Transforming Education in Practice: In Search of a Community of Phronimos 9811668701, 9789811668708

Table of contents :
Acknowledgements
Contents
1 Introduction
Issues in Context
A Case for Provoking Thinking
The Structure of This Book
References
2 Changing Education, Changing Practice
Introduction
Aristotle’s Scheme of Knowledge
Definition and Nature of Different Types of Knowledge
The Challenges and Primacy of Phronesis
Two Contrasting Worldviews of Practice: A Case for Illustration
A Paradigm Shift in Perceiving the Relationship Between Outcome and Process
Changing Education, Changing Practice: The Primacy of Phronesis
References
3 Learning in Practice
Introduction
Major Concern
Gadamer and Education
The Condition for Learning in the Light of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics
The Role of Tradition and Pre-judgement
Questioning as an Ontological/Existential Necessity
The Primacy of Interpretation and Its Ethical Basis for the Impulse of Questioning
The Three Moments of the Hermeneutic Process
The Understanding Moment
The Interpretation Moment
The Application Moment
Interim Reflection
Learning in Practice
Education: A Moral Enterprise and Its Implications for Learning
Educational Practice: Implications for Learning
Conclusion
References
4 Cultivating a Whole Person
Introduction
In Search of an Alternative Understanding of Education
The Way Students Learn in Sudbury
Reflection with an Analogy
Examples of Learning in Practice
The Philosophy Governing the Operation of the School
A Reflective Summary
The “Evil” Behind the Educational Enterprise
The Other Side of Sudbury: The Ethical Dimension of Freedom
The Valuable Lesson We May Learn from Sudbury with a Phronetic Lens
Cultivating a Whole Person
The Epistemological Underpinning for the Definition of the “Whole”
The Practices of Sudbury from a Phronetic Perspective
Conclusion
References
5 What is Education All About?
Introduction
Whose “Talent”? Whose “Excellence”?
Students as Customers Versus Citizens
A Case for Provoking Thinking
The Current Situation: “Winning at the Starting Line”
The Myth of “Self-motivation” and “Success”
The Myth of Technology
A Forward-Looking Vision (1): The Call for “Life Education”
A Forward-Looking Vision (2): The Call for “Character Education”
A Forward-Looking Vision (3): The Call for “Parent Education”
The Autonomy of Education
Conclusion
Yearning for a Richer Account of Education
Yearning for a Thicker Account of Teaching
Yearning for a Deeper Account of Learning
References
6 Education in Search of a Future
Introduction
“The Absence of Thought in Learning”
The Question of How Learning Would Not Happen
The Root of the Problem
A Reflection on Hui’s Solution
Consultation Document on School Curriculum Review 2019
Structure of the Document
Issues Identified
Analysis
Reconfiguring the Document in the Light of Phronesis
In Search of an Alternative
“Whole Person Development” in the Light of Phronesis with a Promising Alignment
Conclusion
References
7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society
Introduction
The Notion of Sustainability and Sustainable Development
Good Society and Education
A Case for Deep Reflection
A Timely, but Incompatible Response
The Issue
Teachers in a Forking Path
Conclusion
References
8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation
Introduction
Teaching in Practice
Jazz Improvisation as a Metaphor
Implications of Improvisational Dialogue for Teaching
Dialogue in Education
A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational Dialogue in Teaching
Personal Capacity: Elusive but Potentially Creative
1st Interlude
Structural Pliability: Minimal but Potentially Powerful
2nd Interlude
Relational Responsibility: Constraining but Potentially Enabling
Conclusion and Recommendations
References
9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos
Introduction
The Myth of Knowledge Management
The Discourse on Educational Leadership
The “Practice Turn” and Its Implications for the Teaching Community
Conditions for the Emergence of Creativity and Integration
Jazz Improvisation
A Flexible Structure Goes a Long Way
Meaning Can Only Be Made Sense of in Hindsight
Dispersal of Responsibility for Initiating Redesign
Being Held “Accountable” in the Form of Dialogue
Containing Errors with Trust
Embracing Diversity with Appreciation
Discussion
Individual Versus Communal
Leader Versus Follower
Personal Versus Organizational Goals
Conclusion
References
10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practice
Introduction
Brief Historical Sketch of the Development of the MOI Issue
The “Blind Spot” of the MOI Policy
Language from an Educational Perspective
Bilingual Education and Its Implications for Learning and Second Language Learning
A Brief Summary
Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Its Implications for Learning and Language Use
A Story Required to Be Retold
Whose “Language of the Heart” are We Talking About?
Redeeming “Mixed Code”
Conclusion and Recommendation
References
11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark
References

Citation preview

Wai-yan Ronald Tang

Transforming Education in Practice In Search of a Community of Phronimos

Transforming Education in Practice

Wai-yan Ronald Tang

Transforming Education in Practice In Search of a Community of Phronimos

Wai-yan Ronald Tang Vancouver, BC, Canada

ISBN 978-981-16-6870-8 ISBN 978-981-16-6871-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To All Parents

Acknowledgements

The whole process of writing this manuscript was conducted in the library of the Education University of Hong Kong. I wish to thank the staff of this library, who were very patient in responding to many of my requests so that my stream of thought and inner-dialogue could be constantly enhanced. My sincere thanks also go to Andrews University Press for granting me the permission to use the figure originally published in George R. Knight’s book Issues and Alternatives in Educational Philosophy (2008, p. 35). I also wish to acknowledge the kindness of the Chinese University of Hong Kong for allowing me to reuse some of the material in my Ph.D. thesis (2005), which constitutes the main body of Chap. 10 in this book. Last but not least, this book would not have been possible without Dr. Cheng Hon-man, Roger, who was the first teacher introducing, perhaps indirectly, the idea of phronesis to me through small study group when I was still a Ph.D. student in the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

vii

Contents

1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Issues in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Case for Provoking Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Structure of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 2 4 6 10

2

Changing Education, Changing Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aristotle’s Scheme of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Definition and Nature of Different Types of Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Challenges and Primacy of Phronesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Two Contrasting Worldviews of Practice: A Case for Illustration . . . . . . A Paradigm Shift in Perceiving the Relationship Between Outcome and Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing Education, Changing Practice: The Primacy of Phronesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13 13 14 15 17 19

Learning in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Major Concern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gadamer and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Condition for Learning in the Light of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Role of Tradition and Pre-judgement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questioning as an Ontological/Existential Necessity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Primacy of Interpretation and Its Ethical Basis for the Impulse of Questioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Three Moments of the Hermeneutic Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Understanding Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Interpretation Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Application Moment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31 31 33 34

3

23 24 27

35 36 36 37 39 40 41 41 ix

x

4

5

Contents

Interim Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Learning in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Education: A Moral Enterprise and Its Implications for Learning . . . Educational Practice: Implications for Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43 44 45 46 50 51

Cultivating a Whole Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In Search of an Alternative Understanding of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Way Students Learn in Sudbury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reflection with an Analogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Examples of Learning in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Philosophy Governing the Operation of the School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Reflective Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Evil” Behind the Educational Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Other Side of Sudbury: The Ethical Dimension of Freedom . . . . . . . The Valuable Lesson We May Learn from Sudbury with a Phronetic Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cultivating a Whole Person . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Epistemological Underpinning for the Definition of the “Whole” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Practices of Sudbury from a Phronetic Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 53 54 55 56 57 61 62 62 64

What is Education All About? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whose “Talent”? Whose “Excellence”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Students as Customers Versus Citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Case for Provoking Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Current Situation: “Winning at the Starting Line” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Myth of “Self-motivation” and “Success” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Myth of Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Forward-Looking Vision (1): The Call for “Life Education” . . . . . . . . A Forward-Looking Vision (2): The Call for “Character Education” . . . A Forward-Looking Vision (3): The Call for “Parent Education” . . . . . . The Autonomy of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yearning for a Richer Account of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yearning for a Thicker Account of Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yearning for a Deeper Account of Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77 77 78 80 80 83 84 86 87 88 90 91 92 93 94 95 99

67 69 69 71 74 75

Contents

6

xi

Education in Search of a Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “The Absence of Thought in Learning” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Question of How Learning Would Not Happen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Root of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Reflection on Hui’s Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Consultation Document on School Curriculum Review 2019 . . . . . . . . . Structure of the Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Issues Identified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reconfiguring the Document in the Light of Phronesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In Search of an Alternative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Whole Person Development” in the Light of Phronesis with a Promising Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101 101 102 103 104 105 107 108 108 110 111 113

7

Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Notion of Sustainability and Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . Good Society and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Case for Deep Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Timely, but Incompatible Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teachers in a Forking Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119 119 121 123 125 125 128 133 136 138

8

Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Teaching in Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jazz Improvisation as a Metaphor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Implications of Improvisational Dialogue for Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dialogue in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational Dialogue in Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personal Capacity: Elusive but Potentially Creative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1st Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Structural Pliability: Minimal but Potentially Powerful . . . . . . . . . . . . 2nd Interlude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relational Responsibility: Constraining but Potentially Enabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

141 141 142 143 145 147

114 116 117

149 150 151 152 153 154 157 161

xii

9

Contents

Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Myth of Knowledge Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Discourse on Educational Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Practice Turn” and Its Implications for the Teaching Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conditions for the Emergence of Creativity and Integration . . . . . . . . . . . Jazz Improvisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Flexible Structure Goes a Long Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Meaning Can Only Be Made Sense of in Hindsight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dispersal of Responsibility for Initiating Redesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Being Held “Accountable” in the Form of Dialogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Containing Errors with Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Embracing Diversity with Appreciation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Individual Versus Communal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leader Versus Follower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Personal Versus Organizational Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

163 163 164 166

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practice . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brief Historical Sketch of the Development of the MOI Issue . . . . . . . . . The “Blind Spot” of the MOI Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Language from an Educational Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bilingual Education and Its Implications for Learning and Second Language Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Brief Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Its Implications for Learning and Language Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Story Required to Be Retold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whose “Language of the Heart” are We Talking About? . . . . . . . . . . . Redeeming “Mixed Code” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Recommendation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

183 183 184 186 188

167 170 171 172 173 173 174 174 175 176 176 177 178 178 180

189 191 191 195 196 198 200 202

11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Chapter 1

Introduction

Education reform has been a fashionable concept for the past few decades internationally. There is no exception for Hong Kong. The scope it covers is all embracing including curriculum (Clark et al., 1994; HKED, 1994), learning (HKCDC, 2000, 2001; HKEC, 2000a), academic system and aims of education (HKEC, 1999, 2000b; HKED 1999; HKEMB, 2005), teacher education and professionalism (HKACTEQ, 2005), medium of instruction and language improvement (HKED, 1989, 1997; HKEC, 2005; HKEDB, 2009), school administration, management, (HKEMB & HKED, 1991; HKED, ACSBM, 2000; HKEDB, 2008), continuing professional development of principals (HKEDB, 2002), vocational education (HKCDC, 2009; HKEDB, 2015), and in fact, the entire educational enterprise. Parents and community are also on the move (Gordon, 2010; Lui, 2019). However, its successfulness could hardly be defined since it all depends on whose agenda such reform is designed to serve. This “whose” reminds us that we should not be so naïve as to believe that policy decision-making in education is purely the business of “educators”. This attitude encourages us to reconsider the claim or belief that “reform” is something as what most of the outsiders believe it neutral or insiders claim it “scientific” on the one hand and the role teachers are supposed to play in its course on the other. The significance of this awareness to the teaching professionals is threefold. First, the self-understanding of those who aspire to be teachers/educators (these two concepts will be used interchangeably hereafter unless specified) needs to be enlightened by a broader perspective of what professional truly entails. Second, these aspiring educators should not be too idealistic with the hope of getting their “blueprint” or dream realized regardless of contextual factors. This attitude does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that one has to put aside what one treasures to be the ideal. The implication, which is the third, derived from the above two is that the realization of an ideal is a matter of practice. By “practice”, I mean more than an exercise of getting oneself familiarized with certain skills, rules, and patterns of recognition. Rather, it refers to, using the metaphor of pilgrimage, a journey, the momentum of which is driven by what one believes to be “good” while at the same time informed by the issues that may emerge in the process of that journey, during © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_1

1

2

1 Introduction

and from which the context of those who are entitled to benefit is also taken into consideration. Therefore, the complexity of education is assumed, and its implications for future education reform and in particular the development of our future teacher education need to be embraced and discussed seriously. One may notice the target addressees of these three remarks are specifically for aspiring teachers. However, forward-looking veterans are cordially invited to join this dialogue.

Issues in Context Given the above understanding, there are three main questions guiding the deliberation in this book. Before I list them out, the following figure provided by Knight (2008, p. 35) may help the reader visually map out the contextual relevance of the questions that I am going to formulate (Fig. 1.1). Figure 1.1 represents a hierarchical structure with educational practices situated at the lowest level (the right side of the figure) though that it is juxtaposed alongside the other two columns, that is, the columns of “philosophical determinants” and “contextual modifying factors”, has diminished this effect, but still, the arrows provided by Knight assume the presence of this differentiation. The “goals” in the middle column are positioned in such a way that they are imposed onto the practitioners, who are “entrusted” to carry out what has been “prescribed” by policy-makers and administrators in response to, in Knight’s terminology, the contextual modifying factors including economic, political, and social forces generated from the “expectations of immediate parents or community”. By

Fig. 1.1 Relationship of philosophy to educational practice. Knight (2008). Issues and Alternatives in Educational Philosophy, (p.35). Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press

Issues in Context

3

“prescribed”, I do not imply that teachers are totally deprived of their creative imagination in developing their curriculum and pedagogical design. Rather, to a certain degree, they are discouraged, of course not rhetorically, to think outside the “box” based on their practices not only inside but also outside the classroom. That is, they are constrained by the structure that frames the condition of their workplace. The nature of this structure will be touched upon in the following chapters in more details. In short, though they may still be encouraged rhetorically to reflect on the activities of their design, their scope of exploration remains constrained indicated by the unidirectional arrows. The extent to which the educational practices of Hong Kong for the past few decades can be reflected by Knight’s construct will be examined in the rest of this book. Furthermore, the direction of the arrows suggests a view on the relationship between the philosophical determinants, social modifiers, and education practices at schools in that the identity of teachers is positioned in such a way that a paradox is revealed that requires our attention. On the one hand, the role of the teacher is at the receiving end while on the other she is framed to work within a condition where educational issues are supposed to be part of the curriculum she has to handle. Given that the latter is what we expect the teacher to perform with the capacity to deliberate with the students on certain things that are controversial, teachers need to equip themselves with both the knowledge of the “modifying factors” and “philosophical determinants” mentioned in Knight’s construct. Otherwise, how could they be qualified to lead their students to think and deliberate on those factors that constitute the condition from which educational issues emerge? The author of this book argues that the wisdom of teachers could develop only when they have the opportunities to engage themselves in shaping the “goals” of education informed by these two kinds of knowledge in dialogue with the experience they have accumulated in practice. So, the initiative of “transforming education” proposed in this book is actually working against the grain in two fronts. First, the author asserts that teachers have to be protected by certain built-in mechanism in order to engage themselves with people, i.e. the major stakeholders that constitute those modifying factors on the one hand and, second, keep dialoguing with concepts and ideas that inform the philosophical determinants on the other. In other words, this book advocates a comprehensive knowledge foundation for the education of teachers. As Ryan points out, “Any comprehensive version of sociology contains social philosophy as a necessary component” (Ryan, 1970, p. 145). Education in this sense is not just a subject discipline or professional training in the field of applied science. Though education is considered a form of social practice in general, its comprehensiveness has gradually fallen short of a philosophical dimension, the capability developed out of which surely helps provide teachers with a horizon which is broader in scope and more insightful in depth in deliberating the goals of education with the stakeholders. This is where the autonomy of education comes in and the question of what education is all about can always be kept open for accommodating various types of opinion with education principles at the centre. Sociologists tend to identify what Knight terms the “modifying factors” and investigate the kind of influence these factors may have on the direction of educational

4

1 Introduction

development. Surely, policy-makers should take into consideration of these variables when formulating their policy discourse. However, there has been a trend that those what Knight calls the “philosophic determinants” (Knight, 2008), which are used to examine and inform the purpose of education, have deserved less and less attention. The reason for this is identified by Biesta (2010) as the result of the obsession with attaining immediate outcomes in the name of “effectiveness”. As a result, that an unexamined purpose of education would render it anchorless is like a yacht without a steering wheel and the main sail. The remaining question becomes, whom should we entrust to steer the wheel and the main sail? Here, I would like to use an incident that the author has come across to facilitate the discussion.

A Case for Provoking Thinking More than fifteen years ago when the author of this book had just finished his Ph.D., he was invited to give a lecture in a course designed for equipping those who aspired to become principals. It was a time when the government fervently put forth the initiative of the school-based management. Thus, more principals with professional knowledge were badly needed. Reaching the end of the lecture, a student (a “wellexperienced” teacher aspiring to become a principal) raised a question. Be more exact, he actually complained by claiming that they (assuming the rest of the student body would share his thought) had been occupied with too many issues to think about in the class. This “too many” was justified by his assumption as I was told that what a principal is required to do is to tell the frontline teachers to perform what is required of them to achieve and they, i.e. the teachers, do not have to “think” much. In other words, what he expected of the lecturer to deliver was a list of job description, the “dos” and “don’ts”, so that he could know exactly what to follow to fulfil the job of a “principal” in the future. Instead of directly addressing the “complaint” by myself, I invited the rest of the students, i.e. those aspiring to become principals, about thirty in number, to respond. The result was quite embarrassing to the “challenger” in that most of those who spoke up disagreed with the view that the principal should act more like a manager while the teachers just followed without having to exercise their capacity of analytical thinking. Though it appeared that the majority of the students who aspired to be principals did show some respect for the autonomy of the teachers in their professional development, the extent to which their good will could truly reflect the reality of the administrative culture of our educational institution remains a question. This question is raised due to the understanding that “contextual modifying factors” do have a lot of impact on education in general conducive to the conclusion made by some scholars in Hong Kong with particular reference to the language issue that: “It had always been social and economic agendas which were presented to the public for refuting sound educational arguments” (Tsui et al., 1999, p. 205). Two questions arising from the performance of this aspired principal deserve our attention. First, is his expectation justifiable in this very century when the initiative of

A Case for Provoking Thinking

5

decentralization is embraced with the aim of allowing frontline experiences to emerge and tackle immediate problems that require responsive actions on the spot? Second, under what condition had the thought of this aspired principal been established and habituated to the extent that teachers are considered to be just implementers of the principals’ “command” and do not have to think and reflect on their work? With the above two questions in mind, this author postulates that teachers need to reclaim the breeding ground from which their knowledge as educational professionals is developed. The critical issue is what such a ground is like and how it could be cultivated. In our current practice, as it seems to have illustrated in Knight’s construct, this ground is more like a space for “testing” purpose though rhetorically the ultimate goal of which is for enhancing teaching and learning. The school or the classroom, in particular, is seen as a “laboratory” where policy initiatives of any sort could secure a well-structured device for examining their workability. The implication here is twofold. First, expertise is located outside the breeding ground from which relevant knowledge emerges. This observation does not rule out the fact that many researchers do have the awareness of taking the initiative of working with frontline teachers in developing their research projects. Yet, their research findings and their responsive actions in particular always lag behind of what is required of the teachers to cope with the immediate needs of the classroom, the nature of which is unquestionably creative and responsive instantly in actions. Second, the “structure” of the school against which policy initiatives are framed has limited the horizon of teachers given that the work of teachers is pretty much shaped by the “experts” whose understanding of education is also constrained by the orientation of their way of seeing or worldview that informs their approach of investigation and inquiry. Therefore, there are reasons to suggest that gaps, if not mismatches, that constitute part of the reality of teaching may disrupt rather than enhance the professional development of teachers. Mackler’s suggestion that it is about time for the university to shift from the positivist model to hermeneutic approach is a manifestation of this assumption (Mackler, 2010). The lack of this awareness is due to the entrenched bias that teachers are merely conceived as implementers but not interpreters or meaning makers as what the notion of “hermeneutic” implies. They are hired in the eyes of the administrators and decision-makers merely to serve the functional needs of the system rather than the well-being of the children in general through their own understanding. That being said the two in fact do not necessarily have to be juxtaposed in such a way that they are mutually exclusive. The capacity of discerning the right balance with principles is what makes a professional teacher professional. With this in mind, the extent to which the self-understanding and knowledge of teachers as professionals could respond correspondingly to what is required of them to perform in a world constantly in a state of flux becomes an important issue our teacher education needs to embrace and investigate. Meanwhile and more importantly, knowing what is considered to be “good” to the well-being of children is also implied. It is within such context that a new kind of practice that goes beyond the discourse of “teacher-as-implementer” is badly needed in understanding teacher’s future professional development. This can also explain why this author considers knowledge

6

1 Introduction

of “contextual social modifiers” and their dialectical relationship with the “philosophical determinants”, arising out of which “practical knowledge” is generated, is indispensable in teacher education. Relevant to the above questions are three more as I have indicated at the beginning of this chapter. The first serves to orient the readers towards having a general picture of the condition within which our practitioners in education dwell. This question asks, “Why is it that a new version of practice relative to the current one is so badly needed?” To answer this question, we need to conduct a review of the current practices and examine the nature of its operation within the educational system. However, this review and scrutiny cannot be done without the writer’s having been first of all informed by an analytical framework based on which questions and fruitful reflections can be generated for further discussion and deliberation. The structure of this analytical framework would provide a potential answer to the second question, which asks, “What is the alternative notion of practice to replace the current one?” Informed by this new version of practice, the third question goes like this: “To what extent this new understanding may help shed light on the conceptualization of a new form of practice that facilitates the emergence of quality outcomes in a sustainable manner, an aspiration fervently embraced in the discourse of our education reform?” To address the above three questions, the design of this book is structured as follows.

The Structure of This Book This book is virtually made up of five parts. The first part includes this chapter as an introduction to the theme of this book, i.e. education, teaching, and learning as practice. This shift towards practice as the epistemological foundation to inform both research and administration is an issue not only about the choice of method. It is actually about a reorientation in understanding the nature of knowledge. In response, the two chapters that follow are concerned about an analytical framework employed in this book to shed light on the notion of practice, which is informed by Aristotle’s phronesis. The concept of phronesis (usually translated into practical wisdom or knowledge in contemporary use) will be introduced together with that of the other two, namely episteme (theoretical or scientific) and techne (craft or practical/technical). The purpose of juxtaposing them for comparison is to highlight their differences in terms of their epistemological nature and the way they help to conceive the different aspects and approaches of doing education. In the discussion of this book, following like-minded scholars, phronesis is prioritized since it contributes to serving the need for a holistic understanding of the world whereby techne and episteme could only be considered “meaningful” and “relevant” in this context. Put it differently, this aspiration embraces the idea of an “integrated and balanced purposes” of life (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 270) where “shared responsibility” (OECD, 2018) constitutes the backbone of a “good” society (Bellah et al., 1992), an ideal-in-practice for teachers (Hansen, 2001). It is against this backdrop the discussion of this book is grounded. The third chapter together with the previous two, which

The Structure of This Book

7

form the first part, is about the question of what it means by “learning in practice”. This concept is purposefully selected in virtue of the premise that any education reform without a reconsideration of “learning” as the focus is questionable. This postulation is especially true to the situation of Hong Kong when this manuscript was in the course of its being written where learning outcome rather than processing itself holds sway. Enlightened by Aristotle’s phronesis and Gadamer’s elucidation on its implications for self-understanding, the notion of “learning in practice” will be discussed. There are four chapters in Part II focusing on the issue of what education is all about. This issue is addressed against the background where the idea of “whole person development” has been recommended as the educational goal while at the same time Liberal Studies, which is a subject potentially having the capacity to achieve this goal, was “under siege”. Through the use of the Aristotle’s knowledge framework, this part explains how this happened and in what ways this mishap could be corrected. This part begins with Chap. 4, the content of which is about a school in the USA being videotaped as a documentary for provoking reflections on what it means by “educating a whole person”. In the light of the framework introduced in the previous two chapters, the discussion aims at developing certain educational principles with concrete examples against which the following three Chaps. (5, 6, and 7), which talk about Hong Kong’s education, are to be critically examined. The focus of chapter five is put on reviewing the current development of Hong Kong’s education with special attention to those big events that have happened in response to the call for education reform. This includes the scrutiny of issues identified and expressed by some of the educational leaders in the form of newspaper articles, through which the reader may have a contextual understanding of what were the immediate concerns in the mind of Hong Kong’s educational leaders specifically in the years between 2017 and 2020. The chapter, i.e. six, that follows serves two functions: (1) offering a brief, but critical, review of a work written by Hui (2015), who concluded that Hong Kong’s educational development since 2000 is a period characterized by the performance of its “thoughtlessness”; and (2) questioning the basic epistemological construct of the newly proposed recommendations pertaining to Hong Kong’s curriculum reform and the contributions they may be able to offer on educational ground. This questioning will continue in chapter seven with a different focus by examining whether the notion of “education” so conceived by the educational leaders of Hong Kong could contain the problem identified by Hui (2015) and rectify the epistemological standing of the recommendations or directions being considered to be able to contribute to attaining the educational goal of “whole person development”. The significance of Part III to the design of this whole manuscript is its attempt to make a case that the practice of teachers is where any education reform lays its foundation. Quite different from the discourse of merely paying lip services by conceptualizing the practice of teachers as equivalent to “familiarization” with certain skills, this part suggests the otherwise, that is, practice in teaching is more of an adventurous exploration. This author argues that this version of teaching practice is badly needed in terms of its capacity in fulfilling the educational goal of “whole person

8

1 Introduction

development”, one that Hong Kong’s education reform has been calling for and realizing the full potentialities of what the subject of Liberal Studies can offer particularly when teachers from different disciplinary subject knowledge come together to form a community of practitioners with the purpose of fulfilling this goal. While chapter eight, the first chapter of this part, elaborates on what teaching as practice entails, the condition that facilitates the practice in the form of a community (Wenger, 1998) will occupy the chapter that follows. In the discussion, Hansen’s concept of “ideal-in-practice” (2001) is advocated with the understanding that this “ideal” is by nature a contested concept requiring negotiation and deliberation among stakeholders. Therefore, the unexpected and a certain degree of uncertainty is the order of the day. Meanwhile, remaining open and ready to learn from each other becomes an indispensable condition. With this regard, an idea borrowed from jazz, i.e. improvisation, will be introduced. Improvisation as practice is one of the main features of jazz. Its value in the context of a community manifests itself in the way how members within the group engage themselves in dialogue in an extemporaneous manner during which creativity and new ideas emerge. Chapter nine explains how this can be made possible, what precondition needs to be in place, and the extent to which these features help provide an ideal model of what a community in practice is like with the vision that knowledge integration or fusion is inevitably the future of teacher education and the basis of what makes a “thoughtful”, professional teacher professional. The significance of this part is critical in terms of its contribution to our understanding of how “learning in practice” in general can be facilitated by knowing what “teaching in practice” is in the first place. The implications of an alternative way of seeing generated from Part II and III are far-reaching in terms of its tendency to advocate a fundamental change in conceptualizing the relationship between process and outcome on the one hand and the nature of the knowledge that is involved in eliciting understanding, self-understanding, and mutual understanding on the other, which are the constitutive components defining what learning is all about. In the light of both the Aristotelian notion of phronesis and the Gadamerian perspective on language, learning is considered ontologically a kind of hermeneutic experience, a praxis, without the understanding of which will be easily turned into a mechanistic type of activity just as what Hui’s “thoughtlessness” seems to imply. This sort of awakening entails an enormous challenge to those who are used to a linear input–process–output type of reasoning in producing learning outcomes, a way of seeing that inevitably leads to the demise of practice in Aristotelian and Gadamerian terms. The final part of this book consists of only one chapter, i.e. ten. Weak as it may sound in terms of its size, however, it deals with a very important issue, the mishandling of which would jeopardize any efforts devoted to ameliorating the issues this author has so far mentioned. The issue pertaining to language policy of Hong Kong is long overdue and yet without knowing the root cause of it. Its significance is best understood in terms of its contribution to the way how “learning in practice” can be realized and its connection to the manifestation of the spirit of the subject of Liberal Studies as well and “whole person development” in particular. This chapter offers a

The Structure of This Book

9

critical analysis of the relevant documents to reveal its discursive formation process with special attention to the “blind spot” that has been created due to the entrenched bias that language merely serves to transmit information. This bias manifested itself through a self-contradictory policy decision assuming that some students are qualified to use English as the medium of learning while admitting that mother tongue is the most efficient way of expression. In the light of Gadamer’s philosophy of language and learning, a new orientation is introduced, the implications of which may draw our attention to the question of the extent to which this initiative has contributed to the emergence of an operating system characterized by Hui as “thoughtlessness” (2015) in performance. This author further suggests this lack of momentum in provoking “thoughtful” thinking and understanding can be largely attributed to the function of language being instrumentalized. The conclusion of this book is not truly a conclusion per se, but rather a remark serving to provide a vision for projecting the future of education through what Wright terms “theoretical imagination” (Wright, 2010, 373). Just two weeks before this manuscript was submitted, it was announced that the subject of Liberal Studies would get a new name called “citizenship and social development”. Such a move was believed to be a response to the claim that the teaching of the subject helped “escalating violence among young people during the 2019 anti-government protests” (Chan & Magramo, 2021, A3). Its implications for some may be far-reaching. Every time when the subject of Liberal Studies was mentioned and reported in the media, the primary purpose attached to this subject was often quoted as “enhancing social awareness and developing critical thinking skills” (Chan & Magramo, 2021, A3). Now, these concepts are regarded as “negative” in terms of their being suspected to have been invested with the power of subverting the established order. This is evidenced by the initiative of introducing “new elements on national security, patriotism, national development and lawfulness” (Chan & Magramo, 2021, A3). This change among others with similar effect seems to indicate that the future of Hong Kong’s education development cannot be projected with reference to its past. The imposition of the National Security Law for most of the Hong Kong people not only symbolically pronounced the “death” of the Hong Kongese as a community with unique identity according to the definition given by Mathew (1997). It may also imply the demand for assimilating Hong Kong’s education into the ideological construct of the Mainland China. Pessimistic as it may sound for some, “education” as a concept can be understood as similar to that of freedom and liberty. They are first and foremost realized in practice on the individual level. In the educational context, these individuals are students, who unquestionably need the care of their closest partners in helping them freely realize their potentials. The question is who these closest partners are. Parents or teachers or both? The next chapter is the beginning of this exploration.

10

1 Introduction

References Bellah, N. R., Madsen, R., Tipton, S. M., Sullian, W. M., & Swidler, A. (1992). The good society. Vintage Books. Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Paradigm Publishers. Chan, H.-H., & Magramo, K. (2021, April 1). Liberal studies gets a new name as part of broad overhaul. South China Morning Post (p. A3). Clark, J., Scarino, A., & Brownell, J. (1994). Improving the quality of learning. A Framework for TOC renewal in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Bank Language Development/Fund/Institute of Language in Education. Gordon, M. F. (2010). Bringing parent and community engagement back into the education reform spotlight: A comparative case study (ISBN: 9781109713190) [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Minnesota]. http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/doc/3398307 Hansen, D. T. (2001). Exploring the moral heart of teaching: Toward a teacher’s creed. Teachers College Press. Hong Kong. Advisory Committee on Teacher Education and Qualifications (HKACTEQ). (2005). Towards a learning profession. Interim report on teachers’ continuing professional development. Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department. Hong Kong. Curriculum Development Council (HKCDC). (2009). Applied learning curriculum and assessment guide (senior secondary level). Hong Kong: Govt. Logistics Dept. Hong Kong. Education Commission (HKEC). (1999). Education blueprint for the 21st century: Review of academic system: Aims of education: Consultation document. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hong Kong. Education Commission (HKEC). (2000a). Learning for life, learning through life: Reform proposals for the education system in Hong Kong, HK SAR of the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong. Education Commission (HKEC). (2000b). Review of education system: Reform proposals consultation document. Hong Kong: Education Commission. Hong Kong. Education Commission (HKEC). (2005). Report on review of medium of instruction for secondary schools and secondary school places allocation. Hong Kong: Government Logistics Dept. Hong Kong. Curriculum Development Council (HKCDC). (2000). Learning to learn: The way forward in curriculum development. Hong Kong (SAR): Government Printer. Hong Kong. Curriculum Development Council (HKCDC). (2001). Learning to learn: Lifelong learning and whole-person development. Hong Kong (SAR): Government Printer. Hong Kong. Education Department (HKED). (1989). Report of the working group set up to review of academic system: Aims of Education. Consultation document. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hong Kong. Education Department (HKED). (1994). General introduction to the target oriented curriculum. Hong Kong Government Printer. Hong Kong. Education Department (HKED). (1997). Medium of Instruction: Guidance for secondary schools. Hong Kong: Education Department. Hong Kong. Education Department (HKED). (1999). Aims of education: consultation document. HK SAR of the People’s Republic of China. Hong Kong. Education Department (HKED, ASCBM). (2000). Transforming schools into dynamic and accountable professional learning communities: School-based Management consultation document. HK SAR of the People’s Republic of China: Education Department, Advisory Committee on School-based Management. Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2002). Continuing Professional Development for School-Excellence-Consultation Paper on Continuing Professional Development of Principals. Hong Kong: The Printing Department.

References

11

Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2008). The school development and accountability framework—The next phase of continuous school improvement (Circular No. 13/2008). HKSAR, China: The Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2009). Fine-tuning the medium of instruction for secondary school. Education bureau circular No. 6/2009, Ref. EDB(RP)3410/15/07(6). https:// www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/primary-secondary/applicable-to-secondary/moi/support-andresources-for-moi-policy/lsplmfs-sch/d-sch/ow/sp/index-2.html Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2015). Report of the task force on promotion of vocational education. Hong Kong: Task Force on Promotion of Vocational Education. Hong Kong. Education and Manpower Bureau (HKEMB). (2005). The new academic structure for senior secondary education and higher education. Hong Kong: Government Logistics Department. Hong Kong. Education and Manpower Branch (HKEMB) & Education Department (HKED). (1991). The School management initiative. Hong Kong: Government Printer. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The Absence of Thought in Learning: Hong Kong Education in Light of Cultural Studies] . Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Knight, G. R. (2008). Issues and alternatives in educational philosophy. Andrews University Press. Lui, T.–L., Tim. (2019, May 15). Task force on home school co-operation and parent education: Positive parenting, cross sector collaboration and innovation foster healthy child development. https://www.e-c.edu.hk/doc/en/publications_and_related_documents/educat ion_reports/Report_TF%20on%20HSC_en.pdf Mackler, S. (2010). From the Positivist to the Hermeneutic University: Restoring the place of meaning and liberal learning in higher education. Policy Futures in Education, 8(2), 177–190. Mathews, G. (1997). Heunggongyahn: On the past, present, and future of Hong Kong Identity. Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, 29(2), 3–13. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2018). The future of education and skills: Education 2030. The future we want. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/educat ion/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf Ryan, A. (1970). The philosophy of the social sciences. Macmillan. Tsui, A. B. M., Shum, M. S. K., Wong, C. K., Tse, S. K., & Ki, W. W. (1999). Which agenda? Medium of instruction policy in post-1997 Hong Kong Language. Culture and Curriculum, 12(3), 196–214. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real Utopias. London; New York: Verso.

Chapter 2

Changing Education, Changing Practice

Introduction Since 2008, teachers and researchers included of the higher education sector in Hong Kong have been advised if not “forced” to adopt the “outcome-based approach” (OBA) to guide the design of the curriculum and evaluate and assess the “quality” of their teaching, the ultimate concern of which is about “student learning”. The then Secretary General of the University Grants Committee (UGC), Mr. Michael V. Stone, expressed in a symposium, where many of the administrators and professors of all the universities of Hong Kong attended, that: “It is very clear that all of content, process and outcome are important. But outcome is the most important” (Stone, 2008). The difference in emphasis on either one of them may foreshadow a special frame of reference in our philosophy of education. This difference will be explained in the light of Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge including episteme, techne, and phronesis. By doing so, it ultimately helps enlighten us gradually on what it means by “transforming education in practice”, which is the title of this book. How these three “pillars” of learning, i.e. content, process, and outcome, should relate to each other may differ according to different frame of reference in terms of the nature of the knowledge it purports to manifest. As it is indicated in Knight’s figure, there are sociological or “contextual modifying factors” influencing the way how we set our educational goals. From a certain political perspective that upholds the premise of free choice, for example, stakeholders like parents and people from the business sector, who are considered customers or even “bosses”, would be entitled to have more “power” to determine how the school and the teachers as well should behave or perform according to the wants and needs of their anticipations. A “performative” culture embedded with a high degree of accountability as an instrument to secure intended outcomes would drive the practitioners concerned to play safe by ensuring that there would be no obstacles in the whole process of their producing and/or reproducing these outcomes that satisfy these needs and wants. The way to achieve this is logically to put the process under control to the extent that it is like ideally the

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_2

13

14

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

assembly line of a factory, a closed system that enhances the reproduction of items with similar quality with certainty. Meanwhile, this kind of seemingly “good” practice may turn out to be unproductive in terms of its having obliterated the potential dynamics from which creativity is engendered that an open system can provide. Is this what Mr. Stone had in mind when he assumed that “outcome is the most important” (Stone, 2008) among the three? Assuming that this is not what Mr. Stone truly meant, still what he neglected to take note is the reality that the practitioners do not live and work within a vacuum. How the three pillars of learning are interpreted and organized to achieve certain prescribed objectives in particular is governed by certain hidden ideology which has been habituated even without the practitioner knowing it. In short, a situation which has been conditioned to targeting at meeting immediate needs should have the tendency to manipulate the process to attain what has been prescribed to achieve. This may satisfy those who are used to manage with numbers. But, from the perspective of an educator, this surely should not be encouraged thoughtlessly for this sort of “practice” is the heart of the problem in many education reforms, the root of what Hui has identified as “thoughtlessness” in a book reviewing the development of Hong Kong’s education (Hui, 2015). Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge is helpful in allowing us to understand this problem more deeply and clearly. This is where we now turn.

Aristotle’s Scheme of Knowledge Aristotle’s scheme of “intellectual virtues”, in Eikeland’s terminology (2008), has been reinvented in the past few decades contributing to a renewal of our understanding of social sciences at large and professional knowledge in particular (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012, p. 1). This discovery is based on the new understanding that determining the way we conceive the world should not be solely determined by the scientific mode of thinking and conception of knowledge. Other than episteme, i.e. the scientific or theoretical knowledge, productive knowledge and practical wisdom, i.e. techne and phronesis respectively, are also forms of knowledge albeit appearing with different nature. According to Kinsella and Pitman, that phronesis, which is particularly underrepresented and privileged, has become a crisis since as they argued “the diminishing of phronesis diminishes the work that professionals aspire to do” (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012, p. 11). There has been a shared recognition among like-minded scholars who have contributed to the advocation of the concept of phronesis or practical wisdom that this reinvention helps enlighten us to conceive the activity within the realms of ethics, politics, and oratory in a new light (Dunne, 1997, p. 261). Its positive effect in the workplace is also obvious with special regard to the question of how sound professional judgement can be cultivated. In the fields of pedagogy in service learning (Lukenchuk, 2009), pedagogical reflection (Birmingham, 2004), workplace of managers (Beckett et al., 2002), inquiry and research in organizational studies

Aristotle’s Scheme of Knowledge

15

(Cairns & Sliwa, 2008; Flyvbjerg, 2003), health care (Tyreman, 2000), psychoanalysis (Zeddies, 2001), theatre studies (Berkeley, 2005), teaching (Breier & Ralphs, 2009; Eisner, 2002; Graaff, 2004; Noel, 1999), education (Kristjansson, 2005), technical education (Hooley, 2005), action research (Eikeland, 2006), school leadership (Halverson, 2004), and musical performance (O’Dea, 1993), just to mention a few, the appropriation of phronesis for use in illuminating their inquiry in professional development has increasingly become popular.

Definition and Nature of Different Types of Knowledge Phronesis, i.e. practical knowledge, is usually juxtaposed by scholars who follow Aristotle against techne, the Greek term for craft/technical knowledge in English, and episteme for scientific knowledge. They require different accounts (Hohler, 2007, p. 349) since they stand for three different ways of relating ourselves to the world. Therefore, they are three distinctive modes of thinking dealing with three corresponding experience and reality, and each is “defined by the nature of the subject matter it addresses” (Eisner, 2002, p. 380). Flyvbjerg succinctly summarizes it in this way: “[w]hereas episteme concerns theoretical know why and techne denotes technical knowhow, phronesis emphasizes practical knowledge and practical ethics” (Flyvbjerg, 2003, p. 360). Episteme, usually translated as theoretical or scientific knowledge in their contemporary use, is “about things that are necessarily true” (Birmingham, 2004, p. 314) in a sense that it concerns about “things that seem never to change… or cannot vary” (Hohler, 2007, p. 349) and are certain (Eisner, 2002, p. 375; Hager, 2000, p. 282). In Eisner’s own words, knowledge of this kind “seeks to discover the regularities of nature as they truly are” (Eisner, 2002, p. 383). Put it differently, things that are subjected to contingency and change do not fall into this category. On the contrary, those that are timeless which can be “expressed in propositions true across particular contexts” (Halverson, 2004, p. 93; Kristjansson, 2005, p. 461) do. For Graaf, appealing to pure theory is the nature of episteme (Graaff, 2004, p. 297), as for Kristjansson pure contemplative thinking (Kristjansson, 2005, p. 456). It is law-like, scientific deductive for Tyremann (2000, p. 120) and theoretical knowledge of first principles for Moodle (Moodie, 2002, p. 250). As Flyvberg also suggests, it “corresponds to the modern scientific ideal as expressed in natural science” (Flyvbjerg, 2003, p. 359), which is found “reliable” for it, according to Aristotle, “does not even admit of being otherwise” (Aristotle, 1999, p. 88). Therefore, it can be “codified into systems of thought, and leads to reproducible effects under similar circumstances” (Halverson, 2004, p. 93), which entails that outcome can be pre-specified in advance and thus “teachable and capable of being learned by anyone” (Zeddies, 2001, p. 225). Similar to episteme, techne also appeals to some theoretical principles. That being said it is to a certain extent context (or circumstance) dependent (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012, p. 2). It, according to Aristotle, “is identical with a state of capacity to make,

16

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

involving a true course of reasoning” (Aristotle, 1980, p. 142) required by contextual differences. In virtue of this, techne “refers to technical know-how, or a person’s capacity to bring about a desired product or result” (Zeddies, 2001, p. 225). However, the outcome may appear not as what we anticipate since it is the dynamics of the process in which a maker producing it that matters. For Hooley, it is a process “of making and the art of doing” (Hooley, 2005, p. 47) or, as for Flyvbjerg, a form of craft knowledge that involves the art of judgement (Flyvbjerg, 2004, p. 284), and for Halverson “of making, ranging from the arts of construction to the creation of states of affairs” (Halverson, 2004, p. 93). Concerning the role of the maker, it is to Carr that “the means causally necessary for the achievement of certain separately specifiable ends” (Carr, 1995, p. 141) has to be identified by him or her. Therefore, the outcome yielded is separated from the activity or means (Grint, 2007, p. 234) or, in Hager’s own words, this type of knowledge “has an end beyond itself” (Hager, 2000, p. 282). It is also in this sense that Tyreman regards techne “is primarily instrumental” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 120) or, as Flyvberg understands it, driven by a pragmatic rationality (Flyvbjerg, 2003, p. 360). In virtue of this, the activities involved are guided by a blueprint or plan (Kristjansson, 2005, p. 456) and therefore “independent of interaction with others” (Berkeley, 2005, p. 219). In sum, techne manifests itself as we understand it today in the field of applied science (Moodie, 2002, p. 250). For many, education falls into this category, which is disputable and will be clarified as this discussion goes on. One important issue concerning techne is that the extent to which it can be taught and learnt depends on the degree of the craft component, which remains an integral part of such knowledge because, by definition, craft involves creativity that cannot be manipulated and transmitted. This definition may, to a certain degree, deter us from endorsing Halverson’s view when he expressed that this knowledge “captures a reproducible procedure that will lead to predictable results despite variations in context” (Halverson, 2004, p. 93). Such view seems to suggest that techne or craft knowledge can be expressed through routines and procedures. If this is the case, as Hooley and like-minded scholars have observed, techne would then become more associated “with the notion of a restricted technical rationality” (Hooley, 2005, p. 47) serving merely operational efficiency. Should this happen techne would alien itself from being associated with virtues for this knowledge as Birmingham suggests “can be used to promote moral or immoral ends” (Birmingham, 2004, p. 314). Pointing this out is important since this is the critical point that differs techne from phronesis. Nevertheless, it is true that the meaning of techne has been reduced to merely “technical” in its contemporary use. Phronesis, or practical wisdom, differentiates itself from episteme and techne in that values are the bases by which political, ethical, and moral judgement for action is informed (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012, p. 2). Similar to techne, phronesis is context dependent. Therefore, interpretative power is required for securing sound judgement, and such power is cultivated through experience in particular contexts (Halverson, 2004, p. 93). So merely dependence on rules is not the path conducive to developing excellence. Though they are both considered practical knowledge, they in fact, according to Dunne, differ in many ways (Dunne, 1997, p. 237). The most

Definition and Nature of Different Types of Knowledge

17

significant one particularly relevant to this discussion is pointed out by Gadamer when he contends that, different from techne, phronesis does not bring about, in his own words, a “particular thing or product… but to complete ethical rectitude of a lifetime” (Gadamer, 1979, p. 140, quoted in Berkeley, 2005, p. 220). Put it differently, though they “are both committed to the ends and means of reasoning, … they organize the relationship between them differently” (Berkeley, 2005, p. 220; Gadamer, 1975, pp. 320–322). In short, phronesis concerns about the cultivation of virtues and what ought to be done (Moodie, 2002, p. 250) that involves actions (Hager, 2000, p. 282) for the benefit of the whole society without the expense of that of the individuals. Graff emphasizes that this sort of knowing or understanding “is more than just cognitive learning”. It is a mode of life always open for continuous challenges conducive to self-transformation (Graaff, 2004, p. 297). Sellman earlier also shares similar view by saying “merely getting through the work” is not just what phronesis concerned with, but instead “toward… doing the right thing to the right person at the right time in the right way and for the right reason” (Sellman, 2002, p. 127) is what is aspired.

The Challenges and Primacy of Phronesis Having compared these three types of knowledge, this author would like to draw the reader’s attention to the peculiar quality of phronesis, which is regarded by scholars who have invested in exploring the implications it has for professional development in the past few decades as a knowledge that has just been reinvented. According Hager, phronesis is embedded with a special kind of reasoning capacity, which allows a person to be empowered to facilitate the know-how in practice (Hager, 2000, p. 282), and yet, as Hooley regards, very often such practices are “for purposes that are not predetermined” (Hooley, 2005, p. 47). In virtue of this, we cannot teach and learn phronesis in a sense that it can be directly copied or duplicated without any transformation since phronesis involves the reflective deliberation conducted on the spot by considering the relationship between the universal and the particular (Birmingham, 2004, p. 314; Zeddies, 2001, p. 225). Furthermore, it involves the deliberation of right living by choosing the appropriate means to attain the right ends in action. The crucial thing is that “knowable in advance” (Gadamer, 1994, pp. 320–321) is never possible. Beckett wittily summarized phronesis by indicating that practical wisdom “makes appropriate action in a specific situation, derived from experiences and the reflexive relationship of means and ends” (Beckett, 2000, p. 51). In Fiasse’s interpretation, the action associated with phronesis and constituted by its activity is simultaneously the end itself (Fiasse, 2001, p. 325). The basis of this concept as it is suggested by Halverson that “phronesis is not ‘at our disposal’ in the same way that techniques are at the disposal of the craftsman. We are our phronesis in a way that we cannot separate ourselves from our knowledge” (Halverson, 2004, p. 98). It entails that the outcome can only unfold and disclose itself in actions.

18

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

When the qualities of phronesis are applied to the workplace in general and education in particular, the main points captured by Kristjansson deserve to be highlighted. First, phronesis implies moral virtues, without which it “degenerates into a mere cunning capacity: what Aristotle calls ‘clever’” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 302). Second, practitioners who possess phronesis “is seen by many as a helpful way to rescue professional ethics from the clutches of a stale rule-and-code-touting formalism and a culture of mere compliance” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 300). Last but not least, that phronesis is considered a “meta-virtue” serving a mediating role (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 302) is a kind of capacity capable of adjudicating “the relative weight of different virtues in conflict situations and to reach a measured verdict about what to feel and do” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 301). The one who possesses phronesis is called a phronimos considered by many the kind of person our future leaders should become in the twentieth-first century. And of course, given that education is the breeding ground for these leaders, this should also by definition be the “ideal” towards which education and teachers strive for. The main concern of the scholars who have helped reinvent Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge is the gradual realization that practical reasoning, associated with the concepts of both phronesis and techne (craft knowledge), is an important quality that many professionals, such as nurses, doctors, social workers, business managers, performers, and even pastors, need to deal with their daily business in their workplace, where uncertainties and contingences are expected. Phronesis is even more privileged because it is concerned with judgement and wisdom with a values-based code of ethics in considering things that are good (Plowright & Barr, 2012, p. 2). This kind of quality is badly needed particularly in a pluralistic world where the common good is both a necessity and an issue that requires the virtue of “shared” vision and responsibility (OECD, 2018). As mentioned above, the importance of practical wisdom in workplace research is increasingly gaining momentum. Basically, this phenomenon signifies a change in the assumption of the relationship between theory and practice particularly in the realm of social sciences, which are seen as mutually informed. To be more exact, experience in practice that requires ethical judgement is given primacy. As a result, the dynamics of the process should deserve more attention. It follows that emerging outcomes instead of intended ones are celebrated or at least the two should deserve our attention simultaneously with the recognition that the dynamic between them is where creativity secures its place. Meanwhile, uncertainties are expected. The significance of this shift is enormous in the course of our reviewing the discourse of education reform in this very century when the initiative of outcome-based approach towards learning and teaching is fervently embraced. Two insights found in Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge are particularly relevant to the discussion of this book. First, different forms of knowledge constitute our reality, a unified and holistic understanding of which requires us to consider the nature of each form and the way these forms affect our perception of the outcome in relation to the process that forms it. Through this understanding, an issue or a problem can be analysed not only from a scientific–cognitive view (episteme) but also from the artistic (techne) and ethical–political (phronesis) perspectives. Second, the idea of phronesis

The Challenges and Primacy of Phronesis

19

or practical wisdom is reinvented as a virtue highly valued in the realm of politics, ethics, and morality. Scholars also generally apply this concept to the workplace, a space that requires “hot action” (Beckett, 1996, 2001) and “organic learning” takes place (Beckett et al., 2002, p. 332). This insight is important as it urges us to reconceptualize the relation between theory and practice, with the latter no longer being taken as the servant of the former and merely taking the role of implementing the prescription generated from theories. Instead, practice becomes a source of wisdom, that is, a form of practical knowledge, derived from the accumulated experience of the actor’s continuous exposure to the contingent environment. Therefore, the socalled theory particularly in the realm of humanities and social sciences can only be a frame of reference for any engagement in a new context. No blueprint can legitimize itself without a process of redesign through continuous reflective deliberations in leading the way to success. Drawing from the above discussion, it is of paramount importance to distinguish two kinds of practice.

Two Contrasting Worldviews of Practice: A Case for Illustration It was reported that a navy captain of the USA named Brez Crozier was removed from command for his raising alarms about a coronavirus outbreak on an aircraft carrier on 3 April (Lamothe et al., 2020). What makes the decision of removing him arguable is the fact that he, being criticized as “naïve and stupid” by Mr. Modly (the then Acting Secretary of the Navy), was cheered by the sailors when he was leaving the ship. A voice from the crowd was captured by saying: “that’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had!” (Sonne et al., 2020) More was captured by a reporter from Stars and Stripes named Karsten revealing that an acronym GOAT standing for the “greatest of all time” was used to praise the captain’s action, whom they regarded as “the man for the people” (Karsten, 2020). Though later Mr. Modly apologized and resigned for having made the comment, his decision is not without reasonable support for he regarded Crozier’s act as a form of “betrayal”. The reason for his taking Crozier’s unexpected action so seriously was eventually made known when he said: “there is no, no situation where you go to the media” (O’connor & Jamali, 2020) for Mr. Modly believed that “the media has an agenda and the agenda that they have depends on which side of the political aisle they sit and I’m sorry that’s the way the country is now, but it’s the truth and they use it to divide us and use it to embarrass the Navy” (O’connor & Jamali, 2020). Both sides may seem to deserve our sympathy for a different reason. The interesting thing about Mr. Modly’s shift in perspective later is the justification he offered when he resigned. Not only did he apologize for his remarks made earlier by announcing that “I do not think Captain Bret Crozier is naïve nor stupid. I think, and always believed him to be the opposite”, what he was trying to emphasize is in the statement that follows: “We pick our carrier commanding officers with great

20

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

care. Captain Crozier is smart and passionate. I believe, precisely because he is not naïve and stupid, that he sent his alarming email with the intention of getting it into the public domain in an effort to draw public attention to the situation on his ship” (O’connor & Jamali, 2020). Why was there a sudden change in his judgement and attitude towards Captain Crozier’s decision? We may not know what exactly the answer is. But, a closer look to the way he rationalized his apology may give us a hint. I repeat what he said: “We pick our carrier commanding officers with great care”. The premise supporting this statement appears to be that the USA never picks a “naïve and stupid” guy to be a carrier commanding officer. Therefore, his earlier remark that Captain Crozier is “naïve and stupid” would become self-defeating and detrimental to the professional judgement of the navy leadership of the USA. It is like throwing a stone into the thrower’s own foot. Logically and rhetorically, the remark is surely untenable on this basis. The main thing that has drawn this author’s attention is the major factor that contributes to Mr. Modly’s resignation and the possibility of a system’s opening up for new learning, a dimension which may not have been made explicitly for easy identification. It functions more like, using an analogy, the “dark matter” in our universe, thought to have a strong influence on the latter’s structuring and evolution. The concept that comes to this author’s mind is the sociohistorical dispositional sediment that has been embedded in the community of the USA. Whether Captain Crozier, who chose to speak up “in a leaked letter to his superiors about what he saw as insufficient measures to contain a coronavirus outbreak aboard the vessel”, did the right thing can of course be evaluated by the already established rules indicated by his being “dismissed … due to [the Captain’s] not using his chain of command to make service leaders aware of his concerns about the virus outbreak that had infected more than 100 sailors on the ship” (Karsten, 2020). Yet, his “informal” action was praised as “the saga”, which “has shined a harsh spotlight on Pentagon leadership accused of failing to act swiftly and aggressively enough to stop a rapid spread of disease among the carrier’s nearly 5,000-person crew” (Sonne et al., 2020) though it was denied by the officials concerned. On 12 April 2020 Hong Kong time, that is a week later, CNN reported that the crew members felt upset and anxious about the loss of their captain. Joe Biden (the then vice president and now president of the USA) was also quoted as saying: “Captain Crozier was faithful to his duty—both to his sailors and his country”. Besides, the captain’s message was considered “about speaking truth to power”, and it was the Trump Admin, but “not a courageous officer trying to protect his sailors”, who had made the “poor judgement” (Sonne et al., 2020). The keyword here is “faithful”. However, Captain Crozier was considered “faithful to his duty”, does it entail that Mr. Modly was not? Arguably, Mr. Modly was, but indirectly and structurally limited by his immediate concern and horizon. In short, it is this sort of affective substances, i.e. emotion, generated from ethical consideration, which are traditionally considered “irrational” and having adverse effects on producing correct judgement that provide an alternative horizon holding the crew and those people who endorse the captain’s courage together. Of course, the question of whether Captain Crozier’s decisive act

Two Contrasting Worldviews of Practice: A Case for Illustration

21

is “wise” and in what circumstance it is considered wise is still pending for further deliberation. Or, whose decision is more “thoughtful” and in terms of what it is considered as such? Should it be measured or evaluated with reference to how far the result strays away from the prescribed outcome or would it be better to keep an open eye as to see what outcomes would emerge by focusing on the dynamics of the process? These two different approaches reflect two kinds of worldview, which may represent two aspects of understanding of how the world is constituted, the negligence of either one of them is not complete. Within a bureaucratic structure, emotion, which is a key element associated with virtues like courage, sympathy and empathy, is very often suppressed in favour of the so-called critical understanding conducive to “rational” choice. In this sense, these virtues become the “dark matter”, deliberately ignored. It is considered “dark” just because it is suppressed. What if “true” critical understanding should also take into consideration those initiatives which are partly in one way or another empowered by human emotion as long as it is part of what makes us human? Supporting the motion of reconsidering the value and meaning of “emotion” is the assumption that rather than taking it merely as the cause of irrational choice, emotion can be the result of an interactive dynamic process conducive to a well-balanced state of mind where passion manifests itself out of a holistic picture of what is perceived to be in harmony informed by what is considered to be good, creative, and true. The doctrine of rationalism, behaviourism, and scientism, which focus merely on what is visible, is unable to capture the otherwise. In reality, it is difficult to imagine what human civilization could be like if this “dark matter” called emotion, the invisible, the substance which does not subscribe to scientific and behavioural measurement, had been locked up. Does emotion represent just something without any practical value in the process of decision-making? Would it be the case that it is in fact the result of an aggregation of a variety of experiences, both rational and irrational, that constitute the well-being of human and testifies what makes us humans? To what extent that Crozier’s decision was informed by this kind of “dark matter” (while Mr. Modly was not) which drove him to not follow the command chain, the consequence of which is quite the opposite of what Mr. Modly’s expected? Here I would like to point out that conducive to Crozier’s deciding not to follow the command chain could actually be the result of his having been culturally informed to do so. By this I mean a kind of substance that is embedded within the sociohistorical dimension of Captain Crozier’s culture, which pushes him to do what he thought was justifiable with reference to certain higher values. That being said that the navy should be understood as a highly disciplined team or structure entrusted with specific objectives to achieve with precision in every mission is indisputable. Therefore, effectiveness and efficiency are virtues that need to be valued to attain these institutional objectives. From this perspective, Crozier’s not following the command chain is at odd with this requirement. This is true to Mr. Modly when he was preoccupied with the duty of protecting the navy as a whole from the media’s attack. Within this context, Crozier’s unanticipated trajectory naturally has to be stopped. However, this normalcy was expected to give way to an abnormalcy, the emergency of which was triggered by a change in context where the

22

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

organizational objective of the navy as a system was outweighed by a higher value which could only be made visible in special circumstances. It is invisible because it is historical and cultural, very often habituated in our mind without knowing it. One may be interested to ask whether there could be a way of harmonizing the structural and circumstantial needs in this case. In theory, there could not be since by definition the circumstantial is contextual, and its implication does run at odds with that of the structural which by nature is relatively constant and the unexpected is not welcome. The former tends to solve problems by technical means that puts stress on procedures, whereas the latter relational is in favour of sense-making, an experience of hermeneutical understanding acquired through a back-and-forth, toand-fro movement between the whole and the parts that constitute this whole guided by a sense of the good. As a result, the unexpected is expected. The above example draws our attention to the very fact that in general there are two kinds of (leadership) practice with reference to two different sources of justification in the case of Captain Crozier’s being fired. One is manifested by the decision made by Crozier, and the other is revealed by the judgement of Mr. Modly’s. The former is made in accordance with the concern the focus of which is on the life and death of the crew members that demands decision without delay while the latter is based on the criterion having been institutionalized as a formal structural practice that requires the practitioner to uphold the authority in the first place lest perhaps the navy as a whole would be embarrassed in one way or another, as it is revealed by Mr. Modly, the ultimate concern of which is to make sure that the structure being entrusted with a mission to complete has to be maintained. The reality is that ignoring either one of them offers no hope for constructive and creative transformation, and this principle can apply to all organizations and institutions given the understanding that we are shaped by the structure in which we dwell while at the same time we are also empowered by the same structure to change it if sufficient conditions are available. Too much emphasis on stability through compliance with established rules would make one incline to reproduce what has been given thoughtlessly. The extreme of the otherwise may lead one to merely dwell in the middle of nowhere, which offers no ground for the emergence of thoughtful ideas either. With this understanding, it is reasonable to say that one can learn only when a system also learns at the same time given that the latter is an open rather than a closed one. So, tension is always a part of the learning process for openness entails the need of adaptation for what is new, which also assumes the necessity of confronting contradictions and conflicts. It is in this light that the tension between Mr. Modly and Captain Crozier can be positively seen as part of a process that produces learning in the midst when the old and the new meet.

A Paradigm Shift in Perceiving the Relationship Between Outcome …

23

A Paradigm Shift in Perceiving the Relationship Between Outcome and Process This author is not in the position to judge whether it is Mr. Modly or Captain Crozier, who has done the “right” thing. The above sketch serves only to illustrate the fact that “practice” can be understood from two perspectives. The notion of one of them is governed by the formal structure with its organizational mission or objective prioritized to the extent that they are considered to be rules that need to be observed regardless of context in the name of “effectiveness” and “efficiency” in order to protect the legitimacy of the authority which in return perhaps would benefit individuals dwelling within it, whereas the other represented by Captain Crozier challenges this interpretation with a new one informed by a more holistic picture of what needs to be done for the good of those in his proximity that are easily susceptible to contextual changes. In the same vein, this author argues that Mr. Stone’s judgement that: “It is very clear that all of content, process and outcome are important. But outcome is the most important” (Stone, 2008) is not without a perspective that is similar to that of Mr. Modly in handling Captain Crozier’s “outstanding” decision. By this I refer to the fact that producing “outcome” was perceived as an institutional goal that all involved were required to observe. There is no denying that this requirement to a certain extent is inevitable so long as we come to terms with the understanding that we individuals are not isolated islands. The critical issue is the extent to which the goal set and the liberty of its understanding are inclusive enough to allow for a diversity of its realization. We may agree that Mr. Modly’s situation is at the one end of a spectrum where the liberty for exercising personal choice is limited. Captain Crozier’s unexpected breakthrough is indeed quite exceptional. Comparatively speaking, education by definition and nature should be positioned at the other end of the spectrum where the autonomy of exercising one’s liberty in learning and teaching as well needs to be encouraged so long as certain basic principles are observed for the good of the whole community to which the participants involved belong. It entails that outcomes are considered “good” only when the dynamic of the process and those involved as free agents are appreciated as significant contributions and contributors, respectively. If this argument can be accepted, the claim that “outcome is the most important” (Stone, 2008) as the objective of any “educational goal” could be problematic. It is problematic because such objective could be strategically and instrumentally attained by manipulating the process, and as a result the process would become part of a closed system that prefers productivity or reproduction according to the mandate of a blueprint to creative impulses emerging on the spot which by definition challenges such authoritative imposition. We should not be surprised by this observation given that those who work within such a system as it was mentioned earlier that emphasizes measurement and accountability, the criteria of which serve to tighten rather than loosen the educational process for dynamic exchanges. To be more specific, this would happen when a teacher’s performance is held accountable and measured by external criteria within a “short” fixed period of time without taking the contextual complexity of the particularity of

24

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

each circumstance into consideration. In order to play safe, controlling the process to secure intended outcomes at the expense of the emerging ones seems to be “reasonable” according to the “survival for the fitness” principle. The kind of practice shaped by Stone’s “verdict” is susceptible to manipulation for achieving ends instrumentally other than that with student at the centre being allowed to open up for the emergence of the unintended as a result of a dynamic process. It is the latter that justifies Captain Crozier’s style of leadership and practice which is susceptible to change when stimulated by a higher level of value in the process of his judgement while that represented by Mr. Modly is similar in kind to that which Stone prefers in that pre-specified objective or established rules set the yardstick for measuring the degree of success without giving the process a chance to inform the decision-maker. One may not recognize the importance of such differentiation. In fact, it represents a paradigm shift in how we perceive the world, understand the relationship between theory and practice, and in particular generate knowledge in association with the role of practitioners as free agents. This insight has enormous implications for imagining an alternative way of reforming or transforming education, which will be explored in the next part of this book. As for now, Tyreman’s article on distinguishing an expert from a novice in educational practice on the basis of the difference between phronesis and techne, respectively, helps focus our attention to close this chapter.

