Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 35, No. 1, 2001
Education or Pedagogy? GEOFFREY HINCHLIFFE This paper explores the meaning of education in contrast with `pedagogy'. Whereas education can be defined as `learning for its own sake', pedagogy can be defined as learning oriented towards social goals. An attempt to find an adequate conceptualisation is first of all sought in Aristotle, but his concept of education is found to depend on too narrow a concept of rational activity. A more adequate conceptualisation is found in Michael Oakeshott's contrast between morality and enterprise associations. However Oakeshott's definition of education needs modifying if it is to take account of the idea of critical knowing, which is seen as crucial to any definition of education.
INTRODUCTION
Ever since antiquity, there have always been two traditions in teaching and learning. The firstÐinstrumental learning, or, in a sense to be explained, pedagogyÐplaces learning at the service of government, political power and the economy. The secondÐeducationÐrepresents that more disinterested endeavour in which teacher and pupil engage in a form of enquiry. Whereas the former has specific objectives, the latterÐthough it indeed must provide certain skills and knowledgeÐis underpinned by the idea that the outcome of education is essentially open. Just as we cannot predict the outcome of good conversation, this inability being one of the prime reasons for engaging in the pursuit, so the outcome of an educative experience must be left, in part, to the interaction between learners and teacher. Construed as education, the results of learning can never be measured according to a common standard. But construed as a pedagogy, those results must be measurable because the whole point of learning is to equip people for specified social, political and economic requirements. The implication is clear: those interested in education have always had to fight their corner against the proponents of pedagogy. Free spirits usually have a hard time of it: but now, more than ever, is the time to recover and re-state those ideals associated with the tradition of education against the timeservers of pedagogy. & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
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This view was proposed by the classicist, Oswyn Murray in a recent Times Literary Supplement review (Murray, 1999). The review is of a book entitled Pedagogy and Power (Too and Livingstone, 1998) which contains a number of essays on the ways in which classical learning and teaching have been used and deployed in a number of social and political contexts since the times of antiquity. Murray uses the review to advance the case (a case, it should be noted, not advanced anywhere in Pedagogy and Power itself) that there are two traditions in education: the pedagogic and the educative. And the tradition of pedagogy can be traced back to Isocrates, who taught rhetoric and other arts to young Greek aristocrats in order to equip them properly for a career in public life. On the other hand, the tradition of education can be traced squarely back to Plato, who (according to Murray) advocated that learning and the pursuit of knowledge be unsullied by the pursuit of worldly affairs. It is difficult not to find Murray's view attractive. For who wants to find themselves ranged against `the freedom of the human spirit' apart from those so mired in a world of assessment strategies and quality reviews that they cannot see beyond it? And it is a good, anti-Popperian move to enlist Plato on the side of free spirits in opposition to Isocrates and his tracts on rhetoric. After all, who today reads the latter apart from a few scholars? Of course, some might try to argue that the Republic also serves political ends; but this seems unfair. Its arguments cannot be construed as a set of guides and prescriptions for future rulers since the Guardians are only entitled to rule because of the knowledge and wisdom they possess. Those who posses real knowledge take up the reins of power reluctantly because they know that although their gaze is directed towards the sources of wisdom, they are still of this world and cannot avoids its imperatives. Murray also urges certain etymological considerations: the Latin educare means to lead out, to raise up, whereas the Greek paidagogia means the leading of a slave or child. Thus the term `pedagogy' seems to be connected with ideas of training and discipline with the purpose of developing the well-formed person. We are accustomed, perhaps, to thinking of the aims of pedagogy as directed to certain `micro-ends', relating to individual discipline, comportment and norms of presentation. Nevertheless, what we are being invited to consider is an extended meaning to `pedagogy' so that the term incorporates the idea of training for political, social and economic ends. It is all too easy to see how the distinction has a reverberation today: we need only examine the methods used to raise education standards to realise very swiftly that what is involved is an exercise in pedagogy, with specific means employed to hit identifiable targets. The importance for the teacher of producing evidence of learning so that assessment criteria can be appliedÐlearning which has been deliberately structured precisely so that it can be assessed and monitoredÐshows us why so many teachers are unhappy. They are no longer teachers or lecturers but mere pedagogues. The introduction of the National Curriculum in England & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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and Wales has reduced considerably the scope of teachers to engender creative and critical learning. Teachers at all levelsÐbut especially those subject to the greatest scrutiny of all, namely primary-level teachersÐ may well feel that the pupil or student who attains a level of critical awareness will not even have this recognised, just because it is not something that is currently measured. In other words, the very things that education is supposed to