educational futures: what do we need to know?

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Educational Futures: What Do We Need To Know? By Tom Deats When people believe that something has “gone wrong” with a social institution-as apparently many believe has happened to the American edu- cational system-the usual procedure is to attempt to “fix” or “repair” the “damage,” either by reordering the apparent disorder, or by disordering the apparent order. Usually such attempts are piecemeal.’ This has been the case in American education, and there are those who contend that “school improvement efforts generally have failed because they have been piecemeal. They have not focused upon systemic features of schools that enhance or retard innovative efforts.”2 In their concentration on “key fac- tors,” for example, educational reformers and researchers have often over- looked the most important systemic features that must be taken into ac- count in the study of any human social organization: human communication and information utilization. Unfortunately, so much has been written about “communication,” par- ticularly in recent years, that today the term is trivialized and distorted to such a degree that it virtually precludes the development of any coherent theory of the complex social and psychological processes involved. All too often communication has been talked and written of in terms of a social cure-all for any number of political, educational, psychological, and interpersonal problems which, more often than not, are viewed as “really” only “communication problems” solvable if people would but become more “effective” in “communicating” one with another. Communication scholars have contributed to this state of affairs as much as anyone. As one author noted several years ago, he found more than 25 conceptually different references for the term ‘communication’ in the literat~re.~ If, as Bruner has argued, the process as well as the goal of education is the development of disciplined ~nderstanding,~ it is indeed paradoxical that in the field of education the current “understanding” of the processes of change and human communication are at best merely con- fused and vaguely stated; at worst the in-use conceptualizations of change and communication have at times led to rather unfortunate consequences for individuals and educational programs. The purpose of this essay is to present a conceptually advantageous way of talking and thinking about educational change from a communica- tion point of view in order to raise a few fundamental questions regarding educational futures. The rationale for the development of an alternative way of conceiving of change and human communication processes in education lies not so much in the presentation of “yet another” point of view, as in permitting one to begin to come to grips with fundamental questions of to what extent educational futures can and/or should be determined or emer- gent. In short, questions of human social control and freedom in education. ~~~ ~ Tom Deats is Acting Chairman of the Department of Journalism at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks. 1. Stafford Beer, Cybernetics and Management (New York: John Wiley 8 Sons, Inc., 2. Richard A. Schmuck and Matthew B. Miles (eds.), Organization Development in 3. Lee Thayer, Communication and Communication Systems (Homewood, Illinois: 4. Jerome S. Bruner, On Knowing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 122. 1964), p. 40. Schools (Palo Alto, California: National Press Books, 1971), p. 14. Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1968), chap. 3. 81 VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1

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Page 1: Educational Futures: What Do We Need To Know?

Educational Futures: What Do We Need To Know?

By Tom Deats When people believe that something has “gone wrong” with a social institution-as apparently many believe has happened to the American edu- cational system-the usual procedure is to attempt to “fix” or “repair” the “damage,” either by reordering the apparent disorder, or by disordering the apparent order. Usually such attempts are piecemeal.’ This has been the case in American education, and there are those who contend that “school improvement efforts generally have failed because they have been piecemeal. They have not focused upon systemic features of schools that enhance or retard innovative efforts.”2 In their concentration on “key fac- tors,” for example, educational reformers and researchers have often over- looked the most important systemic features that must be taken into ac- count in the study of any human social organization: human communication and information utilization.

Unfortunately, so much has been written about “communication,” par- ticularly in recent years, that today the term is trivialized and distorted to such a degree that it virtually precludes the development of any coherent theory of the complex social and psychological processes involved.

All too often communication has been talked and written of in terms of a social cure-all for any number of political, educational, psychological, and interpersonal problems which, more often than not, are viewed as “really” only “communication problems” solvable if people would but become more “effective” in “communicating” one with another.

Communication scholars have contributed to this state of affairs as much as anyone. As one author noted several years ago, he found more than 25 conceptually different references for the term ‘communication’ in the l i te ra t~re .~ If, as Bruner has argued, the process as well as the goal of education is the development of disciplined ~nderstanding,~ it is indeed paradoxical that in the field of education the current “understanding” of the processes of change and human communication are at best merely con- fused and vaguely stated; at worst the in-use conceptualizations of change and communication have at times led to rather unfortunate consequences for individuals and educational programs.