Changing Education, Changing Practice: The Primacy of Phronesis In Hong Kong, critical thinking has been strongly promoted since the inception of the subject of Liberal Studies in 2009. It has been regarded as the kind of “skill” helping to liberate students from seeing things from just one specific angle. However, what it means by “critical thinking” remains a question to be explored because there are evidences to show that what has been practising and taught in Hong Kong circumscribed and shadowed by the instrumental value of the “teach-to-the-test” nature of the public examination is more of a cliché, a techne in its narrow sense, i.e. a kind of skill that highlights procedural knowledge rather than thinking itself. Now, I would like to take advantage of Tyreman’s understanding of the relationship between phronesis and criticality in the context of healthcare education to show how it may be able to shed light on the way how learning can be seen as a practice where the notion of critical thinking is embedded serving a lead-in to the theme of the following chapter. At the beginning of Tyreman’s article, i.e. the abstract, he pointed out that healthcare education had been dominated by “scientific rather than philosophical inquiry”. These two modes of thought have a lot of differences in terms of the way they define and deal with a problem. He concludes by saying: “the greatest challenge to health care today is not technical or procedural, but moral; how to do the best thing for the patient in response to the uncertainty inherent in clinical decision-making and

Changing Education, Changing Practice: The Primacy of Phronesis

25

a changing world state and the uniqueness of each patient-practitioner encounter” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 123). The keywords in Tyreman’s statement are “moral”, “the best”, “uncertainty”, “changing”, and “uniqueness”. According to Tyreman, all these would create a condition which a scientific mode of thinking that tends to focus on identifying causal relations is unable to deal with. Instead a philosophical, or to be more specific, a hermeneutical approach (Mackler, 2010), can be more promising in that its interest is more on the process of sense or meaning making, whereby relations between parts and the coherence between parts and the whole they constitute become the unit of analysis with the assumption that each case has its own particularity to be investigated. It is within this context the notion of practice or praxis is understood and practical knowledge or phronesis engendered. Episteme, techne, and phronesis are three different types of activity relevant to three corresponding realities that we come across in our daily life. Tyreman asserts that: “Professional expertise requires all of them” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 119). Lest the readers may perhaps be distracted, Tyreman draws our attention only to the difference between techne and phronesis for he thinks that episteme “lies outside the focus of interest for [his] study” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 120). Tyreman may have his concern and focus within the context of his article. However, his focus may also have discarded the fact that episteme if not properly handled to the extent that it is treated as the sole source of knowledge may turn techne into mere techniques in its contemporary use when instrumentality predominates the process of its operation. The consequence will be the burial of its true nature, i.e. craft. My pointing this out should be well grounded since it is mentioned at the very beginning of the article, i.e. in the abstract, that scientific (episteme) and philosophical inquiries are two incompatible modes of thought in order to pave the way for “praising” the potential contributions phronesis can offer in nurturing professional expertise in healthcare education. That being said his elucidation on the connection between phronesis and criticality has stricken the chord of what this author is trying to elaborate. What concerns Tyreman most is how praxis can be nurtured in relation to critical thinking. Tyreman acknowledges at the outset the fact that “critical thinking is taken as a defining characteristic” in our university system, and it is one of the attributes that differs an expert clinician from a novice (Tyreman, 2000, p. 117). In the current discourse on professional development in education and other fields as well, this claim is well accepted. However, how it is acquired depends on the knowledge background one holds. In Tyreman’s understanding, it is not procedural or rule bounded. As mentioned earlier, there are two modes of thought: the scientific and philosophical. It is the former that is prone to follow a procedural way of doing inquiry guided by rules. The latter is what Tyreman has shown the interest to embrace with the aim of aligning it with the question of how the growth of critical thinking can be fostered. He does it by way of drawing upon the theory employed by Squires in his book Teaching is a Professional Discipline (1999, p. 130) in the light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge. A new version of it is suggested by Tyreman on this basis by incorporating the notion of phronesis, i.e. practical knowledge, which is claimed to be “under-explored”. Why phronesis? It is considered by Tyreman the key element that differs an expert from a novice, whose professional expertise

26

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

manifests itself in the form of capacity enabling him or her: (1) “competently to apply necessary instrumental skills”; (2) “to give a realistic appraisal of their capability—strengths and weaknesses”; and (3) “to assess the context of a problem and use their capabilities to create the most effective outcome” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 118). He emphasized that “expertness” is not just “a skill or knowledge”, but a disposition that is embodied, which is the crucial feature that makes phronesis different from techne. A skill (techne) can be forgotten while one’s habit of mind (i.e. phronesis) cannot. For Tyreman, this is an ontological difference. He further poses two questions which are epistemological and educational in nature. The first (epistemological) is: “how do we recognize an expert”? And the second (educational): “how does someone become an expert”? (Tyreman, 2000, p. 118) A very simple guiding principle provided by Tyreman showing the direction to answer these two questions is that an expert is embodied with “the ability to make sense of and take action on the basis of large amounts of information with few firm rules to guide” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 119). This author can imagine that Tyreman might anticipate that for those who are used to the scientific mode of thought would find it difficult to provide satisfactory answers to the above questions based on this definition. The problem lies in the assumption of what counts as knowledge. As Tyreman highlights in his abstract, a scientific mode of thought would look for certainty and determination as facts of life. This is exactly what Tyreman would like to challenge when it is applied to the field of health care, which deals with people. Prescriptive rules do not allow “underdetermination” and, therefore, are unable to accommodate flexibility and freedom to discern and make judgement according to contextual differences. Therefore, only those with a phronetic mindset can identify the embedded “wisdom”. Let me explain. There are three key ideas in Tyreman’s statement requiring further elaboration. The first is about the capability of making sense of something. Second, it is about action and not merely words. Third, the action is not guided by rules. For the convenience of this discussion, the second and third will be combined to form a category. Making sense of the world around us is an experiential activity that is hermeneutic in nature. This is a very basic feature that makes humans different from other species. According to Gadamer, this is also the kind of capacity that understanding and learning are rendered possible. Concerning the idea of acting without the guidance of rules, complexity is implied to the extent that prescribed rules would only become hurdles rather than facilitators in problem solving. It also entails that only when at least two people, who are simultaneously considered deserving respect and the autonomy to lead one’s life, meet without either one of them who owns the authority to dictate what is going to happen and what outcomes are to be produced when action initiated by either party would be counter-checked to create a condition for the need of reaching some form of consensus so long as they acknowledge the assumption that interdependence is what makes life become easier. The kind of knowledge generated from such a situation falls into the realm of politics and ethics. Therefore, it is the demand of intersubjectivity that weakens the claim of rules. This is where “uncertainty” and “underdetermination” and thus phronesis come in to claim their “legitimate” ground in search for the common good through deliberation. This is also

Changing Education, Changing Practice: The Primacy of Phronesis

27

the moment when hermeneutics and action converge, the situation where criticality is badly needed. Put it differently, Tyreman’s criticality reminds me of Gadamer’s hermeneutic circle, a form of practice towards understanding. There will be more discussion on this in the next chapter. Before doing so, a glimpse of how techne differs from phronesis in Tyreman’s own terms would provide some clues for identifying the key features of phronesis based on which the question of whether and how it could be cultivated will be addressed later. The primary feature that differs techne from phronesis is the nature of its instrumentality (Tyreman, 2000, p. 120). By this it means the means towards some ends that involves a process of production is separated from the outcome or product it leads to produce. It is “productive” in a sense that it manifests itself in “having an identified goal and a productive outcome” (Tyreman, 2000, p. 120). Quite the contrary, phronesis is a virtue. Its outcome only unfolds when action is taken. Therefore, we can say that the outcome and the process that have it unfolded are one, and there is no such thing in phronesis as what techne appears to show that a time issue is involved where the process precedes the outcome. Another related feature of phronesis is the premise that its knowledge is derived from human encounters where situations are always in flux and contextual specificity determines the outcome, the source contributing to the emergence of which is inexhaustible not mentioning the intention and the will of the actor. This seemingly elusive characteristic is surely alien to those who are used to the scientific mode of thought, according to Tyreman. But, he considers this to be exactly the “barrier” one needs to overcome in order to become a professional or expert. It is also this kind of condition within which one is able to develop his or her criticality in practice. This author suggests that Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics helps shed more light on the “why” that phronesis is considered closely associated with critical thinking, thus the idea of “learning in practice”. This is what the next chapter is all about.

References Aristotle. (1980). The Nicomachean Ethics. (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Aristotle. (1999). Nicomachean ethics. (T. Irwin, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. Beckett, D. (1996). Critical judgment and professional practice. Educational Theory, 46(2), 138– 150. Beckett, D. (2000). Making workplace learning explicit: An epistemology of practice for the whole person. Westminster Studies in Education, 23, 41–53. Beckett, D. (2001). Hot action at work: A different understanding of “understanding.” In T. Fenwick (Ed.), Socio-cultural perspectives on learning through work (pp. 73–84). Jossey-Bass. Beckett, D., Agashae, Z., & Oliver, V. (2002). Just-in-time training: Techne meets phronesis. Journal of Workplace Learning, 14(7/8), 332–339. Berkeley, A. (2005). Phronesis or techne? Theatre studies as moral agency. Research in Drama Education, 10(2), 213–227. Birmingham, C. (2004). Phronesis: A model of pedagogical reflection. Journal of Teacher Education, 55, 313–324.

28

2 Changing Education, Changing Practice

Breier, M., & Ralphs, A. (2009). In search of phronesis: Recognizing practical wisdom in the recognition (assessment) of prior learning. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(4), 479–493. Cairns, G., & Sliwa, M. (2008). The implications of Aristotle’s Phronesis for organizational inquiry. In D. Barry & H. Hansen (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of new approaches in management and organization (pp. 318–331). Sage. Carr, D. (1995). Roughing out the ground rules: Reason and experience in practical deliberation. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 29(1), 137–147. Dunne, J. (1997). Back to the rough ground: Practical judgment and the lure of technique. University of Notre Dame Press. Eikeland, O. (2006). Phronesis, Aristotle, and action research. International Journal of Action Research, 2(1), 5–53. Eikeland, O. (2008). The ways of Aristotle: Aristotelian Phronesis, Aristotelian philosophy of dialogue, and action research. Peter Lang. Eisner, E. W. (2002). From Episteme to Phronesis to Artistry in the study and improvement of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 375–385. Fiasse, G. (2001). Aristotle’s prudence: A true grasp of ends as well as means? Review of Metaphysics, 55, 323–337. Flyvbjerg, B. (2003). Making organization research matter: Power, values, and phronesis. In The Northern lights: Organization theory in Scandinavia (pp. 357–381). Liber; Abstrakt. Flyvbjerg, B. (2004). Phronetic planning research: theoretical and methodological reflections. Planning Theory & Practice, 5(3), 283–306. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Ed. & Trans.). London: Sheed & Ward. Gadamer, H.-G. (1979). Practical philosophy as a model of the human sciences. Research in Phenomenology, 9, 74–85. Gadamer, H.-G. (1994) Truth and Method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). New York: Continuum. Graaff, J. (2004). Progress in teaching sociology: From cognitive skills to hermeneutics and phronesis. Society in Transition, 35(2), 287–301. Grint, K. (2007). Learning to lead: Can Aristotle help us find the road to wisdom? Leadership, 3(2), 231–246. Hager, P. (2000). Know-how and workplace practical judgment. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 34(2), 281–296. Halverson, R. (2004). Accessing, documenting, and communicating practical wisdom: The phronesis of school leadership practice. The American Journal of Education, 111(1), 90–121. Hohler, T. P. (2007). Phronesis transformed: From Aristotle to Heidegger to Ricoeur. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 81(3), 347–372. Hooley, N. (2005). Aristotle, phronesis & technical education. Teacher Quality & Quality Teaching, 4(1), 45–49. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The absence of thought in learning: Hong Kong education in light of cultural studies]. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press. Karsten, J. (2020, April 3) ‘Captain Crozier! Captain Crozieer!’: Videos show sailors sending off ousted us Roosevelt commander with cheers. Stars & Stripes. https://www.stripes.com/news/us/ captain-crozier-captain-crozier-videos-show-sailors-sending-off-ousted-uss-roosevelt-comman der-with-cheers-1.624732 Kinsella, E. A., & Pitman, A. (2012). Engaging phronesis in professional practice and education. In E. A. Kinsella & A. Pitman (Eds.), Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions (pp. 1–11). Sense Publishers. Kristjansson, K. (2005). Smoothing it: Some Aristotelian misgivings about the Phronesis-praxis perspective on education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 37(4), 455–473.

References

29

Kristjansson, K. (2015). Phronesis as an ideal in professional ethics: Some preliminary positions and problematics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 36, 299–320. Lamothe, D., Ryan, M. & Sonne, P. (2020, April 3). Navy removes aircraft carrier captain who raised alarm about coronavirus response. The Washington post. https://www.washingtonpost. com/national-security/navy-removes-aircraft-carrier-captain-who-spoke-out-about-coronavirusresponse-from-post/2020/04/02/ddd4c9ae-751e-11ea-a9bd-9f8b593300d0_story.html Lukenchuk, A. (2009). Living the ethics of responsibility through university service and servicelearning: Phronesis and praxis reconsidered. Philosophical Studies in Education, 40, 246–257. Mackler, S. (2010). From the positivist to the hermeneutic university: Restoring the place of meaning and liberal learning in higher education. Policy Futures in Education, 8(2), 177–190. Moodie, G. (2002). Identifying vocational education and training. Journal of Vocational Education & Training, 54(2), 249–265. Noel, J. (1999). Phronesis and phantasia: Teaching with wisdom and imagination. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 33(2), 277–286. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2018). The future of education and skills: Education 2030. The future we want. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/educat ion/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf O’connor, T. & Jamali, N. (2020, April 6). Acting U.S. Navy chief Modly blasts removed captain Crozier for being ‘too naive or too stupid’ to command in leaked audio. Newsweek online. https:// www.newsweek.com/acting-defense-chief-too-stupid-coronavirus-letter-1496403 O’dea, J. (1993). Phronesis in musical performance. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 27(2), 233–243. Plowright, D., & Barr, G. (2012). An integrated professionalism in further education: A time for phronesis? Journal of Further and Higher Education, 36(1), 1–16. Sellman, D. (2002). Reclaiming competence for professional phronesis. In E. A. Kinsella & A. Pitman (Eds.), Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions (pp. 115–130). Sense Publishers. Sonne, P., Lamothe, D., & Horton, A. (2020, April 3). Virus-stricken aircraft carrier erupts in applause and cheers as ousted Navy captain departs. The Washington post. https://www.washin gtonpost.com/national-security/crew-of-aircraft-carrier-with-coronavirus-outbreak-cheers-ous ted-captain/2020/04/03/7927e202-75af-11ea-ae50-7148009252e3_story.html Squires, G. (1999). Teaching as a professional discipline. Falmer Press. Stone, M. V. (2008). Symposium on outcome-based approaches in student learning: “Quality education, quality outcomes: The way forward for Hong Kong. (Welcome message given by the Secretary-General of the University Grant Committee on 18 June 2008 at the jockey club auditorium, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/spe ech/2008/sp20080618.htm Tyreman, S. (2000). Promoting critical thinking in health care: Phronesis and criticality. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 3, 117–124. Zeddies, T. J. (2001). Out of the consulting room and into the world: Hermeneutic dialogue, phronesis, and psychoanalytic theory as practice. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 61(3), 217–238.

Chapter 3

Learning in Practice

Introduction Nowadays, no one would dispute the fact that learning is a MUST. It is an imperative that we have to “learn” all the time, and the incentive offered for its justification by many of the government policy documents is usually competition. Within such a condition, could we say that learners all learn and live in “fear” for if they do not do so they would lag behind? Occasionally, we may find something different at least rhetorically. As early as the beginning of this century, the then Permanent Secretary for Education and Manpower Bureau of Hong Kong, Mrs. Fanny Law, made a speech at an international symposium on early childhood education organized by a foundation with the theme: “Liberate the Joy of Learning – Educating the Global Child”, a theme which was regarded by her as having embraced the aim of the reform in education. In her speech, she proclaimed that: “At the early childhood level, our aim is to provide a pleasurable and rich learning environment that can inspire the curiosity and quest of knowledge in young minds, and to lay the foundation for lifelong learning” (Law, 2002, November 1). The keywords being used in this proclamation are of course “positive”, namely “pleasurable”, “rich”, and “inspire”, etc., which are put together to serve a purpose, i.e. laying “the foundation for lifelong learning”. On the surface, this rhetoric appears to be unproblematic and should invite no challenge. What may be at issue here is the fact that “positive” words could actually be empty signifiers since it is not until they are explained in more details contextually could we really understand how they have been ideologically invested. One of the concerns is that this statement was actually revealing the otherwise, i.e. the children had probably been experiencing something provided in the educational system unpleasurable. Another concern pertains to how the term was interpreted, for example, to what extent the notion of the word “pleasurable” is considered the outcome of an entertaining or amusing process resulting in placing the learner in the position of a receiver if not consumer. Furthermore, the concept of “lifelong learning” could also be understood as a strategic design policy-wise embedded with an implicit purpose of framing the notion of “lifelong” in economic terms, and “learning” becomes therefore a means © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_3

31

32

3 Learning in Practice

of helping to boost the economy rather than enriching one’s life per se. By the same token, when Mrs. Law suggested: “Learning through play promotes joyful learning, stimulates creativity and imagination, and strengthens the motivation to learn” (Law, 2002, 1 November), the notion of “play” seems to have been taken as something separated from learning itself and subsequently becomes a tool, i.e. a means towards some other ends anticipated by the designer. It entails that “playing” requires “proper” management before successful learning in terms of its alignment with the expected outcomes can be attained. An alternative understanding could be that playing is itself already a form of learning rather than a method towards the achievement of learning. This obsession with “learning” in its narrow sense is identified by Biesta as a phenomenon of what he calls “learnification”. By this he means “the redefinition of all things educational in terms of learning – such as calling students learners, calling schools learning environments or places for learning, referring to adult education to lifelong learning, and seeing teachers as facilitators of learning” (Biesta, 2019, p. 549). To Biesta, this “movement” has marginalized the teacher factor in the production of learning outcomes. Though Biesta takes issue with this trend by quoting the OECD’s documents and argues that “teaching matters”, he does not seem to be satisfied with the view that teachers are seen “as factors in a production line”, the undertone of which is considered by him “an insult to the integrity of teacher professionalism” (Biesta, 2019, p. 549). Biesta’s reflection is not just about teaching and teacher professionalism since they are for him relational concepts manifested by the fact that when he mentions about Paulo Freire’s critique of “banking education” and argues that students should not be treated as receptive objects and teachers merely acting as depositors (Biesta, 2019, p. 550). Therefore, the attempt to, in Biesta’s own words, “rediscover” teaching is also the endeavour to redeem the essence of learning at the same time. In this author’s interpretation, the reason why “learnification” is a problem is due to the anticipation that the notion of learning is further instrumentalized as a means towards some other ends rather than the ends itself. As a result, its autonomy is discarded. This worry can shed light on reading Mrs. Law’s justification for learning through “play” or the promise of “pleasurable” experience without giving any qualifications to the essence of these terms being used. As we are all immersed in a highly consuming culture where the operation of the educational enterprise does not seem to be able to escape from its being “mesmerized” by the will to “excel” in order to compete by utilizing “learning competence” as an indicator, it is reasonable for us to give more thought to this process of instrumentalization and its consequence with special regard to the possibility of its gradual susceptibility to alienation by appealing to other ends other than that of learning itself. Put it in simple terms, this alienation manifests itself in conceptualizing learning as merely a technical “know-how” rather than an undertaking which is ethical by nature that defies any intention of mechanistic control. This chapter attempts to fill this gap through the appropriation of a Gadamerian perspective by postulating that “genuine” learning as a form of self-understanding is an interpretive practice that involves the concept of “application”. Quite different from the conventional usage that carries a passive tone, this term in Gadamer is

Introduction

33

invested with a more dynamic and ethical undertone. According to Schuckman, “it is this aspect of understanding which relates Gadamer’s hermeneutical interest to Aristotle’s concept of phronesis” (Schuckman, 1979, p. 42). This concept will be elaborated in more details later in this chapter. Suffice to mention a major feature of it here is the importance of the situation at present that concerns the particularity and yet without abandoning the possibility of it being illuminated by certain universal principles contributing to the emergence of contextual understanding. In the light of this, application as a form of learning is not a unidirectional event, but a to-and-fro and back-and-forth activity that foreshadows the emergence of dialogue and deliberation that rejects technical manipulation. Therefore, learning is better conceptualized as practice in the form of a hermeneutical circle or spiral. In brief, in the light of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics informed by Aristotle’s phronesis and praxis, this chapter hopes to “redeem” the notion of learning from its current use, and the discussion will be conducted with special reference to an unresolved, overdue problem perplexing the current language policy of Hong Kong as the background. By doing so, this chapter functions to address the idea of “learning in practice” on the one hand and lay out a platform with the purpose of, metaphorically speaking, loosening the soil and investing more fresh air and nutrient to the discussion of the language issue of Hong Kong, the reflective deliberation of which will be contained in the last part of this book. The reason for connecting these two topics is the view that they are closely intertwined, and the issues concerned cannot be sorted out without traversing the border between the two particularly in the context of Hong Kong. More importantly, it is only when the relationship between learning and language is understood properly would the educational goal of “whole person development” and the contribution of the subject of Liberal Studies towards its realization be properly conceived since the nature of the activities involved in the latter demands a higher level of hermeneutical understanding and experience.

Major Concern Like most of the advanced countries, learning has been strategically conceived as a tool in Hong Kong for competition. This is especially manifested throughout the debate on how students could learn better in relation to the choice of one’s mother tongue or a second language, i.e. English. This controversy has prevailed long before the handover of Hong Kong from Britain back to Mainland China. Though it was asserted in a government policy document (HKGov, 1974) that students’ learning benefits most when the medium of instruction is in their mother tongue, the symbolic status of English being highly associated with social and economic privileges in the mind of the stakeholders including parents, businessmen, and even school administrators and teachers challenges this educational principle. This phenomenon seems to have disappointed scholars like Tsui and her colleagues when they expressed in their study as this was stated earlier that: “It had always been social and economic

34

3 Learning in Practice

agendas which were presented to the public for refuting sound educational arguments” (Tsui et al., 1999, p. 205). Yet, Tsui and her colleagues did not seem to have provided details as to explain what it means by “educational” except highlighting the observations given by teachers that “after using CMI [Chinese Medium Instruction], the students were more motivated to learning and able to engage in higher-order thinking” (Tsui et al., 1999, p. 199). This chapter contributes to addressing this issue in the light of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and Aristotle’s phronesis. Its relevance to the language policy in particular will not be touched upon until the end of this book. One hundred and fourteen schools in Hong Kong were selected and judged as having reached the “standard” to use English as the medium of instruction and learning. Under what criteria these schools were given such “privilege” will not be addressed at this moment. Instead, this chapter is committed to showing the problem of a bipolarized discourse in Hong Kong’s language policy resulting from its not having taken the ontological–existential nature of language and its potential for selfunderstanding, formation, and genuine learning into account. In short, the split of language and learning in the formulation of the policy is what the plight lies. We will wait until the last part of this book to address this issue. As for now, our focus will be on the notion of learning from a Gadamerian perspective.

Gadamer and Education Why is Gadamer relevant to education in general? According to Nixon, Gadamer’s work “was increasingly concerned with the continuity and very survival of what he saw as a great philosophical tradition grounded in humanistic scholarship” when the world in which he dwelled was “at a time when philosophy was under attack from totalising ideologies and when humanistic scholarship was being colonized and marginalised by modes of technical rationality” (Nixon, 2017, pp. 1–2). In virtue of this, Gadamer is considered “not so much a public intellectual as a public educator” (Nixon, 2017, p. 2), and practitioners in general and those in the professions of education and health in particular have become dialogical partners with the form of philosophy Gadamer has developed. One may specifically have scepticism concerning the applicability of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics in our daily life and in our case teaching and learning in education. We should not be surprised if we know that prior to the publication of Truth and Method in 1960, the term “hermeneutics” “was the preserve of a relatively small group of specialists” (Nixon, 2017, p. 1). In addition, it was “philosophical hermeneutics” that had been suggested by Gadamer as the title of the book now entitled Truth and Method, but was rejected due to the publisher’s limited knowledge of what it was all about. Some knowledge of Gadamer’s practice as a teacher may help “exorcise” this anxiety. Before the publication of Truth and Method, Gadamer had spent most of his time teaching, lecturing and getting himself involved in symposia, but relatively less

Gadamer and Education

35

time for writing academic papers let alone book-length philosophical text (Nixon, 2017, p. 11). There is strong evidence to support the fact that Gadamer himself has explored and elucidated the applicability of philosophical hermeneutics through at least three of his works including The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays (1986), Hans-Georg Gadamer on Education, Poetry, and History (1992), and The Enigma of Health (1996). He acknowledged in one of his works that: “my work comes from my teaching”. Not only that, he claimed to “have a dialogical gift” (Gadamer, 1992, p. 6) and be “a dialogical being” and talented at “listening and replying … even to the silent voice of an audience” (Gadamer, 1992, pp. 65–66). The reason why Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is so important is that the knowledge relevant to it has rediscovered the “essence” of what true practice means in human and perhaps social sciences as well. Such rediscovery, in his own words, seeks “an epistemological self-understanding which is not based on the credence of the natural sciences” (Gadamer, 1979, p. 74), which this author regards may have enormous implications for professional development of practitioners in the fields including education that involve human as actors and agents. One insight of paramount importance to this discussion identified by Nixon is that: “Philosophy, for Gadamer, was not a subject of objective inquiry, but a pedagogical process in which each participant is both teacher and learner: an on-going, cross-generational process” (Nixon, 2017, p. 2). It is with this understanding as the background with special regard to his dialogic hermeneutics that we may start to go about figuring out what it means by the concept of “learning in practice”.

The Condition for Learning in the Light of Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics This author would like to make it clear at the outset that the meaning of learning when it is used in this book will gradually evolve as the discussion goes on, and it is anticipated that its meaning will become richer and richer in the light of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. According to Gadamer, “genuine” learning is simultaneously a process of self-understanding. It happens with not only the presence but also the recognition of the other as a person through the medium of language, thus mutual understanding also plays a crucial part in sustaining the process of genuine learning as well. It is this ethical dimension of learning that is in contrast to that which takes the object or subject matter of learning as the ultimate end of its achievement that can be controlled and manipulated.

36

3 Learning in Practice

The Role of Tradition and Pre-judgement One of the concepts characterizing Gadamer’s philosophy is his unique understanding of the ideas of tradition and prejudice with the latter coined afresh as pre-judgement to avoid it being interpreted with negative connotation. Rather, they are taken positively as resources. The significance of one’s tradition or past for Gadamer is not as that negative as what we usually think it appears to be. According to him, the knowledge of our traditional inheritance in fact empowers us on the day when we were borne to engage with the outside world without our knowing it and before we are conscious of how to make sense of its complexity. Yet, this sort of inherited capacity cannot be extended or sustained until we begin to have the impulse of engaging ourselves with the world and people around us by asking questions. Here are two concerns one may be interested in pondering further. One is about the issue of what “questioning” is like. The other is even more appealing to perhaps educators, in general, that is, the curiosity of where such impulse comes from. Let us focus on the first at this moment.

Questioning as an Ontological/Existential Necessity The possibility of turning our tradition into sources of creativity rather than having it remained as a reservoir of stagnant water, metaphorically speaking, is indebted to one’s courage or impulse to raise questions about what has been inherited on the basis that one is at the same time opening up for transformation in the process of selfunderstanding during which one’s horizon and position are always in the condition of being challenged when those of the others are also taken into consideration (Nixon, 2017, p. 3). Put it differently, one is always caught between a tradition to which he or she belongs and an undetermined future opening up for possible development. By merely attaching oneself to a tradition or past will only lead to bias and stagnation. Therefore, it is only when a tradition is enlightened with the present, which is at the same time endowed with the power of projecting the future, can the past be brought back to life in a new context. To achieve this, one has to re-examine one’s given legacy by questioning so that it can be critically studied, which leads to self-overcoming and renewal. As Castellani understands it: “Gadamer defines learning as … a maturation toward the capacity to accept or reject pregiven conditions of existence” (Castellani, 1990, p. 16). And, it is the action of the agent being situated in this “in-betweenness” that bears the hope of bringing about changes and new experiences. And this action, particularly referring to “learning in practice” in our case, is conducted in the form of questioning. Gadamer argues that understanding “begins … when something addresses us” (Gadamer, 2004, p. 298). Imagine that you were the only “person” in this universe. The notion of this “person” is bracketed since “he” or “she” finds no reference as to say whether it be qualified as a person. Such an awkward situation reminds us that we need a “mirror” to help us reflect on who we are. An isolated individual is

The Condition for Learning in the Light of Gadamer’s …

37

unable to assert its identity. Even the gender attributed to it becomes meaningless. Return back to Gadamer’s statement. The notion that we begin to understand when we are addressed by something or someone else bears with it a hidden meaning that is inspiring. The emphasis is on the fact that we only begin to understand when we are addressed. It entails that understanding is always in a process of discovering during which we can only understand partially. The determining factor that contributes to our understanding further whether it be oriented towards the “right” direction relies very much on the questions that are addressed to us. It entails the presence of the other. In the classroom setting where teachers are the ones who are entrusted to do this job cannot escape from fulfilling this role as addressors. It is with this understanding that the transmission model of teaching that takes the smoothness or “effectiveness” of delivering the subject material as the ends itself or the criterion of judging the quality of teaching should be challenged for this is obviously a teacher-centred mode without fulfilling the “mission” of enhancing mutuality or mutual recognition in the educational process which manifests itself in the form of conversation or dialogue. Gadamer regards: “The art of questioning is the art of questioning ever further – i.e., the art of thinking” (Gadamer, 1994, p. 367). For those who suffer from intensification of work, competition, and external assessment by reducing their performance into numerical terms in their teaching today, they may not be comfortable with this insight just because it has not provided a model answer informing them what needs to be done exactly within a certain time frame. They are not comfortable because “questioning further” only implies situating oneself in a tunnel without seeing any light at the end of it or even where it ends. Therefore, this author suggests this insight serves more to invite educational practitioners to have a paradigm shift in considering what learning is all about than entertaining their immediate needs. A shift in paradigm entails the need for not only leaving one’s comfort zone but also seeing the world differently. From an Aristotelian perspective, it requires a shift from the lens of episteme (the scientific mode of thinking) and techne (focusing on techniques) towards that of the phronesis (the actualization of moral virtues through deliberation) and yet without abandoning the former two when they are appropriated for “good” use reflectively. Phronesis is prioritized since it is the knowledge of what is good. And more importantly with special regard to the mode of teaching, it promotes the quality of deliberation on what is good in an overall way (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 303). Without teachers’ leadership in initiating this sort of deliberation, this aspect of students’ learning becomes unsustainable.

The Primacy of Interpretation and Its Ethical Basis for the Impulse of Questioning Deliberation is mostly enhanced in the form of questioning. That being said it would achieve nothing without interpretation. For Gadamer, we are all ontologically interpretive animals. There will be no learning without interpretation, and the impulse for

38

3 Learning in Practice

driving us to interpret is ultimately for the sake of understanding and to be more exact self-understanding. However, as Grondin regards, “understanding can only be tentative. It is an attempt on my part to come to grips with what needs to be understood, but which can never be absolutely final” (Grondin, 2002, p. 43). While prejudices and pre-judgements are conditions of understanding, they are always “subject to revision when confronted with more convincing evidence and interpretations” (Grondin, 2002, p. 44). Contributing to the complexity of this learning condition is the view that “coming-to-understanding” implies not only that there is something to be understood but also that the exhaustiveness of that which to be understood is better facilitated with the presence of another person as an interlocutor or dialogic partner. According to Gadamer, it is through questioning in the form of dialogue that we are challenged to understand our selves even better. Meanwhile, our counterparts are also given a chance to examine their selves deeper. Therefore, not only self-understanding but also mutual understanding can simultaneously be accomplished, which is the result of another widely known and appropriated concept of Gadamer, i.e. “fusion of horizons” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 273). And this “fusion” cannot be achieved without the act of interpretation and to be more exact, the condition of mutuality for interpretation. In sum, as mutual understanding and recognition are what makes life meaningful in Gadamer, which should be what education is all about, and it cannot be accomplished without the act of interpretation, we may tentatively conclude that the prerequisite for any learning to happen is the recognition that we are always in a process of knowing the world and the people around us partially, which requires us to exercise our interpretive power given that we are not always situated in the same position. Therefore, the demand for interpretation is always a hermeneutic process without end. That being said Gadamer’s unique interpretation of the meaning of the word “interpretation”, which has to be understood together with another two terms including “understanding” and “application” in particular, deserves our attention. Gadamer said in an interview: “The hermeneutic process involves not only the moments of understanding and of interpretation but also the moment of application; that is to say, understanding oneself is a part of this process” (Gadamer, 2001, p. 37). According to Gadamer, the separation of these three concepts is only an abstraction. The three moments are in fact inextricably intertwined. As Hoy understands it: “Just as understanding is always interpretation, similarly, understanding is always already application”. Therefore, “application is [also] an integral part of all understanding” (Hoy, 1978, p. 53). That is why as Nixon puts it: “application is never an add-on to that which has already been understood” (Nixon, 2017, p. 53), a view that requires a paradigm shift in re-conceiving the nature of knowledge relevant to both human and social sciences, the traditional understanding of which assumes the necessity of a split between theory and practice. This shift provides an alternative way of showing how “quality” and genuine learning conceived as “learning in practice” can be generated in relation to these three moments of the hermeneutical process. This is where we now turn to examine each one of them.

The Three Moments of the Hermeneutic Process

39

The Three Moments of the Hermeneutic Process Self-understanding is at the very centre of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. It is about the activity of interpretation, through which the “self” undergoes a process of configuration and reconfiguration in virtue of the assumption that it is never a project expected to be completed. So long as one goes on living, the “self” is always in a state of change and growth if you like. In addition, as Warnke explains: “Understanding for Gadamer is primarily coming to an understanding with others” (Warnke, 1987, p. 4). Therefore, self-understanding is simultaneously the understanding of another person’s point of view which serves as a mirror informing how the “self” is understood and perceived. Hence, an ethical sense of knowing is relational in nature. It is in this situation that the “self” can be evaluated and potentialities disclosed within the dynamics between the “self” and the coexisting other, which demands the “self” to shift his or her position where mutual understanding can be facilitated and yet this understanding can never be final but temporal since, in Gadamer’s terminology, the “horizons” of both parties always get renewed as time and context change. Therefore, they are inexhaustible and inevitably always in the process of becoming. This notion of understanding would initiate considerable challenges to those who still find no problem with “banking education” that encourages accumulation, memorization, and transmission of information. Some explanations concerning the close relationship between the concepts of understanding, interpretation, and application would shed light on why this is the case. The following statement captures the main ideas informing us what understanding is all about in Gadamer when he suggests: “[I]n understanding, a ‘subject’ does not stand over against an ‘object’ or a world of objects. Rather something plays back and forth between the human beings and that which he or she encounters in the world” (Gadamer, 2001, p. 49). The peculiarity of this insight differs dramatically from the traditional perception that knowing is a one-sided activity assuming that the knower is merely a spectator while the object to be known is something that can be thoroughly mapped out. What such a view has missed is the fact that we all understand from a certain position. When we shift our position, we understand differently and a different dimension of that object to be known would also be revealed to the spectator. Another aspect of it provided by Gadamer about twenty-five years earlier would supplement this explanation, which goes: “To understand … is a kind of happening” (Gadamer, 1976, p. 29), which entails the concept of agency in that as Hoy succinctly explains it “is not a mere repetition of the past but participates in present meaning” (Hoy, 1978, p. 52). It denotes the possibility of the emergence of the new excited by a context with its own particularities for the agent, and the very reason why understanding is an ongoing process without end. Positively put, the process involved with special regard to the notion that understanding is always understanding further conditioned by the ever-refreshed relational web between the parts and the whole of that situation would logically and incessantly generate unprecedented and adventurous experience. A metaphor which vividly exemplifies the feature of understanding in Gadamer is captured by Kögler, who opines that “the fundamental thesis of Gadamer’s account

40

3 Learning in Practice

is that understanding should be conceived as an event of play” (Kögler, 1999, p. 19). As an event, something is expected to happen. Contributing to this happening are the players. Gadamer’s understanding of the role these players play in relation to the play is insightful. He says: “The players are not the subjects of play; instead play merely reaches presentation through the players” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 92). Quite different from the ordinary perception that the players play the play, Gadamer suggests that it is the play that plays the players, who are just the media through which the essence and creative potentialities hidden in the design of the play are presented. In other words, the player cannot stand outside the play and pretend that he or she can control the process generated by the interactive dynamics produced by the rules and regulations governing the play and the relatively free agents who participate and are absorbed in the play. As Barthold aptly puts, “play is not played by a subject but rather absorbs the player into itself” (Barthold, 2020). That the player is absorbed into the play when playing indicates that the former has to always shift in his or her positioning in order to make sense of the interconnectedness of the relevant parties who are also shifting in their position of seeing things and involved in constituting that relational web. In such a condition, ethical sensibility becomes a niche to advance understanding, and this power of sense-making cannot be cultivated without the practice of interpretation and application.

The Understanding Moment According to Gadamer, understanding happens only when we are willing to listen to one another (Gadamer, 2001, p. 39). The reason for doing so is the assumption that we always understand within a certain, given context where meaning whatever it may be is already there. Therefore, in order to understand, one has to listen with the expectation that a yet to be known territory or meaningful structure is there to be explored. However, what drives one to listen is not only the recognition that there is an object to be known, but the excitement of knowing or understanding the essence of which involves a process of sense-making, i.e. interpretation. The reason why it is excited is because this whole process requires the knower to travel back and forth, in and out of a context within which that object is constituted. By doing so, a more coherent meaningful structure of that object can be obtained gradually as a result of the assumption that one’s worldview, an already invested horizon constituted by the history or tradition to which he or she belongs, is simultaneously activated to accommodate new insights or challenges in an open manner. It is within such condition that interpretation is called into play. Alejandro’s understanding has added more “fuel” to this excitement when he opines that interpretation is a moment involving a fourfold dialogue that includes the others, one’s past, the institutional or traditional beliefs, and one’s self at the same time (Alejandro, 1993, p. 0.76) though we may not recognize this interpreting activity actively operating underneath the consciousness. That being said how dialogue can be activated remains a question. By the same token, we may not exactly know how interpretation happens. Perhaps,

The Three Moments of the Hermeneutic Process

41

this may not be an appropriate way of posting the question if this “how” is expecting an answer implying an instructional step-by-step procedure, which is in essence contradictory to the nature of dialogue and interpretation, expecting that deep genuine creative learning follows. Gadamer provides an alternative way of probing into this issue.

The Interpretation Moment The most well-known, if not distinctive, concept proposed by Gadamer is “tradition”, which is assigned relatively speaking a positive tone in that he expresses it is only through our traditions “that we have a horizon at all and are able to encounter something that broadens our horizon” (Gadamer, 2001, p. 43). That being said a warning that follows reminds us that traditions can be prejudicial when he explains: “Anyone who simply appeals to prejudices, is not someone you can talk with. Indeed, a person who is not ready to put his or her own prejudices in question is also someone to whom there is no point in talking” (Gadamer, 2001, p. 44). Therefore, traditions can be empowering and constraining at the same time. In view of this, the term pre-judgement in place of prejudice is used to deliberately play down the traditional adverse connotation associated with the latter. However, the possibility of releasing the empowering effect of the former relies to a large degree on one’s initiation to reflect on those pre-judgements at the moment when one is encountered by contextual changes. By reflection, it entails not only the passion for questioning further but more importantly the habituation of an ongoing interpretive practice where, in Gadamer’s terminology, fusion of horizons that involves the mediation of the four dimensions indicated by Alejandro manifests itself in the form of a hermeneutical circle or spiral for some. According to Gadamer, understanding in the form of a hermeneutical circle is always temporal. That is why interpretation, the inevitable act of promoting understanding, is not a tool for achieving some other ends, but in the end itself, a practice where the outcome unfolds itself in the process of interpretation. This is also the moment where the notion of application comes in.

The Application Moment Two moments of the hermeneutic process have been briefly described above. The central idea can be summarized in this way: understanding is conditioned by its “situatedness” in that the one who intends to understand is required to shift his or her position by putting the other people’s shoes on. According to Gadamer, this is why understanding also implies self- and mutual understanding at the same time since those involved in the process would bring with them their historical horizons and have them checked against with those of his or her counterparts in the process of understanding during which the act of interpretation is inevitable. In virtue of this,

42

3 Learning in Practice

questioning further is considered more an active form of participation and learning than a gesture of scepticism with negative connotations. It is with this understanding that the notion of application can be made sense of more easily. It may not be easy for some to understand because they are conditioned to conceptualize the term as what Hoy has indicated in the sense of “applied science – applying concepts and theories to a practical situation” (Hoy, 1978, p. 54). Rather than seeing the concept of application as “one of fitting preconceived notions to a situation”, a view held by traditional epistemology, Hoy suggests it be understood as the capacity “of seeing in the situation what is happening and, most important, what is to be done” (Hoy, 1978, p. 54). When this kind of practice is habituated, the experiential knowledge accumulated will turn into practical knowledge or phronesis to facilitate our decision-making in a wise and well-informed manner even in new context. It is pointed out by Gadamer himself that: “In all understanding an application occurs, such that the person who is understanding is himself or herself right there in the understood meaning. He or she belongs to the subject matter that he or she is understanding” (Gadamer, 2001, p. 47). This condition of understanding where the knower himself is positioned as “the understood meaning” reminds us that we can only understand partially from a certain perspective. It is only through dialogue and the act of questioning further we gradually come up with a more holistic picture of what is to be understood by incorporating those perspectives of others. The idea of application here denotes the habit of revising one’s judgement and situatedness once new insights emerge. And this revision is, from Bauman’s perspective, “an endless recapitulation and reassessment of [our] collective memories” (Bauman, 1978, p. 17), which is a generic task always carried out, according to Gadamer, “between strangeness and familiarity, between the mere objectivity of what has been handed down to us and the fact of our belonging to that heritage” (Gadamer, 2001, p. 47). As this task is considered performing simultaneously with understanding and interpretation, which are inextricably intertwined, “[t]his kind of application can never be taken away”, Gadamer insists (Gadamer, 2001, p. 47). Recognizing that the moment of application is not something added on, but in fact an activity that happens simultaneously while interpretation and understanding are performing their task is enlightening as far as learning is concerned. The implications are twofold. It implies, firstly, that the agent involved has to be always situated in a state of being required to develop his or her discerning and attuning power by moving back and forth, to and fro between the whole and the parts that constitute this whole with the aspiration of trying to figure out the structural meaning of that meaningful structure in terms of its coherence and possible truth with special regard to its consistence. Secondly, it entails that the context within which the agent is required to “apply”, i.e. checking what is familiar to the agent and those yet to be known, is always new. As a result, the experience accumulated through this always new moment of application that demands the need for interpretation and reinterpretation will be transformed into certain patterns of knowledge which are practical in nature. In short, this is what many scholars following Aristotle call practical knowledge or wisdom, or in Greek, phronesis, which “is something that develops through

The Three Moments of the Hermeneutic Process

43

experience” (Kemmis, 2012, p. 147). Different from mathematics (a feature of episteme), the knowledge associated with which is universal and constant in nature, Aristotle explains, phronesis, i.e. “practical wisdom […] is concerned with the ultimate particular” (Aristotle, 1980, 148), which can only be made known from experience.

Interim Reflection Perhaps, Charles Taylor’s differentiation between the model of “coming-to-anunderstanding” and that of “knowledge-of-object” may help explain precisely the main point that this author has tried to make in the above elucidation. By the latter is meant, according to Taylor, a perspective pertaining to the nature of the knowledge of the world, the attainment of which can reach “some finally adequate explanatory language” with the capacity to “make sense of the object”, and therefore “all future surprises” (Taylor, 2002, p. 127) will be excluded. Underpinning this sort of worldview is the assumption that knowledge of this world can be exhaustible and obtained in a detached manner. By contrast, the “coming-to-an-understanding” model refers to a different kind of knowledge, which is temporal, unpredictable, and dependent on contextual particularities. It implies changes that demand ongoing revisions. The major implication for education and learning in particular is that the former tends to conceive the learning process as something that can be technically fixed so long as the knowledge concerned can be exhausted and the rest is just a matter of assembling, de-assembling, and reassembling. The value attached to it is the outcome of reproduction in a mass scale. This sort of what we generally called the scientific managerial mentality has become a doctrine at all levels of the education system governing its operation including lifelong learning (Brown, 2002) under the flag of a “utopian” model of “quality” assurance mechanism in the name of accountability in the service of economism (Ball, 1999, pp. 199–200). According to Jarvis, this is a phenomenon global in nature (Jarvis, 2000, p. 343). As for Hogan, this is “a new uniformity of belief and outlook” furnishing “the context for most educational policy-making in European countries”. What worries him seems to be that they are “mercenary rather than spiritual” (Hogan, 1998, p. 361), the anticipative consequence of which would be, added Hogan: “virtue-bearing traditions of learning have become effectively eclipsed” and “education becomes important chiefly as a sub-system of a larger socioeconomic system, with supra-national as well as national goals” (Hogan, 1998, p. 368). As a subsystem, its autonomy would be under siege and a prescriptive paradigm of learning would hold sway operated under a policy panopticon (Ball, 1999, p. 201) to secure predetermined goals and pre-specified indicators by technical means. This concern is also shared by Ainley when he expresses: “the state’s learning policy aims in essence at social control” (Ainley, 1999, p. 3). It is logical to surmise that such a condition would cut down our imagination and surprises into minimal without the awareness that dynamics emerging out of the process are where understanding/genuine learning claims its place. In short, this kind of an approach has satisfied the “knowledge-of-object”

44

3 Learning in Practice

model but not the one of the “coming-to-understanding”. It is the latter which truly reflects the condition of being human, one that could be depicted with the following two insights: one offered by Sidorkin, who regards: “To experience what it means to be human, one needs to engage in dialogical relations” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 4) and the other Don McEachern, who opines that “‘trying to understand’ is an affirmation of our questioning nature, the primal recognition that we are learning beings” (McEachern, 1984, p. 285).

Learning in Practice The mode of learning inspired by Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is compatible to Taylor’s “coming-to-an-understanding” model in general in that they share the same epistemological ground that can be more explicable through the lens of phronesis rather than that of techne and episteme. The reinvention of practical knowledge (phronesis) has made some practitioners feel excited on the one hand in virtue of the fact that new insights generated from it have provided new grounds for understanding their practice afresh while on the other tensions inevitably emerge when the current mode of understanding is regarded as being out of touch if not necessarily replaced. Relevant to the discussion of this chapter most is its impact on how learning in practice, the maturation of which can only be attained through experience and time, should be conceived from the perspective of both a student and a teacher. Aristotle regards, “a young man has no experience, for it is length of time that gives experience” (Aristotle, 1980, p. 148). This makes Dunne raise the question of “what kind of teaching is appropriate to the cultivation of phronesis” (Dunne, 1999, p. 57). Since one of the features of phronesis is “deliberative excellence”, which can only be “tasted” and acquired through time, the role of teachers become crucial. In the current educational context, the presence of a teacher as an interlocutor and exemplar for showing to the students what it is like to become “deliberative” through action rather than one-sided lecturing becomes critical. However, this sort of a state of what Kemmis and like-minded scholars who are with Aristotle term “in practice” or praxis, that is, “in the sites where people act and interact with one another”, is regarded as “not something that can be taught”. Under such circumstance, we are advised “to dislodge us from the notions that the world is within our control and that we can be adequately prepared for every eventuality” (Kemmis, 2012, p. 148). If we follow Aristotle, the insight of Wilfred Carr and Philip W. Jackson may provide some principles as guidance. The formers can be found in his work “What is an educational practice?” (1987) while that of the latter “Education as a moral enterprise” (2012).

Learning in Practice

45

Education: A Moral Enterprise and Its Implications for Learning According to Jackson, the moral nature of education manifests itself through two aspects within an educational setting: one is “mutual recognition” and the other cultivation of “personhood”. The two is closely intertwined. As Jackson regards, “humans are not born as persons. They become persons as they develop. They do so, moreover, largely as a result of how others treat them” (Jackson, 2012, p. 85). The highlight is on the treatment these “others” offer, the quality of which would determine the way how the personhood of this person develops. That being said Jackson seems to be quite disappointed in seeing that this “truth” “is seldom at the forefront of our thinking” (Jackson, 2012, p. 85). By pointing out the distinction between “being a good student” and “being a good person”, he seems to have invited us and perhaps the teachers in particular to reflect on the entrenched bias towards teaching, which is more about giving information than forming characters and dispositions. On this basis, he further differs what he coins “the mimetic” tradition of teaching from that of “the formative”. Whereas the former “gives a central place to the transmission of factual and procedural knowledge from one person to another”, the latter seeks to accomplish “a transformation of one kind or another in the person being taught – a qualitative change …, a metamorphosis”, which entails a change in “traits of character and of personality most highly prized by the society at large” (Jackson, 2012, p. 87). Recalling his own experience as a student, Jackson sees that the mark left by the textbooks is something “not to be personally indelible” (Jackson, 2012, p. 89). On the contrary, those teachers whom he wanted to identify with had had great influence over him and the impulse for initiating this identification is when he felt that the kind of relationship that they had established was reciprocal in the form of “mutual recognition”. In Jackson’s sharing, without doubt, the role of his teachers in forming his character and passion for education is highlighted. But, the chief protagonist is the student. His reflection on the lifelong influence over him and his life by his teachers does have a hidden agenda, i.e. drawing our attention towards the kind of condition necessary for nurturing a student’s character with positive effect. This is evidenced when a sign that read: “Large Enough to Serve You; Small Enough to Know You”, shown at the entrance of a college campus, attracted his attention (Jackson, 2012, p. 84). By “large enough”, it was interpreted as “having adequate physical facilities”, which is “rich enough to offer … choices and opportunities to all who attend”. And by “small enough”, it was understood as a “moral promise” that “students will not be allowed to fall through the cracks. They will not become lost in the crowd” (Jackson, 2012, p. 90). He further adds that this moral promise entails that “none of its students will remain completely unknown personally” (Jackson, 2012, p. 90). For Jackson, all these boils down to one thing, i.e. “mutual recognition between persons” (Jackson, 2012, p. 90). To Jackson, this is the kind of “ideal conditions” sustained by, in his own words, “the emotion of love in one or another of its many forms” that “touches

46

3 Learning in Practice

upon on all the components of our educational experience” (Jackson, 2012, p. 91). The implication of this concluding remark is twofold: first, the priority of what is considered to be pivotal, i.e. mutual recognition, is set; and second, it is only when this goal is satisfied will other educational components and their relevant practices be invested with meaning that contributes to their integration instead of separation. The author of this book finds this judgement of what needs to be prioritized particularly appealing when the motivation of our students’ learning is predominated by the concern of how immediate their vocational aspiration can be met in money terms and the way it is satisfied relies very much on how specific the kind of “professional” knowledge they have to prepare for their survival, which as a result contributes to intensifying the compartmentalization of knowledge. The consequence would become the opposite of what Bellah et al. have proposed for the purpose of education, i.e. leading an “integrated purpose of life” (Bellah et al., 1992, Chap. 5). The way to achieve this end for Jackson is the cultivation of passion for the love of life through mutual recognition, the initial step where the impulse of relating conducive to understanding, and thus learning in practice is activated. The implications for the notion that practice is more of “an ethical activity” (Carr, 1987, p. 166) than a technical exercise are enormous. Wilfred Carr’s account of the features of educational practice can be of helpful as a departure for this understanding.

Educational Practice: Implications for Learning When Carr published his article in 1987, he observed there had not been a comprehensive study of the notion of practice, and the understanding of the term was just “the end-product of an historical process through which an older, more comprehensive and more coherent concept has been gradually transformed and changed” (Carr, 1987, p. 163). More than thirty years later, in the context of medical ethics, Kristjansson (2015) opined that “[p]ronesis has become a buzzword” and its use “conceals a number of significant conceptual controversies” though “a remarkable revival” in exploring this term was identified (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 299). In Hong Kong, never has this author come across any occasion in the educational sector that touches upon this term except once in a seminar held at a university and the speaker was not an educator. For some, it may be due to the “elusiveness” of the nature of knowledge this term offers. According to this author’s observation, it is fairer to see this phenomenon as not a communication problem, but as both Carr and Kristjansson would agree, a matter of epistemological difference in determining what counts as knowledge. It is not in the capacity of this author to dive deep into this debate. For the purpose of facilitating the discussion in this book, knowing why our present conception of educational practice is incoherent in the light of Carr’s elucidation and on the basis of which, in Carr’s own words, “a more satisfactory understanding of why it is that education is understood as a practice at all” (Carr, 1987, p. 164) is good enough in the capacity of this chapter. This is where we now turn.

Learning in Practice

47

The most ordinary way of conceptualizing practice is its being positioned at the opposite side of theory. As Carr puts it, “‘practice’ is everything that ‘theory’ is not” (Carr, 1987, p. 164). On this view, “theory” is invested with the notion that things which are universal and contextual independent fall into its scope of concern, whereas practice is context dependent and its interest is in particularities that require immediate action in a specific situation at a specific time to get the problem solved. The weakness of this opposing view, according to Carr, leans towards ignoring any alternative outcomes resulting from the dynamics emerging out of the possible dialogue between the two, a view which sees that “all practice … is ‘theory-laden’”, which entails that “‘practice’ … is itself governed by an implicit theoretical framework which structures and guides the activities of those engaged in practical pursuits” (Carr, 1987, p. 165). This view holds that though the two are not opposite, but still practice is theory-guided. The main problem for this understanding as it is identified by Carr is: “it does not adequately recognize that educational practice is never guided by theory alone” (Carr, 1987, p. 165). In other words, the capability of making judgement and taking “hot action” (Beckett, 2001) in Beckett’s terminology as a quality trait required of the practitioner in response to the immediate needs of a particular situation will not be considered necessary. An alternative to this theory-guided version of practice is just its opposite, i.e. practice itself owns its autonomy. This view asserts that the moment of knowing how (i.e. practice) always precedes that of knowing that (i.e. theory). The postulation that “theorizing is itself a form of practice” suggested by Ryle (Carr, 1987, p. 165) gives fuel to the debate in an even more radical fashion. Before Carr provides his understanding of what “educational practice” is or entails, we are reminded by him that: (1) the activity of educational practice is ethical by nature, which is “undertaken in pursuit of educationally worthwhile ends”; and (2) without the light of educational principles, “it is never sufficient” to explain what it actually means by engaging oneself in educational practice” (Carr, 1987, p. 166) since as it is explained by Carr that “the educational character of any practice can only be made intelligible by reference to an ethical disposition to proceed according to some more or less tacit understanding of what it is to act educationally” (Carr, 1987, p. 166). This may help remind the readers what this author has advocated at the beginning chapter that professional teachers need to engage themselves with major stakeholders who constitute the “contextual modifying factors” in shaping educational goals. However, without being informed by any “philosophical determinants” serving to illuminate the notion of “ethical disposition”, we cannot expect the teachers to have the confidence to perform the task constructively. Carr’s position becomes clear at this point. While he admitted that all three positions concerning the relationship between theory and practice have indeed provided necessary features shedding light on what it means by educational practice, each one of them alone is not sufficient to provide a complete analysis. This incompletion can possibly be recovered as Carr suggests “by having a historical understanding of how the notion of practice has been discursively constructed in the past” (Carr, 1987, p. 168). Inquiring further into this discursive reconstruction may not benefit this study very much. Instead, this author follows Carr’s suggestion by returning to Aristotle, whose concept of practice

48

3 Learning in Practice

“has been discarded in our own modern times” (Carr, 1987, p. 168). This is where we now turn to go after Carr to rediscover this classical concept of “practice”. Carr says, “‘practice’ [in its classical context] referred to a distinctive way of life … a life devoted to right living through the pursuit of the human good”, which was distinguished from “a life devoted to … the contemplative way of life … in terms both of its end and the means of pursuing this end” (Carr, 1987, p. 168). These two ways of life as we understand them today are characterized by action, doing, and “knowing how” in the former and knowledge, thinking, and “knowing that” in the latter. However, in the classical context, its distinction merely represents “a way of articulating two different forms of socially-embedded human activities each with its own intellectual commitments and its own moral demands” (Carr, 1987, p. 169). What concerns this author most for now is how these two different forms of activities manifest themselves differently in the way how their ends are conceptualized in relation to their means. This concern is closely attached to a problem identified by Carr, which is about the need “of clarifying the forms of knowledge and rationality appropriate to practical thought and action” (Carr, 1987, p. 169). In short, it is about the appropriate epistemological presuppositions being used to guide the corresponding forms of activity. Instead of having us caught in the horizon dictated by this binary situation, Carr compares two concepts to help us understand what it means by the term practice. One is praxis and the other poiesis. They are two forms of action, where the former is about “doing”, the latter “making”. The major difference is that making is the kind of action that would “bring some specific product or artifact in to existence” (Carr, 1987, p. 169). It implies that the end product to a certain extent can be preconceived in advance. Despite the fact that praxis is also a form of action “directed towards the achievement of some end”, the realization of which can only be achieved through the process of doing it. In other words, the ends or outcomes unfold itself through action, which cannot be specified in advance. Furthermore, it involves in Carr’s own words “some morally worthwhile ‘good’” (Carr, 1987, p. 169). In short, the nature of “making” is about producing, which involves technical expertise while that of “doing” is not, but has to do with “discernment of the ‘good’” (Carr, 1987, p. 169) that involves humans as subjects, the ultimate concern of which is whether the action is morally justifiable. With this understanding in mind, Carr regards the nature of educational practice is guided by praxis rather than poiesis though the latter is also indispensable. It is only that its achievement should not outweigh that of the praxis. This understanding is of paramount importance in terms of priority in view of the fact that schools have been entrusted with a variety of educational goals. Without what Bellah et al. calls “the counterbalance of integrating purpose” (1992, p. 270) with moral good as the guiding principle, all these goals would constitute a fractured world and consequently they would become burdensome. This is the reason why I find Kristjan Kristjansson’s “integrated phronesis” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 314) inspiring, which is considered by some the “ideal” of all practising professions in fields that involve humans as agents including education. One important point Carr, who is with Gadamer, makes in relation to the concept of “learning in practice” is that “the ends of practice cannot be determined” in advance

Learning in Practice

49

because practice itself entails that the practitioner is being thrown into a given time and space where there is already an “inherited and largely unarticulated body of practical knowledge” and it “can only be made intelligible” by not just reproducing it, but going through a process of reinterpretation in a constant manner and revision “through dialogue and discussion about how to pursue the practical goods which constitute the tradition” (Carr, 1987, pp. 169–70). This process of what Carr coins “critical reconstruction”, allow me to add, is inevitably conducted from the standpoint of the present, and its significance relies very much on the extent to which one is able to make sense of it in his or her current situation so that connections can be identified, recreated meaningfully, and horizons transcended. The knowledge generated from this level of reflective awareness through arguments in a critical manner resulting in transcending our horizon is also considered by Carr a “scientific” way of understanding, which is different from that of the productive and the theoretical, only that it “is itself always particular and has to take account of the changing conditions under which it has to operate” (Carr, 1987, p. 170). Under such condition, deliberative reasoning is required and the power of judgement and discernment in face of competing values is what really matters, one of the features differing it from technical reasoning, which takes “effectiveness” as the yardstick for measuring the quality of excellence. In short, doing is about “what ought to be done” rather than “how to do something” (Carr, 1987, p. 171). Carr further explains, for someone “who lacks phronesis may be technically accountable, but he can never be morally answerable” (Carr, 1987, p. 172). Carr’s concluding remark is worth taking, always a reminder alongside the discussion of this book. He has drawn our concern to the matter of whether we recognize the “distinctions between different kinds of action (poiesis and praxis, ethically-enlightened action and technically effective action), and the forms of knowledge appropriate to them (techne and phronesis, technical knowledge and practical knowledge)” (Carr, 1987, p. 172). The one who does is called by Aristotle a phronimos, someone who, in Kristjansson’s own words, “possesses the wisdom to adjudicate the relative weight of different virtues in conflict situations and to reach a measured verdict about what to feel and do” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 302). In the discourse of professional ethics, phronimos has caught the attention of scholars with regard to the possibility of its becoming an ideal reference for all practitioners, whose practice in the workplace should correspondingly be the legitimate locale of knowledge emergence. Relevant to the discussion is another concern about whether ideals are realizable (De Ruyter, 2003; Heyting, 2004; Kristjansson, 2015). This author follows this line of thought and suggest that educational practitioners are by nature invested with at least an “ideal” in whatever form it may appear to be so long as it is guided by what is considered to be “good”, the right means towards achieving it, and the principle of transparency by subjecting this “good” and “right” to open deliberation. In the context of this book, for example, Bellah et al.’s vision that “all institutions are educative” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 16) has been selected as the ideal condition towards which the discussion is launched while bearing David Hansen’s “ideal-in-practice” (Hansen, 2001, p. 164) in mind that such an ideal can be realizable but not in a productive (or making) and reproducible, but rather in doing or

50

3 Learning in Practice

in Aristotelian terminology phronetic sense, i.e. ideal as an signpost, the realization of which is a process of unfolding. Its outcomes could be various, each of which can only be justified according to its particular contextual uniqueness.

Conclusion To conclude, this chapter has reinstated what it means by “learning” from an ethical perspective in the light of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. This author proposes that learning be considered a form of practice, the ultimate aim of which is self- and mutual understanding. This outcome cannot be realized by technical means with the assumption that it can be prescribed in advance through manipulation. Rather, its realization is an unfolding process, whereby the participant has to get him/herself immersed in a situation where the other’s presence and worldview need to be taken into consideration. Informed by Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics, the genuineness of learning is reinstated by arguing that learning without going through the three moments including interpretation, understanding, and application that contribute to self-understanding and mutual understanding as well in a Gadamerian sense is not learning per se. The three moments of understanding are the basic features of what deliberation is all about and explaining why the cultivation of deliberative capability is important in education given that the latter is a moral enterprise (Jackson, 2012) and the “trunk” of a society in Bellah et al.’s sense that “all institutions are educative”. This normative claim supports the “learning in practice” initiative as it is proposed in this book at two levels: (1) the deliberation of what is considered “good” and the “right” thing to do for any individual and the society as a whole is fundamental; and (2) the concept of “integrative phronimos” as an ideal suggested by Kristjansson could become tentatively the kind of students we may want to nurture for the future. The implication of these normative claims for future teacher education should not be neglected as teachers are exemplars both in attitude and action in setting an ideal condition for students’ learning. In this and the previous chapter, I have laid out an analytical framework in the light of Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge. The notion of practice is highlighted with particular reference to phronesis, the qualities generated out of which are expected to provide some indications for tomorrow’s educational leadership. Nevertheless, it is argued that the unique nature of phronesis requires a paradigm shift in understanding how things work particularly in the realm of ethics and politics. When it is applied to education, the concept of “learning in practice” is proposed in the light of Gadamer’s philosophy of language and learning. On this basis, a review of Hong Kong’s societal condition and education reform for the past two decades or so will be provided in the following part, the familiarization of which helps evaluate the extent to which this book’s proposal could address the plight Hong Kong’s education is facing on the one hand, and Hui’s judgement that Hong Kong’s education is characterized by “thoughtlessness” (2015) is tenable on the other. The discussion will be conducted

Conclusion

51

in a dialectical manner between the ideological construct governing the implementation of policy and the corresponding style of practice such ideology may engender. Expectedly, the findings would support the idea that transformation of education could only be made possible in practice, which further entails that we need to find ways to develop the wisdom of teachers. To start with, a case study which constitutes the content of the next chapter will be conducted first in the light of the analytical framework that has just been developed, the purpose of which is to review the major concepts developed so far with concrete learning context and examples to be used in the discussion of this book.

