Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies (JCACS)

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Introduction

Davis
					, Brent

39Toward a Pragmatics of Complex TransformationBRENT DAVISJournal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum StudiesVolume 1  Number 1  Spring 2003Toward a Pragmaticsof Complex TransformationBRENTDAVISUniversity of AlbertaWhile browsing the abstracts of a recent issue of Educational Evaluation andPolicy Analysis, a journal of the American Educational Researchers Associa-tion, I came across a report in which statistical methods were used to “con-trol for” such “confounding variables” as “teachers, schools, and classrooms”(Pong & Pallas, 2001).I had to read the abstract a few times, a little stunned by the fact thatthere still exist educational researchers who regard teachers, classrooms,and schools in such terms. It seemed like it had to be a parody, akin to aspoof of social science research that circulated several years back in whichit was reported that a statistically significant correlation exists between ut-terances of the phrase “Please pass the salt” and the behavior of “salt pas-sage.”Of course, not too many decades ago, studies rooted in statistical meth-ods and assumptions were the rule of educational inquiry, not the excep-tion. But that’s changed. Dramatically. Surveys of library stacks and cita-tion indices reveal that interpretive and critical discourses have won theday. And thankfully so. We know, deeply, that such nested and co-impli-cated influences as teachers in classrooms in schools cannot be bracketed orignored in discussions of any aspect of formal education. That being said,the success in exorcising statistical analysis seems to have had an unfortu-nate side effect, namely concomitant rejections of scientific methods andmathematics-based tools of interpretation.40Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum StudiesBefore I go much further, I should emphasize that I’m not advocatingrenewed embraces of the analytic method, rationalistic argument, or em-piricist demonstrations around matters of learning, pedagogy, and curricu-lum. My point is, rather, that the contemporary habit of demonizing scienceas a mindless monolith is as problematic as the previous deification of ana-lytic and statistical methods. That is, the tendency to couple “science” to“statistics” is an error, and one that might now be hindering curriculumstudies when it could be supporting our efforts.Just as there are many, many perspectives that might orient interpretiveinquiry, there is a diversity of scientific attitudes. One particularly usefulrubric for distinguishing among the varied interests and methods of sci-ence was proposed by physicist Warren Weaver in 1948. He noted that mod-ern science has evolved around at least three different categories of phe-nomena, each of which lends itself to particular interpretive tools.The first he called simple systems. These include collisions, orbits, ballis-tics, and other events that involve only two or three well-defined objectsand their interactions—the sorts of events that are studied in high schoolphysics and that occupied the attentions of Galileo, Descartes, and New-ton. Such phenomena are suited to the ideals of prediction and control,through appropriate applications of the sorts of relatively simple and el-egant mathematical laws that are presented in Newtonian mechanics.However, Newton himself recognized that these systems of physical lawscan give rise to intractable calculations when the number of interactingagents increases only slightly. Partially in response to this sort of realiza-tion, by the early 1800s scientists borrowed from a new class of analytictools—probability and statistics—that mathematicians had invented to servethe needs of business (specifically, for the construction of mortuary tablesfor insurance companies). These tools were trained on phenomena that in-volved thousands, millions, and more particles and variables. Examples ofcomplicated phenomena, Weaver’s second category,1  included flowing wa-ter, chemical reactions, air movements, and games of chance. The new meth-ods also supported the emergence of a “stochasticized” mindset, as termssuch as probably and likely took on new meanings and new prominence inboth scientific and popular discourse (Davis & Hersh, 1987).That being said, probability and chance were understood as a veneerthat we humans, owing to our perceptual and conceptual limitations, werecompelled to impose on