The Infant Brain

Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time today is on The Infact Brain - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r2cn4 (time limited, copy below).

My take on it: The current position is a combination of Piaget's constructivism, Chomski's hard wired, and brain neuro-science. Children even at 1 or 2 years old are logical, but have insufficient knowledge to tackle problems as an adult would. The solution is that we need to give them more knowledge/information quicker so that they can work things out. The worst thing we can do is to give them misinformation which will delay their rationality because falsehoods are presented to them as truth. Adult talk to children is always about fairies, father christmas and other irrational beings which will get in the way of developing rationality. Children need accurate knowledge and information from the beginning if they are to develop rationally. They do not need childish language or ideas, and lies (however good the cause) are a form of abuse. So goodbye Santa Claus.

Programme blurb (copyright BBC):

Melvyn Bragg and guests Usha Goswami, Annette Karmiloff-Smith and Denis Mareschal discuss what new research reveals about the infant brain.

For obvious reasons, what happens in the minds of very young, pre-verbal children is elusive. But over the last century, the psychology of early childhood has become a major subject of study.

Some scientists and researchers have argued that children develop skills only gradually, others that many of our mental attributes are innate.

Sigmund Freud concluded that infants didn't differentiate themselves from their environment.

The pioneering Swiss child psychologist Jean Piaget thought babies' perception of the world began as a 'blooming, buzzing confusion' of colour, light and sound, before they developed a more sophisticated worldview, first through the senses and later through symbol.

More recent scholars such as the leading American theoretical linguist Noam Chomsky have argued that the fundamentals of language are there from birth. Chomsky has famously argued that all humans have an innate, universally applicable grammar.

Over the last ten to twenty years, new research has shed fresh light on important aspects of the infant brain which have long been shrouded in mystery or mired in dispute, from the way we start to learn to speak to the earliest understanding that other people have their own minds.

With:

Usha Goswami, Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge and Director of its Centre for Neuroscience in Education

Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Professorial Research Fellow at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at the Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London

Denis Mareschal, Professor of Psychology at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck College, University of London.

FURTHER READING

Gliga, T., Mareschal, D. & Johnson, M. H., ‘Ten-month-olds' selective use of visual dimensions in category learning’, in ‘Infant Behavior and Development’, 31, 287-293, (2008)

Goswami, U., ‘The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development: 2nd Edition’, ‘Blackwell Handbooks of Developmental Psychology’ (Oxford: Blackwell, August 2010)

Goswami, U., ‘Cognitive Development: The Learning Brain’ in ‘Psychology Press’ (Taylor & Francis, 2008)

Goswami, U.,‘Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development’ (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002 & 2004)

Johnson, Mark H., ‘Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience’ (Oxford, Uk: Blackwells Publishers, 2004)

Karmiloff, K. & Karmiloff-Smith, A., ‘Pathways to language: From foetus to adolescent’ in ‘Developing Child Series’ (Harvard University Press, 2001)

Karmiloff-Smith, A., ‘Beyond Modularity: A Developmental Perspective on Cognitive Science’ (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press/Bradford Books, 1992, reprinted 1995).

Karmiloff, K. & Karmiloff-Smith, A., ‘Everything your baby would ask if only he/she could talk’ (London: Cassell/Ward Lock, 1998)

Mareschal, Denis, Quinn, Paul C. and Lea, Stephen E. G., ‘The Making of Human Concepts’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2010)

Mareschal, D. Johnson, M. H., Sirois, S., Spratling, M., Thomas, M. & Westermann, G., ‘Neuroconstuctivism Vol. 1: How the brain constructs cognition’ (Oxford UK: OUP, 2007)

Paul Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion

Ricoeur and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion, by Alison Scott-Baumann, Continuum Studies in Continental Philosophy, 2009. x + 327 pages, price: £65.00.

The works of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) have become more accessible recently thanks to reasonably priced reprints by the University of Chicago Press. His Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative and Imagination (1995, Fortress Press) brings his work firmly into the orbit of this journal. Living through the 20th century creates “an existential sadness” and yet “the supposedly empty space between the opposites we create is in fact teeming with our desires, fears, illusions and fantasies and our enormous potential to do good” (p.170). He opposed French imperial actions in Algeria, and opposed the rigid secularism in France that forbade hijab dress code for Muslim girls in schools and denied young people an education. The masters of suspicion were Marx, Freud and Nietzsche, declaring scepticism about economics, psychoanalysis and genealogy. Ricoeur wished to learn from this, but in a balanced way, since out of control scepticism is self defeating, as nothing thereafter can be meaningful. These three cannot make meaning for us: “we have to do it ourselves” (p.176). For Ricoeur, suspicion has to balance negative with positive. He used the term ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ for a while, but then hermeneutics and suspicion separately as ambiguities began to emerge. Suspicion is important because it is iconoclastic, it holds no hostages.

