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Students’ approaches to education in the framework of the experienced school reality

Tiiu Kuurme, TallinnUniversity

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Geneva, 13-15 September 2006

Abstract: Students’ school experiences and approaches related to it. The research question: What approach to education students’ have in respect to what they think to receive from school as a preparation for life? Objective: To explain the relations between experiences, opinions and beliefs. Purpose: to indicate to the possible relations between commonly known dilemmas and development of beliefs of the school.

Tenseness between the wished and the real has throughout times belonged together with the educational reality. Education itself is an intention connected with hopes and ideals, which in the practical life isn’t able or cannot accomplish more than enables the era and the educational consciousness marked with the limits of individuals’ horizon of understanding. An act, that is directed towards accomplishing noble goals and has been named education, might itself not always carry noble and humane characteristics. The experienced truth that educating an individual to be independent and free goes through limiting freedom, use of power and forcing, has been named a pedagogical paradox (Siljander, 2002). Is education experienced as liberating or as taking one’s freedom, where goes the line from which onward the limitations set on behaviour become limitations for development; this question shouldn’t disappear from the focus of attention, if we truly and sincerely set young person’s development to be the core value of education at school.

What would be more natural than the fact that this until now unsolved paradox designs also the face of the pedagogical institution? The rites taking place at school, the so-called temple of wisdom, might not affect the developing mind too exhilaratingly, since it contains compulsion, standards, routine and forced achievement. All this belongs among the self-evident assets of the school, with what the societal consciousness in general agrees with. The mentioned unpleasant things, where respect towards the developing individuality is not the main observed value, must according to the everyday logics be lived through, since as a result one receives education. Or in fact, what the tradition and public opinion consider education. However, how do students experience and interpret the routine canons of the everyday school?

The concept of education has due to its different meanings been discussed about a lot. Its meaning tackles from one side both the institutionalised area of societal life as well as the knowledge contents made obligatory for studying by the state. From the other side it marks a difficult phenomenon in a network of concepts of philosophical anthropology, referring to individual’s developmental path through meetings with the truths of everyday life, as a result of which “a person becomes a person” (right there). The current article tries: 1) to discuss the concept of education in the framework of the last mentioned, i.e. developing individuality; further 2) to refer to the school dilemmas, which became apparent in the context of the previously mentioned; and finally 3) to stop on the beliefs of Estonian high-school students about education and the experienced school reality, and to discuss their possible influence on the worldview of an individual. The discussion takes place in the framework of hermeneutic-phenomenological paradigm, where education is seen as a process that belongs to and influences both the individual and culture’s horizon of meanings.

The humanistic promise of education

The most widely known interpretation of education in the humanistic tradition defines education as the fulfilment of opportunities of being human. The concepts of educe, educate,educare, withtheir roots in antiquity, refer originally to the adult accompanying the child on the path of growing up. The latent, potential is changed into active, the original educe stands for bringing forth, letting to happen (Jämsä, 2006).

Kant’s thesis about the man as a free user of the mind puts education the load and hope of being the motor of progress; with the help of it a human being rids oneself from the causality of instincts and nature, exalting the mind that one uses as a subject for the good of oneself and the society. The man becomes what he/she makes oneself, getting to know oneself through knowing the world. Humboldt’s famous definition Bildung isthe starting point of all forces in the human development; it creates a bases for self-defining individuality, which simultaneously enriches the mankind (Hentig, 1996).

In the thought tradition that originates from Gadamer, education is seen as a path, as cultivation and development of the mind, where the unknown is made known and one becomes more conscious about oneself. For this purpose one distances from the current horizon and learns to be open to wider horizons of experiences (Gustavsson, 2000; Koski, 1999). According to the definition of Wilenius, through a constant decomposing of the reality, the man knows better, who he/she is, where he/she is, what he/she does and what he/she has to do (Wilenius, 1982). Bildung gave an endless developmental task, a chance for independence from nature’s and social determination. Here the man achieves freedom through the fact that thanks to education the human being can overcome determinants, emancipating thus from all kinds of power (Masschelein & Ricken, 2003).

