Introduction
What we do, personally and professionally, is determined, in part, by the theories that we hold. For educators, theories of learning offer insight into the most important feature of their professional activity. I consider here what these theories are, how and when they are useful, and what they are not.
Early on, I realised that I could not state which theories of learning directed my work in the classroom, so I wondered, conversely, if any identifiable theories were implied by my teaching practices. For the reasons explained below I concluded that explicit theories play little obvious part in everyday practice, rendering this naïve hope unfounded. Therefore I sought instead to discover when and why a theory might prove useful to me, a primary school head teacher with a regular teaching commitment.
My conclusions form the bulk of what follows.
Having considered briefly whether teaching should be considered a craft, I identify when theories are worth having. Because, with the pragmatists, I contend that theories should always serve practical purposes I highlight the importance of metaphor in developing ideas that are productive, even when the metaphor is not explicitly acknowledged. Finally I acknowledge how 'theory' and 'practice' are reconciled daily by skilled practitioners.
Action as the Foundation of Theory
We commonly speak of applying a theory; that is, deducing how to act on the basis of what we take to be true. Speaking in this way is legitimate, of course, but if we take our words too seriously we are brought to an understanding that is entirely back-to-front. We are led to suppose that theory is the foundation for action; that the ability to do something requires a theory of some sort to guide us. Far from being logically true, this is often actually false. The assertion that theory necessarily precedes action is wrong.
However, this mistaken, knowledge-based conception of human activity has a distinguished past. In his 'Meditations on First Philosophy' Descartes, doubting as much as he can, finds solid ground only with the understanding encapsulated in the famous phrase: 'I think therefore I am.' Allied with a belief in the existence of a God who cannot deceive, this certainty allows Descartes to build, from the ground up, a solid and trustworthy conception of the whole world. For Descartes, the external world of physical objects and wilful persons depends on the apprehension of his own existence. Knowledge becomes foundational. And if knowledge is truly the basis of all understanding and agency, then every observable human action is necessarily the outward and visible sign of an inward and theoretical world view. Stripped of its theological trappings this picture has become the unquestioned, common sense view of the Western world. But that doesn't make it right.
The German philosopher Martin Heidegger offers a penetrating criticism of the Cartesian perspective. In 'Being and Time' he progressively unveils a subtle understanding of being human in which knowing is put firmly in its place as just one way (and by no means the most basic one) that people have their being-in-the-world. 'Being-in-the-world' is Heidegger's name for the fundamental and distinctive way that people, rather than objects, exist; a way of being that he painstakingly investigates in his complex inquiry. There he reveals that in our everyday lives we do not, for the most part, attend to the world at all. Far from needing a theory to guide us we find that in practice we simply cope. This practical coping or 'taking care of' Heidegger calls 'heedful circumspection', and it is the way we spend most of our lives. What I do in any given situation is determined by three things. Firstly the habits and resources that come from my past (that with which I am 'thrown' into my situation); secondly the mood in which I presently find myself (over which I have little or no control); and finally, what it is that I am working to bring about in the future (the 'for-the-sake-of-which' that prompts me to act at all). Far from being foundational, knowledge is shown to be something that we acquire only when we stop our normal dealings with the world. Knowing, for Heidegger, is a deficient way of being. It is the product of 'simply staring' and possible only because we first engage practically with other people and useful things. Action, then, is the foundation of theory; not the other way round. (Heidegger's discussion can be found in 'Division One' of 'Being and Time', Section III to Section V.)
If this unfamiliar analysis appears far-fetched then the simple observation that mundane factors such as beliefs and desires have a pre-eminent influence on what we do most of the time should prove enough to overturn a disposition to look for hidden theoretical forces at work behind the scenes. The distinctive interpretations of twentieth century psychology introduced causative structures of the unconscious mind to bolster this simple argument but, whether we align ourselves with Freud or not, we can readily concede that anything coherent enough to deserve the name 'theory' is absent from almost all our daily activity, even when this involves something complex like teaching. In practice we do not need much 'know-that' knowledge in order to 'know-how' to cope. Many highly-skilled teachers would be hard-pressed to explain what makes them successful and, conversely, intimate knowledge of current thinking about learning is no guarantee of competence, let alone expertise, in the classroom.
