Re: Coercion

Rolfe Windward (IBALWIN who-is-at mvs.oac.ucla.edu)
Fri, 19 Apr 96 14:01 PDT

I agree that the term coercion should be used sparingly and with care. I am
not even sure that the criterion of pain is complete enough although it
largely statisfices as a heuristic, at least for me and particularly in
relationship to other people's children. Still, George Steiner once commented
(in the London _Guardian_) that, "I owe everything to a system that made me
learn by heart till I wept. As a result I have thousands of lines of poetry
... I owe everything to this." If nothing else, this seems to suggest the
incommensurability of socialization and learning; telos or the culturally
ideal form (cf. El'konin) and teleonomy. How often and hard should a child be
pressed? How can the child know what is possible unless it is seen--tried
--experienced? Can the pleasure of competence come without immersion? Is this
not sometimes painful?

Perhaps it is always, as Max van Mannen suggests, that pedagogy must be a
science of the unique. Some children require more pressing than others and
this must be ascertained with sympathy and care but none-the-less tested; no
methodology can encompass what is ultimately so completely human. Or, as
Rabindranath Tagore more elegantly phrases it, "In the last analysis, we must
come to the inevitable conclusion that education can be imparted only by a
teacher and not wholly by a method ... Just as a water tank can be filled
only with water and fire can be kindled with fire, life can be inspired with
life ...the mere pill of a method instead shall not bring us salvation."

Rolfe

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Rolfe Windward (UCLA GSE&IS, Curriculum & Teaching)
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"I respect belief, but doubt is what gets you an education." W. Mizener