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Autonomy: The importance of a scientific theory in education reform
AUTONOMY: THE IMPORTANCE OF A SCIENTIFIC THEORY IN EDUCATION REFORM CONSTANCE KAMII UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM
WYE 6. CLARK STANFORD UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT: The six national goals established by the National Governors’ Association for education reform in the 1990s were conceived by people who had the power to decide what outcomes they wanted based on their own values and priorities. Although it is impossible to avoid questions of values, it is necessary in defining goals for education to consider scientific, explanatory theories about how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. Jean Piaget’s conceptualization of autonomy, in his unusual sense of the term, provides an overall aim for the development of individuals as well as of society, both in the intellectual and the moral realms. Autonomy as the aim of education is based on constructivism, a scientific theory, and would obviate the outdated conceptualization and contradictions among the six national goals.
Goals in education are usually defined by groups of people who have the power to decide what outcomes they want based on their own values and priorities. The following six national goals are examples of such outcomes recently conceptualized by the National Governors’ Association (Department of Education 1991): Goal 1. By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn. Goal 2. By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%. Goal 3. By the year 2000, American students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography; DitUdall cormcpondencs to: ConstanceKamii, University of Alabama, Birmingham, 210 Education Building, 901 South 13th Street, UAB Station, Birmingham, AL 35294-1250. Learning and individual Diliemnceo, Volume 5. Number 4. 1993, pages 327-340. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
Copyright 0 1993 by JAI Press, Inc. ISSN: 1041-6080
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and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so that they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy. Goal 4. By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement. Goal 5. By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Goal 6. By the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning (pp. 62-66).
Unlike the governors, Jean Piaget (1948/1973) conceptualized only one broad goal for education: autonomy. Since autonomy in the Piagetian sense means something different from what we usually understand by this term, we will devote the first part of this article to what Piaget meant by autonomy. We will then discuss autonomy as the aim of education and the drastic changes in classroom practices this goal entails. The articIe will conclude by pointing out that the kind of reform envisaged by the National Governors’ Association requires a better conceptualized goal based on constructivism, the most adequate scientific theory available today about how children acquire knowledge and moral values.
WHAT PIAGET MEANT BY AU~NOMY In common parlance, autonomy means the right of an individual or group to be self-governing. For example, when we speak of Palestinian autonomy, we are referring to this kind of political right. In Piaget’s theory, however, autonomy refers not to the right but the abilify to be self-governing, in the moral as well as the intellectual realm. Autonomy is the ability to think for oneself and to decide between right and wrong in the moral realm, and between truth and untruth in the intellectual realm, by taking all relevant factors into account, independently of reward and punishment. Autonomy is the opposite of heteronomy. Heteronomous people are governed by someone else, as they are unable to think for themselves. Below is a discussion of the moral and intellectual aspects of autonomy. MORAL AUTONOMY An extreme example of moral autonomy is Martin Luther King’s struggle for civil rights. King was autonomous enough to take relevant factors into account and to conclude that the laws discriminating against African Americans were unjust and immoral. Convinced of the need to make justice a reality, he fought to end the discriminatory laws, in spite of the police, jails, dogs, water hoses, and threats of assassination used to stop him. Morally autonomous people are not governed by reward and punishment.
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An extreme example of moral heteronomy is the men under President Nixon in the Watergate coverup affair. These men were governed by Richard Nixon and went along with what they knew to be morally wrong, reaping the rewards the President dispensed to those who helped him in the coverup attempt. In The Moral Judgment of the Child, Piaget (19320965) gave more commonplace examples of autonomy and heteronomy. He interviewed children between the ages of six and fourteen and asked them, for example, why it was bad to tell lies. Young, heteronomous children replied, “Because you get punished when you tell lies.” Piaget asked, “Would it be OK to tell lies if you were not punished for them?” and young children answered “Yes.” These children were obviously governed by others to judge between right and wrong. Piaget also made up many pairs of stories and asked children which one of the two children in the stories was the worse. Following is an example of such a pair: A little boy (or a little girl) goes for a walk in the street and meets a big dog who frightens him very much. So then he goes home and tells his mother he has seen a dog that was as big as a cow. A child comes home from school and tells his mother that the teacher had given him good marks, but it was not true; the teacher had given him no marks at all, either good or bad. Then his mother was very pleased and rewarded him (p. 148). Young children systematically manifested the morality of heteronomy by saying that it was worse to say “I saw a dog as big as a cow.“ Why was it worse? Because dogs are never as big as cows and adults do not believe such stories. Older, more autonomous children, however, tended to say that it was worse to say “The teacher gave me good marks” because this lie was more believable. For more autonomous children, a believable lie is worse than one that is so outlandish as not to deceive people. Figure 1 shows the developmental relationship between autonomy and heteronomy. In this figure, time is represented along the horizontal axis from birth to adulthood. The vertical axis represents the proportion of autonomy in relation to heteronomy, from zero to 100 percent. The broken line shows the ideal development of an individual. All babies are born helpless and neither autonomous nor heteronomous, but young children are all initially dependent on adults and, therefore, heteronomous. Ideally, they become increasingly autonomous as they grow older, and as they become more autonomous, they become less heteronomous. In other words, to the extent that children become able to govern themselves, they are governed less by other people. In reality, however, most adults do not develop in this ideal way. The great majority stop developing at a low level as shown by the solid line in Figure 1. Piaget (1948/1973) said that it is a rare adult who is truly moral. This observation can easily be confirmed in our daily life. Newspapers are full of stories about corruption in government and dishonesty in business practices as well as theft, assault, and murder. The important question for parents and teachers is: What causes certain chil-
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FIGURE 1
The development of autonomy fmm birth to adulthood.
