultaneous presence of conflict and distance. He points out that in the context of Freirean thinking there is a positive form that is a pre-requisite in creativity – opposing views bring forth newness or development. Perhaps the dialectical could be viewed as oppositional togetherness !

Heaney, Tom, http://nlu.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Documents/FreireIssues.html

Art – A definition of art given by Richard Anderson:

Art is culturally significant meaning, skilfully encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium.

The Spirit of Art and the art of spirit 12th June 2005

To help understand ‘the spirit of art’ I like the definition of art, given by Richard Anderson[i][i][i].; Art is culturally significant meaning, skilfully encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium. To this I would want to add that art = the products of the imaginative power to re-present subjectively not only the world around us, but also the life of our inner world of consciousness. In particular it says something important about the human condition and, what it says, it says re-presentationally, that is via the subjective experience and viewpoint of the artist – using whatever is the chosen medium. It says ‘this is how I experienced or feel about or see this phenomenon’.

Craft on the other hand says something important about itself e.g. this is a fine bowl, clearly made by a fine potter. Craft doesn’t of itself say symbolically important things about the human condition, though it can be the agency for important statements. When a pot is made to symbolize something – the hunger of the poor – it becomes art. Craft is more direct; it is about the ‘isness’ of the craft object – and its referentiality is confined to its maker and the skill status of the maker, and perhaps to other such pots and potters. A Bernard Leach pot speaks of its supreme status as a pot, and of his consummate skill as a potter, and perhaps of how most other pots are lesser beings. Art demands that we consider some aspect of the great human questions. Craft has a purpose (functional or decorative) that is not, in its normal use, to take us deep into our humanity and into consideration of the great human concerns. A Bernard Leach pot only works with the consummate skill of that great master – the skill could not be substituted by a lesser maker. Much art on the other hand now works with or without craft skill on the part of the maker, (we might regret this, but this is the case).

The reason that the Brillo Pad boxes – see http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artwork_e.jsp?mkey=7249 are art is that they lead us into consideration of a multitude of issues concerning our world – and these issues take us deep into our humanity and to consideration of the great issues. The Warhol piece is resonant not with itself as a cardboard container but with questions and implications in and around our society and beyond that in and around that more non-culturally-specific, abstract and generalized. In craft terms they (or at least the ones that I’ve seen) weren’t that well made – and they certainly weren’t made for holding Brillo Pads or to sell Brillo Pads. If contemplation of a pot leads us into consideration of great human concerns it is because we have changed its intended use, purpose and identity through contemplation – the craft object has been ‘forced’ into being the agency of art experience. The same is true of a pencil. Placed in a gallery a pencil becomes an art object – but in doing so we have usurped its original use, purpose and identity. Art and craft objects belong to a different ontological category. The ‘isness’ of a craft object speaks of itself, in terms ….. The ‘isness’ of an art object is a range of referential possibilities (arranged in some kind of order or pattern and space) that we co-construct.

The essential thing about art for me is that it is born of one of the defining characteristics of being human – our essential need for symbolic construction and deconstruction. Art objects (or performances) re-present concerns other than itself. Picasso’s Guernica for example is a representation of, or at least a bridge to, the construing of human horror and disgust at war and oppression – and to what makes us human or less than human. As re-presentation art is a bridge to universes of experience and feeling – and thought. Often art, like literary metaphor, enables great breadth and depth of meaning-making. Both help us feel more and help us occupy more ‘space’ in enlarging universes. On the other hand a great pot stands for itself (and for its place in the order of things). A great pot is not a bridge to such universe – unless we choose to contextualize it that way! Consequently craft can always be art, but art can never be craft. This is the case even though art might communicate via great craft skill – the artist’s or someone else’s! Craft is encoded in skill. Art is encoded in significance and signifying possibilities and possibilities for signification.

Concerning the ‘art of spirit’ for me it is to be seen in the joy and pain of constructing (making) and de-constructing (appreciating) of willing action through loving and knowing in the light of the ‘sun’ of higher-order values. (see www.holisticeducation.org.uk) Roger Prentice ver 12^th June 2005

Attitude:

An attitude can be described as a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner to a given object.

Williams, Allan/Dobson, Paul/Walters, Mike, (1989), Changing Culture: New Organizational Approaches, London: Institute of Personnel p36

Authenticity: (see Autonomous)

The subjective voice of the individual that expresses her/his unique combination of qualities and abilities, in relation to the communities of which s/he is part.

The authentic expression of the uniqueness of the individual is seen as a goal of education within SunWALK. Such a goal however, which is always subject to the limits and freedoms brought by the society in which the individual lives, is seen by some as contrary to the common good, or at least as very secondary to the good of the group. Here this development of the subjective voice, it is seen as vital in order than the individual’s gifts might be developed for the good of groups to which s/he belongs.

Charles Taylor argues powerfully for a positive view of authenticity. He points out that the modern notion of authenticity is self-referential but says there is a vital distinction between self-referentiality as orientation and self-referentiality as content. Confusing the two he says is disastrous. (pp. 81-82)

This jibes well with the distinction that others make between individuality and individualism. In SunWALK I take the view that a balanced middle way makes most sense. Individuality is vital, not just for the individual but for what s/he brings to others. The religious/spiritual view, shared here, is that authenticity and autonomy is best developed via a sense of service of others. The balance then recognizes the needs of others, and society as a whole, in the process of the individual’s development of autonomy and authenticity.

Such concern for balance also relates to the sociological debate between agency and structure. The view in SunWALK is that no agency exists, or can develop, with enculturization being present both as external and internal phenomena that helps shape perception. Having said that our task is to achieve capabilities that enable us to see through the limits of our own culture, as it exists internally as well as externally. The metaphor of a potter, his hands, clay and the wheel relates in the sense that there is always spirit and form (and formation) in the making of a pot.

