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Not, of course, that we are always logical in our educational prescriptions.
At the same time as doing untold damage to the self- esteem
of young people, by explaining to them that they are incapable of
learning without the support of drugs, we insist that everything possible
should be done to boost the self-esteem of all young people. We
know, or think that we know, that high self-esteem is a characteristic
of capable people, so we therefore conclude, quite wrongly, that if we
boost self-esteem we will make people capable. Increasing people’s
self-esteem will help their performance up to a point, but nowhere
near as much as an accurate self-evaluation of their performance. We
can all think of (at least a few) people who are brimming with selfesteem,
but who are fundamentally incapable in their professional
area. If boosting self-esteem is an answer, it is at best a very partial
answer, and runs the risk of infantilizing learners by suggesting that
they cannot learn without the constant emotional crutch of praise.
But at a broader social and cultural level, promissory materialism
can also do considerable damage, by diverting much needed
resources away from education and into other areas of research
which have not been shown to have any benefi cial effect on education
at all.
There is the further diffi culty that a pseudo-scientifi c association
between mind and brain has the function of legitimizing certain activities
over others in an unjustifi ed way. Thus, games that are seen as
‘brain training’ come to be seen as legitimate, while those that are not
come to be seen as ‘play’ and ‘time wasting’. I think that we need to be
quite clear about this. I do not, in any way, object to the idea of games
being educational, or of learning through play. But adults specialize in
turning play into work for children. For example, Froebel structured
the education of young children around a series of ‘gifts’, typically a
set of wooden bricks that could be used in imaginative play to build
a house, a ship, a shop, a dining room suite, a box of chocolates, in
fact anything that a more fertile imagination than mine might like
to envisage. But Froebel’s followers could not resist adding books of
instructions, with blueprints, indicating exactly how the blocks could
be used to build a palace, or an ocean liner. Those followers were, presumably,
keen to promote effi ciency and ‘time on task’.
At which point it stops being play and becomes children’s work, and
children are particularly adept at spotting that particular transition.
Education cannot be improved by an effi ciency drive and a time and
motion study. We all know that we learn best when we are not on task.
The richest learning comes when we have prepared ourselves well, but
are perhaps not concentrating too intently at the instant – perhaps
thinking about something quite different – when suddenly we have
an insight that makes everything much clearer. Sleep may also play
a role in this process, as when we fall asleep thinking about a problem.
We do not, however, learn while we are asleep; we learn when
we wake with a new idea to try out, and refl ect consciously on the
application of that idea. So, for example, I may fall asleep after an
extended search for a book, and wake with a new thought about a
place where I might look for it. My learning comes from going and
checking whether the book is where I dreamt it was, not from my
dreaming about the book. Learning is a process of developing selfmanagement
through a sequence of personal experiences.
Anything that suggests that learning can be, or should be, an effi -
cient process that is disconnected from experience is likely to have a
damaging infl uence on education at all the levels described above.
That would include everything from the notion that we can measure
intelligence independently from the experience of the person concerned
to the idea that people can learn effectively without refl ection,
perhaps while unconscious in sleep. But of all of those simplistic, and
damaging, approaches to education, the most damaging is that intelligence
can be boosted pharmacologically, and that thinking better
is about increasing the connections between neurons in the brain.
People are complex, self-regulating systems with multiple feedback
loops. This means that it is impossible to predict precisely what
anyone will do in particular circumstances. I am not sure what that
means for the future of educational research or for the opportunities
that are available to improve educational practice. What I am
clear about is that thinking of ourselves as any kind of calculating
machine is going to impede our progress along that path. And the
belief that a pill can be used to make us smarter is a symptom of how
little we have understood about how we really do learn.
A cynic might suggest that promissory materialism was less of a
research strategy, and more of a promissory note designed to transfer
research resources from the cash-strapped area of educational research
and into the resource-rich area of medical research. But whether that
is a deliberate strategy or not, it should hardly be medics and psychologists
who have the fi nal word on the transfer of that money.
However, this is not only about confl ict between cognate areas of
the social sciences. We can see similar struggles fought out over ‘big
science’ and ‘little science’ in such areas as physics and chemistry.