/
Id8&%l developa&
/ / /
The developent
of most adults /
d airth
Adulthood
dren to become more autonomous than others? Piaget’s answer to this question, found in The Moral Judgment of the Child, was that adults reinforce children’s heteronomy when they use rewards and punishment, thereby hindering the development of autonomy. By refraining from using rewards and punishment, and by exchanging points of view with children instead, we can foster the development of autonomy, he said. For example, if a child tells a lie, an adult could punish him or her by saying, “No dessert tonight.” Alternatively, the adult can look the child straight in the eye with affection and skepticism and say, “I really can’t believe what you are saying because . . . (and give the reason). And when you tell me something next time, I am not sure I’ll be able to believe you. . . . I want you to go to your room (or seat) and think about what you might do to be believed.” Children want to be believed, and when they are confronted with this kind of statement, they are likely, over time, to come to the conclusion that it is best for people to deal honestly with each other. In general, punishment leads to three possible outcomes. The first outcome is calculation of risks. Children who are punished will learn to calculate their chances of getting caught the next time and the price they might have to pay if they are caught. The second possible outcome is, interestingly, the opposite of the first one-blind obedience. Sensitive children will do anything to avoid being punished and give the impression that punishment works. The third outcome of punishment is a derivative of the second, namely, revolt. Many
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“good,” model children surprise us eventually by beginning to cut classes, take drugs, and engage in other acts that characterize delinquency. Their reason for switching to these behaviors is that they are tired of living for their parents and teachers and think the time has come for them to start living for themselves. Piaget was realistic enough to say that it is sometimes necessary to impose restrictions on children. However, he made an important distinction between ~~~~s~~e~~ and ~~c~~u~s 4 ~eci~~ocif~~Depriving the child of dessert for telling a lie is an example of a punishment, as the relationship between a lie and dessert is completely arbitrary. Telling children that we cannot believe what they said is an example of a sanction by reciprocity. Sanctions by reciprocity are directly related to the act we want to sanction and to the adult’s point of view. They have the effect of motivating the child to construct rules of conduct from within, through the coordination of viewpoints. Other examples of sanctions by reciprocity such as exclusion from the group, depriving the child of the thing he or she has misused, and restitution can be found in The Moral judgment of the Child and in Kamii (1985). Piaget’s theory about how children acquire moral values is fundamentally different from other, traditional theories and from common sense. In the traditional view, the child is believed to acquire moral rules and values by i~ferna~izing them from the environment. According to Piaget, children acquire moral convictions not by absorbing them from the environment but by consfrucfing them from the inside, through the exchange of points of view with people who are close and important to them. For example, no child is taught that it is OK to tell lies if one is not punished for them. Yet, young children construct this belief as they try to make sense out of what adults say and do. Fortunately, they continue to construct other relationships and many children ultimately conclude that lies are bad even if one is not punished for them. When adults exchange viewpoints with children, this fosters the development of autonomy by enabling children to consider relevant factors such as other perspectives. When children can take relevant factors into account, especially other people’s rights and feelings, they construct from within the rule of treating others as they wish to be treated by them. A person who has constructed this conviction from within cannot lie in situations like the Watergate affair, no matter what reward is offered. Many behaviorists and others believe that punishment is bad because it is negative, but that rewards are positive and good. However, rewards do not make children any more autonomous than punishment. Children who help their parents only to get money, and those who fill out worksheets only to get a sticker, are governed by someone else just as much as those who are “good” only to avoid being punished. Money, candy, and stickers are rewards because they are attractive objects used to manipulate or control children. By contrast, praise and expressions of appreciation are part of human relationships invofving the exchange of points of view. Just as it is necessary to express disbelief when a child is not telling the truth, it is desirable to communicate our pleasure and appreciation when chil-
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dren behave in especially praiseworthy ways. Praise is thus different from rewards such as money and stickers, but it can also be used in insincere, manipulative ways. Praise can thus degenerate into a reward, just as an expression of disbelief can turn into an angry, punitive act.
INTELLECTUAL AU~NOMY In the intellectual realm, too, autonomy means the ability to govern oneself by being able to take relevant factors into account, and heteronomy means being governed by somebody else. An extreme example of intellectual autonomy is Copernicus, or the inventor of any other revolutionary theory in the history of science. Copernicus invented the heliocentric theory when everybody else believed that the sun revolved around the earth. He was even ridiculed off the stage but was autonomous enough to remain convinced of his own idea. An intellectually heteronomous person, by contrast, unquestioningly believes what he or she is told, including illogical conclusions, slogans, and propaganda. A more common example of intellectual autonomy is a child who used to believe in Santa Claus. When she was about six, she surprised her mother one day by asking, “How come Santa Claus uses the same wrapping paper as we do?” Her mother’s “explanation” satisfied her for a few minutes, but she soon came up with the next question: “How come Santa Claus has the same handwriting as Daddy?” This child had her own way of thinking, which was different from what she had been taught. According to Piaget, the child acquires knowledge, also, by cff~s~~~cf~~~it from within, rather than by ~~~er~ff~jz~?zg it directly from the environment. Children may accept what they are told for a while, but they are not passive vessels that merely hold what is poured into their heads. Children construct knowledge by creating and coordinating relationships. When the child in the previous example put Santa Claus into relationship with everything else she knew, she began to feel that something was wrong somewhere. When children are not convinced by what they are told, they rack their brains to make sense of these “facts.“ Unfortunately, in school, children are not encouraged to think autonomously. Teachers use reward and punishment in the intellectual realm, too, to get chilAn example of this practice is the use of dren to give “correct” responses. worksheets. In first grade arithmetic, for example, if a child writes “4 + 4 = z,” most teachers mark this answer as being wrong. The result of this kind of teaching is that children become convinced that there are right and wrong answers and that only the teacher knows which answer is correct. Furthermore, when we walk around a first-grade classroom while children are working on worksheets, and stop to ask individual children how they got particular answers, they typically react by grabbing their erasers, even when their answer is perfectly correct! Already in first grade, many children have learned to distrust their own thinking. Children who are thus discouraged from thinking critically and autonomously will construct less knowledge than those who are confident and do their own thinking.
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If a child says that 4 + 4 = 7, a better reaction is to refrain from correcting him or her and inquire instead, “How did you get 7?” Children often correct themselves as they try to explain their reasoning to someone else. The child who tries to explain his or her reasoning has to decenter to make sense to the other person. Thus, trying to coordinate his or her point of view with another viewpoint makes the child think critically, and this critical thinking often leads to a higher level of thinking. In the next section on autonomy as the aim of education, we argue further that we must replace memorization enforced with reward and punishment with an education that above all emphasizes the honest, critical exchange of viewpoints.
AUTONOMY AS THE AIM OF EDUCATION Figure 2 is our interpretation of Piaget’s (1948/1973) aim of education, autonomy, in relation to the goals of most educators and the public. In the shaded part of the circle labeled “the goals of most educators and the public,” we include those that resulted in our memorizing words, just to pass one test after another. All of us who succeeded in school achieved this success by memorizing an enormous number of words without understanding them or caring about them. The shaded part also includes the moral heteronomy that schools generally reinforce with reward and punishment used to enforce ready-made rules. In the intersection with the circle labeled “autonomy,” we put things we did not forget after each test. The ability to read and write, to do arithmetic, to read maps and charts, and to situate events in history are examples of what we learned in school that we did not forget after cramming for tests. When moral and intellectual autonomy becomes our aim, educators work hard to increase the area of overlap between the two circles.