Taylor, Charles, (1991), The Ethics of Authenticity Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

Peter Abbs (1993) gave a very interesting 8 point view of authenticity. He suggests eight characteristics to prove education as a reality distinct from other activities such as training or memorising or exam passing. He sees these characteristics as taking us a long way from the present government’s obsession with delivery, control, prescription and standardization. These characteristics, Abbs considers, have Socrates as their source. The eight characteristics that Abbs sees distinguishing authentic education are:

1) commitment to understanding;

2) seeing education as inherently valuable;

3) experiencing education as existential in the sense of the individual taking responsibility for something which cannot be bought or transferred but which can be released by the right agent including a teacher;

4) level of engagement (being utterly absorbed) – not just the mind but the whole personality;

5) recognising that education is open-ended and that of necessity we live with uncertainties with scientific theories only being provisional explanations;

6) being collaborative (in dialogue) both in the sense of wisdom passed down the ages, and as the trust and relations within the group or class or seminar;

7) recognising diversity including plurality in modes of understanding, ways of knowing;

acknowledging transcendence – moments in which one can sense abiding value and a sense of the ordinary self surpassing itself, seeming to be fully alive but in another realm.

Abbs, Peter, “On the Need for the Socratic”, p.1, and “On Intellectual Research as Socratic Activity” p.66 in Aspects of Education, Socratic Ed. No.49, Inst. of Ed. University of Hull 1993

From a Baha’i perspective, I take authenticity and the autonomous state of being as being vital, from this passage from Baha’i writings concerning justice:

O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbour. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes. (Baha’u'llah: Arabic Hidden Words, Page: 2)

Interestingly I found a similar quotation attributed to Albert Einstein;

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”

The interesting ideas in the Baha’i quotation include; the reiteration of justice as the supreme virtue, the promise that God (or Mystery or the Other or the Whole?) can only speak to the individual if justice is ‘enshrined’, the promise that through justice as an internal condition we will see reality and see authentically not vicariously, and manifest knowing that is authentic and not second-hand, the notion that we become autonomous through justice as well as authentic, the notion that realization of this state of being and set of capabilities is through contemplation using the heart-mind (see Mind, Heart-mind and Soul).

The Hidden Word concerning justice admonishes us to ‘ponder in our hearts’. This is interesting in that it says ‘heart’ not mind, and certainly not brain. Under ‘consciousness’ and in the main body of the dissertation I have suggested, as a new or richer epistemology that consciousness can be thought of as heart-mind, and that the peculiar desire to separate head and heart in the West has been a curse, as well as possibly a bringer of some benefits.

Authenticity is seen as vital because it is highly developed subjectivity that releases capabilities, and the key to a civilized society is seen as how it manages the public-private, objective-subjective, moral-utilitarian sets of relationships.

Authenticity, and subjectivity, are vital because freedom is necessary to act responsibility. Fundamentalism not only takes away rights, from a human rights point of view, it absolves individuals from having to think hard and make difficult decisions.

Trilling (1971) deals with authenticity as a criterion of art an as a quality of the personal life.

SEE: Creativity

Autobiography: see also story and personal history

Autobiography in SunWALK is seen as an indispensable variable in the process of education. The child can use various media to give account of her/his life from a variety of points of view

It is a variable in the sense that teachers can use autobiography more or less at different times in the child’s school career. However it must be used carefully so as not to trespass on what is personal and private to the pupil. Used sensitively autobiography can be a revelation, or revelatory process, for the pupil. Some pupils are so imbued with literalism and a narrow sense of truth-telling that it is a revelation to teach them that it is legitimate to fuse ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’. Although the s/he should never seek to play the therapist no good teacher, especially of the arts can fail to be aware that good learning experiences can be transforming or healing experiences. Autobiographic work can be a wellspring for creativity. It can build a more positive self-image, and self-esteem. It can teach self-understanding, and understanding of the ‘world’. It can enable the creation of alternatives – of pasts and futures, of experiences and dreams. Probably it can teach self-forgiveness, and possibly the ability to see others in a more positive way. All of these benefits should accrue in implicit and indirect ways. They should not be the avowed, explicit, purposes of such teaching. As with much good teaching they are the desired by-products as when an artist sits with a blank sheet of paper – by-products because it is the fullness of heart and the focus of mind that counts, the journey is mysterious because each touch of the brush creates new dialogue between painter and the piece of work and the sensed direction, (see Dialogue and Philosophy for Children). So much teaching is now forced into a ‘paint-by-numbers’ mode by the stultifying central government control (see Authenticity, Aims etc.)

Autobiography has also become a legitimate form within the qualitative research paradigm. See;

Bullough R.V., Pinnegar S., (2001) Guidelines for Quality in Autobiographical Forms of Self-Study Research, in Educational Researcher, Vol 30. No. 3, pp. 13-21

Autonomous: (see Authenticity)

Autonomy is seen as ‘being your own woman or man’ – the self-acquired ability to feel, think and act free of the negative (or positive?) attachments that come via self, family and community/culture.

Concerning the so-called agency-structure argument, SunWALK, as in many respects, takes a middle path and sees that a person is relatively free and relatively constrained by her culture. However we can increase our ability to be free of our constraints, though probably never completely so.