Scott-Baumann starts by way of introduction with Cartesian doubt. Then, in Ricoeur’s hermeneutics I, covers the archaeology of suspicion, Marx, Nietzsche and Freud, the “masters of suspicion”, ending with the use and abuse of the phrase “hermeneutics of suspicion”. Its abuse by other writers led Ricoeur to stop using the phrase as it had become ambiguous, whilst still focusing on the twin ideas of hermeneutics and suspicion. In Ricoeur’s hermeneutics II, Scott-Baumann covers the theory of interpretation, linguistic analysis, methodological dialectics and philosophical anthropology. Finally Ricoeur’s hermeneutics III deals with recovery, interesting not least for linking Ricoeur’s positivity with the journalism of Robert Fisk, seeking a balance between justice and forgiveness to prevent the paralysis of negativity.

This is an important book by a writer in full control of her material and with a clear and readable writing style, on a topic that is significant for both education and religious studies. It goes to the heart of Ricoeur’s thinking, the need for suspicion so that our understanding and knowledge is not subject to other people’s honest or dishonest persuasiveness. However, if that suspicion is total, its negativity will be paralysing and we are left only with despair and absence of meaning. Ricoeur sees this as a symptom of post-modernity, and argues that the only route out of this is by giving a fair place to love and justice. That he allows religion, and Christianity in particular as it is his tradition, to be part of this mix does not make him a Christian apologist. Here too, the principle of suspicion gives him a critical edge, and his theology is far from naive. In a sense he lines up with the humanistic Frankfurt School of critical studies, but with Husserl’s assistance leaves Marxism well behind, a brick in a complex philosophical edifice but not the edifice itself. Scott-Baumann’s topic in this book is an essential introduction to Ricoeur’s thinking over a long life; but Ricoeur’s work was vast, leaving her much work still needing to be done on his wide ranging and multi-disciplinary philosophy. I look forward to further volumes. Since his philosophical writing is dense, this will help us all. I fully recommend this book. It is priced as for library purchase, and well worth ordering. For further reading, I also recommend the official Ricoeur website in French and English, http://www.fondsricoeur.fr.

International Perspectives on Education.

Other contributions to the book referred to in the previous post. Most, described here, discuss holistic education and the importance of emotional engagement (care).

Colleen McLaughlin: 'Reforming the Connections: the personal, social and cognitive in learning and young people's lives'.
We need to repair and reconnect the links between personal, social and cognitive learning - that is develop holistic strategies. Teachers' own learning about their practice has to be central in this. "It will involve us in taking seriously our relationships and the messages we send to students about themselves and the learning process" (p.39).
Kristjan Kristjansson: 'Self-esteem, self-confidence and individualized education'.
Self-esteem has been wrongly over-emphasised. Feeling good about ourselves can be counter productive and self deceptive. Self-confidence is more important and should be the teacher's goal.
John P. Miller: 'The Thinking Heart: educating for wisdom and compassion'.
Advocates holistic education with inspiration from Buddhism.
Trevor Kerry: 'The art and science of effective teaching'.
Forget skills and competence. Teaching is about being an effective communicator of an accurate message which has roots in art and science.
George Jacobs: 'Making thinking audible and visible via cooperative learning.'
The importance of building cooperation into class strategies.
Alan J Bishop and Wee Tiong Seah: 'Educating values: possibilities and challenges through mathematics teaching'.
Maths teaching should be rooted in values, and various projects are discussed to develop aspects of this.
Michalinos Zembylas: 'Practising an ethic of caring in teacing: challenges and possibilities'.
Teaching should involve caring. This is an emotional labour. The argument is rooted in the work of L. Goldstein, Reclaiming Caring in Teaching and Teacher Education (2002).

Howard Gardner.

This is to share some thoughts on Howard Gardner from his recent paper 'Multiple lenses on the mind' in International Perspectives on Education, edited by Chau Meng Huat and Trevor Kerry (Continuum). He summarised his multiple intelligences as 8 (or 9 - his words, the ninth being existential/spiritual. The eight are: linguistic, logical mathematical, musical, spacial, bodily kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist. This model is to recognise diversity and to escape from the IQ test model of an umbrella intelligence.

On 'Changing Minds' (and see the book of that name), he lists seven levers of mind changing: reason,

research,
resonance,
redescription,
rewards and resources,
real world events, and
resistances overcome.

On 'Five Minds for the Future', he lists

the disciplined mind
the synthesizing mind
the creative mind
the respectful mind and
the ethical mind.

The final two of these he suggests are of greatest value.

He ends with Margaret Mead's dictum, "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, its the only thing that ever has."

William Golding

Readers of Lord of the Flies or viewers of the film, will remember the twins. They were real kids in Golding's class in Bishop Wordsworth School in Salisbury. One is my neighbour; the other's funeral took place on Friday. Rest in peace and love to the family.

See also http://learnlivethrive.blogspot.com/2009/11/tony-brown-and-william-golding.html

Kurt Lewin, Action Research and Changing Culture.

Resolving Social Conflicts* was a collection of papers published together in 1948. The long tradition of action research dates from this time. Lewin was interested in social relations and conflict between national and racial groups. A German Jewish refugee in America, these cultures interested him most. And what interested him most was the possibility o and mechanisms for change. He conducted what he called experiments in social space, including a comparison between a democratic and autocratic ethos in a class, finding that much more hostility and negative reactions could be found in the autocratic class. He cites Lippitt, in whose experiments people reacting against authoritarianism did not react against the leader but against some scapegoat who they could bully with impunity. He concluded that authoritarian produces a hostile society without fellow feeling or altruism. Lewin comments, "The social climate in which a child lives is for the child as important as the air he breathes" (p.66). People are shaped by the cultures they grow up in.