Autonomy as the aim of education
FIGURE 2 in relation to the goals of most educators
and the public.
of most and the public
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Differences between Autoriomy and Other Goals Based on Values As stated earlier, goals in education have traditionally been defined on the basis of what people value. Piaget certainly valued autonomy as we do, but autonomy as a goal is different from other aims in that it is derived also from a scientific theory, constructivism, about the direction in which children and the human species develop morally and intellectually. In The Moral Judgment of the Child, Piaget (1932/1965) documented how young children begin by reasoning heteronomously and later tend to develop the morality of autonomy. He saw parallels between this development of the individual and the development of the species and pointed out that “human societies have evolved from heteronomy to autonomy, and from gerontocratic theocracy in all its forms to equalitarian democracy” (p. 325). Popes and kings no longer have the power they once had, and the big sweep of history seems to be toward equalitarian democracy. While dictators and privileged classes still exist, human societies are evolving toward more democracy, equalitarianism, and autonomy. In the intellectual realm, Piaget devoted 60 years of scientific research to demonstrate the construction of knowledge in the individual from birth to adolescence (Inhelder & Piaget 195511958, 1959/1964; Piaget 193611952, 1937/1954, 1946/1969, 1975/1985; Piaget & Inhelder 1948/1956; Piaget, Inhelder, & Szeminska 194811960; Piaget & Szeminska 194111952). In Psychogenesis and the History of Science (Piaget & Garcia 1983/1989), he again pointed out the parallels between the individual’s construction of knowledge and the human species’ construction of science. Scientists are the quintessence of intellectual autonomy. They are skeptical and critical, do not accept any beliefs without proof, and are continuing to construct new, scientific knowledge. While autonomy as the goal of education is based partly on constructivism, a coherent, developmental, and scientific theory, goals derived from values are fragmentary, often in contradiction with each other, have lacunae, and are frequently mere reactions to temporary conditions. For example, among the six national goals cited at the beginning of this article, Goals 2 and 4 are contradictory. It would be nice to increase the high school graduation rate to 90% and to be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement by the year 2000. However, each one of these goals makes the other impossible to accomplish in nine years. Sociomoral goals are conspicuously absent from the six national goals. This is a serious omission at a time when the nation is replete with symptoms of heteronomy, including the federal deficit, Congressional banking and postal scandals, and daily cases of child neglect and abuse. While the National Governors’ Association is silent about students’ sociomoral development, it is explicit about the goal of having schools that are “free of drugs and violence.“ However, drugs and violence are only particular symptoms of the broader problem, moral heteronomy. Autonomy as the aim of education does not dictate what specific virtues children are to have, such as punctuality and industriousness. In fact, we cannot predict, for example, whether a child will have the values and priorities associ-
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ated with becoming an environmentalist (protecting natural resources) or those associated with becoming an industrialist (providing jobs). While we cannot predict what specific virtues and aspirations the child will have, we can be sure of two things that are true of autonomous people: (a) The child will have thought deeply about the factors that are relevant to the decision, and (b) he or she will have constructed certain values such as being honest and trustworthy, always taking into account the rights and feelings of others, seeking negotiations in situations of conflict, and basing decisions on what is morally right rather than on reward and punishment. In other words, an autonomous person is not only unlikely to take drugs or resort to violence but also likely to be governed by the rule of treating others as he or she would like to be treated.
CLASSROOM PRACTICES DESIGNED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMY Goals that are as different as Figure 2 indicates entail classroom practices that are correspondingly different. Classrooms today are all too often heteronomous environments where children’s opportunity to develop self-direction is denied. This ultimately leads to the inability of children to be self-governing. As a result, most adults today are heteronomous and incapable of independent, logical, and critical thinking and moral decision making. To promote children’s autonomy, the teacher must reduce his or her power as much as possible. To reduce power, the teacher needs to share with students the right and responsibility of making decisions and refrain from using reward and punishment. These changes are necessary because it is by controlling students and using reward and punishment that educators reinforce children’s heteronomy, thereby hindering the development of autonomy. Sharing the power of control with students means that rules and decisions must be made with children and enforced by the group with sanctions by reciprocity. This, of course, does not mean that each class can make any decision it wants. For example, the time the school day begins and ends is not a decision for each class to make. However, the power to make decisions does mean that most of the rules and decisions that are now made and imposed unilaterally by the teacher should be made and enforced jointly with students. Examples of such rules and decisions are: when to have a test or whether or not to have a test, how long a book report should be, when to sharpen pencils, and what to do with children who cheat in a game. Children often make exactly the same rules and decisions that the teacher would have made. However, the fact that they made a rule or decision makes an enormous difference in their commitment to it. Children tend to respect and understand the rules they make. In the course of deciding on rules, they come to know that their opinions are respected, and they are then more likely to respect the opinions of others, including adults. Exchanges of ideas are obviously important for making rules and decisions
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and for children’s sociomoral development. However, the exchange of points of view is also indispensable for children’s construction of knowledge (Piaget 1932/1965, 1947/1950). For example, in primary arithmetic, the teacher must refrain from saying that an answer is correct or incorrect and, instead, ask the group whether they agree or disagree. By reinforcing correct answers and decreeing which answer is correct, most teachers today are stopping students’ thinking and are making them dependent on the teacher to know whether or not an answer is correct. In the logico-mathematical realm, children wilI get to the truth if they debate long enough because there is absolutely nothing arbitrary in logico-mathematical knowledge. To return to an example given earlier, 4 + 4 = 8 in every country and culture. For further detail on the nature of logicomathematical knowledge and how children develop it in a constructivist primary mathematics program, the reader is referred to Kamii (1985, 1989a, 1989b, 1990a, 1990b). Schools have traditionally emphasized “right“ answers thereby enhancing teachers’ power and reinforcing students‘ heteronomy. We have nothing against correct answers but believe that children should not acquire knowledge at the expense of autonomy. If they are encouraged to debate meaningful questions in all content areas, children will make progress both in content and in autonomy (ability to think critically). For example, in history, instead of reading a textbook and answering the questions at the end of the chapter, children can be asked to debate ideas about what their lives would be like today if the Second Continental Congress had not met or if the United States had not bought the Louisiana territory from France in 1803. In science, they can be asked to make a pendulum that swings twice as fast as the teacher’s or to predict and prove the force necessary to lift a heavy weight when a lever is used. The essence of this problem-solving approach is that it intrigues students and provides opportunities to think critically. The preceding examples illustrate another principle of constructivist teaching that aims at children’s development of autonomy: the importance of developing children’s intrinsic motivation to learn. Traditional teaching usually tries to transmit ready-made knowledge through well-organized, boring textbooks. This textbook approach is accompanied by the use of rewards, punishment, and grades that are necessary to force-feed boring contents. If we want to foster the development of autonomy in children, we must avoid traditional teaching methods and, instead, develop ways of teaching that appeal to children’s natural interests. A teacher who keeps autonomy constantly in mind is concerned with children’s sociomoral development as well as their intellectual development during every minute of the day. A teacher cannot encourage the free but respectful exchange of ideas in the intellectual realm without promoting the same freedom and sensitivity in the sociomoral realm. A constructivist classroom is an inseparably intellectual and sociomoral community. For further detail on how children develop intellectually and sociomorally in a constructivist primary program, the reader is referred to Kamii (1985, 1989a).