The purpose of this essay is to present a conceptually advantageous way of talking and thinking about educational change from a communica- tion point of view in order to raise a few fundamental questions regarding educational futures. The rationale for the development of an alternative way of conceiving of change and human communication processes in education lies not so much in the presentation of “yet another” point of view, as in permitting one to begin to come to grips with fundamental questions of to what extent educational futures can and/or should be determined or emer- gent. In short, questions of human social control and freedom in education. ~~~ ~

Tom Deats is Acting Chairman of the Department of Journalism at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.

1. Stafford Beer, Cybernetics and Management (New York: John Wiley 8 Sons, Inc.,

2. Richard A. Schmuck and Matthew B. Miles (eds.), Organization Development in

3. Lee Thayer, Communication and Communication Systems (Homewood, Illinois:

4. Jerome S. Bruner, On Knowing (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), p. 122.

1964), p. 40.

Schools (Palo Alto, California: National Press Books, 1971), p. 14.

Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1968), chap. 3.

81 VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1

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82 EDUCATIONAL THEORY

I. A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF CHANGE

What is called for in the development of a disciplined understanding of educational change processes is not so much an empirical question as it is a conceptual clarification of the kinds of human activities and behaviors which are involved. The criteria of what it means to change are not only empirical data-but conceptual in nature. A major argument of this essay is that traditional approaches to educational change can more accurately be talked about in terms of social control; for change is typically conceived of in terms of planned and intended alterations which require and imply pur- posive human behavior.

Interestingly enough, however, most conceptualizations of change ap- pear to confuse the purposive and intentional organized nature of human social relationships with emergent ~ a r i e t y . ~ Thus, historically, change has been conceived of as a “dependent” variable (i.e., what is “caused”) and the antecedent conditons, state-relationships, etc., of human social systems as the “independent” variables (i.e., what “causes”) change. This in turn has led to the general tendency to envision change as a purposive or rather deterministic process on the one hand, and social organization as an evolutionary or emergent process on the other. The major contention of this essay is that these views should be reversed to begin to better “fit” with the em pi rical facts.

Social organization should thus be conceived of as by and large a consequence of the purposive activities of people attempting to come to terms with their environments, themselves, and others, viz., of people at- tempting to establish ordered and controlled relationships. For unless one views social organization (including planned “change”) largely as the result of intentional and purposive activities of human beings in relationship to one another, it becomes difficult if not impossible to conceptually differ- entiate social order from social disorder-that is, from all those unintended, unplanned, unexpected, and at times unwanted developments which occur in any human social system.

The importance of all of this to education lies in the fact that the tra- ditional ways of conceiving and describing educational change tend to ig- nore the elements of social control implied in planned “change.”6 Planned “change” logically and empirically implies controlled modifications and alterations, i.e., regulation and manipulation of human social relationships toward some end or purpose. To deny or ignore the purposive aspects of planned social “change” is logically, empirically, and ethically unsound if for no other reason than it tends to lead to an ignorance and/or denial of the social means by which such a process functions and the social conse- quences of those means.7

5. For an extensive review of the education “change” literature see Ronald G . Havelock, Planning for Innovation Through Dissemination and Utilization of Knowledge (Ann Arbor: Center for Research on Utilization of Scientific Knowledge, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 1971). Also see Wilbert E. Moore, Social Change (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963).

6. See Raymond Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962).

7. See F. W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper & Brothers, 191 1). Chin defines planned change “as a deliberate and collaborative process involving change agent and client system. These systems are brought together to solve a problem or more generally to plan and attain an improved state of functioning in the client system by utilizing and applying valid knowledge.” See Robert Chin, “Some Ideas on Chang-

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EDUCATIONAL FUTURES 83

What is being suggested is that while many of those who have con- cerned themselves with developing conceptual schemes about the “change” process and the manner, mechanisms, and directions in which such a process manifests itself in educational systems, they have, for the most part, attempted to too quickly move on to assessing the “amounts,” “efficiency,” or “needed directions” of “change” without first developing or presenting a cogent understanding or explanation of the generic social functions that such a process serves for individuals. Thus much of the work on “change” both conceptually and empirically has been more concerned with how the process of change works than why.8 (It may be that this consequence is a result of conceiving of how questions as being “scien- tific” questions and why questions as being “philosophical” questions, and assuming that the latter kinds of questions are not to be settled through empirical research but by a priori fiat.)g