For SunWALK authenticity and autonomy are closely related, and mutually inclusive. The individual cannot be authentic without an appropriate degree of autonomy, or vice versa. Autonomy is related to the notion of ‘detachment’ from the ‘world’ in Baha’i teachings, and similar teachings exist in the other main religions – see the Mysticism in World Religions site – http://www.digiserve.com/mystic/nav/F_detachment.htm. The point here is that detachment (from attachment to the ‘world’ according to Baha’i writings[ii][ii][i]) is a function of human agency as well as, or in spite of, a function of whatever is ‘gifted’ by the society in which the individual lives. That is autonomy is not primarily located in the political sphere but in the spiritual sphere – freedom is a state of heart and mind. Charles Taylor takes the view (p.28) that Kant reinterpreted the notion of freedom, in purely moral terms, as autonomy, but freedom here can be greater in a noble prisoner, than in someone in whichever is the world’s finest democracy Denmark?, Sweden?, Scotland? .

The interesting ideas in the Baha’i quotation cited above i.e.;

include; the reiteration of justice as the supreme virtue, the promise that God (or Mystery or the Other or the Whole?) can only speak to the individual if justice is ‘enshrined’, the promise that through justice as an internal condition we will see reality and see authentically not vicariously, and manifest knowing that is authentic and not second-hand, the notion that we become autonomous through justice as well as authentic, the notion that realization of this state of being and set of capabilities is through contemplation using the heart-mind (see Mind, Heart-mind and Soul).

Taylor, Charles, (1991), The Ethics of Authenticity Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

Awe: SEE – Wonder, Being, Philosophy

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvellous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity. Albert Einstein

Heschel (1963 p. 76) identifies for us a special sub-section of meaning; transcendent meaning, awareness of which he says comes from the sense of the ineffable.

The awareness of transcendent meaning comes with the sense of the ineffable. The imperative of awe is its certificate of evidence, a universal response which we experience not because we desire to, but because we are stunned and cannot brave the impact of the sublime. It is a meaning wrapped in mystery.” A.J. Heschel, p.77, Who Is Man?

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things.” A.J. Heschel, p.89, Who Is Man?

“Faith is not belief, an assent to a proposition; faith is attachment to transcendence, to the meaning beyond the mystery.

Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe. Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith.” A.J. Heschel, p.89, Who Is Man?

Until moved elsewhere I stand theologically where Abraham J Heschel stood. (1989 The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture, Basil Blackwell Oxford 1989) He argues for the centrality of human subjectivity as a theological category, yet asserts the transcendent otherness of God.

Revelation is similarly two-sided: the commandments issued by God at Sinai, and the experience of the event in human consciousness of those present and properly attuned to spiritual experience. The Bible, he wrote, is God’s book about human beings, but the beginning of theology must come in cultivating the human experience of wonder, awe and mystery. Incidentally he explained his political activism, he marched with Martin Luther King who considered him a prophet, as derived from the Hebrew prophets. They represent, he said, “the ceaseless shattering of indifference.” He was the major Jewish spokesman on issues of social injustice, until his death in 1972.

In Baha’u’llah’s ‘answer’ to the Sufis the individual in search of spiritual advancement comes to the sixth of the seven valleys, or states of being and understanding,

THE VALLEY OF WONDERMENT and is tossed in the oceans of grandeur, and at every moment his wonder groweth. Now he seeth the shape of wealth as poverty itself, and the essence of freedom as sheer impotence. Now is he struck dumb with the beauty of the All-Glorious; again is he wearied out with his own life. How many a mystic tree hath this whirlwind of wonderment snatched by the roots, how many a soul hath it exhausted. For in this Valley the traveler is flung into confusion, albeit, in the eye of him who hath attained, such marvels are esteemed and well beloved. At every moment he beholdeth a wondrous world, a new creation, and goeth from astonishment to astonishment, and is lost in awe at the works of the Lord of Oneness. (Baha’u'llah: Seven Valleys and Four Valleys, Pages: 31-32)

“Barfield writes that ‘reverence is not simply a virtue for bolstering up the social establishment. It is an organ of perception for a whole range of qualities that are as imperceptible without it as another whole range is imperceptible without an ear for music.’ One is reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s aphorism, ‘In the uttermost meaning of the words thought is devout, and devotion is thought,’ ……” Sloan, p.160, Insight-Imagination

Beauty and the aesthetic: see also Creative/ity and Subjectivity

The Aesthetic and Moral Education –

The claim is often made that the moral value of art lies in its ability to give us imaginative insight into other people. My account of literature as showing how things might be supports this claim. What, it might be asked, has imaginative insight to do with morality? The answer is that a better understanding of other people contributes to the development of moral virtues. We understand them better. Understanding ourselves and understanding others are connected since as human beings we all have things in common. Moreover, if we understand ourselves we may be capable of effective moral action. Nevertheless, in morality understanding ourselves is less important than understanding others. Arnold’s view that poetry can console and sustain us and Leavis’s stress on maturity and self-awareness suggest a misleading account of what literature can do and a skewed picture of morality. If we amend their account to say that literature can give us insight into others as well as ourselves, then we can see one way in which aesthetically good literature is also of moral value.

If we regard literature as giving us insight into others, we must recognize that it might enable us to see the world from the point of view of those who are evil and corrupt and so might lead us to sympathise with them. ‘Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner’, as the saying goes.