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IMPLICATIONS FOR REFORM EFFORTS The reader may be thinking that we are dreamers advocating the impossible. But many teachers are already doing things that are similar to what we are advocating. Once a conscientious teacher becomes aware of the difference between autonomy and heteronomy, life is never the same for him or her, either in or out of the classroom. It becomes clear to these teachers that by keeping power for themselves and manipulating children with reward and punishment, they turn out heteronomous adolescents who can and/or must continue to be manipulated by reward and punishment. The prevalent use of reward and punishment is not without basis in scientific theory. The theory that leads to heteronomous classroom environments is behaviorism, which is in opposition to constructivism. Two scientific theories can be contradictory and yet both be true when they are related in the way illustrated in Figure 3. This relationship shows that constructivism can explain everything behaviorism can explain but that the converse is not true. Piaget explained conditioning by saying that all animals adapt to their environment. But human beings are more complicated and construct more knowledge and moral values than lower animals. Behaviorism can explain conditioning but cannot explain, for example, how Copernicus invented the heliocentric theory or how Martin Luther King could not be stopped from fighting for civil rights. In other words, behaviorism can explain heteronomy, but a broader, deeper, and more powerful theory is necessary to explain autonomy. FIGURE 3
The relationships between behaviorism and constructivism and between the geocentric and heliocentric theories. col2&Ncti~ar
The heliocentric
The ~wcentric
theory
theory
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As we show in Figure 3, the relationship between behaviorism and constructivism is analogous to the one between the geocentric and heliocentric theories of the universe. The geocentric theory came to be considered untrue when the heliocentric theory became accepted. However, from our limited perspective on earth, it is still true today that the sun rises and sets. This “truth” is reported daily in the news. It is likewise still true, from the limited perspective of surface behavior, that drill and conditioning “work.” From a deeper and longer-range perspective, however, we no longer think that human beings acquire knowledge and moral values only by internalization and reward and/or punishment. The ideas sketched in this article are in sharp contrast with the reform efforts of the past decade. These efforts have consisted of defining goals on the basis of values and common sense, using old means to achieve them (e.g., more stringent graduation requirements and free choice of schools), and evaluating the outcome with obsolete achievement tests. What the reform movement needs is a bolder, fundamentally new and different approach beginning with the question of how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. Part of the difficulty of the reform movement is that there is no theoretical agreement among psychologists and educators now about how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. This question must be answered scientifically, but science itself is in the midst of a revolution as represented in Figure 3. It took 150 years for the heliocentric theory to become universally accepted. It has been more than 50 years since Piaget articulated the constructivist theory, and some educators are coming to understand the relationship between behaviorism and constructivism. Educators and policymakers must come to an agreement about the superiority of const~ctivism over behaviorism if we are to go beyond the internally contradictory reform efforts. Constructivism and behaviorism engender very different goals for education, and goals determine everything we do in the classroom and how we evaluate the outcome of teaching. To reconceptualize the six goals cited at the beginning of this article, we would eliminate Goal 1, which is based on behaviorism. “All children in America will start school ready to learn” implies that all children must learn the same content regardless of their developmental level. A curriculum based on constructivism would provide for individual differences so that all children can start at their own developmental level. Goai 2 would also be eliminated because if high-school curricula were relevant and interesting, and if schools were Iess coercive, students would stay in them. Students want to become competent and socially respectable, but they drop out of school when it becomes too painful, irrelevant, and coercive. Most of Goal 3 would be included in autonomy as the aim of education but conceptualized differently. For example, we would not separate students’ use of their minds from their competency in academic subjects such as English, mathematics, science, history, and geography. Likewise, we would not separate citizenship and employability from autonomy. Goal 4 would be eliminated because mathematics and science are already included in Goal 3, and being first in the world is not a valid goal for education. Our goal should be to turn out autonomous, competent people.
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Goal 5 would also be eliminated because literacy, knowledge, skills, and citizenship are already included in Goal 3. Goal 6 would be eliminated because people who can take relevant factors into account do not take drugs or resort to violence. “Every school in America . . . will offer a disciplined environment” also seems like a strange conceptualization. Schools cannot offer a disciplined environment; a disciplined environment can be made only by students and teachers. Whether
reform
proceeds
in a piecemeal
or “systemic”
fashion,
and whether
schools are managed in a top-down or bottom-up way, reform cannot succeed without clearly defined goals based on a scientific theory that explains how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. It is essential to base goals on a scientific, coherent, and explanatory theory because a scientific theory makes us aware of incoherent goals (e.g., preceding six goals) and of efforts that contradict our objectives (e.g., using achievement tests that encourage drill and memorization). It is true that education is ultimately controlled by policymakers and the public. However, if educators do not lead the reform movement with a clearer vision about where we want to go and how to get there, reform will continue to be a well intentioned but frustrating disappointment. This clearer vision enables the teacher to encourage students to think for themselves, to exchange viewpoints, and to make decisions. This vision also inspires the teacher to draw upon a curriculum based on constructivist principles and to respect and provide for individual differences in the classroom. Such a teacher is both wise and expert.
REFERENCES Department of Education. (1991). America 2000: An Education Strategy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Inheider, B. & J. Piaget. (1958). [orig. 19551. The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books. -. (1964). [orig. 19591. The early growth of logic in the child. New York: Harper & Row. Kamii, C. (1985). Young children reinvent arithmetic. New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1989a). Young children continue to reinvent arithmetic, 2nd grade. New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1989b). Double-column addition: A teacher uses Piaget’s theory (videotape). New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1990a). Multiplication of two-digit numbers: Two teachers using Piaget’s theory (videotape). New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1990b). Multidigit division: Two teachers using Piuget’s theory (videotape). New York: Teachers College Press. Piaget, J. (1950). [orig. 19471. The psychology of intelligence. New York: Harcourt Brace. -. (1952). [orig. 19361. The origins of intelligence. New York: International University Press. -. (1954). [orig. 19371. The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
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(1965). [orig. 19321. The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press. (1969). [or&. 19461. The child’s conception of time. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (1973). [orig. 19481. To understand is to invent. New York: Viking. (1985). [orig. 19751. The equilibration of cognitive structures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Piaget, J. & R. Garcia. (1989). [orig. 19831. Psychogenesis and the history of science. New York: Columbia University Press. Piaget, J. & B. Inhelder. (1956). [orig. 19481. The child’s conception of space. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Piaget, J., B. Inhelder, & A. Szeminska. (1960). [orig. 19481. The child’s conception ofgeomety, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Piaget, J. & A. Szeminska. (1952). [orig. 19411 The child’s conception of number. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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-. -. -.