11 . EMERGENT AND DETERMINATE BEHAVIOR

The need for developing a clear conceptual distinction between change qua change and “change” as social organization and control is particularly important in relation to education and learning because nearly all concepts of education and learning imply some notion of achieving desired altera- tions of individuals’ conceptual and behavioral activities. That is, “teach- ers,” whether they are tribal hunters instructing the young to stalk game or university professors explaining nuclear physics, are seldom if ever just teaching-rather they are attempting to teach something to someone in hopes of attaining some purpose or goal. This is not to argue that what is “taught” is necessarily the same as what is “learned.” Rather, the point is that teaching, learning, social change, and human communication are al- ways about something and someone, i.e., in relationship to something and someone. Perhaps, however, just as often the most important and lasting “learning” that takes place is emergent and incidental learning, so also might the most significant modifications and alterations of human social relationships be emergent, incidental, and indeterminate. Indeed, it can be argued that the mode of learning which involves intellectual awareness, self-realization, and creation is often largely emergent and incidental, while that mode of learning called “schooling” or education is the most highly deterministic, planned, and controlled.

Admittedly all social systems, as do all individuals, exhibit varying de- grees of emergent and determinate characteristics. However, a useful con- ceptual distinction can be made between those social systems which are essentially contrived (e.g., General Motors) and others (e.g., a family) which ing,” in Richard I. Miller (ed.), Perspectives on Educational Change (New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts, 1967), p. 333. Also see Warren G. Bennis, Kenneth D. Benne, and Robert Chin, The Planning of Change (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1961).

8. But see, for example, Robert Glaser and Burkart Holzner (eds.), Organizations for Research and Development in Education: Proceedings of a Conference sponsored by the American Educational Research Association and Phi Delta Kappa (Pittsburg: Phi Delta Kappa, 1966); Robert B. Howsam “Effecting Needed Changes in Education,” in Edgar L. Morphet and Charles 0. Ryan (eds.), Designing Education For the Educator (New York: Citation Press, 1967),

9. For a brief and cogent review of historical trends in American educational organization theory and practice see Willard R. Lane, Ronald G. Cotwin, and William G. Monahan, Founda- tions of Educational Administration: A Behavioral Analysis (New York: The Macmillan Com- pany, 1967), chap. 1. Also see William Foote Whyte, Organizational Behavior: Theory and Application (Homewood, Illinois: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., and The Dorsey Press, 1969), chap. 1.

VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1

pp. 65-81.

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84 EDUCATIONAL THEORY

may be said to evolve more or less naturally. As Thayer has noted, the most sig n if ican t d i ffe rence between essential I y contrived and essential I y emer- gent social systems from a communication point of view “is that relation- ships and rules emerge from our informal relations with others, whereas rules and relationships are imposed upon the constituents of contrived relationships. In a contrived relationship (such as between fellow-workers on an assembly line), the rules and relations presumed necessary or desira- ble to the purpose of that relationship are formalized or standardized, whether explicitly or implicitly.”10

Of importance here is the difference that conceiving of planned “change” as a mode of social organization and control might make in the way people go about planning educational futures for themselves and others. Some purposive behaviors can be conceived of as telesitic and thus can be distinguished from teleological behavior, the latter being that be- havior “which a complex living system can or must engage in to its own end” and the former (telesitic) as “that which man (e.g.) would engage in to some further end.”” Man, to a greater extent than any other living or- ganisim, exhibits capacities for telesitic behavior. Man strives to become what he would be. And danger is inherent in this striving. As Montague has written, “To be human is to be in danger.” For man is “capable of confusing and endangering himself considerably more frequently”12 than other living creatures in the world. To strive to become what one would invites not only the possibility of success but of failure. Social change can thus be viewed as a consequence of man’s development of telesitic communication capacities and his willingness to risk utilizing those capacities. For it is in the “error” that results from people attempting to be what they would- risking the unknown to become what they are not-that the impetus for social change inheres. The “risk” in social control (e.g., planned “change”) lies not in what is expected to happen, but in what is unexpected and unpredictable-and that is change. All else is better conceived of as control.