References Ainley, P. (1999). Learning policy: Towards the certified society. Macmillan Press; New York: St. Martin’s Press. Aristotle. (1980). The Nicomachean Ethics. (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford University Press. Alejandro, R. (1993). Hermeneutics, citizenship, and the public sphere. State University of New York Press. Ball, S. (1999). Labour, learning and the economy: A ‘policy sociology’ perspective. Cambridge Journal of Education, 29(2), 195–206. Barthold, L. S. (2020). Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002) Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/gadamer/#SH3a Bauman, Z. (1978). Hermeneutics and social science: Approaches to understanding. Hutchinson. Bellah, N. R., Madsen, R., Tipton, S. M., Sullian, W. M. & Swidler, A. (1992). The good society. New York: Vintage Books. Biesta, G. (2019). Should teaching be (re)discovered? Introduction to a Symposium. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 38, 549–553. Brown, K. (2002). The Right to Learn: Alternatives for a learning society. London and New York: Routledge/Falmer. Carr, W. (1987). What is an educational practice? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 21(2), 163–175. Castellani, L. N. (1990). The hermeneutical relation of self-cultivation of self-transcendence and its determination of the nature of learning in the philosophy of Hans-Georg Gadamer. UMI Dissertation Information Service. De Ruyter, D. (2003). The importance of ideals in education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37(3), 467–482. Dunne, J. (1999). Virtue, phronesis and learning. In D. Carr & J. Steutel (Eds.), Virtue ethics and moral education (pp. 49–63). Routledge. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Ed. & Trans.). Sheed & Ward. Gadamer, H.-G. (1976). Philosophical hermeneutics (D. E. Linge, Ed. & Trans.). University of California Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1979). Practical philosophy as a model of the human sciences. Research in Phenomenology, 9, 74–85. Gadamer, H.-G. (1986). The relevance of the beautiful and other essays. (N. Walker, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1992). Hans-Georg Gadamer on education, poetry, and history: Applied hermeneutics. (D. Misgeld & G. Nicholson, Eds.; L. Schmidt & M. Reuss, Trans.). State University of New York Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1994). Truth and method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum.

52

3 Learning in Practice

Gadamer, H.-G. (1996). The Enigma of health: The art of healing in a scientific age. (J. Gaiger & N. Walker, Trans.). Polity Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (2001). Gadamer in conversation: Reflections and commentary. (R. E. Palmer, Ed. & Trans.). Yale University Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (2004) Truth and method (2nd ed.). (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum. Grondin, J. (2002). Gadamer’s basic understanding of understanding. In R. J. Dostal (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Gadamer (pp. 36–51). The Cambridge University Press. Hansen, D. T. (2001). Exploring the moral heart of teaching: Toward a teacher’s creed. Teachers College Press. Heyting, F. (2004). Beware of ideals in education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38(2), 241–247. Hogan, P. (1998). Europe and the world of learning: Orthodoxy and aspiration in the wake of modernity. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 32(3), 361–376. Hong Kong. Hong Kong Government (HKGov.). (1974). Green paper: The development of secondary education in Hong Kong over the next decade. Government Printer. Hoy, D. C. (1978). The critical circle: Literature, history, and philosophical hermeneutics. University of California Press. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The absence of thought in learning: Hong Kong education in light of cultural studies]. Oxford University Press. Jackson, P. W. (2012). What is education? University of Chicago Press. Jardine, D. W. (1992). Reflections on education, hermeneutics, and ambiguity: Hermeneutics as a restoring of life to its original difficulty. In W. Pinar & W. Reynolds (Eds.), Understanding curriculum as phenomenological and deconstructed text (pp. 116–127). Teachers College Press. Jarvis, P. (2000). Globalization, the learning society and comparative education. Comparative Education, 36(3), 343–355. Kemmis, S. (2012). Phronesis, experience, and the primacy of praxis. In E. A. Kinsella & A. Pitman (Eds.), Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions (pp. 147–161). Sense Publishers. Kögler, H. H. (1999). The power of dialogue: Critical hermeneutics after Gadamer and Foucault. (P. Hendrickson, Trans.). MIT Press. Kristjansson, K. (2015). Phronesis as an ideal in professional ethics: Some preliminary positions and problematics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 36, 299–320. Law, F. (2002). Speech by permanent secretary for education and manpower. Education and manpower bureau. https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200211/01/1101239.htm, November 1, 2002. McEachern, D. (1984). On the phenomenology of writing. Phenomenology and Pedagogy, 2(3), 276–286. Nixon, J. (2017). Hans-Georg Gadamer: The hermeneutical imagination. Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer. Schuckman, P. (1979). Aristotle’s phronesis and Gadamer’s hermeneutics. Philosophy Today, 23(1), 41–50. Sidorkin, A. M. (1999). Beyond discourse: Education, the self, and dialogue. State University of New York Press. Taylor, C. (2002). Gadamer on the human sciences. In R. J. Dostal (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Gadamer (pp. 136–142). The Cambridge University Press. Tsui, A. B. M., Shum, M. S. K., Wong, C. K., Tse, S. K., & Ki, W. W. (1999). Which agenda? Medium of instruction policy in post-1997 Hong Kong. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 12(3), 196–214. Warnke, G. (1987). Gadamer: Hermeneutics, tradition, and reason. Stanford University Press.

Chapter 4

Cultivating a Whole Person

Introduction In this chapter, a documentary video with the title Educating a whole person is selected as a heuristic device for generating crucial ideas pertaining to the discussion of this book, which is conducted with the focus on the notion of “learning in practise” and its relevance to the concept of “whole person development” being proposed as the educational goal for Hong Kong’s education reform. This video is about a school named Sudbury Valley located in the United States. That this school is selected is owing to the possibility that the practises advocated in it could help elicit meaningful debates through which certain views of educational ideal(s) could be examined, the ultimate purpose of which is to provide a helpful primer as to show how the key concepts developed in the previous chapters are to be used in the analysis to be conducted in the rest of this book. This author came to know this documentary video when he was teaching in the then Hong Kong Institute of Education (now retitled as the Education University of Hong Kong). The reason why this video was frequently used was due to the observation that the issues that were generated from what happened in the daily practises of this school were inspiring in terms of the many challenges they provoked to the prejudgement if nor prejudice of students and teachers alike particularly in the context of Hong Kong. With this regard, the video was purposefully used as a heuristic device to activate and have the deep-seated-habituated “belief” of the students brought to the surface for further examination. It suffices to mention one interesting feedback from the students. Every time when I had finished introducing the content of the video with some of the clips highlighted for eliciting discussions, I would ask the students to form small groups deliberating on one question as energizer, which is: if you had children, would you like to send them to this school? The answer is surprising at first, but consistent over the years: more than eighty per cent of them expressed that they would not, not because of the fact that they did not like the school, but the worry that the students graduated from this school, who were considered being allowed to have too much freedom, might have difficulty in finding a job. This dilemma to a certain © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_4

53

54

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

extent has revealed a situation where a gap between the ideal and reality was there in the mind of the students. Seemingly, it is the reality that holds sway. In the following presentation, a few episodes of the video featuring three students in this school will be selected for critical analysis in details so as to show how the dilemma mentioned above has come about with special regard to the perception of the students who attended the lesson of this author. This analysis will also set the stage for addressing a current educational issue concerning one of the directive recommendations proposed in a report, which is the result of a school curriculum review of Hong Kong ended in 2019. This issue concerns about the concept of “whole person development” being highlighted as the educational goal of Hong Kong for the years to come.

In Search of an Alternative Understanding of Education On the part of the introduction, the video begins with a few shots featuring students playing in the campus with captions informing us that: “This school has no grades, no classes, no curriculum. Children can learn what they want when they want”. It is emphasized by the narrator that “children’s curiosity” is important. Therefore, the school “let them pursue what they want”. In other words, students are put at the centre, an approach that is considered “powerful”. At the outset, it is worth noting that this video was produced with a specific purpose, i.e. addressing the question of: “What can Japan learn from American practices?” We may be able to draw some conclusions to address this question from the participants when we come to the discussion parts inserted between episodes with the presence of a presenter and two discussants who are all Japanese. This indicates that the presentation of the video was framed with the community of Japan in mind. That being said this author is convinced that the issues touched upon in this video are some basic educational principles which could be universal and context-independent and yet outsiders could learn something from it with reference to their own contextual differences. This understanding speaks for itself before the end of the introduction when the full title, that is: “Educating the Whole Person in Freedom—Practices at Sudbury Valley School”, was projected on the screen supplemented with a subtitle asking “What can Japan learn?” from “The Challenge of Educational Reform in America”. The juxtaposition of these two titles seems to suggest that there is a tension indicated by the wish on the Japanese side, while this wish is hard to realize due to the phenomenon identified by the presenter in his opening remark that follows, which goes: “Parents tell children, “Do your homework,” and in the classroom, teachers say, “Let’s study”. He reiterated that this is what has surrounded their children. Of course, he was talking about the Japanese educational environment. Very quickly, he refers the watchers to a school in America, i.e. Sudbury Valley School, which promotes “whole person” education as an ideal and the importance of freedom to its realization.

In Search of an Alternative Understanding of Education

55

The Way Students Learn in Sudbury This referral brings us to the first episode beginning with a scene in the morning when students came to this school. We are simultaneously informed that attending this school were approximately “200 students from pre-elementary school age through high school age”. The school was originally a farmhouse located within an area with “rich, natural beauty”. When entering the school, the camera particularly captured a moment when a student aged about six to seven took attendance at the entrance “by checking themselves in” without anyone monitoring the process. It signifies the presence of trust necessary for the embracement of freedom and responsibility at the same time. After checking in including taking the initiative of examining what events would take place in the school through the announcement board, we are told students “are free to do anything they wish”. That being said one principle is particularly highlighted by the narrator when she emphasized that: “A key idea of the school is that ‘Children learn a lot from play’”. This emphasis may help explain why many of this author’s students did not prefer to sending their children to this school since “play” is considered the opposite of “study” and only the latter is invested with “value”, I guess, both in the Chinese and Japanese societies. Therefore, one can imagine that when “No one ever forces students to study” is the prevailing ethos of the school a strange kind of feeling is expected in the mind of those who hold the view that “discipline” is what is required to put children on the right track “effectively”. The question is: are these two concepts, namely “play” and “discipline”, mutually exclusive? After this brief introduction and the highlights, we are told that students would “begin their day by settling “down in their favorite rooms”. Through several interviewing clips, we learn that some chose to read quietly while a few others chatted casually. There was also an organized class taking place. Interestingly, this would only happen “when students want to have it”, as we are told, and it is these students who actually take the initiative to “ask a teacher and negotiate how to organize the class”. This reinforces the idea that the approach or model being adopted in this school is truly student-centred because the role of the teacher is truly a facilitator. The outcome is that, according to the teacher who took on the request of the students, the students learn “very fast, very fast”. As it is revealed, a student who studied Math quietly on his own could master “in a month, a text book which usually takes a year to cover in traditional classes”. Concentration is what really matters, added the narrator, because they were self-motivated to learn out of their own interest. One salient characteristic of the style of learning in this school that contrasts itself with the traditional one is that students are allowed to explore and the principle underpinning its prevalence is trust. Take the student studying Math as an example. The model answers are provided for him to check on his own. Honesty is assumed. What makes those who have the tendency to endorse the conventional way of thinking about learning is their being prone to sticking to the thought that the learner needs to be well-prepared at least cognitively before any action is taken. Put it differently, a blueprint or cognitive map has to be in place expecting that the reality

56

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

outside the classroom would turn out if not exactly but more or less the same as what it is imagined displayed in the map implying that what is to be taught and learn is something ready-made for spoon-feeding and memorization serving purposes other than learning itself. In short, the focus is the prescribed outcomes specified in advance in alignment with that content rather than the process of learning. Some form of ideology is at work here: the avoidance of risk in the name of “effectiveness”. Paradoxically, this would ultimately be conducive to the tendency of conforming to what is known just based on what is told in the blueprint by eliminating any opportunities for experiencing those yet-to-be-known at least hermeneutically, a process that characterizes genuine learning from a Gadamerian perspective. It entails the imperative of leaving one’s comfort zone and the psychological readiness to accommodate the “discomfort” out of the moment when the “yet-to-be-known” or -experienced at the beginning of the process constitutes the anxiety because of uncertainty. It is genuine in a sense that one has to deliberate reflectively by recalling what has been embedded in one’s mind representing one’s tentative worldview while at the same time they are checked against with what has never been part of the knower’s experience resulting in the emergence of the necessity to reconcile and/or harmonize that which is considered incoherent and inconsistent. This is what learning in practise truly means in Gadamer. The following analogy may help illustrate.

Reflection with an Analogy Having a holiday is what most people anticipate after a whole year’s hard work. There are basically two kinds of arrangement. One may want to hire a travel agent and follow what has been prepared for them like choosing a plan between A, B, or C. It is expected that this type of tour is conducted in a collective manner, which implies that flexibility in terms of time to wake up, go to bed, and eat will be cut to its minimal. Of course, there are exceptions requested on an individual basis. It also entails that travel destinations are limited or highlighted if you like to the extent that they are the only attractions. In virtue of this, travellers are more attentive to the selected few hot spots, while ad hoc interests emerging out of contextual surprises are dispensable. The upside of it can be interpreted as an effective accomplishment, and the process contributing to its production is well managed. The otherwise would be that letting the process lead its way is embraced with the understanding that responsiveness to contextual uniqueness is what makes travel meaningful in terms of the traveller’s total immersion in the milieu where he or she is no more a spectator than an actor whose next destination is determined by the input generated out of his or her dialogic encounter with every subjects he or she meets with expecting that the responsiveness of these subjects plays a part in unfolding what would be considered the next attraction. This sort of touring experience is best illustrated by someone who opts for traveling alone, the extreme of the spectrum in opposition to that of the collectivism. The flexibility of his or her choice in navigating a journey can be maximized to the extent that every moment is always open for revising what

In Search of an Alternative Understanding of Education

57

has been planned. Having said this sort of practise can only be interpreted as an advantage when one’s role shifts from a consumer to a citizen. While the former takes the knowing object as something that can be manipulated for consumption, the latter tends to take the knowing subject as that which can be transformed at the same time in the act of knowing. It is the understanding of the latter which can help appreciate what happens in Sudbury Valley School.

Examples of Learning in Practice Following the brief sketch of the learning mode in Sudbury, the shot jumps to two episodes featuring two students showing how they lead their school life. The first one is a girl of about fourteen. This episode begins with a close shot highlighting a hammer banging a nail into a piece of wood. To cut it short, it is a narrative about a teenage girl, who was attempting to build a tree house under the guidance of a professional tutor. Two things are worthy of mentioning here. First, yes, it is the girl herself who was doing the task of building a tree house. Second, the professional tutor was hired, but the fund supporting his being hired was raised by the girl herself. How all these came about is one attraction. To this author, what are the educational principles that allow the emergence of all these practises is even more appealing. The first concern is addressed first, which will be followed by the second. This episode begins with the hammering accompanied with a brief introduction by the narrator who says, “There are many unusual activities here, which ordinary schools do not have”. And the camera shifts from the girl with a wide shot capturing two of her tutors standing beside the building site and watching her performing the task of laying the foundation of the tree house. Very quickly, we are given a chance to listen to the voice of the girl (in response to a question posed by the interviewer), who opined: “I think it’s really important that people can ah … learn how to take care of themselves. So, I won’t be dependent on ah … like a system to support me that I’ll be able to … like … it’s like taking another step to support myself if I … growing my own food and I’ll be able to build my own house, something like that”. It is pretty obvious that this girl thought that she should become an independent person in terms of her relationship to the “system”. This is manifested by the kind of relationship she would like to maintain with the school and the carpenter she hired. As the tutor, i.e. the hired carpenter, expressed: some of the kids “[including the girl] came up with the idea and raised some money … and ah mm … came to me and wanted some help”. The narrator continues to elaborate on the details by saying: “When money is needed for this kind of activity, children work to raise it”. This time, the girl chose to make some ice cream and sell it to serve this purpose. She did the promotion through the use of posters and personally drew the attention of other students verbally by announcing “ice cream for sale … come and buy some ice cream for the tree house” at every corner of the campus. The fact that the ice cream topped with “home-made whipped cream and chocolate sauce” seems to have successfully drawn the attention of many. The girl’s independence and perhaps maturity is reflected when she rounds

58

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

up with a statement in response to a question of whether it would be better for her to be provided with some fund to accomplish the task. She explained in this way: it “is closer to real life if you have to work to raise the money”. To the narrator, who speaks Japanese, this is a new form of education “based on new ideas”. We are informed by her (the narrator) that this school is for those parents “who did not want their children to have a traditional public school education”. What is “new” or untraditional can be summarized by one of the staffs named Daniel Greenberg when he shared that: “every minute of the day the children are doing something. And it depends on how you define the word ‘learn’. Our children are always learning. They may not be learning what other people want them to learn. But that is not important to us. What is important to us is that they learn what they want to learn”. It is reasonable to surmise that the interviewee, i.e. Daniel Greenberg, was answering a question or actually addressing a “query” put before him by the interviewer. As he emphasized that the children in the school “are always learning”, the question raised by the interviewer must have something to do with the meaning of learning. It is within this context that Daniel Greenberg responded by asking an openended question to invite his counterpart to think further. It seems as though the issue is merely about the difference in defining the notion of learning. It actually involves a shift in a paradigmatic understanding of what knowledge is all about before the educational practises in this school can be comprehended. In the discussion part of this chapter that follows, this author will elaborate more on this with special regard to the notion of “learning in practise”. It suffices at this moment to highlight the tension embedded in this conversation. For most people and perhaps the Japanese in particular since this video was produced by the Japanese and the discussions in between episodes were conducted with the presence of two Japanese, “learning” for them as it is pointed out at the very beginning of the video may mean sitting down quietly with concentration on a pre-specified object of study. What happened in this school as it was depicted by this video seems to have “destabilized” this preoccupation though it may not be intentionally. As the narrator observed: “For some parents, the school’s policy ‘not to force people to study’ is hard to understand”. However, allowing students to have freedom to explore on their own at least has benefited, as the narrator points out, some children “who were treated as problem students in other schools and who transferred to Sudbury Valley are able to get themselves back on track, without being forced to do anything, in the school’s relaxed atmosphere”. What follows is an example reinforcing the importance of putting the student in the centre, which, allow me to emphasize, many of the parents in Hong Kong may not feel comfortable with. The key issue, as another teacher of the Sudbury Valley regarded, is a matter of trust, the basic educational principle upheld by the school and positioned in a dialectical manner with the other two, i.e. freedom and responsibility. The next episode featuring the school life of a boy named Jonathan in Sudbury supports this analysis. This episode is about a boy at the age of about fourteen when this documentary was shot. His name is Jonathan Taylor. When this episode begins, he was “playing” frisbee with other students. He was introduced as someone “enthusiastic about cooking”. And we are told that “[h]e is thinking seriously about becoming a chef

In Search of an Alternative Understanding of Education

59

in the future”. In virtue of the fact that “children’s interests are respected”, he was given the opportunity to cook for other students weekly to test his skills while at the same time other students if interested could also learn from him though he was still in his semi-professional stage. Of course, similar to his schoolmate whose interest was to build a tree house, a cooking teacher was also hired. Encouragingly, he was also graduated from Sudbury and “has experience working as a chef at a big hotel for 10 years”. So, they were practising the idea of apprenticeship. In short, Jonathan learned through not just doing, but also doing under the guidance of a model. This can probably explain a certain aspect of what Dewey means by “education is life” and “not preparation for life” (Dewey, 1916, p. 239). In other words, we educate and are educated through our living with other people. Same as what the girl who worked to raise money to support her project of building a tree house which was regarded as “closer to real life”, producing similar outcome is the food made by Jonathan which was also open for sale on a weekly basis. To Jonathan, making food and doing all the cooking for those working and studying in the school is a matter of responsibility. As he shared, it was his obligation “to make everybody happy”. For him, whether people would buy the food is more like a test, an instant feedback that helps facilitate his improvement and make adjustment accordingly. One thing that he shared could become an issue depending on how one makes sense of it. It is about Jonathan’s aspiration to become a chef when he concluded that “I don’t have to go to college eh … figuring what I want to do in my life”. This author with Hong Kong’s background can imagine that not many parents would be happy to admire Jonathan’s determination. But his mother seems to have developed a very different perspective towards understanding his son’s “dream”, which will be revealed in the following paragraph. According to the narrator, Jonathan, when he was still very little at about the age of five, “liked playing outside …, and he was not interested in learning to read or write until he was 9 years old”. In virtue of this, his mother was worried and thought of hiring a tutor for him so that he could have “something extra”. However, this good intention was not accepted. We do not know according to the information provided in the video how this encounter ended up. However, the “awakening” of Jonathan’s mother pertaining to her relationship with the son seems to have provided some clues when she shared that: “So … I think that … seeing Jonathan as a person separate from myself, he is not me, … I think seeing him as a separate person and not as an extension”. Such an approach is surely alien to the parents of Hong Kong and those of Japan as well. But, when this approach is read in connection with the comment given by Jonathan’s chef teacher, our perception may turn out to be very different when he observed that: “John is not a great chef yet, but … he has something in his heart that I think can be developed”. He further added that Jonathan was a person with responsibility and therefore dependable. The condition for cultivating a responsible person is basically one that would not deprive the person of his willingness to becoming such a person, which implies that he or she is free to acquire a sense of responsibility through his or her interaction

60

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

with the community to which he or she belongs. Therefore, the determination of Jonathan’s mother not to see him as her extension helps create such a condition. Another virtue suggested by the chef teacher of Jonathan that helps enhance the growth and development of a responsible person is commitment. They are the two sides of the same coin. A person’s commitment can only be developed, while he or she has the freedom by not being considered “an extension” of someone else, which is in return the basic condition for nurturing the virtue of commitment. Relevant to this concern is the issue for many and educators in particular of whether this kind of virtue could be “teachable”. In our contemporary schooling culture, the content of this virtue could cognitively be mapped out verbally in the classroom setting. But, there is no guarantee that it would be transformed into action once the learner has left the classroom. This concern has significant implications for “life education”, “whole person development” as an educational goal with its emphasis of catering for diverse interest of students, and even “parental education”, the policy initiatives fervently called for in the recent education reform of Hong Kong. An incident captured by the production crew may help provide a clue. One morning, the camera captured a scene where a kid of four years old was coming out of a car when the mother introduced him by saying “someone is going very shy”. We are told that the other three sons of hers “all … attend the school”. While they were walking hand in hand towards the entrance, the camera followed and the narrator reiterated that the mother had “reservations about public school education”. After the mother checked the attendance for his kid since he had no knowledge of it on the first day, the mother asked the son a question after attuning her eye contact with her son by lowering her head to the same level with that of his so that they could see each other face to face. The question surprised this author. She asked: “Whose education is it, ha …?” Of course, the little boy did not know how to answer. The mother, after having repeated the same question in another form: “Who goes to school here?”, suggested “it is your job to learn in Sudbury Valley. Right?” It looks as though the kid was totally disoriented. Without waiting for an answer, the mother continued: “You are responsible for it, right?” The interesting thing about this “encounter” is revealed by the mother when she reminded her son that “there are a lot of people looking at you, isn’t it?” It is not sure whether the son felt embarrassed at that moment. At the end, what the camera captured is the same question repeated one more time: “Are you responsible for your own education?” Then, we learn from the shot that follows that the mother was leaving the school and after that the kid was seen wandering around the campus as we are informed by the narrator that: “Nobody takes care of him after his mother leaves”. But the story does not end here since the narrator’s pre-judgement may become prejudice, in Gadamer’s terminology, if we do not have at least a basic understanding of the philosophy of education governing the operation of this school.

The Philosophy Governing the Operation of the School

61

The Philosophy Governing the Operation of the School Our modern mindset is used to thinking that whenever we do a well-structured plan or blueprint with clear-specified objectives should be in place. This premise implies that the doer must have some intended outcome(s) to achieve. However, this is only one, but not the merely, way of understanding the operative principle of all the activities in this world. What happened to the little kid as it was mentioned above suggests an alternative as the narrator’s observation continued to unfold when she exclaimed that: “Even a 4-year-old has to figure out for himself how to spend his day here”. That, according to the narrator, the little kid had to figure out for himself and there seemed to have nobody to take care of him may seduce us to have neglected the fact that the little kid was, using Daniel Greenberg’s words, “doing something” and this “doing” happens within an environment provided by the campus. It is only when this “doing” is understood in light of the educational principles guiding the practices of Sudbury Valley could we be able to do justice to whatever comments pertaining to the performance associated with the students and the pedagogical and administrative strategy employed by this school. Perhaps, the occasion that follows may provide some clues as to show the rationale underlying these educational principles. The scene moves from the little kid to a few students playing together in the campus. It is emphasized by the narrator that “this school is ungraded”. Therefore, “children of different ages play[ing] together” seems to be the natural consequence. What the narrator has not taken a step further is to ask whether this seemingly “natural” phenomenon is part of the design sustained with a purpose. Interestingly, the narrator appeared to be suddenly enlightened when the screen was capturing a few students pretending to “fight” with each other, with each holding a “lightsaber”, which reminds me of the two blades representing two opposing forces, light and dark, in the movie of Star Wars. It was “sudden” for the previous “query” raised by the narrator that there seemingly was not anybody taking care of the kid after his mother left the school has somehow got the answer when the narrator expressed: “In this environment, older children take care of, and protect, the younger ones naturally”. This insight seems to be inspired by the observation that in the “fighting” the older student who acted like a defender took no aggression in initiating any attack while the younger one, so happened to be the little kid, who had been said to be “left alone” wandering around the campus, acted the otherwise. The educational quality embedded in this activity is revealed by the narrator’s another observation, which goes: “younger students try to be mature and learn how to meet the challenges of older children”. No explanation was provided as to show why this would come naturally. But, it is reasonable to attribute this assumption to the culture of the school. The question is how this type of culture had been cultivated. Before we jump to another episode, which may provide some hints to answer this question, a brief reflection is timely.

62

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

A Reflective Summary The “beauty” of non-intervention from the very start can find its place when initiatives are activated within a condition where sufficient freedom is provided to allow genuine dynamics to evolve. It is within this dynamic that this freedom can be simultaneously and positively held accountable where both parties can take advantage of the presence of the other to develop with the understanding that the counterpart is both an enabling and a constraining agent. This what we generally call the ethical dimension of life can also be experienced authentically. So, learning through life experience or “doing” seems to be what Sudbury upholds. That being said “formal learning” did happen in the school. By “formal” it means that students choose to sit down and learn “from an older friend what she cannot understand on her own” even on a one-on-one basis as it is shown and described by the narrator. This view is supported by Daniel Greenberg when he shared that: “Children always learn best from other children who are little older and a little ahead of themselves. And … other children always learn best by teaching … children a little younger”. It is reasonable to suggest that the notion of ‘teaching’ mentioned by him is quite different from what we usually understand it in the formal setting of schooling. This author would rather call this sort of encounter “sharing” instead since they were not “forced” to do so for as the narrator regarded “the school seems to have a laissez-faire attitude” and the important point is that: “Children are totally expected responsible for their own education”.

The “Evil” Behind the Educational Enterprise The above episodes constitute the first section of the video, which is followed by a discussion among three Japanese participants: a moderator, an academic, and someone representing the government. The first question posed to the academic, Mr. Yashshi Ohnuma (a lecturer at Miyagi Educational College) by the moderator, was to secure his “reaction to the practice of not forcing students to study”. Instead of answering the question directly, Mr. Yashshi Ohnuma chose to put us in a wider perspective by pointing out a critical point, i.e. “the system [of Sudbury] has had so many years to mature there”. He admitted that the school’s practice is “exceptional”. In other words, it takes time to get this practice habituated, which eventually becomes a way of life. He concluded after having revealed that he had visited many free schools like Sudbury that “there is a common factor” among them, i.e. “when children study according to their own interests, they can master material in a very short period of time”. There should be no dispute that his emphasis was on the children’s interest. When the focus shifts from the academic to the next guest, Mr. Ken Terawaki (representing the Medical Education Section of the Ministry of Education) with a question asking what impressed him most, he recalled that it is Jonathan’s words that attracted his attention particularly with reference to his wish that: “I don’t want to go to a college because I don’t yet know what I want to do”. Besides, there is another

The “Evil” Behind the Educational Enterprise

63

expression which he also found impressive. It comes from Jonathan’s mother when she said, “My son is not my clone, but a separate person”. The reason why they were considered so impressive to this government official also surprised this author when he suddenly came up with a judgement that these two expressions, one from Jonathan and the other his mother, “point up the main evil twisting education today”. Since no further explanation was given, what this “evil” specifically refers to is pending. However, this author tends to side with the view that the deprivation of children’s freedom to learn according to their own interest is what the evil is in his eyes. Contributing to the emergence of this evil are two negative forces: one is from the parent’s and the other social expectations. This view can be supported by his comment on the way how the girl who attempted to build a tree house learnt in the school. The statement made by the girl, who expressed that: “People should be independent, so I do everything by myself”, caught his attention. He shared that: “this school shows me how important it is for each person to have their own point of view, their own lifestyle”. His comment was followed by a question from the moderator when the mode of learning practised in Sudbury was compared to that of the traditional compulsory school where they both seems to share the conviction that children should have the right to learn. Put it in a more straightforward manner in the form of a question: Which mode of learning has truly put this ideal, i.e. the right to learn, into practice? At a different level, this question touches upon a very basic issue, i.e. what education is all about if not liberating children from any unnecessary constraint to learn. Instead of directly addressing the issue, the minister chose to bring the “idealist” back to “earth” from “heaven” by insisting that “every school cannot be like this school … it is impossible”. A dilemma is revealed in this minister’s two responses. While he regarded that the perspectives provided by Jonathan and his mother “point up the main evil twisting education today”, he also seemed to have accepted the necessity of having to accommodate this “evil” though we have yet to know what this term actually refers to. This is evidenced by his proposing that “we have to compromise for a certain time”. Nevertheless, this compromise is not without condition when he concluded: “children are able to figure out what they want to know and do—that is the ideal”. All in all, while this minister found the practices of Sudbury inspiring when he said: “We have to do something in order to come close to this ideal”, we were simultaneously advised that difficulties are expected and their nature are “evil”. This minster’s view may represent many of the people who have an ideal while at the same time recognize that its realization takes time and yet without knowing where and how to start amidst a situation where this ideal becomes some sort of an anomaly to those who choose to watch rather than participate. Since it is anomalous, we should not expect that this ideal can be materialized in a systematic fashion particularly when this idea of “systematic” refers to sameness or homogenous, i.e. moving in one direction with a template without any sensitivity to contextual differences and desire to revisit the ideal by taking the particular situational context into consideration. Take the situation of Sudbury as an example, firstly, the ideal identified by the ministry of Japan is only peculiar relative to those who do not have it or find it “impractical”

64

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

in one way or another due to various reasons invested with their own ideologies. Second, when the concept of “practice” is highlighted where the breeding of practical knowledge and/or wisdom is celebrated in terms of its particularity and nature of peculiarity, that the intention of having it systemized is self-contradictory. Perhaps, this may provide a clue to understand what the “evil” suggested by the Japanese minister means–the uniqueness of every individual student is flattened or squared by the need to conform to the inflexibility of the routine. After the minister’s sharing, the other participant with an academic background confirmed that: “Children are learning” regardless of the understanding that: “There is no curriculum, no schedule, no exams, and no grades”. He particularly referred to a word that the interviewee, Daniel Greenberg, used, i.e. “doing”. It is about the value of experience in mastering something through participation. By contrast, the practice in Japan was characterized by memorizing and routine classroom attendance. Concerning the “why” of study, freedom was seen by this academic as the driving force. The uniqueness of each student’s way of inquiry was celebrated. This sort of variety in growth and development according to each student’s interest was considered absent in Japan. To end the discussion of this section, the moderator rounded up by highlighting the fact that “there is another side to the school” reminding the viewers that the policy of the school is not “completely laissez-faire”. This reminder is further complemented by a remark which suggests that “learning how to adjust” is as important as learning how to make the best use of one’s freedom. This highlight seems to have served the purpose of providing a counteract towards what has been previously promoted.

The Other Side of Sudbury: The Ethical Dimension of Freedom A “major incident” occurred one day, which involved Jonathan. The camera followed him into a coatroom where students were free to place their belongings. Because of the “trust” policy, which, according to the narrator, “promotes respect for property and privacy”, no one was on guard, and there were no locks. Jonathan was interviewed to recall that incident in that the money in his backpack was found gone. The initial response of Jonathan is that he thought it might be the problem of his own memory. The other day as usual, the same amount of money was left in his backpack. After a whole day’s activity, he examined his backpack when he left school to see if the money was still there. He did it intentionally because of his previous experience. He became uneasy when he discovered that the money was probably “stolen” again. Then, he made a complaint. One can imagine the impact this incident might have to the whole community of this school where trust was treasured, which provided a facilitating condition for freedom in the absence of fear and creativity to emerge. The suspicion that this could be a case of theft, which upset all the students, could immediately insert “barriers”

The Other Side of Sudbury: The Ethical Dimension of Freedom

65

between the members of this community since everyone could become a suspect. This psychological uneasiness would eventually deter those involved to do things freely because of the presence of distrust. The way this school community chose to handle the case is both inspiring and controversial. It all depends on the philosophy of education one holds. This is where we now turn to see what actually happened in the process of their dealing with the problem. There was a Judicial Committee in Sudbury dealing with problems arising out of its operation. For example, it was reported that after “someone [was] accused of littering a wrapper in school”, the Committee members took on examining the case. At the end, this Committee decided “to have the child [who was involved] take charge of a cleaning duty as a punishment”. This time, Jonathan’s complaint was also taken up by this committee, which “consists of 7 students chosen from different age groups” plus a staff member. In their investigation, two students were identified with reference to a student’s witness. After a preliminary exchange of ideas deliberatively among the members, the child being suspected of having stolen the money was invited to attend a meeting. She was reported as only ten years old and only “recently enrolled”. We cannot know what exactly was discussed in the meeting since the interviewer was not allowed to join. Anyway, it was revealed that she eventually admitted to have stolen the money. This is not the end of the story. What follows is where “the other side of the school” as it was highlighted by the moderator earlier revealed itself. The incident was discussed in the weekly School Meeting, which was the occasion where decisions on school policies were made and enacted. The chairperson was usually a student, and issues of all kinds were deliberated with the presence of every student and teacher. This time, the arrangement was quite unexpected at least when it is perceived with the experience of Hong Kong. I have got this impression from the students who were involved in the discussion after they had watched the video. It is unexpected for the accused was invited to “participate” (hopefully without her identity being exposed), while the case was revealed and open for discussion. The reason for this to happen is, as it was reported, the premise that openness was highly valued. In virtue of this, issues were discussed in “public”. Meanwhile, equality was also upheld. Therefore, it was emphasized “a student’s vote and a teacher’s vote carry the same weight”, and nothing would be decided without the children’s knowing it. What the camera captured that followed is a collection of expressions about feelings, opinions, and recommended punishment as well lasting for about one and a half minutes. One young girl said: “It’s so … disturbing … especially in this school where there is no lock, no lockers, everyone trusts everyone else. I am highly … disappointing”. Another commented that “suspension is necessary”. A boy expressed: “It is totally unacceptable”. One adult female unreservedly made it plain to say that “we don’t trust you … until you are … you gain the trust of the community back. That is the … result of what you did”. The meeting ended up with the decision by vote that the girl “is suspended until her parents come to the school with her to discuss the situation”. Furthermore, she “also has to work as a member of

66

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

the Judicial Committee for two weeks, and pay a fine of $20”. That the accused was requested to serve in the Judicial Committee as a punishment is unexpected since we may query whether she, as an accused, is qualified to do so. The concept of “doing”, which Daniel Greenberg, a staff of Sudbury, enthusiastically embraced, is similar to that of “practice” introduced and upheld in this book. He might think that serving in the Judiciary Committee could give her the best chance to improve the girl’s ethical sensitivity because as a member she would be inevitably engaged in dialogue with other members when certain issues come up. Even if she might take a passive role at the beginning, being immersed in an environment where different opinions and judgements collide and the way how they are sorted out and settled according to certain ethical principles is itself learning in the form of practice. Quite different from the setting of a classroom, it is experientially rich. The often-raised question by the students in the class this author taught was whether it is appropriate to have the accused “participate” if not “judged” openly though her true identity was not expected to be revealed. With this regard, the response given by Daniel Greenberg in the school is that: “The only way you can really get over the shame is when everybody cleanses themselves … of the whole process. That is a beautiful thing to happen in the school. Everybody knows that this happens. Everybody sees that the person has acknowledged what she did and we can put it behind us. It’s the opposite of you’re saying. When everything is done in secret, then you always stay suspicious of other persons”. From the perspective of the school as a community, the loss of trust could be disastrous, and it was something the Sudbury was trying painstakingly to avoid. That can explain why openness, honesty without shame, and trusting each other without suspicion were what the school treasured most. That being said some may compromise in practising these ideals in this way when the well-being of the “accused”, just a little girl, is taken into consideration. When the interviewee who defended the arrangement said: “It’s the opposite of you’re saying”, it implies that the interviewer did suggest a perspective which might have the potential of doing harm to the accused. The potential discrepancy may show that the disagreement may have something to do with cultural differences. This author is not suggesting that the difference of this aspect can justify their choice of action, but the very fact that in practice the issue of right and wrong is better replaced by the notion of appropriateness and this has very much to do with the context and the culture that informs this context. When this principle is applied to the way the accused girl was handled in Sudbury, apart from deliberating at the abstract level on what should be considered good for the well-being of the student, the receptibility of those involved who constitute this community should also be a crucial factor. The spectrum of receptibility could be very wide. This is where practical wisdom and knowledge should claim its place.

The Valuable Lesson We May Learn from Sudbury …

67

The Valuable Lesson We May Learn from Sudbury with a Phronetic Lens Take note that this documentary video was produced by a Japanese team and the discussants in the video are also Japanese, one is an academic and other government official. The context against which many of the issues were raised was probably invested with cultural factors. Therefore, things that are allowed to happen in Sudbury in practice may not be considered “appropriate” elsewhere at a certain point of time and space even if the same educational ideal in principle is observed by both parties. A school’s culture takes a considerable time to take shape. What we see happening then in the documentary video was the result of a lifetime struggle and perhaps still in the process of struggling. In other words, it is in struggle that certain ideals need to be in sight, if not realized full-fledged, serving to inspire that contributes to the sustainability of the struggle. This kind of circular reinvestments with a vision yet to be materialized is similar to the notion of “hermeneutic circle” in Gadamer in that the process of materialization is one that requires frequent revisions of the ways by means of which the vision unfolds and transforms rather than copies itself seeing that contextual reality and its particularities are crucial, the successful mediation of which determines the possibility of reconciling the gap between the relatively constant essence of the vision and the possible variety of its performance in real life. With this understanding, there should be no surprise when the minister of Japan in the video opined that “it is impossible” to just have it “cloned” and assume that this is all there is in any act of educational reform. Between knowing what is good and the impossibility of appropriating it without having it transformed and making it feel like at home, making adjustment, attunement, and discerning what fits best to one’s particular context without overlooking the vision and the principles guiding its realization are what is required of the agents involved to do. The tendency to look for a template and have its blanks filled is the easiest but the wrong way of talking about reform when education is more of a practice than a “banking” exercise in Freire’s terminology. By practice it means, in short, the kind of situation where playing by the rule is just its opposite. Jonathan’s reflective remarks on the issue could be a good example to illustrate. After the School Meeting ending up with a decision that the accused was required to pay a fine and serve “as a member of the Judicial Committee for two weeks”, Jonathan shared in an interview by saying: “I am sure that people are unhappy that she has been stealing. But I don’t hold that against her. I don’t think she is … ah … a terrible person because she did that”. The virtue of tolerance in Jonathan is an exemplar surely not because of the view that stealing can be accepted but the understanding that acceptance is always an open door for eliciting improvement. This insight leads him to separate deeds from the person, the latter of which is always the subject of education. That being said this author is not suggesting that this disposition of Jonathan is the result of its having gone through rigorous calculative deliberations before it took shape. The alternative could be as it was revealed by himself that he recognized he had also done certain things that he was not supposed to do when he was

68

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

younger. It is reasonable to say that the capacity of separating the wrongdoing from the person who did it could have been cultivated or habituated in a milieu within which he had been brought up. This culture of tolerance characterized by its reverence for life becomes a collective contribution to enhancing the possibility of releasing greater mercy for accommodating mistakes while at the same time allowing more room for improvement with the former being transformed into a kind of empowerment through genuine dialogue serving as some form of accountability in a more positive sense conducive to the emergence of a stronger awareness that there are always opportunities to do better. The subtitle of this documentary video asks: “What can Japan learn?” from this school. This should also be a natural instinct for educators in general to ask the same question particularly when education reform has become a cliché. However, the way a question is posed may reflect the position of the one who frames the question. By this I mean questions are often invested with a pre-judgement in Gadamer’s terminology. For easy reference, this author suggests there are roughly two: one approach tends to identify preferential outcomes that may help add “value” to those already established, which entails that the allowance for changes is limited to that which will affect the existing status quo as minimal as possible. The other is attracted by the educational principles the practising of which in a certain specific context is evidenced to have benefited the students most. From a different angle, we may say that the attraction is more on the interactive dynamic between the flexible structure being adopted, organized anew when necessary and the agents involved who see this reorganization and redesign as the basis for not only accommodating changes but more importantly eliciting innovative ideas for meaningful changes contributing to the flourishing of those principles through the practice of the participants. There is a tendency for the former to look at the issue at hand technically aspiring to keep things in “control” heading towards a foreseeable future while the latter interprets issues more from a relational perspective with the understanding that things that happen not in accordance with one’s expectation is not necessarily a bad thing since we all live within a relational web, the complexity of which should go beyond what a cause-effect type of mentality can imagine. In virtue of this, the vision that all issues could be technically fixed once-and-for-all is not the integral part of education, whose main concern is the extent to which a condition can potentially produce “wonders” and if not, then ask: what needs to be done to the condition? In this manuscript, the concept of “transforming education in practice” is invested with the “spirit” of the latter approach to address the question of what we as in my case Hong Kong can learn from Sudbury. This will be explored in the parts that follow after a brief summary of the key issues and insights is provided in the following serving to list out some basic guiding principles in light of Aristotle’s phronesis through Gadamer’s understanding of learning in practice with examples extracted from the school of Sudbury for illustration.

Cultivating a Whole Person

69

Cultivating a Whole Person A Task Force commissioned by the Hong Kong government recommended that “whole person development” be the educational goal, one that is expected to be able to contain the challenges in the face of twenty-first century. The practices in Sudbury, which has also identified “educating a whole person” as the “backbone” of the school’s education (a conviction being confirmed by one of its staff recently), provide some useful cases as heuristic devices for us to reflect on the conditional factors favourable to the development of a whole person. That the conditional factors are highlighted is premised on the conviction that so long as freedom is prioritized the causal relationship between outcomes and those factors contributing their production is deemed weak. The assumption that they can be causally aligned with the aspiration that an expected or intended outcome can be guaranteed is just an illusion. This needs to be spelt out at the outset lest unnecessary queries can be avoided. The basis of this positioning is epistemological, which has been introduced in the previous two chapters, i.e. Aristotle’s framework of knowledge with particular reference to the concept of phronesis and the light it sheds on learning through Gadamer’s deliberations on the notion of understanding, self-understanding, and mutual understanding.

The Epistemological Underpinning for the Definition of the “Whole” Approaching the concept of the “whole” can take two very different forms. One is content-based in quantitative terms while the other qualitative, the one to be used for organizing the discussion of this manuscript. The content-oriented approach tends to map out all relevant materials, the combination of which forms the whole. This sort of mapping exercise entails the preoccupation of a concern in quantitative terms in that the whole can only be attained by adding up the parts. It may also imply that nothing by definition is excluded, which paradoxically would constitute a big problem in virtue of the limited time and space available. Eventually, it may turn out to be an impossible mission. When such an approach is applied to an educational system which is exam-oriented, one can imagine what it would be like for teachers and students alike. The major weakness of this weak version of the whole is its having fallen short of the key aspect of this concept, i.e. integration, and this integrative dimension can only be attained qualitatively. By this I mean one plus one is equal to one rather than two for the purpose of learning is ultimately for understanding, the achievement of a temporal unified and coherent worldview, one that is not formed merely by fragmented pieces of information without having gone through any reflective deliberation guided by certain values as the bases. The alternative is a qualitative approach in that the idea of the “whole” is conceptualized as an integrative mindset in search of an integrative and balanced purpose of life. In this book, Aristotle’s framework of knowledge, namely techne, episteme,

70

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

and phronesis, representing three ways of relating to the world or three kinds of reality that constitute the world as we see it is used to explain how they are relevant to education with particular focus on their contribution to “whole person development” as an educational goal. Quite different from the current use of the concept “whole”, which has been interpreted as suggesting that students have to know everything before the whole can be realized, this author argues that this interpretation is unrealistic and a mission impossible, which has to be replaced. My argument is at two fronts: (1) that “whole person development” be the educational goal is primarily recommended in response to the observation that the horizon of our students has been limited to merely one way of understanding the world. This is the result of a “movement” towards knowledge specialization for vocational purposes in the past. However, this issue has not been addressed accordingly in an appropriate manner as this was mentioned earlier, i.e. treating the concept of the “whole” as equivalent to an aggregation of many parts. Preventing this from exacerbating, one has to return to the basic principle, i.e. the aim of liberating students from the constraint of approaching an issue or understanding a reality merely using the lens of one single subject discipline as the starting point. It entails that the concept of the “whole” be properly treated as a guidepost or an ideal. As long as a learning activity is designed in such a way that students are encouraged to critically analyse an issue or a phenomenon with empathy from a perspective that involves more than one epistemological source, this “whole” can be considered in the process of its realization since the essence of this concept is by definition inexhaustible. The term “epistemological” instead of “discipline” is used here is to purposefully make a distinction between the two. Whereas the former is a term broader in scope, the latter is a subset of the former. Aristotle’s framework of knowledge helps explain. Scholars today who follow Aristotle with particular interest in the concept of phronesis usually compare it with episteme and techne. The purpose of this comparison is to convey the message that the former is the kind of knowledge we badly need in face of the challenges thrown to us in the twenty-first century. The major argument supporting this claim is the understanding that the proper use of techne and episteme depends very much on one’s phronetic insight or practical wisdom to discern what is good for not only individuals but the community to which they belong as a whole. Therefore, it falls into the disciplines of ethics and politics. Epistemologically, these two disciplines are categorized as one since they both are considered practical knowledge dealing with humans. In the same way, though art, literature, and music are three disciplines and regarded as practical knowledge as well, their epistemological features are similar in that they are concerned with human expressions through the use of artefacts or objects. In brief, techne is about craftsmanship. With regard to episteme, the disciplines of physics and mathematics can be put into one category since the epistemological basis for their being valued is characterized by their interest in the kind of knowledge that is law-like appealing to exactness and thus predictable while practical knowledge especially that of phronesis is not. In brief, the merit of Aristotle’s framework in shedding light on the concept of “whole person development” is twofold: (1) instead of approaching the concept in quantitative terms by focusing on the concern of what needs to be covered in order

Cultivating a Whole Person

71

to reach the threshold of a “whole person”, which is a mission impossible to achieve since the concept “whole” is not an exhaustible one but rather a representation of the various dimensions we are empowered or enabled to relate to the world, it simply invites us to have a “taste” of these dimensions in the form of techne, episteme, and phronesis. They together constitute the “whole” of the reality we normally experience in this world. The extent to which this “taste” or experience could be deepened and consolidated is very much a contextual issue which can only be talked about and evaluated on a case-by-case basis; and (2) this framework with the primacy of phronesis as one of the dimensions, i.e. practical knowledge pertaining to the realm of ethics and politics, reminds us three things: the first being that this “whole” is not just an aggregation of fragmented ideas or concepts, but guided by certain values to organize a balanced purpose of life and thinking, whereas the second is about the importance of experience, an important aspect mostly neglected by educators who are so used to an exam-oriented educational system. Last but not the least, only a process-oriented approach to learning can “guarantee” the corresponding outcomes of what a “whole person” is supposed to be habituated. By guarantee it means only when a process is invested with genuine attentiveness will quality outcomes unfold though they may be unintended.

The Practices of Sudbury from a Phronetic Perspective The three cases presented earlier are best used to illustrate the extent to which Aristotle’s framework with the primacy of phronesis in particular could help shed light on the way a whole person can be “educated” or cultivated. The first is about the little kid. That he was “bombarded” by his mother on the first day to school with a repeated reminder reiterating that he should be responsible for his own education himself may appear to be a bit too exaggerated particularly in the eyes of a person from Hong Kong and perhaps Japan as well. From the perspective of the narrator, the kid was left alone after his mother left the school. A process view suggests a different angle in that the kid’s awareness of his own existence was activated the moment when he was seemingly “left alone” because he had to figure out how to live with what he might come across. Paradoxically, the moment of this kid’s being left alone is also the time when his horizon was endowed with the opportunities to open himself up for a wider spectrum of life chances. That being said, was he really left alone after his mother’s leaving? Perhaps not, for he was just transferred from his family to a community of learners. Their expectations of what constitutes a healthy living environment could eventually serve to hold the little kid accountable. The frequent interactions across age groups are not just about communication but, more importantly, an informal type of accountability appearing in the form of “dialogue” in whatever form it may appear through which he could understand himself through the eyes of the other beholders. According to Gadamer, this is the way how the kid augments his self-understanding by taking the other people’s perspectives into account. It is also through this sort of encountering that he becomes known by others (Nixon, 2017, p. 3). For Gadamer,

72

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

this is what genuine learning appears to be and how the notion of learning in practice in opposition to that of “banking” unfolds itself. The way the Judicial Committee handled the theft case in the School Meeting also shows that the spirit of accountability was in place. It was only when it was necessary would it be formally summoned to address a specific issue, the negligence of which was considered having the danger of shaking the fundamental belief based on which the school was founded. We can see that a formal procedure was activated when the fundamental value of trust in the school, based on which freedom can be liberated and the bondage of the community sustained, was discredited. The emotions expressed by the participants in the School Meeting manifested this anxiety. From the worry concerning the question of whether the kid’s being left alone on the first day of his “schooling” was granted too much freedom without guidance to the anxiety created in the community by a girl accused of having stolen another person’s money, who eventually was required to be placed in a situation where her ethical sensitivity was questioned by way of listening to the perspectives of those within the same community, this author would suggest this school was governed by principles rather than a formal structure. It is these principles that hold the members of the school together without being too dogmatic in its governance. Put it differently, the structure of the school was cut to its minimal, the precondition for facilitating practices in a creative manner perhaps indirectly by way of not interfering or in the absence of any thoughtless routines. In Aristotle’s terminology, the day when a student enters this school is the moment when his or her phronetic knowledge begins to be nurtured (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012, p. 2). A culture or structure that emphasizes routines is unable to make it. Routine is a two-edged sword. It can be both beneficial and problematic. By “beneficial” it facilitates the smoothness of administrative operation under the name of “effectiveness”, the extreme analogy of which is the working of a copying machine. However, this sort of engagement can also promote “thoughtlessness” (Hui, 2015). There has always been a false assumption that so long as all the identifiable factors are in place the process will take care of itself, things will run smoothly, and everyone will be happy. This kind of worldview can only apply when we are talking about a machine or the assembly line of a factory. We cannot use such a metaphor to talk about education when the target of its service is human. That being said routine, like our habit, could only develop out of a situation where those involved have experienced the good aspect of following certain ways of doing things during a specific period of time. However, as time goes by and when context changes, the sustainability of the routine will gradually fade out owing to its irresponsiveness. It is with this understanding that routine has to be reviewed momentarily so that the enabling rather than constraining aspect of it can be maintained afresh in a sustainable manner. There is no one best way following which we can grasp hold of the optimal point since this is the kind of knowledge practical and contextual in nature. In the case of Sudbury Valley School, there was routine manifested by the students’ being habituated to take attendance. Even so, they did it without being monitored to do it. It is this virtue of trust that allows creative ideas in place of the consciousness of rule binding to

Cultivating a Whole Person

73

emerge. But it does not necessarily entail the absence of the latter in guiding one’s creative impulse. They can always be a kind of mutually informed relationship, a condition where creative and hermeneutic experience in the form of deliberation, interpretation, and dialogical practice (the features that define practical knowledge or phronesis and techne) can be engendered conducive to the emergence of learning through “fusion of horizons” in Gadamer’s terminology (Gadamer, 1975, p. 273). All in all, the playing down of the consciousness of the routine may serve to cut the structure of the school into its minimal, which ultimately helps channel the attention of the participants to the activities and the lived experience of the students. By lived experience in schools I refer to the notion that learning is a practice rather than a “banking” exercise in the words of Paulo Freire. By practice is meant here engaging oneself in dialogue with his or her surroundings. Since it is contextual specific, the knowledge acquired to a certain extent can only be made sense of within that particular context. It is in this sense that this kind of knowledge is considered practical not in a sense that it is instrumentally useful, but intelligible relationally particularly from the perspective of the practitioner who performs the practice. With this understanding, we may find the two other episodes in the documentary video with one featuring the girl who initiated to build a tree house and the other, Jonathan, who aspired to become a chef, meaningful. There are some similarities between the two cases in principle guiding the practice of the two participants in the school. First, freedom based on trust is the foundation allowing no compromise. Jonathan was free to explore the possibility of becoming a professional chef, while the teenage girl was welcomed to put her idea of building a tree house into practice within the campus. However, this principle is accompanied with another one, i.e. responsibility. The girl was required to raise fund for the building cost, while Jonathan did the same though the nature is different. The former sold the ice cream she made whereas Jonathan got his support so long as the members of his community were willing to buy the food he produced. From a different perspective, they were not free to do whatever they wanted. The realization of their ideas could only come to light when they knew how to take advantage of their liberty to act in a proper manner. For example, the improvement of this “know-how” or techne being one form of practical knowledge involves time, i.e. a succession of numerous attempts of trial and error, and a process of continuous reflective scrutiny in a spiral manner to cultivate. It is through such a reflective process that they could gradually ameliorate their skills and craft of production as a result of their having incorporating the feedback of others as the basis for their improvement. There may be a tendency to put our focus on the two students. Doing so would miss the point that it is the community to which they belong which actually provided all the necessary conditions for the cultivation of both their skills or techne (preferably not in a technical sense in its contemporary use) and character in a relational manner, i.e. phronesis. The metaphor Gadamer employs to illustrate this kind of learning in a relational manner is “play” when he says, “play merely reaches presentation through the players” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 92). The way the theft case was dealt with point up to the importance of this insight.

74

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

Put aside the worry about whether the presence of the accused little girl was an appropriate arrangement in the School Meeting during which the members involved were invited to share their feelings about the incident, the interpretation proposed by Daniel Greenberg, which was mentioned earlier, provides an alternative perspective. He shared in response to an unrevealed question by saying: “The only way you can really get over the shame is when everybody cleanses themselves … of the whole process. That is a beautiful thing to happen in the school. Everybody knows that this happens. Everybody sees that the person has acknowledged what she did and we can put it behind us. It’s the opposite of you’re saying. When everything is done in secret, then you always stay suspicious of other persons”. Trust seems to be what really matters to this staff. It is not just a concept. What it stands for is a relational practice in real life. It is not just a virtue observed by one person in isolation. Its realization requires the conviction of the whole community, an ideal to be observed in order that the process towards its realization can be sustained in a sense that giving up is never an option. It entails also that it is not merely an ethical but also a political issue in a positive sense. From the standpoint of the staff, dishonesty, i.e. the opposite of trust and perhaps reverence for life as well, would destroy a healthy community, the sustainability of which would eventually elapse. The harmful consequence will fall onto the shoulder of every individuals. Therefore, the endeavour of making some contributions to the betterment of an organization, a community or society, a country or even the world as a whole seems to be something education cannot escape from fulfilling. With this regard, the suggestion that phronesis be prioritized reasonably deserves more thought (Kristjansson, 2015, pp. 301–2). That it be prioritized is for the realization of the other two, i.e. techne and episteme, in the right direction such that the concept of “whole person” being informed by these three types of knowledge is imbued with a qualitatively balanced rather than a quantitatively overstretching implication. The former implies an integrative mindset while the latter the absence of it resulting in fragmentation.

Conclusion Earlier, this author suggests that readers may find the cases pertaining to what happened to Jonathan, an aspiring professional chef, and the teenage girl, who had put her idea into practice by hiring a tutor to teach her how to build a tree house, meaningful. It may be so in terms of their having provided a perspective that helps illustrate what it means by cultivating a “whole person”. This perspective is suggested to be better understood in light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge constituted by three main concepts, namely, techne, episteme, and phronesis, with the latter being identified as the integral substance serving to integrate conducive to the emergence of a balanced purpose of life, a definition this author would like to assign to the concept of “whole person”. The implications for any initiatives in the name of reforming education with the cultivation of “whole person” as the ideal is far-reaching since it involves a paradigm

Conclusion

75

shift in understanding what counts as knowledge on the one hand and the way it can be obtained on the other, a situation where the current practice becomes obsolete. That being said the extent to which this “ideal” can be put into practice remains a question, which can be reflected in the words of the Japanese minister, who was one of the participants in the discussion section. While he opined that “every school cannot be like this school … it is impossible”, the door was still kept open when he supplemented later with the following assertion: “We have to do something in order to come close to this ideal”. This indicates the admittance of the deficiency of a system that has deprived the children of their freedom to explore by themselves. Perhaps, this is the “evil” to which this minister referred during the discussion. If yes, does this also imply that a more natural living environment without too many structural constraints would better expose the children to stimuli generated from social events, the emergence of which is already the result of those actions contributed by and carried with the knowledges of episteme, techne, and phronesis that constitute the “whole”? Then, the “evil” may lie in any attempt that does not provide this kind of exposure no matter what the reasons are unless “educating a whole person” is not within the agenda of what education is all about. This author also mentioned earlier that the students he taught were caught in a dilemma when they were asked if they would send their children to Sudbury Valley School. They liked the school but were worried about the freedom the students enjoyed would become a disadvantage in terms of their employability upon their graduation. So, “teaching to the job” is what schooling is meant to serve in their eyes. A recent report published in 2021 advising the government of Hong Kong on curriculum reform recommended that “whole person development” be the educational goal. Would it be the case that the Task Force in charge of the survey and review has identified where the “evil” lies conducive to the students’ being prevented from unreservedly dedicating themselves to enjoying a more balanced way and broader spectrum of life? Is this a general phenomenon in Hong Kong? The next chapter will examine some recent calls expressed by certain Hong Kong’s educational leaders to find out and deliberate on the extent to which the recommended educational goal, i.e. “whole person development”, is timely if in fact not long overdue. Hopefully, this review could provide some hints as to show where the “evil” lies.

References Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Free Press. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Ed. & Trans.) Sheed & Ward. Hui, P. K. [許寶強]. (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The Absence of Thought in Learning: Hong Kong Education in Light of Cultural Studies]. Oxford University Press. Kinsella, E. A., & Pitman, A. (2012). Engaging phronesis in professional practice and education. In E. A. Kinsella & A. Pitman (Eds.), Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions (pp. 1–11). Sense Publishers.

76

4 Cultivating a Whole Person

Kristjansson, K. (2015). Phronesis as an ideal in professional ethics: Some preliminary positions and problematics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 36, 299–320. Nixon, J. (2017). Hans-Georg Gadamer: The hermeneutical imagination. Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer. Sudbury Valley School. (2007). Educating a whole person in freedom practices at Sudbury valley school (Sudbury Valley School NHK-TV documentary). Sudbury Valley School.

Chapter 5

What is Education All About?

Introduction The proposal of this manuscript was submitted while Hong Kong’s education was looking for some sort of a “reform”. It was reported on 19 October 2017 that Tsui Lap-chee, the former president of Hong Kong University, had been invited to chair a Task Force on Review of Research Policy and Funding. It was set up by the University Grant Committee (UGC) with the purpose of reviewing “research support strategy, the level of research funding, and the funding allocation mechanism for the higher education sector”. At the same time, Professor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung, the former president of the then Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) and now retitled as the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK), had also been recruited to chair another Task Force to “review the overall role and function of the selffinancing tertiary sector in serving Hong Kong’s long-term education and manpower needs” (EdUHK, 2017). The announcement of the formation of the above two task forces was made just within the month when the new chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Miss Carrie Lam Cheung Yuet Ngor, delivered her policy address (HK Govt., 2017). In Chap. 4 entitled “Nurturing Talent”, Mrs. Lam highlighted her belief by asserting that “education is the key to nurturing talent”. To have it materialized, she mentioned that a “sound education infrastructure, renowned universities, and outstanding research personnel in Hong Kong” have to be in place, from which not only future generations of Hong Kong, but those of Mainland and neighbouring regions could also benefit. In virtue of this, it is considered justifiable for “the government to assume a more active role in establishing [the] position as a talent hub” (HK Govt., 2017, item 121, p. 40). Something seems to be missing. The vision or objective was set, and the factors contributing to its achievement were identified. It was not until half a year later this missing link or gap was filled. An event featuring teachers’ professional development with the subtitle: “Striving for Teaching Excellence” was organized on 2 June 2018 with the chief executive of the HKSAR, Mrs. Carrie Lam, presiding the meeting. This summit is called “Chief © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_5

77

78

5 What is Education All About?

Executive Summit on Quality Education”, and it was promised to be held on a yearly basis with the aim of probing into Hong Kong’s educational problems and addressing the concerns of relevant stakeholders as well. In her speech, she humbly admitted that she was an “outsider” in education. In virtue of this, the summit was expected to provide a chance for her to listen directly to the opinions of practitioners in the educational sector hoping that Hong Kong’s educational policy and measures could be improved (HKGovt., 2018). It is encouraging that leaders are willing to listen to frontline practitioners. Interestingly, though Mrs. Lam did not regard herself as an insider in education, one of her remarks did show the otherwise for she thought that in the area of educational objectives, there should not be any differences in terms of political stance implying that “we” should all share more or less the same understanding (HKGov., 2018). This insight seems to have endorsed the idea that education should have its autonomy in defining educational goals and objectives regardless of political stance. That being said the extent to which her “insight” was meant to secure alliance in her governance in that special occasion remains a question. Putting aside the conspiracy theory, her claim has left a very important issue to be explored by anyone who is really interested in education, that is, in the form of a question: based on what assumption “that we should all share more or less the same understanding”, if any? My immediate response to Mrs. Lam’s remark is that, on the one hand, it reflects that that there had been different interpretations of educational objectives due to opposing political stance was a reality while on the other, education was considered a domain with autonomy of its own, which is so important that differences in political stance should not stand on its way. Would it be the case that supporting the latter for some, even for educators, is more of rhetoric than reality? It is hoped that the discussion that follows is able to shed some light on this query. It will be conducted by critically reviewing some selected incidents that the author has found significant and the opinions of some leading figures in the education sector conveyed through the press.

