The Moral Completion of the Process of Knowing and its Necessarily Humble Beginnings

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The Moral Completion of the Process of Knowing
and its Necessarily Humble Beginnings

• Jerry Starratt
• October 2009

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A Journey of Understanding Ethical Leadership

• 1.Ethical Decision Making of Ed Leaders
• Tripartite Model Complementarity of the Ethics
  of Justice, Care, Critique
• 2.Using the Model to Build a Learning Environment
  for young people
• In Academics, Co-currics, Support Prgs
• 3. Intuition about the Moral Character of
  Academic Learning

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A Journey Continued

• 3. Connect Authentic Academic Learnings to
• a)Psycho-Social Development (Cf. E.Erikson)
• b)Existential Agenda of Human Beings (To Be
  Someone, To Belong, To do Some Good)
• c)Moral Agenda of Human Beings (Be Authentic Cf.
  Charles Taylor)
• d) Intelligibility of Membership in the Natural,
  Cultural, and Social Worlds to which Learners
  belong

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A Journey. Continued

• 4. Authentic Learning involves
• a) Bringing the knowledge inside (How is this
  reality somehow inside me? How am I somehow
  inside this reality?)
• b) How does this knowledge place me inside the
  world of nature, the world of culture, the world
  of society? Implications for responsible
  membership?
• c) Movement from focus on identity to
  relationship (transcendence), and then to
  generativity (greater transcendence)

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A Journey. Continued

• 5. Move from General to Professional Ethic
  Virtue Ethics in Ed Ldshp
• The story of Al Auther
• Leader promotes the GOOD of the Practice of the
  Profession.
• b) The GoodAuthentic Learning
• c) Authentic Learning has both an Intellectual
  Moral character/quality.

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A Journey. Continued

• 6. How promote Authentic Learning? The Virtues of
  Ed Leadership Authenticity, Presence,
  Responsibility
• 7. Authentic Learning requires Authentic
  Teaching, which also requires the Virtues of
  Authenticity, Presence, Responsibility
• 8. The triangle model of Authentic teaching
• 9. Need to further Understand the Moral Character
  of Learning.

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Student
Relationships of respect care
Beginning dialogue with the world, discovering
self in these worlds, discovering these worlds in
oneself
Curriculum
Teacher
Mutual, interactive Intelligibility
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Moving to the Present

• Reading Bernard Lonergan
• Focus Understanding the Knowing Process in its
  Complete Reach
• Perception--Knowing as Describing
• Understanding--Knowing as Explaining
• Judgement--Knowing as Truth Verifying
• Valuing Embracing What One Knows
• Choice--Knowing as Choosing to Act on what one
  knows the Moral Completion of the Process of
  KnowingPraxis

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What Lonergan Taught Me

• My intuition about the moral character of the
  learning process was philosophically defensible.
  (Note Habermas caution)
• However, Lonergan was talking about a fully
  mature process of knowing, not about the knowing
  of an 8, 12, 16 year old.
• Therefore a more modest, but necessary agenda for
  the K-12 educational process
• Need to return to psychosocial cognitive
  development of k-12 learners

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Reading Piaget on Cognitive (Logic) Development

• Preoperational Stage Sense perception, fantasy,
  beginning Language usage (1-4/5)
• Concrete Operations dealing with realities of
  concrete world narratives of perceptions
  relationships (5-12)
• Early formal operations classifications of
  things patterns, relationships(12-ADULTHOOD)
• Novice use of logical relations, beginning
  explanations of abstract solutions to
  problems(18-30)
• Approaching adult use of logic to consider
  competing logical explanations thinking about
  thinking(Adult)

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K. Nelson on Early childhood Cognitive
Development

• An empiricist, but not Reductionist
• Epigenetic approach, accepting an embodied mind
  as well as a socialized and encultured mind the
  mind of a person
• nature, nurture, the vagaries of experience--
  all contribute to the development of knowing
  knowing is self-organizing process
• Development takes time, lots of experience.
• Memory is the mind at work, seeking the meaning
  of present experiences in relation to past
  meaningful experiences.

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Kohlbergs Cognitive Moral Development

• Punishment-Reward Stage (1-7)
• Instrumental hedonism-Mutuality (7-11)
• Interpersonal Concord (10-15)
• Law order (14-adulthood)
• Group Principles(18-adulthood)
• Hierarchy of Universal Principles of Justice
  (min. circa 30)

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My (our) Major Mistake

• We impose our adult understandings on young
  people who are still developing childrens
  understandings.
• We need to adapt our pedagogy and our (abstract)
  curriculum to their human, moral and mental
  development.

