Individualized Education, Research Paper Example

A Search for the Socratic Self: The History of individualized learning

Since the 1990s, the formative trend in education toward ‘learner-centered’ models of classroom facilitation in the teaching and training fields has done much to reveal the benefits of individualized education (Reynolds, 2000). The foregoing essay looks at the historical development of philosophical and theoretical queries into the proper place of the education of individuals, and to the more contemporary modalities such as new media technologies offered as highly creative or alternative learning methods by education institutions toward mandate fulfillment of standardized protocols and measured assessments.     Since the 1990s, the formative trend in education toward ‘learner-centered’ models of classroom facilitation in the teaching and training fields has done much to reveal the benefits of individualized education (Reynolds, 2000). While most recommended best practices in regard to student performance once testing rubric are put into question almost always advance standardization theories, what was at first glance considered to be converse to this quite strong polemic as a discreet or independent development approach to student thought, is now showing strong potential toward reintegration into standardized praxis as new learning tools find their way into pedagogical applications. The foregoing essay looks at the historical development of philosophical and theoretical queries into the proper place of the education of individuals, and to the more contemporary modalities such as new media technologies offered as highly creative or alternative learning methods by education institutions toward mandate fulfillment of standardized protocols and measured assessments.

The facilitation of the classroom is a dialogic experience. Students may present basic challenges to instruction in terms of formative critical thinking and writing (Reynolds, 2000). A learner centered approach enables an environment that is comfortable to foster student discussion. We know for example, that for students to learn the historical antecedents of various theorists’ work, as well as schools of application within the dissemination of their ideas core epistemological roots within the localized manifestation of certain key ideas in a particular discipline that comprehensive understanding is better achieved by way of communicative praxis. Students whom have learnt a discourse model based on the Socratic Method now also apply it in the online learning environment through classroom chat and participation in discussion board assignments.

If individualized education is the foundation to full execution of the Socratic Method, then incorporation of the approach into teaching pedagogy contributes to the furtherance of a democratic vision of the learning community and ultimately the institution in that when students are called upon to share in an egalitarian society of thought, the basis for ‘common understanding’ is fostered through knowledge; the core competency of an ethical community. In a Socratic setting, orientation of concepts through application of personal experience by students serves to initiate iterative knowledge acquisition, peer-to-peer learning and retention. As distinguished from ‘authoritarian’ models of pedagogical praxis where the instructor is the exclusive source of knowledge in the classroom, the democratic forum offers immediacy; students quickly develop the confidence and the necessary academic skill to progress successfully when learning is commenced on their own terrain.

For Ancients such as Socrates, Self was a priori to the pursuit of knowledge; he sought not to understand the world, but himself. The statesman Socrates’ call to “know thyself,” together with his uncompromising search for truth, inspired generations of Ancient thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle. At their zenith, these giants of human thought developed all-embracing systems that explained both the nature of the universe and the humans who inhabit it (Russell, 1967). As exemplified in Plato’s excursion into the human psyche in The Cave, we are reminded that the knowledge of ‘truth’ can only be uncovered through conscious engagement, rather than the shadow dance of memorization and authoritative dictation. The illumination of the mind, as it was understood by the scholars of the Medieval Period in Europe during the 14^th to early 16^th centuries, was so important in fact that the role as scribe was circumscribed so to speak by meditations to God (De la Croix and Tansey, 1980). Only self-reflective prayer offered insights into the prophetic and learned practice of writing the Word.

Emerging from the Late Medieval period and the restrictive inference classifying the role of the intellectual and the innovator, the Renaissance marked the early modern expansion of thought into an age of holistic growth. Cultural and scientific knowledge was no longer designated to separate categories of individuals, but was the provenance of ‘thinkers’ whom by the volition of his/her own ideas could seek specialization in a number of fields solely  for the purpose of production. Fertile toward the development of a public intellectual sphere, Renaissance society promoted the efficacy of artists, intellectuals and scientists as ideologues connected to patronage by the Church, and by the emergent merchant class of wealthy bankers and brokers as seen in relation to the aristocratic dynasty of Renaissance Florence and the Medici Family (De la Croix and Tansey, 1980).

What was cultivated through pure inquisitiveness on the part of Renaissance thinkers, into new expressions and new innovations ultimately led to the discoveries of the Scientific Revolution and the absolute advancement of human mastery over what was to be known about the world and its location in the cosmos (Maddison, 2007). ‘Cosmology’ then became a reality rather than a blasphemy, and all other attendant intellectual productions toward furtherance of existing and emergent epistemes and the development of significant work in teleological thought. Ultimately, this led to reconfiguration of philosophical ontologies in everything from Art, to Medicine and Law within the forthcoming Neo-Classical renderings of the Enlightenment. Trade also had much to do with the exchange of intellectual capital, as in China’s influences on medicine in Europe derived from transmission of cultural knowledge between the East and West via the Silk Road; and present one such instance where individual education was promulgated by way of new forms of intellectual praxis (Maddison, 2007).