WYE 6. CLARK STANFORD UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT: The six national goals established by the National Governors’ Association for education reform in the 1990s were conceived by people who had the power to decide what outcomes they wanted based on their own values and priorities. Although it is impossible to avoid questions of values, it is necessary in defining goals for education to consider scientific, explanatory theories about how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. Jean Piaget’s conceptualization of autonomy, in his unusual sense of the term, provides an overall aim for the development of individuals as well as of society, both in the intellectual and the moral realms. Autonomy as the aim of education is based on constructivism, a scientific theory, and would obviate the outdated conceptualization and contradictions among the six national goals.
Goals in education are usually defined by groups of people who have the power to decide what outcomes they want based on their own values and priorities. The following six national goals are examples of such outcomes recently conceptualized by the National Governors’ Association (Department of Education 1991): Goal 1. By the year 2000, all children in America will start school ready to learn. Goal 2. By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90%. Goal 3. By the year 2000, American students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demonstrated competency over challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, history, and geography; DitUdall cormcpondencs to: ConstanceKamii, University of Alabama, Birmingham, 210 Education Building, 901 South 13th Street, UAB Station, Birmingham, AL 35294-1250. Learning and individual Diliemnceo, Volume 5. Number 4. 1993, pages 327-340. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
Copyright 0 1993 by JAI Press, Inc. ISSN: 1041-6080
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and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so that they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our modern economy. Goal 4. By the year 2000, U.S. students will be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement. Goal 5. By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. Goal 6. By the year 2000, every school in America will be free of drugs and violence and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning (pp. 62-66).
Unlike the governors, Jean Piaget (1948/1973) conceptualized only one broad goal for education: autonomy. Since autonomy in the Piagetian sense means something different from what we usually understand by this term, we will devote the first part of this article to what Piaget meant by autonomy. We will then discuss autonomy as the aim of education and the drastic changes in classroom practices this goal entails. The articIe will conclude by pointing out that the kind of reform envisaged by the National Governors’ Association requires a better conceptualized goal based on constructivism, the most adequate scientific theory available today about how children acquire knowledge and moral values.
WHAT PIAGET MEANT BY AU~NOMY In common parlance, autonomy means the right of an individual or group to be self-governing. For example, when we speak of Palestinian autonomy, we are referring to this kind of political right. In Piaget’s theory, however, autonomy refers not to the right but the abilify to be self-governing, in the moral as well as the intellectual realm. Autonomy is the ability to think for oneself and to decide between right and wrong in the moral realm, and between truth and untruth in the intellectual realm, by taking all relevant factors into account, independently of reward and punishment. Autonomy is the opposite of heteronomy. Heteronomous people are governed by someone else, as they are unable to think for themselves. Below is a discussion of the moral and intellectual aspects of autonomy. MORAL AUTONOMY An extreme example of moral autonomy is Martin Luther King’s struggle for civil rights. King was autonomous enough to take relevant factors into account and to conclude that the laws discriminating against African Americans were unjust and immoral. Convinced of the need to make justice a reality, he fought to end the discriminatory laws, in spite of the police, jails, dogs, water hoses, and threats of assassination used to stop him. Morally autonomous people are not governed by reward and punishment.
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An extreme example of moral heteronomy is the men under President Nixon in the Watergate coverup affair. These men were governed by Richard Nixon and went along with what they knew to be morally wrong, reaping the rewards the President dispensed to those who helped him in the coverup attempt. In The Moral Judgment of the Child, Piaget (19320965) gave more commonplace examples of autonomy and heteronomy. He interviewed children between the ages of six and fourteen and asked them, for example, why it was bad to tell lies. Young, heteronomous children replied, “Because you get punished when you tell lies.” Piaget asked, “Would it be OK to tell lies if you were not punished for them?” and young children answered “Yes.” These children were obviously governed by others to judge between right and wrong. Piaget also made up many pairs of stories and asked children which one of the two children in the stories was the worse. Following is an example of such a pair: A little boy (or a little girl) goes for a walk in the street and meets a big dog who frightens him very much. So then he goes home and tells his mother he has seen a dog that was as big as a cow. A child comes home from school and tells his mother that the teacher had given him good marks, but it was not true; the teacher had given him no marks at all, either good or bad. Then his mother was very pleased and rewarded him (p. 148). Young children systematically manifested the morality of heteronomy by saying that it was worse to say “I saw a dog as big as a cow.“ Why was it worse? Because dogs are never as big as cows and adults do not believe such stories. Older, more autonomous children, however, tended to say that it was worse to say “The teacher gave me good marks” because this lie was more believable. For more autonomous children, a believable lie is worse than one that is so outlandish as not to deceive people. Figure 1 shows the developmental relationship between autonomy and heteronomy. In this figure, time is represented along the horizontal axis from birth to adulthood. The vertical axis represents the proportion of autonomy in relation to heteronomy, from zero to 100 percent. The broken line shows the ideal development of an individual. All babies are born helpless and neither autonomous nor heteronomous, but young children are all initially dependent on adults and, therefore, heteronomous. Ideally, they become increasingly autonomous as they grow older, and as they become more autonomous, they become less heteronomous. In other words, to the extent that children become able to govern themselves, they are governed less by other people. In reality, however, most adults do not develop in this ideal way. The great majority stop developing at a low level as shown by the solid line in Figure 1. Piaget (1948/1973) said that it is a rare adult who is truly moral. This observation can easily be confirmed in our daily life. Newspapers are full of stories about corruption in government and dishonesty in business practices as well as theft, assault, and murder. The important question for parents and teachers is: What causes certain chil-
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FIGURE 1
The development of autonomy fmm birth to adulthood.