In fact, the extent to which we need a theory to explicitly guide our actions is the extent to which we would change those actions if that theory was undermined. Assuming - boldly - that we could find teachers who once consciously espoused an identifiable theoretical stance (Piaget's, say), the eclipsing of that particular learning theory by a rival's (Vygotsky's, perhaps) would probably not lead to significant changes in how they taught their pupils. This being so, it is wrong to suppose that there are strong causal links between theories of learning and the day-to-day practices of individual serving teachers. Rorty indicates that such a realisation renders theoretical propositions no more than 'rhetorical ornaments of practice' (Rorty, 1998: 64). Though unflattering, this description explains accurately why such propositions are made; namely, in order to persuade. The reason why they can be no more than ornaments is 'because we have much more confidence in the practice in question than in any of its possible… justifications.' (Rorty, 1998: 64)
The Craft of the Classroom
If teaching practices, in which we rightly place our confidence, do not presuppose foundational theories, then is teaching perhaps best understood as a craft?
In his writing the distinguished potter Bernard Leach develops a practical philosophy of one craft, namely studio ceramics. In addition to criticising practices of which he disapproves Leach propounds and defends a standard. This standard is objective inasmuch as it is concretely demonstrated in particular objects of value, specifically the collection of 'exemplary pots' that form the majority of his influential book 'The Potter's Challenge'. The would-be potter, Leach explains, 'should touch and examine pots made by a good potter. He should stay away from theories' (Leach, 1975: 16). By acquaintance with his exemplary collection Leach hopes 'that the viewer may glean broad principles if not precise rules (which)... if they are deep and wide enough can be suggestive and helpful' (Leach, 1975: 48). Elsewhere he writes: 'Judgement in art cannot be other than intuitive… No process of reasoning can be a substitute for or widen the range of our intuitive knowledge' (Leach, 1940: 18).
Whilst educators can learn important lessons by direct observation, and intuition grounded in wide experience is certainly to be trusted in judging educational practice, it would be misleading to label teaching as a purely practical activity if we accept the following definition:
'The reason for calling craft a practical philosophy is that almost nothing that is important about a craft can be put into words and propositions… a disciplined craft is a body of knowledge with a complex variety of values, and this knowledge is expanded and its values demonstrated and tested, not through language but through practice.' (Dormer, 1997: 219)
It is patently true that much that is important about education can be expressed in words so, even if instructive, this craft analogy is far from perfect and educational theory is not redundant.
When to Use a Theory
If though, for the most part, practical coping proceeds skilfully and transparently; if unsophisticated beliefs and simple desires drive most of our actions (including our professional ones); if propositional 'know-how' theories are typically constructed after the heedful 'know-how' event; and if theory is only indirectly linked to practice (being essentially ornamental) then the obvious question to ask is when would a theory possibly be worth having?
The answer, in short, is 'When things are not going well'. If, in Heidegger's terms, the world is invisible to me in my heedful circumspection (i.e. as I use tools and resources to do things) then it certainly doesn't stay hidden when problems arise. With his characteristic thoroughness Heidegger identifies particular circumstances when the things we use become 'conspicuous', 'obtrude' or display 'obstinacy' ('Being and Time' §16). When one of these unfortunate states occurs we have no choice but to focus deliberately on what is happening so that we can overcome the difficulty. Though Heidegger's discussion is about real tools that fail to work (e.g. a broken hammer) it does no violence to his arguments to broaden their scope to include situations where the 'tools' that aren't working are procedures or strategies or techniques. If, in my work, I judge that my current methods are inappropriate or inadequate then I am likely to try to improve matters. Then, theoretical perspectives will offer an important resource for developing new and better ways of coping.