His paper 'Action Research and Minority Problems' (1946) describes an experiment he made to encourage change. People were organised in groups and came to a workshop in which they discussed desired changes, planned to implement the changes, and met regularly to evaluate progress. He collected data from the three groups to plot out the processes involved. The spirit was democratic. In order to evaluate progress, the group has to know what progress might look like, or " lack of standards by which to measure progress" (p.143). He argued that new approaches were needed to study processes - interviews and surveys just could not catch the subtleties. An experiment was needed. For the research process, he gave the example of a bombing raid of a German factory. The information had to be collected through reconnaissance; a detailed plan put in place, considering all aspects and intricasies; when the mission was accomplieshed, feedback was needed, to give teeth to the evaluation. This structure was given to an experiment in inter-cultural relations.

This and similar experiences have convinced me that we should consider action, research, and training as a triangle that should be kept together for the sake of any of its corners (149)

The delegates moved from being isolated individuals to becoming cooperative teams

on the basis of readiness to face difficulties realistically, to apply honest fact-finding, and to work together to overcome them (149)

The end result was a detailed training programme owned by everyone. Lewin recognized that global solutions to problems of cultural harmonious inter-relationships are complex and require local, national and internation action over a long period.

Action Research has been used widely since then, and this workshop model is no longer a common one; but there is great value for action research to return to its roots, and seek solutions by getting practitioners to work together with stakeholders to find solutions to difficulties and differences of vision, mission and practice. Such an an action research group consisting of a teacher and the pupils could have a great impact on behaviour, achievement and ethos. Open-minded groups of politicians, practitioners and stakeholders might have made better education policy than the failed efforts of the past 22 years.

Note * published together with Field Theory in Social Science in 1951, and reprinted from 1997 onwards by the American Psychological Association.

The Authentic Person 3 Creative Tension, Openness and Morality

Sydney J Harris's 3rd and 4th lectures encouraged keeping opposites in a creative tension within a moral framework. So the bonds of marriage involve both bondage and freedom. He uses phenomenology to explore human experience. Again, what follows are my comments and not his.

This is to replace an 'either-or' frame of mind with 'both-and'. In his example, marriage binds and restricts on the one hand, yet liberates on the other. These two need to be held by both partners in balance, in creative tension, for the marriage to be healthy. In fact, readjustments will have to be made all the time, either emphasising the need for more responsibility or more freedom. Choices and decisions balance a number of points of view, sometimes contradictory. Democracy allows people to have a vote, and to be outvoted by a majority. The majority are not always right. Achieving a consensus aims at a solution that everyone can live with. Unfortunately it takes longer and assumes compromise. One intransigent individual can wreck consensus by refusing to compromise. In some cases he or she may be wrong to do this, but they may be right, especially if it is a moral matter of significant principle. Sometimes, someone has to stand up against the crowd.

Assuming that compromise does not mean 'being compromised' (i.e. feeling that we have to do something unethical), we need to define within the continuum of legitimate opposites a comfort zone within which we are prepared to trade. If others do the same, the ground is prepared for consensus. This assumes that ethics plays a central role in defining the limits of consensus and compromise. It is not that anything goes (relativism) - that gave us the ghettos and death camps. It means that there is room for manoeuvre within an ethically defensible range of choices.

The answer to many questions is yes and no. Understanding the parts we would say yes to (the pros) and those we say no to (the cons) are the ways we operate in this marginal zone of creative tension. Openness to others is easier for some than for others. People who are self-centred and disagreeable (poles of two personality traits) will find working with others difficult, and may find it hard to change. Openness comes in both dialogue (the willingness to allow another a valid point of view) and empathy (sharing in other people's emotional ups and downs0. Not wishing to hurt other people is the beginnings of morals and ethics. It is nothing to do with obeying petty rules.

Later lectures talked of polarised confrontational politics, misbalancing individual concerns with social responsibilities, and how in future we will have to live with ambiguity. Certainty is dead, although there are moral principles which are absolute. Globally, we have a lot of listening and compromising to do.

Humankind has evolved to be rational, though this is a discipline that escapes many. That should mean escape from aggressive responses and power to the strong, and to the possibility of working for the common good. The twentieth century was the most bloody in human history. What will the 21st be? What can we each do as individuals to achieve a fairer world both for humans and for other species?

So what is an authentic person? It is a dilemma. Authentic could mean true to me, and be totally self-centred. I do what I want, true to my beliefs and desires, and blow to anyone else. Or it could recognize that authentic recognizes the network of responsibilities and relationships that the self sits within. This is MacMurray's Self as Agent and Self in Relation, that as a human I have to be actively engaged, and supportive of the networks I exist within. My cats are not capable of that choice. For me, humans exist in a global network, so being authentic means promoting world progress and harmony.