Francis Chartrand for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles: Radical constructivism or how to build a reform of education on the sand, by Anne Humphreys

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Radical constructivism or how to build a reform of education on the sand, by Anne Humphreys

From an article by Normand Baillargeon, a professor in educational sciences at the University of Quebec at Montreal, published in the book "Against the educational reform", published recently in vlb editor. We recommend the purchase of this book to anyone interested in the education required for students in Quebec.

Normand Baillargeon is a former education columnist for Le Devoir. It attacks by radical constructivism is the cause of educational reform imposed by the monopoly of education in Quebec schools. Baillargeon libertarian who is progressive and is reminiscent of Alain Finkielkraut, both citing Hannah Arendt, for whom the real progressive policy requirement calls as a pedagogical conservatism.

The headings below are of us.

Ernst von Glasersfeld, tutelary figure of the current curriculum Quebec

Ernst von Glasersfeld (born 1917) is, among other things, a psychologist and cyberneticians. [...]

Glasersfeld but he is best known as the creator of an epistemological doctrine called him 'radical constructivism', which has held in Quebec, in contexts where they think the education, influence and has been for nearly three decades .

As such, Mr. Glasersfeld has on many occasions been invited to Quebec theorists of education, especially in universities, where the texts were widely read, disseminated and studied.

In 2002, he received the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) the recognition of scientific merit. The university stressed that his participation in the work and activities of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Learning and Education Development (CIRAD), one of the places where it thought the current educational reform, and reminded that this "long-standing collaboration of the Center" had a great influence on the research conducted there. "

This influence is still recognized by this group of eminent academics and researchers from Quebec who in 2004 published a book in tribute to Glasersfeld. Their aim, say the authors, was to show "the impact of constructivism on research and educational practices" and to describe "his influence on curriculum reform and educational choices. "

Finally, Glasersfeld in 2006 received an honorary doctorate in education from Laval University.

Radical constructivism as hegemonic orthodoxy in Quebec

All this suggests the radical constructivism in Quebec has become a doctrine very influential at the highest levels of education. In fact, a kind of orthodoxy has installed an orthodoxy whose hegemony is reinforced by the fact that followers of radical constructivism do little contradiction and quickly, for all practical purposes, monopolized the discourse in Quebec and that the institutions of production and dissemination of research.

[...]

Varieties of constructivism in radical constructivism

Some feel that such socially that knowledge is constructed, particularly by social groups: their social constructivism is and others believe that it is the individual who builds and constructivism is individual. Some believe that this construction is a psychological phenomenon and that the study helps to understand how the mechanisms by which knowledge is constructed, while others believe that the very status of knowledge than a building, pushing some fairly in this way to achieve one form or another of idealism and epistemological relativism, claiming that knowledge, eg science, is a construction among other possibilities, no epistemic privilege. This is precisely the prospect of Glasersfeld.

Radical constructivism according Glasersfeld

[...]

The heart of Glasersfeld's position is contained in this presentation that often. From the perspective of it, he says:

Knowledge is not passively received either through the senses or communication.
Knowledge is actively constructed by the knowing subject.
The function of cognition is adaptive in the biological sense of the term: to agree to viability.
Cognition allows the organization by about the experiential world, not the discovery of an objective ontological reality.

These ideas involve various ontological and epistemological positions with the agreement of the author may be conveniently presented as follows:

Knowledge is not a world independent of the observer;
Knowledge is not such a world: theories of knowledge that knowledge is the real false;
Knowledge is created by individuals in a historical and cultural context;
It refers to individual experience rather than the world;
It consists of conceptual structures of individuals;
Conceptual structures constitute knowledge when individuals consider viable in their experience: constructivism is a form of pragmatism;
There is no privileged conceptual framework: constructivism is a relativist doctrine;
Knowledge is an order of a suitable experiential reality;
There is no extra-experiential reality accessible to reason.

[...]

In fact, I do not deceive me by suggesting that many philosophers and epistemologists consider such concepts as contradictory, absurd, or highly questionable at best implausible.

[Radical Constructivism: relativistic and contradictory

Many criticisms have been leveled against the constructivist epistemology. The most common is that this theory is the bed of relativism, because it defines the truth as a "construction" depends on social society where it appears. This leads to accusations of internal contradiction: if what should be considered as "real" is relative to a particular company, then this constructive design itself must be true that in a given society. It could well be "false" in another company. If so, constructivism would be wrong in this society. In addition, this means that social constructivism can be both true and false. Critics of constructivism then recall this axiom of logic "if a proposal is both true and not true, it is not true", so according to the principles of social constructivism, it is false.]

[...]