Whose “Talent”? Whose “Excellence”? “Talent”, like other similar terms with positive connotation, is another buzzword to the extent that it is considered indisputable, universal, but sometimes emptied without contextual qualifications. How should this “talent” be defined? What sort of “talent’ we including Hong Kong’s society need in the twenty-first century particularly when the relationship between global and local has created more tensions than expected? Different people who constitute the “modifying contextual factors” (Knight, 2008, p. 35) may have different perspectives in defining what traits a talent should possess according to the frame(s) of reference they have inherited. Thus, their aim assigned to “education” can also be various and even conflictual. Under such circumstance, judgements informed merely by the “modifying contextual factors” as most of the policy-makers often do would not serve to establish what Mrs. Lam called the “shared

Whose “Talent”? Whose “Excellence”?

79

understanding”. As the term seems to imply, it has to be something with the capacity of transcending personal or partisan interests by putting the “good” common for all as the guiding principle, which ultimately would appeal to the level of “philosophical determinants” for securing talking points for dialogue to emerge. Put it differently, this “shared understanding” is an issue requiring philosophical reflections on what education is all about, perhaps a life time endeavour for individuals and a crossgenerational project for the community as a whole to which these individuals belong. Otherwise, those who work in the education sector can only be treated as “service providers” entailing that “autonomy” is alien to them in a sense that their aim is always defined by the people they “serve”. That is reason why Biesta and likeminded scholars have tried painstakingly to encourage us to reflect on the issue of what education is all about (Biesta, 2010). It is also in the course of this “questioning further” (Gadamer, 1994, p. 367) “teaching excellence” can be well grounded and the term “talent” strongly evaluated. Most often, policy-makers and leaders are strategic in identifying “desirable” outcomes out of a balanced motif levelling the interest and power of different stakeholders. The process is formalistic in legitimizing these outcomes by securing endorsements particularly from the “academics”, who are usually not practitioners. By “strategic”, I mean the kind of management style that emphasizes the setting of “clear” objectives in the first place and then securing input or resources towards achieving those objectives. In extreme cases, the process of having them achieved could be arranged in such a way that it becomes a closed system excluding any outside influences in the course of their achievement. The basic assumption of this kind of mindset is the ideology of “effectiveness”. The notion of “clear” here signifies its infallibility assuming that any “abnormalcy” conducive to malfunctions in getting the objectives achieved is a problem in the process of implementation or the incompetence of the “labourers” who are entrusted to implement what has been prescribed. This is a paradox from the perspective of “strategy-as-practice” developed by Chia (2004) in that not being able to be flexible enough to make adjustment even to the proposed objectives being prescribed in advance due to insensitivity to contextual changes in the process of “doing” or “making” is itself a weakness and “unprofessional”. According to Chia, the relationship between ends and means has to be always in a dialectic fashion given the fact that contextual factors cannot be ignored. From the above, an important issue is generated that deserves our attention, i.e. the relationship between “teachers as practitioners” in Chia’s sense and policy-makers who see “teachers as service providers” and their job is just to implement what has been defined in advance by those who are not involved in actual practices but assume that they know what is “good”: (1) without involving the doers, i.e. the practitioners, in the process of deliberating the selected “good”; and (2), without taking the contextual factors as the ultimate references for informing the practitioners and getting them involved in the deliberation process in the course of their implementation. Both scenarios would not offer room for teachers to exercise their discerning power and make adjustment to allow the unintended “good” to surface. As a result, teachers will lose their chance to become “professional” practitioners through praxis in its

80

5 What is Education All About?

true sense. Hence, no “teaching excellence” and eventually no “talents”. A real case suffices to illustrate the point that this author is trying to make.

Students as Customers Versus Citizens I once heard a leader from an educational institute painstakingly advise an audience of about two hundred in a forum, who were her junior colleagues, to become more “professional”. The reason provided for supporting her advice was that: “your students are your customers/clients”. So, she was defining the relationship between teachers and students from a market-oriented perspective. Her speech was followed by a question from the audience concerning this definition, but drawing my attention was an unsolicited response from another speaker who came from one of the Nordic countries. He took the initiative just right after her response to share that “my country does not treat our students as customers or clients, we treat them as citizens”. Two metaphors, each of which with its own assumption defining the relationship between teachers and students. This seemingly “little” difference may sound insignificant to those who are used to the market-oriented discourse in education. Is there an alternative? Here I propose two questions to guide the following discussion. First, what would be the main difference between a student being treated as a customer or client but not a citizen in terms of the purpose of learning in relation to the well-being of a whole society to which the student belongs or the constitution of which he or she is a part? This understanding could hopefully shed some light on the way how we position ourselves to determine what counts as “talent”. Second, how would this difference shape the practice of a teacher in relation to the aim these two different metaphors have provided and the role “talents” play in the learning process of the whole class as a community as well? This author anticipates that a teacher who treats a student as customer/client should perform differently than the way he or she treats a student as a citizen in her/his practice. In return, this difference would also alter the way how we define what “teaching excellence” means with a different set of criteria. The extent to which the above two questions are significant in the development of Hong Kong’s education will unfold itself as some selected events with policy implications are reviewed and examined in the rest of this chapter.

A Case for Provoking Thinking There is no denying that “nurturing talent” and “teaching excellence” are two focal educational objectives among others. However, they could become only empty signifiers in a condition where contextual and axiological references are absent or not spelt out clearly. The following case perhaps can help illustrate the point. It so happened that one day when this author was working at the fourth floor of a library during noon time, he heard some “noise” coming up from an open space

Whose “Talent”? Whose “Excellence”?

81

just in front of the library. He was curious and went down to the site where the noise came from. When he looked around and checked out what happened, a young person approached him and offered him a free gift while introducing herself as a helper serving for the event which was part of the program named “Psychological Well-Being Week”. Seeing that there could be some self-contradictory message, he, as a visitor, took the advantage of the time being available for him on the spot to ask her some questions. The conversation ran as follows: Visitor (this author): Would you mind answering me a few questions? Helper: Sure. Visitor: The topic of this activity is Psychological Well-Being. There are two singers performing on the stage entrusted to promote the idea. But, in practice, they have actually created some disturbing noise. Have you thought about the possibility that there would be adverse effects on the well-being of those studying in the library? (As the sound volume was high enough to make verbal communication difficult, I chose to get the issue straight.) Helper: We’ve informed the library and the door at the entrance has been kept closed. So, it should be alright. If you still find it not okay, you can go up to the fourth floor. Visitor: I’ve just come down from the fourth floor. I studied up there just now and I found it very disturbing. Helper: Sorry that this cannot be avoided for this is the only place where we can reach more people. Visitor: Okay, then. Can you tell me who has the right to determine the quiet time and well-being of those who are studying in the library should be sacrificed? (The helper hesitated a bit.) Helper: … I am just a student helper serving here. You may go there to ask the organizer. (Pointing to a booth where someone was there watching over the entire site.) What has struck me in this conversation is the gradual disclosing fact that the identity of the helper was a student, who somehow did not seem to be aware of what she was doing when she “thoughtlessly” judged that the sacrifice of those studying in the library at that moment is something that “cannot be avoided” even though she was informed that the noise produced by the event was disturbing and was against the message and spirit the event was promoting, i.e. psychological well-being. This is obviously an “unexamined” belief. The question pertaining to the concern of this book is: What had contributed to the slipping through of this “belief” surreptitiously? I actually sympathize with this student because she was not someone without moral awareness. It was the role that she was playing that confused her. This was identified when she referred me to the organizer to answer the question on “who has the right to determine the quiet time and well-being of those who are studying in the library should be sacrificed”. This question seems to have reminded her that the

82

5 What is Education All About?

excuse she offered cannot be justified and she seemed to recognize this manifested by her hesitance to respond to my question. Hence, a moral dilemma emerged which she might not find herself capable of dealing with in that situation when she finally revealed her status as just a student helper. While this shift in identity reveals her recognition that the issue might be too complicated for her to handle, her enthusiasm in performing her assignment also shows that her judgement was made without having taken this complication into consideration. This begs the question of what is at issue here. In Knight’s terminology, what “contextual modifying factors” were involved contributing to the emergence of this issue and what kinds of value (or “philosophical determinants” if any) were at work shaping the judgement of this student helper? The basic question would be: Was she learning and what may she have learned without my interruption? A piece of information given by the student helper may offer some clues when she said “this is the only place where we can reach more people”. The significance of this piece of information is far-reaching. First, the hidden agenda underlying the student helper’s judgement that some people’s liberty of enjoying a quiet place to study can be sacrificed is reaching more people. This is what we generally understand a “market-oriented” approach which counts on numbers as the basis for measuring the “successfulness” of an activity or event. If this is the case, we cannot avoid but ask what the objective of the event truly is in action: promoting the concept of “psychological well-being” of the people with the maximization of the number of people one can reach as the measuring principle without considering the potential harm done to those involved in its proximity or truly advancing it by practising. By the latter, it means doing the right thing in the right place at the right time and of course for the right people. This is what moral and life education where psychological well-being should form a fundamental part of it are all about, i.e. learning and doing by practising under the guidance of what is considered “good” through deliberation that involves a process of interpretation conducive to understanding. This is what the notion of “learning in practice” entails in the light of Gadamer’s three moments of understanding together with Aristotle’s phronesis. The separation of the promotion of the event from practising through it pertaining to issues with humans as the end itself is misleading. The consequence is the plain fact that it has blocked the ethical sensitivity of those who organized the event including the student helper herself, who are supposed to be guided in a condition to have a chance of making it grow. Some may consider educational activities as tasks that only happen within the classroom setting. Dewey’s view that “education is life itself” (Dewey, 1916, p. 239) is inspiring here in that any events and activities in themselves can be educative since they are part of our life contributing to shaping our character. This view of life as education seems to be also shared by Bellah et al. when they suggested that “all institutions are educative” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 16). This shift in understanding urges educators to reconsider not only the nature and scope of education, but also the notion of nurturing “talent” and “excellence” in teaching, the successfulness of which counts not only on the teachers but also those who are in the management and policy-making levels of an institution. This reminds me of an African proverb, which says, “it takes a whole village to raise a child”. If we take these advices seriously,

Whose “Talent”? Whose “Excellence”?

83

the assumption that the management is only entitled to care about a “balance sheet” type of leadership style that concerns the enrolment number of students and that it is the teachers who are responsible for the delivery of learning materials would be again misleading. That virtues can only be habituated through participation, i.e. praxis, supports this argument. In the following, two newspaper articles will be used as heuristic devices, which will be critically studied and analysed, to show the educational concerns of Hong Kong in the eyes of some leaders emerging at the time when this manuscript was being written. Readers are invited to bring along the experience you have got from the two cases presented earlier and imagine how they fit into the picture these two articles are going to reveal.

The Current Situation: “Winning at the Starting Line” Professor Stephen Cheung Yan-leung, the president of the Education University of Hong Kong, contributed an article in mid-2018 to a local newspaper asserting that “‘Winning at the starting line’ is a losing formula”, which is also the title of the article (Cheung, 2018). He explained that “children can make more of their lives if their curiosity and motivation is nurtured rather than having the pressure piled on them to excel at an early age”. This suggestion was made in response to a phenomenon considered seemingly having been created by the parents who were seen to believe that “toddlers and pre-schoolers must start “winning” at the earliest stage or be left behind”. As a result, as Professor Cheung observed, it is common “to see parents queuing up outside the elite schools in the hope of securing admission, which they see as a ticket to their children’s success”. At the end, the writer invited us, perhaps the parents in particular, to “contemplate what education is all about”. This invitation was perhaps timely, but it is easy said than done by asking the parents to “think outside the box” or independently within a condition where one was driven by the fear of being lagged behind in competition, a state of mind vulnerably susceptible to doing what most other people are doing. The extent to which their choice was guided by the ideology that had prevailed in the society of Hong Kong, the constitution of which the universities and the whole educational system had actually played a part, remains a question to be answered. Within this context, the convincing power of the admonition and advice offered by the writer being one of the constituting parts of the system appeared to have been discounted. It is logical to assume that the purpose of the article was to provide a more balanced way to approach education. It was done by suggesting, first of all, that: “Self-motivation inspired by curiosity is perhaps the best driving force for learning”. Other attributes as they were suggested by the writer, like creativity, adaptability, innovative spirit, empathy, compassion and open-mindedness etc. were also considered important for “our children to become lifelong, self-directed learners”. But still, is this what education is all about? This question is raised based on the assumption that even “empathy” and “compassion” could be used as the means towards other ends, i.e. instrumentally. Besides, is “self-motivation” an attribute the breeding of

84

5 What is Education All About?

which is merely an individual’s effort independent of its environment without taking the contribution of the “others” into consideration? Fundamentally, do we need to contemplate what all these attributes are for? I assume that the article did have provided some clues for answering the above questions when the concepts of “whole person development” and “character building” were mentioned, the quality of which, as it was pointed out, “will contribute to [student’s] well-being and empower them to become agents of social betterment”, a condition expectedly quite different from that governed by the will to win at the starting line as what the parents were to blame of doing so. At this point, I take it for granted that this should be where the vision and mission of university education comes in in helping the students and the parents as well to deliberate on issues that go beyond personal interest, the catalyst that intensifies the desire for competition. However, this assumption is challenged when the rationale underlying the selection of those examples used to justify the thought of the writer is closely examined.

The Myth of “Self-motivation” and “Success” In the article, four well-known figures, three out of which are from the sector of technology including Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Zucherberg, were mentioned. While they were considered successful entrepreneurs and the attribute contributing to their career success was identified as their self-motivation, it was emphasized that they had not finished their university education. This emphasis was developed with the purpose of arguing that “academic success is just one of the many factors that contribute to career success” in response to the ideology of “winning at the starting line” held by the parents. However, this rhetorical device seems to have thrown the “baby” out with the bathwater. Why? Who is the “baby”? And what is the “bathwater”? There is a general belief among discourse analysts that we all live in discourse and even perhaps “there is nothing outside discourse”. By this, it implies that not all we hear and say are new. We can only “surf the tide” so to speak of discourse created by our tradition since we were born. Put it differently, we are somehow conditioned in one way or another to adopt a certain perspective which has already been discursively constructed for us to position ourselves in a situation where negotiation or dialogue takes place. As Gadamer regards, the only way we could wisely “surf the tide” is to enter into dialogue with one’s tradition and current discourses through which new insights emerge and where the old could be replaced by the new. This is how we grow and the reason why we have to learn. With this understanding, we need to be cautious about the rhetoric being used by the sender of a message and proactively check whether the thing being said is a persuasive statement or not and, if so, we have to question and ponder further what ideology is at work in facilitating the persuasion. It is fair to add that even the one who composes the statement may not notice if a statement being constructed in his/her conversation with a respondent is a persuasive one particularly when it is governed by the desire of having to complete

The Current Situation: “Winning at the Starting Line”

85

a task “effectively”. Let us examine the justifications relevant to the way how the concepts including “career and academic success”, “university education”, “winning at the starting line”, and “self-motivation” were put together by the writer. In the article, the academic path towards “success” is juxtaposed with that of the three celebrities, whose achievement is attributed to self-motivation, the undertone of which seems to suggest that its cultivation is beyond the reach of university education. Would this rhetorical device consequently and perhaps indirectly restrict our imagination to ponder what capacity our university education could cultivate in our students? Put it differently with a counter-argument, wouldn’t there be the possibility that the business ideas initiated by these celebrities had already been motivated by the learning community within the university before they opted out to have these ideas further developed? A fundamental question concerning the nature of university education is that: Isn’t the cultivation of self-motivation exactly what university education is all about? If this is the case, did the writer somehow admit that the main purpose of university education had been passing through a process of change to the extent that the writer had to shy away from talking about “self-motivation” as though it was something largely if not exclusively possessed by certain kinds of people and in his case the technology guru or pioneers? Furthermore, wouldn’t this sort of discursive device in fact help create a misleading impression that the quality of “self-motivation” can only manifest itself through these “successful” people? Furthermore, shouldn’t it be the fact that the value of university education and the preservation of it is exactly the opposite that “self-motivation” be given a variety of ways to manifest itself and the notion of “success” could be justified not solely from a particular dimension? Besides, the concept of “self-motivation” so construed in the article seems to suggest that it is an attribute that can be acquired or developed independent of the context from which it emerges. Is this really the case that “self”motivation is something possessed by an individual, the emergence of which is all about a “self” motivated by the self of its own? Yes, “self-motivation” is important. But, it does not come out of a vacuum. Furthermore, the reason why Bill Gate, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zucherberg dropped out of school could have both positive and negative implications. From a positive perspective, their motivation could be in fact triggered by their being involved in the learning environment provided by the university at the very beginning. So, their dropping out only indicates that formal graduation does not prove anything in terms of career success. This should not be used to undermine the potential a university could offer. Construed negatively, dropping out earlier than expected could mean there might be some lack in their “whole personal development” (an idea highlighted by the writer when we are invited to contemplate what education is all about) assuming that our university education does demand that such education is indispensable for graduation. Facebook’s “success” seems to have ironically proved this when it was revealed that the successfulness of Facebook might involve some “ethical” issues. Sean Parker, who served as the first president of the Facebook website, told the public earlier in an interview that the initial design of Facebook serves to “exploit” “a vulnerability in human psychology” and, according to Parker, Mark Zucherberg understood this. The impact it may have could be horrendous when Parker expressed

86

5 What is Education All About?

that “God only knows what it is doing to our children’s brains” (Locklear, 2017). So, one can be motivated to do “harmful things” as well if Parker’s comment proves to be true.

The Myth of Technology The ethical dimension in using technology has also drawn the attention of some critics, among a few of them is Jaron Lanier, a tech pioneer, who published a book with the title Ten Arguments to Delete Your Social Media Accounts Right Now in 2018. He postulates that people become happier without “connected” to social media and they could have better opportunity for self-discovery and experience the world in a contrasted way (Lanier, 2018). Thomas Friedman, the author of a well-known book The World is Flat (2007), regards in another of his book Thank You for Being Late (2016) that technology, globalization, and climate change are three largest forces on the planet and they are accelerating. It is interesting that when he suggests a person’s lateness in attending a meeting in fact would spare the one whom he or she is going to meet some time to sit and think—a precious moment for reflection, which has been taken away from us by the accelerating speed of technological development serving to compete. Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, the authors of The Second Machine Age, also remind us at the end of their book that “we need to think much more deeply about what it is we really want and what we value”. His advice is that it is the latter which “will matter more than ever” (2014, p. 257). The opinions of all of the above authors seem to have provided an additional dimension in response to the question raised by Professor Cheung of “what education is all about”. Besides, in his article, career success seemed to have been portrayed as the prime goal of students’ endeavour, contributing to which academic success is just one factor among many others. We cannot help but raise doubts about the status of university education as it was suggested in the article, the “mission and vision” associated with which did not seem to have deserved enough deliberation in the article due probably to the result of the writer’s having assigned a value to academic success as equivalent to what the parents see it. This could be a good example to illustrate the extent to which the “contextual modifying factor” represented by the parents has overshadowed educational practices in terms of goal setting, scope of concern and their interpretation. As we may see that all the attributes suggested in the article could be interpreted within the provided context as serving the purpose of gaining career success instead of helping us to think further what education is all about as the article seems to encourage us to do so. Shying away from deliberating on the fact that career “success” is just a portion of life, the success of which may not necessarily be associated merely with one’s career and that it could have a variety of interpretations apart from the one tied in with the notion of competition, does not encourage us to think outside the box. As a result of this, the attempt to throw out the bath water, i.e. the belief of “winning at the starting line”, has in fact thrown the baby, i.e. the mission of university education, entirely out altogether. Given the above analysis

The Current Situation: “Winning at the Starting Line”

87

truly reflects the kind of belief being practised in Hong Kong’s educational system, my students’ being hesitant to send their children, if they had one, to Sudbury Valley School can now be understood. To be fair, the intention of the article is reasonably thought of as attempting to “rectify” a belief held by many Hong Kong parents, which is “‘Winning at the starting line’” (Cheung, 2018). A fundamental question is: What is the nature of the problem? The writer seemed to recognize this when he contributed another article later in March 2019 to a local Chinese newspaper Economic Journal with the topic: Reflection on Life Education (Cheung, 2019, p. C4).

A Forward-Looking Vision (1): The Call for “Life Education” The article essentially talks about the need for a reflection on “life education” in the context of Hong Kong. The writer argued that people of Hong Kong in general treated “life education” as merely a quick-fix tool aiming at meeting the immediate needs of the societal demands without truly embracing the core value of it, which according to him was about moral values. This “vision” in fact suggests a paradigmatic shift in understanding education, and yet its “value” is discounted when he quoted the OECD 2030 vision, which basically promotes collaboration and collective responsibility (OECD, 2018), as saying that the values and dispositions associated with “life education” are helpful in maintaining the students’ “competitiveness” in future. It seems to be an imperative that strengthening a place’s competitiveness is what many of the leaders have believed to be a promise one has to make in order to win his or her followers or voters and of course those to whom they are held accountable. However, when “life education” is “fabricated” as a means towards strengthening competitiveness, this begs the question of what kind of “life” one could hope for and what sort of character one may think of to cultivate in the students. As we can see from what the student helper came through in the case mentioned above, instrumental reasoning that treats the person as not the ends of itself to a large extent runs at odds with the spirit of life and/or moral education that aims at the otherwise. In the case of the student helper, the objective of “reaching more people” has eventually turned the promotion of “psychological well-being”, which was supposed to be the ends itself, into means for other purpose other than itself and in actuality might have done some “harm” to the people involved and the student helper in particular in terms of her being cultivated in her with some “value” which she was not aware of, i.e. competing guided by the principle of “reaching more” at the expense of securing room for deliberating certain ethical issues that might involve. In actuality, those studying in the library or passing by were turned into numbers used to satisfy the objective set by the organizer. In short, running a project in the name of “life education” is very different from “life education” itself. With reference to the analytical framework

88

5 What is Education All About?

provided in the previous chapter, the key is “in practice” and its relevant outcome could only emerge through this practice in situations which are real in our life world. The president’s article in fact has revealed a very fundamental issue in Hong Kong’s education. Why is it that the term “education” has to be qualified with the word “life” to indicate that we need some form of education which is about life? The quick answer to this question is logically very simple, i.e. the society of Hong Kong has evolved into a situation where the government probably informed by her advisors had found it necessary to introduce into the education system something pertaining to the notion “life”, which was regarded as absent in the past or at least the fact that the current provisions and capacity could not afford to remedy the vicious deterioration of the “life” situation though what it actually means deserves more research to inform our understanding. As Prof. Cheung’s article was published in March 2019, it should not have anything to do with the situation after the outbreak of the anti-extradition bill. But, the assumption that it may be related to the impact of the Umbrella Movement, which happened in 2014, is reasonable if the call for “life education” implies “disrespect” to authority and “disobedience”. There could be an alternative explanation suggested by Hui, i.e. “thoughtlessness” (2015), a phenomenon to be elaborated in more details in the next chapter. Knowing this difference is important lest the latter is overshadowed by the former resulting in our neglecting the problem identified by Hui, the deliberation of which may better inform us to get a more comprehensive understanding of what “life education” is all about with special regard to the condition within which the issue was produced.

A Forward-Looking Vision (2): The Call for “Character Education” “Winning at the starting line” and the call for “life education” were just two among others identified by the leaders as issues that needed to be addressed. This phenomenon deserves special attention since they, in the light of Aristotle’s framework, are of the same nature, i.e. in the area of phronesis, which concerns the issue of ethics that constitute the basis for deliberating what a “good” society is to be conceived. From the perspective of students’ learning, the capability of deliberating and discerning what is “good” by weighing one set of value against another within a particular context where the whole needs to be understood by thoroughly considering its parts without the assumption that these parts can be reproduced to reconstruct the “original” whole is the kind of quality which they have to syndicate in themselves in face of a future where global and local, individual and communal, technological and spiritual, and ethical and instrumental collide. The following call reinforce this need and the worry underlying the postulation made by this author at the end of the previous paragraph. Professor Frederick Ma Si-hang, the chairman of the Council of the Education University of Hong Kong, was reported in an interview conducted by a program

A Forward-Looking Vision (2): The Call for “Character Education”

89

host of the Commercial Radio as expressing that “character education should start as early as in kindergartens so children learned to show more respect to teachers” (Zhang, 2020, B18). The reason he offered for advocating this initiative was due to his personal observation that “some university students using foul language with their teachers, and even throwing joss paper at Chinese University president Rocky Tuan Sung-chi during a heated exchange amid anti-government protests in the city last year”, i.e. 2019. He rationalized his suggestion by saying: “many things are already fixed when students go to secondary schools”. Therefore, he suggested: “character education featuring respect, gratitude and empathy should be taught as early as in life as possible”. Earlier, when he resumed duty as the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Education University of Hong Kong, he told the media that Hong Kong needed professional teachers with “heart”. What can we make of Ma’s two observations, one is about the performance of the students and the other that of the teachers? This author suggests that it has to be understood contextually. Two issues surface. First, under what condition did the student act in such a way that this “abnormalcy” emerged? This question is raised based on the observation that it happened in a situation where some higher values were considered at stake to which the president concerned was seen as not having the capacity to live up to or even “betraying” the students. Raising this question does not necessarily imply that what the student did was proper or the otherwise. Second, given that there was a need for doing so, what is the “proper” way of cultivating character education and within what kind of setting it can be accomplished? Just tell students what should be the “right” thing to do and expect that they would act accordingly does not seem to be realistic and could be counter-productive even in terms of education itself. By this, I mean educational process is not just about a process of identifying the problem and then set the objective followed by producing a course program the teaching and learning activities of which are assumed to be designed in such a way that they would directly lead the students to the targeted and intended outcome. With reference to Aristotle’s framework of knowledge, this could be just one of the approaches good for dealing with a specific type of knowledge, say episteme (theoretical or scientific) or a narrow version of techne (technical). Now, what appears to be a problem identified by Prof. Ma belongs to the realm of phronesis (ethics), which requires a very different lens to conceive its cultivation. If Aristotle is correct that this type of knowledge cannot be taught, how are we going about talking its cultivation? That the cultivation of virtues is most of the time in real life situation rather than in the classroom setting reminds us that the way it is cultivated is not a technical issue whereby it can be operated following a step-by-step procedure anticipating that some pre-specified outcomes can be guaranteed. One key issue Prof. Ma might have overlooked is his assumption that the system itself was not part of the contributing factors conducive to the degeneration of a society’s ethical sensitivity in general. Besides, he did not seem to have taken into consideration the fact that teacher, same as student, is a relational concept in that if a so-called teacher cannot live up to what is expected of a teacher to perform in relation to the students s/he serves, what is expected of a student to perform in relation to the teacher, e.g. showing respect, is simply “indoctrinating”, if not meaningless, due to

90

5 What is Education All About?

its being taken out of context. But still, Prof. Ma’s observation deserves our attention when it is put in a wider context of which the education system is a part. That this could be a systemic issue when other calls are also taken into consideration, among which the call for parent education is another, may drive us to question further on the source of this confusion.

A Forward-Looking Vision (3): The Call for “Parent Education” While this book was in the course of its development, “parent education” was identified as another area that required immediate attention. The main argument backing the launching of what Mr. Lui, who was the chairperson of the Task Force on Home School Co-operation and Parent Education, called the “positive parent movement” is the observation that “both parents and children are brought under an energydraining vicious cycle which affects parent–child relationship” (Lui, 2019, p. 1). It was concluded that “the culture of excessive competition” was to blame. Whether it be intentionally or unintentionally, the “spearhead” was pointed towards parents who were considered at least rhetorically being responsible for children’s healthy and joyful development. What this report has assumed is that this is solely a problem of the people nearest to the children without considering the corresponding condition within which such competitiveness had created, the same kind of position assumed by Prof. Stephen Cheung, who wrote the article “Winning at the starting line” (Cheung, 2018, p. A9). About a month later, Mr. Lui reiterated this judgement through a radio program named Hong Kong’s Letter (RTHK, 2019) that there had been unhappy family incidents and many parents had problems in teaching and nurturing their children. As a result, they felt a lot of pressure. This is the reason why Mr. Lui was appointed the chairperson of the Task Force aiming at launching the “positive parent movement”. The Task Force was formed in 2017 and about one and a half years later, i.e. April 2019, a report was produced after having consulted the main stakeholders and relevant research conducted overseas. In his speech, the problem being identified is about parents’ over expectation of their children’s performance in the exam. As a result, the moral aspect of their development had been ignored. It was regarded that this had much to do with the reason why their children were not happy, which had become obstacles to their healthy development and growth though not much was said concerning its relevance. In fact, Mr. Lui’s presentation was concluded with a question: How could we basically change this kind of incorrect perception of the parents? In response to a question of how to become good parents, Mr. Lui suggested that a good parent would actively equip him/herself by continuously improving their knowledge, skills, and attitude of how to take good care of their children. Besides, they are willing happily to communicate and work with schools. In addition, they would value the

A Forward-Looking Vision (3): The Call for “Parent Education”

91

moral development, civic responsibility and non-academic accomplishment of their children plus appropriate planning and arrangement of all these. With respect to the possibility of how the Task Force could help parents live up to their expectations mentioned above, the idea of “positive parent movement” was highlighted, the aim of which is twofold: (1) strengthening parents’ positive understanding of how to nurture their children in contrast to the current competitive mode that has been adopted; and (2) promoting the correct attitude and method in teaching their children. The speech ends with some form of a slogan postulating that “only when we have happy parents would happy children emerge or follow”. What interests the author of this book are: (1) the way how the role of parents is perceived; and (2) the neutrality that is taken for granted in terms of the judgement given in relation to the speaker who represents the education system itself. The implication of these two aspects of concern only points to one thing: it is the parents to blame for the “competitive mode” they have embraced. Whether this judgement is doing justice to the parents is one thing, the extent to which the position of this judgement could help find a proper solution to it is another. Supporting the above query is the argument that distancing oneself from being involved as part of the agents in having contributed to constituting a problem which is systemic in nature would isolate the problem as an insulated space that can be dealt with by technical means, i.e. the solution can be manipulated by controlling the process at a distance without having to take the meaningful structure within which the problem is created into consideration. Stone’s postulation that outcome is more important than process and content (Stone, 2008) reflects this tendency when outcome becomes a representation of “winning” at whatever line one chooses to start with. This reflection draws the attention of this author to a major concern: “without a clear understanding of the nature of the issue, the system which has created the problem and tries to solve the problem it has created with the same mentality that has created that problem could be the problem itself ”.

The Autonomy of Education Based on the platform set above, three questions need to be addressed, which are: first, what has happened to the society of Hong Kong conducive to the urgency of crying for “life education”, “value education”, “character education”, and “parent education” being identified as the source of students’ unhappy life? Second, why is that the current operation of the relevant education system does not have the capacity to deal with this problem? The third, one that can be generated from the above two is that: Are we expecting education in general to be just a system whose existential purpose is just to respond to the immediate needs of the society? Put it differently: Shouldn’t we expect education to play a more proactive role in providing and promoting a more integrated or balanced purpose of life instead of merely serving the expectations of the demand directed by the politicians and people from the business sector? The answer to this question may require us to reconsider whether the notion of education needs to be redefined and should have its autonomy.

92

5 What is Education All About?

A definition of education offered by Robert Hutchins in his book The Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society may shed some light on the questions. Hutchins regards: “the purpose of education is to improve men”. And “any system that tries to make them bad is not education” (Hutchins, 1953, pp. 67–8). According to Hutchins, education itself already carries with it a positive tone and its aim is to improve men. In other words, it is about the improvement of the life of (wo)men. Here we cannot escape but ask again why education has to be qualified by the word “life”. The only explanation is that the emphasis on the word “life” reflects its having been neglected in the past. That the question of what has diverted our attention away from taking the cultivation of life as the first priority, the essence of which is moral in nature, remains. As I mentioned earlier, nothing will come out of a vacuum. The society of Hong Kong has come to a situation where at least some leaders have started to be aware of the fact that something has gone “wrong”. Though it may be considered unproductive to probe into the issue of “who” is to blame, what concerns this author most from the perspective of education is the possibility that without a clear understanding of the nature of the issue, may I repeat again, the system which has created the problem and tries to solve the problem it has created with the same mentality that has created that problem could be the problem itself . Using the Aristotelian framework of knowledge to explain, an issue of phronesis cannot be dealt with using a techne or episteme mentality. In the rest of this book, the truthfulness of this postulation will unfold itself.

Conclusion So far in this chapter, I have provided a brief sketch introducing the main concerns identified by a few significant leaders in the field of education of Hong Kong. They are all well-known figures having closely worked with the government. One concern has caught the attention of this author, who, to a large extent, agrees with their observations, but has come up with a different interpretation with special regard to the source from which those problems have come about. There should be no dispute that education is entrusted with shouldering the responsibility of nurturing “talent” and “teaching excellence”. However, what these two qualities actually entail remains a question if we also recognize that the system which relies on these two qualities for its sustainability has also fallen short of providing the kind of practice, the absence of which would make the call for “life education”, “character education” and “parent education” and so forth more of a lip service. The crux of the matter appears to be whether the ideology governing the operation of such system is capable of doing so. This query is backed up by the conclusion of a book (Hui, 2015), which attempted to evaluate the performance of the whole education system of Hong Kong, with the judgement that Hong Kong’s education system was characterized by the “thoughtlessness” of its operational mechanism.

Conclusion

93

Yearning for a Richer Account of Education While teaching “excellence” and “talents” are what our educational leaders are yearning for, the definitions of these two terms are yet to be defined particularly when “whole person development” as the educational goal is called for. Crying out for “character education”, “life education”, “moral education”, and the like has indicated that the notions of “talents” and “excellence” in education deserve a richer account should the concept of “whole person development” be honoured with corresponding outlook on a higher ground. In the light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge, this author postulates that the problems identified by the Hong Kong educational leaders are issues that cannot be addressed without the insights informed by phronesis, the nature of which is very different from those of techne and episteme. Put it simply, ethical issues cannot be settled by technical means or “scientific” endeavours in its narrow sense. Theoretical arguments of any sort may help map out the relevant relational web, but the complexity involved when they are put into practice is always surprising that requires improvisational responses on the spot. This kind of wisdom, the power of discerning what is good in context, can only be developed through practice, habituated and accumulated in experience. This shift in paradigmatic understanding will alter the way we perceive the relationship between outcome and process, theory/research and practice, teacher and student, and more importantly, as it is revealed by what happened in Sudbury Valley School, education and life. Illuminated by this understanding, Dewey’s “Education is not preparation for life; education is life” would become easier to comprehend. In sum, a problem was identified, the nature of which epistemologically speaking falls into the category of phronesis in Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge. However, this problem will not be solved without a corresponding understanding of its nature pertaining to ethical sensitivity, the cultivation of which needs to be done in a natural, contingent, and precarious environment. Offering relevant courses of this kind may help alert the learner that there is such a thing called, for example, “moral education” or “life education”. However, and most of the time, the possibility of its cultivation would end once the exam is over. Therefore, whether the exam itself would be helpful or become the otherwise, i.e. an “obstacle”, to its cultivation remains a question to be answered since the nature of the exam which provides “rewards” or “awards” at the end of the course in the form of “credits” would inevitably have the course’s initial aims instrumentalized resulting in diverting the students’ attention from the course’s “intrinsic’ values” towards those of the “extrinsic” ones represented by what we so-called academic results. In other words, an exam-oriented educational system is doomed to fail in moral or character cultivation if the exam itself becomes a distraction. This can explain why there is no grade and formal curriculum in Sudbury Valley School because their absence helps maintain the authenticity of learning or, in Gadamer’s terminology, self-understanding in learning and the vibrancy of the relational web that implies mutuality from which this “self-understanding” emerges.

94

5 What is Education All About?

What happened to the student helper mentioned in this chapter earlier can demonstrate how “evil” can be disguised as an angel in the name of learning when instrumental reasoning holds sway. The student helper, whatever she was invited to commit or assign to do, should logically have been offered a chance to learn something positively while, in Daniel Greenberg’s own word, “doing” the relevant task. However, the objective of “reaching more people” as the “hidden” agenda in fact diverted the attention of the organizer including the student helper away from the initial purpose set for the whole event it is meant to serve, i.e. “promoting” the concept of “psychological well-being”. Perhaps the trick lies in the word “promotion” since from the eyes of the promoter the word only entails the making of something “known” without necessarily having to bring about any attitudinal and even behavioural transformation. The justification, i.e. “reaching more people” given by the student helper, resulting from overlooking the benefit of those who deserve a quiet place to study in the library testifies this claim. Their “good will”, if there was, was replaced by the attractiveness of “more”. Not only was the student helper not able to take the advantage of the event to experience what it truly means by “psychological well-being”, but she also in fact was uncritically drawn to have “downloaded” a worldview which functions to suppress if not degenerate her empathetic understanding, a practice that may do “harm” to her well-being and healthy character building in a long run.

Yearning for a Thicker Account of Teaching There are two major contributing factors leading to the loss of focus in the event. On the management side of the relevant office, the event under the title of “psychological well-being” was probably treated as merely a project in response to the instruction that the cultivation of a well-balanced college life was needed given that such need was the result of the intensification of work load “academically”. The second factor is closely related to the first, the misunderstanding of which might exacerbate the situation in the form of a vicious circle. This factor concerns about the way how the concept of “psychological well-being” could be realized in the form of “caring” in practice. Obviously, the actual performance of the promotional activity itself has revealed the fact that “caring” was absent in practice, which was overshadowed by a “hidden agenda” that is market-oriented. This reflects two issues: (1) the separation of management and academic mission is one; and (2) the separation of teaching and education is another. The consequence of these practices would eventually be conducive to the separation of education and life with the former’s function reduced to something that can only be “privately” talked about within the four walls of the classroom. This author has sympathy with those who do not dare to cross this boundary for by doing so this may be considered a “misbehaviour” to be recorded in the Student Evaluation to Teaching (SET) score, a “weapon” always targeting at the “deliverer”, if not “service provider”, to make sure that he or she has to follow the objectives clearly set in the schedule and outline of the course. Any assignment requiring “extra”

Conclusion

95

effort to excel could be perceived as an “unfair” treatment rather than opportunities. Rhetorically, this sort of “reporting” is usually “beautified” as feedbacks helping to improve the course and pedagogical design. That being said the positive contribution such a device is meant to achieve should not be ruled out. Nevertheless, the possibility of its being abused or mishandled does raise the major issue this book is attempting to address. That is, when “character” building, “life education”, and knowledge of similar nature can only be acquired through practice and that this sort of education, according to Dewey, is life itself implying that it is very often beyond the reach of classroom teaching, the space and time expecting students to get themselves involved cannot be structured in such a way that it can be subjected to measurement of any sort. In virtue of this, the teacher should not be held accountable for any of the result her students get so long as she has shown to be a responsive or an “answerable” person in her communication with the students in the form of care (Murray, 2000). Apart from pointing out the complexity involved in identifying the issue, it is the possibility of the eclipse of a favourable condition for character cultivation, practising moral judgement, value negotiation, and leading a discerning life that concerns this author. The promotion of the concept of “caring” without realizing that the way it is promoted is itself a practice is dangerous and could be anti-educational just as what has been done to the student helper manifested by her unexamined belief that the agenda of “reaching more people” should overlay the purpose embedded in the event. That “caring” is taken as merely a slogan without its realization in practice in the students’ daily college and school life and through the design of the institutional polices is misleading. To what extent this overlook in the past has contributed to the recent calls for “character education”, “moral education”, “value education”, and “life education”, etc. deserve deep investigation. To be more exact and put it in the form of a question, to what extent the trend of leaning towards instrumentalizing education in whatever form it may appear, where defining students as “customers” or “clients” is the major one, has deprived the teachers, who are correspondingly perceived merely as service providers, of their opportunities to act or practise in such a way with the purpose that it is the cultivation of future citizens they are meant to serve? Reflecting on this question may suggest the embracement of an alternative orientation in teaching towards creating favourable conditions with orientations that foster value judgement, empathetic understanding, and moral imaginations contributing to the formation of the character and self of the students with a more balanced view of life.

Yearning for a Deeper Account of Learning To close this chapter, an observation which was selected for analysis and published earlier in a book chapter by this author (Tang, 2016, pp. 26–28) may provide an additional aspect at the level of learning to illustrate how instrumental reasoning works to divert students’ attention and involvement from the genuineness of learning, thus

96

5 What is Education All About?

weakening the impulse of “care” where ethical sensitivity is required. This observation was “storied” based on this author’s own experience in teaching. Two paragraphs are to be extracted for easy reference. Readers are invited to make connections between the implications these two paragraphs may suggest and the two “yearnings” proposed by the educational leaders of Hong Kong, the fulfilment of the first one being considered by this author requires a richer account of education while the second a more responsive account of teaching. While the first suggests an entrenched bias towards practical knowledge in the past and the absence of the recognition that it can only be acquired and habituated through experience and practice, the second points to the consequence of this bias where education has been “compressed” into something which can only be talked about (by some sort of an “informal” consensus) within the “four walls” of the classroom. The extent to which the compromise of these two levels of practice, which are coined by this author as “policy-institutional” and “classroom-instructional” in the book chapter mentioned above (Tang, 2016, pp. 25–26), would contribute to shaping the learning behaviour of the students at the “student-explorational level” (Tang, 2016, pp. 26–27) deserve the attention of those who claim to have a stake on behalf of the students’ interest in education. The following two excerpts are about how students (most of them were freshmen just having finished their secondary school education during which the so-called issueenquiry approach was adopted as the appropriate method of learning) perceived the way an essay be completed in a proper manner. As the author recalled: In my past nine-year teaching, I have always been asked by my students the same question when they presented their essay outline during the consultation hours: “Is the flow okay?” It is interesting that they usually could not tell what the ‘flow’ was when they were requested to elaborate on the inter-linkage of the ideas that helped shape their proposed outline. In short, what they actually would like to achieve through this so-called ‘consultation meeting’ was to get the approval of the teacher without the readiness to discuss substantially on what was proposed. When questioning further on what ground the so-called ‘flow’ was suggested or whether it was enacted based on the readings they had done, the response to the latter question was usually a negative one, which seems to have provided the answer to the former one that the so-called ‘flow’ of the proposed outline is not supported with substantive understanding of the topic. (Tang, 2016, pp. 26–27)

A well experienced teacher with a phonetic lens may be able to identify very quickly where the problem lies. The “structure” or proposed outline of the essay does not have an “owner” in terms of fact that it is not substantiated with any initial reading of relevant materials based on which the outline is produced. The psychology of such an approach is that by securing a seemingly “safe” path towards completing the assignment with an affirmative “yes” from the teacher, the possibility of getting a low grade is minimized or even a “satisfactory” grade guaranteed. Therefore, an irresponsible “yes” may surprise the respective student at the end of the day when he or she finally gets a low grade without knowing that the idea of the acceptable “flow” in fact demands meaningful connections between ideas where sound judgements and reasonable deliberations are what really matter. On the side of the teacher, giving an affirmative “yes” without questioning further whether the student has done any readings to support the “flow” or what it actually entails in the student’s mind would

Conclusion

97

eventually give him or her an illusion that by filling up those “vacuums” in between the titles of each section in the outline the “flow” will take care of itself even in the absence of the writer’s effort to connect the ideas generated from the data collected. It is towards understanding why this “absence” has prevailed that draws the attention of this author. In another piece of information that follows, which comes from the same chapter of the above excerpt and is concerned about the way students have been conditioned to deal with exam in the subject of Liberal Studies, may help explain. According to this author, it: has often been heard and testified by some students that they had been following the advice given by their teachers and relevant educational government officials to give their own opinion after the review of the ‘for’ and ‘against’ views. This sounds to be ‘okay’ on the surface. However, an often-raised question by the student at the end of the consultation may tell a different story. The question is like this: Am I required to state my stance at the end of my paper? This ‘my’ is italicized since it has revealed the tendency of many of the students to regard her/his opinion as something separated from the discussion or formulation of an argument [, if any,] in their paper. As a result, the paper is composed of fragmented pieces or ideas without meaningful connections. The above analysis can also be supported by the way they organize oppositional views. They usually list out all the for- and againstviews but without having them juxtaposed side by side to clarify what exactly is at issue. This indirectly indicates that dialogue between ideas and deliberation within the learner her/himself is absent. (Tang, 2016, p. 27)

Two features with each provided by each of the excerpts are sufficient to alert educators concerned on what may have jeopardized the impulse of our students’ learning. The former concerns about students’ preoccupation with the misunderstanding that knowledge is something static and their active engagement in further developing it is not necessary because they do not seem to recognize that positioning within a particular context may play a significant role in construing the same phenomenon in a new light. This unawareness is manifested by the assumption that an “imagined” outline is good enough to set the boundary within which the “flow” is guaranteed in an unmediated fashion. This sort of disengaged approach extends to the “production” process of the assignment where the student’s opinion or stance concerning the issue under investigation can be regarded as having no necessary connections with what have been previously presented including both the for-andagainst views and the discussion, if there is any, that emerges out of it in an informed manner. It is not difficult to understand the psychology of these students (and perhaps teachers as well). If one follows Stone’s advice that “outcome” is more important than “content” and “process” (Stone, 2008), bearing the risk of dwelling in a dynamic process without knowing what the outcome is in advance should not be an option given the fact that “emerging outcome” could be an alien concept to them and playing safe is the best strategy for survival. Under such a circumstance, a formulaic process of completing their assignment or paper by following the advice of the authority to give a balanced for-and-against views of the issue followed by their own stance becomes naturally a “proper” way of doing so. What is missing is the justification and deliberation functioning to connect the stance and the collected views, an indication of the absence of thought. Is this what education (and learning in particular) is all about?

98

5 What is Education All About?

In a system where “competition” and the so-called survival for the fitness mentality holds sway, “learning” would become a tool serving to reproduce for meeting immediate needs though lip service is still paid to the “glory” of creativity. This notion of learning is defined by those at the top with “authority”. Those who consider themselves merely employees would just follow with the understanding that “survival” is what really matters. This attitude would drive them to minimize as much “risk” as possible in terms of securing the pre-specified outcome at the expense of the processual dynamics where genuine outcome could emerge through active engagement of ideas. So, there are two contrasting versions of “quality assurance” at war. One operates by means of control at a distance (by an outsider) while the other engagement at the frontline through responsive actions of the insiders. The notion of practice in the former entails “running errands” for someone else while that of the latter initiating new ideas by making attunement according to the needs of relevant particular context conducive to the transformation of one’s current or existing worldview or perspective. To answer the questions of “Whose ‘talent’? Whose ‘excellence’?” raised at the beginning of this chapter implies questioning further which discourse by which this “talent” and “excellence” are shaped. By discourse I mean the kind of belief or way of thinking whether it has been examined or not guiding a certain way of doing things. Treating students as clients, marketizing the good will of showing care for the “psychological well-being” of others, and compromising the moral integrity of teaching in favour of a more “productive” outlook all work together contributing to weakening our ethical sensitivity to the complexity of what education is all about. When addressing the question of what genuine education (Bildung) is, Gadamer in a lecture on hermeneutics referred to Hegel by saying: “Education means the ability to see things from the point of view of the other” (Gadamer, 2019). This “other” or even these “others” constitute a relational web that defies and problematizes any attempt to see knowledge as merely some unmediated entities the grasping of which is just a matter of smooth transmission by setting clear objectives, specifying what is required to “teach” or transmit, following a formulaic process, and on the whole minimizing external interferences. This author is afraid that this form of practice has held sway in Hong Kong’s education system for some time in the past. It is operated in such a way that the implications of the existence of this “other” have been ignored or consciously discarded just out of the entrenched bias of the policy-makers and even educators concerned towards practical knowledge (i.e. phronesis). The full notion of “talent” and “excellence” uninformed by it is inadequate. The primacy of phronesis among the other two, i.e. techne and episteme, as it was explained earlier in the second chapter, entails the demystification and disillusionment of the aspiration that there is only one way (the mode of thinking following the natural science) of formulating the process of education, learning, and teaching. This “prejudice”, if not “pre-judgement” in Gadamer’s terminology, in a long run would be habituated in such a way that the contextual factors that constitute the condition of complexity, which in fact lays the breeding ground for generating thoughtfulness and practical insights, would be mistaken as irrelevant that requires elimination. Would this actually be the

Conclusion

99

main cause driving Hui (2015) to conclude that the performance of Hong Kong’s education system had been characterized by its “thoughtlessness”. In the next chapter, this author will examine based on what Hui had come up with his conclusion. Given that his judgement is acceptable, the question that follows is the extent to which the educational policy-makers of Hong Kong could have the capacity of addressing his concern. This will be done by having a critical analysis of the recommendations offered by the Task Force commissioned by the Hong Kong government to review the school curriculum with special regard to the notion of “whole person development” as the suggested educational goal for the future of Hong Kong. Attentions will be focused on the discursive construct of the document to investigate the extent to which the interconnectedness of the recommendations is invested with the necessary condition both epistemologically, strategically, and pedagogically to contain Hui’s criticism. This author would further argue that the judgement of Hui shares the same concerns with the leaders who called for “character education”, “life education”, and, not the least, “whole person development” as a new educational goal as well.

References Bellah, N. R., Madsen, R., Tipton, S. M., Sullian, W. M. & Swidler, A. (1992). The good society. New York: Vintage Books. Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Paradigm Publishers. Brynjolfsson, E., & McAfee, A. (2014). The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies. W.W. Norton & Company. Cheung, S.Y. (2018, June 7). Winning at the starting line. In South china morning post, p. A9. Cheung, S. Y. (2019, March 16/17). Reflection on life education. Economic Journal, C4. Chia, R. (2004). Strategy-as-practice: Reflections on the research agenda. European Management Review, 1, 29–34. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Free Press. Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). (2017, October 20). Media summary report. Education University of Hong Kong. Friedman, T. L. (2007). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Friedman, T. L. (2016). Thank you for being late: An optimist’s guide to thriving in the age of accelerations. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Gadamer, H.-G. (1994). Truth and method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum. Gadamer, H.-G. (2019). Gadamer on hermeneutics. Philosophy Overdose. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=lm-hZY5W4Ss Hong Kong. Hong Kong Government (HKGov.). (2017). Policy agenda: The 2017 policy address. Government Logistics Department. https://www.policyaddress.gov.hk/2017/eng/pdf/PA2017.pdf Hong Kong. Hong Kong Government (HKGov.). (2018). Teachers’ professional development: Striving for teaching excellences, chief executive summit on quality education. http://www.info. gov.hk/gia/general/201806/02/P2018060200490.htm

100

5 What is Education All About?

Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The Absence of Thought in Learning: Hong Kong Education in Light of Cultural Studies]. Oxford University Press. Hutchins, R. (1953). The conflict in education in a democratic society. Harper. Knight, G. R. (2008). Issues and alternatives in educational philosophy. Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews University Press. Lanier, J. (2018). Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now. Henry Holt and Company. Locklear, M. (2017, November 9). Sean Parker says Facebook ‘Exploits’ human psychology. https:// www.engadget.com/2017/11/09/sean-parker-facebook-exploits-human-psychology/ Lui, T., & Tim (2019, May 15). Task force on home school co-operation and parent education: Positive parenting, cross sector collaboration and innovation foster healthy child development. https://www.e-c.edu.hk/doc/en/publications_and_related_documents/educat ion_reports/Report_TF%20on%20HSC_en.pdf Murray, J. W. (2000). Bakhtinian answerability and Levinasian responsibility: Forging a fuller dialogical communicative ethics. The Southern Communication Journal, 65, 2/3, 133–150. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2018). The future of education and skills: Education 2030. The future we want. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/educat ion/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf. Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). (2019, May 11). Hong Kong’s Letter. Radio Television Hong Kong. Stone, M. V. (2008). Symposium on outcome-based approaches in student learning: Quality education, quality outcomes: The way forward for Hong Kong. (Welcome message given by the Secretary-General of the University Grant Committee on 18 June 2008 at the Jockey Club Auditorium, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/publication/speech/ 2008/sp20080618.htm Tang, W., & Ronald. (2016). Redeeming philosophy through the issue-inquiry approach: A case in Hong Kong. In C. M. Lam & J. Park (Eds.), Sociological and philosophical perspectives on education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, concerns and prospects (pp. 23–36). Springer. Zhang, K. (2020, April 27). Preschool push for character education. South China Morning Post, p. B18.

Chapter 6

Education in Search of a Future

Introduction The previous chapter has set the stage for providing some information showing the kind of concern some leaders of Hong Kong’s education had between the years 2017 and 2019. Using a phronetic lens in the light of Aristotle’s framework, the nature of the knowledge relevant to “life education”, “character building”, and values education in general was identified as belonging to the domain of phronesis, the handling of which requires a different approach from that espoused by techne and episteme. Would this discrepancy have given us some hints as to show whether there has been something wrong with the practice of Hong Kong’s education? To what extent Hui’s observation that the Hong Kong’s education system in the past two decades since 2000 was characterized by what he calls “thoughtlessness” reflects this concern? This will be discussed in this chapter to address the issue followed by a critical review of the recommendations offered by a Task Force to explore if they could correspondingly address the calls of the educational leaders in connection with Hui’s observation. Before we continue, this author finds it helpful to spell out the nature of this exploration at the outset. In this juncture where Hong Kong’s education was in the process of exploring a better-balanced way of conceptualizing the educational goal and school curriculum, what had happened since mid-June 2019 until the completion and publication of this book had put a halt to any imagination hoping to question and explore further. This is the situation where positioning does not seem to be possible given that its past is rejected, while at the same time its future cannot be projected in virtue of its fading, disappearing past even at the risk of its being erased. Nevertheless, the inspiration provided by utopian thinking could provide a different perspective, which, as this author regards, is one of the major aspects defining what education is all about in terms of its being able to provide, borrowing from Ruth Levitas’s words, “a critical tool for exposing the limitations of current policy discourses” (Levitas, 2013, p. xi). In the discussion that follows in this chapter and the rest of this book as well, a phronetic lens representing this attitude towards understanding education in general and learning in particular is employed. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_6

101

102

6 Education in Search of a Future

“The Absence of Thought in Learning” On the back cover of Hui’s book (2015) The Absence of Thought in Learning: Hong Kong Education Through the Lens of Cultural Studies, the author Hui Po Keung revealed an emerging phenomenon which he found very encouraging, i.e. more and more teachers were working enthusiastically and studiously towards exploring meaningful educational practices. He said so in comparison with what he saw as a period of education reform which had lasted for several decades characterized by its “thoughtlessness” in performance. He attributed the change in these teachers to the happening of the Umbrella Movement in 2014 (Hui, 2015, back cover). He advised that it is only when the context within which their experience in terms of challenges, limitations, and problems had been shaped is studied, analysed, and understood could there be a chance for nurturing a community of reflective educational practitioners for the future. This period was highlighted with the observation that some teachers’ teaching was more down to earth in terms of its relevance to the impulse of the society. He came up with such an observation while providing a critical review of what few other writers had done on the overall practice in Hong Kong’s education system including that of the government officials, parents, students, and teachers as well. As Hui is a Hong Konger, a teacher, and a researcher employing the lens of cultural studies, who had been actively involved in projects organized and directed by government officials, his observations and interpretations of the data he collected become a substantial resource that cannot be neglected since what Hui had observed was a watershed if not an awakening moment which might have marked a historical reshuffle of the way how Hong Kong’s education could be informed to project its future. At the beginning of his book, Hui made a decisive judgement that the biggest crisis in contemporary Hong Kong manifested itself in the performance of the whole HK government management team and the civil society as well was characterized by their acting thoughtlessly (Hui, 2015, p. 4). The way they dealt with problems raised by the people of Hong Kong was one sided rather than dialogic. As a consequence, no real learning would happen on the side of these government officials who were supposed to be leaders entrusted to take the initiative of working with the citizens to solve problems if not wisely but at least in a well-informed manner. With special attention to education, Hui attempted to define what “learning” is at the outset by asserting that learning implies experiencing. According to his observations, classroom teaching in Hong Kong had served only to instil “knowledge” in students, and they would forget what they had learnt in class after the examination. Such a phenomenon has been so popular in Hong Kong, the education system of which is well-known for its highly exam-oriented approach. From the perspective of Hui, no authentic learning had ever happened. Appropriating Michael Polanyi’s concept of “personal knowledge” (Polanyi, 1966, 1974), he used an analogy to explain that one who wants to learn the skill of swimming must jump into the water first. In other words, the learner has to experience what it is like by immersing himself

“The Absence of Thought in Learning”

103

into the water rather than watching at a distance though one may cognitively be able to spell out what to do stepwise in order to float in the water. To illustrate with a concrete example, Hui drew our attention towards the implementation of the subject of Liberal Studies since 2009. He particularly highlighted the advice given by the Education Bureau (EDB), which stated that students have to provide both for and against opinions about an issue set by the exam question and then followed by their own opinions. Hui observed that what most students would do was just to repeat what they had prepared before sitting for the exam. They had not actually gone through experientially what they knew about. Based on this understanding, Hui concluded what most of the students of Hong Kong lacked was the ability of “knowing-how” (Hui, 2015, p. 5). The problem identified by Hui seems to be one that concerns the gap between theoretical and practical knowledge, or, in Aristotle’s terminology, episteme and techne. Without offering further explanations, Hui very quickly jumped to the question of how learning happens.

The Question of How Learning Would Not Happen The way how Hui framed his question is clever. Instead of drawing our attention merely to anticipate one specific and standardized answer by asking how learning happens, we are invited to ponder further what may hinder its emergence. It is clever since learning may happen in a lot of ways under different circumstances and the factors contributing to its emergence may vary and cannot be fully exhausted with the assumption that there is no one best way of doing it. This reminder is in line with what Aristotle’s phronesis has suggested if learning is seen as a practice. As Bakker has also reminded us when talking about “good” education, “how to act in the right way while knowing that there is not a single right answer to the question about good education” is an issue which teachers have to deal with since the teaching and learning situation is a complex one which is “hard to get a grip on” (Bakker, 2016, p. 10). It is not sure whether Hui had the same kind of thought as what Bakkar had in mind when he framed his question. However, the way he did it in effect has served the same function as what Bakkar’s reminder has done to draw our attention to the process and context rather than the outcome in its narrow sense. Let us jump to Hui’s another question, which is about what would be at work contributing to the inability of producing learning. This question could be raised not only on behalf of students, but also for teachers, policy-makers, and the administrators involved in the whole process of this production as well. Two main factors were identified, and they are closely related. One is political and economic while the other are the agents, that is, the teachers themselves and probably the students as well. They are closely related since as Hui suggested the crisis of education in Hong Kong was characterized by the symptom of “thoughtlessness”. These two factors could be integrated in the form of a question as follows: What had made the growth of this mode of existence, i.e. thoughtlessness, possible in

104

6 Education in Search of a Future

education? And to be more exact, we may ask: (1) What sort of a practice our policymakers and administrators in education had employed conducive to the prevalence of this type of thoughtless act? And, (2) to what extent the political and economic factors and in what sense they had contributed to its prevalence? The answer to these two questions will help us understand why teachers and students, who are supposed to be the main stakeholders in the education reform, had lost their capacity of acting agents, the ones who are truly “practising” in the field and expectedly in a “thoughtful” manner.

The Root of the Problem According to this author’s personal experience and observation, I agree with Hui to a certain extent that “paying lip service” or 「交功課」 in Chinese, which can literally mean “doing one’s homework thoughtlessly serving merely to meet the deadline”, is a general phenomenon. The nature of this problem is ethical as well as political since it does not take into consideration the good impact one may be able to contribute to the others assuming that a thoughtful piece of “good work” (Gardner et al., 2001) helps to improve the milieu as a whole in which he/she dwells. When Hui concludes that what makes a teacher “good” is first of all his/her willingness to take the initiative to learn and know how to realize what he or she is entrusted to do, a reflective question should follow: that is, why have they lost this kind of capability given that they should have equipped themselves well enough to perform what they are professionally expected to do upon their graduation from their education program? In addition, Hui also mentioned that most of our teachers had spent most of their time on how to design their lesson plan, and their focus was merely on the technical aspects of how to get things done before the deadline. As a result, they had lost their capacity responding to the societal changes and demands of the outside world in a critical manner. Consequently, they would only follow what the policy-makers and administrators had assigned them to do. This is the situation considered by Hui the biggest crisis in Hong Kong’s education (Hui, 2015, p. 7). This concept of “thoughtlessness” is repeatedly mentioned in the book and identified as the root of the problem. However, Hui has not provided any explanations as to show what sort of a rationale had been at work leading to the emergence and prevalence of this phenomenon except the observation that “paying lip service” seems to be the norm. It suffices to mention one thing so as to provide a hint, i.e. this author very often heard that most of the government official and the policy-makers included were very “proud” of the way they carried out a policy idea by claiming that what they did was always consistent so long as they were entrusted with a “blueprint” to do so. They might have been collectively conditioned to believe in the “virtue” of “loyalty” to the extent that they did not have to exercise their discerning power with reference to contextual differences and emerging issues, hence the disappearance of

The Question of How Learning Would Not Happen

105

the ethical sensitivity. If this is really the case, it is a structural issue and its establishment and habituation were contributed by the political and economic factors, parallel to which education tended to take a submissive role and that those working within the sector were paid to complete a certain task assigned by those from above or the “strong” stakeholders in the hierarchy or what Knight calls the “contextual modifying factors” (Knight, 2008). Given the fact that the dominating ideology guiding their favourite mode of production is technical and top-down in nature, in which educational practitioners are treated as implementers rather than initiators, “thoughtlessness” in action would be inevitably the result. This also entails the lack of a deep reflective engagement with issues in teachers philosophically.

