“Thought of the Week” for February 19, 2001
Objectivity makes an object
of all it observes—even children
The empirical method is the basis for all logical positivism, and is responsible for incalculable developments in the physical and biological sciences. But objectivity can be concerned only with objects; it must transform into an object anything it observes. It assumes that it is possible to separate the subject observer from the object he observes. …perceptions (observations) are determined by needs; they involve a subjective shaping of experience. The idea of “total objectivity” is thus patently ridiculous; objective observation will a priori limit its conclusions by asking only questions whose solutions can fit within measurable parameters. Such scientific observation is reductionistic, directed toward analyzing the whole into its component parts. As Michael Polanyi has pointed out, analyzing a machine into its component chemical and physical parts will not tell you how it works, or indeed, even that it is a machine. You’ve got to look at the whole picture.
David McCarthy, “Gestalt as Learning Theory”, The Live Classroom: Innovation through Confluent Education and Gestalt
Comment:
Turning Children into Objects
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2001 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Revised October 2007. 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.
We do not perceive the “outside” world directly. All of our perceptions of it are filtered through our senses and processed as sensations by our brain. That processing, or interpretation, is very much subjective. As McCarthy writes, perceptions are determined by needs and involve the subjective shaping of experience. We all know this at some level, yet we cling to the 17th century idea of total objectivity and the machine universe.
For us to measure something objectively (as in an objective test), that something must be made into an object (i.e., a response) which can be measured by the test. In the case of a test, students must be able to understand and express their learning and growth in ways that the test can measure, so the test actually shapes the learning, the way children perceive and understand the world. As much as the test makers want to believe that the tests are objective, they are anything but objective. They are formative. They create and shape the experience in their own image, and then turn around and tell us how we measure up to the world they have created for us.
How do you measure insight, growth and understanding objectively? How can one turn the process of living and being into objects which a test can measure? We can’t, and if there is one indictment of the high-stakes testing which is sweeping the country in the name of “accountability” (corporate profit and political power are the real motives), it is that they are dangerous. They will shape our teaching. They will shape our children’s understanding.
This is done in the name of an ideology, of education, of the need to compete in the world market place. In fact, it has very little to do with that. Power shapes the world and the people in it to perpetuate itself, and we, by acceding to its demands become the tools of that power. As French philosopher Michael Foucault wrote,
“I do not believe that what has taken place can be said to be ideological. It is both much more and much less than ideology. It is the production of effective instruments for the formation and accumulation of knowledge — methods of observation, techniques of registration, procedures for investigation and research, apparatus of control.”…power, when it is exercised through these subtle mechanisms, cannot but evolve, organize and put into circulation a knowledge, or rather apparatuses of knowledge, which are not ideological constructs.” (p. 102)
High-stakes testing, standardized curriculum, and measurable outcomes are the tools of the mechanistic, reductionistic, pseudo objective power which has controlled (and exploited) our world for more than 300 years. In the name of education and fairness, it demands “objectivity”, yet what it wants is compliance, control and order. It wants a standardized product (graduates) who will fit the system which power has created.
Unfortunately, the media, the parents, and even most teachers seem to have bought into the program. This is most unfortunate, for if there is any hope for regaining our humanity in the face of technological conformity, it is the public schools and their original goal of being the great equalizer in a democratic society. As teachers, we should resist the mechanisms of power, for even the “controllers” of the power are, in reality, controlled by it, and only by juxtaposing human values against the values of power can we hope to awaken others and restore balance.
References
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other writings. New York: Pantheon.
The Hero’s Journey: Objectifying Children
“Thought of the Week” for February 19, 2001
Objectivity makes an object
of all it observes—even children
The empirical method is the basis for all logical positivism, and is responsible for incalculable developments in the physical and biological sciences. But objectivity can be concerned only with objects; it must transform into an object anything it observes. It assumes that it is possible to separate the subject observer from the object he observes. …perceptions (observations) are determined by needs; they involve a subjective shaping of experience. The idea of “total objectivity” is thus patently ridiculous; objective observation will a priori limit its conclusions by asking only questions whose solutions can fit within measurable parameters. Such scientific observation is reductionistic, directed toward analyzing the whole into its component parts. As Michael Polanyi has pointed out, analyzing a machine into its component chemical and physical parts will not tell you how it works, or indeed, even that it is a machine. You’ve got to look at the whole picture.
David McCarthy, “Gestalt as Learning Theory”, The Live Classroom: Innovation through Confluent Education and Gestalt
Comment:
Turning Children into Objects
by Reg Harris
Copyright © 2001 by Reg Harris. All rights reserved. Revised October 2007. 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.
We do not perceive the “outside” world directly. All of our perceptions of it are filtered through our senses and processed as sensations by our brain. That processing, or interpretation, is very much subjective. As McCarthy writes, perceptions are determined by needs and involve the subjective shaping of experience. We all know this at some level, yet we cling to the 17th century idea of total objectivity and the machine universe.
For us to measure something objectively (as in an objective test), that something must be made into an object (i.e., a response) which can be measured by the test. In the case of a test, students must be able to understand and express their learning and growth in ways that the test can measure, so the test actually shapes the learning, the way children perceive and understand the world. As much as the test makers want to believe that the tests are objective, they are anything but objective. They are formative. They create and shape the experience in their own image, and then turn around and tell us how we measure up to the world they have created for us.
How do you measure insight, growth and understanding objectively? How can one turn the process of living and being into objects which a test can measure? We can’t, and if there is one indictment of the high-stakes testing which is sweeping the country in the name of “accountability” (corporate profit and political power are the real motives), it is that they are dangerous. They will shape our teaching. They will shape our children’s understanding.
This is done in the name of an ideology, of education, of the need to compete in the world market place. In fact, it has very little to do with that. Power shapes the world and the people in it to perpetuate itself, and we, by acceding to its demands become the tools of that power. As French philosopher Michael Foucault wrote,
“I do not believe that what has taken place can be said to be ideological. It is both much more and much less than ideology. It is the production of effective instruments for the formation and accumulation of knowledge — methods of observation, techniques of registration, procedures for investigation and research, apparatus of control.”…power, when it is exercised through these subtle mechanisms, cannot but evolve, organize and put into circulation a knowledge, or rather apparatuses of knowledge, which are not ideological constructs.” (p. 102)
High-stakes testing, standardized curriculum, and measurable outcomes are the tools of the mechanistic, reductionistic, pseudo objective power which has controlled (and exploited) our world for more than 300 years. In the name of education and fairness, it demands “objectivity”, yet what it wants is compliance, control and order. It wants a standardized product (graduates) who will fit the system which power has created.
Unfortunately, the media, the parents, and even most teachers seem to have bought into the program. This is most unfortunate, for if there is any hope for regaining our humanity in the face of technological conformity, it is the public schools and their original goal of being the great equalizer in a democratic society. As teachers, we should resist the mechanisms of power, for even the “controllers” of the power are, in reality, controlled by it, and only by juxtaposing human values against the values of power can we hope to awaken others and restore balance.
References
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other writings. New York: Pantheon.