Furthermore, the use of theory in its very loosest sense is inevitable whenever improvements are sought collectively. Entering into conversations with others about my actions, motives and hopes requires that I notice and interpret my normally unvoiced beliefs and desires, and make them explicit. Whenever I explain myself, and my colleagues listen to me and try to understand what I say then, together, we have gingerly stepped out of the domain of everyday coping into theory's territory.
Theory and Not-Theory
Figure 1: Structures that help us act/ think/ understand
This last observation starts to blur the difference between 'theory' and 'not-theory'. To carry the discussion further it helps to distinguish those ways of being and thinking that rightfully deserve to be called theoretical from those that do not. Because the sought-for distinction is not clear-cut I have spread out a range of structures on an illustrative 10-point scale of 'theoretical-ness' (Figure 1, above). Exemplifying the scale's two extremes is straightforward. Consider first the lower one. If I feel threatened I will protect myself; if thirsty, I will drink. No theory whatsoever guides these physiological reactions. Call this point 1. In contrast, if I try to comprehend the world and I use, for example, quantum mechanics to explain some minute part of it then I employ an abstract, counter-intuitive, empirically-founded structure - a Theory-with-a-capital-T - whose value must be a resounding 10 on the same scale. So much is clear. But in between there lie other things that, in various ways and at various times, explain and describe my actions and thoughts.
Of course, this thoroughly unscientific scale is not to be taken seriously but its rhetorical purpose is clear: it highlights the existence of the murky region lying between point 4 and point 8 - a shadowy no-man's land between undisputed 'theory' and undisputed 'not-theory'.
I have argued that most of the time we live, and move, and have our being in the lower regions of this spectrum (levels 1 to 3) and have no day-to-day use for anything higher. However, I concede that when things aren't working well, or when we simply want to make them better, we typically resort to resources from further up the scale to work round the problem. Just voicing our observations and thoughts to a colleague is to enter what might be called the proto-theoretical region (around point 4). To go further requires that we dwell on what we have noticed, deliberately working up our intuitions into a more coherent construct, or employing someone else's existing construct to help make sense of what we have observed. How high up the scale lies the thing that we make or use depends on many things: what it is about, how it was made, how well supported it is and how much others are inclined to contest what it says.
Theories in Practice
Useful Not True
One time in every educator's experience when things are unlikely to go smoothly is the stage of being a novice. At this time trainers rightly introduce would-be teachers to theoretical perspectives on what they are learning to do. This is a process of acculturation in which apprentices become acquainted with the currently dominant views of their chosen profession. In the throes of learning vocational skills it is hard to imagine that many of us ever enjoy the luxury of dispassionately contrasting and weighing the merits of a full range of subtly conflicting educational theories. Rather, we weave together with our first-hand experiences the miscellaneous insights from those theories that we happen to encounter to create a web of professional beliefs that serve our purpose of becoming a skilled teacher. The goal at this early stage is not to unearth the truth about teaching and learning - as if we might happily stumble upon the way it should really be done - but to shortcut wasteful paths of trial-and-error by looking at the new experiences we are having through the wiser, more experienced, eyes of skilled practitioners. And so, if we remain reflective, it ever remains.
A philosophically pragmatic stance makes theory's status within professional practice clear. If Heidegger is right, and Descartes's knowledge-centred view is irredeemably overthrown, then everything in Figure 1 - up to and including point 10 - is interpretation only, never brute fact. If we dare to claim that the fruits of our inquiry are true we cannot mean by this that our theory somehow matches precisely the way the world is-in-itself. Instead, the word 'true' is 'simply a compliment paid to the beliefs which we think so well justified that, for the moment, further justification is not needed' (Rorty, 1991a: 24). And if we accept this pragmatic account of truth we accept with it the significant understanding that 'the value of cooperative human inquiry has only an ethical base, not an epistemological or metaphysical one' (Rorty, 1991a: 23), and objectivity becomes 'not a matter of corresponding to objects but a matter of getting together with other subjects' because 'there is nothing to objectivity except intersubjectivity' (Rorty, 1998: 72). Rorty neatly summarises this understanding by speaking of replacing knowledge with hope. This shift is profound. It promises to make 'physics-envy' (Rorty, 1998: 72) less of a temptation. Educational researchers can gain confidence in their efforts knowing that not every theory is striving to score a perfect 10.