produceÐcritical awareness, creativity, an imaginative responseÐsimply do not count for anything very much from the standpoint of pedagogical considerations and, indeed, may very well count against the student. Yet the view just sketched could be seen as merely a response to recent events, and one which relies on a number of well-worn contrasts: creativity/regimentation, freedom/discipline, critical/conformist. If the pedagogy/education contrast simply amounts to yet another contrast of the same order then it must be doubted that it could ever advance our understanding even though it may be welcome as another weapon in the embattled teacher's armoury of counter-offensive rhetoric. And indeed, the distinction could be questioned on a number of counts. In the first place, it must be fairly clear that historically a great deal of what has been termed `education' has had little to do with `leading out' children or students and everything to do with training and discipline. Must we now accept that we have been misusing the term and start to get into the habit of calling the bulk of what goes on in our schools and colleges pedagogy rather than education? If not, is anyone seriously going to maintain that prior, say, to the introduction of the National Curriculum there was a regime of education and freedom until the government came along and squashed everything with its pedagogy? But perhaps the distinction may turn on a more traditional contrast between academic and vocational instruction so that the term `pedagogy' cleaves to the vocational. If this is accepted then are we supposed to admit that critical awareness and creativity can be achieved by philosophers and scientists but not by chefs, engineers or doctors? For if this is all the distinction amounts too then it turns out to be rather uninteresting. We are all familiar with the claims of those who wish to protect liberal learning and its accompanying venerable humanism from the depredations of `training'. In any case, it seems perfectly reasonable to say that one needs to be trained in the right way if one wants to become a philosopher or a historian, implying a pedagogy right at the heart of liberal learning itself. And to confuse matters still further, was it not Michael Oakeshott, passionate defender of liberal learning, who eloquently spoke of his army instructor teaching him that gymnastics could be an `intellectual art'? And if you were to ask me the circumstances in which patience, accuracy, elegance and style ®rst dawned upon me, I would have to say that I did not come to recognise them in literature, in argument or in geometrical proof until I had ®rst recognised them elsewhere; and that I owed this recognition to a Sergeant gymnastics instructor who lived long before the & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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days of `physical education' and for whom gymnastics was an intellectual artÐand I owed it to him, not on account of anything he ever said, but because he was a man of patience, accuracy, economy, elegance and style. (Oakeshott, 1967, p. 176)
Does the distinction between education and pedagogy make any sense from a political perspective? This may seem promising for it might be that the distinction, if embedded in wider concepts, may both give those concepts an extra content and take on a wider meaning as a result. Take, for example, Louis Althusser's idea of the ISAÐ`Ideological State Apparatus'Ðwhich he introduced in order to specify the `relative autonomy' of the Marxian concept of the superstructure (Althusser, 1971, pp. 151±152). Undoubtedly, pedagogy fits squarely into an ISA, but where does this leave education? Are we to conclude that education is that form of politics, in the Althusserian scheme of things, which conducts revolutionary struggle against the ruling class? Or do we conclude that education exists in a misty world over and beyond the reality of the ISAÐnot to mention the RSA (Repressive State Apparatus)? Althusser might have replied that `education' is merely pedagogy trying to convince itself that it is free from all those determinants which produce pedagogy; a delusional pedagogy which thinks of itself as soaring in the sky whilst only succeeding in affirming the very power of ideology. But could we, nevertheless, view pedagogy's relation to truth as essentially strategic? Consider, for example, Oswyn Murray's statement that `Isocratean pedagogy is incompatible with freedom, whereas Platonic philosophy, with its emphasis on truth wherever it may lead, is indeed the path to freedom'. Leaving aside the questionable relation between truth and freedom in Plato (for whom, surely more than for any other philosopher, the path to truth had its own imperatives and requirements compared to which the demands of freedom were irrelevant) could we say, then, that education (but not pedagogy) enables us to pursue truth wherever it may lead? But such truths can only be recognised and acknowledged in terms of the practices governing activity in the classroom or seminar room: and this amounts to subjecting truth to a pedagogic interrogation. It is difficult, that is, to see how such practices are likely to generate `truths' which somehow surmount the very conditions in which they arise. On this argument, therefore, the distinction amounts to very little, perhaps little more than one of style. Perhaps, then, the distinction could be defended along the following lines. Pedagogy relates to those social, economic and political requirements which a state requires from its education system; pedagogy addresses those skills which society needs. But an element of education is needed to complement all this; and what education does is to focus on the needs and development of the individual. Education, then, is `person-centred', and focuses on the personal development of the individual, whilst pedagogy sees to the social and economic role which that individual might play. (I have in mind the ideas of Carl Rogers (see & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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Rogers, 