a universe believed to be certain and pre-scripted.The underlying mentality was still deterministic, consistent with PierreLaplace’s pronouncement at the close of the 18th century:Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all forces by whichnature is animated and the respective situations of the beings which composeit—an intelligence sufficiently vast to submit these data to analyses—it would41Toward a Pragmatics of Complex TransformationBRENT DAVISembrace in the same formula the movements of the greatest bodies and those ofthe lightest atom; for it, nothing would be uncertain and the future as the past,would be present to its eyes. (1795/1951, p. 3)The move to probability and statistics, then, was in response to the realiza-tion that no flesh-based intelligence was sufficiently vast. It was commen-tary on the limits of humanity, not on the nature of the universe. There wasno questioning of the laws of mechanics or their appropriate application,merely a resignation to the fact that increasingly complicated phenomenamade for decreasingly reliable characterizations.In fact, far from representing a break from prior mindsets, the develop-ment and embrace of probabilitistic and statistical models was an amplifi-cation of modernist sensibilities. This point is perhaps most apparent in theemergence of a discourse of normality—which was prompted and enabledin the coupling of Darwinism and statistics in the mid-1800s. In the processof dissolving the assumption that “creation” was static (actually, in dissolv-ing the assumption of creation), Darwin proposed a mechanism that ac-counted for the emergence of diversity. He recast variety as something thatwas caused, not something that was pregiven. In the realm of the socialsciences, it suddenly made sense to measure difference, to define “normal”in terms of arithmetic means, and to pathologize everything that “devi-ated” from arbitrary zones of “average”.With the 1900s came the gradual realization that these sorts of practicesmight be problematic. In the “hard sciences,” this insight emerged in thearticulation of a previously unrecognized category of phenomena thatyielded neither to Newtonian mechanics nor to statistical analysis. Theseinstances of complexity, in Weaver’s terms, include brain function, stockmarket activity, cultural evolution—in effect, phenomena that are dynami-cally adaptive and that we tend to describe or regard as living systems. (Imight also mention that teachers, classrooms, and schools—and other phe-nomena that some researchers continue to ignore and factor out as con-founding variables—fall into this category.) Such forms sustain their exist-ence in the ongoing generation of diverse possibilities, which means thatmethods that seek to define universal rules or normal ranges of acceptabil-ity are utterly inappropriate for their study.Unfortunately, social science research had already dug itself into a statis-tics-lined hole by the time proposals such as Weaver’s had begun to emergewithin the scientific establishment. And those who recognized social sci-ence research to be in a rut tended to blame the imagined culprit of a uni-fied and monolithic science rather than overzealous and uninformed re-searchers for the problem. The critical point here is that the spread of statis-tical methods among educational researchers, while enabled by science andmathematics, was certainly not a proper reflection of those cultural projects.42Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum StudiesRather, statistics-based educational research occurred in ignorance of sci-ence and mathematics—an ignorance that was and is supported by schooledversions of these discourse systems. The following commentaries, all fromprominent mathematicians, underscore this point:[Some] psychologists and sociologists have come around with their question-naires and chi-square statistics, purporting to study the human mind quantita-tively, but most such investigations are so remote from the target that the criticneed hardly say, “Pooh!” They fall over of their own absurdity and pomposity.