A Reflection on Hui’s Solution Hui did attempt to offer some contributions to address the educational “crisis” he identified in Hong Kong through his book. He did so by way of drawing “insights” from cultural studies with the claim that students should be put in the centre in the whole teaching and learning process (Hui, 2015, p. 170). Lest rhetorically it would become another cliché, and we need to give some more thought to it since it really depends on the kind of relationship between the teacher and his or her students one would like to assign to it. In a normal setting within a schooling system, by definition, there should be no learning if there is no teaching particularly when we are talking about a system within which those who are entrusted to play a part should also be assigned a role to play. Given the assumption that a learner carries with it the notion of a receiver and the reason why he/she attends a learning program does logically show that he/she is doomed to get him/herself involved in a design offered by someone else. If this is logically sound in the reality of today, a certain degree of reciprocity or mutuality is assumed. Therefore, the relationship between teaching and learning has to be conceptualized relationally. With this understanding, even if we maintain that “student centred” should be highlighted, the extent to which the “good” of this approach could be realized still depends on the kind of design offered by the teacher in which the student does not seem to have any choice not to get involved. In short, when we embrace this ideal of a “student-centred” approach, we in fact also assume that what the teacher may offer should benefit the student. Two implications follow: (1) the teacher has to be “professional”, and (2) the idea of “student-centred” approach needs to be understood relationally. Therefore, instead of having the two main stakeholders bifurcated in the educational process, a relational approach seems to be more realistic and “pluralistic” in Arendt’s own words (Arendt, 1958). To substantiate my argument, an extract from Hui’s book with special regard to his suggestion in addressing the issue of “thoughtlessness” is used. It is claimed that “cultural studies” are able to offer insights to transform our society and educational system from the bottom up with the understanding that

106

6 Education in Search of a Future

students’ interest should be put first and teachers’ autonomy upheld. Hui’s suggestion is not without its precedence in the discourse of the Hong Kong education reform. Such a view has also been adequately addressed in the west particularly in the discourse of philosophy of education. So why have not these good ideas been well accepted and realized? Let us see what Hui has said. According to Hui, teachers did spend a huge amount of time doing a lot of work “relevant” (or may be not) to teaching and learning and yet without producing corresponding positive learning outcomes. The main reason, as he further added, “I am afraid, is the fact that the alignment between the objective being set, the plan, its implementation and evaluation is not well weaved together” (Hui, 2015, p. 117, my translation). So, the root of the problem identified by Hui seems to be about the “alignment”. This author would like to argue that most of the time an idea can be interpreted very differently by different people who hold different worldviews with regard to the way how things are going to work according to their own interpretation of what is considered “good” and “right”. In Knight’s words, “basic differences regarding the nature of reality, truth, and value often lead to differing educational practices” (Knight, 2008, p. 43). As he also reminds us, apart from the philosophical determinants, there are also contextual modifying factors contributing to shaping our educational goals. This can be applied to the way how the concept of “alignment” is to be used. A well-aligned lesson plan or course design on paper can satisfy easily those involved without teaching experience. In practice, there may be two contrasting outcomes. One may be happy to see that the production of outcomes at the end of a lesson follows exactly what is planned to make it happen. However, this approach can also draw criticism from those who argue that it is only when the process is manipulated and controlled in such a way that the prescribed outcome can be produced, which simultaneously implies that processual dynamics are discarded. That being said the appeal to alignment does not without its positive contribution so long as it is used to facilitate what many of the performing artists are used to do before the show time through virtual rehearsals with the purpose of getting familiar with the details. And yet, this is not the end of itself. It has a more ambitious vision, i.e. the familiarization or internalization of the plan details after many times of rehearsals would subsequently spare attention to any contingent calls from the students on the spot that requires improvisation. This author would like to coin this improvisational condition as “pedagogical responsive state”, a state of mind always attentive to the voice of the students, ready to attune his or her voice to the level of the student’s understanding as “disguised” intellectuals, happy to embrace and synthesize different voices including his or her own by means of which to allow the “wonderful” or “aha” to emerge, reflective in revising what is already known, and imaginative in expecting what is yet to be known. This is what a Gadamerian perspective of learning is like, the practice of which by the teachers would somehow help the students get habituated through mimicry on their side. A positivist or a person with a technical mindset may feel uneasy about the view that there is no guarantee by means of a procedural step as “method” to secure prescribed outcomes. This suggests why a request for a paradigm shift in seeing

The Question of How Learning Would Not Happen

107

how things work using a phronetic lens is reasonable. By this I mean the best one can do is to see oneself as an agent always in a state of openness and readiness to embrace and mediate what happens to him or her. The key idea is the delight in embracing what is yet to be known through dialogue. This author believes the solution to “thoughtlessness” identified by Hui (2015) is not that the alignment of the objectives of a course or a lesson with the activities arranged to their achievement should be improved though this is the basic. But rather, it is the agent, instead of the artefact or the method that really matters in cultivating thoughtfulness in place of thoughtlessness. With the above understanding in mind, the motto “prevention is better than cure” can therefore only be understood as a “virtue” so long as one has tried his or her best to envision what is to come. However, our preparation for what is to come is always limited given that contextual changes are the order of the day. This is where phronesis comes in with the following premise as the guidance: we can only learn by hindsight in times of uncertainty and contingency, the experience accumulated from which will be turned into what we generally call practical wisdom or phronesis. To what extent the insight of phronesis helps shed light on the issue identified by Hui could be further explored. By doing so, the newly published report based on a review of the school curriculum is best used as the heuristic device to put us into perspective.

Consultation Document on School Curriculum Review 2019 A consultation document was published by a Task Force, which was entrusted by the Hong Kong government with the mission of “holistically review[ing] the primary and secondary curricula”, the purpose of which is “to solicit views from members of the public on its initial recommendations” (HKEDB, 2019b, p. i). The consultation period was initially scheduled to end in mid-August 2019. However, the deadline for the consultation was extended for one more month. It is not clear whether it was a coincidence since it was also the time when Hong Kong was passing through the most difficult time ever, i.e. the severe encounter between the government and the citizens of Hong Kong. This divide was intensified starting from 9 July 2019, the month when the extradition bill was submitted by the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Miss Carrie Lam, to the Legislation Council hoping that it would pass without any consultation. This move was observed by a majority of Hong Kong people as an indication that the leader of Hong Kong was not able to represent them and quite the contrary the Chief Executive “betrayed” the Hong Kong people and what she intended to do in fact was to please the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government. Fractures began to widen, and distrust between the government and the people has grown increasingly. It was observed that the protesters who were arrested were mostly teenagers and students. To what extent the recommendations made by the Task Force would take the issues generated from this incident into consideration was not the immediate interest of this chapter when this manuscript was completed. An update suffices to provide a

108

6 Education in Search of a Future

platform for the discussion that follows. It was reported on 23 September 2020 that Liberal Studies as a subject would be kept mandatory (Chan, 2020 September 23, A3) and the Independent Enquiry Study optional, a decision sticking to what was proposed in the Consultation Document (HKEDB, 2019a) published a year earlier. However, almost about half a year later, this subject got a new name (“citizenship and social development”) in place of Liberal Studies (Chan & Magramo, 2021, A3), the implications of which will be touched upon later. It is against this background that the following discussion is shaped and to be understood. The following quick review is particularly interested in how the subject of Liberal Studies was positioned in the Consultation Document, which can be reflected in its discursive construct and the way the recommended items were prioritized on the one hand and also the presence and absence of certain ideological assumptions governing the prioritization of these items. The unravelling of this level of understanding is significant since it helps inform the query of whether an alternative way of shaping the future of Hong Kong’s educational development can be possible.

Structure of the Document The document begins with the Executive Summary (HKEDB, 2019a, pp. i–v) followed by five chapters and the Annexes from A to E. The five chapters include the Preamble (1), Curriculum Review: Positioning and Rationale (2), Initial Recommendations (3), Invitation of Views (4), and Way Forward (5). As this author is preoccupied with the Aristotelian knowledge framework as the lens to develop his analysis, three questions in the light of this framework form a cluster of inquiring tools incessantly facilitating this author to unravel issues while reading the document. Whether this would be a disadvantage to the persuasiveness of the arguments to be offered in this chapter, I am happy to leave this to the reader to judge after having read through it.

Issues Identified As the main purpose of this Consultation Document is about a review of the school curriculum, it is reasonable to assume that the lens through which the review was conducted must have something to do with knowledge. As Knight regards, “the importance of the various sources of knowledge will certainly be reflected in curricular emphases” (Knight, 2008, pp. 26–27). With this regard, the framework on knowledge appropriated from Aristotle as it was introduced in Chap. 2 is used in this analysis. The first question that came to my mind was about the epistemological basis against which the review had been conducted. The second question concerns about the way how the subject of Liberal Studies was positioned, the significance of which is associated with the Document’s embracing the concept of “whole person

Consultation Document on School Curriculum Review 2019

109

development” as the main goal of education. To achieve this end, we were told that studies had been conducted as to see, allow me to quote this short paragraph in full for easy reference: how to enhance students’ capacity to learn and nurture in them the values and qualities desired for students of the 21st century; how to better cater for students’ diverse abilities, interests, needs and aspirations; how to optimize the curriculum in creating space and opportunities for students’ whole-person development; and how to better articulate learning at the primary and secondary levels. (HKEDB, 2019a, p. i)

These “how-to”s were informed by the reviewers’ analysis along six areas of the Task Force’s concern with reference to the opinions collected in the previous two years, which consequently led to the proposal of “a summary of initial recommendations … categorized under six directions”. They are “whole-person development”, “values education”, “creating space and catering for learner diversity”, “applied learning”, “university admissions”, and “STEM education” (HKEDB, 2019a, pp. i–iv). That the subject of Liberal Studies being put under the category of “Creating Space and Catering for Learner Diversity” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. ii) has drawn the attention of this author. It stands out since its contribution to realizing the education goal of “whole person development” is highly relevant in the framework being used as the lens to understand education in this book. The third question is closely related to the second with a deeper probe. It is about the way how the main goal, i.e. “whole person development”, was understood. Is it a concept qualitative or quantitative in nature in the eyes of the Task Force? It is emphasized so many times that “creating space” is a means of achieving it. This request needs to be understood in association with the suggestion that: “The curriculum coverage needs to be clarified and streamlined with a clear delineation of important concepts and content requirements of the subject” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. ii). It implies that there are too many things to cover to the extent that the teachers might have the problem of knowing even where to start. Factors contributing to this plight are many. The very basic one is the assumption that one has to have a basic set of knowledge of various disciplines before one can do liberal studies, as one of the critics suggested in a newspaper article (Ho, 2019 7 August, A16). That this view may constitute a problem in its having conceptualized the doing of Liberal Studies as a linear learning process rather than one of a hermeneutic spiral or circle. Gadamer’s explanation is a good reference when he says: understanding is always a movement in [a] circle, which is why the repeated return from the whole to the parts, and vice versa, is essential. Moreover, this cycle is constantly expanding, in that the concept of the whole is relative, and when it is placed in ever larger contexts the understanding of the individual element is always affected. (Gadamer, 1975, p. 167)

Learning conceptualized in this way is a form of practice in the Aristotelian as well as Gadamerian sense in that understanding always invites further understanding and learning is always a process of revision without completion. This is especially true in areas that involve human interpretations in order to understand. This author argues that the answers to the above three questions help provide the bases as to examine the extent to which the recommendations offered by the

110

6 Education in Search of a Future

Consultation Document could be able to address or envision the future needs of both Hong Kong at large and education in particular. With special regard to the learning of students, they may provide references as to judge whether the suggestion that “schools/students be allowed to opt out of the Independent Enquiry Study (IES)” can be justified.

Analysis The above questions are raised due to the observation that the rationale underling the review is one that does not have put its priority of concern in an appropriate manner. First, when it is claimed that “whole person development” is the main educational goal, the alignment of the “directions” being recommended to achieve this goal does not seem to be able to show that they all share the same weight or significance contributing to addressing the same goal. The six directions are listed again as follows for easy reference: (1) whole person development; (2) values education; (3) creating space and catering for learner diversity; (4) applied learning; (5) university admissions; and (6) stem education (HKEDB, 2019a, pp. i–iv). These six directions are put in parallel to each other. The first confusion coming up is the notion that “whole person development” is the main educational goal while at the same time it is also considered one of the directions. As for the items (3) and (5), they are strictly speaking merely means towards the ends. As means, they are not directly relevant to the goal being set because they cannot contribute to realizing the goal at the level of knowledge. With this regard, it is reasonable for us to query the basis on which the six directions are considered as such and arranged in a parallel manner in contributing to achieving the educational goal of “whole person development”. Before a tentative conclusion is made as to point out what probably may make this happen, it is helpful to visit the rationale based on which this confusion emerges. In chapter two, the positioning and rationale underlying the discursive construct of this document were mentioned. The review was considered necessary since Hong Kong following the world at large “has been experiencing unprecedented transformation”, which was “brought about by the rapid pace of globalization, regional integration, and technological advancement”. This observation leads to the conclusion that “the nature of jobs of the future cannot be reliably predicted”. In virtue of this, embarking on “exploring how to nurture talents and better equip students with the essential knowledge and attributes for coping with future challenges” appears to be an international trend. Therefore, adapting to such changes and continuing “to thrive both locally and internationally is a key concern”. And it was hoped that the Consultation Document, which was a response to such call and part of an ongoing curriculum renewal process, “will help keep student learning in pace with the changes and maintain the competitiveness of our young people” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. 3). One may notice that one of the main sources of the pressure comes from the identified “trend”, the non-compliance of which is “threatened” to lose one’s “competitiveness”. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that the attributes and knowledge the students were expected

Analysis

111

to better equip themselves are qualities serving to sustain the said competitiveness. Now, this claim begs the question of the extent to which it is in line with the main goal set unless the purpose of “whole person development” is only for competition. In addition to the above question is another one which is easily overlooked, the answer to which perhaps may be able to substantiate the query raised in question one (about the epistemological basis) and provide the ground as to examine the possible answers for question two (the positioning of the subject of Liberal Studies). Why would it be easily overlooked? Let us revisit the worry put forth in the document. Having offered the insight that “the nature of jobs of the future cannot be reliably predicted”, the main concern of such consequence follows: “Education for academic or professional credentials as a means to secure well-paid jobs is under review pressure” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. 3, 2.3). It is not difficult to draw a tentative conclusion from the above that the notion of “well-paid jobs” and “competitiveness” seems to have occupied the way how the function of education and the “whole personal development” educational goal had been conceived by the Task Force. It is pretty obvious that the condition under which the review was “pressured” to conduct a review was market and competition oriented. The rationale underpinning the selection of “whole person development” as the educational goal is quite similar to that of Prof. Stephen Leung (mentioned in the previous chapter), which promotes moral education with the hope that it would increase the learner’s competitiveness. This way of thinking only shows that “whole person development” and moral education would become the means towards other things, which the initiators treasure more rather than taking them as the ends of themselves. The perspective, i.e. the Aristotle’s knowledge framework, provided in this book challenges the internal consistency in terms of value orientation and the Task Force rendered the educational goal, i.e. “whole person development”, being selected. In Aristotle’s framework of knowledge, moral education, together with aesthetics and science that constitute the “whole” in the concept of “whole personal development”, should fall into the category of phronesis. The key thing is that this kind of practical knowledge or wisdom can only be acquired through habituation and experience, and it unfolds as actions are taken. In other words, they are both the ends and the means. This is exactly this feature that differs phronesis from techne and episteme. This is also the basis for us to ponder further the extent to which the recommendations offered by the Consultation Document could address those issues pertaining to nurturing capable “talents” in face of the unforeseeable future where reliability is better obtained through collaboration (OECD, 2018) rather than competition.

Reconfiguring the Document in the Light of Phronesis From the perspective provided in this book and in the context of Hong Kong, the subject of Liberal Studies, or more appropriately put, the “spirit” of Liberal Studies is meant to achieve the goal of “whole person development”. Obviously, from what has been assigned to the subject of Liberal Studies to do under the direction of

112

6 Education in Search of a Future

“Creating Space and Catering for Learner Diversity”, the connection between “whole personal development” as the educational goal and the potentiality of the subject of Liberal Studies to fulfil this goal does not seem to have drawn the attention of the Task Force. Worse still, for the sake of creating “space to cater for learner diversity”, it is recommended that: “The curriculum coverage needs to be clarified and streamlined with a clear delineation of important concepts and content requirements of the subject” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. ii). Is this the right solution to the problem being identified, i.e. creating space for learner diversity? To address this issue, we need to identify the root of the problem in the light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge. Two levels of concern can be identified and the rationale underlying which is considered having limited the perspective of the reviewer to seeing the function of the subject as merely serving the needs of the examination at the expense of the fact that it can be entrusted with the mission of achieving the goal of “whole person” in students. The first concern is about problem identification. The lack of space for learner diversity is attributed to the “elusiveness” of the subject of Liberal Studies. Therefore, the Task Force recommended that it was necessary for the curriculum coverage “to be clarified and streamlined with a clear delineation of important concepts and content requirements of the subject” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. ii). This author argues that this way of approaching the problem is the result of perceiving the doing of Liberal Studies as the completion of a succession of learning materials aiming at sitting for exam rather than cultivating a holistic and integrative worldview that informs the goal of “whole person development”. This would only render the concept an empty signifier. The second concern is about the judgement that without a basic set of disciplinary knowledge doing Liberal Studies would not be successful. The argument against this view is that the contribution made by the above two perceptions is a mission impossible and unrealistic. Would there be an alternative? The answer offered by this author is affirmative on the ground that: (1) there should be no prerequisite and a standardized framework governing the “successfulness” of doing Liberal Studies since the process of doing it is something personal and a practice, the essence of which was explained in details in Chap. 2 of this book; (2) it is only when the above criterion is satisfied would the true sense of “whole person development” and “learning diversity” can be realized given the understanding that “development” is a process of growth in practice and “diversity” implies the uniqueness of each individual’s practice; and (3) contrary to the document’s recommendation, the Independent Enquiry Study (IES) could in fact be the platform serving to provide the condition for students to freely experience what doing Liberal Studies as a practice can offer in developing their “whole person”. Unfortunately, the IES was recommended by the Task Force not as a compulsory learning activity and “schools/students be allowed to opt out” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. ii). But, paradoxically, only when IES is preserved can the “spirit” of Liberal Studies be redeemed. It is stated clearly in the document that “whole person development” implies the fostering of “students’ balanced development of attributes in the moral, intellectual, physical, social and aesthetic domains, such as physical fitness, psychological and emotional well-being, and the capacity to appreciate the arts and creativity” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. i). On paper and for the purpose of cognitive mapping, people are used to

Reconfiguring the Document in the Light of Phronesis

113

laying out the building blocks against which the learning trajectories can be identified so as to project what is required and how long it takes to become “holy”—the perfect whole. In virtue of this, it is inevitable for the “mapper” to quantify by calculating what is required of the learner to learn. No wonder that a critic made a discouraging comment on the impossibility of achieving successfully the purpose set by the subject of Liberal Studies. The reason given as it was mentioned earlier is that one needs to have a solid foundation of all disciplinary subject knowledge(s) before one can do Liberal Studies successfully. This sounds logical and reasonable, but only from a certain perspective. It is logical from a managerial, if not a “top-down objective-oriented”, approach where achieving the target in quantitative terms rather than experiencing the process holds sway. This sort of mentality focuses more on the “utopian” state as a yardstick to measure (rather than inspire) how much yet to be acquired before a target can be reached.

In Search of an Alternative An alternative approach with the process as the focus of concern takes a different route towards “realizing” the spirit of liberal studies. This approach views the utopian state as an “unachievable” target. It is unachievable simply because of the fact that human potentials are infinite. In the same vein, we are human and yet we are not perfect human. The notion of perfection is not something exhaustible but rather a belief that there are potentials in humans to be realized under certain favourable conditions. And it is only through a dynamic process could they be unfolded. This is what an approach that takes process as the outcome itself is all about, a feature that characterizes practical knowledge, i.e. phronesis. Such a way of thinking can also be applied to our conceptualizing the spirit of liberal Studies. This is also the reason why the author disapproves the making of Liberal Studies as a subject since it may only lead to its, using Biesta’s terminology, “learnification”. By this he means “the tendency to replace a language of education with a language that only talks about education in terms of learning” (Biesta, 2010, p. 5). This author would like to add that this notion of “learning” is invested with the assumption that it can technically be manipulated. As in our case, the spirit of doing liberal Studies has been replaced by the business of the subject’s “learning” activity, in short, the separation of means and ends. Two more important points the author would like to highlight. First, it is emphasized in the Document that all the recommendations and issues mentioned are interrelated. However, in what sense are they interrelated so that the articulation of each one of them and its implementation would entail the need for a reconsideration of the others in this relational web? Second, it is also emphasized that the review is not meant to initiate a big reform since it is assumed that the past has done good enough. The Task Force’s shying away from addressing the issue could be perhaps due to two possible reasons. First, the term “education reform” might have become a concept of taboo for it was expected that stakeholders involved would be tired of it for there had

114

6 Education in Search of a Future

been too many. Second, it may also be probably owing to their not being aware of the fact that the issue is an epistemological one, the implications of which are enormous and far-reaching. Whatever the reason is, the discursive construct of the Document reflects that there is a problem of alignment between the goal being set and the ambiguity of the ways being recommended to achieve it without an epistemological ground. In sum, concerns suggested by this Document are as follows: (1) the need of “whole person development” for our students; however, (2) there is not enough space for accommodating a variety of knowledge disciplines to achieve this “wholeness” and the diverse needs of the students; due to the judgement that (3) there are too many things in the subject of Liberal Studies to cover and therefore it recommended the relevant concepts and teaching materials to be clearly clarified and trimmed while at the same time students are allowed to opt out of having to take the Independent Enquiry Studies (IES). This author argues that the aspiration of creating enough space for covering the required materials should not be the appropriate means towards achieving the educational goal of “whole person development”. Instead of following Stone’s advice (2008) if not instruction that it is the outcome which is the most important in comparison with process and content, this author suggests that “quality” outcome can only be guaranteed when process is upheld with content or the subject matter acting as the artefact helping to elicit potential outcomes. Because process implies agency, which is the basic criterion making the securing of “quality” outcome possible. This is an alternative to Stone’s emphasis, which requires a paradigm shift or “reform” if you like in understanding what it truly means by “learning to learn” (HKCDC, 2000). An alternative interpretation of the Document in the light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge, characterized by an approach that places process at the centre and treats Liberal Studies as both a trajectory to realize the concept of “whole person development” and a state of perfection that inspires and instils in our students the enthusiasm to explore their potentials, is valued by this author as promising. This understanding of doing Liberal Studies suggests that the IES is better maintained intact for its realization.

“Whole Person Development” in the Light of Phronesis with a Promising Alignment There are three insights when this curriculum reform is understood in the light of phronesis. First of all, the notion of practice (Carr, 1987) is highlighted. Second, it is the process that really matters. Third is the result of having a true understanding of the previous two criteria: that is, the preoccupation that education is a moral enterprise (Jackson, 2012), which treats every individual student as a unique person while at the same time the growth of his or her uniqueness paradoxically suffers if the copresence of those within his or her community is not able to offer a condition where dynamic

“Whole Person Development” in the Light …

115

is taken as the main contributing factor to fostering growth of any sort. These three insights set the stage for understanding how significant Gadamer’s tripartite concepts including understanding, interpretation, and application are towards providing a fresh outlook to the way how “learning” is to be conceptualized. In the following, this author attempts to take advantage of the above insights to reposition the role of Liberal Studies in the whole school curriculum of Hong Kong. Given that: “Fostering students’ “whole-person development” remains [the] overarching aim with a view of preparing [students] for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world of the twenty-first century” (HKEDB 2019a, p. iv), it is logical to assume that the recommendations with special regard to the “directions” which are meant to show the way to achieve the goal should highlight the contributing factors. At first glance, they did. But, the focus does not seem to be adequate enough at the epistemological level. This request is reasonable since curriculum “reform” or review needs to be grounded with reference to knowledge as the basis (Knight, 2008, pp. 26–27). Therefore, the “directions” need to be justified on epistemological terms. Furthermore, as it was also suggested that all parts of the recommendations are interconnected. In the light of the above understanding, the basis on which this interconnectedness is conceived should also be deliberated on epistemological ground. Lastly, given the above understanding is reasonable, our attention will inevitably be drawn back to a fundamental question, that is: What is the knowledge basis grounded on which students could be well prepared “for the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world of the twenty-first century” (HKEDB, 2019a, p. iv) under the “flag” of “whole person development” as the “overarching aim” of Hong Kong’s education. There seems to have no reference in the Consultation Document from which we can identify any clues to help us answer the above questions in a meaningful manner. It is against this inadequacy the following discussion in the light of Aristotle’s phronesis is considered being able to offer a way out by suggesting that the “spirit” of Liberal Studies has to be maintained, but in terms of its manifestation on epistemological ground with the understanding that “whole person development” is the “overarching aim”. This rearrangement is able to create more space for students to explore by shifting their focus on the “whole” being understood as the three main aspects of our reality corresponding to the three different types or nature of knowledge qualitatively rather than numerous disciplinary subjects without knowing how to count on them in an integrative manner. How should we go about setting this stage? In the light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge, the “whole” can be understood as follows: (1) representing three different types or natures of knowledge including episteme, techne, and phronesis. Correspondingly, they represent three different aspects of our reality; (2) the manifestation of a world view resulting from the integration of these three types of knowledge; and (3) a “perfect” state, the realization of which involves a process of unfolding under the premise that liberating our students from understanding the world with just one epistemological lens is the initial point of departure in doing liberal Studies. In other words, one has to conceptualize the doing of liberal Studies as a process towards the “ideal” or in Hansen’s terminology an “ideal-in-practice” (Hansen) instead of an ideal to be achieved or

116

6 Education in Search of a Future

attained through sitting for an exam as the ultimate goal. It entails that the idea of “learning as practice” is more preferable than that of “learning as banking” (Freire, 2018), a self-understanding process during which each individual student needs to work from the bottom up with his existing knowledge as the basis for initiating further explorations. This shift of focus implies the necessity of eliminating the study of Liberal Studies as a subject that emphasizes content in quantitative terms resulting in congesting the learning space available for students. For amelioration if not compensation, this author finds the nature of the Independent Enquiry Study suitable to play the newly recommended way of doing liberal Studies in terms of its being able to provide the necessary conditions for nurturing free thinking and exploration across different natures of knowledge ground conducive to the enhancement of the “whole person development” or a balanced or integrative purpose of life in students. It is important to emphasize that the IES should not repeat the study mode of Liberal Studies in its current practice. It does not have to occupy any official scheduling of the lesson as what other disciplinary subjects do. It could appear in the form of a yearly or semester basis project guided by a theme selected by the student with the guidance of the teacher. The basic criterion is fulfilled so long as the theme or problem or issue selected is addressed with the consideration of the three different types of knowledge that constitute the “whole” in the process of the student’s deliberation. The premise is that it is the notion of the “good” both for the community and the individuals which form this community that energizes the deliberation and the process is mainly student centred. It is up to every individual student to organize their study path including the incorporation of various disciplinary subject knowledge in enlightening the development of their thesis. Hence, it will no longer be a problem in terms of both time and space only that the capacity of teachers to handle this change remains a question to be explored. But there should not be any doubt that the Independent Enquiry Study (IES) mode has to be maintained intact if benefitting student learning is the priority.

Conclusion When talking about the subject of Liberal Studies, Eric Ma, a scholar of Hong Kong, in the preface to a book he co-edited with the title Opening the Way for General Education, offered a definition, which goes: “the Scope of Liberal Studies is so broad that it covers cosmology, geography, natural science, literature, history, philosophy, and social sciences as well” (Ma, 2010, p. ii, my translation). According to this definition, the subject of Liberal Studies does cover everything. Here we face a dilemma: on the one hand, only when Liberal Studies is invested with the capacity of covering everything would it be considered qualified to be entrusted with the mission of fulfilling the purpose of “whole person development” while on the other this is an impossible mission when it is formulated as a subject to be tested in terms of the quantity of the content required to be covered. This contradiction cannot be

Conclusion

117

reconciled unless the issue is addressed by using a different approach replacing the current one, which emphasizes content rather than process in learning. The problem for Hong Kong’s education with regard to the subject of Liberal Studies lies in its assigning it an impossible mission to attain a goal, i.e. the concept of “whole person development”, the realization of which has to be an unfolding process. That it is unfolding implies that there should not be any specifications against which its outcomes can be measured by identifying its causal relations. This is one of the big challenges if not problems that many of the teachers, educators, and even researchers in the higher education level find it hard to overcome, a problem that involves a paradigm shift to contain, which ultimately would turn our “worries” into “wonders”. Last but not least, this author believes that the re-positioning of the subject of Liberal Studies in the light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge will ultimately contribute to increasing the awareness of the need for a more balanced purpose of life, which not only benefits individuals but also the sustainability of a better society as well, an issue to be discussed in the next chapter using a case as a heuristic device for provoking thinking pertaining to the way how “education” is conceptualized.

References Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London. Bakkar, C. (2016). Professionalization and the quest how to deal with complexity. In C. Bakkar & N. M. Montessori (Eds.), Complexity in education: From horror to passion (pp. 9–29). SensePublishers: Imprint: SensePublishers, Rotterdam. Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Paradigm Publishers. Carr, W. (1987). What is an educational practice? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 21(2), 163–175. Chan, H., & Magramo, K. (2021, April 1) Liberal studies gets a new name as part of broad overhaul. South China Morning Post (p. A3). Chan, H. (2020, September 23). Keep liberal studies mandatory. South China Morning Post, Education (p. A3). Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Bloomsbury Academic, New York. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Ed. & Trans.). Sheed & Ward, London. Gardner, H., Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Damon, W. (2001). Good work: When excellence and ethics meet. New York: Basic Books. Ho, W. [何偉銓] (2019, August 7). How are we able to attain the perfection state of liberal studies without having acquired a set of basic knowledge? [缺乏基礎知識 如何達致通識] Hong Kong Economic Journal [「信報」], A16. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The Absence of Thought in Learning: Hong Kong Education in Light of Cultural Studies]. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Hong Kong. Curriculum Development Council (HKCDC). (2000). Learning to learn: The way forward in curriculum development. Government Printer, Hong Kong (SAR).

118

6 Education in Search of a Future

Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2019a). Task force on review of school curriculum consultation document. https://www.edb.gov.hk/attachment/en/about-edb/press/con sultation/TF_CurriculumReview_Consultation_e.pdf Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2019b). Consultation document June 2019. https:// www.edb.gov.hk/en/about-edb/press/consultation/index.html Jackson, P. W. (2012). What is education? University of Chicago Press. Knight, G. R. (2008). Issues and alternatives in educational philosophy. Andrews University Press. Levitas, R. (2013). Utopia as method: The imaginary reconstruction of society. Plagrave Macmillan. Ma, K., & Eric. (2010). Social sciences and general education (社會科學與通識教育). In C. Chan (Ed.), Opening the way for general education (開拓通識: 知識份子的香港路) (pp. ii–vii). Hong Kong Chinese University Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, Hong Kong. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). (2018). The future of education and skills: Education 2030. The future we want. OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd.org/educat ion/2030/E2030%20Position%20Paper%20(05.04.2018).pdf Polanyi, M. (1966). The tacit dimension. The University of Chicago Press. Polanyi, M. (1974). Personal knowledge: Toward a post-critical philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 7

Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

Introduction Frontline teachers are tired of “reform” as far as this author’s knowledge is concerned in the context of Hong Kong. The main reason for this tiresome is believed to be mainly the lack of ownership. There could be two meanings of this term, one being interpreted as a state of personal possession while the other understood as having the capacity of making contribution to others. If the personal aspect is emphasized, competitiveness and thus conflicts are more likely to emerge. The otherwise reflects the virtue of altruism and thus nurtures complementarity. When it is applied to the functions of education, the one that promotes achievement as personal ownership tends to empower students to discover and develop their capabilities with the ultimate goal of increasing their competitive power by means of which to maximize the desire of ownership. However, whether they have the willingness to make the “good” use of it could become a relational issue. This notion of ownership manifests itself through participation in the development of the well-being of the others. In other words, it could only be acquired through contribution. Only when this sense of ownership is realized, the potential conflict arising out of competition will be reconciled and turned into mutual complementarity. “Life education”, “value education”, and “character education” that have been recently initiated in Hong Kong are supposedly pointing towards addressing this issue. In addition, when “whole person development” becomes the educational goal, the mutuality between the self and the other should at least be recognized as one of the key aspects of the “whole”. Concerning the role of teachers as exemplars, the notion of ownership as participation or playing a part in developing the well-being of the others and of course the students in particular in the school setting should be upheld given we endorse the idea that education is a moral enterprise (Jackson, 2012) in that the greatest reward for a true teacher is to see that his or her students eventually have the capacity of making contributions to the development of the well-being of others rather than competing to be number one in terms of wealth and fame. This second notion of ownership © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_7

119

120

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

should be prioritized since this is the way providing a “sustainable” foundation for a healthy society to grow. The idea that education is a concept referring merely to the concerns of skills in teaching in a classroom setting aiming at transmitting technical knowledge without considering its impact on the ethical dimension of life, which eventually leads to its “shying” away from embracing a more ambitious role in integrating various disciplinary subject knowledge in pursuit of a well-balanced purpose of life in students with a higher moral ground or principle, is not able to fulfil this promise. “Sustainability” is a buzzword nowadays. We may easily be “seduced” to pay only lip service to its realization. Nevertheless, it, being mentioned, has at least reminded us that it is time to review the performance of our education and particularly that at the tertiary level, whose purpose and function are suspected to be working in a responsive manner in relation to the society which it serves and the world it should contribute to sustain. This suspicion generates what Sterling regards a paradox: the one who is entrusted with the provision of education and learning in a sustainable manner is suspected to be “part of the unsustainability problem it needs to address” (Sterling, 2004b, p. 54). The case to be analysed in this chapter could in one way or another contribute to understanding Sterling’s paradox from a wider perspective. This chapter begins with a brief review of the current concern associated with the changing purpose of tertiary or higher education. The notion of “education” emerging within the discourse of an educational institute seeking for retitling as a university in Hong Kong is discussed with the suggestion that Sterling’s paradox or worry does have the potential to prevail and its prevalence is due to the presence of a blind spot from which the consideration of a holistic epistemological vision and the centrality of ethical sensitivity are discarded. These two qualities are regarded by this paper as constituting the foundation for the sustainable development of higher education. This understanding is significant because the case selected for study is an institution (now a university) entrusted to provide professional teachers for the secondary school sector. Its vision of education should have enormous impact on those who are entrusted to the actual cultivation of the next generation in the secondary school sector. With this regard, this author agrees on the one hand that the introducing of the subject of Liberal Studies is timely while arguing that the sustainability of its development depends very much on a proper understanding of how it contributes to the development of the “whole person” at the epistemological level, an educational goal recommended by the newly published report on the secondary school curriculum. A concept of education in the higher education level that does not realize this is inadequate and unsustainable. In the following, this issue will be explained in more details. And, to overcome this challenge, the idea of integrative leadership is suggested, and the significance of which for the future development of teaching professionalism will be discussed in the following two chapters.

The Notion of Sustainability and Sustainable Development

121

The Notion of Sustainability and Sustainable Development The concept of sustainable development has emerged as a hot topic since 1992 when the United Nations Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro. It was a response to the claim that the planet’s climate had been altered by human activity through, as Chichilnisky describes it, the “voracious use of resources” (Chichilnisky, 1997, p. 467). Since then, the idea of sustainable development or sustainability has become a concept widely appropriated for use in various sectors, circles, and disciplines to serve different purposes (Clifton & Amran, 2011, p. 121). Associated with the term are the concerns of air pollution, global warming, clean water supply, shortage of food supply, economic disparities, etc. (Rowland, 2013, p. viii). Although the meaning of the term remains vague and contested for some, it is basically, as it is concluded by Clifton and Amran, associated with “the flourishing of life on Earth over an indefinite time frame, and where this flourishing of life goal incorporates ideas of human being and ecological wellbeing, grounded in principles of intra- and inter-generational justice” (Clifton & Amran, 2011, p. 122). In brief, a more holistic approach with particular emphasis on the ethical dimension is getting momentum. Cullingford suggests that the concept of sustainability can indeed be conceived from two dimensions. They are scientific and moral (Cullingford, 2004, p. 245). The former sees the problem of sustainability as one that can be fixed technically while the latter concerns more about the fact that it is the consequence of human’s greed and the issue, as Cullingford puts it, “is, therefore, one of responsibility” (Cullingford, 2004, p. 246), and its root is “the inequality of power” (Cullingford, 2004, p. 250). Shifting from a mere technical-oriented perspective towards one that emphasizes the ethical vision is getting wider attention, which, for Sterling, signifies the heightening awareness of the need for “a more (if not fully) holistic realization of the interdependence of issues” (Sterling, 2004a, p. 49) and the importance of experiential rather than detached understanding (Sterling, 2004a, pp. 51–2). Put it differently, the problem of sustainability is considered within rather than outside of us and our community in which each of us is a constitutive part. The recognition that our existence including the problems we encounter is sustained by an interconnected web of relational factors has called for approaches of study and intervention both in terms of facilitating understanding and action that could enhance the capacity of mediating disciplinary knowledges on the one hand and promote both problem-solving and appreciation with a holistic vision on the other. While Mason, in light of complexity theory that draws our attention to the interdependent nature of our survival in this globe, suggests that “massive interventions at all levels of the system” within a society are required in order to reconfigure and maintain an efficient and sustainable educational mechanism (Mason, 2008, p. 122), Rowland regards “higher education institutions [should] take the lead … to create a healthy, just and sustainable world” (Rowland, 2013, p. viii). Cullingford does share similar vision when he says “The examples of universities could have a deeper effect on schools” (Cullingford, 2004, p. 251). However, he laments that our universities are forced if not choose to get involved in the ethos of competition for survival and

122

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

money at the expense of long-term development with “a deeper sense of [common] purpose” (Cullingford, 2004, p. 248). The increasing appeal to accountability to meet criteria imposed from outside the university is a general phenomenon that demands no dispute. It is reasonable to assume that universities and the society to which they belong should be to a certain degree interdependent in that they are mutually “feeding” each other. It is also on this ground that Mason’s “mass intervention” with the participation of universities presumably providing insightful leadership that sustains our whole educational mechanism could be made possible. However, to the extent that the former has lost its “prophetic” insights by focusing merely on serving the immediate needs of the society is what makes some educators in tertiary education worry and its sustainability questionable. It is observed that educational programs addressing the topic of sustainability are increasing. However, Jingling argues that they are treated more as promotional tools in studying sustainable development. In response, it is suggested students be taught how to critically examine the concept of sustainable development (Jingling, 1994). In view of this, Sterling also proposes that we need a new concept of “sustainable education”, which “suggests a holistic educational paradigm concerned with the quality of relationships rather than product, with emerging rather than predetermined outcomes” (Sterling, 2004a, p. 43). Put it differently, “sustainable education” concerns about living and practice itself rather than a tool or means conducive to other ends. Having reviewed the historical evolution of the concept of sustainability, he endorses Sauve’s view (1999) by saying “programmes have all too often been based on knowledge acquisition rather than the development of ethical and critically reflective competencies” (Sterling, 2004a, p. 47). In brief, a fundamental epistemological and philosophic reorientation in understanding the concept of sustainability is suggested, that is, rather than taking education instrumentally or as a means towards transmitting the message of sustainability, having the students experience and get involved in realizing it is considered more promising. Hence, the idea that doing is learning, which makes a difference between, in Sterling’s own words, “education about and for the environment” and “education for being” (Sterling, 2004a, p. 52). This shift in orientation towards a more holistic educational paradigm in understanding the notion of sustainability is regarded by Sterling as truly echoing the call initiated by UNESCO in 2002 for “a deeper, more ambitious way of thinking about education” (UNESCO, 2002, p. 8, also quoted in Sterling, 2004a, p. 55). It is deep since both educational thinking and practice are expected to be transformed. For Sterling, this is “at heart, an epistemological issue” (Sterling, 2004a, p. 56), which requires a shift in epistemological understanding. Bellah et al.’s concept of a “good society” (1992) and the role of universities towards this end could provide a good example to illustrate towards what ends universities should serve in order to be qualitied as what Sterling has coined “sustainable education” (Sterling, 2004a, p. 43). This is where we now turn.

Good Society and Education

123

Good Society and Education In the book The Good Society by Bellah et al., great weight is given to the role of education in relation to other institutions in a society: “[e]ducation for life is both the cause and the effect of needed institutional changes in our society” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 150). They particularly mention Dewey (1916, p. 383), who defined education as a process of cultivating fundamental intellectual and emotional dispositions and is therefore a philosophy that can provide a general theory of education. They also agree with him in that “education was not a side issue or an ‘applied’ field” (Bellah et al. 1992, p. 152). The recognition of the meaning of education, the primary concern of which is to “educate citizens into a life of virtue” for the common good (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 145), has become increasingly narrow. Education is torn between two mentalities: the technical and the moral. When discussing the issue of how we make sense of our lives, they argued that it was technical competence instead of its moral aspect that drew our attention. Unfortunately, they added that our “educational system dovetails with the occupational system in maintaining [this emphasis]” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 42). Though this observation was given almost thirty years ago, it still seems to apply nowadays. Seeing this scenario, Bellah et al., (1992, p. 40) urged us to reflect on the practice of all institutions, which they regard as “essential bearers of ideals of meanings” that educate us on the way we behave and relate to others. Unfortunately, according to them, our institutions fail to perform their educative function by perpetuating the ideology of individual liberalism, which emphasizes an unsustainable version of autonomy at the expense of meaning generated out of our relations with others in family, politics, and even religion (Bellah et al., 1992, pp. 49–50). As a result, our thoughts have been dominated by instrumental reasoning, and thoughts on the communicative aspect in the Habermasian sense have declined. Therefore, they call for “a dramatically new level of democratic institutionalization” (Bellah et al., 1992, pp. 49–50). In achieving this end, they viewed that education, higher education in particular, should play a pivotal role. According to Bellah et al., the emergence of a research university was initially seen as an opportunity to foster the democratization of education. Somehow, increasing specialization and departmentalization rapidly took higher priority because of the trend of professionalization, which resulted in the giving up of the greater vision of “interpreting and integrating the larger society” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 155). In Bellah et al.’s own terminology, the research university merely “mirrors” the needs of the society. The mission of integration by a shared moral vision is gradually replaced by administration sustained by a bureaucratic procedure, which tends to “focus exclusively on education as a means to advancement in an ever more complex occupational system, itself a function of an ever more complex industrial and postindustrial division of labor” (Bellah et al., 1992, pp. 154–6). In facilitating control and management in the name of “effectiveness”, increasing rationalization is a means resulting from the upholding of scientific cognition by marginalizing the other two aspects, namely aesthetic and moral or ethical, which together constitute the “big

124

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

three” in our traditional knowledge framework. Therefore, a social problem is often conceived as that requiring a technical fix instead of moral or political consideration (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 163). Basing on this understanding, they suggested that we need “to keep communication open between the new specialized disciplines in the university and the larger concerns of the public” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 165). Bellah et al., (1992, p. 152) viewed education as an all-embracing concept and proposed that “[g]enuine education knows no boundaries.”. Healthy personal growth can only be secured on the condition that institutions in a society also perform their educative function. They agree with Dewey that philosophy provides a general theory of education (Dewey, 1916, p. 383). Similar to Chynoweth’s view, education is “a higher, universal and undisciplined field of knowledge, binding all other fields together” (Chynoweth, 2009, p. 2). According to Bellah et al., (1992, p. 177), “Now it is clearly time to reintegrate cognition with a more fully human understanding”, but they argued that interdisciplinary programs would not guarantee anything if the meaning of educational enterprise is not taken seriously. Though The Good Society was published more than twenty years ago, it has captured some of the major concerns associated with the ecology of our tertiary education identified by scholars previously mentioned. In brief, the meaning of education has been narrowly conceived. Its larger vision of serving the common good and integrating the larger society has been gradually replaced by specialization and professionalization, which ultimately turns the education enterprise into an instrument aiming at satisfying the immediate needs of the society. From a communitarian perspective, its moral ground has been shaken as a result of its having merely upheld the scientific cognition and the will to manipulate the process of education to achieve prescribed outcomes in the name of “effectiveness” and “performance” in quantitative and money terms at the expense of other values. As a result, the system has lost its capacity to learn reflectively from a holistic perspective. It is on this ground that the idea of sustainability in tertiary education can be challenged. Scholars like Sterling suggest that this is basically an epistemological issue (Sterling, 2004a. p. 56). This chapter follows this line of thought and argues that it is specifically an ethical one. Potential epistemological ground for conceiving the notion of sustainable tertiary education can be found in light of Aristotelian scheme of knowledge. First, a “sustainable [tertiary] education” (Sterling, 2004a) needs to be holistic in that it includes not only the horizon of the episteme, but also techne and phronesis, and in a long run their integration in the hope that a balanced and integrated purpose of life could be sustained, which is regarded by Bellah et al. as the ultimate purpose of education. Associated with this insight is the second, i.e. the primacy of phronesis, a virtue required for the search of what is considered to be good through deliberation both for individuals and the community as a whole. These two dimensions of reinvention so to speak have been marginalized under the ideology of scientism which only takes certainty as the sole indicator of knowledge and practice as merely a process of implementation of what is given. As a result, universities have run short of providing experiential education (Sterling, 2004a, pp. 51–2) on the one hand and taking it as a legitimate source of knowledge on the other. Though rhetorically this issue seems to

Good Society and Education

125

have been addressed by the increasing provision of courses that emphasize service and engaged learning, they are still treated as something at the margin and secondary to the courses that help students directly secure a job in the future. Thus, that education is primarily taken as a tool still prevails. In virtue of this, there is also no surprise that courses aiming at addressing the issue of sustainability could also be regarded as a way of strengthening our cognitive awareness in a detached manner rather than immersing the students into a deep understanding of the problem with action with the view that our inaction or inertia actually constitutes part of the problem itself. The alarm that this notion of education would contribute to diminishing the sustainability of the various aspects of our societal institutions has aroused the attention of scholars like Sterling and Jingling. Under this circumstance, both Mason’s suggestion of “mass intervention” (Mason, 2008, p. 122) and Rowland’s optimistic view (Rowland, 2013, p. viii) where universities are trusted to shoulder this mission would turn out to be an illusion. To what extent our tertiary education is also taken as such? In the following, a case from Hong Kong is selected for scrutiny.

A Case for Deep Reflection In this section, the discourse on an educational institute seeking for retitling as a university is selected for analysis, which serves as a heuristic platform illustrating the extent to which the notion of education being construed is able to meet the demand of Hong Kong’s future needs. As the secondary school sector serves as the “executive arm” and frontline implementer of policy ideals against which discrepancies and difficulties can be identified at the practical level, a brief review would help locate the problems being encountered against which the quality of tertiary education could be evaluated as to see whether its current practice in terms of intellectual output is sustainable. Hence, the notion of sustainable tertiary education is largely conceived in this paper as the capacity of addressing not just emerging issues in the society but also initiating intellectual input for the secondary school sector, which is an important part of the whole educational mechanism and the medium through which the sustainability in terms of serving to integrate all institutions in our society is maintained. This is where we now turn to have a concise summary of the potential problem in this sector in relation to the sustainability of the society.

A Timely, but Incompatible Response Since 2009, Liberal Studies has been introduced as one of four core subjects among Chinese, English, and Mathematics into the secondary school curriculum. The following excerpt suffices to tell the main features of this subject, which are designed to equip students in response to the needs of the changing society:

126

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

Liberal Studies provides opportunity for students to explore issues relevant to the human condition in a wide range of contexts. Liberal Studies enables students to understand the contemporary world and its pluralistic nature. It enables students to make connections among different disciplines, examine issues from a variety of perspectives, and construct personal knowledge of immediate relevance to themselves in today’s world. It will help students develop independent learning capabilities and cross-curricular thinking. (HKCDC/HKEAA, 2007, p. 2)

Several concepts that are closely interconnected in the excerpt above deserve to be elucidated in more detail. For the time being, highlighting them is sufficient in providing a platform for further discussion later in this chapter. We live in a “pluralist world”, and it is our current “human condition”, the understanding of which requires the capabilities of “making connections among different disciplines” and “cross-curricular thinking”. We note that the basic “insight” of the subject is its recognition that disciplinary understanding is inadequate. Given the rapid increase in the number of complicated societal issues in recent years, the intention of preparing students with cross-disciplinary knowledge and the capacity to “dissect” the complexity of their emergence is a responsive act. As expected, this increase will continue, as advanced technology is prone to enhancing “communication” among people and leads to the consequence that even minor sensitive issues can be turned into popular topics. The increase implies that people’s participation through different forms of cultural or social practice with direct or indirect political significance can also be intensified. In addition, the curriculum document also encourages independent thinking and other moral and civic values associated with the concept of citizenship, such as respect for others, perseverance, responsibility, national identity, and commitment (HKCDC/HKEAA, 2007, p. 5). This encouragement shows that the agency of individuals is given great emphasis (yet without the expense of civic values) in accordance with the initiative of empowering the next generation in light of the foreseeable societal changes. Surely, the current societal development is far beyond many Hong Kong people’s imagination. As mentioned earlier, the younger generation of Hong Kong is more willing, if not more aggressive, to express themselves critically or unreservedly. This manner is a positive sign in terms of the understanding that the degree of their social awareness has been elevated, and this understanding is the rationale supporting the promotion of Liberal Studies as one of the core subjects in Hong Kong’s secondary school curriculum (HKCDC/HKEAA, 2007, pp. 1, 3). In virtue of this, this author considers the Document a reflection of a timely, if not overdue, response. However, some evidences have suggested that the extent to which this policy ideal has been put into practice is a question. Its sustainability in terms of realizing the aspiration that the use of issue-inquiry approach of teaching and learning helps broaden students’ horizon in understanding a problem (HKCDC/HKEAA, 2007), which is seen as the basic quality necessary to survive this unpredicted, fast changing, and complicated world, has also become a myth. The public examination appears to be the main problem since it, to a certain extent, played a significant role in guiding the materials that the teachers chose to teach because they tended to envision the topics of the questions that would appear

A Case for Deep Reflection

127

in the exam. This phenomenon actually helped to perpetuate their perception of the most effective (teaching-to-the-test) approach so that teachers and students could survive. The effect on students’ learning style has been direct. From a constructivist’s perspective, the outcome is even discouraging. The advice that has been deeply rooted in the minds of students to survive the exam in tackling an issue is one that adopts a balanced approach by offering views of both for and against an issue, followed by their own “personal” criticism. Unfortunately, this advice has been turned into a “rule” or even a formula. That is, students follow the instruction by displaying views from both camps without deliberating their connection and the basis of the issue. As a result, the notion of “personal” criticism is merely regarded as an opinion completely isolated from the rest of the discussion, if any. Metaphorically, students act like “postmen” entrusted entirely to fill up the “pigeon holes” (mailboxes) with mail. They actually regurgitate in the exam the things they have memorized according to the prediction of the test questions in the public exam. Very often they do this with the advice of their teachers and perhaps their tutors from cram schools, who think that doing so is their responsibility. This method is a “practical” approach in the narrow sense because there is a reason to doubt whether enough room is allowed for students to deliberate freely under pressure within a fixed period of time. Thus, thoughtlessly regurgitating what has been memorized is a survival strategy. The dominance of the teaching-to-the-test/exam strategy has turned education to an instrument. The subject of Liberal Studies is primarily designed to liberate students from the confine of the traditional transmission model of teaching and learning seeing that such a mode of learning would not help maintain a sustainable society in the future. The current practice is just like pouring new wine into the old bottle. It does not help achieve the desirable outcome it is meant to serve, i.e. the cultivation of the capacity of deliberation not mentioning an integrative mindset and, in Aristotle’s terminology, the virtue of phronesis or practical wisdom in search of the good both for the individuals and the common good for the community. The teaching-to-the-test/exam approach has deprived the students of the opportunities to engage themselves in this process of deliberation. As a result, the virtue of phronesis is succumbed to the rule of episteme and techne with the focus placed on securing prescribed outcomes in the name of “effectiveness” and certainty at the expense of the unexpected ones emerging out of the dynamic engaging process, a normal feature in any well-advanced and complicated society. It should not be too exaggerated to say that an educational mechanism of this kind has lost its autonomy when it is checked against its policy ideal in light of Aristotle’s phronesis, the quality of which is considered by this paper that all students are entitled to possess. If the above claim can be accepted, the degree of its sustainability can also be evaluated against this ideal. For the purpose of this chapter, it is used as the criterion based on which the sustainability of Hong Kong’s tertiary education can be examined particularly when it is applied to educational institutes that are entrusted to provide teachers for the secondary school sector where the policy ideal of Liberal Studies is realized. This connection is logical given the assumption that tertiary institutions are not “ivory towers” which are partly held accountable by the service they provide in connection with the wider society. In the following, the discourse of

128

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

an educational institute seeking for retitling as a university will be examined to see how the notion of education has been construed, and the discussion will be conducted in light of Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge.

The Issue Before the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) was retitled as a university (now named the Education University of Hong Kong) in 2016, there were three universities offering teacher education in Hong Kong: Hong Kong University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Baptist University of Hong Kong. They are generally categorized as comprehensive universities, where the faculty or department of education or education studies is only a constitutive part. However, the largest provider is the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) and now the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). This whole issue of re-titling and the rationale enunciated to support its application touched upon a critical issue with regard to the way that the notion of “education” is construed or needs to be re-conceptualized in the twenty-first century. In 1994, five former colleges of education, namely the Northcote College of Education, the Grantham College of Education, the Sir Robert Black College of Education, the Hong Kong Technical Teachers’ College, and the Institute of Language in Education, merged to form the then HKIEd. In 2004, a self-accrediting status was granted to the institute at the degree level and above. In the two decades before the act of re-titling, the institute had achieved tremendous growth in terms of endorsement from the University Grants Committee (UGC) to plan for research postgraduate programs and undergraduate programs in the disciplines of “Humanities”, “Social Sciences”, and “Creative Arts & Culture”. These achievements are considered a further step towards gaining a university title. The main obstacle in re-titling is the judgement that teacher training is considered a “mono-technic” subject discipline (ASA, 2009, p. 1), although it is generally understood that teacher education programs designed as such are informed by other disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, business administration, psychology, and other fields. Nevertheless, two more arguments are not in favour of HKIEd’s application. First, “[t]he prevailing international trend is the development of comprehensive universities”. Second, “quite a number of outstanding higher education institutions overseas [like MIT] do not carry a university title” (LCPE, 2007, p. 2). In response to the second argument, three practical counter-arguments are given: (1) a university title helps recruit quality secondary school graduates; (2) “the title ‘institute’ (with particular reference to Mainland) only refers to those provincial institutions offering subdegree programmes” and (3) it is about perception: without a university title, the public will have the impression that the quality of the teaching profession is not counted as equivalent to that of the university-level training (ASA, 2009, pp. 1–2). While those who were in favour of a university title substantiated their view by associating the title with the immediate “benefit” it would bring, the two comments which

A Case for Deep Reflection

129

argued for the otherwise may go to the opposite direction: one considered education as a concept not “comprehensive” in nature entailing that the former was yet to be qualified to become a university, whereas the other proposed a view that “quality” is not judged by the title an institution carries. The various views mentioned above represent the interest of different stakeholders. However, their concerns whether it was out of either not well-informed judgement or entrenched bias have left a major issue untouched. In the form of a question: Why has the concept of education been construed in such a way that it has become a monotechnic discipline conducive to its being marginalized as merely a constitutive part of a comprehensive university? Put it differently, why is it not the fact that the purpose of a comprehensive university is to cultivate the “whole” person, which is what education is all about? The way that the notion of “education” has been construed in the entire process of retitling provides some clues as a heuristic device to help us probe further. This inquiry is important because it shows the level of agreement of the stakeholder, that is, the then HKIEd, with the label “monotechnic” assigned to the teaching profession and education as a whole. On 8 September 2010, HKIEd launched a campaign with the slogan “Powering Education,” which signifies the coming of the so-called Education Plus era (HKIEd, 2010). The idea of “education plus” drew the attention of this study. The following excerpt helps to provide the context: Under the “Education Plus” vision, the HKIEd has introduced two new UGC-funded degree programmes, namely the Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Language Studies and the Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours) in Global and Environmental Studies. A third new programme, the Bachelors of Arts (Honours) in Creative Arts and Culture, will be launched in 2011-2. (HKIEd 2010)

The focus of HKIEd’s vision is on the programs added to the existing realm of education. The purpose of this addition was to let the public know that the institute had something more to offer other than education. Positive as it may appear, this vision has implicitly injected a hidden message that reinforces the prevailing argument that education is merely a “monotechnic” discipline, although the true meaning of the term has seldom been discussed. The paradox is the following: in getting promoted, education has to be demoted in the first place. Strategically, this paradox seems to be the right thing to do by complying with the requirement set by the UGC, that is, to offer various disciplinary programs to become a comprehensive university. Unfortunately, its success at one level only proves its failure at another. The Chinese translation of the term re-titling may somehow support this argument. The word “re-title” is translated to “正名” in Chinese. It literally means reclaiming what it deserves. It can have two levels of meaning. Its use in the whole process of negotiation with the government and the strategic persuasion of the public emphasized the assumption that HKIEd was a self-accredited institute and that the degrees offered include Doctor of Philosophy, which was considered sufficient in proving that HKIEd deserved a university title. At a different level of interpretation, the word “education” should have deserved more attention and should become the focus of concern. This way of thinking is logical because the issue arises from the prevailing

130

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

argument that the teaching profession is merely a “monotechnic” discipline. Moreover, in the public’s view, it represents the whole of education. Along this line of thought, the idea of re-titling, that is, “正名” in Chinese, should be interpreted as a process of either rectifying the possible misconceptions about education or improving and upgrading the quality and status of teaching and research under the label of education, with the understanding that it is a field without boundaries (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 178). Some scholars like Sidorkin suggested education should not only be considered “a field for application of other disciplines” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 93; Biesta, 2013). This understanding is even more appealing when Bellah et al., (1992, p. 16) argued that “all institutions are educative”. These views have sent out a strong message in the form of challenges to educators in general and those who provide teacher education in particular. This concept of education is different from that articulated by HKIEd during the whole process of their seeking re-titling (“正名”) as the first university of education in Hong Kong. The idea of “education plus” clearly indicates that the scope of education has been limited. This emphasis can also be seen in the mission statement of HKIEd that stresses that they “seek to provide a multidisciplinary learning and research environment beyond education in Hong Kong” [Emphasis mine] (HKIEd, 2010). Therefore, it is reasonable to judge that HKIEd was in the process of transforming itself into a comprehensive university with education as a constitutive part. From the perspective of Bellah et al., HKIEd seems to have failed to give what education deserves. One may ask whether an ordinary comprehensive university could serve the same purpose as that called for by Bellah et al. According to them, the answer should be “yes” because this purpose is the original goal of a university. However, our universities began to disintegrate into an organization with fragmented specializations serving the immediate needs of the society at the expense of a shared vision of common good (Bellah et al., 1992, pp. 154–6). In considering Hong Kong’s current situation, in which a desire for a bottom-up decision-making process collides with the uncanny presence of a top-down approach in governance, a stronger version of education proposed by Bellah et al. is urgently needed as a platform for communicative rationality to emerge in the service of bringing in, in Gadamer’s terms, horizons of different disciplinary or even epistemological backgrounds to search for the common good of the society. HKIEd and now EdUHK could have taken the lead in doing justice to the notion of education as the Chinese version of re-titling (“正名”) seems to have claimed. For some reasons, this chance has gone, and the reason for its failure to do so reflects that the whole educational mechanism of Hong Kong has been dominated by a weak version of education, one that identifies itself as merely serving the school sector on the one hand and falls short of a vision that is ambitious enough to provide a deliberative platform for transcending our disciplinary and epistemological differences in search of the good that helps integrate our larger society on the other, an educational principle badly needed in the current situation of Hong Kong and perhaps in other parts of the world as well. It is in this sense that the tertiary education of Hong Kong remains at a stage in need of a sustainable version of education.

A Case for Deep Reflection

131

This author agrees with Sterling that the issue of sustainability in education is basically an epistemological one. It would be more enlightening when the issue is discussed in light of the Aristotelian framework of knowledge. Sterling regards we need a shift from the detached to experiential understanding (Sterling, 2004a). In Aristotle’s terms, it is the phronetic lens that needs to be reinvented, which is the kind of knowledge in the realms of ethics and politics acquired through experience. It also implies that the capacity of deliberation in front of the public in search of the common good by transcending disagreements is valued. Its implications for developing a sustainable version of education at tertiary level are challenging, which can be easier for us to understand by using the means–ends approach of analysis. In episteme and techne particularly when the latter is reduced to technical in its contemporary use, the prescribed ends are valued for its compatibility with the objectives stated in advance. It entails that one has to control the process to secure the expected outcomes. The consequence is that this mode of operation only satisfies the blueprint laid down by those who rule and manage. The drawback is it does not enhance the development of agency, whereas in phronesis the agent is seen as the source of creativity and practical wisdom acquired through intersubjective dialogue. The most important thing is that the dialectic between means and end is guided by the aspiration for searching what is considered good for the community as a whole. During the deliberative process, the virtue of mutual recognition or respect is enhanced, the very basic practice sustaining the healthy development of a society by bringing people with various disciplinary background and values together. Its value lies in its authorizing people to shape and even transform their own society (Gutmann, 1987, p. 15). Unavoidably, uncertainties and contingencies are expected. However, they can be turned into fertile ground for breeding a sustainable system allowing for renewable consensus in a long term. It is sustainable for it is experiential that fosters the growth of empathetic understanding in contrast to the detached one that entails the will to control driven by a top-down, technical mentality. In comparison with the positioning of HKIEd indicated by the use of “education plus” as a strategy for the re-titling (“正名”) purpose, the weight that Bellah et al. gave to education and the way it is portrayed appear to be more promising in providing a condition for sustainable growth characterized by its emphasis on the importance of an integrated and balanced purpose of life: a true version of retitling (“正名”) for education. In Aristotle’s terms, it is phronesis that provides a larger vision in “interpreting and integrating the larger society” (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 155) that is urgently needed by Hong Kong society and in other parts of the world as well, as this author believes. Even though Bellah et al. were not that optimistic due to the deep-rooted culture of specialization shaped by episteme and the narrow version of techne, this ideal had to be shared by all educators. As Hansen reiterated, teaching is “a moral and intellectual practice” (Hansen, 2001, p. 158). Therefore, teachers must have “ideals [that] reach beyond mere social expectations” (Hansen, 2001, p. 157). A professional teacher realistically seeks every opportunity to “enrich the student’s life chances” under the guidance of the ideal and the self-critical. Teaching is a selfleading process, which is “the teacher’s ideal-in-practice” (Hansen, 2001, p. 164). This quality moulds a teacher into a willing leader who challenges accepted practices

132

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

and one who is informed by both the ideal and the real. Education is an ongoing vocation driven by the approach to give the best to every pupil. This essential and informative relationship is a process towards the craft (a stronger version of techne appreciated by Eisner (2002)) in both present and future lives (Hansen, 2001, p. 190), and it undeniably requires certain amounts of ethical and aesthetic sensibility (Eisner, 2002). We need teachers with ideals. We also urgently need an ideal model to bring them together so that their talents and/or disciplinary expertise can be integrated to serve our students better and in sustainable manner. For its realization, Hansen’s concept of “ideal-in-practice” is inspiring for educators particularly those who aspire to be the ones with the virtue of phronesis and share Bellah et al.’s vision in the hope of understanding what sustainable education is like. This will be illustrated by using the performance of a jazz band as a metaphor in the next two chapters on teaching as a community of phronimos. The international call for interdisciplinary studies that result in integration is gaining momentum. As early as 1983, Hursh et al. (1983, p. 43; 1990, p. 134) proposed an integrative, interdisciplinary model of general education that aims to loosen “the shackles of the disciplines” and “bringing scientific, humanistic, and social scientific perspectives to bear on complex problems” (Hursh et al., 1983, p. 45, 1990, p. 136) in response to the “traditional discipline-based recipe” (Hursh et al., 1983, p. 42, 1990, p. 134) characterized by Graff as “course fetish”, the residual effect of which ultimately “deprives students of a connected view of the universe of scholarship” (Graff, 1991, A48). It is against this background that our tertiary education and particularly those providing teacher education should aim at designing courses that nurture integrative leadership informed by the virtue of phronesis with which the knowledge of episteme and techne can be properly put in place for the emergence of the common good which is subject to be renewable that defines its sustainability. This author believes only when the notion of “education” is understood as that which is suggested by Sidorkin (1999), Biesta (2013), Bellah et al. (1992), Sterling (2004a), and Chynoweth (2009) will the introduction of the subject of Liberal Studies in the secondary school curriculum find its meaning and manifest itself in a full-fledged manner for a narrow version of it is not able to envision the inclusive or comprehensive nature of Liberal Studies. Specially, the vision that we need “talent”, “teaching excellence”, and the call for “life education”, “character education”, and even “parent education” may find what Kristjansson calls the “integrative phronesis” (2015, p. 314) a valuable concept for inspiration. In light of phronesis, not only the above calls and the defiance of the assertion that “‘Winning at the starting line’ is a losing formula” (Cheung, 2018, A9) is able to find their “legitimate” ground epistemologically, the secondary school curriculum with the spirit of the subject of Liberal Studies as a whole can also optimistically find its reference for a meaningful pedagogical approach. That being said as it was mentioned at the very beginning of this book “we should not be so naïve as to believe that policy decision making in education is purely the business of ‘educators’”. When this manuscript was being written, teachers of Hong Kong came to a moment with a tough decision, the nature of which will be explained in the following section leading to the close of this section.