/
Id8&%l developa&
/ / /
The developent
of most adults /
d airth
Adulthood
dren to become more autonomous than others? Piaget’s answer to this question, found in The Moral Judgment of the Child, was that adults reinforce children’s heteronomy when they use rewards and punishment, thereby hindering the development of autonomy. By refraining from using rewards and punishment, and by exchanging points of view with children instead, we can foster the development of autonomy, he said. For example, if a child tells a lie, an adult could punish him or her by saying, “No dessert tonight.” Alternatively, the adult can look the child straight in the eye with affection and skepticism and say, “I really can’t believe what you are saying because . . . (and give the reason). And when you tell me something next time, I am not sure I’ll be able to believe you. . . . I want you to go to your room (or seat) and think about what you might do to be believed.” Children want to be believed, and when they are confronted with this kind of statement, they are likely, over time, to come to the conclusion that it is best for people to deal honestly with each other. In general, punishment leads to three possible outcomes. The first outcome is calculation of risks. Children who are punished will learn to calculate their chances of getting caught the next time and the price they might have to pay if they are caught. The second possible outcome is, interestingly, the opposite of the first one-blind obedience. Sensitive children will do anything to avoid being punished and give the impression that punishment works. The third outcome of punishment is a derivative of the second, namely, revolt. Many
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“good,” model children surprise us eventually by beginning to cut classes, take drugs, and engage in other acts that characterize delinquency. Their reason for switching to these behaviors is that they are tired of living for their parents and teachers and think the time has come for them to start living for themselves. Piaget was realistic enough to say that it is sometimes necessary to impose restrictions on children. However, he made an important distinction between ~~~~s~~e~~ and ~~c~~u~s 4 ~eci~~ocif~~Depriving the child of dessert for telling a lie is an example of a punishment, as the relationship between a lie and dessert is completely arbitrary. Telling children that we cannot believe what they said is an example of a sanction by reciprocity. Sanctions by reciprocity are directly related to the act we want to sanction and to the adult’s point of view. They have the effect of motivating the child to construct rules of conduct from within, through the coordination of viewpoints. Other examples of sanctions by reciprocity such as exclusion from the group, depriving the child of the thing he or she has misused, and restitution can be found in The Moral judgment of the Child and in Kamii (1985). Piaget’s theory about how children acquire moral values is fundamentally different from other, traditional theories and from common sense. In the traditional view, the child is believed to acquire moral rules and values by i~ferna~izing them from the environment. According to Piaget, children acquire moral convictions not by absorbing them from the environment but by consfrucfing them from the inside, through the exchange of points of view with people who are close and important to them. For example, no child is taught that it is OK to tell lies if one is not punished for them. Yet, young children construct this belief as they try to make sense out of what adults say and do. Fortunately, they continue to construct other relationships and many children ultimately conclude that lies are bad even if one is not punished for them. When adults exchange viewpoints with children, this fosters the development of autonomy by enabling children to consider relevant factors such as other perspectives. When children can take relevant factors into account, especially other people’s rights and feelings, they construct from within the rule of treating others as they wish to be treated by them. A person who has constructed this conviction from within cannot lie in situations like the Watergate affair, no matter what reward is offered. Many behaviorists and others believe that punishment is bad because it is negative, but that rewards are positive and good. However, rewards do not make children any more autonomous than punishment. Children who help their parents only to get money, and those who fill out worksheets only to get a sticker, are governed by someone else just as much as those who are “good” only to avoid being punished. Money, candy, and stickers are rewards because they are attractive objects used to manipulate or control children. By contrast, praise and expressions of appreciation are part of human relationships invofving the exchange of points of view. Just as it is necessary to express disbelief when a child is not telling the truth, it is desirable to communicate our pleasure and appreciation when chil-
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dren behave in especially praiseworthy ways. Praise is thus different from rewards such as money and stickers, but it can also be used in insincere, manipulative ways. Praise can thus degenerate into a reward, just as an expression of disbelief can turn into an angry, punitive act.
INTELLECTUAL AU~NOMY In the intellectual realm, too, autonomy means the ability to govern oneself by being able to take relevant factors into account, and heteronomy means being governed by somebody else. An extreme example of intellectual autonomy is Copernicus, or the inventor of any other revolutionary theory in the history of science. Copernicus invented the heliocentric theory when everybody else believed that the sun revolved around the earth. He was even ridiculed off the stage but was autonomous enough to remain convinced of his own idea. An intellectually heteronomous person, by contrast, unquestioningly believes what he or she is told, including illogical conclusions, slogans, and propaganda. A more common example of intellectual autonomy is a child who used to believe in Santa Claus. When she was about six, she surprised her mother one day by asking, “How come Santa Claus uses the same wrapping paper as we do?” Her mother’s “explanation” satisfied her for a few minutes, but she soon came up with the next question: “How come Santa Claus has the same handwriting as Daddy?” This child had her own way of thinking, which was different from what she had been taught. According to Piaget, the child acquires knowledge, also, by cff~s~~~cf~~~it from within, rather than by ~~~er~ff~jz~?zg it directly from the environment. Children may accept what they are told for a while, but they are not passive vessels that merely hold what is poured into their heads. Children construct knowledge by creating and coordinating relationships. When the child in the previous example put Santa Claus into relationship with everything else she knew, she began to feel that something was wrong somewhere. When children are not convinced by what they are told, they rack their brains to make sense of these “facts.“ Unfortunately, in school, children are not encouraged to think autonomously. Teachers use reward and punishment in the intellectual realm, too, to get chilAn example of this practice is the use of dren to give “correct” responses. worksheets. In first grade arithmetic, for example, if a child writes “4 + 4 = z,” most teachers mark this answer as being wrong. The result of this kind of teaching is that children become convinced that there are right and wrong answers and that only the teacher knows which answer is correct. Furthermore, when we walk around a first-grade classroom while children are working on worksheets, and stop to ask individual children how they got particular answers, they typically react by grabbing their erasers, even when their answer is perfectly correct! Already in first grade, many children have learned to distrust their own thinking. Children who are thus discouraged from thinking critically and autonomously will construct less knowledge than those who are confident and do their own thinking.
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If a child says that 4 + 4 = 7, a better reaction is to refrain from correcting him or her and inquire instead, “How did you get 7?” Children often correct themselves as they try to explain their reasoning to someone else. The child who tries to explain his or her reasoning has to decenter to make sense to the other person. Thus, trying to coordinate his or her point of view with another viewpoint makes the child think critically, and this critical thinking often leads to a higher level of thinking. In the next section on autonomy as the aim of education, we argue further that we must replace memorization enforced with reward and punishment with an education that above all emphasizes the honest, critical exchange of viewpoints.
AUTONOMY AS THE AIM OF EDUCATION Figure 2 is our interpretation of Piaget’s (1948/1973) aim of education, autonomy, in relation to the goals of most educators and the public. In the shaded part of the circle labeled “the goals of most educators and the public,” we include those that resulted in our memorizing words, just to pass one test after another. All of us who succeeded in school achieved this success by memorizing an enormous number of words without understanding them or caring about them. The shaded part also includes the moral heteronomy that schools generally reinforce with reward and punishment used to enforce ready-made rules. In the intersection with the circle labeled “autonomy,” we put things we did not forget after each test. The ability to read and write, to do arithmetic, to read maps and charts, and to situate events in history are examples of what we learned in school that we did not forget after cramming for tests. When moral and intellectual autonomy becomes our aim, educators work hard to increase the area of overlap between the two circles.