1983, pp. 283±296) though, of course, Rogers himself would have had nothing to do with pedagogy at all in any form, believing that education, in the way he understood it, could achieve all learning goals.) Education and pedagogy are not exclusive but complementary. But this approach really seems to be just wishful thinking; for if pedagogy is dominant then the kind of individual qualities to be developed and encouraged are precisely those suitable for a social and economic role. On the other hand, if an education is genuinely person-centred then it is difficult to see how pedagogic demands can be met properly without making very big assumptions about the fit between personal well-being and social efficiency (it is just this sort of assumption that Rogers seems to make). In any case, one could just as easily reverse the application of the terms, so that pedagogy becomes the training and disciplining of the person (with a suitable element of self-training and self-discipline to satisfy liberal claims for autonomy) whilst education concerns itself with the macro-issue of knowledge. It seems, then, that there is no easy, consistent way to apply the distinction between education and pedagogy. I propose, therefore, to put on one side how the two terms are actually used or might be used in order to examine possible conceptual contrasts. One that immediately suggests itself is this: pedagogy views learning instrumentally whereas education views learning for its own sake. THE ARISTOTELIAN ARGUMENT
This kind of contrast appears in Aristotle's Politics (see Aristotle, 1948), where learning which is needed to produce the necessities of life is compared to the kind of learning needed for a life of leisure. Aristotle contrasts leisure (schole) with war and action: `It is true that citizens must be able to lead a life of action and war; but they must be even more able to lead a life of leisure and peace' (Politics, p. 373). Leisure implies self-directed, reflective activity. He contrasts leisure with work, saying that `the growth of goodness and the pursuit of political activities' is bound to be inhibited by any mechanical (banausos) occupation which `keeps men's minds too much and too meanly occupied' (Politics, p. 393). Aristotle also states that leisure is the end to which occupation is directed, but nowhere does he suggest that work is the kind of pursuit which is both worthy in itself and worthy as a means to an end. He is disinclined to give work or occupation any independent value at all. Consequently, the kind of learning which a citizen should undertake is of the kind which brings about the cultivation of the mind (Politics, p. 395). For only then will persons be able to develop the virtues, including the crucial virtue of practical wisdom ( phronesis) which will enable them to lead a full life as a citizen. I do not wish to pursue at length Aristotle's view that mechanical or menial occupations make one unfit to be a citizen. For one thing, of course, this view was contradicted by the experience of Athenian democracy itself when citizenship was extended to all Athenian-born & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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males. Moreover, Aristotle himself concedes that not all menial work makes a person's character menial and even grants that such work is permissible when it is for a `fine end', for example, when one performs a service for a friend (see Politics, pp. 371, 393). There seems no reason why this could not be generalised to include any kind of `menial' task which provides for the comforts of citizens. Nor is it clear that the performer of such tasks could not be included within the ambit of citizenship providing he or she had enough time to devote to leisure (Irwin, 1988, pp. 414±416). The key point is that, once we make allowance for all these local historical features it looks as though there is a real argument here for a distinction between the kind of education which is for its own sake and the kind of education which is not. And the argument is that educationÐ`cultivation of the mind'Ðis the kind of activity which brings about and sustains rational activity and which, indeed, can be considered as one facet of rational activity. The argument takes on depth once we are aware of the connotations of `rational activity' in the Aristotelian scheme of things. For it is the kind of activity which needs other rational agents in order to complete it, which needs the political space afforded by the polis for it to exhibit its public dimension and which requires a shared acknowledgement of those values which sustain the common good of a shared life. By contrast with this, then, we get an educationÐor rather pedagogyÐgoverned by narrow ends and driven by a conception of humankind as precisely not destined to a live a public, shared life amongst equals. This kind of contrast is, of course, the kernel of the version of Aristotelianism which was developed by Hannah Arendt, amongst others. One possible objection to this viewpoint is that it does not give enough weight to those occupation-related activities of which Aristotle was so dismissive. It might be urged that working with modern technology, for example, transforms lives and yields the kind of satisfactions, both personal and social, of which Aristotle could not have possibly known. But this objection cannot, I think, be sustained. For the Aristotelian argument precisely puts all this into question by asking what kind of worth these satisfactions could possibly have. If they are the kind of satisfactions associated with work or privacy then they cannot possibly be accorded a high valuation, because they are not expressions of full rational activity in the Aristotelian sense. On this line of reasoning, then, the knowledge associated with technology belongs to the public domain (in exactly the same way as scientific knowledge) but technology-related occupations are still essentially instrumental in nature. Therefore the mere assertion of the value of occupations does nothing to alter their secondary status with