It is the creative capacity to invent situations, relationships, and events-past, present and future-that has particular import for any com- munication study of educational change and organization. For to the extent that people can and do invent their present in light of their past and future they are attempting to control them. The ways in which people invent their worlds may be viewed as a form of information utilization which is essen- tially a process of establishing improbable ordered relationships in and with the world.13 People not only attempt to invent their future but predict it. Moore, however, has argued that the distinction between inventing and predicting the future is “spurious” because “If we invent the future, we thereby predict it, for deliberate acts will be taken to implement the inven- tion, and we shall be able-no doubt with some slippage-to do what we set out to do.”14 But the distinction between invention and prediction is impor- tant, for it raises the significant question not only of who is doing the inventing and predicting for whom, but which individuals or groups of individuals have the abilities, and/or the opportunities, to invent, rather than ~~

10. Thayer, op. cit., p. 95. 11. Lee Thayer, “Communication: Sine qua non of the Behavioral Sciences,” in D. L. Arm

12. Ashley Montague, On Being Human (New ‘fork: Hawthorne Books, Inc., 1966), p. 11. 13. Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson, Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychol-

14. Wilbert E. Moore, Order and Change: Essays in Comparative Sociology (New ‘fork:

(ed.), Vistas in Science (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968), p. 73.

ogy (New ‘fork: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1968), p. 179.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1967), p. 298.

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EDUCATIONAL FUTURES 85

merely predict, or acquiesce40 their future. As Thayer has asked, “Can we be sure the best way of furthering the development of man and his societies is that of predicting his future for him rather than enabling him more directly and actively to invent his own future?”15 This is a matter of great importance-particularly in education. For to invent one’s own future is to be personally responsible for the consequences. And that is a heavy burden.

All of this suggests that in studies of educational change what is of paramount importance is consideration of the ways in which people come to “know” what it is they “know,” and come to assume (or not) that what they do “know” is what they “need” to “know.” Any attempt to introduce a “change” into a functioning social system implies that one has an adequate basis (i.e., “knows,” has adequate information) for choosing that particular “change” rather than an alternative mode of action such as maintaining the status quo.

Within any human social system what it is that people know determines the pattern and manner of social transactions, i.e., who may or will talk to whom, in what manner, and toward what purpose. In the face of emergent or unplanned change, however, the individual often does not “know” what he or she “needs” to know. American public schools are, on the whole, contrived organizations which exhibit behavioral and programmatic reg- ularities or patterns. Among the most important of the behavioral reg- ularities for inquiry are those communication systems which are contrived for, or emerge from, the social transactions of individuals within the school and between the school and the external environment.

Barrien has suggested that human social organizations may be evaluated “in terms of two kinds of output: the extent to which they achieve the tasks they are expected to perform, and the satisfactions the individuals experience as a consequence of their interactions within the system.”16 It is important to point out that the transactions within a system are, to a greater or lesser degree, interdependent with the systemic relations between sys- tems. Thus the ultimate “success” or “failure” of American public schools is determined by the requirements and expectations of those in the larger social system within which public schools function.

111. COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL ORGANIZATION AND CHANGE

Unlike members of other species people must learn to become what they are and are not-what they would be. All of which is due to the fact that by and large man’s relationship to his world is communicatively open. That is, man creates himself and his social organizations, and human communi- cation is the basic life process which subserves this social self-creation. Each of us, to be sure, may be born with “a predisposition toward sociality” but man, qua man, creates himself-makes himself and his world human.” Indeed, as Ortega has argued, although man may be a naturally sociable animal he is at the same time naturally unsociable with “an urge to flee from society.”18 -~

15. Lee Thayer, “On Human Communication and Social Development,” kconomies et

16. Frederick Kenneth Barrien, General and Social Systems (New Brunswick, New Jersey:

17. Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckman, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden

18. Jose Ortega y Gasset, Man and People, trans. by Willard Trask (New York: W.W.

VOLUME 26, NUMBER 1

SociBt.&, Vol. 5, No. 9 (September 1971), p. 1612.

Rutgers University Press, 1968), pp. 117-1 18.

City, New York: Doubleday 8, Company, Inc., Anchor Books, 1967), p. 129.

Norton & Company, Inc., 1957), p. 227.