Sheppard Anne – Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art, OPUS (Oxford University Press), Oxford UK, 1987

Behaviour: see Acting

Being & Becoming: SEE also: awe, wonder

What one is, and how successfully one (pupils and teacher) is moving toward the fullest expression possible of what is potential

Being is a potential, a capacity, which is written in the very finest patterning of our psychic structure. It is mysteriously encoded within our innate humanity. And, as Abraham Maslow points out in his pioneering work Toward a Psychology of Being, as a capacity it is also a need, and therefore an intrinsic value. Just as our physical capacities to see and hear, for example are transformed into needs in the same way. We shall discover that as our capacity, Being is transformed into our highest need, and therefore our highest value. This is neither an external nor an internal value. It is a value which has to be lived. It can only be actualized dialectically through interacting with our environment. Here is Maslow;

“Man demonstrates in his own nature a pressure toward fuller and fuller Being, more and more perfect actualization of his humanness in exactly the same naturalistic, scientific sense that an acorn may be said to be ‘pressing forward’ being an oak tree, or that a tiger can be observed to ‘push forward’ being tigerish, or a horse toward being equine. Man is ultimately not moulded or shaped into humanness, or taught to be human. The role of the environment is ultimately to permit him or help him to actualize his own potentialities, not its potentialities. The environment does not give him potentialities and capacities; he has them in inchoate or embryonic form, just exactly as he has embryonic arms and legs. And creativeness, spontaneity, selfhood, authenticity, caring for others, being able to love, yearning for truth are embryonic potentialities belonging to his species-membership just as much as are his arms. legs and brain and eyes. “

Hamilton p 132 in Earthdream

Cupitt (2000) in discussing the way into philosophy brings together mythos and logos, the ocean and the shoreline;

Perhaps the oldest and best way into philosophy, perhaps the pre-Socratic way, is through awe and wonder at Being. By this I mean the continual gratuitous outpouring of all existence or, put more simply, the forthcomingness of everything. It is this upon which we should concentrate our attention, but unfortunately our everything’s be-ing is usually badly distorted and deformed by the misuse of the question of being in the service of theistic apologetics – bad ontology, and bad religion. People ask, for example, why there is anything, rather than nothing – their intention being to set up the existence of any finite thing as a problem to be solved by invoking God. This is bad philosophy and the best answer to the question, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” is, “Why not?” Nobody is ever going to be in the situation in which nothing exists and s/he can congratulate her/him self on having no problem.

Being is in one sense perfectly ordinary, and when we are contemplating it we are not contemplating anything that we have reason to call unexpected and puzzling. We are not looking at something that in turn is looking over its own shoulder and trying to see its own cause. We are simple attending to everything’s easy spontaneous continual silent out pouring. Everything comes forward and is just there. Its not a problem; there’s no difficulty about it. Its just wonderful. I used the word ‘gratuitous’ earlier to try to catch what seems to be the groundless, reckless generosity of all existence. That is what is awesome. Pure contingency, always pouring out of nowhere for no reason.

Cupitt Don (2000) Philosophy’s Own Religion London:SCM press

The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything—and one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the “productive” man a yet higher species.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. Human, All Too Human, aph. 210 (1878)

One way to think about being is to explore positions on a scale of dualities, for example;

Mode/s of being:

male…………..female

control……….freedom

controlling……nurturing

fascist………..democratic

nationalistic…world-minded

atomistic……..holistic

fragmented….connected

competitive…..co-operative

rejecting……….nurturing

selfish…………..just

left-brain……….right-brain

yang……………..yin

SEE MYTHOS AND LOGOS

Beliefs: “Man is made by his belief . As he believes so he is.” Bhagavad Gita

“A belief refers to the information that an individual has about an object. Specifically, a belief links an object to some attribute”.

Williams, Allan/Dobson, Paul/Walters, Mike, (1989), Changing Culture: New Organizational Approaches, London: Institute of Personnel p35

Williams, Dobson and Walters (1989) view a belief as the (internalized and operationalized) information an individual has about an object. Specifically a belief links an object to some attribute. The object of a belief may be a person, a group of people, an institution, a behaviour, a policy, an event etc. The associated attribute may be any object, trait, property, quality, characteristic,, outcome or event. Concerning belief formation they suggest the following (p. 34)

Information Observation & Behaviour

Inference

Beliefs

Williams, Allan/Dobson, Paul/Walters, Mike, (1989), Changing Culture: New Organizational Approaches, London: Institute of Personnel Management

Laughlin (1996) says in a web paper entitled Tangent: Belief And Evidence, “Most of the meaning that informs experience is ……made up of tacit knowledge; that is, knowledge that operates below the level of awareness. Knowledge only becomes belief when knowledge takes a relatively abstract conceptual or imaginal form and the truth value of the knowledge somehow comes into question. In other words, belief requires some awareness of propositional knowledge and some practical or affectively loaded evaluation of the knowledge to be made. To quote Ward Goodenough in his 1990 American Anthropologist paper entitled “Evolution of the Human Capacity for Beliefs:”

“Beliefs are propositions about the relations among things to which those who believe have made some kind of commitment. Commitment may be for pragmatic or emotional reasons. A proposition’s credibility may appear obvious from experience, or a proposition may seem to be the most prudent assumption on which to act. In either case, the commitment has a pragmatic basis. Emotional commitment to a proposition occurs when a person wants or feels a need for it to be true because of what its truth implies about things that matter.”

Laughlin Charlie (1996) http://www.carleton.ca/~claughli/tutbelef.htm

Knowledge is commonly defined as “justified, true belief,” a concept first introduced by Plato.

Aristotle, along with many other classical Greek thinkers, believed that the appropriateness of any particular form of knowledge depends on the telos, or purpose, it serves. In brief:

The purpose of a theoretical discipline is the pursuit of truth through contemplation; its telos is the attainment of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of the productive sciences is to make something; their telos is the production of some artefact. The practical disciplines are those sciences which deal with ethical and political life; their telos is practical wisdom and knowledge. (Carr & Kemmis 1986: 32) http://www.infed.org/biblio/knowledge.htm

This way of separating different areas of knowledge can be seen, for example, in the way that we might view ‘pure maths’ (theoretical), tool-making (productive), and social work training (practical). Thus, how we see knowledge and the purpose it serves has a profound effect on the way we view education. It leads to differing understandings of curriculum content and method.