Teachers in a Forking Path

133

Teachers in a Forking Path Hong Kong has been going through a difficult time in the political scene, something that it has never experienced before. The emergence of this difficulty can trace back to 2014 when a political reform proposal offered by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee based on its decision on 31 August was vetoed by Hong Kong legislative councillors, who were mainly pan-democrats. The proposal was considered by the Hong Kong government as a “real” version of universal suffrage that offers Hong Kong people “one man, one vote” in 2017 in the election of its Chief Executive. It was taken as a step forward in the democratic development of Hong Kong. The opposing camp, that is, the “pan-democrats”, firmly stated that the proposal of the government was a fake version of universal suffrage, and this view was shared by about forty per cent of Hong Kong people. This author does not aim to deliberate on this issue further but rather points out the fact that the citizens of Hong Kong have become more “critical” since the return of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997. Several survey findings were conducted during the last few weeks before the veto took place. The survey showed that more than sixty per cent of those who opposed the “reform proposal” were under the age of thirty, and this result drew the attention of politicians in particular. Moreover, those who were not in favour of the proposal were those who were better educated. The social ecology of Hong Kong has undoubtedly been passing through a great change. This change has drawn as much attention from politicians as from educators. Although educators may see the issue differently, the challenge is the same in terms of the fact that more dialogic accountability in a reciprocal manner was seen as desirable. In 2014, aside from the Occupy Central Movement occurring, the older generation of the Hong Kong people started to realize that the younger generation was no longer what they had once perceived as an apathetic homogeneous “mass” in the Baudrillardian sense (Baudrillard, 1983, p. 2), from whom no response to any appeal could be obtained. Actually, the metaphor that Baudrillard uses is even more appealing, that is, a “black hole”, from which not even light can escape and which signifies that feedback is not possible. The emergence of these “imagined” bodies of community (Anderson, 1983), as termed by Anderson, is unprecedented. These bodies are regarded as “imagined” because their members come from various backgrounds. They are connected virtually through the Internet using Facebook, Twitter, and other online social platforms as long as a sociopolitical issue was present. Their performance in social movements was considered to be too aggressive, and most of them did not have sophisticated minds. In comparison with the previous generation, the younger generation is more willing to express their opinions with less compromise in strategy. 1 July 2019 was the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return back to Mainland China as a Special Administrative Region. For some, this is a day worthy of commemoration. As for the protesters, it may only represent a shift of colonization from one colonizer to another. Following the rallies on 6 and 12 June 2019, which attracted approximately one and two million Hong Kong people, respectively, to

134

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

show their anger to and dissatisfaction with the initiation of the Extradition Bill, half a million Hong Kong people showed up on 1 July 2019 ending with a dramatic act which was described by a local English newspaper as “The Storming of Legco [Legislative Council]” (Staff Reporters, 2019, A1), a big surprise to even those “two million” who were involved in the rally. This incident attracted reporters from all over the world since the Legco represents the main “organ” serving to establish the rules for Hong Kong and its being “stormed” becomes a symbolic act of undermining the legitimacy of those who rule, particularly those who were in favour of supporting the chief executive’s decision to push the bill through in spite of the fact that even the members of the Hong Kong Bar Association, who rarely get themselves involved in any political issue, showed their concern about the move initiated by the chief executive. In this shocking incident where the Legislative Council building was taken over and vandalized, the young people were the main actors, some of whom were students. Their involvement in the political scene of Hong Kong had always been an issue of debate in the education sector. The pro-establishment camp represented by Miss Leung Mei Fun, a lawyer, complained that the unconstrained behaviour of the young people was an intentional outcome since the implementation of the subject of Liberal Studies, and it was the teachers who had been involved in teaching the subject to blame because they were the ones who had exaggerated the misdeed of the Hong Kong government and emphasized too much on the negative side of the Mainland through the teaching materials they had selected conducive to the young people’s being “brainwashed” to stand up to the government. This line of thought was reiterated almost a year later by the Chief Executive, Mrs. Carrie Lam, in an interview with a pro-Chinese government newspaper judging that the subject of Liberal Studies had been the source of contaminating the spirit of Hong Kong students leading to escalating their anti-government sentiment. However, the same subject was well received by the pan-democratic camp for they thought that it had opened the eyes of the students and they had become more social aware and active in caring about what happened in the society. These opposing views can explain why the following question, “Has Liberal Studies miseducated Hong Kong young people”, was chosen as a topic in a forum open to the public in a public library. Two days after the “storming”, the former chief executive and now the vicechairman of China’s top political advisory body Mr. Tung Chee-hwa, while suspecting “whether there is a mastermind behind the chaos”, “blamed Liberal Studies at schools for causing teenagers to have problems”. He concluded by admitting that “it was his mistake to list Liberal Studies as a core subject while he was in office” and added that “the subject needs a revamp” (Tung, 2019), but he has not provided any suggestion so far as to tell how to go about putting it into practice. It was suspected that he followed what the pro-establishment politicians had suggested that “the curriculum was limitless and allowed “biased teachers” to politicize pupils and encourage them to join protests” (Su & Chan, 2019, A3). Tung’s judgement was in contradiction to that provided by an Education Bureau (EDB) official, Miss Wendy Au (Principal Secretary, Education Bureau), in a press conference held the next day. She responded by saying: “There’s no proof that liberal

Teachers in a Forking Path

135

studies causes students to do something radical” (Su & Chan, 2019, A3). On 6 July 2019, Mrs. Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fun, the former Secretary of the Education Bureau, weighed in and defended the value of Liberal Studies by saying “the subject did enhance students’ critical thinking”, but added that “the power of social media seems to be much greater” (Law, 2019). It is understood that as someone who promoted the subject while she was in charge she might assume a defensive position. Shying away from addressing this issue directly by shifting the focus towards the media reveals a true fact that schools are no longer the place of authority in “educating” the students. There may be two approaches in dealing with this issue. Adopting Bellah et al.’s concept that “all institutions are educative” is one in that we are reminded education is life itself, an idea which this author embraces. However, this idea can also be appropriated with a different agenda, which will be explained as follows. It was reported on 18 August 2020 that a voluntary screening program was established by the Hong Kong educational authorities (Chan, 2020b). This program is entrusted with the task of giving advice to publishers on what teaching material be included in the textbook. It was revealed that “illustrations showing anti-government protesters holding up slogans and criticism of the mainland Chinese government had been removed”. Besides, the amendment also includes the deletion of a phrase “separation of power”. The significance of this removal lies on the fact that the judicial, executive, and legislative powers have been independently operated. Furthermore, the signs including “I am a Hongkonger” and “Liberate the community” were also replaced (Chan, 2020b). However, it was not clear what the vetting criteria were. What concerned the teachers most is whether this sort of screening process would become mandatory. If so, room for discussion would be narrowed. As the initial purpose assigned to the subject of Liberal Studies was to encourage students to think critically, have their general knowledge expanded and their social awareness raised, what happened as it is shown above seems to suggest that there may be a drastic one-hundred-eighty degree turn in the way this subject has been perceived, and this perception was replaced by the ultimate concern that the subject of Liberal Studies has actually radicalized the students and the young in general to “grow more radical and join anti-government protests” (Chan, 2020b). The possibility that the enhancement of the students’ “critical” thinking might make them more receptive to “radical” ideas remains an issue hard to be proved or ruled out since the social media was seen as also playing a very important role in shaping the worldview of the students. The immediate concern for this author is that schools appeared to be no longer a place for practising “professional” judgement since any suggestions or recommendations are susceptible to be invested with political interest rather than that of the students. For example, it was reported that a think tank named Our Hong Kong Foundation, which was set up by the former Chief Executive of HKSAR, Mr. Tung, suggested that “most teaching materials should be checked by the government to “ensure neutrality”” (Chan, 2020c). In virtue of the fact that Mr. Tung is well known for his devoted support for Beijing and that the government for many has obviously become the extension of Beijing’s rule, the claim that the check is for ensuring “neutrality” is thus unconvincing. As a result, this so-called sweeping reform was considered by many teachers “politically motivated” and professionally

136

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

ungrounded. They regarded it as in their own words “a form of suppression with politics overriding educational interests” (Chan, 2020d). There are two professional organizations in Hong Kong. One is called Professional Teachers’ Union (PTU) and the other Federation of Education Workers. While the latter is regarded as proestablishment, the former is well-known for their taking a monitoring stance over the policies initiated by the government. According to surveys conducted by themselves, their views were polarized (Chan 2021b). Under such circumstance, what criteria or educational principles based on which the public could still talk about any initiative relevant to education and in our case the interest of the students in relation to the subject of Liberal Studies. This question should be asked by professional teachers. However, their professional judgement could have been overshadowed by a comment against which many of them may not openly “dare” to challenge under the national security law lest they would be held accountable to the extent that they might lose their job. This worry was initiated much earlier when Mrs. Carrie Lam, the leader of Hong Kong, was reported having “urged school managers to help guard against pupils being affected by “fallacious arguments”, warning that some people have intentionally infused various subjects with misconceptions” (Chan, 2020a). More on the details of the revamp were revealed gradually, which includes renaming the subject, trimming of the syllabus and vetting of textbooks. In addition, students “will also be required to visit mainland China”. In a different occasion, the curriculum development committee chairman, Professor Lau Chi-pang, stressed that the revamp could provide “students … a correct understanding of the country, national identity as well as the one country, two systems framework” (Chan, 2021a). Just as the concept of “neutrality” was susceptible to query, the notion of “correct understanding” could not escape from being judged as without a hidden agenda in this very time when the interest of Hong Kong people was undermined and their inherited identify “betrayed”. The findings of a survey done by the Professional Teachers’ Union in Hong Kong may help shed some light on the kind of impact such an uncanny presence of a monitoring device had created: “About 40 per cent of teachers in Hong Kong plan to or want to leave the profession”. The main reason for their choice is the “increasing political pressure” associated with the implementation of the national security law, and the suggestion of “the installation of surveillance cameras in classroom” is threatening (Wang, 2021).

Conclusion The information provided above has given a brief sketch of the background against which the question of where Hong Kong people could go from here particularly when it is applied to the query of how its education “reform” could be configured. Would the whole situation be, as the title of one news report in the form of a question indicates, spelling “the end of critical thinking among students”? (Chan et al., 2020) If so, it would disappoint scholars like Hui (2015) and like-minded Hong Kong people that “thoughtlessness” would prevail and thus any proposal for education reform with

Conclusion

137

the purpose of helping to establish a sustainable society would be futile. That being said it does not necessarily lead to a conclusion that we cannot talk about education any more. Borrowing Knight’s terminology, the modifying contextual factors have always been influential in shaping the educational goal, and these influences may not be substantially grounded on educational principles. Even though goals like “whole person development” and critical thinking are identified as desirable, it is a pity that they have not been given sufficient attention as to explore what they mean on epistemological ground in practice. One may be led to become pretty pessimistic about Hong Kong’s educational development in the future given that Hong Kong’s past characterized by its “thoughtlessness” could not be succeeded by a foreseeable future that welcomes the virtue of thoughtfulness. People use their foot to vote. There is no shortage of videos in the YouTube channel produced by those after having migrated to Britain through the use of Leave Outside the Rules (LOTR) sharing that the reason for their doing so was for the education and future of their next generation. Here, one of Wright’s ideas is adoptable when he talks about the dynamics between utopian ideas or ideal and reality, the realization of the former involves a process of struggle. We are reminded in such a situation that “[t]he best we can do, then, is treat the struggle to move forward on the pathways of social empowerment as an experimental process in which we continually test and retest the limits of possibility and try, as best we can, to create new institutions which will expand those limits themselves. In doing so we not only envision real utopias, but contribute to making utopias real” (Wright, 2010, p. 373). Yet, how “best” we can do remains a question. And his answer is in the realm of “theoretical imagination”. Though this book emphasizes the importance of practice, it does not intend to undermine the contribution of theory particularly when the latter is conceptualized as a boundless space that allows thinking to travel freely through our imagination. Whenever there are constraints in practice, theorizing can still continue so long as we still have the “ideal” in place that drives our imagination. Optimistically put, the more constraints one has experienced in practice, the deeper the understanding of how they could be overcome so long as we do not put our imagination on hold, but allow our theorizing to take its course based on those practices. This is the driving force empowering the deliberation of the next two chapters, which are about the practice of teachers as a community. A sustainable society relies on a richer account of the concept of education. The current understanding of education fetishizes the promise of what the technical knowhow can bring under the guidance of episteme and techne. Underlying the favouritism of this guidance is either the false assumption that only those generated from episteme and techne with high degree of certainty are knowledge due to their being subjected to the convenience of reproduction in various situations and hence with “high” value of “applicability”, or a strategic decision aiming at securing a pre-specified outcome with well-defined steps in the name of “effectiveness”. Whatever the reason is, the consequence is the same: the diminishing of phronesis in Aristotle’s framework of knowledge resulting in the reverse of thoughtfulness, a basic quality featuring many of the educational initiative Hong Kong has recently called for like “value education”, “character education”, and “life education”, etc. To counter this approach, a richer

138

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

account of education entails the need for prioritizing the quality of phronesis in terms of its epistemological foundation; and in light of this epistemological shift, a deeper account of learning requires a replacement of the traditional understanding of “application”, which tends to expect merely the implementation of what is given, with a Gadamerian notion of it that demands the active exercising of one’s judgement or discerning power with keen attentiveness to the process and contextual complexities. However, the fulfilment of the above two requirements does not necessarily bring fruitful effects educationally if a thicker account of teaching is missing. The following two chapters aim at fulfilling this gap.

References Academic Staff Association of HKIEd (ASA). (2009). LC Paper No. CB(2)1336/08–09(02): ASA’s stand on HKIEd’s RE-titling and response to the UGC report. http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr08-09/ english/panels/ed/papers/ed0416cb2-1336-2-e.pdf Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso. Baudrillard, J. (1983). In the shadow of the silent majorities, or, the end of the social, and other essays. Semiotext(e). Bellah, N. R., Madsen, R., Tipton, S. M., Sullian, W. M., & Swidler, A. (1992). The good society. Vintage Books. Biesta, G. J. J. (2013). On the idea of educational theory. In B. J. Irby, G. Brown, & R. Lara-Alecia (Eds.), The handbook of educational theories (pp. 5–15). Information Age Publishing Inc. Chan, H. (2020d, December 9). More than 90 per cent of 500 Hong Kong teachers polled say liberal studies reform politically motivated. South China Morning Pos.: https://www.scmp.com/news/ hong-kong/education/article/3113255/more-90-cent-500-hong-kong-teachers-polled-say-liberal Chan, H., Lau, C., & Leung, K. (2020, November 28). The Hong Kong secondary school course that vexes Beijing is headed for a makeover but will it spell the end of critical thinking among students? South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/ 3111740/hong-kong-high-school-course-vexes-beijing-headed-makeover Chan, H. (2020c, September 22). What is liberal studies in Hong Kong and why is it controversial? South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3102439/ what-liberal-studies-hong-kong-and-why-it-controversial Chan, H. (2020a, May 12). Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam’s warning to schools over teaching of ‘fallacious arguments’ draws fire from union. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3083902/hong-kong-leader-car rie-lams-warning-schools-over-teaching Chan, H. (2020b, August 18). Hong Kong publishers make changes to Liberal Studies textbooks after voluntary review. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/edu cation/article/3097873/hong-kong-publishers-make-changes-liberal-studies Chan, H. (2021b, March 2). Hong Kong teachers divided over controversial changes to liberal studies as school heads call for delay to revamp. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/ hong-kong/education/article/3123813/hong-kong-teachers-divided-over-controversial-changes Chan, H. (2021a, February 2). Hong Kong liberal studies: content on national security, lawfulness, patriotism to be expanded under coming revamp. South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3120279/hong-kong-liberal-stu dies-content-national-security Cheung, S. Y. L. (2018, June 7). Winning at the starting line. South China Morning Post, p. A9. Chichilnisky, G. (1997). What is sustainable development? Land Economics, 73(4), 467–491.

References

139

Chynoweth, P. (2009). The built environment interdiscipline: A theoretical model for decision makers in research and teaching. Structural Survey, 27(4), 301–310. Clifton, D., & Amran, A. (2011). The stakeholder approach: A sustainability perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 98(1), 121–136. Cullingford, C. (2004). Conclusion: The future—is sustainability sustainable. In J. Blewitt & C. Cullingford (Eds.), The sustainability curriculum: The challenge for higher education (pp. 245– 252). Earthscan. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. Free Press. Eisner, E. W. (2002). From episteme to phronesis to artistry in the study and improvement of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 375–385. Graff, G. (1991). Colleges are depriving students of a connected view of scholarship. The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb. 13, 37, 22, A48. Gutmann, A. (1987). Democratic education. Princeton University Press. Hansen, D. T. (2001). Exploring the moral heart of teaching: Toward a teacher’s creed. Teachers College Press. Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). (2010). HKIEd Powers education with new “Education Plus” programmes. https://www.ied.edu.hk/web/news.php?id=20100908 Hong Kong. Curriculum Development Council (HKCDC) and the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA). (2007). Liberal studies curriculum and assessment guide (Secondary 4–6). Govt. Logistics Department. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The absence of thought in learning: Hong Kong education in light of cultural studies]. Oxford University Press. Hursh, B., Haas, P., & Moore, M. (1983). An interdisciplinary model to implement general education. Journal of Higher Education, 54(1), 42–59. Hursh, B., Haas, P., & Moore, M. (1990). An interdisciplinary model to implement general education. Issues in Integrative Studies, 8, 133–150. Jackson, P. W. (2012). What is education? University of Chicago Press. Jingling, B. (1994). Studying sustainable development: Problems and possibilities. Canadian Journal of Education, 19(3), 231–240. Kristjansson, K. (2015). Phronesis as an ideal in professional ethics: Some preliminary positions and problematics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 36, 299–320. Law, F. F. C. (2019, July 6). News. Television Broadcast (TVB) Pearl Channel. Legislative Council Panel on Education (LCPE). (2007). LC Paper No. CB(2)1333/06–07(03): Proposal on retitling of the Hong Kong Institute of Education as a University. http://www.legco. gov.hk/yr06-07/english/panels/ed/papers/ed0322cb2-1333-3-e.pdf Mason, M. (2008). Making educational development and change sustainable: Insights from complexity theory. International Journal of Educational Development, 29, 117–124. Rowland, P. (2013). Foreword. In L. F. Johnson (Ed.), Higher education for sustainability: Cases, challenges, and opportunities from across the curriculum (pp. viii–x). Routledge. Sauve, L. (1999). Environmental education between modernity and postmodernity: Searching for an integrating educational framework. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 4, 9–35. Sidorkin, A. M. (1999). Beyond discourse: Education, the self, and dialogue. State University of New York Press. Staff Reporters. (2019, July 2). The storming of legco (Legislative Council). South China Morning Post, p. A1. Sterling, S. (2004a). An analysis of the development of sustainability education internationally: Evolution, interpretation and transformative potential. In J. Blewitt & C. Cullingford (Eds.), The sustainability curriculum: The challenge for higher education (pp. 43–62). Earthscan. Sterling, S. (2004b). Higher education, sustainability, and the role of systemic learning. In P. B. Corcoran & Arjen E. J. Wals (Eds.), Higher education and the challenge of sustainability: Problematics, promise, and practice (pp. 49–70). Kluwer Academic Publishers.

140

7 Education, Whole Person, and the Sustainability of a Society

Su & Chan (2019, July 5). Education officials back liberal studies after Tung links subject to violence. South China Morning Post, p. A3. Tung Chee-hwa. (2019, July 3). News. Television Broadcast (TVB). Pearl Channel. UNESCO. (2002). Education for sustainability—from Rio to Johannesburg: Lessons learnt from a decade of commitment. UNESCO. Wang, W. (2021, October 5). Union claims 40pc of teachers want to quit. The Standard, 14(124), 1. Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias. Verso.

Chapter 8

Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

Introduction In the previous chapter, it was suggested the concept of “practice” particularly in the light of phronesis be better regarded as the main source of knowledge, one that is pivotal to the cultivation of virtues and vital to the successful integration of different nature of knowledge in the service of educating a whole person, the prioritization of which gives a richer account of education and a thicker account of what learning is about. However, the current teaching-to-the-test approach is absolutely a barrier to its accomplishment. This author argues for a thicker account of teaching, which begs the question of what the nature of teaching would be like when practice is reinvented as the legitimate source of knowledge entailing the freedom to create and innovate rather than passively “applying concepts and theories to a practical situation” (Hoy, 1978, p. 54). This is the issue to be addressed in this chapter. Addressing an old question on the dilemma between social control and individual freedom and its application in the context of education, Dewey (1997) explains that rules can be used positively without compromising freedom to experience new things. The metaphor he uses is that of children playing a game. The reason for his defending the use of rules is the assumption that “games do not go on haphazardly or by a succession of improvisations” (Dewey, 1997, p. 52). The idea of improvisation can superficially be invested with a negative connotation in relation to the use of rules. However, a different interpretation may be adopted, especially when the concept is read in the light of improvisation in jazz, where an improviser performs with rules for guidance. What really matters is how such rules are interpreted and whether they are followed implicitly or explicitly. Strictly speaking, if the latter is true, improvisation does not occur at all. The current chapter argues that improvisation and rules, if understood properly, are not mutually exclusive concepts, particularly when they are sustained with both artistic and ethical sensitivity instead of merely technical skills and pure impulse, the understanding of which should have far-reaching implications for engendering creativity in teaching.

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_8

141

142

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

In the light of jazz improvisation as a metaphor, the current chapter attempts to propose the idea that improvisational dialogue is the kind of capacity a professional teacher must have to cope with, understand, and, in particular, use in teaching emerging issues in this fast-changing world. At the outset, improvisational dialogue may be argued as not operated according to a set of pre-specified procedures, but rather, under certain principles guided by the value of dialogic ethics, which focuses on “learning from difference”, (Arnett et al., 2009, p. 80) with the ultimate goal of empowering the students to voice their own mind. Second, improvisational dialogue is considered an “ideal speech situation” (Love, 1995, p. 53; Habermas, 1970) to be realized in the student community as a pedagogical strategy, the implementation of which requires creative impulses. The metaphor of jazz improvisation will be presented first, followed by an elucidation of a three-dimensional construct developed in the current chapter so as to explain the basic features that enhance the emergence of improvisational dialogue, namely personal capacity, structural pliability, and relational responsibility. Beckett’s interpretation of the Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom is used to address the personal dimension, whereas the structural will be enlightened by Dysthe’s pedagogical principles based on Bakhtin’s dialogic theory. The discussion will be completed by referencing the dialogic insights of Buber, whose concepts of monologue, technical dialogue, and genuine dialogue will be appropriated to explain the realization process of the “ideal speech situation” manifesting itself through the emergence of improvisational dialogue in students.

Teaching in Practice Why are dialogue, intersubjectivity, and interaction important to teaching and learning? From a sociocultural perspective, Dysthe introduces the ideas of “learning potential” (Dysthe, 2002) and, together with Oillejord, “productive learning” (Lillejord & Dysthe, 2008). The meaning of “productive” is derived from a Bakhtinian understanding of the nature of language. Bakhtin regards, “The word in language is half someone else’s” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 293). This statement means that when one expresses an intention, it is merely a result of a gradual process of adapting to and appropriation of other people’s voices and words (Lillejord & Dysthe, 2008, p.79). In this sense, engaging in dialogue becomes a productive and creative process that helps maximize both the students’ and teachers’ learning potential. While engaging in dialogue, one creates by synthesizing one’s existing ideas and that of others, resulting in the emergence of a hybrid form of new knowledge that might have never existed before. This is quite similar to the concept of “fusion of horizons” in Gadamer and the process of fusion in fact shares more or less the same kind of features such as adaptation and appropriation with that of “learning in practice” introduced in Chap. 3. From a positivist perspective, a process that cannot be controlled is problematic in securing outcomes, which may be attributed to the assumption that teaching and learning requires no more than, as Florio-Ruane has observed, “direct instruction in

Teaching in Practice

143

a limited range of contexts and contents” (Florio-Ruane, 2002, p. 207). Thus, unpredictability is conceived as equivalent to confusion. The paradox is, as Wheatley regards, “We can’t be creative if we refuse to be confused” (Wheatley, 2002, p. 37). To be confused, if perceived positively, is to have an opportunity to revisit or reflect on one’s existing point of view, an opportunity to grow. In Gadamer, this is the basis of learning where the familiar meets with those that are yet to be. This feature characterizes an issue-enquiry approach to teaching and learning, one employed by the subject of Liberal Studies in Hong Kong, where subject knowledge and matters are, quoting Lillejord and Dysthe’s own terms, taken as mediational tools (Lillejord & Dysthe, 2008, p. 76), and a new horizon emerges whenever new perspectives are injected. Another feature is that outcomes emerge and are codetermined by the participants, but without either one of them knowing it by foresight. Lillejord & Dysthe aptly stated, “When learning is regarded as a sociocultural knowledge-producing activity, the concept of “productive” simultaneously embraces the learning process and the outcome of the process” (Lillejord & Dysthe, 2008, p. 75). Thus, the process can be conceived, to a certain extent, as the outcome itself. These concepts are not mutually exclusive, just as what the positivist attempts to do in conceptualizing the teaching and learning process. By contrast, one who has no problem with Aristotle’s phronetic lens will find it easier to understand. Gadamer’s hermeneutic understanding of learning may also produce the same result. Teachers who are used to the positivist mindset may ask the following three basic questions: First, what is a pedagogical condition or environment that values a sociocultural approach to learning like? Second, what qualities are required of teachers to happily remain in such an environment? Third, what implications would there be for a teacher to survive a process that is simultaneously embraced as the outcome itself? These questions will be addressed successively, and their interdependent nature will be illustrated first using jazz improvisation as a metaphor.

Jazz Improvisation as a Metaphor Over the past two decades, jazz improvisation has been used as a metaphor to explain how improvisational dialogue (musically) in jazz performance can shed light on the enhancement of creativity in the field of organizational studies (Weick, 1993) and teaching (Sawyer, 2004a, b). By improvisation, it means composing and performing simultaneously on the spot without any preparation in its narrow sense (Berliner, 1994, p. 1). We usually associate improvisation performance with jazz and theatre performance as well. Whereas the former is mediated by musical symbols, the latter is mediated by linguistic. In the theatre setting, improvisation emerges out of an ensemble of actors without any prearranged dialogue and even plot outline (Sawyer, 2000, p. 151). Therefore, “it is highly contingent from moment to moment” (Sawyer, 2000, p. 152). Referring to jazz, Coulombe explains “spontaneous expression in the act of performance itself” is the very nature of improvisation (Coulombe, 2009, p. 209). An interpretation of improvisation provided by Cunba et al. is that composing

144

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

and performing happens at the same time with purpose (Cunha et al., 1999, pp. 308– 9). Others regard improvisation as a process or organizing (Kamoche et al., 2003, p. 5) during which conception/composition and execution converge or thinking and action emerge simultaneously (Vendelo, 2009, p. 450). Sawyer opines, “in improvisational performance, the creative process is the product” (Sawyer, 2000, p. 149). The process is very often the moment where new ideas emerge or are discovered. Sawyer even observes that, in fact, “all social interactions display improvisational elements” (Sawyer, 2000, p. 150). An educator who is used to a weak version of outcome-based approach nevertheless may ask a very basic question: What exactly is improvisation, and can it be learned? A short definition is given by Berliner, that is, improvisation means composing and performing simultaneously on the spot without any preparation (Berliner, 1994, p. 1). Still, this short definition may not be good enough. That improvisation does not mean that one is not required to prepare for any act may sound reasonable given that in actuality basic skills training is required. Yet, there are two factors determining the possibility of the emergence of improvisational acts: one is personal, and the other is social. On the personal level, one has to see the world as undergoing a forming process, rather than being a formed product (Weick, 1993, p. 347). Such a worldview entails the acceptance of dynamics and uncertainties as norms. This perspective demands a shift of the mindset, moving away from the intention of identifying a direct causal relationship between input and output towards offering attentive care (Dewey, 1997, p. 49), attunement, and openness (Smythe & Norton, 2007, p. 67) to the process that plays a part in construing the condition or social environment, which is also constantly in a process of emergence. On the social level, according to Weick, a creative organizational process is generally characterized by six features. First, people are, by nature, always involved in some kind of activity that requires attention in a continuous process of redesign. Second, the initiation of redesign has to be shared by all members of a group. In other words, all members have a shared responsibility. Third, one needs to understand that design involves interpretation. Designing is a hermeneutical process that one has to invest in. Fourth, each member of the group has to be a resourceful, rather than merely being a source. The former plays the role of mediation, which helps in forging connections with other sources, whereas the latter only suggests the origin of the source. Fifth, one can only understand the meaning of an action in hindsight. Such a view implies that emerging, rather than pre-specified outcomes are expected. Finally, a minimal structure is preferred to enable the agent to have more freedom to create (Weick, 1993, p. 347). In summary, Weick has described the major conditional factors that may contribute to facilitating the emergence of creativity. Such factors are conditional, and no mechanical regularities are expected. To answer the question posed earlier in this section, the basic skills required to prepare for improvisation can be learned, but the capacity for successful improvisation can only be inspired on the spot with the help of the musicians’ already possessed techniques, although they are not consciously

Jazz Improvisation as a Metaphor

145

aware of using such techniques. This finding explains how rules and improvisation operate simultaneously, but on different levels. Therefore, technical skill techniques are necessary, but insufficient, to engender creativity. What allows creativity to emerge is the relational dynamics among the members, who constitute part of the structure within which they are working and by means of which they get inspired to construe a new structural form. Furthermore, the crafting capacity each member of the group shares within such a form also enables them to “see” the particular within the whole, as well as the whole in the light of the particulars. This feature indicates that improvisation is also a practice by nature similar to that of learning proposed by Gadamer. To conclude, the emergence of creativity can be understood as a result of the convergence of the relational dynamics within a group, the craftsmanship each member shares within that group, and the technical skills each individual within that group has developed.

Implications of Improvisational Dialogue for Teaching In the previous section, the metaphor of jazz improvisation has been proposed as a heuristic device explaining that the required condition for creativity to emerge is basically threefold. First, a minimal structure that allows uncertainties to appear can be conceived positively and embraced as an opportunity for engendering creative acts. Second, the actors need to see the structure as always in a process of formation. Third, the driving force that keeps the dynamics going is the “magic” of improvisation, which involves the dimension of artistry, ethics, and technical skills. How could these features shed light on the understanding of creativity in teaching? Improvisational dialogue in jazz is basically musical. What is required of those involved is musical competence in the genre of jazz. When improvisational dialogue is applied to education with “whole personal development” as the goal and the issueenquiry approach of teaching as it is suggested in the subject of Liberal Studies as the mediating device, the context differs distinctively. First, the relationship between the members and the way the activities are conducted within a classroom setting are traditionally highly structured compared with those within a jazz band. The classroom setting thus indicates that the two basic favourable preconditions that facilitate improvisational acts, namely the presence of a minimal structure and the assumption that structure is an evolving concept, are basically weak if not absent. Furthermore, the teacher is symbolically assigned a role with higher authority. Therefore, the teacher and the students do not share the same symmetrical status as the jazz musicians do in a jazz band, which thereby hindering genuine improvisational dialogue from emerging. Although seemingly unfavourable, a change in mindset as exemplified by turning improvisational dialogue into an “ideal speech situation” to be realized among the students will offer a different orientation. The current chapter believes that offering such an alternative embodies the aim of education in a democratic society. The emphasis on using an issue-enquiry mode of learning in Liberal Studies and “whole

146

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

person development” as the educational goal implies this aim. The challenge for the teacher is that he or she is required to be ready to improvise, if necessary, during the whole teaching and learning process with the view of drawing upon various perspectives of students, whether conflicting or not, to constitute a shared platform for symmetrical dialogue to emerge among them. In this way, the teacher demonstrates the techniques of and creates the condition for the emergence of improvisational dialogue simultaneously. The current chapter argues that the issue-enquiry approach in teaching with “whole person development” as its educational goal should embrace these two guidelines as its pedagogical principles or “double mission”, the realization of which relies on the interdependence of three major pillars, namely personal capacity, structural pliability, and relational responsibility. The condition created by these three pillars facilitates the emergence of a learning process that is multi-voiced, the seedling-bed for nurturing productive and creative outcomes. They only emerge and codetermined by the participants and yet without either one of them knowing it by foresight. In this way, we can say that the process becomes the outcome itself. Before we dive deeper into these three pillars, a brief review of what improvisational dialogue entails is helpful. Dialogue is in fact a creative act. It is an everyday activity which is, for most ordinary people, so natural that we do not even notice that it is a way of learning through mediating our inner selves with the outside world. What makes dialogue a dialogue, according to McNamee & Shotter, is the feature of “spontaneous living responsiveness”, which entails that “people genuinely talk in response to what either the immediate situation requires or what somebody else has just said” or “what they imagine” (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, pp. 93–94). We enjoy having dialogue because there is no script guiding it, which in return demands creative improvisation (Sawyer, 2000, p. 149). It is creative in virtue of its ontological aspiration for the presence of difference, which draws our attention to the process of relating (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, p. 94) that requires the sensibility of attuning one’s attention to what happens in its surroundings. It also presupposes the presence of a dialogical condition, which is regarded “as a fundamental feature of human beings” (Alejandro, 1993, p. 77). One is required to respond to other people’s action on the spot and look forward to responses which are expected and yet most of the time bear “the possibility of being truly surprised” (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, p. 92). In this way, dialogue and improvisation are two sides of the same coin. Hence, improvisational dialogue is ontologically a feature that makes human beings different from other species. Furthermore, Alejandro attributes dialogue “as an important component of any understanding of citizenship”. He regards, as it was mentioned earlier in this book, “Citizens are citizens to the extent that they are engaged in a fourfold dialogue: dialogue among themselves; dialogue with the past; dialogue with institutions and tradition, and dialogue with themselves” (Alejandro, 1993, 76). We are engaged by first of all making sense of our own existence here and now as the intersecting point of this fourfold dialogue. The extent to which one could maximize the potential of dialogue to learn depends very much on how he/she makes the best use of his/her given dialogic condition to engage him/herself with both human and non-human agents (Cooren et al., 2006) by being consciously aware of and readily prepared to

Implications of Improvisational Dialogue for Teaching

147

break the current frame one is endowed with. In a sense, learning is more than a phenomenon that can be technically manipulated but rather involves very much the illumination contributed by the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of human potentials, i.e. hermeneutic understanding, which manifests itself in the form of improvisational dialogue. It is in this way that the teacher is entrusted with a great and meaningful “mission” of triggering in students the drive to engage themselves in this fourfold dialogue and the way to do it is again through the use of improvisational dialogue.

Dialogue in Education Van Lier regards, social interaction is “the ‘engine’ that ‘drives’ the learning process” (van Lier, 1996, p. 147). However, this “engine” requires the “fuel” of unpredictability and contingency (van Lier, 1996, p. 148). He opines that the traditional transmission mould of teaching, such as the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) exchange model, serves to minimize uncertainties by having the lesson planned in an orderly progressive fashion, which subsequently discourages what he calls “true joint construction of discourse” (van Lier, 1996, p. 151) resulting in phasing out the contribution of students or their participation (van Lier, 1996, p. 152). To overcome this problem, teachers are advised to learn how to manage contingency through interaction with the aim of replacing the transmission with the transformation pedagogical mould (van Lier, 1996, pp. 178 & 180). Van Lier has provided some principles against which a given pedagogical activity could be evaluated and judged. He suggests whether a pedagogical activity is transformational is characterized by the degree of: (1) speakership alternation; (2) unpredictability of sequence and outcome; (3) equally shared rights and duties of speaking; (4) intent towards process-oriented; (5) generosity in inviting sharing; (6) allowing exploratory conversation to emerge; and (7) self-determination shown in students’ performance. It is emphasized transformation would only emerge when contingency interaction is in place (van Lier, 1996, pp. 181–183). For Sidorkin, “dialogue is essential for communication in the classroom environment” but it “is not simply a form of communication” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 73). Otherwise, it has lost its productive potential. He maintains that “teachers should foster the growth of dialogic capacity in their students” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 74). He suggests: “Successful learning needs to be conducted according to the cycle of three discourses” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 77). The first type of discourse is authoritative, which provides “a common set of references” for the following conversation. In opposition to the first one which is somewhat monological, the second discourse is embedded with the tendency of becoming dialogical since its emergence is the result of subjecting the common sense established in the first discourse to be challenged, deconstructed, and disagreed (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 75). The third discourse is the kind of conversation where “the initial text is stored away into the backroom of our memory”. By this, it means participants are free to voice their own minds even to the extent that logical connections to what has been laid down initially are broken

148

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

(Sidorkin, 1999, p. 76). Some may find this third type disturbing since it is characterized by the phenomenon of a “non-purposeful chatter”, but in fact the manifestation of “a sense of ownership” in students (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 103). However, given the belief that “dialogue is an end in itself”, Sidorkin holds that one should develop “a mechanism of ending a particular round of dialogue, without tying its end to some final solution” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 97). Besides, students have to be taught “how to interrupt and challenge wisely” (Sidorkin, 1999, p. 95). And this should also apply to the teachers too. Sawyer’s “scripted instruction” (Sawyer, 2004a, p. 12) is similar to van Lier’s IRF and Sidorkin’s first discourse in terms of its tendency to turn the classroom into a monological environment. He compares the inquiry-based teaching method to scripted instruction and points out that the former emphasizes collaboration where agents involved are engaged in improvisational dialogue from which knowledge emerges, and thus coconstructed. In this sense, teaching is regarded by Sawyer as “a creative art” (Sawyer, 2004a, p. 12). In contrast, “scripted instruction emphasized lower-order skills that are particularly easy to measure with standardized tests” (Sawyer, 2004a, p. 12). As Sawyer has been actively involved in research particularly on the idea of “emergence” and its relevance to theatre and jazz performance, improvisation is the word he often uses to describe how contingency can be a condition for creativity to emerge. When it is applied to teaching, he regards “effective classroom discussion is improvisational” since it “emphasizes the interactional and responsive creativity of a teacher working together with a unique group of students” (Sawyer, 2004a, p. 13). Furthermore, Sawyer regards expert teachers “are able to invoke and apply [routines and activity structures] in a creative, improvisational fashion”. Because “no single participant can control what emerges; the outcome is collectively determined by all participants” (Sawyer, 2004a, p. 13). Sawyer is not the first researcher to apply the idea of improvisation to the classroom. Back to the early eighties, Erickson in one of his research projects observed: “Teachers and students are seen as engaged in praxis, improvising situational variations within and around socioculturally prescribed thematic material and occasionally, within the process of improvisation, discovering new possibilities for learning and for social life” (Erickson, 1982, p. 165). A closer look at the above quotation will find that several important concepts have repeatedly emerged in the research of the three previously mentioned authors. They are the ideas of “praxis”, “situational variations”, “improvisation”, and “new possibilities”. “Praxis” entails the importance of agency; “situational variations” implies contingency; “improvisation” indicates the dynamic and collaborative nature of the process; and “new possibilities” embraces creativity. Erickson was interested in the phenomenon of how improvisation happens and its implications for pedagogical significance. Using the 12-bar blues as an analogy, Erickson explains, “the sequence of harmonic changes is pre-specified, but melodic options at any point in time are very wide in range” (Erickson, 1982, p. 165). Similarly, he regards: “lessons stand at a midpoint on the continuum between highly ritualized, formulaic speech events … and highly spontaneous speech events” (Erickson, 1982, p. 161). In other words, there are always possibilities that constitute the contingency for the musician and the teacher, respectively, to improvise and

Dialogue in Education

149

choose between options. What is required of them is full attention to the process of practising or trying out possible means with the anticipated “good” in mind. Scholars who are interested in the dynamics of a dialogical process and its positive implications for both teaching and learning have suggested some very useful and practical skills to facilitate the art of improvisation using language as a medium. McNamee & Shotter mentions about the strategy of using “what if” talk to explore alternatives, the aim of which is to encourage us “to listen for, to provide the space for, and to invite difference”, i.e. to create “conversational space” (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, p. 93). Dysthe regards knowing how and when to facilitate “uptakes” is what really matters in facilitating learning potential. By this she means using students’ feedback and utterances as device for facilitating further discussions (Dysthe, 2002). For Sawyer, suspending evaluation and assessment by initiating “a statement that provides many potential opportunities for response” (Sawyer, 2004b, p. 197) is an effective way of allowing further discussion and facilitating improvisational dialogue (Sawyer, 2004a, p. 15). Of course, teachers at times have “to summarize and make explicit key points” to help students stay on track. But, intervening too often may disrupt “the effectiveness of the discussion” (Sawyer, 2004b, p. 198). Though the IRF mould is considered unsatisfactory, it is still regarded as potentially a springboard leading towards the realization of a more mutually contingent interactional form of teaching so long as the teacher’s pedagogy is ultimately participation-oriented (van Lier, 1996, p. 154). An Australian scholar, David Beckett, has coined two new terms: namely “feedforwarding” and “initiatory tryings”, which are two kinds of activity required of professional practitioners including teachers to practise in order that one can get well-prepared for initiating any “hot action” in face of contingency (Beckett, 2001, p. 74) to invite participation. Whereas the former demands the actor to act anticipatively by rehearsing virtually what is expected to accomplish (Beckett, 2001, p. 77), the latter is a sequence of discriminatory actions aiming at generating possible solutions to a problem (Beckett, 1996, pp. 143–4). This spirit seems to be shared by Erickson when he wrote almost fifteen years earlier: “Lessons are speech events characterized by the presence of frequent cognitive and interactional troubles and repair work” (Erickson, 1982, p. 162). In other words, trial and error should be accepted as norm, and therefore, Sidorkin is also perhaps right that encouraging students to “talk out” and chat among them is important for it would give them “a sense of ownership” that prompts “for strange, weird, or creative ideas” and foster “students’ creative abilities” (Sidorkin, 1999, pp. 103–104).

A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational Dialogue in Teaching A soft reminder is needed. People with a technical mindset would very quickly put their focus on the “method” by asking: “How can I do it successfully?” with the assumption that there is a set of procedural instructions following which the expected

150

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

outcome can be obtained. A phronetic mindset may have a different approach understanding that the impulse that sustains the dialogue in an improvisational manner is not in the skill, i.e. techne, but rather in understanding itself belonging to the realm of phronesis, conducive to the emergence of the desire to question further (Gadamer, 1994, p. 367). Contingency is not a problem but a chance to get “wondered”, the source that fills the impulse continuously. Elusive as it may sound, a basic progressive move addressing the “how” is suggested in the following.

Personal Capacity: Elusive but Potentially Creative In the light of phronesis, Beckett argues that workplaces, including a teachers’ classroom in my opinion, are powerful sites for learning that demands “hot action”, a manifestation of practical reasoning. Such action is “hot” because “decisions are taken on the run, case by case” (Beckett, 2001, p. 74). To stay successfully within this “hot” situation, Beckett mentions two guiding principles. First, one has to act anticipatively, which is defined by Beckett as a forward-looking act, the nature of which is similar to the creative envisioning of an artist. Unlike any mechanism of feedback that emphasizes reporting, forward looking pushes the actor to rehearse what is expected to be accomplished. The term developed by Beckett to describe such a phenomenon is “feedforwarding” (Beckett, 2001, p. 77), one important aspect of which is that anticipative actions are “actions modifying not just the practical means towards an end but of modifying the end itself” (Beckett, 2001, p. 78). Feedforwarding demands attentiveness during the whole process and, in Beckett’s own terms, acting intentionally (Beckett, 2001, p. 79) rather than just performing an action with an intention. The latter refers to the type of action produced as an outcome after careful deliberation, whereas the former is characterized by the immediacy and spontaneity required of the agent to act and deliberate simultaneously that emphasizes “the proactivity and creativity of intentionality” (Beckett, 2001, p. 79). Beckett further explains that in professional practice (and I suggest that teaching as well) the actor has to live with a problem for a prolonged period of time, which may comprise episodes and subepisodes of practice during which “the requirements for successful judgement are moment-by-moment”, and problem solving then becomes a process of “incremental and aggregational assimilation of a series of judgements” (Beckett, 1996, p. 142). To Beckett, a professional is similar to an artist in that he or she is entitled to have the capacity to act anticipatively, with the available artefacts at hand at the moment where past and future intersect, by bringing what is tacit and embodied and what is to be envisioned into the immediate here and now with the anticipation of creatively generating possible solutions to a problem through a sequence of what he coins “initiatory tryings” and “discretionary judgements” (Beckett, 1996, pp. 143– 4). In this sense, Beckett regards practical wisdom to, in fact, possess the ingredient of creativity. The main point that concerns those who are interested in practising phronesis is aptly summarized by Beckett: “what is displayed on the way through, as it were, may not be expressed as an intention (that is, pre-specified). The practitioner is in a position of critical judgement, where what is required to continue is perhaps

A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational …

151

improvisatory or extemporaneous. The justifications come, literally, after the trying, with hindsight” (Beckett, 1996, p. 145). The qualities described by Beckett, which a professional is entrusted to bear, are noticeably quite similar to those required of a jazz musician to perform within a jazz group, i.e. performing anticipative actions and conducting “initiatory tryings”.

1st Interlude Up to what extent can the above two qualities be applied to the context of teaching? Dewey has something to say in his book, Experience and Education, where he opines that while embracing “personal impulse and desire as moving springs” is important, they nevertheless should not be the final ends (Dewey, 1997, pp. 70–71). Personal impulse and desire have to be transformed into purposes, the achievement of which has to be mediated by a plan of action that helps the learners to reconstruct and remake them so that connections can be made to the learners’ past experiences in a meaningful way. However, Dewey emphasizes that whatever a plan appears to be, it must be “flexible enough to permit free play for individuality of experience” (Dewey, 1997, p. 58). Classes comprise individuals. Teachers are required to invite students to have the chance to reveal the voices of their mind, while at the same time travel back and forth among these minds to discover potentials for keeping the interaction going thus, broadening the students’ horizon and cultivating in them an organic mechanism to anticipate further experience. This so-called well-developed plan has to be built upon rules or principles that allow the teacher to modify the pedagogical strategy even on the spot, based on particular contexts and emerging incidents. The basic principle given by Dewey is worth quoting in full here: It thus becomes the office of the educator to select those things within the range of existing experience that have the promise and potentiality of presenting new problems which by stimulating new ways of observation and judgment will expand the area of further experience. He must constantly regard what is already won not as a fixed possession but as an agency and instrumentality for opening new fields which make new demands upon existing powers of observation and of intelligent use of memory. (Dewey, 1997, p. 75)

The notion of “new” is emphasized. Education conceived in this way becomes a growing process, along which the new and old experiences intertwine. This occurrence is obvious when Dewey further explains that two principles determine whether a student’s growth has a positive impact, namely continuity and interaction (Dewey, 1997, p. 44). These principles represent two aspects of experience, the longitudinal and lateral, which are considered inseparable and united. The longitudinal aspect refers to the continuity between the new and the old, whereas the lateral refers to the copresence of the others that make interaction possible. Therefore, teachers are, in fact, facing a challenge of moving back and forth between these two axes with the capacity of helping every individual student integrate experiences generated from their own self-dialogue and from the significant others constituting the same community.

152

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

Nevertheless, “new” can be interpreted quite differently. Einstein was once quoted as saying, “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 7). This quotation implies that a problem can be approached using different paradigms of thought. “New” things can be made by manipulating the process. Such things can also emerge out of actions that constitute a dynamic process without either one of the participants dominating its direction. A dilemma always seems to exist between the technical and ethical approach to teaching, the choice of either one of which having a significant effect on a teacher’s plan of action. Instead of making a fetish of methodology and following a set of “proper” procedures to confine this imaginative capacity, the current chapter finds Dysthe’s pedagogical principles useful in providing an alternative for those who attempt to develop their own plan of action in teaching that allows more freedom for the agents.

Structural Pliability: Minimal but Potentially Powerful One of the preconditions favourable for improvisation to emerge in jazz is a minimal structure. In teaching, Dewey advises that any plan of action has to be “flexible enough to permit free play for individuality of experience” (Dewey, 1997, p. 58). What then would a flexible plan of action with a minimal structure using an issueenquiry approach be like? The very basic principle the current chapter is suggesting is the one that can be explained against and momentarily changed according to its particular context without violating the principles enacting it. This condition begs the question: Who does the explanation and interpretation? The answer is the agent, i.e. the teacher, who should actively participate in the planning process. In other words, a “well-developed” plan should not merely refer to some paper work in its static form, but also, and more importantly, possible actions of the agent, who is entrusted to have the action implemented, revised, and improved through practice involving a process of what Beckett calls “incremental and aggregational assimilation of a series of judgements” (Beckett, 1996, p. 142). The three contextual factors identified by Dysthe (2002 p. 345) are useful in illustrating what a minimal structure would be like, particularly when an issue-enquiry approach to teaching is considered. The factors will now be gone through individually. (1)

The nature of the assignment: According to Dysthe, the design of the assignment is one of the major factors contributing to the maximization of the learning potential of students. The design has to be formulated in such a way that it is challenging and sufficiently open to welcome dialogue and discussion. This process requires that participants go through a series of negotiation and renegotiation of meanings. In other words, conflicts of view are not considered as barriers, but rather catalysts for productive learning. Having said that, Dysthe maintains with reference to her research that teacher involvement will surely contribute to enhancing students’ learning potential.

A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational …

(2)

(3)

153

The role of the teacher: Dysthe highly values the teacher who takes the initiative to engage students in a dialogue with her and other students using texts of any sort as the mediational tools. In Dysthe’s own words, knowing how and when to facilitate “uptakes” is what really matters in facilitating learning potential. She refers to the use of student feedback and utterances as devices for facilitating further discussions, which shows the extent of the teacher’s capacity to mediate the feedback of the students. Believers in the sociocultural perspective of teaching and learning finds this factor of paramount importance because it is the indispensable means by which the other two factors, i.e. the nature of the assignment and the symmetry between participants, are mediated in the service of constituting a favourable condition for creative learning. Symmetry between participants: Creating a respectful environment for learning is also crucial, according to Dysthe. Equal status among students can be maintained to give them confidence to express themselves in front of the class, which is an important factor for collaborative creativity to emerge. In other words, multiple voices are embraced as the root that produces learning potentials.

Strictly speaking, Dysthe has provided three subprinciples guiding teachers to develop their own plans of action, underlying which is a higher one, i.e. the enhancement of a high degree of dialogicality and intersubjectivity (Dysthe, 2002, pp. 345– 6). The aforementioned principles indicate the major concerns that a professional teacher must consider when formulating her plans of action to secure learning potentials. Not until the teacher starts to plan while guided by the above principles, with available artefacts at hand, and with the particular contextual factors in place, does the plan or organizational structure start to emerge. Referring to principles, rather than methodological procedures, allows a construed plan or structure to be more receptive to change and the agent to have more freedom to interact with the environment dialogically.

2nd Interlude Structural pliability facilitates the emergence of creativity. However, this emergence cannot be guaranteed without the spirit of those who are adventurously willing to try for the new by improvising with their environment. The challenge does not stop here because the current chapter argues for a double mission for a teacher entrusted to teach using the issue-enquiry approach. Competence in improvising in a state of flux necessary to secure multi-perspectives from the students is one such mission, which serves to demonstrate how a dialogic condition can emerge. Simultaneously creating a favourable condition for the students to improvise is another mission. The latter will be discussed after a brief sketch of the difficulties a teacher may encounter. In jazz improvisation, that each musician takes turns to perform a solo may give a wrong impression that it is an individualistic act. Sawyer regards that jazz improvisation is, in fact, a creative outcome of collaborative emergence (Sawyer, 2004a,

154

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

p. 13). Musicians are not held accountable in a negative sense for giving an account of what should have been done out of mere obligation, but rather, as individuals being looked up to for producing something new with character and personality, yet without forgetting to appreciate the contribution of the others as the source of inspiration. In this way, the musicians exert as much effort in listening to the others’ “voice” as they do in expressing their own, thus yielding, in Gadamer’s own words, a “fusion of horizons” (Gadamer, 1994, pp. 306–7) and, in Arnett et al., “learning from difference” (2009, p. 80). The possibility of realizing the above “ideal speech situation” requires that those involved are professionals with equal footing and, to a large extent, symmetrical in status. Therefore, inquiring on how the above ideal dialogic situation can be applied to the classroom is reasonable because within such a context, teachers work with non-professionals and are less prepared to be engaged in equal terms is also reasonable. This author makes a twist here, as mentioned earlier, i.e. turning the above “ideal speech situation” as something to be realized in the student community by the teacher, who also has to demonstrate what such a situation would be like while engaging the students. This situation is where improvisational dialogue comes in, which is both a craft technique and an “ideal state” to be realized. In Alexander’s own words, improvisational dialogue is a process of practising or realizing a “reciprocal rather than transmissive pedagogy” (Alexander, 2010, 105).

Relational Responsibility: Constraining but Potentially Enabling Three concepts are borrowed from Buber (1955), namely monologue, technical dialogue, and genuine dialogue, each of which is used to define three different degrees of relational distance, to explain the transition from the pedagogy of transmission to reciprocity, that is, a process of empowerment. Arnett et al. explain, whereas monologue “looks to the self for answers” and “technical dialogues look to public feedback”, only genuine dialogue “responds to emergent insight between persons” (Arnett et al., 2009, p. 82). Moreover, only at this last stage can improvisation fully manifest itself. Monologue: Teaching is assumed to usually begin with literally a monological environment, where teachers need to develop a plan of action on their own, perhaps long before they enter the classroom. Teaching is monological in a sense that teachers have to look inwardly for possible answers. Veteran and reflective teachers should always keep the habit of dialoguing with the ideas in a selected field of knowledge in which they are immersed and maintaining virtual improvisational dialogue with an imagined community of their choosing, including those whom they are about to teach, thus keeping the relational distance intact. At most, such a dialogue is internal in nature and is not operated on equal footing. The teacher is still the centre, selectively choosing what she thinks fits her plan of action. Ultimately, she

A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational …

155

is still looking inwardly for the answer without any “live” feedback that inspires her “feedforwarding” actions (Beckett, 2001, p. 77). Although this process may appear monological, this stage is as important as the others in the whole empowering process. The teacher’s virtual improvisational dialogue with her imagined community is highly similar to what jazz musicians do when they practice with an accompaniment soundtrack. The advantage is that the musician can concentrate on developing his own creative ideas in the form of “initiatory tryings” by testing them on a variety of scenarios without outside disturbance. However, when they get used to such a process, it may become a source of inspiration. In the same vein, during this preparation stage before a clear plan of action is formulated, a creative and reflective teacher may want to develop and test a variety of strategies to be used when she engages in real teaching, given that the assignment or plan of action developed is open and sufficiently challenging. In a sense, the teacher is already engaged in a creative process. From the Aristotelian perspective, such a process is a type of productive activity, i.e. techne, similar to what most artists do in shaping their artistic products, whereby they draw upon their past experiences with the available artefacts at hand, with anticipated outcomes guiding the process. What makes teaching distinctive is that the “product” meant to be “shaped” is a subject, rather than an object, particularly when an issue-enquiry approach emphasizing student-centred learning is considered. Technical dialogue: When a teacher enters a classroom, the monologue continues, and it is a “true” one. This condition indicates that the teacher, particularly a novice, is inevitably pre-occupied with the “audience”, i.e. the students, and the subject content, hoping to engage students into the perspective of what she intends to convey and what the students will learn about an issue. Any dialogue, virtual or physical, without the student public in mind at this moment, could be a distraction, although exceptions still remain. A good, reflective, and creative teacher would employ appropriate strategies to shorten the distance, in Dewey’s own terms, both laterally and longitudinally at the same time, by first establishing an intersubjective understanding of the topic under study, aiming at paving the way towards the stage where genuine dialogue among students can be enhanced and, second, by offering guidance to help the students integrate their new knowledge with the old. At this stage, the relational distance between the teacher and the students is physically close, although their status has not reached a symmetrical condition yet. The students still constitute a passive public to be persuaded and, perhaps more positively conceived, whose feedback are to be sought. In this sense, the nature of the communication between the teacher and the students is technical. With the above two anticipative outcomes in mind, the teacher is required to connect through a series of discretionary judgements on the spot between the parts and the whole of the issue under study, while simultaneously ensuring that the voices of the students are heard. Not until students’ voices are heard and views are displayed can the condition for genuine dialogue among students be ready to emerge. In so doing, the teacher needs to begin with what Beckett has coined a series of “initiatory tryings” (Beckett, 1996, pp. 143–4) in the form of questions and answers, be attentive to the whole process, and be ready to identify the right moment to use “uptakes”

156

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

(Dysthe, 2002, p. 346) to adopt students’ opinions as a thinking device. Although some opinions may have conflicts and some may be in harmony, all of such opinions may be employed for pushing the discussion and dialogue as far as possible so that the teacher’s and students’ horizons can meet, fuse, and give birth to new horizons. In contrast to the traditional transmission mode of teaching, the emphasis on student participation places a high demand on the teacher’s creative and improvisational acts with the anticipated outcomes in mind, which are subject to modifications when considering the contextual factors. The reward is the realization of an ethical vision of education by transforming the classroom into a community, where all participants ultimately share equal footing. Only when such a condition is created, can a true version of student-centred learning be realized. Moreover, only on such basis can authentic views towards an issue be secured, thus allowing genuine dialogue to emerge. Genuine dialogue: Unlike technical dialogue, genuine dialogue, in Buber’s terms, should emerge between people of symmetrical status, without each side having the power to control its emergence. The notion of symmetrical status signifies that listening to the other’s views is as important as expressing one’s own. In view of this concept, the notion of discussion, which is traditionally and usually conceptualized as an activity by means of which “truth” can be sought by arguing, has to be re-conceptualized by incorporating the notion of dialogue, which tends to believe that truth and reality are contextual and multiple, and therefore, have to be understood empathetically. With this understanding, the classroom has to be built on an atmosphere where students are encouraged to understand issues from the others’ perspective. This mindset will encourage students to ask questions empathetically, with the aim of conversing not in a competitive mood to win, but rather as Arnett et al. have suggested, “learning from difference” (Arnett et al., 2009). This attitude is particularly important in understanding issues from various perspectives while helping constitute a respectful and trustful environment where students are encouraged to realize themselves both in thought and action. Such dialogical or, as some call it, relational responsibility (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, p. 94) under equal footing really encourages participation. At this stage, students are, to a large extent, expected to have the ability to familiarize themselves with the basic ingredients constituting an issue and the perspectives that are required to exercise their interpretation. This stage should also be the moment when the authoritative figure of the teacher is gradually replaced by the role of a colearner. As the exchange rate of ideas among students becomes prominent, the teacher can gradually fade out her voice and observe with attentiveness. The whole process of the discussion and dialogue still requires the teacher to keep track of the evolution of its content, rhythm, and tone to ensure that the anticipated outcomes are achievable, without ignoring the unexpected ones that emerge. From a sociocultural perspective, the latter most often captures our attention. The genuineness of the students’ dialogue, as characterized by its spontaneity and improvisational features, signifies the possible success of a transition of knowledge ownership from the teacher to the students and the completion of the teacher’s aforementioned double mission. This dialogue is also the moment when the teacher, similar to an artist, finishes an art

A Basic Progressive Move Towards Improvisational …

157

work with joy and appreciation by observing at a distance, without losing the traces of her participation.

