AUTONOMY IN STUDENT THINKING
Margaret Mackie
Manasa Sovaki's article, 'Science Education and Society' (Directions, 1980,
No. 5) discusses the difficulty in obtaining pupil participation from some
Pacific Islanders. ' I . Futa Hela's 'Education Crisis in the South Pacific' (in the
same issue of Directions) indicates that educators are 'teaming up with big
business, investors and other social groups with vested interests' to convert
'the whole populace' to the mistaken belief that to serve the 'community' they
must acquire certain practical skills. People, he thinks (and I agree), are being
led to the fallacious belief in a 'unity of interests', when a more critical and
informed understanding of society would make it clear that there are only
'specific interests of particular groups'. All societies are pluralist.
These two articles illustrate the need for more thinking, as opposed to verbal
repetition and skill learning, in the South Pacific. This need exists in all
countries, and while many educators are uncertain about it, it is widely
recognised. This article offers suggestions from my own (Australian)
experience. I have been teaching since 1940.
Ellen Wilkinson, when she was Minister for Education in Westminister after
World War II, visited Germany and recommended the development, in
schools, of independent thought.
'I couldn't agree more, Miss Wilkinson,' said an inspector. 'And now, can you
give me some directives for independent thought.'
Our schools, colleges and universities try to encourage autonomy in their
students, but there is some confusion about how this can be achieved. People
sometimes maintain that there is a conflict between teaching and education,
between instruction and independent thinking, between organised learning
and freedom. It would be very strange if this were so. The most neglected
children would become the best thinkers, and this is obviously not what
actually happens. One cannot judge, decide, test, and discover without
content, and content must be enountered, at least for some of the time, in a
mediated way. Human beings become inquirers through affective interaction
with human 'significant others'. Feral children, so far as we know, do not
develop their thinking in a human way at all.
Permissiveness does not produce skilled thinkers, nor do exhortations to 'think
for yourself. Rejection and protest are common in young people, but are
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seldom independent. Students who tell us that the course is 'irrelevant' and
the government 'respressive' may simply be expressing a group dislike for their
studies and other conditions. Such complaints are often echoed by people
unable to give any coherent account of what they do want. Imitative protest
may be justified, useful, effective ... but it is not independent thinking.
To think independently one must understand an issue or problem, grasp
something of the processes operating on both sides of a controversy, make
informed judgments and perhaps formulate policies. In many cases the
independent thinker will not come down unconditionally on one side of a
dispute, because he is able to see its complications, which elude the imitative
propagandist. The thinker does not substitute abuse for comprehension.
Teachers, at all levels, often feel that their students cannot usefully form
judgments, because they do not know enough. How, they ask, can young
people make any but foolish judgments in politics, for instance? They know
little or nothing of law, sociology, history, economics, and other studies
bearing on such decision-making. How can they discover anything new in
science? Or express anything other than immature likes and dislikes about
literature, art and music? This is, of course, true, in that there are problems
which require much preliminary study, and some problems which nobody can
solve. If, however, people are to become thinkers they need to cope with
problems which are within their range. Part of the process of education is
becoming aware of one's limitations. It was in a North Oxford bus that I heard
a six-year-old proclaim, T h a t is one of the things that nobody knows', a
comment indicating that he was already beyond the stage of believing that
somewhere there is an infallible authority on every topic.
Teachers are liable at each stage to extend the estimate of the age at which
the requisite maturity and information can be expected. In doing so they fail to
build up the confidence of their pupils in their own powers, and establish
habits of intellectual dependence in areas where this is not necessary, and
where the dependence impedes the students' development. 'Independent
thinking' can occur in quite young children when confronted with problems
within their comprehension. An example is that of a blind boy at an Armidale
infants' school. He ran into a table inadvertently moved by a teacher who had
placed a Christmas tree on it. After saying, 'Bloody hell! W h o moved that?'
Justin commented: 'I don't suppose anyone's told Michael either. I must go
and find him straight away or he'll run into it too', and went off unbidden on
this errand to the other blind pupil. He had independently thought of the other
child's danger and of the appropriate action. Justin is a confident boy who has
had sensible support in meeting his formidable problems.
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If they are to trust themselves to think as distinct from repeating the thinking
of others, children need adult interaction of a special kind. In particular, they
need interaction with thinking adults who respect the children's thinking
powers. It is not a matter of giving way, of letting them become little tyrants,
but of working, where possible, with them, in such a way as to foster
responsible judging and deciding. Decisions are 'responsible' when the people
making them take their consequences. Rousseau tried to incorporate
responsibility into his system in Emile, recommending that if Emile broke his
window it should remain unmended, but it is rarely the case that children are
the sole sufferers from broken windows, and in any case the consequences to
Emile could have been out of proportion to his fault. Rousseau, however, was
on the right track, even if his example is inappropriate.