(Davis & Hersh, 1987, p. 13)The introduction of mathematical methods in biology, economics, psychology,and other branches of the . . . behavioral sciences has always been accompaniedby controversy. . . . [It] is important to state publicly that among professionalmathematicians the skepticism about behavioral-science mathematics . . . is muchstronger than it is among non-mathematical behavioral scientists. (ibid., p. 61)Too much research in the social sciences . . . is a mindless collection of . . . mean-ingless data. If property X (say, humor) is defined in this way (number of laughselicited by a collection of jokes), and property Y (say, self-esteem) is defined inthat way (number of yes responses to a series of positive traits), then the corre-lation coefficient between humor and self-esteem is .217. Worthless stuff. (Paulos,1988, p. 161)Stewart & Golubitsky (1992) (also mathematicians) offer one explanationfor the sorts of concerns announced above. In brief, they suggest that twotools of interpretation have been inappropriately collapsed:Linear models are based upon straight lines, flat planes, and constant growthrates. Nonlinear models are based upon curves and variable growth rates. If,like the classical mathematicians, you want to write down formulas that solveyour equations, then it’s best to stick to linear models. But, with computers andnew mathematical tools such as topology, formulas have taken a back seat. Non-linear models are more interesting, and generally fit nature better. All too oftena nonlinear system has been forced into a linear mould (a round peg into a squarehole!) in order to obtain an answer. The philosophy behind this approach seemsto be that a wrong answer, or the right answer to the wrong question, is betterthan no answer at all. (p. 171)This important distinction between linear and nonlinear models roughlyparallels Weaver’s distinction between complicated systems (which tend tobe mechanical, and hence predictable in general terms) and organized com-plexity (which tends more toward the organic). Indeed, another name forcomplexity science is nonlinear dynamics.What’s important here is that science and mathematics have developedtools that are valuable for understanding complex phenomena like learn-ing and learners—and part of this development has been a shift in what ismeant by “understanding a phenomenon.” For a complex event, such un-43Toward a Pragmatics of Complex TransformationBRENT DAVISderstanding is not about control and prediction, but about the capacities tofollow the ongoing evolutions of a form or agent and to make sense of itsemergent structures. Within these sorts of interpretive projects, mathemat-ics and science have taken on a role that is different from what the originalrationalists and empiricists imagined. The aim now is more about the de-velopment of useful descriptions and illustrations than about the produc-tion of explanatory principles.I’ve found it necessary to resist the temptation to provide hasty summa-ries of such the descriptions and illustrations. Unfortunately, just like Dar-winian processes and statistical methods when they were first introduced,complexity science lends itself to misinterpretation and misappropriationin the hands of persons working from a prior mindset. To appreciate com-plexity, one must first learn to live with/in a few rather radical breaks withaccepted wisdom. One is the idea of “order for free,” whereby complex andtranscendent unities can arise in the co-specifying activities of seeminglyautonomous entities. Ants spontaneously self-organize into anthills, birdsinto flocks, traders into markets, species into ecosystems, and so on. (This iswhere complexivists tend to lose modernists, with their insistence on au-tonomous, self-contained subjects.) And it all happens without leaders orintentions. (This is where complexivists tend to part company with thosepostmodernists who are committed to the metaphor of “power” as a prop-erty of and motivator in the evolution of systems.)Closely related to this dynamic of self-organization is the suggestion thatthe human being might be better considered in terms of an agent that isnested within several different sorts of grander social and/or cultural agents.I am, simultaneously, a learning unity, a collective of learning unities, and asubunit of many different learning unities—a suggestion that renders prob-lematic both sides of such contemporary educational debates as teacher-versus student-centered classrooms, nature versus nurture, individual ver-sus social interests, and so on. Complexity science is a science of entangle-ment, not of distinction-making. It is about participation, not specification.An important caveat of this sort of discussion is that a complex phenom-enon is irreducible. It transcends its parts, and so cannot be studied strictlyin terms of a compilation of those parts. It must be studied, that is, at thelevel of its emergence. Classrooms aren’t just