As John Dewey put it in 1938, “The
history of educational theory is marked by opposition between the
idea that education is development from within and that it is
formation from without: that it is based upon natural endowments
[versus] a process of overcoming natural inclination and substituting
in its place habits acquired under external pressure.” (p.1)
When Self-Determination Theory
co-founder Richard Ryan teamed up with fellow psychologist Martin
Lynch in 2003 to examine this age-old controversy in light of
research they set the stage thus:
“Views on autonomy and control in
education are strongly connected with answers to some prior
questions. If one assumes humans are naturally inclined to learn,
allowing students to learn autonomously makes sense. However, if it
is assumed that students are inherently unmotivated or disinclined,
then control is more readily justified. If one believes that society
depends on the specific body of knowledge or skills that must be
disseminated, or character traits that must be inculcated, then using
force to compel learning might be in order. However, if one assumes
that useful knowledge takes many forms and is ever-changing, then
controlling what must be learned makes less sense. Similarly, if
one’s goal is not obedience but moral autonomy, one will be less
concerned with control, though one may regard moral autonomy as the
ultimate goal while holding that some degree of control must be
exercised in preparing children for later autonomy. Philosophers'
views of the matter have divided especially around the matter of what
motives are spontaneously present in children and whether control is
helpful or unhelpful in educating children for autonomy.” (p.263)
They found that, “the use of external
controls to motivate students is often associated with a distrust of
human nature that assumes students will not absorb, and teachers will
not teach, what is essential unless strongly guided to do so through
external controls. By contrast, the advocacy of autonomous learning
depends on a view of humans as inherently desiring to know and
disposed to assimilate ambient social values and knowledge, whenever
they are properly cared for. … [A] teachers philosophy of education
and motivation readily results in a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
(p.269-70)
The conservative fear that an education
lacking structure could lead to poor results is well founded. The
progressive fear that an education characterized by too much control
could lead to poor results is also well founded. These fears result
in pedagogues and policy makers fighting over how much control to
impose (the currently dominant view in mainstream schools) versus how
much freedom to impose (a marginal but growing segment of the
industry). These reactions are understandable given those fears.
The problem arises from how actions
taken in response to these fears are applied in a manner that
undermines the psychological foundations of deep learning. I suspect
that everyone would agree that deeper learning is the desired result
(at least for their own children). I take it as a basic tenet of
fairness that the same psychological conditions need to apply for all
children, since the aspect of psychology I am concerned with is
universal, not culturally contingent. Therefore, I contend that we
psychologists do not need to take sides in the pedagogical debate, we
need to ensure that the psychological foundations are universally
solid and then let the pedagogues work it out amongst themselves.
If conservative pedagogues want to
offer a standardized test-driven curriculum then they should be free
to do so, as long as they are able to show that they maintain the
psychological conditions that are necessary for deeper learning of
that curriculum. They would need to show that their students and
teachers maintain their intrinsic motivation and engagement for the
typical activities of schooling. If the intrinsic motivation and
engagement of students diminish over time then they need to figure
out how to do their thing in a manner that maintains those
psychological conditions for deeper learning.
The same is true of the progressive
educators pedagogues who are inclined to impose freedom. If they can
show that their students and teachers are maintaining their intrinsic
motivation and engagement for the typical activities of schooling
then they are doing fine.
Given the psychological research I've
seen so far I suspect the conservative pedagogues will have more
difficulties with this kind of accountability, but that might not be
the case over the long term. They might figure out how to do it. They
have the advantage of being closer to the default image of schooling
in most people's minds. They just have to figure out how to get that
institutional arrangement to work in terms of motivation and
engagement. The point is to eliminate the abuses of power that can go
with the structures they favor.
The same elimination of abuses of power
is crucial to the long term success of the progressive pedagogies
that make freedom their raison d'être. In the past this side of the
pedagogical spectrum has tended to equate structure with a lack of
freedom and conclude that freedom requires a lack of structure.
Psychological research has shown that this attitude was in error.
Their challenge will be figuring out which kinds of structure
are the most useful for achieving their goals and getting the use of
those structures to become a commonly accepted image of schooling.