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86 EDUCATIONAL THEORY

Although from the point of view of this essay there is no necessary and sufficient relationship between the world and the ways in which people “see” the world, viz., between what is “really” happening in the world and the manner in which people conceive of and talk about what is occurring, it would be an error to assume that social reality and social processes are independent of the ways people talk and think about them in the same manner that the corporeal world may be independent.lg For while people do not create the processes of the physical world, “they do create their social world, even if, for the most part they do so unwittingly.”20 The point is not merely that “in participating in social life men are encouraged to form certain ideas about its reality,”21 but, more importantly, in order to partici- pate in social life individuals must develop some idea of its “reality.”

It is to these socially created and encouraged communicational realities and their relationship to the generic communication processes which sub- serve their creation and utilization, that I believe one must turn to adequately assess and interpret the functions and consequences of social order, organization, and change. Human cornmunicational realities (e.g., what man “is” and would be) often involve questions not solely answerable by the technology and methodology of empirical science. But this should not halt inquiry. Studying human social transactions apart from human values and acts of valuing is at best a “scientistic” enterprise.22

Jurgen Ruesch has pointed out that “the field of communication is concerned with human re la tedne~s.”~~ Human communication studies should begin at the point where people begin talking to one another. And talking, as Ortega has written, always has consequence^.^^ Human com- munication is conceived of here as a basic life process of people taking- things-into-account toward some end or This may be viewed as essentially a process of acquiring and converting raw event-data into “us- ble” information upon which people base their actions. At the interpersonal level this includes the mutual and intentional generation and consumption of “information” and the creation, maintenance, and use of communica- tional realities-“those ideas, beliefs, preferences, qualities, evils and ideals, which exist for us essentially because they can be and are talked about.”26

What it is that any individual human being or human social system is for develops out of the ways in which people talk to one another and themselves-out of the ways in which people inform and in-form each other and themselves. “The crucial distinction between information and in- formation rests in the fact that the way people inform themselves in a short-term sense could be a personal matter. But the way they are in-formed in the long-term is a social or community matter. . . . In our social existences, the way we are in-formed takes precedence over all other possibilities for informing o u r ~ e l v e s . ” ~ ~

19. Psychologist James J. Gibson, for one, would undoubtedly disagree with this view. See his article, “Perception as a Function of Stimulation,” in Sigmond Koch (ed.), Psychology: A Study of a Science, VoI. I , Sensory, Perceptual, and Physiological Formulations (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.), pp. 456-501.

20. Percy S. Cohen, Modern Social Theory (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968), pp. 10-11. 21. {bid. 22. Lee Thayer, “On Communication and Change: Some Provocations,” Systematics, vol.

23. Ruesch and Bateson, op. cit., p. 21. 24. Ortega y Gasset, op. cit., p. 12. 25. See Thayer, Communication and Communication Systems, op. cit. 26. Thayer, ”On Human Communication and Social Development,” op. cit., p. 1617. 27. Ibid., p. 1616.

6, No. 3 (December 1968), pp. 190-200.

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EDUCATIONAL FUTURES 87

All human social organization and disorganization are dependent upon people talking one to another and to themselves. What it is that any human relationship “is,” and what importance or value it may have for the human participants, are created only in and through conversations within specific epistemic communities.2* As Vickers has put it, “information means what it says: that it can impart form.”29

Human communication gives form to human activities. Human social systems are the patterns of dynamic relationships between human ways of “seeing” and talking about the world (communicational realities) and the human ways of acting or “doing” in the world. Man can act only upon the basis of how and what he conceives his world to be and what he believes is his relationship to that world. Thus, man’s created information-about the corporeal world, himself, and others is the “stuff” of human communica- tional reality and society; and is the determinant of human social behavior. Communication subserves the creation of human information-about the world, and thus may be viewed as the foundation of all organized human behavi0r.3~

Human social systems ultimately are dependent upon the organizing or regulating of:

1. What is or should be taken into account; 2. How this is or should be evaluated; and, 3. What is or should be done about it.

The sufficient condition for information or knowledge utilization within any human social system always inheres in the functions and consequences of the knowledge for the system participants in time and location.