collections of students, schoolsaren’t just collections of classrooms. As such, complexity science provides ameans to read across cognitive, social, situated, critical, cultural, and eco-logical discourses—without collapsing them or their particular foci intounitary or coherent phenomena. According to complexity science, such dis-courses can be simultaneously appropriate to their object of study and in-compatible with one another. We don’t need to agree to be correct.44Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum StudiesFurther to this point, one of the reasons that complexity science is usefulfor reading across diverse discourses is that it explicitly embraces many ofthe insights and sensibilities that arose over the past century in such fieldsas phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and pragmatism. This is a topic that Idevelop in detail elsewhere (Davis, forthcoming) in an extended discussionof the evolutions of Western conceptions of teaching away from discoursesthat are rooted in metaphysics and toward interpretations that are groundedin the physical. Consider, for example, the opening three lines of Lakoff andJohnson’s (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh, a text out of cognitive science that isexplicitly informed by complexity science:The mind is inherently embodied.Thought is mostly unconscious.Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical. (p. 3)The first line hints at Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, the second remindsof Freud’s psychoanalysis, the third recalls Dewey’s pragmatism. What’smore is that complexity science is not just interested in describing complexphenomena. It joins with psychoanalysis as one of the few Western dis-courses with an explicit interest in articulating what might be described asa pragmatics of transformation. Complexivists, that is, are as much interestedin occasioning complexity and triggering transformations as they are instudying existing instances of complexity. Two of the conditions that arenecessary have been deliberately incorporated into the structure of this in-augural issue of the Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Stud-ies—namely, diversity among parts and the juxtaposition of that diversityin ways that might trigger new individual and/or collective possibilities.These same sorts of conditions can be deliberately woven into classrooms,but almost never are. Education hasn’t paid much attention to this particu-lar pragmatics of transformation—unlike business, economics, politics, eth-ics, law, and several branches of medicine, including immunology and neu-rology. I suspect that part of the reason for the slow uptake among educa-tionalists has to do with the overwhelming commitment to linearity andlinear causality, inscribed in institutional structures, classroom resources,developmentalist theories, curriculum intentions, and pedagogical meth-ods. It may be that, until we are collectively willing to face the prospect thatthe formal educational project is deeply problematic, complexity sciencemust be relegated to that class of educationally unbearable discourses thatincludes (among its many honorable members) psychoanalysis,  pragma-tism, and poststructuralism.45Toward a Pragmatics of Complex TransformationBRENT DAVISNote1 Weaver actually used the term “disorganized complexity” to refer to his second cat-egory. “Complicated” is the preferred word at the moment for this class of phenomena.See Waldrop (1992).ReferencesDavis, B. (forthcoming). Inventions of teaching: A genealogy. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Davis, P. J., & Hersh, R. (1987). Descartes’ dream: The world according to mathematics. NewYork: Houghton Mifflin.Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: The embodied mind and its chal-lenge to Western thought. New York: Basic Books.Laplace, P.. (1795/1951). A philosophical essay on probabilities. New York: Dover.Paulos, J. A. (1988). Innumeracy: Mathematical illiteracy and its consequences. New York:Vintage Books.Pong, Suet-ling Pong, & Pallas, A. (2001). Class size and eighth-grade math achieve-ment in the United States and abroad. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23,251–273.Stewart, I., & Golubitsky, M. (1992). Fearful symmetry: Is God a geometer? London: Pen-guin Books.Waldrop, M. M. (1992). Complexity: The emerging science on the edge of order and chaos.New York: Simon & Schuster.Weaver, W. (1948). Science and complexity. American Scientist, 32, 536–544.