Conclusion and Recommendations The current chapter has appropriated jazz improvisation as a metaphor, substantiated by Beckett’s interpretation of the Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom and Dysthe’s pedagogical principles, to shed light on the kind of capacity a teacher needs to cope with, understand, and teach emerging issues, involving a process of negotiation of differences in value perception, belief, and perspective. Such a capacity requires a paradigmatic alternative to the transmission mode of teaching in conceiving how knowledge is constructed, defining the relationship between the teacher and the students, and conceiving the nature of outcomes with the ultimate goal of empowering the students by realizing the “ideal speech situation”, thus manifesting the emergence of improvisational dialogue, which is the creative act sustained by both ethical sensibility and the crafting techniques. Almost twenty years ago, Eisner observed the aspiration to find the one best way in the approach to education, signified by the fact that its overreliance on seeking the certainty provided by theoretical knowledge (episteme), has gradually declined. Apart from the recognition that practical reasoning (i.e. phronesis) is closer to the nature of teaching as a practice, he highly praised the contribution of craft knowledge (techne) to teaching by saying: “Good teaching depends on artistry and aesthetic considerations” and is “more like playing a jazz quartet than following the score of a marching band”. Artistry is important because it “requires sensibility, imagination, technique, and the ability to make judgements about the feel and significance of the particular” (Eisner, 2002, p. 382). Eisner’s observation was particularly pertinent to Hong Kong’s education, when “Liberal Studies” has resurged as a subject or field of study that adopts the issue-enquiry approach to teaching and learning as an interface integrating multidisciplinary knowledge by way of critical, creative, and ethical thinking. Though this educational “ideal” was challenged due to some “unknown” reasons when this manuscript was about to complete, this author still maintains that this “ideal” can sustain so long as it is given sufficient attention on educational ground. This approach signifies that any teacher education program that does not expose the student teachers to practices guided by the knowledge of artistry and practical reasoning is only half-baked. This diagnosis is believed to be educationally grounded regardless of any changes in perspectives of the modifying contextual factors. Therefore, before closing the current chapter, recommendations on three levels of a paradigm shift contributing to the re-conceptualization of the future development of teachers’ professional education are to be made. These levels include a shift in: (1)

The perception on how knowledge is constructed—The adoption of the issueenquiry approach implies the need for a revision of the notion of theory and

158

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

its relation to practice in the field of social science. These concepts are best understood as mutually informed because there may not be an absolute answer to how an issue should be understood because differences in value perception, moral standards, and political orientation are involved. Knowledge in this sense is contextually dependent and becomes the outcome of a collaborative effort. These contextual factors are inexhaustible, so any piece of new insight found may contribute to re-conceptualizing the whole picture of a phenomenon in a new light. The implications are numerous. First, this paradigm shift has a significant effect on the assignment, the design of which has to be open and sufficiently challenging to accommodate the diverse views of the students (Dysthe, 2002). As such, the assignment becomes more of a mediational tool than a procedural exercise for retrieving existing data. Second, related to the above is the entailment that the tendency of aiming at having a pre-determined procedure implemented by ignoring the dynamics of the learning process should be set aside. Instead of merely determining pre-specified outcomes by controlling the process, the dynamics become the focus, taken as the resource for provoking emerging outcomes or new knowledge. Third, this concept also affects the psychological state of a teacher in her preparation of a lesson. The “uncertainty” principle should heighten the awareness of the teacher that every plan of action in teaching should be fresh and new, to a certain degree. The embracement of this principle would encourage the teacher to establish various scenarios with a particular student public and the artefacts at hand in mind, testing such scenarios through rehearsal virtually, as what most performing artists do (Sarason, 1999, p. 9). With the above understanding, teachers should not be educated in such a way that they need to follow a prescribed set of procedures to conduct a lesson. Instead, they should be reminded that every design has to be modified to fit into its own particular context. Teacher education programs should enhance student imagination using cases with context, the purpose of which is to allow them to create virtual realities, against which the applicability of their pedagogical principles could be validated. This practice should be able to equip teachers with better responsiveness, as they are required to justify with reasons as to the scenario they should select under certain particular circumstances. Although the process happens virtually, in reality, the process has already driven the teacher to turn the monological environment into a dialogical one. Pseudo as such an environment may appear, the teacher is involved in the process of improvising with her imagined partners in mind. Said differently, rehearsing through imagination plays a vital role in heightening the teacher’s awareness and sensibility when encountering a new environment. As Greene emphasizes in her book, Releasing the Imagination, “the ways in which we and our students might come to use imagination in a search for openings” should be our concern (Greene, 1995, p. 17) because, as Green continues: “To call for imaginative capacity is to work for the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise” (Greene, 1995, p. 19). Aspiring to look for the opposite suggests that theoretical concepts serve to sensitize, rather than dictate, a teacher’s perception in

Conclusion and Recommendations

(2)

159

her practice, the new insight emerging out of which would enrich the theoretical underpinning based on which the corresponding practice is initiated. This kind of a mutually informative spiral will eventually strengthen teacher responsiveness and perception. From a Gadamerian perspective, this is what learning, not limited to students, is all about. Defining the relationship between the teacher and the students—The issueenquiry approach to teaching and learning also foreshadows the active participation of the students, whose past experiences and interpretations need to be given more weight compared with the case of the traditional teacher-centred teaching mode. A sociocultural perspective to teaching has recognized this need by acknowledging that students are resourceful persons, rather than just empty vessels to be filled. However, the success of this approach still depends on the extent to which the teacher has realized the “ideal speech situation” in the student community. This realization process has to go through three stages, namely monologue, technical, and genuine dialogue, with the last as the ultimate goal, where students are immersed in improvisational dialogue without the shadow of the teacher’s authority. Once this condition is realized, the teacher’s role will change and she will act more like an artist, literally standing aside and becoming an observer who is appreciating the “product” she has produced. This condition may mean that the teacher can take a rest physically. In fact, a seemingly quiet time will be provided for the teacher to engage in an intellectual dialogue with herself and what she has planned for the lesson. The realization of this “ideal speech situation”, in a sense, is a process of cocreation, although the teacher should be the one who takes the initiative, the students’ contributions deserve similar, if not more, weight to drive the development. The mutuality between the teacher and the students and the intricacy constituted by the web of relations among all participants place a high demand on the teacher to identify each individual’s insight, constituting the whole with the awareness that this whole is also constantly subject to modification. Such a condition requires the teacher to exercise her imaginative, practical, judgemental, and appreciative inquiring capacity simultaneously, which can be categorized under the term “hermeneutic understanding”, the strength of which is in identifying the relatedness of the parts that constitute the whole, the wholeness of which, however, cannot be reduced to the sum of the parts. Therefore, a teacher training program, at the outset, needs to provide sufficient chances for teachers, not just to answer questions and defend one’s own position, but more importantly, to practice what Dysthe suggests the facilitation of “uptakes”, that is, using the students’ responses and feedback as the thinking device for enhancing further discussion and dialogue. Familiarity and strangeness then converge (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, p. 92), and the inclusion of alternative meanings and recognition of local significance of opposing views are made possible (McNamee & Shotter, 2004, pp. 102–3). This situation is where creativity claims its territory. A teacher education program that does not provide this kind of nurturing ground is insufficient and lacking.

160

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

(3)

Conceptualizing the nature of outcomes—The assumption that knowledge is static and absolute has not only granted authority to the teacher by assuming that what the teacher teaches is usually a “truth(s)”, but also the entailment that outcomes related to such truth(s) could also be pre-specified as something that has to be achieved. This condition also entails that process and content become means to be manipulated to produce the pre-specified outcomes and contextual factors that energize the dynamics of a process conducive to producing surprise or unexpected outcomes would be eliminated. Ironically, this condition is what the initiative of reintroducing Liberal Studies into the NSS curriculum is meant to embrace. According to Lillejord and Dysthe (2008, p. 75), from a sociocultural perspective on education, the learning process and its outcome should be embraced simultaneously. This hypothesis has two implications. First, attention to the dynamic process of a task is as important as, or may even be more important than, remaining watchful of the intention offered. Second, the intention of meeting the pre-specified outcome would become unrealistic. The preferred study mode in the NSS curriculum is issue-based, requiring that the educational process, by definition, should be dynamic, wherein conflicts and negotiations are embraced as thinking devices, rather than obstacles, for enhancing further discussion. Thus, collaborative emergent outcomes, rather than pre-specified ones, are often expected. This concept begs the question of whether emerging outcomes can be taught.

By definition, emerging outcomes cannot be predicted. Such outcomes emerge out of a dynamic process where things are relatively unstable and even confusing at times. To quote the paradox provided by Wheatley again: “We can’t be creative if we refuse to be confused” (Wheatley, 2002, p. 37). In other words, accepting the possibility of the unknown with an appreciative attitude is what is required of a teacher to embrace emerging outcomes. Unlike the traditional way of having to measure the students’ performance against the pre-defined objectives, teachers are required to develop and keep the aspiration and capacity of appreciating the emergence of the unexpected and the justifications underlying it, the basic principles of which are to explore what people value, rather than focus merely on their problems, and reflect, in Reed’s own words, on “our ideas on how people work, how change happens…” (Reed, 2007, p. 1). Therefore, the teachers are required to retain a researcher’s mindset, plus an artist’s imagination and appreciative sensitivity, in the service of securing the contributions initiated by the students. This chapter’s deliberation is mainly on what it means by teaching in practice. The discussion is conducted with the adoption of the issue-enquiry approach in the subject of Liberal Studies as the background. It is suggested the primacy of practice in the light of phronesis draws our attention to the process and yet without the expense of the importance of outcomes. This shift in focus is not just a change in the use of methodology from the perspective of a teacher, but more importantly a reorientation of what counts as knowledge and the relationship between theory and practice, the consequence of which may have a lot of impact on the changing nature of teaching, learning, research, and even leadership. The notion of the latter in relation to the

Conclusion and Recommendations

161

former three deserves particular attention if practice itself implies a certain degree of the agent’s autonomy. Within the context where “whole person development” as an educational goal and it is the “subject” of Liberal Studies entrusted to serve this purpose, a school composed of various epistemological lens should become a community of practitioner, each of whom is endowed with not only a task to achieve his or her corresponding disciplinary goal, but a mission serving to unfold the potentialities of an individual under the guidance of “whole person development” in a concerted manner that requires dialogue and collaboration between teachers. The following chapter aims at addressing this issue.

References Alejandro, R. (1993). Hermeneutics, citizenship, and the public sphere. State University of New York Press. Alexander, R. (2010). Speaking but not listening? Accountable talk in an unaccountable context. Literacy, 44(3), 103–111. Arnett, R. C., Harden, F. J. M., & Bell, L. M. (2009). Communication ethics literacy: Dialogue and difference. Sage Publications. Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M.M. Bakthin. In C. Emerson & M. Holquist (Eds.). University of Texas Press. Beckett, D. (1996). Critical judgment and professional practice. Educational Theory, 46(2), 138– 150. Beckett, D. (2001). Hot action at work: A different understanding of “Understanding.” New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, Issue 92 (Special Issue: Sociocultural Perspectives on Learning Through Work), 73–84. Berliner, P. F. (1994). Thinking in Jazz: The infinite art of improvisation. University of Chicago Press. Buber, M. (1955). Between man and man. (R. G. Smith, Trans.). Beacon Press. Coulombe, R. T. (2009). Improvisation and collectivity: Practical applications for research. In W. S. Gershon (Ed.), Collaborative turn: Working together in qualitative research (pp. 209–222). Sense. Cooren, F., Thompson, F., Canestraro, D., & Bodor, T. (2006). From agency to structure: Analysis of an episode in a facilitation process. Human Relations, 59(4), 533–565. Cunha, M. P., Cunha, J. V., & Kamoche, K. (1999). Organizational improvisation: What, when, how and why. International Journal of Management Review, 1(3), 299–341. Dewey, J. (1997). Experience and education. Touchstone Book. Dysthe, O. (2002). The learning potential of a web-mediated discussion in a university course. Studies in Higher Education, 27(3), 339–352. Eisner, E. W. (2002). From episteme to phronesis to artistry in the study and improvement of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 375–385. Erickson, F. (1982). Classroom discourse as improvisation: Relationships between academic task structure and social participation structure in lessons. In L. C. Wilkson (Ed.) Communicating in the classroom (pp. 153–181). Academic Press. Florio-Ruane, S. (2002). More light: An argument for complexity in studies of teaching and teacher education. The Journal of Teacher Education, 53(3), 205–215. Gadamer, H.-G. (1994) Truth and method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. Jossey-Bass Publishers. Habermas, J. (1970). Toward a theory of communicative competence. Inquiry, 13, 360–375.

162

8 Teaching in Practice: The Conditions of Its Cultivation

Hoy, D. C. (1978). The critical circle: Literature, history, and philosophical hermeneutics. University of California Press. Kamoche, K., Cunha, M. P., & Cunha, R. C. (2003). Preface—improvisation in organizations. International Studies of Management and Organizations, 33(3), 3–9. Lillejord, S., & Dysthe, O. (2008). Productive learning practice—a theoretical discussion based on two cases. Journal of Education and Work, 20(1), 75–89. Love, N. S. (1995). What’s left of Marxist? In S. K. White (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Habermas (pp. 46–66). Cambridge University Press. McNamee, S., & Shotter, J. (2004). Dialogue, creativity, and change. In R. Anderson, L. A. Baxter, & K. N. Cissna (Eds.), Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies (pp. 91–104). Sage Publications. Reed, J. (2007). Appreciative inquiry: Research for change. Sage Publications. Sarason, S. B. (1999). Teaching as a performing art. Teachers College Press. Sawyer, R. K. (2000). Improvisation and the creative process: Dewey, Collingwood, and the aesthetics of spontaneity. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 58(2), 149–161. Sawyer, R. K. (2004a). Creative teaching: Collaborative discussion as disciplined improvisation. Educational Researcher, 33(2), 12–20. Sawyer, R. K. (2004b). Improvised lessons: Collaborative discussion in the constructivist classroom. Teaching Education, 15(2), 189–201. Sidorkin, A. M. (1999). Beyond discourse: Education, the self, and dialogue. State University of New York Press. Smythe, E., & Norton, A. (2007). Thinking as leadership/leadership as thinking. Leadership, 3, 65–90. van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. Longman. Vendelo, M. T. (2009). Improvisation and learning in organizations—an opportunity for future empirical research. Management Learning, 40(4), 449–456. Weick, K. E. (1993). Organizational redesign as improvisation. In G. P. Huber & W. H. Weick (Eds.), Organizational change and redesign: Ideas and insights for improving performance (pp. 346– 379). Oxford University Press. Wheatley, M. J. (2002). Turning to one another. Berrett-Koehler. Wheatley, M. J. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world. Berrett-Koehler.

Chapter 9

Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

Introduction No one would dispute the fact that education policy-makers are greatly concerned with how learning happens continually throughout a person’s lifetime. In virtue of this, they seek leaders who are thought to be qualified to facilitate the process of creativity that informs learning particularly when competition becomes the order of the day. In the discourse of leadership education, contributors are gradually coming to recognize that leadership without partnership is vulnerable. As a result, certain forms of organizational structure like a learning organization have become a focus of research and development. Ideas like “leadership as occurring as practice” and “jointly accomplished process” (Raelin, 2016, p. 1) have in fact fundamentally changed many of the assumptions previously conceived. Two salient features relevant to this discussion, which have been mentioned frequently in the previous chapters, deserve highlighting. One is leadership being conceived as practice and the other a process that is jointly accomplished. As this author has taken pain to argue, this change has very much to do with a paradigm shift in understanding what constitutes the “legitimate” knowledge for professionals. Thus, the significance of the reinvention of phronesis represents in effect a reorientation of the source and nature of knowledge of those who are engaged in the frontline dealing with humans as subjects. It is on this basis the meaning of leadership may carry a different tone. In the past, the notion of leadership implies the presence of followers. Now, in order to lead, one has to follow first given that the concept of practice has secured its legitimate ground in terms of its immediate contact with events from which the knowledge of a dynamic process emerges. This immediacy is so unique that it is irreplaceable for it involves a complexity of meanings, the hermeneutical understanding of which is not just a matter of disassembling and reassembling. It accompanies the actor or interpreter in the form of a spiral or circle. Only when he or she, according to Gadamer, is addressed with further questions relevant to the concerns he or she has in mind will his or her discerning power be gradually strengthened and eventually turned into a kind “wisdom”, a special feature of phronesis in Aristotle, only © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_9

163

164

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

acquired through experience. This special feature of practical knowledge challenges the concept of “knowledge management” when it is understood as merely directing at a distance. The implications of this reorientation for shedding light on Raelin’s concepts of “leadership as occurring as practice” and “jointly accomplished process” (Raelin, 2016, p. 1) are far-reaching in general and the concept of educational leadership in the context of school as an organization where “whole person development” is selected as the educational goal in particular. In the following, the discussion will begin with a brief sketch of a change in what counts as knowledge followed by an examination of the discourse on leadership to show how its development in one way or another has responded to such change. The main body of this chapter will be devoted to explaining the implications and light it may shed on how schools as an organization being composed of various disciplinary subject experts and practitioners could benefit from the concepts of “leadership as occurring as practice” and “jointly accomplished process” (Raelin, 2016, p. 1) with special reference to the achievement of “whole person development” as the educational goal of Hong Kong. To illuminate our understanding, jazz as a metaphor on the organizational level and Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics on the individual level, which was already introduced in the previous chapter, will be used.

The Myth of Knowledge Management In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge opines that people in the modern world naively believe in the assumption that there is one best way of knowing the world, i.e. the scientific mode of thinking implying that only those which are certain and predictable can be counted as true knowledge. Therefore, they can be taught, learnt, categorized, and managed in a neat and tidy fashion (Senge, 1996). The consequence of this preoccupation entails that the precarious nature of human values should be rejected. In this way, the role of management in education is to serve the purpose of “banking” (Freire, 2018, pp. 71–86), a term used by Freire similar to the meaning of “spoon-feeding” in teaching and learning because it is assumed that only those incorporated in the textbook are considered “truth” and therefore room for investigating further is logically limited. This view is sustained by the ideology of “effectiveness” and “accountability”, terms often used by a top-down bureaucratic control mechanism to control the production process and “quality” of a product, the drawback of which would be the increasing insensitivity to any changing cultural context (Maxcy, 1994, p. 115). This sort of what Mahoney and Lyddon over thirty years ago call the legacy of the Cartesian-Newtonian epistemology assumes that “all aspects of complex phenomena can be best understood by reducing them to their constituent parts and then arranging these elements according to causal laws” (Mahoney & Lyddon, 1988, p. 192). However, this type of “effectiveness” and promise of productivity according to Kincheloe would often be fostered “at the expense of creativity, social justice, and good work” (Kincheloe, 1991, p. 28).

The Myth of Knowledge Management

165

Challenges have emerged against these basic principles underlying what Maxcy regards the modernist and enlightenment worldview (Maxcy, 1994, p. 117). According to Evans, these challenges call for a fundamental change in the way we understand the operation of our world, which is organic rather than mechanistic. Therefore, it requires “careful analysis of complex relationships”. Expecting that problems can be solved with a “quick-fix approach” is just an illusion since things are interconnected instead of isolated. In virtue of this, we need to shift, in the words of Evans, from the ideology of “individualism to a construct of individual in community”, and from “competition to collaboration” (Evans, 1998, pp. 24–5). In brief, issues of ethics and concerns that involve human factors should deserve our attention more if we truly want to have a deeper understanding of the human world. When this is applied to the educational sector, educational leaders are advised to “address the cultural meanings and purposes organizational participants bring with them to school”, which is better seen as “facilitating conditions under which transformative educational discourse and practices may emerge” (Maxcy, 1994, p. 127). To achieve this end, practices that promote merely bureaucratic control should be challenged to provide more room for discourses attentive to the “issues of care, concern, and connectedness” and “of relationship and attachment” (Maxcy, 1994, p. 129). With this understanding, “the rhetoric of collegiality, shared decision-making and consensus” needs to be embraced entailing that personal initiatives and organizational goals are better conceived as mutually feeding each other (Maxcy, 1994, p. 129). That “many scientists now seek to understand life as life, [and are] moving away from machine imagery” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 11), according to Margaret J. Wheatley, appears to represent “a new appreciation of the relationship between order and chaos” (Wheatley, 2006, p. 13). This worldview echoes Barrett’s when he suggests that: “Systems are most creative when they operate with a combination of order and chaos” (Barrett, 2000, p. 228). The impact of this shift in the use of metaphor on organizational studies in general is far-reaching. Barrett succinctly describes it in this way: “Organizations are encouraged to value diversity, change and transformation rather than predictability, standardization and uniformity”. For those who aspire to have the capacity to live with such a condition while expecting that “positive” results could emerge, “an appreciative way of knowing, an aesthetic that values surrender and wonderment over certainty, affirmative sense-making over problem solving, listening and attunement over individual isolation” (Barrett, 2000, p. 229) are the qualities identified by Barrett one needs to acquire. In fact, the successfulness of this shift requires a paradigmatic change in our conception of the world. Its implications for practices at different levels including societal, institutional, organizational, individual and of course leadership education in particular are foundational. It is foundational for the adoption of such a new worldview touches upon the breeding ground of learning, a condition where creativity can be conceived. Leaders without this insight particularly in the school context could be “destructive” in terms of their unawareness of the fact that the moment when “banking’” holds sway is also the time when the creative potentials of students is sacrificed. With this regard, this author postulates that every teacher has to be a leader in his or her own right since he or she is the only

166

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

person in close contact with the students and the very mediator evoking the impulse of learning in a creative fashion.

The Discourse on Educational Leadership According to Dimmock, the major issue concerning the development of educational leadership is the possibility of organizing a professional body of knowledge that guides the everyday practices of school leaders (Dimmock, 2012, p. 3). The major concern of this professional body is the potential impact on student-learning outcomes. Current discourse considers leadership as a copractice or coleading practice (Spillane, 2006, p. 91; Spillane & Diamond, 2007a, p. 8) by blurring the boundary between leaders and followers in the name of distributed leadership. This view intensifies the uncertainty, which may beg the question of the source of the knowledge. This author suggests that the emergence of distributed leadership or leadership as a conjoint practice is a manifestation of a paradigm shift towards “the practice turn” (Schatzki et al., 2001; Chia, 2004, p. 29; Raelin, 2016, p. 1). This practice turn regards knowledge quite differently from the traditional positivist way of understanding, which looks for universal knowledge for generalization purposes, but does not encourage attention to the uniqueness of each particular context. This chapter proposes that the idea of distributed leadership as a conjoint practice can be more promising and enlightening when teachers within a school are seen as a community of interdisciplinary educational practitioners (Bronstein, 2003; Crow & Pounder, 2000; Pounder, 1998) with ideals (Hansen, 2001) governed by several shared transcendental values in the service of students. In Aristotle’s terminology, they are phronimoses. The centre of this community is the emergence of the true knowledge of learning outcomes. The top-down hierarchical approach has been de-emphasized in the past few decades in studies of the theoretical development of school organizations and educational leadership because this approach does not facilitate organizational responsiveness and efficiency. Thus, the burden of increasing accountability has fallen into the shoulders of school leaders, such as principals. Thus, leaders are increasingly entrusted to make a positive difference in schools and to improve student-learning outcomes (Harris, 2005, p. 74). Leadership is the capacity to influence others (Yukl, 2002). Leaders are considered as special people embodied with certain traits, charismatic qualities, and the power to accomplish targeted outcomes and to motivate followers to achieve their goals. This term started to move away from its reference to individuals at the beginning of this century towards the concept of leadership as a conjoint or collective practice. This new concept is illuminated by the understanding that leaders in the modern world are required to deal with uncertainties and unpredictability. A holistic picture of the development of an organization can be acquired, and wise decisions can be made if multiple sources represented by the members of different levels and domains within the same community are secured. Thus, distributed leadership emerged as a

The Discourse on Educational Leadership

167

fashionable concept (Harris, 2007, p. 315; Harris, 2012). Similar associated terms include democratic (Harris & Chapman, 2002; Starratt, 2001); hybrid (Gronn, 2009); shared, facilitative, and participative (Bennett et al., 2003, p. 4; Harris, 2007); and collaborative (Spillane & Diamond, 2007a, p. 1). The commonality of these terms is the assumption that the achievement of goals is the result of a concerted effort. The concepts of “learning organization” (Senge, 2006), “community of practice” (Wenger, 1998), “leaderful organization” (Raelin, 2003), and “research-engaged professional learning community” (Dimmock, 2012) emerged based on this idea. The lack of a clear definition of terms leads to conceptual confusions (Harris, 2007, p. 315; Hartley, 2007, p. 202). This chapter does not work along this line of discussion but rather addresses the crux of the issue, i.e. teachers are considered leading agents (Harris, 2005, pp. 73–74), but it does not imply that the role of the principal is abandoned and so its redundancy is a myth (Harris, 2012, p. 8; Spillane & Diamond, 2007b, pp. 150–151). One criticism against this position is its tendency to perpetuate leader-centric structure and culture, which may be a new form of managerialism that downplays the role of teachers (Fitzgerald & Gunter, 2006, p. 44). This chapter addresses this issue by examining the concept of “practice” from an Aristotelian perspective to shed light on the “ideal” role entrusted to teachers and by using jazz improvisation as a metaphor to explore the extent to which it may help develop an enlightened version of distributed leadership represented by an interdisciplinary teaching team.

The “Practice Turn” and Its Implications for the Teaching Community The Aristotelian notion of practical wisdom provides a different concept of “practice” from the traditional one dominated by positivist thinking. Chia’s distinction between “resource-based” and “strategy-as-practice” approaches in strategy research (2004) provides several insights. The former, also known as the rationalist approach, is preoccupied with “a means–ends analytical logic” that guides the deliberative or calculative actions of an individual with clear pre-specified intended outcomes. The strategic planner under these circumstances plays the role of an observer who aims to identify the causal logic between intentions and outcomes. The process of obtaining security relies on the degree of compliance or “loyalty” of acquiring the original idea implemented according to a blueprint that follows several clearly stated procedural steps. This concept of practice entails drilling without thinking. By contrast, the strategy-as-practice approach attends to “the myriad microprocesses and practices of organizational life that are woven together to form meaningful strategic outcomes”. Thus, focus is utilized more on the process rather than on the end itself. This approach implies that individuals should immerse themselves into the precariousness and fluidity of the “goings-on of organizational strategizing and

168

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

sense-making” to understand them (Chia, 2004, pp. 29–30). This concept of practice entails a process of self-realization in connection with the particular context. This practice turn is a paradigm shift in understanding the nature of knowledge in the realm of social sciences and the role of the agent in production and construction. It advocates the value of participation and engagement through which knowledge is constructed without the expense of illumination contributed by theory. This concept inspires rather than dictates, and signifies a discursive change from a “technical/managerial” discourse to a “participative/professional” one (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000, p. 253). The importance of practical wisdom in workplace research is increasingly gaining momentum. This concept spreads over various professions, including music (O’Dea, 1993), theatre studies, (Berkeley, 2005), theology (Allen, 1989), hospital care (Wax, 2003), psychoanalysis (Zeddies, 2001), politics (Ruderman, 1997), management (Beckett et al., 2002; Jentoft, 2006), business education (Roca, 2008), organizational research (Cairns & Sliwa, 2008), leadership (Grint, 2007), and education (Birmingham, 2003; Eisner, 2002; Halverson, 2004; Sliwa & Cairns, 2009; Smith, 1999; Thomas, 2010). The Aristotelian notion of practice has expanded our understanding of the world beyond the problematic dualistic ways of thinking (Schatzki, 2001, 10) with regard to theory and practice. The implications for frontline practitioners are enormous. The experiences of these practitioners have been revived as valuable data to inform existing knowledge. This revival has reshuffled the traditional role of practitioners as followers in relation to that of theorists or researchers or perhaps managers who direct and manage according to a “blueprint” or theory. This author argues that the notion of distributed leadership should adopt a “practice lens” by recognizing the contribution of frontline practitioners, including teachers. However, such practice does not refer merely to “teaching practice” but to the “legitimate” locale where learning outcomes emerge. Aiko observed that the schooling system had inherited a bureaucratic–administrative legacy, which is related to the “management sort of authority” or leader (Aoki, 2005, p. 351). This concept indicates that the practice of the principal is inevitably defined by his or her role as a manager, which is dominated by administrative and operational exercises to achieve the mission and vision of the school. This mission and vision are realized by coordinating the work contributed by the management, special services, and instructional teams within the school (Pounder, 1998, pp. 70–71) as well as outside commitments. The scope of the principal’s practice is different from that of the teacher in terms of focus of concern. The major stakeholders or agents these individuals work with to constitute their experience and thus inform their judgement may overlap. While Halverson noted that school leadership (i.e. the position of the principal) require a new research approach “that emphasizes how leaders manage the complexities of particulars”, a call for “a practice-based knowledge based for teaching” has also drawn his attention (Halverson, 2004, p. 91). This view can be justified by Pounder’s observation that “there is a tighter connection between teachers’ work and student outcomes” (1998, p. 66). This finding implies that the “practice aspect” of teaching should differ from that of the school leader or principal (Spillane & Diamond, 2007a, pp. 7–8). Instructional leadership has received considerable attention, indicating that the role of the principal embraces instructional matters, including “monitoring instruction, organizing and developing curriculum, acquiring and allocating resources,

The “Practice Turn” and Its Implications …

169

and constructing an instructional vision for the school” (Halverson, 2004, p. 97). However, monitoring instruction is not considered instructional practice. From an Aristotelian perspective, the relationship between practice (a deliberative rather than a delivery process) and existing theories or tentative frames of reference carried by practitioners are mutually informed. Therefore, the teaching experiences of teachers are a valuable source of input that informs the instructional vision of a school. Thus, the notion of “distribution” should be reinvested based on two premises: (1) a bottomup scenario within the current setting to show that the instructional vision of a school deserves greater consideration, and (2) the idea that every teacher is a leader in his or her own right should be a normative claim. Thus, teachers should be expected to become intellectual leaders. As an independent thinker, a teacher should reflect on his or her own teaching rather than merely act as an implementer. The Aristotelian perspective expects a teacher to become phronimos (Hursthouse, 2006, p. 285) or an individual who knows “good” and “true” and how to attain them. Hansen defined teaching as “a moral and intellectual practice” (2001, p. 158). Therefore, teachers must have “ideals [that] reach beyond mere social expectations” (Hansen, 2001, p. 157). A professional teacher realistically seeks every opportunity to “enrich the student’s life chances” under the guidance of the ideal and the selfcritical. Teaching is a self-leading process, “the teacher’s ideal-in-practice” (Hansen, 2001, p. 164). This quality moulds a teacher into becoming a willing leader who openly goes against the grain and is informed by the ideal and the real. Teaching is an ongoing vocation never completed, with the view of giving the best to the student. This journey is a process towards the crafting of life (Hansen, 2001, p. 190). It requires ethical and aesthetic sensibility (Eisner, 2002), qualities unsuitable for a technician who embraces techne, but not phronesis. The requirement that a teacher be guided by a self-critical idea does not entail that a teacher should work in isolation. This requirement suggests the precondition for the emergence of any form of collaborative creativity (Bronstein, 2003, p. 300). This idea emerged from an intersubjective dialogical process leads towards the possibility of a “fusion of horizons” (Gadamer, 1975, p. 273). New understandings emerge under the “fusion of horizons” in response to new demands, and more importantly, penetrative insights can be developed as a requirement of a true professional teaching community to evaluate expert opinions with the counterbalance of integration (Bellah et al., 1992, pp. 270–272). Therefore, the concept of “distribution” be invested with a “practice lens” based not on hierarchical positions but on the various practical experiences of the instruction of every teacher. The question of what a community with every teacher leading in its own right is like can be raised. How do such teachers work together to enhance collaborative creativity (Bronstein, 2003)? The idea of teachers working as a team to improve their school has been advocated (Crow & Pounder, 2000; Scribner et al., 2007). The idea of an interdisciplinary teaching team (Pounder, 1998, pp. 70–71; Crow & Pounder, 2000) is promising because this team is composed of core academic teachers with various knowledge bases. Pounder suggests that this kind of teamwork has many advantages because it improves the following qualities of teachers (Pounder, 1998, p. 84):

170

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

(1) (2)

work-related interaction and problem solving with others (dealing with others) discretion in how they work, including student scheduling and instructional time (work discretion or autonomy) knowledge of other curricular areas and instructional strategies (skill variety) feedback from work and from others (feedback) knowledge of students and contribution to their total educational experience (task identity) interdependence and work coordination with others (task significance).

(3) (4) (5) (6)

These advantages are appealing because of the urgent need of students to acquire the capacity to live with the counterbalance of integration (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 270) in this postmodern world. An interdisciplinary teaching team has the potential of fulfilling this promise. A former dean of a college at the University of Chicago once said, “students shall not be expected to integrate anything the faculty can’t or won’t” (quoted in Gaff 1980, p. 55). Therefore, allowing teachers to work as a community of practitioners to meet this standard is justified. This approach requires teachers to work together to teach students how to craft. This concept is based on “an integrated synthesis of the separate parts that provides a larger, more holistic understanding of the question, problem, or issue at hand” (Klein & Newell, 1997, p. 404). We need teachers who are willing to reach the unknown to achieve the fusion of disciplinary and even epistemological horizons through dialogue. Teachers should also possess “tenacious humility” (Hansen, 2001, p. 171), which entails the enthusiasm of attending “the larger meaning of things in a long run” with care (Bellah et al., 1992, p. 273). How can a collective “ideal-in-practice” (Hansen, 2001, p. 164) be achieved? This chapter uses the metaphor of a jazz band to illustrate this concept.

Conditions for the Emergence of Creativity and Integration During the last few decades, organizational learning has become the subject of intense debate, in the fields of both business and education. Since an organization is composed of individuals, how to hold them together in the service of functional efficiency on the organizational level (in order that the majority can benefit) and yet not at the expense of private creativity on the personal level, has become a dilemma that most leaders have worked hard to resolve. A jazz band with its improvisational nature has been described “as an example of an organization designed for maximizing learning and innovation” (Barrett, 2002, p. 138). Improvisation has gained some recognition in the field of organizational studies as a way of understanding: (1) what an effective organization would be like; (2) how an organization that facilitates learning and creativity through collaboration should be structured; (3) what role an agent should play in a collaborative culture; and (4) how knowledge is constructed and perceived. Before I go on to consider how these four questions can be answered using jazz as a metaphor, a brief account of the nature and composition of jazz will be given.

Conditions for the Emergence of Creativity and Integration

171

Jazz Improvisation A jazz performance usually begins with a tune that has not been fully arranged in advance. This tune becomes susceptible to group improvisation in which “each musician has an opportunity to perform a solo” (Sawyer, 1992, p. 254). A small jazz band is usually composed of a pianist or guitarist, or both, a bassist, a drummer, and maybe a saxophonist. Over an extended period of time, each band member will take it in turn to improvise as a soloist while the rest play along and support the soloist by either “reinforcing creative ideas of the soloist, or suggesting new ideas to stimulate the soloist” (Sawyer, 1992, p. 254). Creativity emerges out of an interactive process within a condition where structure is minimized and agents are allowed to have more flexibility to freely exchange ideas with other members, a situation from which the “tacit” knowledge of each can surface. What makes this process seem alien to our traditional thought is that it involves “playing extemporaneously” (Schuller, 1968, p. 378); that is, composing and performing simultaneously. The process is complex as it “involves reworking pre-composed material and designs in relation to unanticipated ideas conceived, shaped, and transformed under the special conditions of performance, thereby adding unique features to every creation” (Berliner, 1994, p. 241). According to Sawyer, it requires the improviser to experience the tension that arises out of the need to balance the structure and innovation in the domain, such as the raw materials available, and the rules and procedures that constitute the constraints, and within the individual (Sawyer, 1992, pp. 255–8). In his essay “Organizational Redesign as Improvisation”, Karl Weick suggests that the implications of jazz as a metaphor for organizational studies are many but that they might be considered to converge in the idea that the habitable world we live in is merely a world in the process of formation. In the same vein, organizations should be considered always as entities in the process of formation rather than formed bodies. This idea of formation is, according to Weick, facilitated by six features, which are mentioned in the previous chapter with different wordings: (1) that redesign is a continuous activity; (2) that responsibility for the initiation of redesign is dispersed; (3) that interpretation is the essence of design; (4) that resourcefulness is more crucial than resources; (5) that the meaning of action is usually known after the fact; and (6) that a little structure goes a long way (Weick, 1993, p. 347). Similar to what Weick has done, seven features in jazz improvisation are found by Barrett to contribute to the emergence of creativity. They are: “(1) provocative competence: deliberate efforts to interrupt habit patterns; (2) embracing errors as a source of learning; (3) shared orientation towards minimal structures that allow maximum flexibility; (4) distributed task: continual negotiation and dialogue towards dynamic synchronization; (5) reliance on retrospective sense-making; (6) “hanging out”: membership in a community of practice; and (7) taking turns soloing and supporting” (Barrett, 2002, p. 139). The “spirit” of the above features aims at doing away with the “machine imagery” that has hitherto been used to explain the function of an organization but that is now being challenged since it is considered no longer compatible with a fast-changing

172

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

world. The structure of an organization should instead be considered to be always in a state of flux in response to outside changes. This also presupposes the importance of the role of humans in facilitating change or the presence of tensions between the structure and the agents performing within it. Dokecki reports that, Martin Williams, in his book The Jazz Tradition, uses jazz as a metaphor to address this “traditional tension between the individual and the social encountered in ethics and social-political philosophy” and identifies “the potential for mutual enhancement of the person and the community” (italics present in the original work). Dokecki suggests: “The individual person and the social realm can and should be seen as necessary for each other’s survival, development, and ethical mode of being” (Dokecki, 1996, pp. 5–6). Taking up Dokecki’s observation, the features identified by Weick and Barrett can be divided into two categories: the personal and the social. In this section, I address the question of how a jazz band as a community engenders creative learning. To express it in another way: What is it, in a jazz band specifically, that nurtures creative learning in individuals? Six key components derived from Weick’s and Barrett’s contributions which are considered vital in sustaining the creative impulse of a community will be discussed below.

A Flexible Structure Goes a Long Way One of the main capacities of jazz musicians is their ability to fuse strangeness with familiarity. It is perhaps this strength of inclusiveness that makes them become effective creative learners. Contrary to the “old” school of thought assuming that effectiveness is only possible when all structural factors with detail specifications are in place, creative learning in jazz can only be encouraged by not relying on an inflexible structure or cutting it to its minimal. We can see this same spirit in Sudbury Valley School. Speaking from a different angle, individuality is embraced, but its productive potentiality can only be unleashed through collaboration. What constitute the minimal structure of a song or tune according to Kamoche is its melody, harmony, and rhythm (Kamoche, 2004, p. 3). This structural simplicity is appreciated for its having spared sufficient room for inviting ornamental creative acts from the members conducive to the emergence of an ornamented tentative new creation. However, any such new ornamented creation with which the members operate is subject to be redefined, as Kamoche et al. stressed, “rather than be held hostage by them” (Kamoche et al., 2002, p. 4). This kind of a continuous process of renewal reminds us Weick’s understanding that we are always living in a world in the process of its formation rather than a “formed” world. In virtue of this, that redesign becomes a routine may render the latter a positive tone (Weick, 1993, p. 347). In this way, both the organizational structure and those working within it are always in a process of reinvention. This is also the secret of what makes an organization sustainable possible.

Conditions for the Emergence of Creativity and Integration

173

Meaning Can Only Be Made Sense of in Hindsight As a jazz musician has so much freedom to create, this may beg the question of whether there would be any specific target towards which the musicians in a jazz band aim at achieving effectively in a collaborative manner. A proper answer would be that there is no specific objective, but they do share a common purpose, that is, allowing the unanticipated to emerge, a paradox which most of the weak version of the outcomebased believers may find it difficult to understand. It is unanticipated since many of our experience are “tacit” (Polanyi, 1974, 1983) and it is only through dialogue or the presence of an interlocutor that they gradually surface when we are invited to address an issue or a common concern. Having a moment of reinventing and reorganizing these “tacit” experience(s) in a creative manner on the spot is what a jazz musician would treasure most. This is the result, using Gadamer’s terminology, of “fusion of horizons” only that this fusion in jazz mostly happens “extemporaneously” (Schuller, 1968, p. 378). By this it means again composing and performing simultaneously in the form of improvisational dialogue. Instead of having a prescribed outcome in advance, understanding always comes after full attention has been given to the process, and it is the emerging wonders in this process that allow the musicians in the band find their meaning in retrospection.

Dispersal of Responsibility for Initiating Redesign Freedom always has its counterpart should an organization be sustained in a healthy manner. That is, it is the virtue of accountability. This worry is justified from a traditional model of management, which emphasizes control. Those who are in favour of this model usually manage and evaluate by measuring the result against a welldefined objective in advance within a pre-defined structure. However, this worry will disappear when we discover that successful improvisation is not achieved in an isolated manner. Jazz musicians only find improvisation meaningful in a dialogic environment in that the impetus for any musician to improvise is basically his or her being invited to respond. Therefore, according to Sawyer, it is collaborative or organizational in nature (Sawyer, 1992, p. 254). So, accountability in the form of dialogue in a musical sense is there. Quite different from the negative connotation assigned to the term today, “accountability” in jazz band is embraced as a springboard for improvement or self-transcendence if you like. The realization of one’s idea can only be accomplished intersubjectively. This is the reason why jazz musicians are fond of playing with different musicians from various musical tradition at different times to develop their power of sensitivity. The term Dostal uses, which is coined as “attuned understanding”, can succinctly depict this kind of state. By this he refers to a condition in which “my abilities, capacities … make up the entire realization of my existence” whereby I am, in this process of understanding, “able to apply a certain meaning to my situation” (Dostal, 2002, p. 38). The central idea in Dostal’s statement

174

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

is the word “attuned”, which implies on the side of the actor to make adjustment that involves a reasoning process with reference to contextual particularities and in our case the input of the members within a jazz band. Within such a condition, while each is entrusted to take turn soloing, the rest are also held “accountable” to take the initiative to inform. Thus, the formation of a creative collaborative culture where shared responsibility with a sense of ownership is celebrated. In other words, leadership is dispersed in such a way that it is only through listening attentively and following respectfully would its true nature of dispersal genuinely manifest itself.

Being Held “Accountable” in the Form of Dialogue According to Barrett: “The pressure to look competent leads people to defend their actions and reasoning. This regression becomes an obstacle to the questioning of assumptions and considering situations from a fresh perspective that could lead to novel initiatives” (Barrett, 2002, p. 143). However, “[v]eteran jazz players are highly committed to self-renewal, having had to create their own learning opportunities” (Barrett, 2002, p. 139). When this spirit is applied to an organization, he suggests leaders should get used to “creating conditions that encourage members to bring a mindfulness to their task that allows them to imagine alternative possibilities heretofore unthinkable” (Barrett, 2002, p. 145). This sort of what Barrett calls “provocative competence” can emerge when the “responsibility in leadership” is dispersed (Weick, 1993, p. 347) and task distributed (Barrett, 2002, p. 139). Each member in a jazz band is held “accountable” so to speak to take turns to support and lead with the will to create something different from what is already familiar. In Weick’s terminology, redesigning the structure is what is expected of every member who aspires to lead in his or her turn to do. In other words, no one would get appreciation from playing the same thing over and over again. In such a situation, accountability is conceived more positively as a form of dialogue that aims at providing input or even reasonable disruptions for the sake of reaching a higher ground through testing, during which mutual answerability, a term better appropriated for use here, can be promoted (Bakhtin, 1990, pp. 1–2).

Containing Errors with Trust Innovation involves taking risk and we all know that. But most of the time, we are conditioned to use a calculative mindset to consider what consequence it would bring in the first place. By not doing so would be viewed as too “romanticized” a worldview and unrealistic. The worst scenario identified by Barret is that playing safe by following stable routines could be a way of avoiding being labelled incompetent through making mistakes. Thus, ordinary learning is encouraged as a result (Barrett, 2002, p. 143). The otherwise is that when habit is interrupted whereby making errors

Conditions for the Emergence of Creativity and Integration

175

is embraced as only a normal step towards innovation in practice, deep learning will occur. In jazz, improvisation as a form of dialogue with the presence of other innovators entails uncertainties. Therefore, making “mistakes” appearing in the form of unanticipated outcomes for any innovators is unavoidable. The crux of the matter observed by Barrett is that: “Jazz players are often able to turn these unexpected problems into musical opportunities. Errors become accommodated as part of the musical landscape, seeds for activating and arousing the imagination” (Barrett, 2002, p. 146). Even though Barrett concluded by reiterating that: “Learning is something that often happens by trial and error, by brave efforts to experiment outside of the margin” (Barrett, 2002, p. 147), the issue of security remains. To be more specific, it is an issue of the dialectic between the structure and agents working within this structure. By this, I mean even though the actor is encouraged to take risk in order to innovate, the way how the errors could be turned into learning opportunities is partly contributed by the degree of containment created by those involved in the act of cocreation. Instead of identifying the source of responsibility or searching for causes of “errors”, focus is put on, using the terminology of jazz, “the groove” that holds the members together, a situation that they all share and have mutually established to provide “a sense of ontological security” (Barrett, 2002, p. 152).

Embracing Diversity with Appreciation Another aspect of jazz deserving our special attention is that once you are in you are considered responsible person and will contribute the best you can to the betterment of the whole community in terms of innovative contributions musically. This trust not only anticipates the unexpected outcomes, but also differences and sees the so-called making “errors” as a transitional process towards innovations in each musician’s unique way respectfully. The two distinct features of jazz including “redesign is a continuous activity” and “the meaning of action is usually known after the fact” (Weick, 1993, p. 347) identified by Weick supports this understanding. Having the potential of accommodating deviations is another feature identified by Barrett, which is: a “minimal structure that allows maximum flexibility” (Barrett, 2002, p.139). Put it differently in Barrett’s own words: “[I]n order for jazz to work, players must develop a remarkable degree of empathetic competence, a mutual orientation to one another’s unfolding” (Barrett, 2002, p. 151). In sum, the implications of all these features seem to point at one direction, that is to invite interpretations or negotiations and reinterpretations. Such an inclusive environment is supported by the prevalence of the idea that leadership is exercised in rotating manner when “soloing and supporting” alternatively take their courses. As Barrett explains: “[T]he simple practice of taking turns creates a mutuality structure that guarantees participation, inclusion, shared ownership without insisting on consensus and its unintentional hegemonic consequences” (Barrett, 2002, p. 157). In this way, followership is also implied and its practice allows divergent voices to surface.

176

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

There are three major characteristics of jazz improvisation that, according to this author, are able to shed light on an enlightened version of distributed leadership, which is grounded on the practice of individual agents within their own structure. First, jazz band members are granted equal opportunity to express their musical talent through the musical instrument they are familiar with and on which they are an expert. Band members are given this opportunity provided they enjoy being a full citizen or member of the group. These members also know that an individual excellent performance heavily depends on good accompaniment provided by other members as a source of inspiration. Thus, the relationship is mutual. The second characteristic is the undefined distinction between leader and follower. This characteristic can be explained in two ways: (1) the one who plays the lead through a solo act should listen to and follow the contribution of other members, and (2) the designated band leader often offers accompaniment as support to maximize spontaneity and to facilitate the emergence of an “aha” moment. Lastly, the reason for coming together is the vocation the band members share. Such vocation is to devote to maintaining dialogue with the jazz tradition while exploring new ways of expressing it. This vocation implies that the old and the new are in a consistent dialogue, wherein new knowledge unfolds through practice, not in the narrow sense but in the light of traditional knowledge.

Discussion The three characteristics discussed above were transformed into three dimensions, namely individual versus communal, leader versus follower, and personal versus organizational goals, to guide the following discussion.

Individual Versus Communal A community of teachers of various disciplines is similar to a jazz band composed of musicians who each play a different musical instrument. The ability of a musician to improvise under unpredictable circumstances makes jazz performances interesting. This activity requires the attention of the musician in a continuous process of redesign because it involves interpretation (Weick, 1993, 347). The attractiveness of the performance of individual musicians is discounted without the contribution of other members providing accompaniment as sources of inspiration. This setup indicates that the dialogical relationship among the members from which creativity emerges draws the attention of the audience. Shared responsibility becomes the norm, and the identity of the individual is constituted by recognizing others because musicians gain the opportunity to lead a solo with the accompaniment of other members. The dialogical and interplay feature of a jazz band shows that enormous potentials are yet to be discovered and developed by transforming the teaching community

Discussion

177

into an interdisciplinary instructional team (Crow & Pounder, 2000; Pounder, 1998). Teachers of different disciplines or epistemological lens who work alone do not allow students to benefit from their learning. Teachers should understand that knowledge of other disciplines or epistemological lens should complement the limited horizon particularly when the demand for insights towards analysing the complexity of social issues and living a holistic life with integration increases. Thus, teachers are encouraged to leave their comfort routines bounded by their disciplinary horizon or epistemological lens and jump into the unknown. Teachers should consider this approach as a norm and a continuous process of sustainable development and identity exploration like a jazz musician. The notion of “distributed” leadership is enlightened by grounding on the perspective that mutuality upholds knowledge integration and the fusion of epistemological horizons. Otherwise, this concept may mean “scattered”.

Leader Versus Follower Formally, jazz bands have leaders. The leader mainly selects the music and sets the tone. The leader acts more like a follower when the band starts playing as he or she provides accompaniment. Newton refers to this process as “leadership through accompaniment” (Newton, 2004, p. 94). This concept may be viewed as a passive role. Accompaniment aims to creatively provide musical inspiration to the leader by playing a musical solo, indicating interdependence. This mutuality is aptly described by Newton as a situation where “attentiveness [is] coupled with responsiveness to the needs of the other musicians and the needs of the musical performance” (Newton, 2004, p. 95). This concept indicates that leadership is shared and invested with support. Newton observes that the leader hires only good musicians, implying that only potential leaders but not “followers” are hired (Newton, 2004, p. 95). This suggests that the ability of a jazz musician would be looked down upon if he or she only follows previous productions. Therefore, jazz band members are expected to be leaders. Two hidden structures sustain the interdependent relationship of the leader and followers in a jazz band to encourage continuous creative impulses. These structures are classified as formal and informal. An informal structure indicates the musical dimension. The entire performance is guided mostly by a tune. A formal structure refers to the temporarily defined position especially assigned to the band “leader” whose role may instantaneously shift from director to performer by submerging and blending with the other members once the process of interactivity begins. The preference for a minimal structure entails that greater creative freedom is given to members. Taking turns to lead the solo also indirectly downplays the official role of the leader. The implication for conceptualizing the idea of leadership in relation to a sustainable interdisciplinary instructional team is twofold. First, a “qualified” leader should possess the capacity to blend with the horizons of teachers from different disciplines and to contribute to their integration. Second, the “to lead is to follow” principle entails the support afforded to individual teachers and the recognition of

178

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

their contributions. An enlightened version of distributed leadership as a conjoint practice embraces this bottom-up approach by recognizing that teachers are also leaders in their own discipline and in terms of their professional teaching practice.

Personal Versus Organizational Goals Creativity in jazz performance is sustained when it embraces a minimal structure and dispersed responsibility to lead. The fear of taking risks and differences in interpretation are unavoidable, but these can be overcome by transcendental values and shared interest transformed into impetus for generating new ideas. This approach also enables individual and organizational goals to converge. Newton suggested that “for jazz musicians, the songs they play, the genre, and the historical tradition of jazz are the reason for [their] being up there on the stage” (Newton, 2004, p. 85). The teaching community should develop several shared ideals guided by transcendental values that reach beyond social expectations. These ideals should not be narrowly associated with a weak version of training (Hansen, 2001, p. 158). However, numerous questions regarding the desirable outcomes that should be acquired to become a good student continue to exist. A deliberative or dialogical mechanism that clarifies and evaluates benefits for student learning should be established. The structure of the organization or school should be dialectically modified and redesigned to meet the needs of agents. Professional development should be initiated when a facilitative process is established with differences transcended by shared concerns for the well-being of students. Agents are bound by the knowledge of teaching and learning and not by the structural position of a person. An enlightened version of distributed leadership indicates that a teaching community without an “ideal” guided by several transcendental values would serve merely to “distribute” in its narrow sense. Distribution without integration does not benefit students. The formation of an interdisciplinary instructional team targeting integration will undoubtedly benefit students. Therefore, future teachers can be expected to become integrative leaders or in Kristjansson’s terminology “integrative phronimos” (Kristjansson, 2015, p. 314).

Conclusion This chapter employs Aristotle’s phronesis to argue that any educational leadership practice should be grounded on the teaching practice of teachers as the source of input, reflection, and knowledge building. Recognizing that the future development of teachers has to face the challenge of accommodating diversity where differences in value and epistemological lens is inevitable, it implies the demand not only for collective action but also integration in understanding emerging issues holistically. With particular reference to the educational context of Hong Kong and unlike the

Conclusion

179

current understanding of the notion of distributed leadership as a conjoint practice that provides more weight to the directorship of a principal, an enlightened version with an interdisciplinary instructional team, each individual working within which understood as an “integrative phronimos”, is proposed, which as this author regards is correspondingly in response to the initiative of Liberal Studies (2009) and the review of school curriculum conducted in 2019, both of which have shown the attempt to address the concept of “whole person development” as the goal of education. It is found that the review has fallen short of two fundamental insights in unfolding what is expected of those who are entrusted to fulfil this aim. First, the notion that teaching and learning as practice has been underrepresented if not misunderstood. That they are practices entails the importance of agency and the reason for its being underrepresented attributes to the policy-makers’ tendency to conceive learning outcomes as products that can be manipulated and produced according to a blueprint regardless of the dynamics of the process. More importantly, learning understood in this way misses a fundamental feature of learning as it is revealed by Gadamer, i.e. it is a process of unfolding and self-understanding through mutual understanding— the ethical dimension of learning that differs it from the traditional understanding characterized by “spoon-feeding” or “banking” (Freire, 2018). This notion of practice as it is explicated above also applies to teachers or teaching particularly when they are entrusted to facilitate students’ self-understanding both personally and mutually among them and not just to deliver one-sidedly learning materials in the classroom. The situation becomes more complicated when the educational aim of “whole person development” is taken into consideration seriously since it is not regarded as it is conventionally understood just a combination of various bodies of knowledge, the “study” or memorization of which serves just to sit for the exam. Rather, this aim demands the recognition that knowledge of different nature unfolds the distinctive reality it represents. According to Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge, the acquiring of phronesis (practical knowledge in the realm of politics and ethics) and techne (craft knowledge in art) is through experience within context that involves certain degree of deliberation. Apart from the fact that the cultivation of these practical knowledge requires settings other than the classroom, it also demands a very different kind of pedagogical design and conception of knowledge and its appreciation. Coming almost to the end of this book, one may have noted that the deliberation all along is somewhat anchored in what some of the scholars call “relational epistemology” (Thayer-Bacon, 1997, 2003), which “begins with the assumption that all people are social beings” (Thayer-Bacon, 1997, p. 241). In other words, it is this “social” based on which to a large degree knowledge is constructed, created, and transformed. When this is applied to the classroom teaching, would it be the case that the extent to which a lesson is considered “successful” is partly determined by how “social” the environment the teacher has turned the classroom into, and its manifestation is evaluated by how frequent the students are willing to exchange their thought and express their ideas rather than how much teaching material they can remember? This question would ultimately bring us to revisit a very important and unresolved educational issue in Hong Kong, i.e. the language policy, which this author attempts to address in the next chapter of this book. This is important because it concerns the

180

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

very basic assumption of what learning in relation to language is all about, without a proper understanding of their relationship would retard not only the learning capacity of students, but also the teaching viability of teachers as well.

References Aoki, T. T. (2005). Revisiting the notions of leadership and identity. In W. F. Pinar & R. L. Irwin (Eds.), Curriculum in a new key: The collected works of ted T. Aoki (pp. 349–355). Lawrence Eribaum Associates. Allen, C. W. (1989). The primacy of “Phronesis”: A proposal for avoiding frustrating tendencies in our conceptions of rationality. The Journal of Religion, 69(3), 359–374. Bakhtin, M. M. (1990). Art and answerability: Early Philosophical Essays. (M. Holquist & V. Liapunov (Eds.), V. Liapunov Trans.). University of Texas Press. Barrett, F. J. (2000). Cultivating an aesthetics of unfolding: Jazz improvisation as a self-organizing system. In S. Linstead & H. Hopfl (Eds.), The aesthetics of organization (pp. 228–245). Sage Publications. Barrett, F. J. (2002). Creativity and improvisation in jazz and organizations: Implications for organizational learning. In Mamoche, et al. (Ed.), Organizational improvisation (pp. 138–165). Routledge. Beckett, D., Agashae, Z., & Oliver, V. (2002). Just-in-time training: Techne meets phronesis. Journal of Workplace Learning, 14(7/8), 332–339. Bellah, N. R., Madsen, R., Tipton, S. M., Sullian, W. M., & Swidler, A. (1992). The good society. Vintage Books. Bennett, N., Harvey, J. A., Wise, C. & Woods, P. A. (2003). Distributed leadership: A desk study. Nothingham: NCSL. Berkeley, A. (2005). Phronesis or techne? Theatre studies as moral agency. Research in Drama Education, 10(2), 213–227. Berliner, P. F. (1994). Thinking in Jazz: The infinite art of improvisation. University of Chicago Press. Birmingham, C. (2003). Practicing the virtue of reflection in an unfamiliar cultural context. Theory into Practice, 42(3), 188–194. Bronstein, L. R. (2003). A model for interdisciplinary collaboration. Social Work, 48(3), 297–306. Cairns, G., & Sliwa, M. (2008). The implications of Aristotle’s phronesis for organizational inquiry. In D. Barry & H. Hansen (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of new approaches in management and organization (pp. 318–331). Sage. Chia, R. (2004). Strategy-as-practice: Reflections on the research agenda. European Management Review, 1, 29–34. Crow, G. M., & Pounder, D. G. (2000). Interdisciplinary teacher teams: Context, design, and process. Educational Administrative Quarterly, 36(2), 216–254. Dimmock, C. (2012). Leadership, capacity building and school improvement: Concepts, themes and impact. Routledge. Dokecki, P. R. (1996). The tragic-comic professional: Basic considerations for ethical reflectivegenerative practice. Duquesne University Press. Dostal, R. J. (Ed.). (2002). The Cambridge companion to Gadamer. Cambridge University Press. Eisner, E. W. (2002). From episteme to phronesis to artistry in the study and improvement of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18, 375–385. Evans, M. D. (1998). Whitehead and philosophy of education: The seamless coat of learning. Rodopi. Fitzgerald, T., & Gunter, H. M. (2006). Teacher leadership: A new form of managerialism? New Zealand Journal of Educational Leadership, 2(2), 43–56.

References

181

Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.). Bloomsbury Academic. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Ed. & Trans.). Sheed & Ward. Gaff, J. G. (1980). Avoiding the potholes: Strategies for reforming general education. Educational Record, 61(4), 50–59. Gewirtz, S. & Ball, S. (2000). From ‘welfarism’ to ‘new managerialism’: Shifting discourses of school headship in the education marketplace. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 21(3), 253–268. Grint, K. (2007). Learning to lead: Can Aristotle help us find the road to wisdom? Leadership, 3(2), 231–246. Gronn, P. (2009). Hybrid leadership. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 17–40). Routledge. Halverson, R. (2004). Accessing, documenting, and communicating practical Wisdom: The phronesis of school leadership practice. The American Journal of Education, 111(1), 90–121. Hansen, D. T. (2001). Exploring the moral heart of teaching: Toward a teacher’s creed. Teachers College Press. Harris, A. (2005). Leading from the chalk-face: An overview of school leadership. Leadership, 1, 73–83. Harris, A. (2007). Distributed leadership: Conceptual confusion and empirical Reticence. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 10(3), 315–325. Harris, A. (2012). Distributed leadership: Implications for the role of the principal. Journal of Management Development, 31(1), 7–17. Harris, A., & Chapman, C. (2002). Democratic leadership for school improvements in challenging contexts. International Journal for Leadership in Learning, 6(9), 10–21. Hartley, D. (2007). The emergence of distributed leadership in education: Why now? British Journal of Educational Studies, 55(2), 202–214. Hursthouse, R. (2006). Practical wisdom: A mundane account. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, 16, 285–309. Jentoft, S. (2006). Beyond fisheries management: The phronetic dimension. Marine Policy, 30, 671–680. Kamoche, K. N. (2004). Improvisation, knowledge and the challenge of appropriation. City University of Hong Kong. Kamoche, K. N., et al. (2002). Organizational improvisation. Routledge. Kincheloe, J. J. (1991). Teachers as researchers: Qualitative inquiry as a path to empowerment. Falmer Press. Klein, J. T., & Newell, W. H. (1997). Advancing interdisciplinary studies. In J. G. Gaff & J. L. Ratcliff (Eds.), Handbook of the undergraduate curriculum: A comprehensive guide to purposes, structures, practices, and change (pp. 393–415). Jossey-Bass. Kristjansson, K. (2015). Phronesis as an ideal in professional ethics: Some preliminary positions and problematics. Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, 36, 299–320. Mahoney, M., & Lyddon, W. (1988). Recent developments in cognitive approaches to counseling and psychotherapy. The Counseling Psychologist, 16(2), 190–234. Maxcy, S. J. (1994). Postmodern school leadership: Meeting the crisis in educational administration. Praeger. Newton, P. M. (2004). Leadership lessons from jazz improvisation. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 7(1), 83–99. O’dea, J. (1993). Phronesis in musical performance. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 27(2), 233–243. Polanyi, M. (1974). Personal knowledge: Toward a post-critical philosophy. University of Chicago Press. Pounder, D. G. (1998). Teacher teams: Redesigning teachers’ work for collaboration. In D. G. Pounder (Ed.), Restructuring schools for collaboration: Promises and pitfalls (pp. 65–88). State University of New York Press.

182

9 Whole Person in Search of a Community of Phronimos

Raelin, J. A. (2003). Creating leaderful organizations: How to bring out leadership in everyone. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Raelin, J. A. (2016). Leadership-as-practice: Theory and Application. Routledge. Roca, E. (2008). Introducing practical wisdom in business school. Journal of Business Ethics, 82, 607–620. Ruderman, R. S. (1997). Aristotle and the recovery of political judgment. American Political Science Review, 91(2), 409–420. Sawyer, R. K. (1992). Improvisational creativity: An analysis of jazz performance. Creativity Research Journal., 5(3), 253–263. Schatzki, T. R. (2001). Introduction. In T. R. Schatzki, K. K. Cetina, & E. von Savigny (Eds.), The practice turn in contemporary theory (pp. 10–23). Routledge. Schatzki, T. R., Cetina, K. K., & von Savigny, E. (Eds.) (2001). The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London; New York: Routledge. Schuller, G. (1968). Early jazz. Oxford. Scribner, J. P., Sawyer, R. K., Watson, S. T., & Myers, V. L. (2007). Teacher Teams and distributed leadership: A study of group discourse and collaboration. Educational Administrative Quarterly, 43, 67–100. Senge, P. M. (1996). The fifth discipline and the infrastructure of a learning organization [videorecording]. Pegasus Communications. Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization. Doubleday/Currency. Sliwa, M., & Cairns, G. (2009). Towards a critical pedagogy of international business: The applications of phronesis. Management Learning, 40(3), 227–240. Smith, R. (1999). Paths of judgement: The revival of practical wisdom. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 31(1), 327–340. Spillane, J. P. (2006). Distributed leadership. Jossey-Bass. Spillane, J. P. & Diamond, J. B. (2007a). Taking a distributed perspective. In J. P. Spillane & J. B. Diamond (Eds.), Distributed leadership in practice (pp. 1–15). Teachers College Press. Spillane, J. P. & Diamond, J. B. (2007b). A Distributed perspective on and in practice. In J. P. Spillane & J. B. Diamond (Eds.), Distributed leadership in practice (pp. 146–166). Teachers College Press. Starratt, R. J. (2001). Democratic leadership theory in schools: Reflections and empirical evidence. School Leadership and Management, 22(1), 73–92. Thayer-Bacon, B. J. (1997). The nurturing of a relational epistemology. Educational Theory, Spring, 47(2), 239–260. Thayer-Bacon, B. J. (2003). Relational “(e)pistemologies.” P. Lang. Thomas, G. (2010). Doing case study: Abduction not induction, phronesis not theory. Qualitative Inquiry, 16(7), 575–582. Wax, M. L. (2003). Creating compassionate care within the hospital intensive care unit: Beyond positivism and toward wisdom and responsibility. Qualitative Research, 3(1), 119–138. Weick, K. E. (1993). Organizational redesign as improvisation. In G. P. Huber & W. H. Weick (Eds.), Organizational change and redesign: Ideas and insights for improving performance (pp. 346– 379). Oxford University Press. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Wheatley, M. J. (2006). Leadership and the new science: discovering order in a chaotic world. Berrett-Koehler. Yukl, G. A. (2002). Leadership in organizations (5th ed.). Prentice Hall. Zeddies, T. J. (2001). Out of the consulting room and into the world: Hermeneutic dialogue, phronesis, and psychoanalytic theory as practice. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 61(3), 217–238.