Iv. INFORMATION “NEEDS” AND USES

Neither communication nor information utilization are necessarily vir- tues (although many people apparently believe so); rather, they are simply “facts” of life. That is, in order for people to participate in social endeavors it is necessary that they “use” information. For it is only through the use of information-about the world created through communication that people come to “know” their worlds. Western thought has traditionally placed great value upon man’s development and use of information. Indeed, the current “information explosion” is sometimes viewed as evidence of man’s continued intellectual growth. But one may reasonably question whether there has been an information explosion, or merely an increase in the bulk of data.3’

One may also question whether man is under any obligation to “dif- fuse” this great bulk of data. It appears doubtful that such a diffusion would necessarily make people more “knowledgeable” unless they develop the necessary and adequate intellectual competencies; and how does one specify those in advance? One may also ask to what extent information or knowledge may at times be a disabling factor in human social transactions;

28. Burkart Holzner, Reality Construction in Society (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1967), especially chap. 4.

29. Geoffrey Vickers, Value Systems and Social Process (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1968). p. 162.

30. Thayer, Communication and Communication Systems, op. cit., p. 47. 31. See for example, Paul Weiss, “Knowledge: A Growth Process,” in Manfred Kochen

(ed.), The Growth of Knowledge (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1967). pp. 209-215.

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88 EDUCATIONAL THEORY

for example, how often has or does knowledge do more “harm” than “good”?32 The “answers” to these questions lie in the ways in which people use (e.g., talk-about) their information or knowledge and in the ways in which people invent or acquiesce-to what it is that people are for and would become.

Although many sociological studies of change and innovation have focused upon the social system as a complex organization-especially in its structural aspects-Miles and Schmuck contend that “many or most efforts at educational reform have collapsed or have been absorbed without effect precisely because of the limited attention given to the organizational con- text in which the reforms have been attempted.”33

As argued earlier, central to the “failure” of many educational innova- tion and reform attempts is the failure fully to realize the complex nature of human organizational and organizing behavior. This is rather clearly reflected in the educational “change” literature by the constant utilization of simple, stimulus-response, uni-directional models and concepts of the complex processes of human cornm~nica t ion .~~

In terms of information use the question can be raised in relation to public education as to how much of what public school teachers “need” to know is specifiable in advance. Any answer to this question would appear to hinge at least in part upon how one conceives of the roles of teachers (and students) and the process of education. Most i f not all innovations and educational “changes” are, typically, developed in ways which indicate that the reformers “know” what it is that teachers (and students) “need” to know.35 Such an assumption appears to be a requisite for planned educa- tional “change.” Now, to the extent that education is thought of as a completeable and determinate task, teacher (and student) information re- quirements would seem to be specifiable. But to the extent that education is viewed as a dynamic, evolving, open-ended or non-completeable individual process-to that extent the information requirements of teachers (and stu- dents) would be non-specifiable, non-determinate and, hence, “unknow- able” in advance.

In attempting to answer any question regarding educational information “needs” or requirements, it is useful to develop clear distinctions between levels of analysis. For what a teacher (as one example) “needs” to know at one level of analysis (e.g., teacher-student classroom relationship) might be far more or less specifiable than what information is “necessary” at another level (e.g . , sc hoo I system-co m m u n ity relations h i p) .36

32. Lee Thayer, “On Communication, Knowledge Utilization, and the Educational Enter- prise,” Research Memorandum No. 5 (NCEC Knowledge Utilization Study, Center for the Advanced Study of Communication, University of Iowa, November 1971) (mimeographed). Also see Abraham H. Maslow, Toward A Psychology of Being (Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1962), pp. 57-64; Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1960).

33. Schmuck and Miles (eds.), op. cit., p. 1. 34. Lane, Corwin, and Monahan, op. cit., p. 20, point out that many theoretical ap-

proaches to educational organization tend to assume the social context as a given and seldom view the context of social interaction as the subject for inquiry. Also see, Tom Deats, “Moving and Using Information,” Teachers College Record, Vol. 75, No. 3 (February 1974), pp. 383-393.

35. For example see, Edgar L. Morphet and David L. Jesser (eds.), Designing Education For the Future No. 5: Emerging Designs For Education (New York: Citation Press, 1968).