The practical

People begin with a situation or question which they consider in relation to what they think makes for human flourishing.

the good

They are guided by a moral disposition to act truly and rightly.

phronesis

This enables them to engage with the situation as committed thinkers and actors.

praxis

The outcome is a process.

interaction

Brain – left-brain, right-brain:

In SunWALK the brain is seen as the chief instrument of the mind. The mind as the ‘light’ of intellect that emanates from the soul. The soul is eternal, therefore the mind is also eternal – it simply will not use the brain and sensory-nervous system in the next ‘world’. The mind however is not see as in the West where reason-domination has prevailed from the time of the Enlightenment, (and in some Greek views earlier). Instead the soul, (individuated human spirit) is seen as feeling and reason (heart and head) and together are equated with consciousness i.e. mind is less and heart is more that Western empiricism and positivism would have us believe. This we can term heart-mind as the feeling-thinking capacities in being human. Even more correctly it is soul-heart-mind. (Heart-mind is personhood if you add material that is deeply stored, or repressed, plus unrealized potential, plus the infinity that we have through our heart connection i.e. the immanent God). The denial of feelings and the spiritual is seen as disastrous, and something to recover, in a balanced way – hence a model of knowing that balances Wilber’s three forms I-knowing, WE-knowing and IT-knowing, the creative, the moral-interpersonal and science. The three primary modes equate to caring, heart as a whole, creative – right-brain and critical – left-brain.

Brain research accelerated in the second half of the 20thC and although it is seen that the two hemispheres of the brain are used for different tasks, more complex understandings have come to light see –

http://www.science-frontiers.com/cgi-bin/webglimpse/home/science/science-frontiers-www?query=right%3Bbrain&case=&whole=&lines=&errors=0&age=&maxfiles=100&maxlines=30&maxchars=10000&cache=yes

Here are some notes from the well-known book by Betty Edwards

Edwards, Betty, (1993) Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, London:HarperCollins

Left and Right Sides of the Brain – Betty Edwards

During the 1960s, further research on the corpus callosum caused scientists to postulate a view of the relative capabilities of the two halves of the human brain: that both hemispheres are involved in higher cognitive functioning, with each half of the brain specialised in complementary fashion for different modes of thinking, both highly complex.

The main theme to emerge .. is that there appear to be two modes of thinking, verbal and non-verbal, represented rather separately in left and right hemispheres, respectively, and that our educational system, as well as science in general, tends to neglect the non-verbal form of intellect. What it comes down to is that modern society discriminates against the right hemisphere. Roger Sperry

Further evidence accumulated showed that the mode of the left hemisphere is verbal and analytic, while that of the right is non-verbal and global. New evidence found by Jerre Levy in her doctoral studies showed that the mode of processing used by the right brain is rapid, complex, whole-pattern, spatial, and perceptual – processing that is not only different from but comparable in complexity to the left brain’s verbal, analytic mode. It was also found that the the two modes of processing interfere with each other, preventing maximal performance.

Two Ways of Knowing

Along with the opposite connotations of left and right in our language, concepts of the duality, or two sidedness, of human nature and thought have been postulated by philosophers, teachers, and scientists form many different times and cultures. The key idea is that there are two parallel “ways of knowing”.

Parallel ways of knowing (J. E. Bogen)

intellect	intuition
convergent	divergent
digital	analogic
secondary	primary
Abstract	concrete
directed	free
propositional	imaginative
analalytic	relational
lineal	nonlineal
rational	intuitive
sequential	multiple
analytic	holistic
objective	subjective
successive	simultaneous

The Duality of Yin and Yang (I Ching)

Yin	Yang
feminine	masculine
negative	positive
moon	sun
darkness	light
yielding	aggressive
left side	right side
warm	cold
autumn	spring
winter	summer
unconscious	conscious
right brain	left brain
emotion	reason

L-mode	R-mode
L-mode is the “right-handed,”, left-hemisphere mode. The L is foursquare, upright, sensible, direct, true, hard-edged, unfanciful, forceful.	R-mode is the “left-handed,” “right-hemisphere mode. The R is curvy, flexible, more playful in its unexpected twists and turns, more complex, diagonal, fanciful.

Left Brain	Right Brain
step-by-step reason- ing	mystical
logical	musical
mathematical	“creative”
speaking	visual-pictorial
dominates right brain	submissive to the left brain
pattern user	pattern seeker

Caring: “A person is only as good as what they love.” Saul Bellow

Caring is seen as the ability to be other-centred, to care kindly or respectfully or lovingly for others, but it does not exclude self-care and such vital, homely skills as tidiness and the like.

Seen in SunWALK as one of the three intrapersonal ‘primary colours’ or modes of engagement, of the human spirit, that are utilized in facing, individually and interpersonally, progressively more challenging tasks to nurture the development of abilities.

Less homely ‘caring’ is ‘applied’ love. Rollo May lets Socrates answer the question, “What is love”. ……”He is neither mortal nor immortal, but a mean between the two….He is a great spirit (daimon) and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal…. He is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides men and gods, and therefore in him all is bound together…..” Love & Will p78

May goes on to say that Eros is not a god in the sense of being above man, but the power that binds all things and all men together (p 78). He goes onto say (p 79) that eros is the binding element par excellence. It is the bridge between being and becoming, and it binds fact and value together. Eros, in short, is the original creative force… now transmuted into power which is both ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the person. Eros is presented as very similar to the concept of intentionality presented in Love and Will by May – both presuppose that man pushes toward uniting himself with the object not only of his love but his knowledge.

