Teaching Philosophy

Donald H Taylor at ‘trainingzone.co.uk’ has an article about recent research on the myth of remembering only 10% of what you read, etc.: Modern myths of learning: You only remember 10% of what you read. It follows the research summarized at ‘Will at Work’: People remember 10%, 20%…Oh Really? This research has been around for a while (and it has been discussed widely since the ‘will at work’ post in 2006), but what I find the most interesting is the last section of the trainingzone.co.uk post:

What does this tell us about our profession?

First, arguably, it tells us that we do not have a profession. A real profession would have more concern about what was acceptable data rather than adopting things uncritically because they look pretty. Also, sadly, it tells us that many people working and writing in learning and development don’t seem to want to take the time to stop and think.

I’ve been reading a lot of educational theory this summer, in preparation for an upcoming workshop at Transylvania U on the future of the liberal arts. Much of it, it seems to me, contains similar missteps. Allan Bloom’s famous <em>Closing of the American Mind</em> contains some shockingly  terrible arguments (these are noted by other scholars, including Searle), and much of the classical theorists base their arguments on the ‘faculty’-theory of the mind.

Is education–especially in philosophy–the kind of thing that can be subjected to rigorous research without a well-established theory of mind? Or do we have to wait until cog sci has created a defensible picture of cognition before we can come up with a suitable educational theory? Isn’t it just better to encourage a diversity of educational practices and let students gravitate to the environment in which they learn best?

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.