Autonomy as the aim of education
FIGURE 2 in relation to the goals of most educators
and the public.
of most and the public
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Differences between Autoriomy and Other Goals Based on Values As stated earlier, goals in education have traditionally been defined on the basis of what people value. Piaget certainly valued autonomy as we do, but autonomy as a goal is different from other aims in that it is derived also from a scientific theory, constructivism, about the direction in which children and the human species develop morally and intellectually. In The Moral Judgment of the Child, Piaget (1932/1965) documented how young children begin by reasoning heteronomously and later tend to develop the morality of autonomy. He saw parallels between this development of the individual and the development of the species and pointed out that “human societies have evolved from heteronomy to autonomy, and from gerontocratic theocracy in all its forms to equalitarian democracy” (p. 325). Popes and kings no longer have the power they once had, and the big sweep of history seems to be toward equalitarian democracy. While dictators and privileged classes still exist, human societies are evolving toward more democracy, equalitarianism, and autonomy. In the intellectual realm, Piaget devoted 60 years of scientific research to demonstrate the construction of knowledge in the individual from birth to adolescence (Inhelder & Piaget 195511958, 1959/1964; Piaget 193611952, 1937/1954, 1946/1969, 1975/1985; Piaget & Inhelder 1948/1956; Piaget, Inhelder, & Szeminska 194811960; Piaget & Szeminska 194111952). In Psychogenesis and the History of Science (Piaget & Garcia 1983/1989), he again pointed out the parallels between the individual’s construction of knowledge and the human species’ construction of science. Scientists are the quintessence of intellectual autonomy. They are skeptical and critical, do not accept any beliefs without proof, and are continuing to construct new, scientific knowledge. While autonomy as the goal of education is based partly on constructivism, a coherent, developmental, and scientific theory, goals derived from values are fragmentary, often in contradiction with each other, have lacunae, and are frequently mere reactions to temporary conditions. For example, among the six national goals cited at the beginning of this article, Goals 2 and 4 are contradictory. It would be nice to increase the high school graduation rate to 90% and to be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement by the year 2000. However, each one of these goals makes the other impossible to accomplish in nine years. Sociomoral goals are conspicuously absent from the six national goals. This is a serious omission at a time when the nation is replete with symptoms of heteronomy, including the federal deficit, Congressional banking and postal scandals, and daily cases of child neglect and abuse. While the National Governors’ Association is silent about students’ sociomoral development, it is explicit about the goal of having schools that are “free of drugs and violence.“ However, drugs and violence are only particular symptoms of the broader problem, moral heteronomy. Autonomy as the aim of education does not dictate what specific virtues children are to have, such as punctuality and industriousness. In fact, we cannot predict, for example, whether a child will have the values and priorities associ-
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ated with becoming an environmentalist (protecting natural resources) or those associated with becoming an industrialist (providing jobs). While we cannot predict what specific virtues and aspirations the child will have, we can be sure of two things that are true of autonomous people: (a) The child will have thought deeply about the factors that are relevant to the decision, and (b) he or she will have constructed certain values such as being honest and trustworthy, always taking into account the rights and feelings of others, seeking negotiations in situations of conflict, and basing decisions on what is morally right rather than on reward and punishment. In other words, an autonomous person is not only unlikely to take drugs or resort to violence but also likely to be governed by the rule of treating others as he or she would like to be treated.
CLASSROOM PRACTICES DESIGNED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF AUTONOMY Goals that are as different as Figure 2 indicates entail classroom practices that are correspondingly different. Classrooms today are all too often heteronomous environments where children’s opportunity to develop self-direction is denied. This ultimately leads to the inability of children to be self-governing. As a result, most adults today are heteronomous and incapable of independent, logical, and critical thinking and moral decision making. To promote children’s autonomy, the teacher must reduce his or her power as much as possible. To reduce power, the teacher needs to share with students the right and responsibility of making decisions and refrain from using reward and punishment. These changes are necessary because it is by controlling students and using reward and punishment that educators reinforce children’s heteronomy, thereby hindering the development of autonomy. Sharing the power of control with students means that rules and decisions must be made with children and enforced by the group with sanctions by reciprocity. This, of course, does not mean that each class can make any decision it wants. For example, the time the school day begins and ends is not a decision for each class to make. However, the power to make decisions does mean that most of the rules and decisions that are now made and imposed unilaterally by the teacher should be made and enforced jointly with students. Examples of such rules and decisions are: when to have a test or whether or not to have a test, how long a book report should be, when to sharpen pencils, and what to do with children who cheat in a game. Children often make exactly the same rules and decisions that the teacher would have made. However, the fact that they made a rule or decision makes an enormous difference in their commitment to it. Children tend to respect and understand the rules they make. In the course of deciding on rules, they come to know that their opinions are respected, and they are then more likely to respect the opinions of others, including adults. Exchanges of ideas are obviously important for making rules and decisions
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and for children’s sociomoral development. However, the exchange of points of view is also indispensable for children’s construction of knowledge (Piaget 1932/1965, 1947/1950). For example, in primary arithmetic, the teacher must refrain from saying that an answer is correct or incorrect and, instead, ask the group whether they agree or disagree. By reinforcing correct answers and decreeing which answer is correct, most teachers today are stopping students’ thinking and are making them dependent on the teacher to know whether or not an answer is correct. In the logico-mathematical realm, children wilI get to the truth if they debate long enough because there is absolutely nothing arbitrary in logico-mathematical knowledge. To return to an example given earlier, 4 + 4 = 8 in every country and culture. For further detail on the nature of logicomathematical knowledge and how children develop it in a constructivist primary mathematics program, the reader is referred to Kamii (1985, 1989a, 1989b, 1990a, 1990b). Schools have traditionally emphasized “right“ answers thereby enhancing teachers’ power and reinforcing students‘ heteronomy. We have nothing against correct answers but believe that children should not acquire knowledge at the expense of autonomy. If they are encouraged to debate meaningful questions in all content areas, children will make progress both in content and in autonomy (ability to think critically). For example, in history, instead of reading a textbook and answering the questions at the end of the chapter, children can be asked to debate ideas about what their lives would be like today if the Second Continental Congress had not met or if the United States had not bought the Louisiana territory from France in 1803. In science, they can be asked to make a pendulum that swings twice as fast as the teacher’s or to predict and prove the force necessary to lift a heavy weight when a lever is used. The essence of this problem-solving approach is that it intrigues students and provides opportunities to think critically. The preceding examples illustrate another principle of constructivist teaching that aims at children’s development of autonomy: the importance of developing children’s intrinsic motivation to learn. Traditional teaching usually tries to transmit ready-made knowledge through well-organized, boring textbooks. This textbook approach is accompanied by the use of rewards, punishment, and grades that are necessary to force-feed boring contents. If we want to foster the development of autonomy in children, we must avoid traditional teaching methods and, instead, develop ways of teaching that appeal to children’s natural interests. A teacher who keeps autonomy constantly in mind is concerned with children’s sociomoral development as well as their intellectual development during every minute of the day. A teacher cannot encourage the free but respectful exchange of ideas in the intellectual realm without promoting the same freedom and sensitivity in the sociomoral realm. A constructivist classroom is an inseparably intellectual and sociomoral community. For further detail on how children develop intellectually and sociomorally in a constructivist primary program, the reader is referred to Kamii (1985, 1989a).