36. Cf. Francis A. J. lanni, “School and Community,” in Dwight W. Allen and Eli Seifman (eds.), The Teacher’s Handbook (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foreman and Company, 1971), pp. 476-484. lanni presents a typical view of school-community relations arguing, “As in so many other issues, communication is at the heart of the problem.” (p. 480)

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EDUCATIONAL FUTURES 89

It also appears to be useful to not only make a distinction between levels of analysis within a system, but also in terms of the system qua system. In addition, when inquiring into formal social organizations and institutions such as schools, useful conceptual distinctions may be made between behavioral regularities and programmatic regularities or patterns.37 These may be viewed as the existing or on-going patterns of relationships which, from a generic standpoint, are more or less independent of the particular actors (but are, of course, dependent upon individual actors). For example, the school calendar, class schedules, the physical setting, place- ment of desks, chairs, specific programs such as gym classes or English courses, can all be conceived of as programmatic regularities within a school system. Behavioral regularities include most overt behavior such as running, walking, crying, reading, questioning, yelling, writing, which stu- dents and teachers, along with other members of the system, engage in on a regular basis.

The importance of recognizing regularities at these two generic levels stems in part from the fact that “any programmatic regularity, implicitly or explicitly, describes intended outcomes that involve either new behavioral regularities or the changing of old ones.”38 Secondly, “behavioral reg- ularities and their changes represent some of the most important intended outcomes of programmatic regularities. Deliberate changes in program- matic regularities are intended to change the occurrence and frequency of behavioral reg~lar i t ies . ”~~

v. EDUCATIONAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL CONTROL

Historically in this country public education has been a formally con- trived and sanctioned arrangement of human social transactions designed primarily for the purpose of teaching children what they “need” to “know.” What it is that American education “is” today is cause and consequence of the ways in which people have decided or acquiesed-to what it is that human knowledge, education, and people are for.

Traditionally American public education has been talked of in terms of social futures, e.g., “preparation for life,” or “individual growth.” Thus the public schools have been faced with the paradoxical job of either: 1) pre- paring children (and teachers) to fit like so many interchangeable parts into the existing social system thereby encouraging the maintenance of the status 9uo; or, 2) enabling children (and teachers) to develop those strategic and tactical human cognitive and social competencies which, if realized, would potentially threaten the knowledge base of the existing social order, and thereby encourage the emergence of unplanned and un- expected change.

Holzner’s concept of epistemic communites is useful here. Epistemic communities may be thought of as social systems or groups in which the members are “unified by a common epistemology and frame of reference, such as the scientific community, religious communities, work com- munities, some ideological movements and the like. All members of such a community, in their capacity as members agree on ‘the’ proper perspective for the construction of reality.”40 To the extent that members of such a

37. Seymour B. Sarason, The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1971), chap. 6.

38. Ibid., p. 68, emphasis added. 39. Ibid., p. 72, emphasis added. 40. Holzner, op. cit., p. 69.

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community do not share the same epistemologies they may be thought of as differentiated in-formationally. The integration and differentiation of infor- mation within epistemic communities is directly related to the power and authority structures (relationships) in those communities. Through the vari- ous permitted and possible social transactions within the community, there develop different ranges of alternatives for information utilization among community members. Thus while all members of the same community may share the “same” knowledge or information, often only certain specific members are empowered, authorized, expected, permitted, required, and/or capable of using that information in specific ways.

American public education as a social institution is one which may be characterized in Parsonian terms as essentially pattern-maintenance activ- it^.^' That is, as a differentiated unit within the social system, education serves social functions which are determined by the strategic and tactical value patterns of American society. But except in the most ambiguous and generalized terms, the fundamental purposes of American society are not agreed-to throughout the system, nor the means for their achievement. Thus it is not surprising to find a vast range of differing opinions, convictions, and assumptions about what it is that public education is for, and which generic social functions are to be served by the schools. In like manner it is not surprising to find that the aims and expectations of teachers are often ambiguous and in conflict with those of other teachers and educators as well as with those of individuals outside the schools.

In very general terms, however, it can be noted that the existing knowl- edge base for public school teachers at the primary and secondary levels tends to emphasize the inculcation and maintenance of existing modes of social behavior and social orientations. Emphasis in public education (schooling) has been placed upon the development and use of methods and skills related to social transactions rather than upon knowlege as a basis for what it is that people “need” to “know.” To this extent public schooling tends to be concerned with social rna in tenan~e.~~

The educational “change agent,” however, as envisioned by those in- terested in planned “change” in education (e.g., the U.S. Office of Educa- tion) is typically viewed as a social engineer interested in establishing specific knowledge bases which will permit people (e.g., teachers) to “rationally” bring about (i.e., predict and determine) “changes” in education. Educational “change” thus viewed is seen as a product of causal key factors or systemic conditions, the knowledge and manipulation of which it is assumed will permit the rational and predictive determination (control) of future social transactions of people if the “correct information” or knowledge is supplied.4

In either case the assumption is implicit that what it is that people 41. Talcott Parsons, Structure and function in Modern Society (Glencoe, Illinois: The

Free Press, 1960); also see hisstructure and Process in Modern Societies (New York: The Free Press, 1960); and Societies: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966).