Constructivism "repudiates the notion of truth"

[Some citations Glasersfeld:]

[F]rom a naive point of view which is that of common sense, the elements that make this complex environment are part of a real world consists of objects unquestionable, as real as the student, and these objects have an existence independent independent not only of students but also teachers. Radical Constructivism is a radical theory of knowledge which, for reasons that had nothing to do with the teaching of mathematics or education, does not accept the view of common sense.

The Radical constructivism is radical in that it breaks with conventions and he develops a theory of knowledge in which knowledge does not reflect an ontological reality "objective" but only scheduling and organization of a world by our experience. Radical constructivism repudiated once and for all "metaphysical realism".

Elsewhere, it states that constructivism "repudiates the notion of truth as correspondence with reality".

[...]

Count the number of people: everything is relative

In one of his books, Philippe Jonnaert, a constructivist Quebec, provides an example of what an educator for the adoption of what he calls the "constructivist posture" and metaphysical idealism. A teacher of a class of first year of primary school requires its students to the number of boys and girls in the classroom with their first names. It has 23 labels, distributed as follows: 12 boys, 10 girls, 1 and that of the teacher.

But that's it. A student has 22 labels is that it does not the teacher. Another arrived at 24: he has the teacher and, as it is a great person, he counts for two. The observer of the scene, he has 23 labels.

You see, then decreed constructivist idealistic: there is no real, that representations, each doing its own without it being possible to declare one more objective than the other. "Everyone writes the author constructs his reality."

All that is hateful in the constructivist posture is here.

First, this extraordinary and unjustified quantum leap by which one moves from a triviality to a radical thesis in epistemology, the banality of the very psychological constructivism and radical constructivism very questionable metaphysics.

Then the sad conclusion that teaching draws. For what should be drawn from this story is just [...] it is essential pout the teacher to ensure that what he said is clear and can be interpreted in different ways. Here, the instructions clearly were ambiguous.

[...]

Utilitarianism of constructivism in the teaching of basic skills

"[T] o constructivists, writing an emulator Glasersfeld Quebec, the only possible to know a topic is the practical knowledge which enables it to survive, to carry out its projects and to deal with his desire." The same author stresses the content of these programs in secondary mathematics [which] should include the teaching of concepts a minority use the latest "and" knowledge that most will never be called upon to use their lives, because they do not meet the problems they are supposed to solve, and the teaching of "some sophisticated language written or spoken."

[...]

[T]his pragmatism, in my opinion, is an important part of the explanation for this obsession of skills that has gripped the world of Education of Quebec. Glasersfeld wrote: "It is extremely difficult to substitute the concept of" know how "to design a knowledge that should produce an image of the real world [...]. But it is precisely this substitution must be done to understand the basis of constructivism."

[...]

Endoctrinaire trend in the faculties of education

In short, a radical doctrine was very questionable and is still taught in an extremely biased and partisan students and future researchers in education. But there's more. Is that this doctrine was transmitted in an institutional context where join was (and remains) an essential condition for taking part in the intellectual community and progress. All this leads me to conclude that everything has been made to ensure that people who are targeted adhere to the doctrine presented.

There is, philosophy of education, a word and a concept specific to describe what I just wrote, namely the transmission of a doctrine with the intention to close the mind through the use of processes other than those allowed by the observance of the rationality of the subjects or processes as deplorable bias and the incompleteness of the information or the institutional and economic pressure. This concept is that of indoctrination. And I support, based on over twenty years in that environment, and that this is indeed a form of indoctrination constructivist positions (particularly radical) that has been practiced on a large scale in Quebec schools science education.

[...]

Summary: waste transfer and relativistic without legitimacy

Constructivism is a radical doctrine confused, delirious in some respects and does little philosophical interest.

[...]

If [the education] has allowed the practitioners of a discipline in search of recognition to establish legitimacy, the latter inspired by him, have helped to dump the school system in a very toxic cocktail made of idealism of epistemological relativism, pragmatism [utilitarianism], very much in the spirit of the times, but whose impact on the school and the children are dramatic.

At the same time, it was neglected and lost sight of important issues for any reflexive support of education, encouraged a weakening of the role of knowledge in education and its practitioners and neglected the vast and rich heritage of knowledge from the philosophy of education and science that can make an important contribution to our understanding of education materials and the most appropriate and most effective to train people educated.

[...]

In the meantime, I'm still looking, without quite finding the answer to a pressing question: what right, by what legitimacy, officials and researchers have been able to transfer this tremendous sense of education they have made? It seems that the arrogance and ignorance that led to the adoption of ideas that I just described had to play a role in this story.

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