regard to the public realm. Another objection is more serious and addresses the way in which rational activity is seen by Aristotle in terms of its finality as far as human ends are concerned. Rational activity is seen as a natural feature of human kind. This emerges clearly in the Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle, 1980, 1097b22±1098a18) when Aristotle asks what the & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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`function' of man is, declaring that there must be one in just the same way that the eye's function is that of seeing. His conclusion that man's function is that of rational activity implies that it is a natural, nonnegotiable end of human kind. We discover what our ends and purposes are as human beings and through this discovery we can then realise our own true natures. Those whose powers of discovery are deficient are not complete human beings. This is why slaves deserved their fate, a fate of enslavement being fitting for humans lacking self-mastery. The point to these observations lies in the suspicion that all learning, including the learning of citizens, may end up being pedagogic rather than educative. Is this simply because the kind of learning Aristotle has in mind is simply a means to an end, the end here being citizenship? This thought, I believe, accounts for part of the suspicion. For though it is true that the life of a citizen involves wider and more varied concerns than a life solely concerned with business occupations, one still needs to be trained and fashioned for citizenship. The fact that one's horizon's are much wider qua citizen need not, of itself, prevent the kind of learning at issue being pedagogic in character. We observed earlier on that pedagogy can be seen as learning which serves political ends. On this definition, it does not matter if those ends are of an impeccably democratic kind: what we have is still pedagogy rather than education. But there are further considerations which strengthen the suspicion that what we are dealing with here is, after all, a species of pedagogy. These arise from the observations made with respect to the way in which rational activity is made a natural, functional quality of human kind. For what is striking about Aristotle is the way in which he advocates the development of rational powers but not really a critique of those powers. There is lacking in Aristotle the element of reflexivity, of reason's awareness of itself and of its willingness to put itself into question. And maybe it is just this that differentiates pedagogy from education. Pedagogy is always sure of itself, it always knows where it is going and it takes for granted that what it takes to be knowledge really is knowledge. Pedagogy, by its very nature, can never be self-critical. Of course, pedagogy willÐespecially these daysÐemphasise the need for students and learners to develop critical powers. But these powers of critique are ultimately concerned with developing the learner in a certain direction so as to develop the appropriate personal qualities of creativity, adaptability and flexibility. What pedagogy can never do is develop a radical critique of itself and its aims. I want to suggest that what can be said of pedagogy can be said in the same way of an Aristotelian concept of education. It too does not carry within itself a critique of its own aims. It too is oriented towards the production of a certain type of individual whose character and comportment serve ends of a socio-political nature. Of course, we might well prefer the ends that such an education serves, compared with those of pedagogy. For example, it seems indubitable that education is more likely to produce a type of character with a broader range of concerns and sensibilities than pedagogy ever could. If one accepts the & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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Aristotelian concept of rational activity then this apparently gives one good reason to suppose that education is indeed different from and ultimately superior to, pedagogy. My suggestion, however, is that because the Aristotelian notion of rational activity lacks the element of self-critical knowing, the contrast between pedagogy and education cannot be drawn strongly enough. By contrast with the Aristotelian conception, could there be a different concept of education which flows from the idea that rational activity itself could be self-critical? This would imply that what is distinctive about education is that it is willing to put itself into question. It is willing to ask whether the knowledge it is concerned with really is knowledge and what it presumes to be of value really is of value. But how could education do this? If we construe all the activities related to the concept of education as a form of practice, then my question is: How can a practice call itself into question and still remain a practice? Before I go on to consider this question, we need first of all to consider the nature of a practice. OAKESHOTT'S CONCEPT OF A PRACTICE
The concept of a practice lies at the heart of Michael Oakeshott's On Human Conduct and helps us to make a decisive contrast between education and pedagogy. Moreover, correctly understood, Oakeshott's concept of a practice takes us beyond the Aristotelian notion of rational activity. It therefore helps us to understand the idea of education as a practice which questions its own foundations and which, indeed, holds out the possibility of doing without foundations altogether. Any conduct which amounts to a form of transaction between human beings may be considered as a form of practice: `A practice may be identified as a set of considerations, manner, uses, observances, customs, standards, canons, maxims, principles, rules and offices specifying useful procedures or denoting obligations or duties which relate to human actions and utterances' (Oakeshott, 1975, p. 55). A practice, then, consists of those meanings which agents acknowledge in acting. These meanings may be formally codified in terms