Children who are frequently ignored, ridiculed, hit, or in other ways 'punished'
for expressing their beliefs learn to avoid deciding, suggesting or acting on
their own initiative, or at any rate, they avoid doing so when adults will
observe them. Unfortunately, many adults delight in humiliating small
children, often for the entertainment of other adults. Others trivialize
children's suggestions by treating them as 'cute'. A child's thinking is
supported by its being taken seriously, even when, as is often the case, it is
inappropriate to act on it. It is supported, also, by the knowledge that adults,
also, have to seek answers to problems. A simple example is that of the
teacher who lets the pupils know that he must consult the dictionary or other
expert source in occasional difficulties.
Many tertiary students lack confidence in thinking as a result of secondary
school efforts to organise them through examinations. Many teachers do this
in good faith, believing that they are helping their pupils in a competitive
world. This policy is often counter-productive. Thinking is a major work skill in
almost any employment, and in obtaining employment.
When I first conducted philosophy classes for two-year teacher trainees, one
girl told me at the end of her course that what she had gained from our work
was the realisation that 'ordinary people like me can say things that are worth
considering'. In our discussions I made a rule that it was acceptable to answer
another student by disagreeing with content, but not acceptable to insult the
speaker. 'That's ridiculous', was banned. 'I think you're wrong because...'
was allowed.
Another principle I followed was that I put to students opinions which I
sincerely held. This ensured that I confronted them with a position as coherent
as I could make it. They were not expected to accept my opinions. In avoiding
contrived arguments I put them in a position to quote me against myself if I
had, or appeared to have been, inconsistent. If I wanted them to consider an
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assertion which I did not support I would put it as: 'Some people say...',
'How would you answer this...?'
I found that, once our classes were under way, I could conduct discussions
largely on the basis of chairmanship, rather than of entering the arena myself.
This required, of course, the posing of the problem in some way. We might,
for instance, read the Protagoras, raising the question, 'Can virtue be taught?'
When students understand that a practical problem is involved ('Can parents,
teachers, churches, prisons...form the character, behaviour, life style...of
those in their care?) there is usually no shortage of discussion. Some students
are themselves parents. Ail have had experience and observation of attempts,
successful or not, to bring up children in ways their elders approve.
'What the book says' in philosophy, education, sociology ... becomes more
significant when related to personal observation, and to other reading. In
connection with the Protagoras, I have used Max Williams' Dingo: M y Life
on the Run, an autobiographical book by a habitual criminal, first in trouble
with the police at the age of five, who eventually saw the error of his ways and
rehabilitated himself by writing for publication. At Stonnington, Melbourne I
used current articles in the Age with case studies from Pentridge. I referred
also to Gosse's Father and Son, the Penguin edition of which I had bought on
my way from Armidale. Some lecturers discourage anecdotal contributions by
students (and, presumably, by themselves) on the ground that academic
issues are general or abstract, and that 'isolated examples do not prove
anything'. As 1 hold that all knowledge, philosophy included, is empirical, I see
no way in which generalisations can be arrived at except through the
examination of particulars. I uphold what, I think, Hegel meant when he
referred to the 'concrete universal', that is, that universals (generalisations)
exist only in particulars (examples).
An advantage of the anecdotal approach is that it enables students to realise
that the 'exception' to a 'rule' (generalisation) is itself an instance of some
other generalisation, and this may be the crucial one in the investigation.
Current generalisations about the relation of school success and the 'middle
class' can be readily challenged by reference to academically successful
people from low income families. This brings out the fact that it is the
environment's support for organized learning, and not income level, which is
the operative factor. It also brings out the circularity of the argument which
ascribes to the low-income achiever a 'middle-class o u t l o o k ' . *
* 1. I have examined many cases where successful learners appear to have come from
non-supportive environments, and in each case have found that there was a relative,
friend, teacher... who, as 'significant other', influenced the young person's development. I
do not know of cases, in any economic setting, when talent 'just grew'.
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It is only by independent thought that students appreciate how their college or
university preparation contributes to their teaching, to other paid occupations,
or to their family life. They must relate their book work now to 'real life' if they
are ever to do so. The relating is done by their own active thinking, by their
being co-workers and contributors to the work of the class and of its teacher.
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