Trying to unite several ideas carrying the humanistic message and binding it with Lauri Rauhala’s existential phenomenological approach to man, where one of the entities of the man is considered to be situationality, the following approach to education is seen as being in relationship with the reality. Situationality in Rauhala’s theory stands for becoming real through one’s life situations, where the situation is considered to be one entity of a human being. Situations form experiences and the experienced links of meanings create the worldview. Thus, being human means simultaneously being in a relationship (Rauhala, 1993) and education can hereby be understood as a special kind of relationship. Not every relationship works as educating the man, in an educating relationship fulfils what we called ‘a person becoming a person’ or development toward individuality and subjectivity. Thus an educating relationship has its own style, which expresses intentions, which involve development toward the multifaceted perfection of a personality. This relationship is characterised by a number of features: openness, reflexivity, dialogicality, criticality, inner freedom, readiness to give an effort, ability to understand, perception of situations etc. (Kuurme 2004). As a main intention the educational relationship includes the often cited sentence originating from the thinkers of antiquity: To become what you can be in the best possible way. Moreover, education has been understood as an aspiration of the self; the person in the educational process is ideally searching, aspiring, errant, self changing, one who recognises one’s wishes, overcomes misfortunes and societal obligations (Uhle, 1993). Education begins with questioning addressed towards reality. Something that converges around the word self happens to the follower of this path: namely self-finding, self-creating, self-overcoming. This refers to a relationship that culminates with crossing the boundaries, the human being is realised as transcendent, being in change (Kuurme, 2004). Thus, education expects from students or experiencers a lively personal relationship with the experienced, which gives an impetus to the intention to do something with oneself.

Although in the contemporary more and more materialist and liberal market reality such approach to education has lost a lot from its pathos and declared it to belong to the realm of idealism (Maschelein & Ricken, 2003.), these words should nevertheless be considered a collective mistake. An effort for the sake of education needs justifications from something else than just from the idea that it is necessary for getting along with life; and these include the original curiosity of man, the need for experiences and knowledge, mental growth. In fact, the criticisers have not offered a better mental motivator for justifying education. As before, education is seen as an instance of hope in the middle of contemporary global oppositions and problems with sustainability (Jämsä, 2006).

School dilemmas

Although understanding that one can educate oneself everywhere and at any time is not new for anyone, becoming educated is considered to take place in a concrete societal instance, the school. In the extensive school discourse that took place in the 20th century (e.g. about shadow education) one thought has prevailed, namely how big is the role of the contextual factors of school, experienced situations, and the meanings formed through their influence in determining the phenomenon called education. According to Rauhala already going to school every day is for a young person a life situation, where one becomes realised as a human. Experiences and their interpretations here create fixed characteristics of the personality, and perhaps also when living through emotions “a person becomes a person”. Thus, attitudes that came to life in the school context and situations that emerged here should be considered to be parts of education. Whether and to what extent can a young individual experience exactly such a relationship to people, ideas, phenomena etc., which can be characterised as an educative relationship – this should indeed become the object of interest, when talking about school as a place for education. Up to now, the central interest in Estonia, however, has been the official curriculum and according to the common understanding education is received through following this curriculum.

School is a room of experiences for students (Hentig, 1996), and learning from experiences at school has had a strong impact in all times. Also stereotypic ways of interpreting experiences are collectively inherited. Many systems reproduce themselves thus through complex structures of cognitive acts. Numerous studies and writings about school reality allow concluding that school’s mission as believed by the majority, and the functions of school, are carried by different intentions (Giesecke, 1999; Ramserger, 1993). According to the opinions of several theoreticians, school fulfils a publicly unformulated societal expectation, reproduces the predominant culture of power and paid work, and keeps away larger surprises arising from the unexpected behaviour of the new generation (Rinne & Salmi, 1999). The status quo of school is maybe unconsciously seen as a guarantee for repeating the same structures in future, and this is perceived as more secure than ideas and ideals. The unconscious wish to keep something in its old acknowledged way and hence achieved sense of security may during the times of rapid changes even magnify. As a sign for this is the growing study load in the Estonian school, more strict selection and bureaucracy, while teachers’ wages and freedom of speech continue to be as small as earlier. The praised liberalism has stopped behind the doors of the school, while calculating everything in the terms of money and benefits has stepped in and brought along new dependencies.

A number of controversial expectations have been directed toward school (Lahelma, 1999; Tenorth, 2001), the original reason of which might be considered to be the incompatibility between the noble mission ascribed to education and the need for self-preservation of the structures and power mechanism that prevail there. Added can be society’s growing complexity, new problems, and their delegation to the school. School reality has pierced many paradoxes and dilemmas. Largest of these can be considered the fact that a school, which is meant to be an instance of change and innovation, is in practical life known as one of the most stable and unchangeable ones (Miettinen 1990). When analysing school dilemmas, one can highlight several:

  • The dilemma of school orientation. School is simultaneously oriented towards the future and the past. With the help of knowledge that has been created and accumulated in the past, one hopes to get control of the future, while in the post-modern world the tendencies are largely determined by coincidences. The wholes that integrate different larger disciplines have, however, not made it clear, which knowledge would have enough power and convincingness for the future. In conditions, where the future is certainly not a reproduction of the past, knowledge that leans on the past captures the interest of the youth and convinces them no more.
  • The dilemma of the aim of education and everyday school life. Contemporary school should according to the official goal setting prepare independently thinking and democratically oriented subjects. School’s everyday life (or students’ reality) conditions something else; it is characterised by a hierarchical structure, symbolic power, demand of obedience, determination and formalisation of processes, and the bureaucracy that feeds on all this. This does certainly not promote independent thinking and democratic values.
  • The dilemma of learning at school and learning from experiences. Contemporary school should be a school where one studies, creates premises for lifelong learning, excites cognitive processes. However, only texts are offered for studying, not reality. Modernist schools have been characterised as stations of the educational industry that lack experiences (Garlichs & Groddeck, 1978), where the study contents is separated from societal practices, knowledge is seen as goods traded against grades, and where students’ studying contents, emotions and subjectivity remain so to say outside of the studying process (Laine, 2000; Naskali, 1992 etc.).
  • The dilemma of mental processes demanded at school and necessary in life. Cognitive ways, thought operations (investigation, analyses, synthesis, concluding, explaining etc.) are not the skills that receive major attention in teaching methods; as earlier reproductive teaching prevails. Since these – although unavoidable in the development of a free and responsible individual – are immeasurable categories, which do not interest the external controlling eye.
  • The dilemma of student’s hoped future and experienced present. According to the official rhetoric, through schooling the young individual acquires necessary knowledge and skills for the adult life. In reality the everyday experienced role of a student is characterised by structural passivity, consummation of ready-made knowledge, responding to external expectations and standardised models of behaviour. Although through school one acquires coping strategies, it is dubious though whether also responsibility in front of larger bodies.
  • The dilemma of different expectations of the school and life. The prevalently passive school life and on the other hand the initiation skills, proneness to risks, and activeness expected in the contemporary society are two realities that the youth faces. School as a genuine furnished life (erfülltes Leben – cf. Hentig) whether loses its credibility (massive drop out of boys in Estonian schools) or in the worse case alienates young people from the life outside its walls.
  • The dilemma of student’s role and subjectivity. When considering that the leading idea of the educational thought is development and change, then student’s role and status doesn’t change a lot throughout the years and maintains rather similar through the long years of school. Dubious is the fulfilment of the idea of subjectivity, when one is an object in the role of student. Here rises an assumption that wouldn’t the dilemma of school roles become a place to look for one of the reasons for the failure of the progress idea?
  • The dilemma of schools mission and the impact of school roles. In the official rhetoric schools exist for the sake of the student; in reality a student holds the lowest position on the ladder of hierarchies. Student’s role – following instructions, achievement, waiting, patience, submission, memorising, getting evaluations, being a member of a flock (Rinne & Salmi, 1999; Broady, 1986; Sahlberg, 1998 etc.) – diminishes the human in human being, not contributes to it, as the Occidental educational thought hopes for. Addressing toward teachers students are tied with an emotional wish: teacher, take us as humans and act as a human with us too. Here concludes that due to one’s role neither is human enough for the other (Kuurme, 2004).
  • The dilemma of not being and being of education. Throughout the independent period of Estonia efforts have been given to change the educational role of school more invisible, assumingly due to the Soviet legacy, where education was seen as a tool for ideological manipulation and therefore trials were made to free oneself from it. Education continues functioning, however differently; having disappeared from the public stage, it has moved to the frame conditions of the school and is realised in the form of shadow education. The feeling of being abandoned is growing in the youth, since earlier it was possible to talk about things with a person, the educator; from the lifeless backstage or school’s frame conditions it is impossible to expect understanding.

From school dilemmas to dilemmas of consciousness

Perceiving the lack of simple solutions for overcoming these obstacles, researchers face an interesting question: what is the impact of these dilemmas lived through during the long years of ones youth to the young people’s worldview? To what extent are experiences and hopes from school integrated to young people’s approach to education? Wishes and hopes about the young generation’s development at school through education and the tasks delegated to school by the society and traditions may not just differ, but create dissonances in worldviews. Young people’s dissatisfaction with school is high both according to international studies (Kääriäinen, H., Laaksonen, P. Wiegand, E., 1997) as well as in the Estonian context. Kallas (2005) names among the characteristics of education hypocrisy and opens its many facets, which root is authoritarianism that pierces through the person’s inner world. Hypocrisy is favoured by the sacralisation of education, keeping silent about what is important, pedagogical idealism. When piercing through the person’s inner world it creates social-psychological problems (Kallas, 2005).