Faced with the need to justify the expenditure of several million
pounds of public money on research, government agencies fi nd it
easier to contemplate large, high technology projects in preference
to a larger number of small projects of lower technical status but of
higher social impact. In this way research on nuclear energy wins
out over energy conservation measures, research on new drugs treatments
appeals more than preventative medicine and large scale
urban restructuring looks more attractive than repairing the existing
housing stock. The grand gesture appeals to politicians more
than solid hard work below the radar of public attention, especially
if it involves investment in shiny new technical equipment. The glamour
of promissory materialism can be very persuasive.
On the other hand, there is little incentive or appetite for private
investment in education, a sphere that is dominated by public institutions.
Research into a potential smart drug may lead to the opening
up of a market of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, quite
apart form the legitimate use of that drug to treat Parkinson’s disease
or senile dementia. Few areas of educational research can offer anything
like the returns available to pharmaceutical companies. And
while there is little scope for private profi t to infl uence investment
in educational research, the converse is not the case; government
funding is often encouraged to fl ow into areas where there is private
investment. This can result in even less funding of educational
research than would otherwise be the case.
The idea that intelligence has a basis that is purely physical, therefore,
leads to damage at a number of levels in the education system.
The most damaging, because the most widespread, is the fact that it
supports the idea, accepted by many individual learners, that they are
incapable. As Dweck (1999) has noted, those who believe that intelligence
depends upon some physical endowment that they lack, rapidly
learn patterns of helplessness. Also at a personal level, although
as yet, mercifully, on a less widespread scale, individual interventions
to ‘treat’ learning disorders do untold damage. Rather than learn to
accommodate difference, and fi nd a way where a broad range of talent
can be recognized, we classify the abnormal as pathological, and
set about its treatment.
However, our concerns should extend beyond the question of
whether some questionable classroom practices are gaining in popularity,
or whether some charlatans are growing rich from selling an
attractive but useless recipe for improvement. The attitudes which
make brain training attractive extend into a very wide range of policy
questions, not least who is considered an appropriate ‘expert’ to
comment on educational issues.
The radio programme, The Defeat of Sleep (BBC, 2007), which fi rst set
me off on an exploration of the issues behind smart drugs, included
commentary from a range of specialists. These included specialists
in sleep disorders, animal psychologists, neuro-pharmacologists,
psychologists, medical ethicists and parents. Notable for its absence
was any perspective from a specialist in education. Almost by defi nition,
specialists in education are deemed to be non-specialists. It is
another strand of promissory materialism that the knowledge held
by teachers and educationists is due, shortly, to be overtaken by the
knowledge provided by ‘hard’ scientists, at which point the public
will have access to a full understanding of education, and the teachers
and specialists in education will be redundant. Nor is it enough
that such action should be threatened for the future; in anticipation
we already seek the views of other specialists on education ahead of
those who actually work in schools and classrooms. We need, therefore,
to be extremely wary of always thinking that other specialists,
particularly doctors and psychologists, have direct access to some
special understanding of educational issues.
These attitudes are multiplied through a process of funding
research which itself relies upon expert opinion. You can be fairly
sure that any proposed research which addresses questions of learning
and teaching will be scrutinized by psychologists, who will be
invited to give an opinion as to whether the proposal constitutes
good research or not. Those who have most to gain, therefore, from
an adherence to promissory materialism, and an acceptance of medical
models of development, have a powerful say in where money is
invested for future research in education. It is perhaps relevant to
compare the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and
the British Psychological Association (BPS). In 2007, BERA employed
two members of staff, maintained offi ces in Macclesfi eld (BERA,
2008) and published two regular journals, while the BPS employed
127 staff, maintained its head offi ce in Leicester and regional offi ces
in Belfast, Cardiff, Glasgow and London (BPS, 2007) and published
a dozen journals. Of course, the interests and activities of the BPS are
not by any means restricted to educational psychology, but this contrast
does highlight rather dramatically the difference in resources
which are available in the two fi elds of endeavour.
There are important dangers here, especially when the pursuit of
research funding has become an end in itself, and not merely a means
of securing resources for research, that funding will be diverted away
from research that is of value for the practice of education and into
areas that are of interest mainly to researchers in other fi elds. This
is partly the case in relation to the involvement of psychologists in
educational research, as psychologists tend to lean towards medical
models of research themselves, and to have little interest in the more
diffi cult areas of classroom research or the messiness of everyday
educational settings. But it is, of course, much worse in the case of
medical research. All of that work that is being done to use brain
scans to identify which parts of the brain are active in which circumstances
has to be paid for, and educational research can ill-afford
the diversion of money and effort into areas that are of little current
interest.