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We Need a Marriage of Cognitive and Psychosocial
Development. Learning involves the search for
intelligibility of the world and the search for
ones personal destiny. Humans are thrown into
existence, into a history, a culture and family
they did not choose. They have to make sense out
of their precarious predicament and construct a
life.
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Eriksons Developmental Challenges

• Infancy Trust vs. Mistrust
• Early childhood Autonomy vs. shame
• Play age Iniative vs. guilt
• School age Industry vs. inferiority
• Adolescence Identity vs role confusion
• Early Adulthood Intimacy vs. isolation
• Middle Adulthood Generativity vs stagnation
• Late Adulthood Integration vs despair

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5 / 8 stagespre-adult stages

• Prior to Adulthood, young people are not
  ethical they are primarily preoccupied with
  themselves.
• Self-transcendence required for Ethical Choice
• Adulthood begins with Intimacy and proceeds to
  Generativity--mid 20s to mid 60s

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The Ecology of Human DevelopmentBronfenbrenner,Fr
eire,Feminists,etc

• Growing up in the Depression
• Growing up during a War
• Growing up a minority
• Growing up an immigrant
• Growing up in poverty, homelessness
• Gendered growing up
• Growing up with a disability
• Growing up in feudal or tribal society

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Keeping the End in Mind Cognitive Moral
Maturity

• Building the Foundation for mature understanding
  and ethical choice
• Experience, experience, experience
• Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork
• Familiar examples for concrete operations
• Continuous, but tiny bits of Cognitive
  Dissonance lots of WHY HOW questions
• Structure, Rules, Practice, Play, Performance
• Lots of feedback, dialogical assessment

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Keeping the End in Mind Personal Ethical
Maturity

• Cultivating foundational qualities of Autonomy,
  Connectedness, and Transcendence
• Autonomy owning oneself, being a somebody
• Connectedness I exist in multiple relationships
• Transcendence I can go beyond self-interest, be
  a part of something bigger than myself
• Creating developmentally appropriate learning
  opportunities to develop these qualities

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Facing the Curriculum ChallengeThe Early School
Years

• Focus on initiative and industry play, mastery
  of skills, rules, repetition of concepts with
  multiple examples, memorization of important
  information, gradual introduction of reflective
  questions.
• Identify curriculum units with potential to raise
  students sense of autonomy, connectedness
  transcendence

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Facing Pedagogical Challenges in the Elementary
School

• Pedagogy of Respect, Care, Support
• Pedagogy of Community
• Differentiated Pedagogy
• Pedagogy of Play Experience
• Pedagogy of Imagination
• Pedagogy of Memory
• Pedagogy of Rules
• Pedagogy with the Home

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Curriculum in Middle School

• Continue the work of the Industry Stage
• Continue structured exercises of inquiry skill
  development memorization of important
  information, along with critical and reflective
  questions relating the information to learners
  life situations.
• Connecting curriculum with community issues and
  problems

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Curriculum in Middle School

• Beginning inquiries into the academic disciplines
  as such, as doorways into membership in the
  worlds of nature, culture, society. Connect
  with life journey
• Exploration of early intelligibility of those
  worlds, working through description toward
  preliminary explanation
• Exploration of responsibilities of membership in
  those worlds, raising questions of values

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Pedagogy of the Middle School

• Pedagogy of Respect, Care, Support
• Pedagogy of Community
• Pedagogy of Invention
• Pedagogy of Performance
• Pedagogy with the Civic Community
• Continuing to raise issues around autonomy,
• connectedness, and transcendence

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Curriculum of the High School

• Deeper inquiry in the academic disciplines as
  dooways to membership in the cultural, social and
  natural worlds as well as to self-definition
  journey toward Adulthood
• Increased questioning of the significance of
  knowledge for choices, and for ones future
• Attention to the social and natural environmental
  challenges as civic concerns

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High School Curriculum

• Approaching early Adulthood Beginning Efforts in
  Academics Co-curriculum
• The curriculum of Self-governing Communities
• The curriculum of Self-definition and
  Self-construction
• The curriculum of Authenticity
• The curriculum of CritiqueResistance
• The curriculum of Participation

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High School Pedagogy

• Pedagogy of Respect, Care, Support
• Continuing to raise learners sense of Autonomy,
  Connectedness, and Transcendence
• Connecting curriculum to Learners life
  trajectories
• Beginning inquiries into the ethics of justice,
  care, critique as embedded in various academic
  units social life

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Conclusion

• Ethical leadership is not simply about making
  ethical decisions, and engaging in a reflective
  process for ethical decisions its about
  building a learning environment in schools that
  moves youngsters along a path of pre ethical
  development toward the very beginning ethical
  stages of young adulthood.

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Conclusion

• Therefore, our work as scholars of Ed. Leadership
  is to promote research and understanding of both
  aspects of Ethical Leadership
• Therefore, we need to work more closely with
  colleagues in curriculum and pedagogy, and in
  developmental and critical psychology