May, Rollo, (1969), Love and Will, London: Souvenir Press

The following exquisitely beautiful passage by Abdu’l-Baha presents love as the unifying force for the whole of Creation and the means through which knowledge comes into being!

Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God’s holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings.

Love is heaven’s kindly light, the Holy Spirit’s eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul.

Love is the cause of God’s revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things.

Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next.

Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul.

Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms.

Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe.

Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.

(`Abdu’l-Baha: Selections … `Abdu’l-Baha, Pages: 27-28)

Caring concerns how the individual functions interpersonally. It is the moral domain, the WE voice of knowing, and draws upon both the objective abilities especially associated with ‘criticality’ and the subjective abilities associated with ‘creativity’.

In the following list a range of caring qualities are presented. One simple way to think about them is in a friendship relationship in which we would appreciate any combination of such qualities in a person who was our friend – correspondingly such qualities would be the very essence of friendship that we could offer another.

It is more common to see a taxonomy of critical or philosophical skills SEE CRITICALITY, but less common to see taxonomies for creativity and caring. Below is a suggested partial taxonomy for caring, inspired by the Islamic 99 Names of God. I have linked these caring qualities to friendship, since friendship is a form of the core ethic of other-centredness or living in such a way as to support others in their whole-person development;

Taxonomy of caring qualities

(virtues names and attributes) such as might be found in a friendship relationship

1. Merciful

2. Compassionate

3. Noble

4. Holy

5. Peaceful Tranquil

6. Faithful, Trustworthy

7. Protector

8. Compelling

9. Creative

10. Forgiving

11. Knowing/knowledgeable

12. Esteem-giving

13. Discerning

14. Just

15. Kind

16. Truthful

17. Truth-seeking

18. Gentle

19. Gracious.

20. Patient

21. Generous

22. Wise

23. Steadfast

24. Encouraging

25. Strong

26. Empowering

27. Self-effacing

28. ‘Nourishing’

29. Steadfast

30. Honourable

31. Supportive

32. Kind

33. Beneficent

34. Good

Character;

Character especially emphasizes moral and ethical qualities: “Education has for

its object the formation of character” Herbert Spencer

There is always a tension between the principle of nurturing towards commitment to the virtues on the one hand and forcing obedience and social control on the other. The fine line it seems is much like the creative-aesthetic judgement that ensures an outstanding and moving piece on the one hand and, on the other hand, a piece of worthy, but potentially turgid, didacticism – say Lear versus the most strident bits of Shaw.

Childhood/Children:

Every child is potentially the light of the world – and at the same time its darkness; wherefore must the question of education be accounted as of primary importance.

Abdu’l- Baha SAB 130

Children – A World Worthy of its Children

EACH CHILD IS A WORLD OF POTENTIAL “We should say to each of them, ‘Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the world there is no other child like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been a child like you. And look at your body – what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. And when you grow up, can you harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work – we must all work – to make this world worthy of its children.” Pablo Casals

Community/community responsibility:

A true community is a group in which justice, truth, beauty and goodness prevail, in order to nurture the needs of all members, as well as any particular purpose for which the group was formed.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for enough good people to do nothing.

Edmund Burke p 151 The Promise of World Peace

Community of inquiry – the class as:

A key concept in Prof. Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children programme. The class is seen as a group in which

students listen to one another with respect, build on one another’s ideas, challenge one another to supply reasons for otherwise unsupported opinions, assist each other in drawing inferences from what has been said, and seek to identify one another’s assumptions. A community of inquiry attempts to fools the inquiry where it leads rather than being penned in by the boundary lines of existing disciplines. A dialogue tries to confirm to logic, it moves forward indirectly like a boat tacking into the wind, but in the process comes to resemble that of thinking itself. Consequently, when the process is internalized or introjected by the participants, they come to think in moves that resemble its procedures. They come to think as the process thinks.

Lipman, Matthew, (1991), Thinking in Education, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press pp 15-16

Compassion:

Compassion = ‘feeling together with’.

Dark is the world to me, for all of its cities and stars, if not for the breath of compassion that God blew in me when he formed me of dust and clay, more clay, more compassion than my nerves can bear. God, I am alone with my compassion within my limbs. Dark are my limbs for me; if not for Thee, who could stand such anguish, such disgrace?

When the soul of man is asked: What is God to you? There is only one answer that survives all theories which we carry to the grave: He is full of compassion. The Tetragrammaton, the great Name, we do not how to pronounce, but we are taught to know what it stands for: ‘compassion’.

Heschel A. J. (1971), Man is Not Alone, New York: Octagon Books pp. 147-148

Blum distinguishes between personal feelings and altruistic emotions.

Connectedness;

We all seem to have some innate sense of relationship to the world and other persons; yet our habitual ways of thinking often deny this connectedness ………………………. turned into an absolute. Sloan p151

Consciousness: (see note in introduction above on ‘consciousness’)

The subjective phenomenon of self-awareness that normally accompanies human experience.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/index.htm

Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi, (1998), following Broadbent (1958) and Pope and Singer (1978) sees consciousness as, “comprised of three subsystems; attention, which takes notice of information available; awareness, which interprets the information; and memory which stores the information. The content of consciousness is experience, that is, the sum of the information that enters it, and its interpretation by awareness.” In the last point he is following James (1890).

Attention is the medium that makes information appear in consciousness.

This 3 stage process connects with the important point concerning meaning-making. Information is converted to meaning through what is here called interpretation. However it is perfectly possible for the meaning, that the pupil/students makes, is that it is meaningless, being required, simply as part of endurance to get a ticket to a job or to the next stage. In which case s/he simple regurgitates what’s required and maintains a ‘schizophrenic’ duality of worlds – one real and personal, the other school.