of prescribed procedures or they may amount to unwritten understandings. For example, the condition of `neighbourliness' denotes the kind of understandings accepted by agents insofar as they are related to each other in the capacity of neighbours. As such, in recognising themselves as `neighbours', agents subscribe to certain conditions which govern the character of relations which holds between neighbours. These conditions pertain to respect for privacy, sensibilities concerning the acceptable boundaries of intrusion, appropriate concern for the other's welfare and security, and so on. A vital aspect of Oakeshott's theory is that the conditions or terms of a practice have to be learned. This need not imply formal conditions of learning; rather it denotes that the terms of a practice, encapsulated as they are in a series of meanings, must be understood. Whether this understanding is reflective, deliberate or intuitive; whether it takes a & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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lifetime or a few seconds to achieve; and whether this understanding is imperfect or incompleteÐall these considerations merely reflect the fact that learning can take many different forms. But whatever form this learning takes, it is exhibited by a recognised capacity to deploy these meanings insofar as and whenever one agent relates to another. There is, for Oakeshott, no such thing as social conditioning if by this term is meant that agents reach certain understandings without ever learning them. Thus crime-related behaviour associated with the life of some juveniles on run-down housing estates has to be learned just as much as do the very different protocols of conduct at an old-fashioned finishing school for young ladies. Another feature of a practice is that it imposes upon an agent no demands that he or she should think certain thoughts or adopt certain sentiments. And although Oakeshott does not anywhere discuss at length the idea of a degenerate practice, it would appear that a practice becomes degenerate at the moment when the agency of persons is denied or diminished. Regimes which impose on their unfortunate victims requirements that they should have certain beliefs do not, in this respect, amount to a practice. For Oakeshott, a practice `is an instrument to be played upon, not a tune to be played . . . the requirements of a practice are not obeyed or disobeyed; they are subscribed to or not subscribed to' (ibid., p. 58). But it should be noted that agency for Oakeshott, is not to be seen as the expression of `choice' emanating from a sovereign free will. Rather, agency can only be manifested and expressed within the terms of a practice. No logical priority or privileged status attaches to the concept of a subject. Subjects do not `support' practices. Rather, the condition of being a `subject' (supposing we take concept of a subject in the liberal sense of a rational, autonomous person) is itself something which arises through and is constituted by the terms of a practice. To acknowledge oneself as rational and autonomous, and as the self-directed author of one's actions, is indeed a recognisable feature of certain discourses since the Enlightenment. But such a conception goes well beyond Oakeshott's idea of agency. For agents may well subscribe to a practice which is disinclined to recognise the claims of individual autonomy (such as certain collectivist experimental communities which insist that the claims of community come before any individual claims) whilst still retaining their agency. Now, Oakeshott claims that there are two types of practice. There is the kind of practice which amounts to `a prudential art concerned with the success of the enterprises of agents'; but there is also the kind of practice which has no extrinsic purpose as far as the satisfaction of wants is concerned and which amounts to `the practice of agency without further specification' (ibid., p. 60). A prudential art may, of course, take on a number of different forms. Perhaps the self-help texts written by Dale Carnegie on how to make one's life a success now belong to a different era; but in any event they have only been replaced by a host of prescriptions, texts and courses & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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designed to achieve for their users a range of benefits from undreamedof physical pleasures on the one hand to advice on how to balance the competing claims from home and work on the other. A self-help manual teaches a prudential art, and an individual may read it in privacy; but if he or she joins up with other individuals in order to advance some mutually-sought satisfactions then they will have brought into existence what Oakeshott terms an `enterprise association'. He describes this as follows: Agents thus related may be believers in a common faith and concerned or not concerned to propagate it, or they may be partners in a productive undertaking (a bassoon factory); they may be comrades or allies in the promotion of a `cause'; they may be joined in belonging to the same profession or in having the same trade; . . . they may comprise an army, a `village community', a sect, a fellowship, a party, a fraternity, a sodality, a collegium or a guild'. (ibid., p. 114)