It matters little if full-blown pragmatism is too much to swallow. In the world of teaching and learning - so utterly and uncontroversially a product of human invention - its major conclusions remain apposite. This does not mean that one theory is as good as another and educational inquiry is an arbitrary contest between free-floating ideas, but it does mean that progress is emphatically not about discovering the one best way that things should be. We should, as inquirers, 'employ images of making rather than finding,' Rorty says (Rorty, 1991a: 28).
How, then, are we to judge the quality of a theory? Stated baldly we can say that the theories we make will be good if they are useful. If this statement seems to beg the question 'For what?' then the only possible complete answer - namely, 'For whatever we want' - will appear empty or even evasive. However, this seemingly vacuous answer is the right one since mapping out the territory in advance is impossible if everything we do constantly changes the landscape beneath our feet.
Explaining
One valued use for a theory is to explain things, since with an explanation comes the beguiling promise of control. If we know why events occur then we can contrive to bring about the things we desire and prevent those we don't.
The application of a well-established theory to a novel situation is especially fruitful. A good example is Bettelheim and Zelan's psychoanalytically oriented explanation of the processes at work when young children learn to read. By interpreting their observations in an uncompromisingly Freudian light the authors, with impressive self-assurance, find themselves able to explain what is really going on when children make reading errors. Indeed it is each 'misreading', understood as 'a deliberate act, not an error due to incompetence' (Bettelheim & Zelan, 1991: 72) - a Freudian slip, in fact - that reveals the unconscious factors that block progress. For brevity a single, almost trivial, extract must suffice to give a flavour of the authors' insights, though not, unfortunately, their acuity or humanity:
'A small, very competent first
grader was reading a story aloud smoothly, with interest
and comprehension in her voice… She made no mistakes
in reading the story, except that she consistently read
'Tigger' for 'tiger'.
One can imagine many reasons why a child would shy away
from thinking about dangerous tigers in favor of
contemplating the harmless character of Tigger in the
'Pooh' books, favorites of most young children.'
(Bettelheim & Zelan, 1991: 87)
Because their explanatory framework is unusual in an educational inquiry the authors' conclusions are interesting, surprising and provoking. Or far-fetched. As with a religious answer (Q. 'Why do people act sinfully?' A. 'Because of Adam's fall') the authors' proffered reasons will make perfect sense to anyone who shares their worldview. For those outside - to whom concepts like ego, id, and superego are alien - the 'explanations' cannot ring true and their suggestions for future action will seem unsupported. Indeed, we may be left feeling puzzled and dismissive. Of course, with sufficient open-mindedness we will be able to glean insights that make sense to us - the need to maintain children's self-esteem and the importance of meaning in the act of reading, for example - but we will be unable to feel the passion for the reforms that the authors display and, to that extent, the dialogue between their theory and our practice will have failed.
This problem of a clash of worldviews is almost entirely removed if explanations use only commonsense concepts in their formulation. Efforts to uncover the implicit theories that lie behind everyday actions (e.g. Furnham, 1988) employ just such mundane factors. Unfortunately this means that these 'lay' explanations cannot be surprising. By observing a familiar situation and failing to recast it in a novel way, sharing instead the 'sense' that is entirely 'common' to observer and observed alike, explanations are inevitably pedestrian and uninteresting. They state the obvious. Consequently they are unlikely to prompt an imaginative response from the reader. They are simply not generative.
If we seek explanations it seems we must choose between interesting theories that we are unable to swallow whole, or perfectly understandable but boring alternatives.
