Process of Learning - Term Paper Example

A Critical Look on Bruner’s Process of Education A Discussion Paper Word count 870 Introduction A number of cognitive psychologists have formed theories which explain the process of knowledge, or the process of informal and formal knowledge acquisition. For instance, J. Anderson (1983) developed a theory stating that “... declarative knowledge, ‘knowing that’ something is the case, is represented in memory as interrelated networks of facts or propositions” (as cited in Eisenhart & Borko, 1993: 26). In contrast, “procedural knowledge, ‘knowing how’ to perform various skills, is represented as a system of productions...” (Frederiksen, Glaser, Lesgold & Shafto, 1990: 354). Other theories have been created which suggest different elements in the process of learning. All of these theories are consistent with the argument of Bruner that ‘you can teach any child any subject at any age in an intellectually responsible way’. This argument simply means that learning is not a product, it is a process. Basically, Bruner argues that if a child recognises an idea s/he can immediately apply that idea in unfamiliar situations, in connection to personal experience and previous knowledge acquired (Erneling & Johnson, 2005: 6). For instance, if a learner can construct grammatical sentences in English, it means that the child understands or recognises grammar rules in English. A learner is aware that normally a subject starts with a sentence, followed by a verb. There are several other concepts that children, prior to the start of formal education, can produce naturally or by themselves (Moore, 2001: 9). That independent knowing is true, powerful, determined by a need to interact, and is applied readily in constantly changing circumstances (Cummins, 1996: 51). This essay will examine and discuss the abovementioned argument of Bruner. In order to make the discussion comprehensive Bruner’s argument will be evaluated in relation to other behaviourists, Piaget, and Vygotsky’s theories. Analysing the Process of Education The work of Vygotsky works up Piaget’s by stressing the social instead of the entirely psychological features of instruction and learning, a stress which, consequently, gives much importance to issues of education (Palmer, 2001: 41). Still, as with Piaget, the theory of Vygotsky is not resistant of criticism. One of the major problems is that Vygotsky seems to make a quite strong differentiation between ‘everyday’ knowledge (obtained outside the classroom context and usually understood in an ‘unreflecting’ manner) and ‘scientific’ knowledge (acquired through formal education) (Palmer, 2001: 35-37). It seems that Vygotsky is suggesting (Moore, 2001: 22): a) that the development of ‘scientific’ concepts demands and represents a qualitatively different kind of learning and intelligence from ‘everyday’ concepts; b) that ‘scientific’ learning occurs only in classroom situations (Moore, 2001: 22). It is uncertain whether the second idea has ever been factual. Yet, in these times of educational programmes, homework groups, home-school alliance, the dichotomy seems mostly unlikely (Bornstein & Bruner, 1989: 73). It may be assumed that Vygotsky’s quite strong differentiation between school instruction and learning on the one hand and instruction and learning outside of school on the other, where in the latter is quite taken for granted, is one feature of a bigger dilemma with the theory of Vygotsky in that it has the tendency, like Piaget and Skinner, to ignore, in its pursuit for general development patterns, the more changeable components of learning and teaching and their cultural foundations (Erneling & Johnson, 2005: 423). In a work which centres the interactive, social components of learning and teaching, this lack is mainly obvious. What we could conclude of the theory of Vygotsky is that for its recognition of the relevance of the social perspective for teaching and learning, it is mostly lacking any clear ‘ideological’ or political aspect (Frederiksen et al., 1990: 143). It is because of this weakness that the theory of Jerome Bruner becomes specifically relevant: ‘you can teach any child any subject at any age in an intellectually responsible way’. Bruner has worked up Vygotsky’s theory to indicate a much-required cultural perspective for learning and teaching. Bruner builds on the theories of Vygotsky and Piaget in a number of ways (Zimmerman & Schunk, 2003: 427). Primarily, he develops the concept of ‘spiralling’ (Bruner, 1977: 10). ‘Spiralling’ defines the practice by which the child always goes back to ‘earlier’ learning and knowledge in the face of new experience and new learning (Bruner, 1977: 10-12). While this new experience and learning encourage children to reinterpret and reassess formerly known ideas and knowledge, so those formerly recognised ideas and knowledge help them to understand new learning and experiences as they take place (Bruner, 1977: 21). The concept of spiralling involves some extent of ‘provisionality’ in learning (Bruner, 1977: 38). An idea like dog or magic, for instance, may gain an active meaning in the mind of the child at one point in time, yet that meaning will be continuously reworked as other understanding takes place and as new perspectives are given (Bruner, 1977: 38). A five-year-old child could display ‘knowledge’ of what a dog is, yet this dog is prone to be a quite distinct animal from the animal the same individual recognises ten years later. Spiralling refutes the idea of a progressive, continuous, stage-by-stage build up of knowledge: it permits and motivates the child to move forwards as well as backwards and to modify knowledge by re-evaluating them (Bruner, 1977: 44). Such a mechanism will be immediately familiar to most educators, and gives both a more reasonable and a more active framework of the process of learning than at times seems to be explained in Piaget’s theory of development (Donaldson, 1978: 139)—even though there are similarities between Piaget’s idea of revising ‘on a new plane what was achieved at the preceding level’ (Donaldson, 1978: 139) and the concept of spiralling. The idea that children apply new experience, understanding and knowledge to reconstruct and examine current understanding and cognitive systems and experience is currently agreed upon among cognitive psychologists (Cummins, 1996: 75). As recently remarked by Cummins regarding this issue: “there is general agreement [...] that we learn by integrating new input into our existing cognitive structures or schemata. Our prior experience provides the foundation for interpreting new information. No learner is a blank slate” (Cummins, 1996: 75). The second relevant assumption of Bruner, which could be viewed as an actual separation from Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories instead of an extension of it, is that he gives a lot