Csikszentmilhalyi, Mihaly, & Csikszentmihalyi, Isabell Selega, Eds (1998), Optimal Experience – Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness, Cambridge UK : Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge

Consciousness, as a state of being and as process, is found in this quotation from William James;

“Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing joined; it flows. A ‘river’ or a ’stream’ are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking about it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life.”

– William James, Principles of Psychology http://www.wisdomtalk.org//basisofgenius.html

Consultation: – see group process

‘take ye counsel together in all matters, inasmuch as consultation is the lamp of guidance which leadeth the way and is the bestower of understanding (TB 168)

“Say; no man can attain his true station except through his justice. No power can exist except through unity. No welfare and no well-being can be attained except through consultation.”

“Consultation bestoweth greater awareness and transmuteth conjecture into certitude. It is a shining light which, in a dark world, leadeth the way and guideth. For everything there is and will continue to be a station of perfection and maturity. The maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation.”

Baha’u'llah, Consultation: A Compilation, p.3 Nightingale Books

Cosmology:

One spiritual view of the structure of the universe that is popular amongst holistic educators is that which is contained within Perennial Philosophy. The Perennial Philosophy view, in summary, is written about by Ken Wilber in various of his writings. This briefest of summaries comes from his book Grace and Grit;

1. Spirit exists.

2. Spirit is found within.

3. Most of us don’t realize this Spirit within, however, because we are living in a world of sin, separation, and duality–that is,

we are living in a fallen or illusory state.

4. There is a way out of this fallen state of sin and illusion, there is a Path to our liberation.

5. If we follow this path to its conclusion, the result is a Rebirth or Enlightenment, a direct experience of Spirit within, a Supreme Liberation, which– marks the end of sin and suffering, and which — issues in social action of mercy and compassion on behalf of all sentient beings.

This cosmological view is virtually identical with the vie of mysticism given by Platt.

See: Mysticism.

This view the ‘world’ and of reality is a process view c.f. the mechanistic view that is attributed to Descartes

Creativity:

Creativity in SunWALK refers to the development of the subjective voice.

The excellent www.artlex.com site has the following entry on blocks to creativity

blocks to creativity – Important to successful living, creativity is an essential component of an artist’s productivity. Creativity can flourish when it is motivated. Blocks to creativity are things that can interfere with it. Here are lists of blocks of two kinds: environmental and cultural.

Environmental blocks to creativity:

1 Physical surroundings.

One’s surroundings must provide space, furnishings, lighting, atmosphere, sound, odor, safety, and comforts of adequate quality. Outside people and things must not overly intrude. Examples of problematic surroundings: a roof that’s leaking, air that’s too hot or too cold, a relative or neighbor that’s threatening or crying.

2 Lack of cooperation or trust in a group.

When a collaborative creative group is formed, an inflexible or inconsiderate member can sabotage the process.

3 An autocratic leader.

When someone takes control of what ideas will be entertained, the ideas of others are frustrated. Establishing the roles of team members (the rules members are expected to follow) as early as possible is helpful.

4 Lack of physical, economic, or organizational help.

Examples: Hunger, illness, and financial worries. Or, an educator, gallery, client, or grant-provider whose rigidity or negativity is obstructive.

Cultural blocks to creativity:

1 Fear of making a bad choice, or a mistake; fear of failing, or of risking too much. A form of insecurity.

Although we hope for rewards for doing things well, we are criticized (when positively, we’re given advice about improvements, and when negatively, we’re ridiculed or punished) for our flaws. We’re each likely to recoil from denigration, from being told “you’ve failed,” whether true or not. “Everyone’s a critic” is a cliche, but it’s also true. As much as criticism is a healthy thing — each of us should criticize, as well as to listen to criticism — it can also be oppressive. It is high-risk to create; it is low-risk to criticize.

2 No appetite for chaos; inability to tolerate ambiguity. A form of insecurity.

Key to the success of creative thinking is the ability to entertain widely differing or incongruous ideas, so that they can coexist long enough conceptually in order to be considered as a new composition.

3 Judging rather than generating ideas. A form of insecurity.

This is the safer way to go. If a person analyzes a new idea too early in the creative process, new ideas are rejected before they have been allowed to take what might become more appealing forms. “We are each our own worst critics,” is a related cliche, and likewise often true. Letting

4 Inability to incubate, to “sleep on it.”

Time is often needed for the subconscious to wrestle with a challenge. When a person is relaxed, he is more receptive to new ways of thinking about the challenge.

5 Lack of motivation, lack of enthusiasm.

The attitude: “There’s nothing in it for me.” Or, “If there’s no reward, why do it?”

6 Excessive zeal.

The attitude: “I want it NOW!” Everyone likes instant gratification, but a creative person avoids requiring results prematurely.

7 Awareness and control of reality and fantasy.

The need to be awake, alert, present, attentive. The need to be able to fantasize, but not sink at the deep end.

Criticality:

What kinds of skills does PFC aim to develop in children/adults – here is a partial list?

* reading for meaning * understanding arguments

* problem seeking * detecting fallacies

* questioning * being consistent

* seeing what’s relevant * making connections

* sticking to the point * classifying

* giving reasons * formulating & using criteria

* making distinctions * seeing consequences

* seeing broader perspectives * using examples

* analyzing statements * exploring & analyzing concepts

* using analogies * seeing assumptions

* constructing explanations * drawing inferences

* advancing counter arguments * developing hypotheses

* exploring alternatives * generalizing from particulars

* active listening * fair-mindedness/being just

* verbal-confidence & fluency * being reasonable

* sharing *seeing different perspectives

* open mindedness * respecting others

* intellectual courage * self-correction

* finding evidence and using it to support an argument

* being empathic

It is suggested that most of the above are prerequisites for most subjects.