Describing
Though less exciting than an all-encompassing explanation, a theory that is modestly descriptive can prove useful, because clarifying. Dewey explores the purposes of education in 'Democracy and Education' (and elsewhere). In his measured, analytical style he convincingly lays out things we half-know but rarely articulate. His conviction that education is its own end remains particularly striking, but may have been even more so to his early twentieth century readers: 'Our net conclusion is that life is development, and that developing, growing, is life... (T)hat means (i) that the educational process has no end beyond itself... and that (ii) the educational process is one of continual reorganising, reconstructing, transforming' (Dewey, 1916: 49-50). Consequences are drawn, including the following: 'That education is literally and all the time its own reward means that no alleged study or discipline is educative unless it is worth while in its own immediate having' (Dewey, 1916: 109). Justifying individual lesson content or education in toto in terms of future benefits will not wash for Dewey and, if his first audience needed urgently to be confronted with this message, it remains a salutary challenge even today.
Delimiting
Being reminded that Dewey's world and our own are not the same helps to rehabilitate the theoretical professional outlook in the light of my earlier dismissal of its everyday utility. For, if theories have little overt day-to-day impact then we might suppose we could very well do without them. Rorty, a philosopher discussing philosophy, recognises that a similar realisation in his field poses a major problem for him as a theoretician: 'I have argued that philosophy does not make much difference to our practices… (but) we pragmatists say that every difference must make a difference to practice… We… can make our position consistent, I think, by saying that although they don't matter much in the short run, they may well matter in the long run.' (Rorty, 1998: 76).
Later, he continues: 'One (way of making a difference) is by slowly, over a long period of time, changing what Wittgenstein called the pictures that hold us captive. We will always be held captive by some picture or other, for this is merely to say we shall never escape from language or metaphor.' (Rorty, 1998: 80)
Thus, even if Dewey's educational theorising enjoyed limited impact in his day this cannot gainsay the fact that under his, and others', influence the whole enterprise of education has been gradually transformed in the West into something quite different to that which he first observed. Educators today simply do not share the same common sense background practices as those that allowed teachers to cope in their classrooms a century ago. The articulations of purpose and method of any age - including its overtly theoretical formulations - delimit the range of options from which teachers (unconsciously) select both their motivation and teaching techniques. At any particular moment other possibilities are not so much inappropriate as unavailable, because unthinkable.
Inspiring
When, professionally, things go less well than we imagine they could, theoretical descriptions and explanations are among the resources we need to improve matters. No less than clarity and understanding, however, practitioners charged with effecting improvements need motivation and purpose. Little wonder, then, that Rorty speaks of 'pictures' and 'metaphors' as he considers theories' long-term value. A generative theory will not only offer insight but also stimulate imagination. In the complex setting of a school where off-the-peg solutions are unlikely to fit this is almost a prerequisite for success. The importance of metaphor in theory-building can scarcely be overestimated.
Yet it is not always easy to spot a metaphor. 'Physics-envy' exerts a strong pull and theoreticians in many fields are tempted to bolster their claims by making them appear as scientific as possible. To those still in thrall to the Cartesian worldview 'scientific' claims may be mistaken for objective truths, even when they are, in fact, the very pictures of which Wittgenstein spoke.
A clear example of a metaphor masquerading as science is Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences ('MI Theory'). Even a careful reader might suppose that Gardner believes the several intelligences that he identifies to be 'really' present in people, as discrete as bodily organs. Gardner does not discourage this notion since he knows that if we accept his model as objectively true we will be obliged to take his conclusions seriously. However, in a few key passages the author (with a knowing smile, it seems to me) concedes that his theory is not as solid as many take it to be. Tucked away at the end of one book he writes: 'perhaps (I)… attribute to a psychologically-based theory (i.e. his own theory of Multiple Intelligences) an importance that it does not merit. I happen to believe that social science cannot aspire to the same kinds of 'permanent truths' that are the lodestone of the physical and biological sciences… (but) if there is a wider acceptance of the notion that intelligence deserves to be pluralized, I will be pleased indeed' (Gardner, 1993: 252). Others, understanding this point, agree: 'The neurological basis of Gardner's theory may be questioned… but if it results in a model that works for the teacher in the classroom, who cares?' (Schmit, 2005)
Gardner has taken an insight more akin to common sense than the product of scientific investigation and developed it as far as it can go. Disarmingly he admits as much: 'Had I simply noted that human beings possess different talents, this claim would have been uncontroversial - and my book would have gone unnoticed' (Gardner, 1993: xi). That 'human beings possess different talents' is, it seems to me, the sum total of the book's content. Yet it is a clever work that has captured the imagination of many educators who, in turn, have used it to promote whole research programmes. If a good theory is a useful one then Gardner's has proved its worth and he does indeed deserve to be well pleased.
