CHECK THE PERCEPTUAL EXTREME

 

To carry on with the series of postings, this blog has been presenting a view that argues civics education, and social studies in general, should focus on the local communities of students.  In that effort, this posting presents a taxonomy useful in developing a curriculum aimed at instituting such a change. 

The general idea has been that extreme levels of individualism and self-centeredness have encouraged a high degree of deviant behavior.  Students dealing with local issues and residents are judged to shift students’ concerns from themselves to others.  This is particularly true if opportunities to interact with neighbors or other community members, face-to-face, are possible.

The last posting introduced Stephen Toulmin’s argument model – one that presents a conclusion and the logical elements one should provide to make a case for that conclusion.[1]  That presentation is judged to be useful in forming a taxonomy, presented below, that would, in turn, assist educators devising an appropriate curriculum that would focus on local issues and problems.

          This blogger has tentatively devised this taxonomy based on Toulmin’s model.  Basically, Toulmin expands the syllogistic model of logic and demands that arguments be based on externally verifiable “warrant” statements which are really generalizations or laws.  Summarily, the presented taxonomy begins with various attributes.

 These attributes include skills dealing with conceptualizing and dealing with variables, a set of skills that has the students devise generalizations, and use them in identifying, evaluating, and formulating defensible arguments.  While presented as a process, these attributes should more appropriately be seen as individual elements that can be utilized as needed.

This blogger believes that a communal, problem-solving curriculum will both place students in the social setting where they begin to define meaning beyond individual concerns – be they materialist or otherwise – and help empower them with the proper skills and the acquisition of functional substantive knowledge to help them in the modern global economy.  It will also help students grasp the function and meaning of societal norms that check deviant behavior.

How?  As students deal with social institutions in local settings, they can begin to appreciate, implicitly, the necessity for social order and that personal success is based on organizational opportunities.  And to further accomplish a proper socialization of social norms, education should do away with the simplistic notions of perceptual psychology (which has become the dominant construct guiding educators[2]). 

While this blogger does not dispute the needs identified by perceptual psychology advocates, these should be couched in more encompassing theories of behavior.  The message that one need only perceive a goal and believe one can accomplish it and, further, will then transform the individual to assume all the sacrifice necessary for success, is absurd.  Notions that students can learn only in “democratic” classrooms (where they determine what is studied) or where they can learn to think and behave democratically, is equally without basis.

Proactively involving students with respected members of local communities, working under the democratic rubric of the nation’s society, with its opportunities and constraints, can be sufficient to achieve the “democratic” goals.  That includes such objectives as students appreciating that there are occasions to become involved and that they can express their preferences when it comes time to decide on policy.

This is different from a perceptual view that has defined democracy as exclusively being a system established to protect individual rights.  Actually, this does not agree with the definition of many constitutional scholars.  They see democracy exclusively based on a more communally founded system that allows collective action based on majority rule.[3]

But this is not the fault of the perceptual advocates alone.  A supportive tradition has long been entrenched.  Modern developments have made the intrinsic, dysfunctional nature of that tradition evident and acute.  All institutions will have to address the challenges that excessive individualism poses to American institutions.  The educational institution, including its curriculum workers, are not immune.  And with this inclusionary observation, this series of postings comes to an end.

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[1] See Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 1958).  A logical argument contains:

·       a datum statement (e.g., since Daniel is a union laborer),

·       a claim (e.g., therefore, Daniel is a registered Democratic voter),

·       a warrant statement (e.g., because organized labor has a strong partisan allegiance for the Democratic Party),

·       a backing or data statement (e.g., because union workers vote Democratic at a 51% rate as voter choices are documented by studies such as that offered by research outfits such as PRO Morning Consult),

·       a qualifier (e.g., unless Daniel is among 23% who vote Republican or otherwise), and

·       a rebuttal, (e.g., Daniel is not a union laborer or even human – perhaps a dog)

 

[2] See the posting “The Perceptual Angle,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 23, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_18_archive.html.

[3] See for example Helene Landemore, “Democratic Reason:  Politics, Collective Intelligence, and the Rule of the Many,” Yale University/Department of Political Science, 2024, accessed March 13, 2024, URL:  https://politicalscience.yale.edu/publications/democratic-reason-politics-collective-intelligence-and-rule-many.  

GETTING TO THE ABSTRACT

 

To this point, this blog, through a series of postings,[1] has developed an argument that promotes a basic change to social studies, particularly civics.  That is, that that portion of a school curriculum should focus its efforts on the social realities of students’ local communities.  This would counter the ever-increasing levels of individualism and self-centeredness that have affected the nation and led to a good deal of dysfunctional elements within the American society such as polarized politics.