Chapter 10

Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practice

Introduction On 5 June, 2009, the Education Bureau of the Government of the HKSAR issued a circular (HKEDB, 2009) advising all schools to take necessary action with special regard to the new arrangements, i.e. “fine-tuning” of the Medium of Instruction, for secondary schools. These new arrangements were based on the recommendations offered by the Education Commission in a report (Report on Review of Medium of Instruction for Secondary Schools and Secondary School Places) published in 2005, meant to be “implemented with effect from September 2010” (HKEC, 2005). One of the reasons for conducting the review was mentioned in the background section of the circular, which explained: “many stakeholders are concerned that the bifurcation of schools into CMI (Chinese Medium Instruction) and EMI (English Medium Instruction) may not fully meet and cater for the needs of individual students” (HKEC, 2005, p. 2). For many critics, the bifurcation had actually created a “labelling effect”, the good and less good, if not bad, overshadowing the “good will” of its initial planning by assuming that those students who are “competent” enough to use English to learn can improve their English even faster when exposed in an English environment while those who are not could benefit in terms of learning in general through the use of their mother tongue aspiring that good learning in one’s first language may help facilitate a student’s smooth transition to learning through English in the future. One has to be reminded to take note of the term “needs” here, which deserves close scrutiny and this is what this chapter is all about. Hence, whose “needs” and in what terms? To rectify the “perverted” situation, the recommended new arrangements “hope to provide [Hong Kong] students with more opportunities to be exposed, and use, English” at junior levels (HKEC, 2005, p. 2). While acknowledging the rigidity of the policy’s initial design, the circular did not forget to reiterate that the policy goal is to uphold “mother-tongue teaching while enhancing students’ proficiency in both Chinese and English, so as to enhance their ability to learn in English and to better prepare them for further studies and work in future” (HKEC, 2005, p. 2). © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_10

183

184

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

This reiteration should not surprise those who have a considerable knowledge of the discursive formation process of the Medium of Instruction (MOI) policy development of Hong Kong. This author calls it a “balance motif” characterized by the “vision” that mandating certain schools to use Cantonese as the medium of instruction has to be balanced by the understanding that improvement in learning through the use of Cantonese is not the end itself for students are expected to preserve more time to improve their English. Interestingly, the same kind of logic has not been applied to those who are considered “qualified” to use English to learn expecting that they need to be aware of the possibility that the frequent use of English may have adverse effect on the performance of learning through the use of their mother tongue, i.e. Cantonese. The balance motif resurfaced time after time in the discourse of the MOI policy provided by the government documents and the government officials were so proud of its having been maintained and carried out consistently and coherently. However, this “virtue” could paradoxically become “toxic” in terms of its potential paralyzing effect because complacency demands no more thoughtful reflections informed both by new theories and practices. As far as the knowledge of this author is concerned, this is exactly the issue confronting the language policy of Hong Kong. It can be summarized as a question as follows: What if the foundation based on which the goal was set is found problematic? If the answer is affirmative, consistency may mean thoughtlessly following a mandate during the whole process without any reflections generated from and in practice. It is towards examining how such a possibility may come about that this chapter is devoted. In the following, a brief sketch of the development of the MOI issue is offered first, which will be followed by a discussion in light of Gadamer’s philosophy of language and learning to see the extent to which the “blind spot” that has been created in the whole discursive process of the Medium of Instruction (MOI) policy has perverted the “mission” with which language is entrusted to serve, i.e. learning itself, an issue that seems to have been taken for granted.

Brief Historical Sketch of the Development of the MOI Issue During the British rule from 1842 to 1941, two linguistically and culturally streams were organized in the educational system. They are Anglo-Chinese and Chinesemedium streams. In the five decades or so that follows, the former expanded very rapidly resulting in the fact that more than 90% of Hong Kong’s secondary students attended schools where the formal MOI was English (Evans, 2000, pp. 185–6). A document entitled Secondary Education in Hong Kong over the Next Decade published in 1974 has captured this moment of change, and the corresponding “need” of the Hong Kong’s society was also identified when it wrote: In the past, secondary education has been conducted mainly through the medium of English. Now that it is intended to make secondary education in Form I-III available to all, it is appropriate to review this practice. On educational grounds there are strong arguments for maintaining that the medium of instruction for children aged 12-14 should be Chinese.

Brief Historical Sketch of the Development of the MOI Issue

185

However, there are other considerations. Hong Kong is a commercial and industrial center which has reached a high level of technical and professional sophistication and has established close contacts all over the world. It is undeniable that Hong Kong, if it is to maintain its progress, will continue to need people at all levels in commerce, industry and the professional who are at home in English as well as in Chinese. For these practical reasons, the standards of Chinese and English must be maintained, and indeed, if possible, improved, and parents are likely to demand that they should be. These considerations suggest the need for a balanced approach. … It is the Government’s intention that individual school authorities should themselves decide whether the medium of instruction should be English or Chinese for particular subject in junior secondary forms. (HKGov, 1974, paragraph 2.16–2.17)

In the narrative provided above, that there was a dilemma is clear. While it was admitted that on educational ground mother tongue should be used. However, competence in English was considered the threshold through which “progress” in terms of economic consideration could be assured. The critical issue is that a “balance approach” was suggested and it was up to the schools to decide which language to take. This begs the question of who is supposed to make the choice and on what ground “wisely”. On the one hand, it appears as if the notion that practitioners are the ones who could make the professional choice while on the other their choice was confined to either this or that without the possibility of developing a third or fourth based on the practise of teachers. The concern of this author is about learning itself in association with whatever choice is made. That mother tongue is the best medium for learning is well supported. According to the report of a meeting of specialists on the use of vernacular languages in education held in Paris in November 1951, it has been confirmed that “it is axiomatic that the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue” (UNESCO, 1953, p. 11). The Burney Report published in 1950s with special regard to Hong Kong’s situation asserted that: “Language education policy in Hong Kong should ensure that no school-learner should lack a command of the mother tongue sufficient for all needs of thought and expression” and that “their standard of English should be limited to the satisfaction of vocational needs” (Cited in Lord & Helen, 1987, p. 4). The spirit of these two remarks is basically in line with the argument which has been considered educationally sound when the Guidance on MOI was initiated in 1998, a year after the handover, asserting that one’s mother tongue is the most effective medium to learn (HKED, 1997). And yet, as Tsui et al. expressed: “It had always been social and economic agendas which were presented to the public for refuting sound educational arguments” (Tsui et al., 1999, p. 205). An observation made more than half a century ago seems to still hold: English was well-received among the practical-minded Chinese since “a knowledge of English could mean a passport to a good post” (HKCSC, 1953, p. 7 [41]). This can help explain why parental preference and the economic value attached to the medium of English are the main factors having driven the government to completely endorse the recommendation of using mother tongue as the medium of instruction with hesitation (Evans, 2000, p. 190; also see Bolton, 2000; Boyle, 1997; Tsui et al, 1999). Preference is one thing, how far the reality is away from the preferential “ideal” is another. According to a review of the research done in the 1980s, it was found that there was “a steady decline in the use of spoken English for the teaching of

186

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

content subjects in the nominally English-medium Anglo-Chinese secondary schools (particularly in Mathematics and Science), and an increase in Cantonese and mixed code” (Evans, 2000, p. 188). This is the result of the fact that many teachers “lack the proficiency required to teach effectively and consistently through the medium of English” (Evans, 2000, p. 189). Teaching purely through the medium of English seems to be infeasible. As a result, the most “effective” way of delivery or completing what was required of the teachers to cover according to the curriculum schedule while at the same time ensuring that students could understand at least on the surface level what was delivered was the strategy of translating what was provided from the English textbook leading to the prevalence of mixed-code teaching and learning. This type of mixed-code teaching has been taken as the cause for the decline in the language standard of Hong Kong students in general. However, this judgement has been controversial since there is no lack of scholars like Bolton (2000), Lin (2000), and Boyle (1997), who argued that relatively speaking mixed code could be the most practical if not effective way in the context of Hong Kong in teaching and learning given that both purposes set in the language policy document are to be met.

The “Blind Spot” of the MOI Policy A view provided by Evans suggests that the source of most of the problems in Hong Kong’s educational system policy was: “The small English secondary stream of the early 1950s had thus been transformed from a system intended for Chinese elite in colonial society into one catering for the masses” (Evans, 2000, p. 187). From a different perspective, the problem identified by Evans would not have been an issue given that the following two concepts, namely “learning” and “learning a language”, had not been confused. Two premises need to be spelt out here: (1) good performance through the medium of English in the context of Hong Kong does not necessarily represent “good” learning in general; and (2) learning through one’s mother tongue does not automatically bring about “good” and “effective” learning either. These two false assumptions have created the “blind spot” preventing all stakeholders from seeing the issue in a rational manner. Furthermore, the balance strategy, which has been invested with the judgement that mixed-code teaching has been the cause of decline in language standard in general, serves no more to bifurcate than enhance learning per se whichever stream a school opts for. This author argues that the basic problem with the Guidance, the fine-tuning initiative that follows, and any relevant documents contributing to its construal is their having overlooked the “intimate” relationship between language and learning, an improper understanding of which will “paralyze” the ethical resonance of language on which creativity is grounded. In the following, a close scrutiny of how this “blind spot” has been discursively created will be conducted. An alternative understanding in light of Gadamer’s philosophy of learning and language where the notion of “learning as/in practise” is proposed will be offered. This endeavour will expectedly

The “Blind Spot” of the MOI Policy

187

help address not only the plight facing the language policy of Hong Kong, but also the issue of “thoughtlessness” identified by Hui (2015). The plight arising out of the medium of instruction issue in Hong Kong appears to be just a problem of effective learning laden with the economic agenda, in which language is treated merely as a medium serving the above end. Alan Patten reminds us that: “Language policy is an issue of considerable ethical, political, and legal importance in jurisdictions around the world”, which involves concepts and values like “equality, recognition, freedom, identity, democracy, and cultural preservation” (Patten, 2001, p. 691). Seldom have these qualities been heard in the discourse of Hong Kong’s language policy except a few. Lin comments that the discourses in Hong Kong including academic and official “automatically accept the business interests’ demands as the mandate for the education system” (Lin, 1997a, p. 431), resulting in the attempt to look for a once-and-for-all model or solution to the “problem”. However, such attempt leads to the appeal for a grand theory that is expected to explain everything without actual practise or taking the reality into consideration. In short, it takes it for granted that the agent’s history, perception, and social connections are not important. In other words, the ethical dimension of the issue is ignored. The orientation of this kind tends to split theory and practise into two separate regimes. However, the impact would be enormously great. This could be detrimental when it reaches the educational policy level if measures are appropriated without taking corresponding educational insights into account. A few scholars did talk about the language policy of Hong Kong from the perspective of language right. Phil Benson observed: “some argue for Chinese-medium education on the grounds that the right to mother-tongue medium education is fundamental, while others argue that parents should have the right to choose between Chinese- and English- medium” (Benson, 1997, p. 1). Lin also argues that “the right of access to the socioeconomically dominant symbolic resource, English, is a fundamental language right of Hong Kong children” (Lin, 1997b, p. 23). The issue seems to be much more complicated when Benson explains, “All states pursue explicit or implicit language polices. These may be motivated by goals of political consensus, national unity, economic and social development, administrative efficiency or simply the preservation of the power of the linguistic majority” (Benson, 1997, p. 1). The opinions mentioned above have provided some contextual modifying factors which may have impact on policy decisions. But still, one big question remains intact, that is: apart from serving other goals, should education have the autonomy to provide a perspective of its own? If affirmative, what is it? Associating language use with civic duty may provide a perspective that shifts our focus from right to obligation. Alejandro states “citizenship should not be addressed only as a legal category,” it, on the contrary, “ought to participate in the living process of interpreting the legal texts which define the community while identifying its values and its goals, its judgments and its hopes” (Alejandro, 1993, p. 77). To facilitate its effectiveness, one has to conceptualize language as “the reservoir of tradition” and a “medium” where human condition is grounded. It is also primarily through this notion of language that one can enter into dialogue within one’s “circle of concern” and “circle of influence” (Covey, 1989). Alejandro summarizes this concept of a

188

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

dialogical citizenship by saying, allow me to repeat again: “Citizens are citizens to the extent that they are engaged in a fourfold dialogue: dialogue among themselves; dialogue with the past; dialogue with the institutions and traditions, and dialogue with themselves” (Alejandro, 1993, p. 76). The presence of such a hermeneutic situation entails the weaving of webs of relationship where each individual has to be engaged linguistically in its negotiation with the others. If not through one’s mother language, how can such a hermeneutic situation be realized fully. Language understood in this way owns the power to shape the world. It will be more than a medium for information transmission but rather a form of action. To be able to express oneself in one’s mother tongue in the school, which is the basis for nurturing future citizenship, becomes a realization of one’s both civic right and duty. A language policy that does not take this insight into account is inadequate. I anticipate that this is the “sound educational arguments” Tsui et al. are referring to (Tsui et al., 1999, p. 205).

Language from an Educational Perspective From an educational point of view within the school context, every student should be nurtured in a situation where they are allowed to fully express themselves without any barrier in their articulation among interlocutors. More importantly, there should be ways through which they are encouraged to critically speak out rather than be inhibited to do so by whatever means since as Robert Hodge explains, “language itself is not the static object … language in use is dynamic, fluid, volatile, interconnected with all areas of life and thought embedded in all its situations of use” (Hodge, 2003, p. 242). It is in use that language vividly manifests itself. Appropriating Bakhtin’s concept of addressivity, Avril Haworth also suggests that: “The requirement to ‘address’ others in our words also implies growth” (Haworth, 1999, p. 100). Addressivity in the context of a classroom requires the engagement of both the teacher and the pupil in a joint enquiry and inquiry to negotiated outcomes. In showing the limitation of the view that language is considered merely a system, Gordon Wells points out: “When people interact with each other through language, the production of grammatically well-formed sentences is not an end in itself, but a means for acting in the world in order to establish relationships with others, to communicate information and to engage with them in joint activities” (Wells, 1985, p. 22). The linguistic situation into which a child is born is the kind of condition where a child can, added Wells, “both acquires the resources of the language of the community and learns how to make use of those resources in order to achieve a variety of purposes in relation to different people in different situations” (Wells, 1985, p. 22). This is what Gadamer coins “effective-history” (Gadamer, 1975, pp. 267–274). As a member of such community, it is this kind of a primordial hermeneutic situation from which the child’s language develops. Given that this view is accepted, students in the English Medium Instruction (EMI) schools are suffering from the loss of this sort of a primordial hermeneutic environment since using English, a second language, as

Language from an Educational Perspective

189

the medium of instruction automatically eliminates the potential of participating in an interactive manner spontaneously. As school is a place where civic duties have to be nurtured, it is a supposition that “through participation in community activities at school”, “a predilection for action in later life will be gained” (Lawson, 2001, p. 170). Assuming that one’s own language is the main artefact through which one immerses in the development of a social text or discourse, the elimination of one’s right to speak in one’s own tongue entails the eclipse of one’s opportunity to get oneself involved and unfolded fully resulting in the deprivation of a person’s freedom to disclose himself or herself and be exposed to possibilities with choice. How language works with quality in a dialogical manner has not well been discussed in the discursive formation process of the Hong Kong language policy. The notion of quality in association with language has to have something to do with the formation of one’s self and life history, the identification of a collectivity where one’s identity is appropriated, and the proliferation of a potential dialogic environment where creativity emerges in contrast to the current notion of a technical mentality of language use which leads to a closure of if not limiting meaning making. And it is towards such a higher quality, which is based on the kind of value where identity, community, and the potential of a hermeneutic situation play fair that enhances understanding this chapter is driving. This author finds that Gadamer’s philosophy of language and learning helps to do justice to this understanding. Before an introduction is offered, the insight of Moraes on bilingual education helps metaphorically loosen the soil in terms of the relevance of her experience for the discussion of what education is all about in relation to language use and learning as a form of practice.

Bilingual Education and Its Implications for Learning and Second Language Learning Moraes, a Brazilian educator whose second language is English, has offered a philosophical, epistemological, and ethical perspective on the policy and practices of bilingual education. For her, “language embraces cultural, historical, and political dimensions” (Moraes, 1996, p. 8). One of her comments on the ideology of language learning is that language has been reduced to a set of cognitive skills without considering students’ social identity. Since language is embedded with cultural meaning as it is also recognized by Gadamer when he uses the term “tradition” instead, Moraes asserts that: “Learning a second language, English for instance, does not mean an acquisition of vocabulary or a memorization of grammatical categories” (Moraes, 1996, p. 40). She claims that: “An understanding that language and society have a strong connection and inter-existence is crucial for the learning-teaching process of second language acquisition” (Moraes, 1996, p. 40). She suggests that relevance is what really matters in learning. Therefore, learning through a foreign tongue has implicitly conveyed a message that the students’ experiences are irrelevant or even to the extent that their mental abilities are retarded. Perhaps most of second language

190

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

learners would share the same experience of transference. And “any transference of words and expressions from L1 to L2 means that the speaker’s linguistic consciousness, which is social in essence, meets an unknown territory of signs and meanings of L2” (Moraes, 1996, p. 72). Since language and consciousness is closely connected, it is in their native tongue they first become aware of their existence. Therefore, learning a second language is not similar to receiving a ready-made language. As Moraes continues to explain: “A second language cannot be seen as a ready thing to be swallowed because language as well as consciousness exists in a process of ‘transforming’ and ‘becoming’. The process of ‘accepting’ a new language constitutes a process of rebuilding a consciousness—a process in which there exist contrasting contexts” Moraes, 1996, p. 74). As Gadamer also regards, “[l]anguage is by no means simply an instrument, a tool” (Gadamer, 1977, p. 62, also cited in Nixon, 2017, p. 20). With this understanding of language, she observes that underlying the ideology of supporting English as the official language or medium of instruction is mostly a political concern “connected with social and economical constraints rather than a discussion of language” (Moraes, 1996, p. 49). What then is “language”? Referring to Bakhtin’s theory, Moraes especially points out the dialogic nature of language. In this sense, concrete situations and contexts are important in acquainting with each linguistic form. Social background is crucial in second language acquisition. Therefore, the cultural identity, social moment, and historical situation should be considered by teachers of second language since language is a medium for social life and its existence is multifaceted rather than merely a formal system. Another proposition that Moraes attempts to dispute is the assumption that language is something concrete which can be owned. With reference to Bakhtin’s dialogic philosophy of language, she writes: “language can never be analyzed outside social, historical, and cultural human existence” (Moraes, 1996, p. 94). Therefore, human beings coexist in a dialogic manner. It is in virtue of this, Moraes suggested: “educators should link a theory of ethics and morality to a politics in which community, difference, remembrance, and historical consciousness become foundational” (Moraes, 1996, p. 108). When the above theory is applied to language and bilingual education in particular, Moraes suggested: “An obvious problem here is not the acquisition/acceptance of a second language but how this acquisition occurs in classrooms” (Moraes, 1996, p. 122). This implies the agency of teachers. She opined that “some characteristics of the teacher’s role must be developed formulating a dialogic-critical pedagogy for bilingual education” (Moraes, 1996, p. 123) because students “do not become themselves unless they can live in dialogue” (Moraes, 1996, p. 128). Here, dialogue is both the means and the end, and even the knowledge emerging out of it as Moraes regarded “is not an end in itself but a possibility for praxis” (Moraes, 1996, p. 132). By this it means, as this author would suggest, a process of negotiation during which fusion of horizons between the strangeness and familiarity provided by the two languages takes place in an ongoing basis where “identity plays a crucial role” (Moraes, 1996, p.133) because as we may find support from Nixon when he opined: “The historical layering of consciousness occurs very largely through language” (Nixon, 2017, p. 20). If this is the case, the claim that there is a “small number of schools which have been

Bilingual Education and Its Implications for Learning …

191

genuinely successful in using English as medium of instruction” (Llewellyn et al., 1982, paragraph III.1.17) needs to be called into question.

A Brief Summary With the view that language, which inherits a tradition and also a medium through which the semiological world is mediated, is a resource that facilitates learning that teaching and learning through one’s native tongue is the most effective way should be indisputable. However, in the context of Hong Kong, English as a second language is also considered indispensable on the ground that it is a medium, the possession of which may help maintain the international status of Hong Kong. As a result, advocating proficiency in both languages has remained at the top of the educational agenda of Hong Kong. In the past two decades or so, a language purist approach has dominated the discourse of the MOI formation process. It requires that students have to be taught either in the English or Chinese medium due to the assumption that mixed-code teaching is the cause of the decline in language proficiency. This belief in the language purist approach has excluded the impact of cultural inheritance as a resource to facilitate second language learning and established “a popular misconception towards code-mixing” (Li, 1998, p. 161) or mixed-code teaching and learning. In the following, this misconception or myth will be demystified in the light of Gadamer’s philosophical of language and learning with particular attention to the concepts of the “language of the heart”.

Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Its Implications for Learning and Language Use Here, I would like to retrieve some of the mains points from the previous chapter on the idea that “learning in practice” to support my argument. The first one is the concept of tradition, which is taken as a positive, potential resource that enables a person to begin his or her life journey. But first of all, a basis serving as the breeding ground has to be in place. There is no other means than language acting as the nodal point linking our future through projection, our present with the coexistence of others, and our past, i.e. our tradition. As language is not merely a vehicle for transmission of information, it also serves to create. Though language is not representing the whole of our being, it does facilitate our engagement with the four main dimensions of our being including the past, present, future, and more importantly our inner self through, as what Alejandro calls it, “fourfold dialogue” (Alejandro, 1993, p. 76). It is this sort of dialogic situation where the inner self is engaged that makes reflection and learning possible.

192

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

One may query Gadamer’s positive treatment of “tradition” as what Habermas did arguing that too much emphasis on the effectiveness of tradition may undermine the liberating purpose of learning. This could be a misunderstanding since Gadamer did recognize this danger. Otherwise, he would not regard tradition as a source of creativity and the way to do it is through questioning. Put it differently, it is through questioning that we call our beliefs into present for scrutiny by means of which, in Gadamer’s own terminology, “fusion of horizon” happens and that is how learning emerges. In addition, learning is not memorization. The purpose of learning is not accumulation. Learning is not the result of one’s being able to put certain skills into operation. Rather, learning is self-understanding itself. This does not of course undermine the usefulness of grasping hold certain skills, the importance of accumulated knowledge, and strong memorization. The main issue is that all these would only become meaningful results when self-understanding is achieved through a process of selftransformation. It involves three concepts including understanding, interpretation, and application in Gadamer. One has to be noted that the latter has a very different connotation than the one we are so used to think it may mean. In Gadamer, understanding, interpretation, and application are three dimensions of learning that happen at the same time. In short, when we attempt to understand, we cannot avoid but begin to interpret or try to make sense of what is unfamiliar in front of us while at the same time check what is known against what is yet to be known to us. This checking is what “apply” means to Gadamer and its significance to this discussion is that “application” is a hermeneutic activity, the successful operation of which must be through language. With this understanding, the intimate relation between language use and learning is affirmed. This is also what makes learning different from learning a language and learning through a second language since the latter cannot perform and accomplish the same psychological state of mind of what learning through one’s native tongue does. This way of conceptualizing learning in association with self-understanding as a process assumes that knowledge to be acquired is not something stable but the otherwise with the understanding that contextual change is the order of the day. What is written in the textbook is only “knowledge” in a sense that it has to be interpreted with the new situation as the background to inform the learner or interpreter what is deemed meaningful. This can only be done when the learner attempts actively to make sense of the new context according to what is known to the interpreter. It is also in this sense that the learner or interpreter is coined as a practitioner. Quite different from the conventional definition that a practitioner is someone who only shoulders the job of getting familiar with what is given and then have it implemented or “applied” in real life and its applicability is judged by whether the implementer has followed what has been given as a blueprint in a loyal manner, the one provided by Gadamer is portrayed as an active participant, an agent that is empowered to initiate reform according to contextual changes. It is in this sense that a learner is actually a practitioner whose knowledge of himself or herself is always in a process of discovery and transformation. This can only be accomplished when the medium used for expression allows the practitioner or learner to unfold what is within and

Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Its Implications for Learning …

193

respond to what is addressed to him or her in an extemporaneously manner, i.e. in the language of jazz, performing and composing at the same time. There is no medium other than our own mother tongue which can fulfil this requirement. Contributing to advancing this notion of practice to become more mature as time goes by is the condition of mutual understanding in Gadamer, which presumes the presence of a significant other. In other words, the presence of another person in fact would become a facilitator or contributor helping the practitioner to form his or her own self in the process of his or her becoming. This formation process does not merely entail that there is something inside us to be discovered but also the possibility that there is something new or yet-to-be-known, again in Gadamer’s terminology, “horizons” to be fused with our current experiences. This sort of what Gadamer coins “fusion of horizons” is what learning is all about. And yet, without language as the medium to facilitate its emergence, fusion and thus self-understanding through mutual understanding and learning cannot be made possible. One has to be noted that learning conceptualized in this way is an activity not intended to be happening within a laboratory or similar environment as what most scientific testing does with the aim of identifying the causal relation between input and output through manipulating the process. Quite the opposite, what makes learning truly manifests itself is the contingency of the environment within which it is situated. In other words, a closed system will not make “genuine” learning happen. It would only make those who fabricate the design of such system feel good to see what happens according to their expectation, but not that of the learner. We are so used to using what we general call a “scientific” way of managing our daily life affairs. For example, we have been taught to do things with clear objectives against which to plan what we should so as to attain those objectives. Our failure to do so would attribute to our incompetency in grasping certain skills rather than our unawareness of having to make adjustment or attunement to the contextual changes, the emerging outcome from which may eventually be more practical in satisfying the needs of those involved in that moment of time. So, there are two contrasting ways of understanding “learning”, and it is the latter Gadamer and this author embrace. Given that mutual understanding opens up learning opportunities and apart from the fact that language also serves to transmit information, the former can only unfold itself, while the latter reconfirms its truthfulness through questioning. For Gadamer, asking the “right” question is most of the time more important than giving the “right” answer. Therefore, the purpose of questioning is questioning further, and doing it right is an art for him. Questioning is not just simply turning an affirmative sentence into the form of a question. The moment of questioning is itself a creative act, i.e. as it was mentioned earlier acting extemporaneously (composing and performing at the same time). It only happens when the questioner is addressed by an emerging issue. And what makes an issue an issue is not just that it is “objectively” there, but rather an occurrence sparkling in a split of a second where the questioner is informed by the “fourfold dialogue” (i.e. his/her memory whether it has systematically been structured or not, his/her understanding of the present, and his/her little inner voice in the form of reflective conversation based on which his/her future is projected). The way he or she is informed is inevitably in the form of a language which he or she uses

194

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

without knowing that he or she is using it. That is what makes learning differ from learning a language. It is the former which does not have to mind about the correctness when using a language that allows “genuine” learning, the constitution of which the act of spontaneous questioning should play an important role, to happen. Normally, it is the capacity of one’s first language that allows all of the above performative vitalities to occur. The reason why we are not aware of it is just that this has been taken for granted. That being said it does not imply that “competence” in one’s first language would deserve a promise that learning will automatically happen. The truth is that it is through language that we as members of the same community can fully be addressed, the moment when we start to be liberated from our preconceived understanding so as to allow creativity to lead its course. In the same vein, our response triggered by this act of addressing can extend the conversation without end. There could be no end as the interchange between the addressor and addressee are engaged in a situation where by nature there is no boundary for they are both just the nodal points linking their own past or tradition, present here and now, and the projection of their future. These contextual factors provide not just information but relational resonance and accountability for what is said and conveyed so that meanings can emerge, be interpreted, accounted, and eventually fused. Once it is fused, conclusions can be enacted as tentative stance. As long as they are conclusive not in a sense of any infallible truth, learning and self-understanding will continue in a transformative manner each time when the learner is engaged. If self-understanding can only be accomplished and enhanced through mutual understanding, trust is what is required to establish such a condition. Trust is not a commodity that can be sold and bought for ornamentation. It is the result of a process where reciprocal reliability is observed consistently by both parties. One of the most significant ways allowing us to observe this form of reliability is through the use of language or more specifically dialogue. It is in conversation we can gradually come close to each other. It is through the tone of a sentence fabricated by the pronoun “we” that we can truly experience the depth of a person’s embodied message. Based on this standpoint, we can say that those who participate in a conversation with the genuine wish of coming to understand whoever in front of them are ethical agents. As Nixon was quoted earlier in this book as saying: “Whatever militates against trust diminishes education” (Nixon, 2017, p. 19), a question relevant to this discussion is that: In what sense and to what extent that a classroom where a second language is mandated as the medium of instruction would militate trust and thus diminish education? In brief, there are at least two aspects of language: the ethical and technical. Obviously, it is towards the former Gadamer’s philosophy of language and learning is embracing. Quite the opposite, the language policy of Hong Kong has been conceptualized using a technical approach. The evidence is its having shown less concern about the ethical dimension of language in connection with learning though it might not be done intentionally. In the following, a summary of the features being identified by this author that has been shaping the evolution of Hong Kong’s MOI policy will be offered in a narrative form explaining the logical connections of them. They

Gadamer’s Hermeneutics and Its Implications for Learning …

195

will be addressed one after another in light of Gadamer’s philosophy of language and collectively evaluated with arguments that support the tentative conclusion just made.

A Story Required to Be Retold As it was claimed that the rationale governing the development of the MOI policy since the publication of the Llewellyn Report in 1982 is consistent, it is reasonable to examine the whole project by asking what sort of a story the authors have told us. By this I mean it is not plainly a factual presentation, but instead one that involves justifications aiming at persuading the readers in the form of a “storied-discourse” with a plot. It goes like this. A balance strategy was used to meet the needs of Hong Kong including the aspects of communal integration and international identification; thus, it promotes Cantonese as the medium of instruction, which is recognized as “the language of the heart”, while at the same time upholds English as an asset serving to maintain Hong Kong as a financial and business centre. The implications of which medium to choose for the well-being of the students can be far-reaching when the issue of what it really means by “the language of the heart” is taken seriously. As a matter of fact, this issue has been played down by the “false belief” that more exposure to “the language of the heart” would lead to less exposure to English conducive to the decline in competitiveness when the standard of the latter cannot be guaranteed. For the sake of balancing, this unexamined, if not false, assumption looked for justifications from academic research ending with the claim that there were about 30% of the pupils capable of using English to learn “successfully” in a “genuine” manner. As for the rest, Cantonese was considered the appropriate medium to facilitate their learning in general. It follows that a “threshold” level was imagined to exist with reference to some research findings. However, the criterion based on which to support this division has been challenged as arbitrary not mentioning the judgement that these 30% could “genuinely” and “successfully” learn in English. In order to prove that these policy decisions would yield the expected outcomes, a “purist” linguistic approach was employed in that the habituated “mixed-code” teaching and learning practice was “sentenced” as being a factor contributing to the decline of Hong Kong students’ language standard. This is another “unexamined” or “false” belief that has been challenged from an educational perspective not mentioning the “labelling” effect this ideology has generated leading to the bifurcation of schools into the Cantonese Medium Instruction (CMI) and English Medium Instruction (EMI) with the former being “labelled” as the incapable majority. Before we jump to the discussion, a personal experience of this author will help provide a real setting for reflection. He was put in a private school at the age of about 16 where many of the attendants were supposed to be less competent except for a few. When he was still in secondary four, the academic performance of this young person was below average. How about his English level? Let him share his experience of an incident that happened in an English lesson.

196

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

Whose “Language of the Heart” are We Talking About? Knowing that the public examination was approaching, which would happen at the end of secondary five, this young person was aware that he might fail if he did not work harder. Therefore, he did promise himself to be more aggressive in learning. One of the ways to get it actualized was to take the initiative to raise and answer questions in the class. In an English lesson, which should be the “best” condition for improving one’s English, when the English teacher asked him a question and invited responses from him, this young person was very happy that he knew the answer. But before he dared to show his enthusiasm, something deterred him from doing so. In retrospection, there were two factors constituting this determent. First, the answer that came to his mind was in Cantonese. Therefore, the second thing that required him to do was to check whether he had the right words in English that matched well with the answer he had in his mind in Cantonese. After this was the worry he had about whether the sentence he used to convey his answer was grammatically correct. One can imagine how long it would take this young person to establish the confidence good enough to raise his voice. I still remember that it was long enough that the English teacher asked someone else for a response. Apart from this, there was another factor which was major, i.e. this young person was afraid that his performance would not be good enough to share the same platform with the others in the same classroom. Gadamer’s philosophy of language should have some sympathy with this young person. He would stand on his side by first arguing that the “threshold” is a socially constructed concept to serve some definite purpose created by the proposer. We can have a better understanding of this argument by taking a detour, i.e. reviewing what “the language of the heart” is all about in light of a Gadamerian perspective of language. In Gadamer, the concept of “tradition” is essential. It is essential in terms of its productive and creative potential to empower a person to make him/herself available for the world open to him/her. It is the dialectic between this openness to the future and retrospection to one’s “tradition” that makes learning possible beginning in the form of questions. It implies the importance of language, which shares the same essentiality with the concept of tradition in that language, i.e. one’s first language. Thus, tradition and language are so to speak two sides of the same coin. It is through language as the mediator that one’s tradition manifests itself. Otherwise, without the substance of one’s tradition, his or her language is only operating with the support of a linguistic mechanism, which is empty of thought and genuine dialogue, a condition that makes the revealing and the touching of the “heart” possible. In light of the above, we can say that the idea of setting a “threshold” level beyond which one can learn “genuinely” and “successfully” in a second language becomes senseless since learning through a second language itself is a counter-productive, -intuitive, and creativity deterring act to the opening up of and taking the initiative of inviting the other to the “heart” since it cuts off the traditional ties of the learner the moment when they are required to speak a second language. These ties are at that

A Story Required to Be Retold

197

moment the reliable sources from which the learner gets his or her empowerment to engage themselves with the outside world, without which “fusion of horizons”, and thus, learning is impossible. If the above argument is acceptable, the more exposure to a second language the less the opportunity the learner is offered to exercise his or her creative, critical, deliberative, and discerning power. It is important to note that there is always a trade-off effect in this dilemma. In a way, the judgement that a student’s English is competent enough or beyond the “threshold” level so that he or she is offered the “privilege” of learning in English is similar to asking them to leave their “heart” behind. The implication of this notion of the “language of the heart” for learning should not be overlooked or underestimated. In Gadamer, learning is a practice. By this it means what makes learning possible is the premise that the learner is always potentially exposed to a situation where the unfamiliar meets with the familiar requiring the learner as an agent to integrate the two. This is not just a task of mathematics by adding the new to the old, but rather a struggle with the aspiration of reconfiguring all the elements involved to obtain a coherent, meaningful whole, the constitution of which each of these elements should be credited to play a part. It is an act of “fusion” in Gadamer’s terminology, the outcome of which cannot be “dissected” using a “scientific” lens in terms of the assumption that a disintegrated unit can be reintegrated back to the whole to which it belongs without any loss or the otherwise so long as it is done according to a manual showing the details of its parts. This sort of an elusive activity would make some feel unease. As for Gadamer, this is the essence of what learning is all about, a hermeneutic activity that circulates in the form of a spiral or circle during which the subject matter that invokes such activity to keep on running is assumed to be revisited time after time. And for each time it is encountered, a new horizon may emerge. This “newness” through disclosure in fact is the result of a reinterpretation agitated by a “refreshed” past. The most important point this author would like to reiterate is that only one’s first language would be able to allow this kind of free flow activity to emerge. It implies that we cannot talk about learning apart from the potentiality of the medium to be used to make it happen. In the same vein, considering which language to use as the medium of instruction and learning without deliberating on the impact such choice may have on learning is not educational unless learning that language is the ultimate goal and learning is considered equivalent to something that does not involve interpretation in the strictest sense of the word. Accepting the above argument entails the refutation of the claim that a selected few students in Hong Kong have reached a “threshold” level indicating that they are capable of learning both “genuinely” and “successfully” through English. The reason is simply that this “compliment” is in fact rewarded on the condition that again their “heart” has to be left behind.

198

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

Redeeming “Mixed Code” The plight of Hong Kong’s language policy is constituted not only by its unawareness of the intimate relation between language and learning as what Gadamer sees it. There are two other ideologies. One is the belief that total immersion, i.e. more exposure to English, would help students “learn” faster. But one has to note that this “desire” points only to acquiring better English rather than learning itself. The second, which is closely related to the first, is the “purist language” approach. This belief has been translated to the assumption that only when a student is exposed to an environment where only English or Chinese/Cantonese is used would he or she be considered being provided the “proper” way of learning the “best” of that targeted language. Under the guidance of these two principles, it was suggested if not mandated that “the use of mixed code, i.e. the mixture of Chinese and English, in teaching and learning” was discouraged (HKED, 1997, p. 1). This author argues for the otherwise in light of Gadamer’s philosophy of learning and language that “mixed-code” teaching and learning is the less “evil”, if you will, of the two when it is compared to the “English only” option in terms of: (1) students’ not being intimidated by the fear of exposing his or his weakness when using a second language; and (2) their being provided an opportunity to learn English indirectly with the subject matter developed through the use of their mother tongue. In other words, their willingness to participate is the first priority. It is only when this priority is valued would the notion of learning as practise manifests itself fully. Before we close this chapter with a conclusion, a simple example is helpful to offer one of the reasons to explain why the entrenched bias towards the use of “mixed code” needs to be revisited. In the past, this author at times heard some of the Hongkongers, especially the youth, say “我 哋 好 fan” to make alliance. The first two Cantonese words means in English “we are”, i.e. in Cantonese (我 哋). The last one means “very”, i.e. “好” in Cantonese. This same word has another signification meaning “good” as an adjective. But in the sentence provided above, it is an adverb modifying the word “fan”. This is the source of the problems. First, it should be pronounced as “friend”, and the whole sentence becomes sensible. The speaker’s “laziness” has left out the “r” and “d” sound. But still, there is also a grammatical problem because as an adjective there should be a suffix “ly” coming after it. Then, the whole sentence, if correctly articulated as: “we are very friendly”, would become recognizable. Surely, making this kind of mistake is not good at all. But we may have overlooked one important thing, i.e. these young people did not shy away from using it since this kind of expression is so “natural” to them. Here is the dilemma, which the MOI policy-makers have attempted painstakingly to overcome, in the form of a question: under what circumstances we have to correct their mistake on the spot when they are using it? By doing so, their “heart” feeling may be blocked, and hereafter, they may be reminded of what the consequence is like when they attempt to use English. In Hong Kong, “mixed code” is used very often in our daily life because it becomes “natural”. This author believes it is only when a natural environment is provided

A Story Required to Be Retold

199

would a student let you know what is in his or her “heart” and mind, the very condition for the potential emergence of genuine dialogue, self-understanding, and mutual understanding, the essential ground for breeding learning. In a classroom setting, language classes not included, the goal of coming to understanding should be taken as the first priority for any objectives set for any courses. Given that mixed-code communication is part of the culture of Hong Kong, which helps facilitate “genuine dialogue”, the argument that it should not be encouraged (HKED, 1997, p. 1) is untenable from a Gadamerian perspective of learning. It also entails that the “purist” linguistic approach only serves to satisfy the arbitrary belief of those mistaking the learning of a language for learning itself. The consequence seems to be obvious that what has been suggested in the Guidance has created a condition where those students studying in the EMI schools have been deprived of a “free” environment to express themselves fully, develop their self without “boundaries”, and transcend their understanding through exchange in a reciprocal manner. Those who support the Guidance may very quickly come up with a query, which is about the fear that less exposure will bring about the decline of English standard. In fact, this is a different issue, the dealing with it in whatever approach one takes should observe the “highest” principle that it will not jeopardize the condition where learning in one’s mother tongue, or to be more specific in a “natural” language one is used to communicate with their interlocutors, should be protected. Mixed code should partially constitute this “natural”. Even though one may still have reservation from a purist perspective, the above view is regarded by some scholars as “a necessary educational expedient, inevitable given the constraints teachers work under, and a reflection of developments within Hong Kong society” (Johnson, 1995, p. 14, cited in Boyle, 1997, p. 88). The irony is that this “natural” language does not necessarily bring about the decline of English standard. Some research findings have told us the empowerment initiated by the “natural” use of the first language would facilitate our understanding of the subject matter to the extent that it would encourage and motivate students to look for English expressions so as to allow them to enter into the discourse that constitutes that subject matter. In other words, it is the “soul” of the language that matters. And this “soul” is self-understanding in connection with the rest of world which plays a part in forming this “soul”. At this point, we may be able to provide a tentative answer to the question of why “the good student will not find the language of instruction a significant barrier” (HKEC, 1986 Annex IVA, p. 235). It is simply because learning a language is not the end of itself. This student is considered “good” in virtue of his or her being able to see the world behind that language that motivates them to take the initiative to overcome the “barrier” by all means.

200

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

Conclusion and Recommendation To conclude, an observation given by the Visiting Panel (Llewellyn et al., 1982) is worth quoting in full here. It helps identify the “root” that constitutes the dilemma. It concerns about the present position regarding the use of English as a teaching medium in secondary schools, which it considered had magnified many of the problems associated with schooling in Hong Kong, such as excessive hours of homework, quiescent pupils and rote learning. The Panel argued for a progressive shift from mother-tongue education in kindergartens and primary schools to genuinely bilingual programmes in the junior secondary forms so that by the end of F3 students would receive approximately half of their instruction in each language. Noting that mandating Chinese as the medium of instruction in junior secondary education would be difficult for practical and political reasons, it proposed to encourage the use of Chinese by a scheme of ‘positive discrimination’ in favour of schools which use Chinese as the medium of instruction. (HKEC1, 1984 paragraph 3.4, p. 33)

Key issues identified in the Panel’s observation include: first, many of the problems associated with schooling were understood as coming from “the use of English as a teaching medium”. “Rote learning” is another one as a consequence. It results from the student’s being unable to express freely using a language in which he or she finds himself or herself at “home” plus the inescapable reality that they are required to be tested in an “alien” environment enclosed by that language. The only strategy they can hold on to is to memorize and regurgitate or reproduce what is memorized. Strictly speaking, “rote learning” is no learning at all and language learning is only considered a “transition” towards learning in the strictest sense of the word given that the process is handled properly. Otherwise, the outcome is the reverse. Second, the idea of “a progressive shift from mother-tongue education in kindergartens and primary schools to genuinely bilingual programs in the junior secondary forms” appears to be logically indisputable. The crux of the matter is how, the complication of which should not be taken for granted. An “ideal” blueprint most of the time can only be implemented smoothly on a piece of paper without having to take its practicality into consideration. Why not that “mixed code” could be the best possible and most natural means to offer a smooth transition? That “mixed code” is considered the most “practical” if not effective way to facilitate the “progressive shift” can find its support in Gadamer’s philosophy of language and its intimate relationship with learning. According to Gadamer, learning experience is very personal by nature. It is in this sense that learning is a practice in that individuals have to find their own, unique pathway towards achieving their goal in a trial and error manner. It is each individual learner who is responsible for his or her “progressive shift”. Does it entail that teachers do not have any role to play? Of course not, but teachers can surely make some contributions, but in the form of a “disguised” intellectual. Let me explain. The suggestion that Hong Kong needs more teachers who are native speakers of English can be supported with condition. If the following argument is accepted, this type of teachers is better playing the supporting role. The Panel’s “vision” of a progressive shift to “genuinely bilingual programs in the junior secondary forms”

Conclusion and Recommendation

201

indicates that what Hong Kong truly needs is a sufficient amount of “genuinely bilingual teachers”. But one should not be misled to conclude that students could become “genuine bilingual” after they have finished the junior secondary forms if the notion of “genuine” is understood in light of Gadamer’s philosophy of learning. Expecting students to become “genuinely bilingual” within a few years seems to be impossible unless a bilingual environment is provided from the day when the children are born or as early as in their kindergarten years. With this regard, there could be a threshold level, say at the age of six, below which becoming genuinely bilingual is feasible so long as one can afford to do so since kindergartens which can provide genuine bilingual education usually charge much higher tuition fees. But this author is talking about students in general, the mass education system of Hong Kong. Given the limitation mentioned above, may I reiterate that what Hong Kong’s education system truly needs is a certain amount of genuinely bilingual teachers who are able to identify the needs of the students in terms of their language competency both in English and Cantonese with particular attention to the way how they use mixed code with the purpose of helping them not only to learn in the Gadamerian sense of the word, but also demonstrate to the students the proper way of using English. That being said, strategically, it is better done indirectly allowing the students to discover by themselves through the teacher’s replacing the “wrong” code with the correct one when responding instead of checking out what mistakes they have made on the spot. The reason for doing so is to prevent the students from being distracted by things other than the subject matter itself, which is the centre of learning. While the “genuine” bilingual teachers are best conceptualized as mediators, the school and government do have the responsibility of providing resources and facilities helping the learner to improve their English in a technical sense. This kind of activity should be organized in such a way that learning in the strictest sense of the word should not be the main concern but rather that grammatical or spoken issues are the main foci. Therefore, this sort of a two-tier approach allows students to have the freedom to “shift” in their own speed and pace. One research findings have been overlooked and rarely mentioned: only 2–3% of the students are willing or feel comfortable to use English as the medium of instruction in the class. This “missed” if not “buried” fact shakes the foundation supporting the claim that there are about 30% of the students “capable” of using English as the medium of learning since one’s preference is an indication of how much effort he or she is probably willing to contribute to the betterment of that corresponding subject. Learning is a hermeneutic activity in that the former entails self-understanding while the latter implies interaction with the presence of another person. Therefore, learning by nature is relational. The current understanding of learning emphasizes on the aspect of information transmission and that “understanding” within such a context is regarded as a personal endeavour aiming at making sense of the information at best. Whether the information acquired contributes to self-understanding seems to be a matter of privacy. In Gadamer, the possibility of self-understanding or understanding as we now understand this concept can only be made possible through mutual understanding. In other words, they complement each other in a reciprocal constructive manner, thus relational by nature. The extent to which language be considered more

202

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

a medium for constituting understanding than collecting and transmission of information is a critical point determining whether the plight of the language policy in Hong Kong can be understood with educational grounding conducive to enhancing the well-being of students. Language understood from the perspective of hermeneutics according to White “is not simply a tool we use only for expression; it essentially forms our social reality” (White, 1994, p. 84). The reality is social since it is shared and its formation is co-authored so to speak. The undertone of this statement is the idea that the basis of its formation is through to a large extent mutual understanding of those involved in its construction. Given that language is the most effective medium in our current practise through which mutual understanding is enhanced and subsequently our reality formed, putting language in its proper place in relation to learning, understanding, and in our case learning through a second language is utmost important. Either confusing the two or not knowing their differences could be devastating in education since a proper understanding would enhance creativity while the opposite entails unproductiveness. As White emphasizes: “understanding is always about something and is always negotiated within language” (White, 1994, p. 85). Therefore, ignorant about the intimate relation between language and learning or the misconception that learning a second language is equivalent to learning itself is deemed detrimental to the well-being of not only the students but also teaching as well and therefore unsustainable. If the arguments offered above could be considered reasonable on educational ground, the extent to which this form of malpractice has perverted the ultimate purpose the relevant policy initiative is entrusted to observe, say allowing the “language of the heart” to surface as the prerequisite for engendering genuine learning, remains a mystery given that the intimate relationship between language and learning continues to be considered separated entities. The suggestion that the prevalence of this misconception has significantly contributed to the phenomenon of “thoughtlessness” identified by Hui (2015) as a characteristic of the performance of the educational system of Hong Kong in the past two decades is therefore not a judgement out of merely irrational imagination. Language use and its positive contribution to the development of “thoughtfulness” rely on the extent to which learning is seen as a practice characterized by the spontaneity of its operation. Seeing it as a technical issue as what the decision-makers of the MOI policy seem to have done would overlook the bigger picture of its educational implications.

References Alejandro, R. (1993). Hermeneutics, citizenship, and the public sphere. State University of New York Press. Benson, P. (1997). Language rights and the medium-of-instruction issue in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(2), 1–21. Bolton, K. (2000). The sociolinguistics of Hong Kong and the space for Hong Kong English. World Englishes, 19(3), 265–285.

References

203

Boyle, J. (1997). The use of mixed-code in Hong Kong English language teaching. System, 25(1), 83–89. Covey, S. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. Simon and Schuster. Evans, S. (2000). Hong Kong’s new English language policy in education. World Englishes, 19(2), 185–204. Gadamer, H.-G. (1975). Truth and method (G. Barden & J. Cumming, Ed. & Trans.). Sheed & Ward, London. Gadamer, H.-G. (1977). Philosophical hermeneutics (E.E. Ling, Ed. & Trans.). University of California Press, Berkeley, California. Haworth, A. (1999). Bakhtin in the classroom: What constitutes a dialogic text? Some lessons from small group interaction. Language and Education, 13(2), 99–117. Hodge, R. (2003). Towards a postmodern science of language. Social Semiotics, 13(3), 241–262. Hong Kong. Education Department (HKED). (1997). Medium of instruction: Guidance for secondary schools. Education Department. Hong Kong. Hong Kong Government (HKGov.). (1974). Green paper: The development of secondary education in Hong Kong over the next decade. Government Printer, Hong Kong. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The Absence of Thought in Learning: Hong Kong Education in Light of Cultural Studies]. Oxford University Press, Hong Kong. Hong Kong. Hong Kong Chinese Studies Committee (HKCSC). (1953). Report of the Chinese Studies Committee. Chinese Studies Committee, Hong Kong. Hong Kong. Education Commission (HKEC). (2005). Report on review of medium of instruction for secondary schools and secondary school places allocation. Government Logistics Dept., Hong Kong. Hong Kong. Education Bureau (HKEDB). (2009). Fine-tuning the medium of instruction for secondary school. Education Bureau Circular No. 6/2009, Ref. EDB(RP)3410/15/07(6). https:// www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/primary-secondary/applicable-to-secondary/moi/support-andresources-for-moi-policy/lsplmfs-sch/d-sch/ow/sp/index-2.html Johnson, R. K. (1995). Critical review of literature on language in education in Hong Kong. Education Commission Report 6, Draft, Annex (pp. 5–25). Government Printer. Lawon, H. (2001). Active citizenship in schools and the community. The Curriculum Journal, 12(2), Summer, 163–178. Li, C. S., & David. (1998). The plight of the purist. In M. C. Pennington (Ed.), Language in Hong Kong at century’s end (pp. 161–190). Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong. Lin, A. M. Y. (1997). Hong Kong children’s rights to a culturally compatible English education. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(2), 23–48. Lin, A. M. Y. (1997). Analyzing the ‘language problem’ discourses in Hong Kong: How official, academic, and media discourses construct and perpetuate dominant models of language, learning, and education. Journal of Pragmatics, 28, 427–440. Lin, A. M. Y. (2000). Deconstructing “mixed code”. In D. Li, A. Lin, & W. K. Tsang (Eds.), Language and education in postcolonial Hong Kong (pp. 179–194). Linguistic Society of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Llewellyn, J., Kirst, M., & Roeloffs, K. (1982). A perspective on education in Hong Kong, report by a visiting panel. Government Printer. Moraes, M. (1996). Bilingual education: A dialogue with the Bakhtin circle. State University of New York Press. Nixon, J. (2017). Hans-Georg Gadamer: The hermeneutical imagination. Springer International Publishing: Imprint: Springer, Cham. Patten, A. (2001, October). Political theory and language policy. Political Theory, 29(5), 691–715. Tsui, A. B. M., Shum, M. S. K., Wong, C. K., Tse, S. K., & Ki, W. W. (1999). Which agenda? Medium of instruction policy in post-1997 Hong Kong. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 12(3), 196–214.

204

10 Language of the Heart, Learning, and Educational Practise

UNESCO. (1953). The use of vernacular languages in education: Monographs of fundamental education. UNESCO, VIII. Paris. Wells, C. G. (1985). Language and learning: An international perspective. In G. Wells & J. Nicholls (Eds.), Language and learning: An international perspective (pp. 21–39). Falmer Press. White, K. W. (1994). Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophy of language: A constitutive-dialogic approach to interpersonal understanding. In K. Carter & M. Presnell (Eds.), Interpretive approaches to interpersonal communication (pp. 83–114). State University of New York Press.

Chapter 11

A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark

In this book, a stronger version of education is proposed in light of Aristotle’s scheme of knowledge with particular emphasis on the contribution of phronesis. This author argued that a weak version of education as it is currently conceived does not help envision the significance of the subject of Liberal Studies in connection with the educational goal of “whole person development”. This misconception could be a result of the issue pertaining to power and knowledge. By this I mean the knowledge of those who make the decisions would determine the chances of an idea being allowed to circulate. If this is really the case, the lack of an epistemological ground like the one proposed in this manuscript to shed light on the possibility of developing an alternative interpretation of the concept of “whole person development” and its connection with the subject of Liberal Studies may confuse the way we put the relevant ideas into practice. I have chosen to address an issue identified by Hui (2015), which he called “thoughtlessness” characterizing the performance of Hong Kong’s educational system. Through the use of Stone’s assertion that “all of content, process and outcome are important. But outcome is the most important” (Stone, 2008) as a heuristic device, I argue in this manuscript that acting thoughtlessly could be the result of a fetish of methodology and managerial style mostly employed by those who rule to secure prescribed outcome at the expense of the unexpected. This way of thinking overlooks the dynamics of process, which is the source of thoughtfulness that encourages a kind “practice” that is different from what we traditionally understand it that entails compliance and obedience. In light of Aristotle’s phronesis in comparison with techne and episteme, this author introduces an enlightened version of practice, and by doing so, its implications for learning in practice are explained through the lens of Gadamer’s philosophy of language and learning. With the help of this analytical framework, a review of Hong Kong’s immediate societal and educational condition was conducted indicating on the one hand that the needs of Hong Kong manifested by the calls for “life education”, “moral education”, and even “parent education” reflected a past, the educational focus of which tended to see education as a tool to meet other means rather than an end itself as a moral enterprise which © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 W. R. Tang, Transforming Education in Practice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6871-5_11

205

206

11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark

put the student’s “whole personal development” in the first place. On the other, such an instrumental view naturally fits into Stone’s argument that “outcome is the most important” and inevitably the way to accomplish it is not to allow the process to have any outside interference. This mindset would ultimately produce the kind of operation or “practice” within a system characterized by what Hui coins as “thoughtlessness” (Hui, 2015). In light of the above understanding with special regard to the notion of “learning in practice” in light of phronesis, the implementation of the subject of Liberal Studies was examined closely in connection with (1) the concept of education as it was understood by a high educational institution; and (2) the new role assigned to the subject in the Consultation Document on School Curriculum Review 2019. The purpose of this study is to make a case to shed light on the extent to which the doing of Liberal Studies has moved away from the actual purpose, i.e. to advance “whole person development”, it is entrusted to serve. This author argues that the answer is negative in virtue of the misconception arising out of the document’s weakness in organizing the structure of the subjects in relation to Liberal Studies from an epistemological standpoint in light of Aristotle’s framework of knowledge. The conclusion derived from the study and discussion is that the current approach to the subject of Liberal Studies dominated by a “teaching-to-the-test” orientation has contradicted the goal it is entrusted to achieve by confining learning to “banking” rather than seeing it as a practice for self-understanding and self-transformation. The review and study on the subject of Liberal Studies is followed by a discussion deliberating on the qualities that are required of professional teachers to equip themselves. In response to this challenge and informed by Aristotle’s phronesis and Gadamer’s philosophy on learning that informs teaching practice, the concept of “integrative phronimos” and a community of phronimos is proposed in response to the educational goal, i.e. “whole personal development”, set by the Consultation Document. It entails that the deliberation of what is considered “good” and the requirement of the teachers to integrate different epistemological lens in the service of deliberating this “good” become two principles guiding the professional development of teachers and teacher education as well. In light of jazz improvisation as a metaphor, this author argues that Hansen’s “ideal-in-practice” (Hansen, 2001) is the concept precise enough to explain what education as a vocation and moral practice (Carr, 1987; Jackson, 2012) is all about. It is not until the last part of this book did this author bring up the policy issue of language. It is last but not the least because without a proper understanding of how learning differs itself from learning through a second language, it jeopardizes both the well-being of the students and the capacity of teachers involved in advancing learning. Gadamer’s philosophy of language and its close relation to learning were introduced to shed light on some of the significant concepts including “threshold”, “exposure”, and “language of the heart”, and the misinterpretation of them constitutes the “blind spot” of the policy. Again, when learning is practice, the practice of which is not possible without language as a medium, this author argues that the current ideological construct supported by interpretations that serve the purpose of persuasion is not able to portray a true picture of language and its intimate relation with learning.

11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark

207

The one provided by Gadamer in light of Aristotle’s concept of practical knowledge would encourage us not only to re-examine the policy of language, but also the assumptions of the fundamental set-up of the whole educational enterprise as it is reflected in the discursive construct of the Consultation Document on School Curriculum Review, a piece not being able to envision a hopeful future based on substantial epistemological ground. This inadequacy is due to the fact that all types of knowledge have been framed by technical means serving the criteria laid down by the exam. Thus, the elimination of any surprises, which induce thoughtfulness rather than thoughtlessness, would be the result when securing expected outcomes instead of processual dynamics is the only yardstick for “good” judgement. The proposal of this manuscript was submitted long before the outbreak of the protests against the anti-extradition bill. The school was then considered relatively a place where a certain degree of autonomy could be secured. The deadline for submitting the final manuscript of this book was delayed twice. The reason for the delay was due to the worry that the data based on which this book was produced might not be useful in terms of its contribution to the future development of Hong Kong’s education. This worry emerged due to the fact that the educational ecology of Hong Kong changed drastically to the extent that the “tradition” based on which educational practices at all levels were founded and its future could be imagined was shaken. At the time when this manuscript was submitted, it was reported the “Education Bureau (of Hong Kong) cuts all ties with teachers’ union”, which was considered the “start of a fresh crackdown against groups deemed to be ‘unpatriotic’” (Cheng & Leung, 2021 August 1, p. 7). This move paralyzed the nerves of all those who might initially have their educational ideas or ideals to realize and yet had not taken the issue of “patriotism” into consideration under the shadow of the national security plus the fact that the discursive and interpretive power is in the hands of those who rule. When Hong Kong has come to a stage where her affordability to imagine a meaningful future becomes bleak, diving deep into the question of what education is all about seems to be a bit luxurious for some. However, the paradox could be that we, particularly the Hong Kong people including those having migrated to foreign countries, may not have a chance to examine the question of why a proper understanding of education, and in our case “whole person development”, is so important if we are still in our comfort zone waiting for experts to take care of a lifetime vocation which we are supposed to put it into practice by ourselves. The main concern of those who have migrated to other countries in fear of the PRC’s rule is mostly the consideration of where to land and the major criterion governing their choice of landing is the availability of good school and education for their offspring. Yes, somehow, we have been habituated to think that the government should and would provide “good” education for our children. But, a passive stance would allow us to overlook a very important dimension pertaining to what education is supposed to achieve, i.e. the cultivation of a sustainable social environment in schools within which every participant is obliged to make their contribution to the emergence of this “social”. Ideally, this social’s cultivation is not limited to the contribution of students and teachers, but more importantly parents as well given that character formation is best moulded in

208

11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark

real life, a precious, resourceful ground the experience drawing from which could feed teaching and learning in schools in return. This shift in focus where practical knowledge or phronesis is regarded as the integral substance leading towards attaining the educational goal of “whole person development” through knowledge integration with the purpose of helping students to lead a more balanced purpose of life implies that those who are entrusted to have a close relationship with the students naturally become the resourceful significant others informing or feeding substantially the whole teaching and learning process in schools. While this author has taken pains arguing for the importance of practice in the school setting with teachers as the focus of concern, it is the parents who are considered truly the key stakeholders and facilitators constituting the real-life setting in advancing the formation of students’ character, sharpening their value judgemental and discerning power, elevating their moral and ethical awareness in practice within context, and thus providing richer accounts for learning both in breadth and depth. With this understanding, parents should no longer be positioned as passive receivers of “knowledge”, but creative contributors, and of course not in terms of helping their children just to complete the homework, but rather offering counter-perspectives through practice to inform the teaching and learning process in schools. It is in this way the excellence and merit of practice have to be extended from teachers to parents, an ideal worthy of having it put into practice on the ground that parents are always the models and interlocutors providing the immediate milieu for instilling practical knowledge in students within their life context. The concept of “phronesis” (or practical knowledge) concerns local, practical, contextual, and processual. It entails that it is every individual’s business to answer a similar question posed by the mother to the little kid in Sudbury Valley School. Allow me to repeat: “Are you responsible for your own education?” We may expect an affirmative answer from the kid and perhaps in normal cases every student as well. However, it is also reasonable to suggest that the mother would not give up her responsibility as a mother to provide her kid with whatever she thinks that is beneficial to the healthy development of her kid. Therefore, as a gatekeeper, the implication of the question she poses to the kid does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that she would not care what the kid might have gone through or learn experientially in that school. Having clarified the possibility of this misconception, this author would suggest that the question initiated by the mother serves better to secure more freedom for her kid to establish his own unique life-web, within which his character, value judgement, and life experience can be relationally established, critically well informed, and holistically enriched. If this understanding is convincing, the light it sheds on the educational issues identified by the leaders of Hong Kong could be, in the form of a question, like this: Isn’t it the fact that the recent calls for “character education”, “life education”, “value education”, and even “parent education” in Hong Kong actually point to every individual person rather than the system within which they dwell since the most favourable condition for the cultivation of these virtues from a phronetic perspective is the lived experience provided by those who share a

11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark

209

common “living” space with the students? They are supposed to be friends, relatives, and of course parents who may have more than one offspring. With this regard, we are all practitioners of education, and that education in practice is the business of every one just as what Dewey’s words: “Education is life”, seems to imply. If there is no objection to the above argument, we in fact tend to admit the limitations of mass schooling as a system in terms of its capacity in enhancing character formation in practice. The more the instrumental functioning of schooling is emphasized the less its moral impact can be secured. The abuse of the notion of “effectiveness” within the context of competition manifests itself in the compression of time and intensification of work for purposes other than education itself conducive to the eclipse of a genuine dialogical space, a precondition for the possibility of reaching mutual understanding followed by more self-understanding, the dynamics emerging out of which is where virtues can be habituated guided by certain values and character built and formed. We may often hear complaints concerning the issue of what is taught in the school setting cannot be materialized in real life. Perhaps, the counter-argument could be launched in this way: schooling would only become meaningful when every student brings their lived experience into the classroom as a resourceful person. By resourceful I mean the purpose of students’ going to school is to give rather than merely take from a phronetic perspective. It entails that the involvement of parents as exemplars at “home” and facilitators in the daily life of the kids is crucial. This closing remark points to the fact that the possibility of growth in understanding what education is all about on the side of parents is crucial. Therefore, parents’ involvement is not just a trendy gimmick for securing “likes”, but a MUST as long as we endorse the idea that “character education”, “value education”, “moral education” and the like that involve the cultivation of judgement and discernment in particular context where action rather than lecture could engender practical impact could only be achieved in practice outside the current classroom setting. Therefore, it is not the question of the extent to which parents could embrace this shift of paradigm in education, but rather the issue of who is at the end of the day responsible for the education of our children. Given the fact that it takes a certain period of time for little kids to become responsible persons in a self-motivated manner and the assumption that the schooling system could still be entrusted to make contributions to this process, it should also be an indisputable claim that parents are the gatekeepers both in terms of their inborn relationship with their kids and the tradition the kids are endowed with in association with their parents to begin their life journey of self-understanding and learning with the presence of their significant others so that the character of this “self” could be developed healthily in a relational manner. It is with this understanding that this manuscript could be said to have initiated an idea to transform the practice of education.

210

11 A Conclusion with an Inconclusive Remark

References Carr, W. (1987). What is an educational practice? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 21(2), 163–175. Cheng, L., & Leung, K. (2021, Aug 1). Education Bureau cuts all ties with teachers’ union. South China Morning Post, Politics, p. 7. Hansen, D. T. (2001). Exploring the moral heart of teaching: Toward a teacher’s creed. Teachers College Press. Hui, P. K. [許寶強] (2015).《缺學無思_香港教育的文化研究》(Que xue wu si: Xianggang jiao yu de wen hua yan jiu) [The Absence of thought in learning: Hong Kong education in light of cultural studies]. Oxford University Press. Jackson, P. W. (2012). What is education? University of Chicago Press. Stone, M. V. (2008). Symposium on Outcome-based Approaches in Student Learning: “Quality Education, Quality Outcomes: The Way Forward for Hong Kong. (Welcome message given by the Secretary-General of the University Grant Committee on 18 June 2008 at the Jockey Club Auditorium, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University) https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/ugc/public ation/speech/2008/sp20080618.htm