Toward a Pragmatics of Complex Transformation

Harris
					, Eileen

  Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies Volume 1    Number  2   Fall 2003 1    Lessons from the Arts: A Review of  The Arts and the Creation of Mind  by Elliot Eisner       EILEEN HARRIS Queen’s University  Elliot Eisner’s most recent book, The Arts and the Creation of Mind, presents evidence for the importance of arts education and the need for it to move from the periphery to the centre of curriculum. He maintains that the arts have specific and unique contributions to make to cognitive development. Eisner’s case is compelling. Although the ideas presented here are not new, but more of a summary of his work to date, The Arts and the Creation of Mind is a book worth reading. Eisner does a commendable job of presenting his ideas in a concise, engaging text that serves as an excellent introduction to his work. As such, teachers, parents, administrators and anyone interested in the future of education could pick up this book and be riveted by its contents. The importance of arts education is brought alive in these pages. For a book that is academic in nature, this is a page-turner.  Eisner first began to advocate the value of including the arts in the curriculum in the 1960’s. A constant theme throughout his work since then has been that the arts promote subtle and complex forms of cognitive development that are not easily achieved in other disciplines Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies  (Eisner, 1974, 1994, 2002). Eisner continues to strengthen this argument in this book. He conceives of cognition as a spectrum of abilities and processes, including the ability to feel and work with the abstract. Eisner argues that creating and critiquing art foster specific and unique aspects of cognition. He maintains that this happens in two ways: through the engagement and development of the imagination and through the stimulation and refinement of sensory development.    The idea that arts education provides opportunities and permission to engage the imagination is an idea espoused by many (e.g., Gardner, 1983; Greene, 1995; Howard, 1992). Maxine Greene, widely described as the most significant American educational philosopher since John Dewey, believes that the imagination is a powerful ability important to the lives of both individuals and society. Imagination, according to Greene, is a tool to open minds to the possible beyond the habitual in both our culture and daily lives. The imagination is key in helping “students to realize their deep connection to and responsibility for not only their own individual experience but also for other human beings who share this world” (Greene, 1995, p. 57; www.lcinstitute.org/philosophy_maxinegreene.asp).  Eisner claims that nurturing the imagination is, in fact, cultivating a form of thinking. This type of thinking is the ability to transform shared representations into images of the possible, leading to the creation of the new. Our cultures grow through the engagement of the imagination.   In this book, Eisner shows how the arts also have a role in the development of our sensory capacities. The ability to perceive and experience is distinct from the ability to recognize. Seeing as merely looking and recognizing is passive, whereas seeing as engaging one’s feeling and making sense of the environment is an active experience. As Eisner says, “Seeing is an achievement, not merely a task” (p. 12). Sensory perceptions provide unique ways of seeing and knowing, which are subtle and complex forms of cognition.   Eisner makes a direct link between curriculum and thinking skills. Each subject area has an effect on the type of thinking skills students develop, which shapes the ways that students experience, organize and understand the world. He maintains that curriculum choices delineate the types of thinking endorsed by schools, and further, that the types of activities that take place in school will consequently determine cognitive abilities students develop. At present, mainstream educational systems do not focus on promoting cognitive development and thinking skills associated with the arts.   It is for these reasons—namely the development of the imagination, sensory capacities and thinking skills—that Eisner contends that the arts 2   Lessons from the Arts   EILEEN HARRIS should be included as an essential component of the curriculum. He urges that the arts receive recognition that so that they are included as a discipline in their own right, receiving as much attention as other subjects. If not, the full benefits of arts education will not be achieved. As Eisner points out:   [L]earning is seldom significant when it is limited to a one-time affair. The teacher who gives students clay one week, water-colors the next, wire sculpture the third week, and linoleum printmaking the next, all in the name of providing a rich art curriculum, does those students no favor. What are needed are sequential opportunities to work on problems with one material, time to get a feel for that material, and time to learn how to cope with problems engendered by the material so that mastery is secured (p. 96).  Perhaps the arguments made by Eisner and others are beginning to take effect. The arts are gaining recognition, and curriculum and policy are being created to reflect the acknowledged importance of the arts to education. For example, the Albuquerque Public School Board in New Mexico (http://www.toknowart.com/apsarts/index.html) has created a fine arts program modeled on Eisner’s principles. Its mission is to provide training and resources for teachers so that they may fully include the arts in the curriculum so that students may benefit from the lessons that art has to offer.   Using the visual arts as an example, Eisner describes various approaches to arts education including discipline-based art education, creative problem solving and creative expression. Each approach carries with it its own implications for further curriculum development and implementation. Eisner does not advocate one approach over another. As he states, “There is no single sacrosanct vision of the aims of arts education” (p.25). The best approach will vary according to the values and characteristics of a community and the needs of its students.  