[Phys-L] Re: Piaget & Dewey: Down for the Count? - FORWARD from Kieran Egan
From: rrhake at EARTHLINK.NET (Richard Hake)
Date: Fri Oct 28 19:31:47 2005
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In response to my post "Piaget & Dewey: Down for the Count? - FORWARD
from Kieran Egan" [Hake (2005a)], Texas John Clement (2005) wrote
[bracketed by lines CCCCCCCCC. . . .", my inserts at ". . .[insert].
. ."]:
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Predictably Egan's AERA-L post did not address the issues adequately,
especially (3). . .[If Dewey was and is WRONG, why is Dewey-like
pedagogy so seemingly successful in introductory physics education?].
. .He brought up the famous Harvard interviews which showed that
students had big holes in their knowledge, but that did not address
the issue of physics pedagogy which is based on Piaget. He made fun
of the question, which is easy to do. However, this does not refute
the mountain of evidence that students suffer from resistant common
misconceptions. The misconception about where the material in the
tree came from is shared by virtually all biology teachers I have
talked to. He showed absolutely no knowledge of the careful research
done by Shayer & Adey, McDermott, John J. Clement, Minstrell, Hake,
Hestenes and a host of others. . . . . .[see the resource letter by
McDermott & Redish (1999) for references other than Shayer & Adey -
references to the latter are in Hake (2005b)].
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I note that at the website <http://www.ierg.net/> of the upcoming
"4th International Conference on Imagination and Education (2006),"
sponsored by the "Imaginative Education Research Group" at Simon
Fraser University (directed by Kieron Egan and Mark Fettes), it is
stated that Howard Gardner will speak in an "Interactive Satellite
Video Session."
At first sight it might seem odd that the arch-progressive Howard
Gardner [see, e.g., "The Unschooled Mind" (Gardner, 1991)] would be
speaking at a conference organized in part by Kieron Egan, author of
"Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance
from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget."
But wait - "things are often not what they seem." Of Egan's book "The
Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding," Howard
Gardner wrote: "Kieran Egan has one of the most original,
penetrating, and capacious minds in education today. This book
provides the best introduction to his important body of work."
Since Gardner will be speaking at an *interactive* session, I should
like to suggest that a question of the following sort be addressed to
him [of course the references at [. . .] would be suppressed in an
oral question, but might be utilized in further exchanges]:
****************************
In your 1991 book "The Unschooled Mind" [Gardner (1991)], you pointed
out that physics is perhaps the most stunning example" that - and I
quote: "even students who have been well trained and who exhibit all
the overt signs of success - faithful attendance at good schools,
high grades and high test scores, accolades from their teachers -
typically do not display an adequate understanding of the materials
and concepts with which they have been working."
After the publication of your book there was a surge of
physics-education research [see e.g., Heron & Meltzer (2005)]
demonstrating that students *can* attain much more adequate
understandings of the materials and concepts in, for example,
Newtonian mechanics, if the direct instruction that resulted in the
inadequate understanding cited in your book [e.g., Clement (1982)] is
replaced by "interactive-engagement" methods [see, e.g., Hake
(1998a,b; 2002a,b)] that are consistent [see, e.g., Ansbacher (2001)]
with John Dewey's educational philosophy.
QUESTION: Do you think that Kieron Egan's (1998) "cognitive tools
approach" to education might be as effective as, or more effective
than, a Deweyian "interactive engagement" method in promoting
adequate understanding of Newtonian mechanics ?
****************************
REFERENCES
Ansbacher, T. 2000. "An interview with John Dewey on science
education." The Physics Teacher 38(4): 224-227; freely online at
<http://www.scienceservs.com/id13.html> as a 1.3 MB pdf. A thoughtful
and well-researched treatment showing the consonance of Dewey's
educational ideas (as quoted straight from Dewey's own writings, not
from the accounts of sometimes confused Dewey interpreters) with the
thinking of most current science-education researchers. Ansbacher's
valuable web site is at <http://www.scienceservs.com>.
Egan, K. 1998. "The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our
Understanding." University of Chicago Press. For Egan's homepage
presentation of the introduction and reviews see
<http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/EdMind.html>. The
book's introduction <http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/EdMindIntro.html>
summarizes what Ann Fullick in the "New Scientist" calls "[Egan's]
radical change of approach for the whole process of education."
Egan, K. 2004. "Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our
progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean
Piaget." Yale University Press. For Egan's homepage presentation of
the introduction and reviews see
<http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/wrongindex.html>. Peter Temes in the
New York Times, Section 4A, Books, p.34, 10 Novemeber 2002 wrote:
"Egan's forceful rejection of the progressive legacy is more about
his sense of science than his politics. Spencer, Dewey and Piaget
presented themselves as modern researchers with exciting new
insights. Dr. Egan judges them without sympathy: he says their
science was bad, and their continuing influence worse."
Gardner, H. 1991. "The Unschooled Mind: How children think and how
schools should teach." Basic Books. Gardner wrote (my CAPS): "These
investigations document that even students who have been well trained
and who exhibit all the overt signs of success - faithful attendance
at good schools, high grades and high test scores, accolades from
their teachers - typically do not display an adequate understanding
of the materials and concepts with which they have been working.
PERHAPS MOST STUNNING IS THE CASE OF PHYSICS. . . . . . The evidence
in that venerable subject is perhaps the 'smoking gun' but, as I
document in later chapters, essentially the same situation has been
encountered in every scholastic domain in which inquiries have been
conducted." For extensive reference to the progressive views of
Howard Gardner and the diametrically opposed views of E.D. Hirsch
(1996), see Hake (2003a,b,c).
Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Lessons from the physics education reform effort,"
Ecology and Society 5(2): 28; online at
<http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol5/iss2/art28/>. Ecology and Society
(formerly Conservation Ecology) is a free online "peer-reviewed
journal of integrative science and fundamental policy research" with
about 11,000 subscribers in about 108 countries.
Hake, R.R. 2005a. "Piaget & Dewey: Down for the Count? - FORWARD from
Kieran Egan," online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0510&L=pod&O=D&P=19628>.
Post of 26 Oct 2005 21:16:14-0700 to AP-Physics, Phys-L, Physhare,
PhysLnrR, POD,
STLHE-L, and various other discussion lists. See also the Hake (2005b).
Hake, R.R. 2005b. "Piaget & Dewey: Down for the Count? - 47
Responses," AERA-L post of 29 Sep 2005 14:01:03 -0700; online at
<http://lists.asu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509&L=aera-l&T=0&O=D&X=22D32B2EFF1B32A643&Y=rrhake%40earthlink.net&P=3764>.
The abstract reads: During September 2005 an excerpt from Stan
Metzenberg's disquieting opinion "Piaget goes down for the Long
Count" was transmitted to many discussion lists. That distribution
and subsequent cross-posting led to relatively widespread discussion
(about 47 posts), not only of Jean Piaget but also Socrates, John
Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, and Kiernan Egan's provocative "Getting it Wrong
from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert
Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget." In hopes of promoting further
multidisciplinary discussion along such lines, I have placed in the
APPENDIX posts that appeared on 10 different discussion lists:
AERA-D, AERA-K, Chemed-L, Dewey-L, DrEd, Math-Learn, Phys-L,
PhysLrnR, POD, and TIPS by 19 different authors: Bellina, Clement,
Dawson-Tunik, Dykstra, Garkov, Grace, Green, Hunt, Kelly, Laitsch,
Millis, Purichia, Raimi, Rauber, Rock, Schulz, Scott, Uretsky, and
Wall.