more consideration of the influence of the home and specifically of the parent in the linguistic and cognitive development of a child (Moore, 2001: 22). This feature of Bruner’s theory paves the way to the third assumption, concerning issues of the relationships and incompatibilities between the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of the learning process of children outside the school and the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of their learning within the school environment (Bruner, 1996: 39). It is in the creation of this last subject that Bruner starts to examine themes of learning and culture: an examination that has rendered his theory ever more political as time has passed by (Eisenhart & Borko, 1993: 82). It is in the newest theory of Bruner that we observe the issue of education and culture in his main argument examined in its most openly political manner. Bruner explains his theory in terms of a hypothetical exploration, the same hypothetical exploration, it could be assumed, as that carried out by numerous school educators at some point in the same period (Eisenhart & Borko, 1993: 82). That exploration began in the 1960s, when the theory of Bruner, similar to that of Vygotsky and Piaget beforehand, had been described by what Bruner refers to as an obsession with the “solo, intra-psychic processes of knowing and how these might be assisted by appropriate pedagogies” (Bruner, 1996: xiii). It was just afterwards that his theory became more and more preoccupied with “how culture affected the way in which children went about their school learning (Bruner, 1996: xiii)”: an issue emerging, particularly, from “the discovery of the impact of poverty, racism and alienation on the mental life and growth of the child victims of those blights” (Bruner, 1996: xiii). This finding moved Bruner’s explorations of the learning process, essentially social in its character beforehand, ever more towards the idiosyncratic, provisional features of linguistic-cognitive growth, helping educators to value that when children perform poorly at school the causes may rest not in some form of ‘self-sufficient’ growth that can be examined and defined external to any socio-cultural background, but instead in the social circumstances where in the child exists and has been raised (Cummins, 1996: 92). Such a move compelled Bruner to question Piaget’s ‘more self-contained, formalistic theories’, is arguing that these “had very little room for the enabling role of culture in mental development” (Bruner, 1996, xiii). The consideration of Bruner with concerns of poverty and culture in learning were already clear in the 1970s (Erneling & Johnson, 2005: 417). For instance, Bruner had claimed: “Persistent poverty over generations creates a culture of survival. Goals are short range, restricted. The outsider and the outside are suspect. One stays inside and gets what one can. Beating the system takes the place of using the system” (Bruner, 1970, 160). This kind of perception indicated for Bruner the requirement for a task, and a confidence on the ‘unfortunate’, which claims that “their plight is not a visitation of fate but a remediable condition” (Bruner, 1970, 161). The claim of Bruner that education’s socio-cultural background is as vital to our knowledge of how learning or understanding functions as Piaget’s ‘intrapsychical’ assumptions imply that educators have to be as knowledgeable of diverse learning styles or ways as of general developmental patterns (Palmer, 2001: 42). For instance, it is educationally erroneous and ethno-centric for an educator to think that there is one universal means or group of means where in learning occurs, or that learning approaches are free of wider cultural processes, or that learning ways could be unmoved by ways of living (Palmer, 2001: 42). This requirement to make sense further of various learning approaches is not restricted, in the assumption of Bruner, to educators. The school-student, according to Bruner, “needs to be aware of how [they go] about learning and thinking as [they are] about the subject matter [they are] studying” (Bruner, 1996: 64). As stated by Bruner (1996), this ‘metacognitive’ feature of learning indicates the necessity for development theories that are ‘intersubjective’ instead of ‘objective’ (p. 64). Intersubjective thinkers ‘apply the same theories to themselves as they do to their clients’ (Bruner, 1996: 64): which means, intersubjective speculation is basically ‘reflexive’, aiming to exercise self-understanding as a means of making sense of the thoughts of others, and vice versa (Bruner, 1996: 64). On the other hand, objectivist scholars define a distinction between the subject or learner and the theorist or teacher, as though the latter is the objective, full, knowledgeable person capable of making some form of clean, value-free judgment about the former. Conclusions One primary implication of Bruner’s claim that ‘you can teach any child any subject at any age in an intellectually responsible way’ on classroom practice is that to successfully transcend the inadequacies of children’s basic ‘cause- effect’ thinking, it is necessary for educators to motivate their limitless interest, thoughts, and imagination. As stated by Restak (2001), “Most of this activity occurs beyond our conscious awareness. Our thoughts and emotions usually work together, but sometimes, powerful emotions can drive our actions without us consciously understanding why” (p. 112). Educators should examine thoroughly their own understanding, behaviour, and practice when a child’s learning seems to weaken, instead of searching for the reasons entirely within the learner’s behaviour. Furthermore, they should share their understanding and knowledge of themselves as learners to their perceptions of how students might be handling and experiencing their learning. The increasing stress of Bruner on the cultural perspectives of learning and teaching is a relevant issue to his major argument. References Bornstein, M. & Bruner, J. (1989). Interaction in Human Development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Bruner, J. (1970). Poverty and Childhood. New York: Merrill-Palmer Institute. Bruner, J. (1977). The Process of Education. Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1996). The Culture of Education. Harvard University Press. Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating identities: education for empowerment in a diverse society. California: California Association for Bilingual Education. Donaldson, M. (1978). Children’s minds. Cornell University: Fontana/Collins. Eisenhart, M.A. & Borko, H. (1993). Designing Classroom Research: Themes, Issues, and Struggles. New York: Allyn and Bacon. Erneling, C. & Johnson, D.M. (2005). The Mind as a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press. 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