Perhaps it is no more than a matter of taste, but I prefer the openness of Dewey's writing, already quoted. He plainly displays his own abstract metaphors by turning them into similes in chapter headings ('Education as Direction', 'Education as Growth') and his writings contain many simple, illustrative comparisons that skilfully carry his arguments forward.
Whether presented openly, or not, the importance of metaphor in the creation and use of theories is clear. By making novel connections and thus stimulating imagination we are led, in Rorty's words, to 'reweave our network of beliefs and desires.' Metaphor, he says, 'is a call to change one's language and one's life, rather than a proposal about how to systematize either' (Rorty, 1991b: 12-13).
Becoming True
The ultimate fate of an inspiring metaphor, if successful, is to become commonplace. MI Theory, for example, is becoming progressively more true as it finds itself increasingly woven into the educational community's web of beliefs. Although still provoking some controversy the MI metaphor is now common currency. Critics and advocates can fight over details but both concede that the IQ-conception of intelligence it has replaced is dead. Thus teachers have collectively rewoven their beliefs by assimilating, indeed literalizing, Gardner's once counter-intuitive metaphor: 'The proper honor to pay to new, vibrantly alive metaphors, is to help them become dead metaphors as quickly as possible, to rapidly reduce them to the status of tools of social progress,' declares Rorty (1991b: 17). That this has happened to MI Theory is another mark of its success.
Good Theory Is Good Practice
A neat conclusion to this discussion would be a reconciliation of my belief that theories are usually unnecessary with the observation that they are, nevertheless, indispensable; but the only important way this is effected is daily - albeit imperfectly - in the working lives of skilled teachers. The fact that they are typically unaware of it does not diminish their accomplishment, achieved, as it is, with the tacit, embodied knowledge they carry from lesson to lesson and pupil to pupil.
As long as educators remain alive to alternatives, and are prepared to question and justify their best efforts with colleagues, ways to effect improvements will always be found or, rather, made.
And, as practitioners, we will always display 'a preference for small concrete compromises over large theoretical syntheses' (Rorty, 1998: 200) because, with Rorty , we will be convinced that 'all so-called 'theory' which is not wordplay is always already practice' (Rorty, 1999, xxv).
References
Bettelheim, B. & Zelan, K. (1991). On Learning to Read. London: Penguin Books.
Descartes, R. (1641) Meditations on First Philosophy. In: Cahn, S. ed. (1990) Classics of Western Philosophy, Third Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. (Summary here.)
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York: MacMillan.
Dormer, P. ed. (1997). The Culture of Craft: Status and Future (Studies in Design and Material Culture). Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Furnham, A. (1988). Lay Theories: Everyday Understanding of Problems in the Social Sciences. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Gardner, H. (1993). Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice. New York: Basic Books.
Heidegger, M. (1996). Being & Time. Translated from the German by J. Stambaugh. New York: State University of New York Press. (Originally published in 1927). (Summary here.)
Leach, B. (1940). A Potter's Book. London: Faber and Faber.
Leach, B. (1975). The Potter's Challenge. London: Souvenir Press.
Rorty, R. (1991a) Objectivity, Relativism and Truth: Philosophical Papers, Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rorty, R. (1991b) Essays on Heidegger and Others: Philosophical Papers, Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rorty, R. (1998) Truth and Progress: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rorty, R. (1999) Philosophy and Social Hope. London: Penguin Books
Schmit, A. (2005) Why debate over styles needs more substance. The Times Educational Supplement, Letters, June 3, p.21
