 | |
| Author | Kieran Egan |
|---|---|
Publication date | 1997 |
| ISBN | 0-226-19036-6 |
The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding is a 1997 book on educational theory by Kieran Egan.
| | |
| Author | Kieran Egan |
|---|---|
Publication date | 1997 |
| ISBN | 0-226-19036-6 |
The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding is a 1997 book on educational theory by Kieran Egan.
Egan argues that much educational theorizing pivots around three basic ideas about the aim of education:
Egan argues in Chapter One that "these three ideas are mutually incompatible, and this is the primary cause of our long-continuing educational crisis"; [2] the present educational program in much of the West attempts to integrate all three of these incompatible ideas, resulting in a failure to effectively achieve any of the three. [3]
Egan argues that knowledge and understanding arise through five kinds of understanding. This development can be explained by "logical and psychological pressures." Egan differentiates his theory from the conceptions of recapitulation common in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
People can learn cognitive tools that are grouped and classified into five kinds of understanding:
"Drawing from an extensive study of cultural history and evolutionary history and the field of cognitive psychology and anthropology, Egan gives a detailed account of how these various forms of understanding have been created and distinguished in our cultural history". [4]
Each stage includes a set of "cognitive tools", as Egan calls them, that enrich our understanding of reality. Egan suggests that recapitulating these stages is an alternative to the contradictions between the Platonic, Rousseauian and socialising goals of education.
Egan resists the suggestion that religious understanding could be a further last stage, arguing instead that religious explanations are examples of ironic understanding preserving a richly developed somatic understanding.
Egan's main influence comes from the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. [3] The idea of applying theory of recapitulation to education came from 19th century philosopher Herbert Spencer, although Egan uses it in a very different way. Egan also uses educational ideas from William Wordsworth and expresses regret that Wordsworth's ideas, because they were expressed in poetry, are rarely considered today.
The same year the essay was published (1997), Italian comedian-satirist Daniele Luttazzi used Egan's ideas for his character Prof. Fontecedro in the popular TV show Mai dire Gol , aired on Italia 1. Fontecedro was satirizing the inadequacies of the Italian school system, and the reforms proposed by Luigi Berlinguer, 1996-2000 Ministry of Education of Italy. Fontecedro's sketches brought Egan's theory to extreme levels with surreal humor. The jokes were later published in the book Cosmico! (1998, Mondadori, ISBN 88-04-46479-8), where the five stages of mind development are also cited at pp. 45–47. In 2023, a review of the book won the blog Astral Codex Ten's annual book review contest. [5]
Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.
Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—often expressed using Ernst Haeckel's phrase "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is an historical hypothesis that the development of the embryo of an animal, from fertilization to gestation or hatching (ontogeny), goes through stages resembling or representing successive adult stages in the evolution of the animal's remote ancestors (phylogeny). It was formulated in the 1820s by Étienne Serres based on the work of Johann Friedrich Meckel, after whom it is also known as Meckel–Serres law.
Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being is a book by George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist, and Rafael E. Núñez, a psychologist. Published in 2000, WMCF seeks to found a cognitive science of mathematics, a theory of embodied mathematics based on conceptual metaphor.
George Philip Lakoff is an American cognitive linguist and philosopher, best known for his thesis that people's lives are significantly influenced by the conceptual metaphors they use to explain complex phenomena.
Jean William Fritz Piaget was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called genetic epistemology.
Social constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge according to which human development is socially situated, and knowledge is constructed through interaction with others. Like social constructionism, social constructivism states that people work together to actively construct artifacts. But while social constructivism focuses on cognition, social constructionism focuses on the making of social reality.
Constructivism is a view in the philosophy of science that maintains that scientific knowledge is constructed by the scientific community, which seeks to measure and construct models of the natural world. According to constructivists, natural science consists of mental constructs that aim to explain sensory experiences and measurements, and that there is no single valid methodology in science but rather a diversity of useful methods. They also hold that the world is independent of human minds, but knowledge of the world is always a human and social construction. Constructivism opposes the philosophy of objectivism, embracing the belief that human beings can come to know the truth about the natural world not mediated by scientific approximations with different degrees of validity and accuracy.
The psychology of learning refers to theories and research on how individuals learn. There are many theories of learning. Some take on a more behaviorist approach which focuses on inputs and reinforcements. Other approaches, such as neuroscience and social cognition, focus more on how the brain's organization and structure influence learning. Some psychological approaches, such as social constructivism, focus more on one's interaction with the environment and with others. Other theories, such as those related to motivation, like the growth mindset, focus more on individuals' perceptions of ability.
Constructivism in education is a theory that suggests that learners do not passively acquire knowledge through direct instruction. Instead, they construct their understanding through experiences and social interaction, integrating new information with their existing knowledge. This theory originates from Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development, or his genetic epistemology, is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. It was originated by the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980). The theory deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans gradually come to acquire, construct, and use it. Piaget's theory is mainly known as a developmental stage theory.
Merlin Wilfred Donald is an emeritus Canadian professor of psychology, neuroanthropology, and cognitive neuroscience, at Case Western Reserve University, and in the Department of Psychology at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. He is noted for the position that evolutionary processes need to be considered in determining how the mind deals with symbolic information and language. In particular, he suggests that explicit, algorithmic processes may be inadequate to understanding how the mind works.
The Knowledge Building (KB) theory was created and developed by Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia for describing what a community of learners needs to accomplish in order to create knowledge. The theory addresses the need to educate people for the knowledge age society, in which knowledge and innovation are pervasive.
Kieran Egan was an Irish educational philosopher and a student of the classics, anthropology, cognitive psychology, and cultural history. He has written on issues in education and child development, with an emphasis on the uses of imagination and the stages that occur during a person's intellectual development. He has questioned the work of Jean Piaget and progressive educators, notably Herbert Spencer and John Dewey.
Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive—a posteriori facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience. Other ways of knowing, such as intuition, introspection, or religious faith, are rejected or considered meaningless.
Constructivist teaching is based on constructivism. Constructivist teaching is based on the belief that learning occurs as learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction as opposed to passively receiving information.
On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates is Søren Kierkegaard's 1841 master's thesis under Frederik Christian Sibbern. This thesis is the culmination of three years of extensive study on Socrates, as seen from the view point of Xenophon, Aristophanes, and Plato.
Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education is a 1916 book by John Dewey.
Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our Progressivist Inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget is a 2002 book by Kieran Egan that criticizes the traditional progressivist foundations of modern education in the Western world, especially in North America. Egan primarily focuses on the ideas of Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget, which he calls the most influential sources of contemporary progressivist educational philosophy. Egan identifies this book in its introduction as being a companion to his previous work The Educated Mind.
An Imaginative Approach to Teaching is a 2005 non-fiction book by Kieran Egan that explains his ideas about how students’ imaginations work in learning. It focuses on the applications of this philosophy in the everyday classroom setting utilizing a set of prescribed cognitive tools. This book is an elaboration of some of Egan’s ideas about how the acquisition of cognitive tools can work effectively in education. He expounded these ideas in his 1997 book The Educated Mind.
previous works on ironic knowledge:
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