But having come this far, what stands out is the extent to which the
contrary opinion dominates education policy and public pronouncements
on education. The idea that medical models are appropriate
for educational settings is at the heart of any attempt to medicate
ourselves to better ways of thinking. Attention Defi cit Hyperactivity
Disorder is described as a medical condition which can be appropriately
treated with drugs. This ignores entirely the obvious fact that
failure to pay attention and an inclination towards restlessness are a
perfectly appropriate response on the part of a normal human being
to certain social settings. For me, that might be exposure to large
amounts of soap operas and reality TV, or a pep talk on the importance
of commercial values to academe. For others it might be a professorial
lecture or having to read a book on brain science. But in
neither case would medication be the appropriate response.
We are in danger of falling too easily into a mindset where learning
is seen as being automatically better than not learning, and change is
seen as being preferable to lack of change. Worse than that, we are in
danger of stating that learning and changing are ‘normal’ states of
affairs, and that failure to learn, or failure to change, is a symptom
of some underlying malady or a sign of psychological or emotional
weakness or immaturity. Learning and change are characterized as
‘challenging’, and those who are unable to embrace them need support
to overcome their emotional response to that challenge.
This involves a very serious narrowing of what counts as a normal,
human response. There are some things that should not be learned,
and there are some changes that should be resisted because they
are unimportant, irrelevant or simply the refl ection of the latest fad.
The idea that resistance to learning and change are symptoms of a
medical condition is dehumanizing. In order to overcome this very
prevalent trend in educational thought, we should, perhaps, seek out
exemplars of heroic resistance to learning and/or change. We might
start with Nelson Mandela’s refusal to learn that it was appropriate
to base a society on racial discrimination. We might continue with
Johannes Kepler’s refusal to learn that planets travel on unpredictable
paths. And we might round off with consideration of George
Washington’s inability to learn that a politician should be economical
with the truth. No doubt, that is not the end of the examples,
and the reader may have his or her own favourites.
We should therefore be seriously concerned about this approach to
education as a physical, medical process. It is widespread – ‘Everyone
knows you can prevent muscle loss with exercise, and use such activities
to improve your body over time. And the same could be said
for your brain’ (Nintendo, 2006) – but it is mistaken. It is based on
the same thinking that leads us to believe that medication can be
effective in promoting better thinking. Both are rooted in a simplistic
materialism.
It is also worth noting that, from a very different perspective, Popper
argued that our knowledge has an existence that is in some ways
independent of our knowing it. Statements can be true or false, quite
independently of how strongly we believe in them or how repugnant
we fi nd them. Different pieces of knowledge, and the implications of
different assumptions, interact and have consequences quite independently
of our convenience. Knowledge is not the sum total of what
is held in our brains; it is something else beyond that. Consequently,
learning cannot be a process of establishing the right connections
between our neurons.
Yet we fi nd it very easy to talk as though it was our brain that
needed educating rather than us. We are certainly comfortable
about book titles such as The Brain’s Behind It, or The Learning Brain.
And, thanks to Nintendo, the expression ‘brain training’ and the
idea that a young brain is better than an old one, seem to be entering
the popular consciousness. We even see organizations, such as the
International Brain Education Association, dedicated to spreading
the word that what we need is better educated brains.
It is, of course, obvious, but nevertheless needs to be stressed, that
brains do not exist in isolation. We learn and develop in social contexts,
and what we understand is shaped by the way in which we learn
it and the people who help us to learn. For this reason, education and
an understanding of learning can never be reduced to psychology.
For the opposite reasons, education can never be reduced to sociology
either. Learning and education is not only or exclusively about
the social, but also involves the internal, the mental process, and in
particular the self-management of those mental processes. Education
stands at the cusp between the personal and the social and cannot
be properly understood if either of those aspects is omitted.
Again, the way in which Vygotsky explained learning, as involving
fi rst an interpersonal cycle in which the individual can be helped
and supported in a task, followed by an intrapersonal cycle in which
the person has to decide for him- or herself how to incorporate the
learning of the fi rst cycle into their personal frameworks for understanding,
is helpful. Indeed, in performing this intrapersonal cycle,
the person is developing their own person, providing the terms of
reference within which they will exercise self-discipline.
This is not a negative comment, or a suggestion that education is
too diffi cult to understand. On the contrary, it suggests that education
is a good and positive focus for social science research, as any
problem that might arise in other areas of study must arise even
more severely in education. This suggests that developing a better
understanding of education may help in the development of other,
and better, social sciences.
