I think the title should have been "Look Before You Leap" because it is all about educational theory being misunderstood by practitioners and educationalists who put presumptuous concepts and principles into practice based on theory from other disciplines such as psychology. They should have looked fully at operational practice of practitioners, he says, and tested ideas arising from that, before forming educational theories that they could put to the test in the field.
So what does Hirst say about educational theory?
It is "concerned with explanation"; with "guiding and improving practice". He sees it as a matter for belief (he is, in his own words, unrepentant) that it is "primarily the domain which seeks to develop rational principles for educational practice". He has issues that when he wrote decades ago, some were using educational theory to develop irrational principles that were imposed on practitioners, untested. He says: " Any attempt to implement such ill-conceived principles can only serve to distort practice into indefensible activities". He asserts that the "essence of any practical theory is its concern to develop principles formulated in operationally effective practical discourse that are subjected to practical test." Yes, for him, theory is a matter of practice and practise.
Hirst considers practical knowledge of disciplines are sometimes incompatible. "Rules and principles can not be applied to situations by the exercise of knowledge of another kind, practical knowledge." Now, the application of knowledge is wisdom and the idea that wisdom is universal in all professions would seem to be self-evidently false to me. If it was, what need would there be to separate the professions? They are separated for the sake of our ignorance, to focus our search for greater wisdom, narrowing our field of study, facilitating realisation of realities with greater speed and rigour. But practical knowledge for Hirst is a necessary idiom because he wants to be specific, not generalist; he is interested in what is tacit and what is operational in education. So, he states what is rather obvious: we must take care to check what we think works in one arena that it works in our arena before we put our trust in it. Look before we leap.
His style of writing is ponderous (he would say careful) and, he equivocates too often. Say what your mean, Hirst. Don't be so afraid.
But maybe he is afraid because he still focuses too much on practical and operational research as the source for theory and he knows that. He has a hidden agenda perhaps of support for what is known now as action research - putting the researcher in to the field as a practitioner, with the aim that the researcher benefits from improved operational practice (practical knowledge), even should no one else.
Theory is academic or practical depending on what it postulates. It is legitimate to focus on practical theorising or academic theorising. He is dismissive of academic theory to emphasise practical theory. He wants "practical testing of practical principles". He thinks that is what psychology, philosophy and sociology are there for. That seems wishful thinking to me. Why can't one test principles - what is this obsession with the word "practical"? A test is a test; it either works or it doesn't; it is practical by being effected and applied. I think he may have meant that tests need to be pertinent to educational principles, and not imports that are designed from and for external disciplines. if one presumes the test correct any deviance in the field may be deemed a flaw and practitioners blamed or practice re-configured to fit the test.
It is not new that people more readily test that which is easily tested than that which is hard to test, but is much more pertinent or pressing. Maybe Hirst is railing against educationalists being to ready to stay in their comfort zone. He may have done a great service in simply doing that.
Chaplin movies are dull and not very funny because we have seen it all before. The fact that his genius enabled the great comedy that followed is not evident on the silver screen.
Doubtless Hirst pioneered and got us where we are today. Looking before we leap.
"It is therefore as mistaken to think of the practical principles of educational theory being justified by appeal to the disciplines as it is to think that a theory in physics is justified by appeal to the validity of the mathematical system it employs." - Hirst, 1983
1 comment:
Interesting. Hirst sounds like a cross between an apeal to scientific principles and Dewey, particularly Dewey's later writing.
I feel an apeal to pertinent and valid testing of research is still valid today. As a matheatician when I criticize of a piece of educational research on the basis of unsound statistics, its often recieved as if I had said I didnt like the typeface or the colour of the journal cove.
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