But whatever form the enterprise association takes, agents are related in terms of a common substantive purpose. However, we must not suppose that the decisions and actions of particular persons in an enterprise association are anything more than only contingently connected with the common purpose of the association. Oakeshott does not suppose that each individual has permanently within his or her sights the common purpose of the association. Hence there is a need for some kind of managerial engagement which attempts, either well or badly, to relate individual decisions to the overall purpose and well-being of the association. It need scarcely be added that the precise character of this management is not dictated by the concept of the enterprise association itself, and therefore the managerial role can take many different forms, including a democratic one. But the type of practice which most interests Oakeshott (though he freely conceded the importance of enterprise associations) is the kind where there is not an extrinsic substantial purpose to the practice. This type of practice is typified above all by what is termed as ars artium, namely a morality. Because a morality is not governed by a substantive purpose, it cannot prescribe performances. Nevertheless, it is by means of a practice that agents can undertake certain performances in certain circumstances, and can devise for themselves rules of conduct. Oakeshott says that a practice must be understood as a series of adverbial qualifications of conduct; and action may be said to be done considerately, kindly, gracefully or charmlessly. And he defines a moral relationship as one `solely in respect of conditions to be subscribed to in seeking the satisfaction of any want' (ibid., p. 62). These conditions could be thought of as meanings and interpretations which may be shared or contested but which are nonetheless understood. For Oakeshott, it is precisely the lack of a common substantive purpose which enables a practice to be used and explored by persons. It is through a practice that we become agents. & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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For ease of terminology, let me refer to the practices associated with enterprise associations as `instrumental practices' and the kind of practice construed along the lines of a morality as an `open practice'. For Oakeshott, the distinction has ramifications which go well beyond its conceptual origins. Briefly, there is a tendency for open practices to be converted into instrumental practices. This tendency is a permanent feature of modernityÐthat is to say the `long' concept of modernity as a period with us since the seventeenth century. For example, Oakeshott identifies Francis Bacon as one of the early villains, since it was he who advocated the usefulness of learning and its role in `the relief of man's estate' (see Fuller, 1989, p. 75). For Oakeshott, by contrast, education belongs very firmly in the realm of an open practice, since it is an endeavour which has no extrinsic purposes or goals but is an activity of understanding pursued for its own sake. The understanding that is yielded is one which refers to those meanings and interpretations which constitute not just the world of culture and knowledge but the human world itself. Education is an engagement in learning how to live, how to be human. In particular, education and learning initiate the student or pupil into an understanding of the terms which must be subscribed to if one is to articulate choices and decisions and to reveal one's self-identity (Fuller, 1989, pp. 63±73). The relevance of Oakeshott's distinction between the two kinds of practice to thinking about education and pedagogy should now start to become clear. If learning is construed as a pedagogy then it takes on the characteristics of an instrumental practice. This seems to fit in with the term as it is used customarily, that is to denote a range of techniques and styles designed to achieve some desirable outcome. Indeed, it may seem perfectly proper to talk of pedagogic techniques when considering how a particular piece of learning is to be achieved. However, the suggestion is that the term `pedagogy' can be used to refer to the whole of teaching and learning where this is construed along the lines of an instrumental practice. In accordance with Oakeshott's ideas, this would mean not only according education an `extrinsic goal' (to achieve better employability, to raise the economic performance of the nation, to produce well-disciplined and trained citizens, and so on) but also the `management' of that goal: namely a range of procedures, rules and prescriptions which are all designed to ensure that individual actions of both teacher and learner tend to contribute to those external goals. A SELF-CRITICAL PRACTICE
Oakeshott's account of a practice helps us to get to a position where we can understand the pedagogy/education contrast rather more deeply. It seems superior to the account of the contrast provided by the Aristotelian interpretation because it is less dependent on local historical factors (such as the structure of the Greek polis, the position of the aristocracy, the cultural status of skilled work). But how does the idea of an open practice help us to go beyond the Aristotelian idea of rational & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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activity? For it is easyÐtoo easyÐto see Oakeshott's concept of an open practice as nothing more than a deepening and refinement of the Aristotelian idea. But as long as this is thought to be the case then the pedagogy/education contrast will be conceived in a conservative way. Oakeshott used the distinction between instrumental and open practices to mount (amongst many of his concerns) a sophisticated defence of liberal learning. The problem for us, today, is that liberal learning is too closely linked with elitist institutions and practices which have the luxury of being able to keep the world at bay, a luxury increasingly denied to most. Now, if we can push the idea of an open practice a bit further to include the idea of a practice which contains its own self-questioning at its very heart we shall be able to furnish a concept of education for which the pedagogy/education contrast is still pertinent but which recasts the concept of education in a radical direction, thus escaping the position of being an easy target of criticism that liberal learning has turned out to be. It will be recalled that the specification of an open practice is that agents subscribe to the terms of the practice. A practice is the conditions of human engagement, without prescribing beliefs and actions. Oakeshott's prime concern was to identify the conditions under which agency could flourish and to show how education could be considered