          The last posting, “Localize It,”[2] indicated that this posting would, as an example, describe a construct, nativist theories, offered by Jerome Bruner.  Those theories state that the mind “is inherently or innately shaped by a set of underlying categories, hypotheses, forms of organizing experiences.”[3]

          In other words, instruction should not be so concerned, as pedagogues have encouraged classroom teachers to be, with teaching inductive skills, such as with inquiry models of instruction based on the scientific method.  One should recognize that the mind already operates in such a fashion as to approximate that process.  What is needed are experiences that further the student to feel and appreciate the function of disciplinary knowledge.  This idea is original with John Dewey in his promotion of “occupations” for elementary students.[4]

          More specifically, community-based activities and skills at the secondary level can act as a continuance of Dewey’s aim and as a bridge from the elementary school efforts to the goals of higher education and adult communal life.  The ultimate aim is for students to more centrally view their local environs as the natural setting where political realities come to bear on their welfare and that of their neighbors.

          Cognitive processes used for pedagogical purposes should not be limited by scientific logic and concern.  To advance the social action skills (introduced in the last posting) and the communal agenda described above, relevant cognitive skills should be based on a continuum because different students act on different levels of abstraction when it comes to schoolwork or life in general.

          It is believed by this blogger, based on his years of teaching and as a parent, that children operate at all levels of abstraction even at the earliest grades.[5]  The problem lies in applying abstract thinking to sophisticated and to some degree foreign cognitive substance or content.  A continuum is needed by teachers to devise activities that are both suitable for their students and functional for handling the issues, problems, or other situations a teacher chooses to study.

          One such continuum is suggested by an argumentation model, offered by Stephen Toulmin.[6]  To see a summary account of Toulmin’s model, see this blogger book, Toward a Federated Nation, in its subsection, “Toulmin’s Elements of a Logical Argument.”[7]  But for those not so disposed, here is a thumbnail summary.  A logical argument contains:

 

•   a datum statement (e.g., since Daniel is a union laborer),
•   a claim (e.g., therefore, Daniel is a registered Democratic voter),
•   a warrant statement (e.g., because organized labor has a strong partisan allegiance for the Democratic Party),
•   a backing or data statement (e.g., union workers vote Democratic at a 51% rate as voter choices are documented by studies such as that offered by research outfits such as PRO Morning Consult),
•  a qualifier (e.g., unless Daniel is among 23% who vote Republican or otherwise), and
•  a rebuttal, (e.g., Daniel is not a union laborer or even human – perhaps a dog)

 

The distinction here, simplistic but illustrative, between these elements and the inductive, scientific processes that were prominent among progressive educators, is that generalization formation – such as a scientific finding – is not the end or goal.  The end is to have students generate knowledge useful in solving issues or problems and dealing with community sources.

          If devised and used correctly, such a continuum or taxonomy can assist students in overcoming their apparent inability or reluctance to think abstractly.  The purpose is to have students deal with it at an appropriate level.  Then the lesson allows the students to work toward resolution in their natural fashion of problem-solving.  The next posting will review a taxonomy this blogger has devised using Toulmin’s model to further illustrate what this blog is promoting.

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[1] This series of postings begins with the posting, “Early On.”  See Robert Gutierrez, “Early On,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 13, 2024, accessed March 10, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_02_11_archive.html.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Localize It,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, March 8, 2024, accessed March 10, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2024_03_03_archive.html.

[3] Jerome Bruner, “Models of the Learner,” Educational Researcher, June/July 1985, 5-8, 6.

[4] Herbert M. Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum:  1893-1958 (New York, NY:  Routledge, 1986).

[5] For example, a form or type of abstract thinking is hypothesizing.  See “Hypothesizing:  How Toddlers Use Scientific Thinking to Learn,” Baby Sparks/Cognitive, June 9, 2020, accessed March 9, 2024, URL:  https://babysparks.com/2020/06/09/hypothesizing-how-toddlers-use-scientific-thinking-to-learn/.

[6] Stephen Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (New York, NY:  Cambridge University Press, 1958.  For a summary review of the Toulmin’s model, see this blogger’s book,

[7] Robert Gutierrez, Toward a Federated Nation:  Implementing National Civics Standards (Tallahassee, FL:  Gravitas/Civics Books, 2020).  Available through Amazon and other booksellers.  The referred to subsection begins on page 86.