While the integration of the arts into other subjects can enhance the learning in these areas, Eisner maintains that the arts should not be limited to acting as facilitator of learning in other disciplines; art must also be included for what it has to contribute. This is in keeping with Winner and Hetland (2000) who insist that the arts must not be mere “handmaidens” to the other disciplines. At the same time, however, he is quick to note the conflict that arises between integration of subjects and the time needed to immerse in one subject to learn the skills and processes necessary to the particular subject.    3 Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies   Eisner illustrates this conflict using the example of pottery. One can learn to appreciate pottery as an art form as part of an art class or through integration with another subject such as history. To learn the skill of pottery, however, to develop an understanding of what it means to throw a pot, takes time. One needs both an understanding of the skills and processes of a discipline and the connections of the skills and processes to other disciplines. Eisner informs the reader that he has no answer to resolve this dilemma. Rather, these decisions need to be made at the district, school and classroom level as part of policy and ongoing curriculum planning and implementation.   One of the traditional reasons for the absence of arts in schools may be that the arts have often been viewed as art activity instead of art education (McMurrin, 1989). This misunderstanding of the arts leads to the argument that there is no time or space for arts in an already full curriculum, especially since the educational climate is focused on “standards.” There is a lack of knowledge on how to align the arts to meet curriculum standards (Hinckley, 1997). Many educators feel that there are no standards for evaluating the arts (Pitman, 1998).   Eisner takes issue with our current educational focus and its emphasis on standards. He argues that:    [S]tudents learn at different rates. The idea that students will take the same paths and learn the same things at the same rates flies in the face of what is known about human development. Under optimal pedagogical circumstances…variance among students will increase as they are exposed to learning opportunities appropriate for their aptitudes. The image of applying uniform standards to assess their learning at the same point in time conjures up an assembly-line model of schooling (p. 166).   According to Eisner, learning is not only the result of standards, planned curriculum experiences and the ability of a teacher to teach. Learning is also shaped by the climate of a school including its norms, values, attitudes of teachers and students, hidden expectations about what is valued and expected—the explicit and implicit curriculum respectively of both the classroom and the entire school. Learning is also shaped by the null curriculum, that is what is not taught or included in the life of the school. When the arts are not included in a school’s curriculum, or when they are taught haphazardly, students are still learning. The absence of the arts in schools sends a powerful message to students about the arts. Students learn that the arts are not of value. Together the explicit, implicit and null curricula shape the culture of the school. Eisner intends the 4   Lessons from the Arts   EILEEN HARRIS reader to interpret his description of the culture of the school in a biological sense—a medium for growing.   I wish that this book had been available to my colleagues and me when I was teaching elementary school and living and growing within school cultures. One of the issues that we all grappled with—regardless of our commitment to the arts was that of assessment and evaluation. Eisner tackles the issue of assessment and evaluation in this book. He addresses specific features to consider when assessing the arts. This would have been a valuable tool to have had both as part of my teacher education and during my ongoing professional development as a practicing teacher.     References  Albuquerque Public School Board Fine Arts Program.  http://www.toknowart.com/apsarts/index.html. Downloaded 30/10/03 Eisner, E. W. (1974). Is the artists-in-the-schools program effective? Art   Education, 27(2), 19-23. Eisner, E. W. (1994). Cognition and curriculum reconsidered. New York:   Teachers College Press. Eisner, E. W. (2002). The state of the arts and the improvement of   education. Art Education Journal, 1(1), 2-6. Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New   York:Basic Books.  Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts,   and social change. New York: Teachers College Press. Greene, M. www.lcinstitute.org/philosophy_maxinegreene.asp,   Downloaded 29/10/03. Hinckley, J. M. (1997). In times of reform and change: What sustains a   good arts program? Arts Education Policy Review, 98(3), 34-38.  Howard, V. A. (1992). Learning by all means: Lessons from the arts. New   York: Peter Lang.  McMurrin, L. R. (1989). Principal’s role in implementing discipline-based   art education. Nassp Bulletin, 73(517), 31-34.   Pitman, W. (1998). Learning the arts in an age of uncertainty. North York,   ON: Arts Education Council of Ontario.  Winner, E., & Hetland, L. (2000).The arts in education: Evaluating the    5 Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies  evidence for a causal link.  Journal of Aesthetic Education, 34 (3-4), 3-10.  6 

Lessons from the Arts: A Review of "The Arts and the Creation of Mind" by Elliot Eisner

Smithrim
					, Katharine

Singing Lessons: A Hidden Pedagogy

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Introduction

Toward a Pragmatics of Complex Transformation

Lessons from the Arts: A Review of "The Arts and the Creation of Mind" by Elliot Eisner

Singing Lessons: A Hidden Pedagogy

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