as an initiation into an understanding of those terms. But to what extent can the terms themselves be subject to questioning and critique? When directed to the open practice that is education, this question addresses the terms of educational engagement. We are therefore led to an enquiry into the nature of a practice which is not merely content to use its terms in differing ways but also seeks to interrogate those terms themselves. What kind of practice would education be if it interrogated its own terms? In part, it would be one in which current meanings and interpretations are discussed and evaluated and where some are to be considered as more salient than others. It is also a practice in which the term `knowledge' is scrutinised: for example, the distinction between `new' and `traditionally accepted' knowledge would be expected to shift. And we might also expect shifts in emphasis in how the relation `student± teacher' is perceived and performed. But over and above all this there is another dimension to education considered as an open practice: in the questioning of the very terms that constitute it, this is a practice which self-consciously re-constitutes itself as a practice. Consequently, the terms of this practice are authoritative only provisionally. In this sense, the practice of education is closer to aesthetic pursuits than to a morality, for in the latter the authority of its terms is taken to be enduring, and questioned only in extremis. In thinking through the idea of a practice which interrogates its own terms it may be tempting to cite the well-known metaphor of rebuilding a ship at sea, but this can be misleading on two counts. First, the terms of a practice do not amount to anything like as cohesive and interlocking as the fabric of a ship; and second, the critique of terms need not be undertaken with a view to constructing a fresh set of terms. Agents in an & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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open practice are not like architects and they do not have a blueprint of a new building in front of them as they set about demolishing the old one. It would be better to think of a practice as having no internal structure and no centre. Thus the questioning of terms should not imply that agents are unduly motivated to build up an entirely new set of terms. They are not inspired to build an even bigger and better practice. Since the `end' of this practice is nothing more than the critique of its terms, such a `new' or `superior' practice would itself be immediately subject to the most searching interrogation. Since we are dealing here with the recycling of interpretations and the creation of new meanings, it must not be thought that proposed understandings must submit immediately to the full rigour of evidential requirements. For whilst, in the course of certain activities, evidence is required in order to help us decide what it is that counts as knowledge, this requirement must be handled with care lest interesting and (who knows) fruitful lines of enquiry are suppressed at birth. The use of evidence can also have a controlling and even policing function which though entirely appropriate in the sphere of pedagogy (because of the way in which learning must be demonstrated to be fit or adequate to some purpose) may easily have an inhibiting effect when misapplied in the context of an open practice. Oakeshott also draws our attention to the emancipatory possibilities of an open practice in the following way: An educational engagement is at once a discipline and a release; and it is one by virtue of being the other. It is a dicult engagement of learning by study in a continuous and exacting re-direction of attention and re®nement of understanding which calls for humility, patience and courage. Its reward is an emancipation from the mere `fact of living', from the immediate contingencies of place and time of birth, from the tyranny of the moment and from the servitude of the merely current condition. (Fuller, 1989, p. 93)
But it should be noted that these emancipatory possibilities do not espouse notions like `self-empowerment' or `self-development', both of which can be perfectly catered for by pedagogy. The possibility of a release from the `servitude of the merely current condition' is precisely a release from the kind of self which pedagogy constructs in its own image. This is a self which is nothing unless equipped with plans and goals in its search for opportunities and challenges. It is the kind of self which mistakes the purposelessness of an open practice for confusion and indolence calling for a strategy of rectification. CONCLUSION
Oakeshott's emphasis tended to be placed on the opening up and recovery of existing or past understandings. Yet if an open practice is to have within itself that element of self-criticism, as I have suggested, then & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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G. Hinchlie
it also needs to create and invent different kinds of learning. The idea of the bricoleur evokes something of what is meant here. It will be recalled that Claude LeÂvi-Strauss explained how myths were formed through the bricolage metaphor, in which the mythmaker gathers up elements of existing myths, combining them in new and different ways. Of course, the bricoleur is constrained by the signs which lie to hand, and LeÂviStrauss makes it clear that the activities of the mythmaker are not to be confused with that of the `engineer' who, by dint of the concepts he uses, `is always trying to go beyond the constraints imposed by a particular state of civilisation' (LeÂvi-Strauss, 1972, p. 19). But, says LeÂvi-Strauss (ibid., p. 22), there are some advantages to the bricoleur approach: Mythical thought for its part is imprisoned in the events and experiences which it never tires of ordering and re-ordering in its search to ®nd them a meaning. But it also acts as a liberator by its protest against the idea that anything can be meaningless with which science at ®rst resigned itself to a compromise.