42. See John M. Foskett, The Normative World of the Elementary School Teacher (Eugene, Oregon: Center for the Advanced Study of Educational Administration, 1967); Robert Dreeben, The Nature of Teaching: Schools and the Work of Teachers (Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1970).

43. Cf. Matthew B. Miles (ed.), Innovation in Education (New York: Bureau of Publica- tions, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964); Henry M. Brickell, Organizing New York State for Education Change (Albany: State University of New York, State Education Depart- ment, 1961); Tom Deats, “Educators and ‘Information’ Systems,” in The High School Journal, Vol. LVI, No. 7 (April 1973). pp. 318-327.

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“need” to “know” can be predicted and determined for them by others- either in the form of institutionalized situations and modes of “correct” behavior (social maintenance), or in institutionalized modes of “correct” knowledge (social engineering). What neither approach encourages is the emergence and growth of what might be called the social entrepreneur-the unique human individual willing and able to assume the risks inherent in any attempt to become what he or she is not but would be.

To the extent that the existing social maintenance and social engineer- ing approaches are “successful” in education today they preclude the emergence of change, and thereby control what it is that people are for and what they would be. Futures are thus largely simply acquiesced-to by stu- dents and teachers rather than invented.

However, as the complexity and diversity of the knowledge bases of various epistemic communities and the relationships between these com- munities in American society have increased, what it is that a child or an adult “needs” to “know” in order to be “educated for life” has become increasingly indeterminate. People simply cannot always (if ever) know in advance what it is that they need to know. But the continued attempt to specify determinate and predictable “safe” futures for others (e.g., school children) will almost necessarily lead to: 1) a distrust of alternative modes of knowing and understanding; 2) assumptions that ideas of what people “are” at present are what they are supposed to be; and 3) a denial of the indeterminate and incidental aspects of human social transactions, learn- ing, and personal growth essential to the emergence of variety, novelty, and ~el f -creat iv i ty .~~ The question is no longer simply what do we need to know in order to predict and determine our futures-but, what do we need to know in order to develop our human competencies and capacities for emergent change and self-creation?

By and large man’s perceptions of the world and himself are deter- mined by his languages. The limits of our languages in a very real sense constitute the limits of our world and experience^.^^ It is largely through the utilization of linguistic forms that people construct their world views. Our existing and in-use stock of descriptions thus greatly determines what it is we can and do experience above the physiological level. To the extent that we cannot “describe” the world-no matter how crudely or inade- quately-we cannot experience it; although we can describe worlds of which we can only hope or fear of “really” experiencing.

The appropriateness of the ways in which people think and talk about “things” is dependent upon the “things” in question. “The way people think about people, themselves, is part of the reality about which they are trying to think in appropriate ways.” Thus “the concepts we employ to grasp what we are become a part of what we are; or rather that we use them in this way becomes part of what we are.”46

Talk is not cheap. It costs us everyday in the ways it enables and disables human participation in society. What people “need” to “know” today is how and why to expand and enrich the human stock of descriptions-how to develop a variety of ways of describing and explaining

44. See Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1963), especially chap. 14.

45. Wilbur M. Urban, Language and Reality (London: Georqe Allen and Unwin, Ltd., - - ~. - 1939), p. 21.

46. Alasdair Maclntvre. “A Mistake About Causalitv in Social Science.” in Peter Laslett and W. G. Runciman (eds.)) Philosophy, Politics and Society: Second Series (Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1967), pp. 48-70.

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what it is that knowledge, education, and people are for. We “need” to become personally responsible for what we do, say, are and would be. We “need” to develop understandings of where the inconsistencies between what we do and what we say can and have carried us in education. If we do in fact want our children to learn for themselves, to be self-creative and independent then we are going to have to begin to ask of ourselves the kinds of questions about educational futures which beget more questions rather than prosaic answers of “safe” and predictable futures.

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