Overall, I have used the idea of ‘smart drugs’, medication that can
enhance mental function, as a way of examining our assumptions about
intelligence, learning and education in general. The most important
fi nding was the very strong infl uence that promissory materialism has
on thinking in this area. Even where authors are quite critical of a
simplistic use of brain science, and even when they deliberately set
out to dispel false ideas arising from neuroscience, they seem to fi nd
it impossible to relinquish the hope that in some unspecifi ed future,
near or far, brain science will provide all the answers that we need to
understand education and learning. The idea that we are calculating
machines and that biology is on the verge of providing us with the
instruction manual dies very hard.
In contrast with this, the long history of brain science has been
more notable for its failures than for its successes. With the benefi t
of hindsight, and some distance, we can now see that phrenology
was a misleading diversion from the road to understanding human
development. What is less clear is whether we have really learned the
lesson, or whether we are in danger of repeating similar mistakes
with greater technical effi ciency.
The most sceptical voice is that of Bruer (1997), who argued that
the idea that brain science could inform education was ‘a bridge
too far’. But the implication of this is that the connection between
brain science and psychology, and between psychology and education,
are not bridges too far. Psychology will one day be explained
in terms of brain science, which is exactly the promise of promissory
materialism.
That particular link is not central to my concerns. I do not believe
that psychology can be seen as capable of reduction to a materialist
base, but if it can, that is simply another indication of the weakness
of psychology. Vygotsky argued that one of the reasons why psychology
was so poor in explanatory power was because psychologists
restricted themselves to a single, simple mechanism, mainly that of
stimulus and response. He also argued that one consequence of that
failing is that psychology is much more effective when dealing with
lower mental functions – functions that are the most basic, instinctive
and animal in us – than in dealing with higher mental functions. In
short, if the bridge between brain science and psychology is sound, it
is because it links to the least interesting parts of psychology.
I certainly do not wish to deny that there are more interesting parts
to psychology, particularly in more recent developments in social
psychology. But if psychology could be reduced to neuroscience, that
would be because it was a very poor psychology indeed.
Looking at the second bridge, from psychology to education, that
is a bridge that is of more concern to me, but it seems no more secure
than the fi rst. Education is not a process that is concerned exclusively
with what happens in the consciousness of a single individual.
Vygotsky reminds us that all higher mental functions start out as relationships
between people. Learning and development depend upon
social interaction and social context. Learning is not about the content
of a single, isolated mind, much less about the connections of a
single, isolated brain.
But perhaps equally importantly, we need to overturn the materialistic
understanding which is widely held, including by those who have
political responsibility for regulating the state system of education.
Morris (2008: 9), a former Secretary of State for education in the
UK, suggests that when politicians face a decision, and the evidence
contradicts their instincts or common sense, they are more likely to
rely upon their instincts. The very fact that she presents the idea that
a political choice might be a matter of instinct gives a hint that a
materialistic viewpoint lurks in her formulation of political and educational
processes:
And sometimes politicians have this battle between what the evidence
tells them and what their political instincts tell them and on
most occasions they’ll back their political instincts more than they
will the evidence; that’s the nature of being a politician. (Morris,
2008: 9)
Although Morris goes on to note that this is specifi c to education, in the
sense that in the area of health politicians are unlikely to get involved
in the same level of detail, it is important to understand exactly what
those instincts are. And this is especially true because, as I have noted,
everybody believes that they know about education, and reliance on
common sense, outdated practices or personal anecdotes is rife.
Introducing an educational system which focuses on changing
people for the better and developing self-management is extremely
important. Society has moved on from a time when people could be
forced to learn because those in authority said so. Teachers feel this
loss of authority particularly keenly. But there is no going back. Nor is
there any going back to the days when those who could not be forced
into education could be expelled from it. Nowadays, everybody must
be educated in order that they can survive in today’s complex society.
The way forward is to embrace the idea of an education for selfmanagement
and self-development, and engage learners as active
partners in designing their own education. But this will not be possible
so long as a wider public thinks of education in material terms,
as something that is done to them, as skills and knowledge (or worse
still, certifi cates) that they acquire on their passage through school.
In this context, we can see how damaging demands for more and
more externally imposed discipline are. They defer, postpone or
abort the real project, which is the development of self-discipline.
And at the same time we need to be educating everybody else who
has a stake in education.