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IMPLICATIONS FOR REFORM EFFORTS The reader may be thinking that we are dreamers advocating the impossible. But many teachers are already doing things that are similar to what we are advocating. Once a conscientious teacher becomes aware of the difference between autonomy and heteronomy, life is never the same for him or her, either in or out of the classroom. It becomes clear to these teachers that by keeping power for themselves and manipulating children with reward and punishment, they turn out heteronomous adolescents who can and/or must continue to be manipulated by reward and punishment. The prevalent use of reward and punishment is not without basis in scientific theory. The theory that leads to heteronomous classroom environments is behaviorism, which is in opposition to constructivism. Two scientific theories can be contradictory and yet both be true when they are related in the way illustrated in Figure 3. This relationship shows that constructivism can explain everything behaviorism can explain but that the converse is not true. Piaget explained conditioning by saying that all animals adapt to their environment. But human beings are more complicated and construct more knowledge and moral values than lower animals. Behaviorism can explain conditioning but cannot explain, for example, how Copernicus invented the heliocentric theory or how Martin Luther King could not be stopped from fighting for civil rights. In other words, behaviorism can explain heteronomy, but a broader, deeper, and more powerful theory is necessary to explain autonomy. FIGURE 3
The relationships between behaviorism and constructivism and between the geocentric and heliocentric theories. col2&Ncti~ar
The heliocentric
The ~wcentric
theory
theory
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As we show in Figure 3, the relationship between behaviorism and constructivism is analogous to the one between the geocentric and heliocentric theories of the universe. The geocentric theory came to be considered untrue when the heliocentric theory became accepted. However, from our limited perspective on earth, it is still true today that the sun rises and sets. This “truth” is reported daily in the news. It is likewise still true, from the limited perspective of surface behavior, that drill and conditioning “work.” From a deeper and longer-range perspective, however, we no longer think that human beings acquire knowledge and moral values only by internalization and reward and/or punishment. The ideas sketched in this article are in sharp contrast with the reform efforts of the past decade. These efforts have consisted of defining goals on the basis of values and common sense, using old means to achieve them (e.g., more stringent graduation requirements and free choice of schools), and evaluating the outcome with obsolete achievement tests. What the reform movement needs is a bolder, fundamentally new and different approach beginning with the question of how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. Part of the difficulty of the reform movement is that there is no theoretical agreement among psychologists and educators now about how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. This question must be answered scientifically, but science itself is in the midst of a revolution as represented in Figure 3. It took 150 years for the heliocentric theory to become universally accepted. It has been more than 50 years since Piaget articulated the constructivist theory, and some educators are coming to understand the relationship between behaviorism and constructivism. Educators and policymakers must come to an agreement about the superiority of const~ctivism over behaviorism if we are to go beyond the internally contradictory reform efforts. Constructivism and behaviorism engender very different goals for education, and goals determine everything we do in the classroom and how we evaluate the outcome of teaching. To reconceptualize the six goals cited at the beginning of this article, we would eliminate Goal 1, which is based on behaviorism. “All children in America will start school ready to learn” implies that all children must learn the same content regardless of their developmental level. A curriculum based on constructivism would provide for individual differences so that all children can start at their own developmental level. Goai 2 would also be eliminated because if high-school curricula were relevant and interesting, and if schools were Iess coercive, students would stay in them. Students want to become competent and socially respectable, but they drop out of school when it becomes too painful, irrelevant, and coercive. Most of Goal 3 would be included in autonomy as the aim of education but conceptualized differently. For example, we would not separate students’ use of their minds from their competency in academic subjects such as English, mathematics, science, history, and geography. Likewise, we would not separate citizenship and employability from autonomy. Goal 4 would be eliminated because mathematics and science are already included in Goal 3, and being first in the world is not a valid goal for education. Our goal should be to turn out autonomous, competent people.
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Goal 5 would also be eliminated because literacy, knowledge, skills, and citizenship are already included in Goal 3. Goal 6 would be eliminated because people who can take relevant factors into account do not take drugs or resort to violence. “Every school in America . . . will offer a disciplined environment” also seems like a strange conceptualization. Schools cannot offer a disciplined environment; a disciplined environment can be made only by students and teachers. Whether
reform
proceeds
in a piecemeal
or “systemic”
fashion,
and whether
schools are managed in a top-down or bottom-up way, reform cannot succeed without clearly defined goals based on a scientific theory that explains how human beings acquire knowledge and moral values. It is essential to base goals on a scientific, coherent, and explanatory theory because a scientific theory makes us aware of incoherent goals (e.g., preceding six goals) and of efforts that contradict our objectives (e.g., using achievement tests that encourage drill and memorization). It is true that education is ultimately controlled by policymakers and the public. However, if educators do not lead the reform movement with a clearer vision about where we want to go and how to get there, reform will continue to be a well intentioned but frustrating disappointment. This clearer vision enables the teacher to encourage students to think for themselves, to exchange viewpoints, and to make decisions. This vision also inspires the teacher to draw upon a curriculum based on constructivist principles and to respect and provide for individual differences in the classroom. Such a teacher is both wise and expert.
REFERENCES Department of Education. (1991). America 2000: An Education Strategy. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Inheider, B. & J. Piaget. (1958). [orig. 19551. The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books. -. (1964). [orig. 19591. The early growth of logic in the child. New York: Harper & Row. Kamii, C. (1985). Young children reinvent arithmetic. New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1989a). Young children continue to reinvent arithmetic, 2nd grade. New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1989b). Double-column addition: A teacher uses Piaget’s theory (videotape). New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1990a). Multiplication of two-digit numbers: Two teachers using Piaget’s theory (videotape). New York: Teachers College Press. -. (1990b). Multidigit division: Two teachers using Piuget’s theory (videotape). New York: Teachers College Press. Piaget, J. (1950). [orig. 19471. The psychology of intelligence. New York: Harcourt Brace. -. (1952). [orig. 19361. The origins of intelligence. New York: International University Press. -. (1954). [orig. 19371. The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
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(1965). [orig. 19321. The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press. (1969). [or&. 19461. The child’s conception of time. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (1973). [orig. 19481. To understand is to invent. New York: Viking. (1985). [orig. 19751. The equilibration of cognitive structures. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Piaget, J. & R. Garcia. (1989). [orig. 19831. Psychogenesis and the history of science. New York: Columbia University Press. Piaget, J. & B. Inhelder. (1956). [orig. 19481. The child’s conception of space. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Piaget, J., B. Inhelder, & A. Szeminska. (1960). [orig. 19481. The child’s conception ofgeomety, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Piaget, J. & A. Szeminska. (1952). [orig. 19411 The child’s conception of number. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
-.
-. -. -.