By the Enlightenment the quest to establish a stable intellectual foundation on which to build something “likely to last” characterized seventeenth- and eighteenth-century European philosophy. “British Empiricists,” such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and David Hume, found such a foundation in sensory experience and developed their thought on that basis (Russell, 1967). On the other hand, the “Continent Rationalists,” philosophers such as Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, and Gottfried Leibniz, thought the senses inadequate for such a task. They considered reason superior to experience and sought to establish their philosophies on the basis of more certain principles. The greatest of the modern philosophers, Immanual Kant, sought to combine these two approaches and in so doing developed a uniquely influential system of philosophy. The early nineteenth-century philosophies of Hegel and Mill epitomized this optimism about the future. Hegel claimed that “Idea” (or “Spirit” or “Mind”) was guiding all of history (Russell, 1967).

Contradictions in thought and practice would be overcome as history progressed from a materialist perspective. For his part, Mill wrote in his major work, Utilitarianism, of the “progress of science [which] holds out a promise for the future.” Mill argued that free individuals representing the “wisdom of society” could overcome the social problems of the nineteenth century (Russell, 1967). Opponents to Mill also existed at this time, and the near proximate point of reference to mere utilitarianism is seen in the work of Karl Marx on historical materialist processes leading up to ideology production in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. According to Marx, the formative knowledge that represents human ideas or ‘superstructure’ on everything from religion to politics can only be understood as the sum of the means (i.e. base) and mode (i.e. structure) of production.

Despite the rather desultory interpretation of knowledge production, Marx’ legacy would live on as a seminal trajectory within pedagogical philosophy, and find its way into some of the most important discussions on the importance of democratic education in confrontation with authoritarian education models into the late twentieth century. Antonio Gramsci’s investigation of classical and organic modes of education as illustrated in liceo and trade school praxis during (and counter to) Mussolini’s rule in Italy underscores the relevance of Marx’ original insights, and is furthered by the acknowledgement of ‘hegemony’ as a dynamic that can only be addressed through equivalent knowledge processes (Jones, 2006). For Gramsci, and later in practice across the board, classical studies such as Latin were inherent for the cultivation of real intellectual knowledge in that regardless of ‘utilitarian’ use as a ‘language’ at first glance, it is the technical inculcation of the ancient idiom as well as the lexicon that leads to the exercise of the mind appropriate for advancement of thought in areas such as law and medicine. In short, by the late-twentieth century, and late-capitalist moment, a mixture of both mechanical and higher skills learning would become the natural evolution of those who could ‘will’ themselves to power (Jones, 2006).

Although finding continuance as one of the main strands in pedagogical theory, by the 1960s Marxian propositions were somewhat overshadowed by colleagues in the cognitive disciplines dedicated to individual psychological intervention strategies in K-12 learning. Individualized learning could only be sufficiently addressed through measurement scholars such as Jean Piaget (1969) argued, and early development models provided the ground for their assertions citing limitations to real cognitive development in children after the age of seven. Others sought to proscribe psychometric standards toward application. Following the work of Swiss Psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, and American Psychologist Isabel Meyers (1995), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Framework offers a capacity building, psychometric classification for better teaching in the classroom. The scale proposes assessment of student capacity to respond to environmental and/or external inputs, and looks at various self and observational reporting in the four categories, through evaluation on a continuum.Utilization of the psychometric framework for instructional development integrates cognitive behavior into strategies designed to reach a continuum of learners: 1) Extraversion – Introversion; 2) Sensing – Intuition; 3) Thinking – Feeling; and 4) Judging – Perceiving. Encouragement of application of MBTI based learning through critical media analysis, discussion, peer-to-peer dialogue, public presentation as well as traditional methods of reading and writing, enforces independent continuation through intellectual competency (Lawrence, 1997). The core methodologies also assist students in identifying personal and professional strategies for management of their lives.

