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Re: Developmental stages of thinking (1:received knowledge)



Today Marcia Drago <dragom@cf.edu> wrote me:
"I missed your posting of the Stage One description. Since I have
Stage 2 and Stage 3, would you mind terribly repeating on the listserv or
emailing me privately that Stage 1?"

Here it is (posted on Sept. 9).


I'm responding to Tim Folkerts' and Hugh Haskell's concerns, posted on
Sept. 5, about providing better education for both girls AND boys.

We all agree that education must produce thinkers. This is crucial for the
long-term future of our complex world, especially since we face huge
challenges of overpopulation and resource depletion (as emphasized by Al
Bartlett in his many talks, and by Rick Tarara & other Phys-L subscribers);
global warming; poverty; and violence and the hatred that underlies it (ex.
9/11).

Below is part 1 (of 6 parts) of a synopsis of a book that can help us
understand the thought processes of our female students AND, to some
extent, our male students. I read this book because a male physics
professor told me that it had a profound effect on his teaching.

I include quotes from the book about women's attitudes toward science,
since that's relevant to our teaching of physics.

Most of this book "rings true" for me, as I reflect on my own intellectual
development and that of other women I know. The authors have articulated
much better than I could, my observations about the process and world views
held in the various stages. (It's a broad picture, of course, with many
variations - and it's just a beginning effort in this field.)

I am encouraged, because I can see the underlying mental dynamics for why
reforms such as the Modeling Method of Instruction assist teenage girls and
boys in developing intellectually faster and more effectively than does
traditional instruction in science.
Cheers,
Jane Jackson
---------------------------------------------

Synopsis: WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING (part 1)
compiled by Jane Jackson

WOMEN'S WAYS OF KNOWING (Basic Books, 1986) is subtitled
"The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind". The authors, four professors
of psychology at colleges in the Northeast, interviewed 135 women from
teenage to elderly: 90 students at six colleges (including a community
college), and 45 women of all ages being helped in 3 social service
agencies. They did multiple interviews of these 135 women over 5 years.
They arrived at a 4-stage intellectual developmental scheme that augments
the work of Perry. [I think that Perry's scheme is taught to every
pre-service teacher. Unfortunately, college professors don't generally
learn any developmental psychology. I am one of them who didn't.]

The problem with Perry's developmental theory is that Perry restricted his
interviews to male Harvard students. Thus he overlooked women and people
of all other ages and socio-economic backgrounds. Thus his theory has
serious gaps!

The authors are Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill
Tarule. All are mature women who, in the acknowledgments section, thanked
their husbands for their feedback on the book. Their preface starts: "In
this book we describe the ways of knowing that women have cultivated and
learned to value, ways we have come to believe are powerful but have been
neglected and denigrated by the dominant intellectual ethos of our time. We
also describe the multitude of obstacles women must overcome in developing
the power of their minds."

The authors categorize 5 types of knowing: the first is pathological, and
the others are 4 stages of normal intellectual development.

(Pathological): SILENCE, disconnection, voiceless, powerless, feeling deaf
and dumb. All the women in this category grew up in isolation, not having
friends. For all of them, one of their parents was violent and the other
was silent and compliant, often victimized. They feel passive, reactive,
and dependent, and they see authorities as being all-powerful, if not
overpowering. They see blind obedience to those in authority as being
essential to survival. They don't know who they are; they can't describe
themselves. They don't see themselves as learners; they have failed at
school.

STAGE 1: RECEIVED KNOWLEDGE: LISTENING TO THE VOICES OF OTHERS
(dualism).
Most of these women were just beginning college or were receiving
help in social service agencies. They learn by listening (as opposed to the
voiceless women, who are unaware of the power of words for transmitting
knowledge). Dualistic: everything is black or white; thus they shun the
qualitative and welcome the quantitative. Truth comes from others, and
authorities receive knowledge from higher authorities (rather than
constructing it themselves). These women have no opinions and thus are
confused when asked to do original work. Literal; can't deal with
ambiguity: if two authorities disagree, they go with the higher authority.
Must have predictibility: "In deciding whether to take a course, [they]
want to know how many tests and papers there will be and how long the
papers. How many pages of how many books will they have to read? Exactly
how will their grade be computed?"
Thus they may be attracted to math and science. One interviewee at
this stage said, "There are absolutes in math and sciences. You feel that
you can accomplish something by - by getting something down pat. Work in
other courses seems to accomplish nothing, just seems so worthless. It
doesn't really matter whether you are right or wrong, 'cause there really
isn't a right or wrong. You can't say. It's all guesswork."
"These women either "get" an idea right away or they do not get it
at all. They don't really try to UNDERSTAND the idea. They have no notion,
really, of understanding as a process taking place over time and demanding
the exercise of reason." Their conception of learning is storing a copy
of the material, first in their notes and then in their head. "She does not
transform the material; she files it 'as is'. She willingly reproduces the
material on demand, as on an exam, but she feels betrayed if the teacher
asks her to 'apply' it or to produce materials on her own." "These women
feel confident about their ability to absorb and to store the truths
received from others....They may be quite successful in schools that do not
demand a reflective, relativistic stance."
This stage is similar to Perry's first stage in Harvard men.
"Perry's dualist position describes men who hold an outlook that is similar
to the received knowledge position we found in women's data. DUALISM, the
simplest way of knowing that Perry observed, was held only briefly, if at
all, among members of his elite college sample. Perry's men particularly
dichotomize "the familiar world of Authority - Right - WE as against the
alien world of Illegitimate - Wrong - OTHERS."
However, the authors found one significant difference: "[the women]
did not align themselves with authorities to the extent Perry described
occurring among men. This world of 'Authority - right - we' was quite
alien to many women. The women in our sample seemed to say 'Authority -
right - they' " Two factors can account for this, they speculate. First,
these women encountered few authorities who were women, and they spoke of
some male authorities negatively: "The women we interviewed spoke, for
instance, of science professors who communicated their beliefs that women
were incapable of making science." The second factor is "women's
rootedness in a sense of connection" as opposed to men's emphasis on
separation and autonomy. "Men, valuing distance and autonomy, are more
exclusionary. To them, 'we' clearly means 'not they'. Women valuing
connection and intimacy are much more likely to be inclusionary, finding
'they' and 'we' to be intertwined and interdependent."

[next time: Stage 2: subjectivism]


Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics & Astronomy,ASU,Tempe,AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7331 <http://modeling.asu.edu>
"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is
our inability to understand the exponential function."
- Al Bartlett, Prof of Physics, Univ of Colorado