Preparing adults who can negotiate change
HELPING STUDENTS DEVELOP SKILLS
FOR A COMPLEX, DYNAMIC SOCIETY
“Thought of the Week” for February 23, 2004
My own opinion is that what schools should do is neither prepare children for one specific community…nor make them rational, detached problem-solvers. What’s required if children are to become adults who can negotiate the rapids of modern society is the fostering of a different attitude, one of appreciation of the complex, dynamic character of society, one of understanding that there will be conflicting interests and different perspectives in any situation, perspectives that must be recognized and understood before the situation can be transformed, people’s differences reconciled, and the problem “solved.”
Martin Packer, “The Problem of Transfer, and the Sociocultural Critique of Schooling”
Comment:
The Goal of Education:
The transformation of individuals
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2004 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
Dr. Packer makes the point that schooling is not epistemological (knowing oriented) but ontological (being oriented), and the goal of school should not be “transfer” of knowledge and skills, but the transformation of individuals.
We should, he contends, not be educating people for specific situations (i.e., experts), but “people who can respond with creativity and initiative to new situations, new circumstances, and find fresh solutions to stale, familiar problems. The capacity for this type of response amounts to being a different kind of person.”
Educating creative citizens
Preparing adults who can negotiate change
HELPING STUDENTS DEVELOP SKILLS
FOR A COMPLEX, DYNAMIC SOCIETY
“Thought of the Week” for February 23, 2004
My own opinion is that what schools should do is neither prepare children for one specific community…nor make them rational, detached problem-solvers. What’s required if children are to become adults who can negotiate the rapids of modern society is the fostering of a different attitude, one of appreciation of the complex, dynamic character of society, one of understanding that there will be conflicting interests and different perspectives in any situation, perspectives that must be recognized and understood before the situation can be transformed, people’s differences reconciled, and the problem “solved.”
Martin Packer, “The Problem of Transfer, and the Sociocultural Critique of Schooling”
Comment:
The Goal of Education:
The transformation of individuals
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2004 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. Apart from properly cited quotes and short excerpts, no part of this article can be copied or used in any form without written permission from the author. For permission to use, please contact me.
Dr. Packer makes the point that schooling is not epistemological (knowing oriented) but ontological (being oriented), and the goal of school should not be “transfer” of knowledge and skills, but the transformation of individuals.
We should, he contends, not be educating people for specific situations (i.e., experts), but “people who can respond with creativity and initiative to new situations, new circumstances, and find fresh solutions to stale, familiar problems. The capacity for this type of response amounts to being a different kind of person.”