From cognitive assessment models to applied cognitive learning methods, the disciplinary trajectory of twentieth century Psychology has offered much in terms of linking learning types to actual practices that can be implemented in an independent setting as well as in the classroom environment. Journal writing is a brilliant example of how a core self-instruction tool has come to be employed within professional training curricula – and one which well known trainers such as Leadership Guru, Susan Scott attest to. As Scott (2002) maintains, journals contribute density of thought and personal insight into group discussion. Without the journaling experience, group participants lack a critical referential resource, as the a priori aspect of autobiographical record enables each member to come to the table with an ordered recollection of prior and current experiences. The core technology for enacting what Scott proscribes as ‘conversational cartographies’, the Journal offers a significant step in actualizing the terrain of one’s consciousness toward realization of personal vision, and the charting of one’s future devoid of mistakes previously learnt. Much like Plato’s Cave, the Journal serves as the vehicle for the discovery of ‘truth’ in our own experience. Scott recounts how engaged participants become in her professional workshops, through the discussion of her own autobiographical story:

“As my practice of robust conversations became increasingly compelling to me, I imagined that I was turning into a conversational cartographer, mapping a way toward deepening authenticity for myself and for those who wanted to join me. The CEOs with whom I worked became increasingly candid, and with that candor came a growing sense of personal freedom, vitality, and effectiveness. The most successful leaders invariably determined to engage in an on-going, robust conversation with themselves paying fierce attention to their work and lives, resulting in a high level of personal authenticity, ferocious integrity, emotional honesty, and a greater capacity to hold true to their vision and enroll others in it.”

Scott’s model of experiential group training toward professional development is highly effective as a point of reference reflective learning strategies, such as writing development, and provides immediacy where other methodologies may not. Long-term professional objectives find resource in articulation of the everyday completion of academic goals. Personal experience to the classroom then becomes an iterative knowledge acquisition session. Scott’s conversational cartographies incite us to think more seriously about parallel historical antecedents in the various aforementioned theorists’ work, as well as schools of application within the remaining discussion. Dissemination of independent ideas in the classroom or alternative group learning environment inevitably touches the foundations of those thinker’s epistemological roots, and Scott’s applied approach fosters the ground for the incorporation of those key ideas by way of communicative praxis. The impact of online learning environment also makes the written journal an apt tool for participation in virtual classrooms and discussion board settings for a modified version of the Socratic Method.

Work groups have increasingly become the standard within the late-modern classroom environment. Gone are the days of traditional authority, with teachers providing lectures, followed by exams and grades, and little else. Pedagogical theorists dedicated to the idea of an ‘interactionist’ model of pedagogy since the early 1980s, such as Brazilian education activist-scholar Paolo Freire (2000), have contributed force to this shift in normative standards. Although the concept of a democratic, learner-centered education has morphed into numerous instructional dynamics, the work group method of facilitation replicates emergent horizontal practices indicative of globalization, and independent contribution to networks. Incorporation of group interaction into much of the course is intended to promote the individual perspectives of students, so that they achieve optimum response to new knowledge. They also have the opportunity to learn from peers, and to inform the future of the curriculum toward advancement in design and outcomes.

If the rationale behind standardized learning is to promote student test performance, contribution of students must be considered within the core knowledge domain. Incorporation of democratic teaching pedagogy contributes to a vision of community that students typically share, of an egalitarian society based on a common understanding of an ethical community. Skills, knowledge and guidance towards application of technologies in this kind of setting are more likely to be seen as trustworthy. Recommended applications such as BrainPop (2009) and Math-out-of-the-Box (2009) require preliminary training toward realization of those potential instructional outcomes. Conclusively, reliance on instructional tools in the classroom cannot be optimized without student mastery of those vehicles that are intended to make knowledge accessible from the outset. In spite of individualized learning as the core building block in the creation of each student’s knowledge base, the coordination of those creative impulses and specialized knowledge fields must find common channels if they are to proceed with standardized testing to higher learning goals.

The impact of learner-centered approaches on classroom facilitation in national education settings like the United States has been relatively pervasive. Furthered by replication in most lead academic institutions in the U.S., consideration of the primacy of the pedagogical model as a core assumption toward meeting policy based standards must be considered. Bodies that provide allocations and oversight to education institutions are largely interested in outcomes based assessment on performance, and especially the correlation between institutional capacity and participatory transformation amongst students toward individual and group learning goals. Solution sought in IT systems integration and other software based, dialogic learning technologies contribute density to those discussions. Outside of learning technology environments, the biggest trend in Socratic education is promoted ostensibly through collaborative facilitation of courses by faculty. This includes multi-media based collaboration or Symposia, which shows high potential as the next phase in the mixed and online learning formats. Student satisfaction with this model of instruction is high. Studies on student perceptions of collaborative learner-centered approaches to classroom facilitation reveal that the majority responded that this type of environment is unique in foundational experience; both distinct and indispensable. And at the end we find the Forum, and the timeless and talent provoking Socratic exercise of critical thinking.

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