In this spirit, in which both the engineer and the bricoleur have a role, I propose the following: . The continued questioning of the division of knowledge into traditional subject areas (bearing in mind that interdisciplinary subject areas can take on the guise of a traditional subject after a few years). . Reflection on how the creation of new skills, and the redeployment of old skills, can help open up new areas of knowledge (e.g. the way that computer-based and televisual graphics have helped to open up the new knowledge-domain of the `virtual'). . The deliberate `recovery' of historically out-moded practices in order to provide fresh perspectives (e.g. the way in which Foucault, e.g. 1988, pp. 39±68, tried to suggest an `ethics of care' by going back to accounts from antiquity of a fashioning and stylistics of the self). . A deliberate undermining of the `education/vocational' distinction, especially by introducing theoretical components into vocational training (e.g. modules in chef training courses on the History of Taste, French/Italian language, Food as Signifier in Poetry and the Novel, etc.) Oakeshott thought that the corruption of education by instrumental practices was an historic disaster which during the course of the twentieth century gathered increasing pace. We need not trouble ourselves with his explanation of how this came to pass, because, I think, he was mistaken to think that education ever was in an unsullied state. The imperatives of pedagogy, it could be said, have always been a part of education, though what may count as such an imperative in one period may be viewed as an untrammelled luxury in another (e.g. compare the role played by the & The Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 2001.
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classics one hundred years ago with that played today). What Oakeshott never seemed to countenance was that instrumental and open practices could both be embedded within certain institutional settings. He was unable to see this since he held that education, considered as an open practice, must be pursued in its own locationÐ`School'Ðset apart from the pressures and cares of economic life. Whether this was ever historically the case is a difficult question which I cannot pursue here. But the suggestion that instrumental and open practices can be pursued together in the same institutionalÐeven departmental settingÐdoes not seem far-fetched. Moreover, it seems inevitable that the profile of pedagogy will be raised in proportion as the number of students in higher education increases. The way to deal with this, I have suggested, is not to defend a retrenched position of liberal learning but to adopt an openly self-critical position as to what counts as knowledge and learning. In this way, attempts to formulate sets of expectations and outcomes in the pedagogic endeavour of ensuring a `fitness for purpose' will never be complete. If education is to survive, it must keep ahead of the game. Correspondence: Geoffrey Hinchliffe, Department of Continuing Education, University of East Anglia, NR4 7TJ, UK. E-mail:
[email protected] REFERENCES Althusser, L. (1971) Lenin and Philosophy, trans. Ben Brewster (London, New Left Books) Aristotle (1948) Politics, trans. Sir Ernest Barker (Oxford, Clarendon Press) Aristotle (1980) Nicomachean Ethics, trans. D. Ross (Oxford, Oxford University Press) Foucault, M. (1988) Care of the Self (Harmondsworth, Penguin) Fuller, T. (ed.) (1989) The Voice of Liberal Learning: Michael Oakeshott on Education (Princeton, NJ, Yale University Press) Irwin, T. H. (1988) Aristotle's First Principles (Oxford, Clarendon Press) LeÂvi-Strauss, Claude (1972) The Savage Mind (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson) Murray, O. (1999) The voice of Isocrates, Times Literary Supplement, August 6th, pp. 3±4 Oakeshott, M. (1967) Learning and teaching, in: R. S. Peters (ed.) The Concept of Education (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul) Oakeshott, M. (1975) On Human Conduct (Oxford, Clarendon Press) Rogers, Carl (1983) Freedom to Learn (Columbus, OH, Merrill) Too, Yun Lee and Livingston, N. (1998) Pedagogy and Power (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)
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