If this is a taxonomy of skills in the

a) the critical mode of being what might corresponding taxonomies contain in respect of

b) the creative mode &

c) the caring mode?

It is suggested that all of the above contribute to the core activities of making meaning and of reflecting upon that meaning (or constructing & deconstructing meaning).

Do we need all three for making & reflecting upon meaning?

Do we need all three for moral education?

Do we need all three for spiritual education?

Do we need all three for any kind of education?

SEE CARING and CARING Taxonomy

Critical thinking is not just the construction of he perfect argument; it is thinking that takes the range of alternatives into account and compares their evidence. The social view is longitudinal, seeing each argument presented in time as a feature of the historically emerging consciousness of humanity. Lipman ( p. 53)

Culture:

Culture is the activity of thought and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling. Scraps of information have nothing to do with it. A merely well-informed (wo)man is the most useless bore on God’s earth. What we should aim at producing is (wo)men who possess both culture and expert knowledge in some special direction. Their expert knowledge will give them the ground to start from, and their culture will lead them as deep as philosophy and as high as art. We have to remember that the valuable intellectual development is self-development…. As to training, the most important part is given by mothers before the age of twelve.

A N Whitehead The Aims of Education p 1

‘Culture is not having, but a being and becoming.’, said Matthew Arnold

Trilling, Lionel (1974), Sincerity and Authenticity, London: Oxford University Press

“Wuthnow argues that the study of culture has been ill served by a subjective orientation that reduces cultural objects to individual beliefs and meanings. . . .”

Wuthnow, Robert, ( 1990), Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis, CA: University of California Press

Curriculum:

Curriculum tends to be described in the following way;

Curriculum, systematically organized course of teaching and learning. Some definitions of the curriculum focus narrowly on the arrangement of subjects over the sequence of grades. Others include everything that students and teachers do. Schemes of curriculum are found in every system of education, but in most countries, especially in continental Europe, Latin America, and many parts of Asia, the word curriculum is unfamiliar. Reference is made instead to programmes of study and instruction. Encarta

but in SunWALK we see the curriculum as ultimately the experiences the child undergoes as a result of being a member of the school community. This includes the intended experiences, designed by the teachers, but might in reality be something very different indeed, bullying being the obvious example.

Fragmentariness, as lack of unifying and synthesizing principles, artificiality in the sense of distance from the real world of the pupils, and inadequate epistemologies are amongst the most sever criticisms of the curricula that are current;

Neil Postman: “There is no longer any principle that unifies the school curriculum and furnishes it with meaning.”

John Goodlad: “What students are asked to relate to in school [is] increasingly artificial, cut off from the human experiences subject matter is supposed to reflect.”

Harlan Cleveland: “It is a well-know scandal that our whole educational system is geared more to categorizing and analyzing patches of knowledge that to threading them together.”

Robert Stevens: “We have lost sight of our responsibility for synthesizing learning.”

Quoted on Marion Brady’s website

“There is a tendency then for the spiritual to remain merely at an attitudinal level. The necessity is never taken up to develop spiritual insight with a rigor and specificity that can have real and detailed implications for the curriculum, for pedagogy, for our understanding of child development, and for our grasp of the social-communal tasks of education.”

Douglas Sloan, (Foreword) The Renewal of Meaning in Education

Education Reform Act 1988 (UK) , Chapter 40, Part, Schools, Chapter 1, The Curriculum

Douglas Sloan, (Foreword) The Renewal of Meaning in Education

The real curriculum is everything that happens to the child as a result of belonging to that institution.

Evaluating current directions through seeing curricula as designs for the future

A curriculum is a design for the future. It predicts and shapes the future of a society and of its citizens. It does this by putting forward knowledge and skills which, it suggests, will be essential in 10, 15 years hence, when the children in our schools have moved into their adult (working?) lives. Despite the present fury (TES12.2.93 re the national English curriculum), a curriculum is never a document for now, even though it works in the present to make the future – whether it does so explicitly through attainment targets, or through the curriculum which is the distillation of the teacher’s experience.

Such a view of the curriculum provides an unassailable yardstick, a touchstone beyond contesting ideologies. It enables us to ask how this curriculum, or that part of it, will serve the demands of the world of tomorrow…..it becomes the essential question to ask of any curriculum.

The (English ) curriculum is involved in the question of the future in three broad domains: in relation to economic futures; to cultural and social futures; and to the moral and aesthetic well-being of individuals.

Kress says that he imagines a society which has discovered the wealth of its cultural resources and is turning these into the productive resource of social and economic innovation. He asks what the shape is of the (English) curriculum which corresponds to that vision and says that it is above all a curriculum in which the resources (of the English language) are recognized and used for their innovative potential, rather than for the imposition of limiting orthodoxies.

Kress looks or a curriculum which would “produce a habit of mind in schoolchildren which is entirely at ease with cultural difference; which, rather than seeing it as problematic, treats it as one of the most valuable ways to produce an attitude which is comfortable with difference.”

Kress also sees such a curriculum as enabling children to become citizens who are entirely at ease with change.

Kress advocates that children be led to a knowledge of a wide range of texts so that they understand that there are many ways of being in the world, of constructing the world and seeing the world.

Kress considers that above all the (English) curriculum for the innovative society needs to have a sharply focused view of what is central and what is marginal – particularly for tomorrow.

[i][i][i] Richard Anderson – Quoted in Freedland, Cynthia (2001 p. 77) But is it Art? Oxford: Oxford Uni. Press

[ii][ii][i] The ‘world’ is interestingly seen not just as ‘fleshly things’ but anything that comes between the individual and doing the will of God

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