Why would we simply do without theory at all?

Back in an early 19th century a school of thoughts emerged known as phrenology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

Phrenology (from Greek: φρήν, phrēn, "mind"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is a defunct field of study, once considered a science, by which the personality traits of a person were determined by "reading" bumps and fissures in the skull.

What phrenology did is to try to examine humans’ skull shapes and to try to make conclusions about what their personality were like. The argument was that there should be relationship between brain structures in different parts of the brain and different psychological attributes. Phrenologists believed that each bump or indentation in a patient's skull corresponded to his "brain map". An enlarged bump meant that the patient utilized that particular "organ" extensively.

The main problem with this theory was that there is no connections, what so ever, between bumps on a head and underling brain structure, unless of course you were involved in some kind of accident and you have your skull smashed and there was a connection. Beyond that there is no connection in normal people, what so ever.

This kind of theory in technical terms is known as “crappy”. There are many such theories in social sciences. There are certainly has been many in psychology and they are not only limited to the 19th century.

The question you may raise then is:

If the theory can take us that far; if the theory can be that wrong why would we simply do without theory at all? Why would we simply stick to the facts?

The reason that we don’t is that we can’t. We are cognitively or psychologically unable to see things or to understand things without imposing some kind of order on ourselves. We never see just facts out there. We are always somehow imposing an order on data that we see. This is true not only for scientific theory but it is also true for minor perceptual experience.

If you look at this picture, what does it looks like to you? For example, look at the middle parts of it of the picture. What do you see?

The point is which they are really depends on the theory you come up as a whole. If your theory is that this is a couple of faces and silhouettes, than what you see is a couple of noses. If your theory is that what you see is initially different than you are seeing indentations on the same spot. Well if it is true of what you see up-close, than it is also true for something of a broader type of perception, complicated scientific theories.

The argument was made by the philosopher, named Thomas Kunh, that scientific theories do not developed as isolated bits of information building one after another, but in fact we are always piecing together some broad theoretical framework to help ourselves to understand the reality.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

There is a story I have heard, you may have heard it as well about some blind men and an elephant. The blind men and the elephant is a legend that appears in different cultures and the tale dates back thousands of years. Some versions of the story feature three blind men, others five or six, but the message is always the same. I want to share the story of 6 blind men.


Six blind men were discussing exactly what they believed an elephant to be, since each had heard how strange the creature was, yet none had ever seen one before. So the blind men agreed to find an elephant and discover what the animal was really like.
It didn't take the blind men long to find an elephant at a nearby market.

The first blind man approached the beast and felt the animal's firm flat side. "It seems to me that the elephant is just like a wall," he said to his friends.

The second blind man reached out and touched one of the elephant's tusks. "No, this is round and smooth and sharp - the elephant is like a spear."

Intrigued, the third blind man stepped up to the elephant and touched its trunk.
"Well, I can't agree with either of you; I feel a squirming writhing thing – surely the elephant is just like a snake."

The fourth blind man was of course by now quite puzzled. So he reached out, and felt the elephant's leg. "You are all talking complete nonsense," he said, "because clearly the elephant is just like a tree."

Utterly confused, the fifth blind man stepped forward and grabbed one of the elephant's ears. "You must all be mad – an elephant is exactly like a fan."

Duly, the sixth man approached, and, holding the beast's tail, disagreed again. "It's nothing like any of your descriptions – the elephant is just like a rope."

And all six blind men continued to argue, based on their own particular experiences, as to what they thought an elephant was like. It was an argument that they were never able to resolve. Each of them was concerned only with their own idea. None of them had the full picture, and none could see any of the other's point of view. Each man saw the elephant as something quite different, and while in part each blind man was right, none was wholly correct.


I like that story because it demonstrates that there are lots of different ways of looking at things and although we may be right or at least partially right, we may not see the whole picture.

So, why do we have different perspectives; why don’t we have a simple learning theory that explains everything. There is no answer to that. People have resistance. Many factors lead us to see things the way we do, and there is much resistance among us to see things in ways we do not want to see them, for both cognitive and motivational reasons.

Education without Theory

According to Wilfred Carr, professor of Education at the University of Sheffield, theory is not a theory when it’s merely a belief. In his lecture to the 2006 Annual Conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain entitled, "Education without Theory", Carr’s argues that there’s no such thing as an educational theory. He claims that the idea of an educational theory is based on foundationalist modes of thought that state that theory is everything that practice is not: that whatever else it is, educational theory is abstract rather than concrete, general rather than particular, context – free rather than context – dependent.

Carr points out that

“far from being a special activity that is conducted from outside of practice, educational theory is itself a historically formed practice inextricable from the local and parochial contexts within which it is produced and always embedded in, and dependent on, the kind of contingent norms, values and beliefs that it claims to examine and assess in the practice of others.”

He argues that

“educational theory is aspiration to escape the world of practice in order to justify it from without is futile, that practical justification is the only kind there is, that we should stop searching for ‘theoretical justifications’ for educational practice and finally concede that there are no epistemological foundations that enable us determine whether what educational practitioners believe to be true really is true.”

Carr spends quite a large proportion of this article in outlining the change in educational philosophy away from "foundation" philosophies towards studies of practice in context. For example, Carr tells us that through the process of ‘reflection-on-action’ practitioners engage in a research process in which their ‘theories–in–use’ are made explicit, critically reformulated and tested through further actions.

When I look back to my readings for this class, I remember that I couldn’t understand or agree with some theories at first. What bothers me is that the more I read the more it starts made sense to me. I see different educational values coming from different philosophies and each of them to some degree is reflected in my teaching practice. Whether I see myself as a theorist or not, I am a theorist and I need those theories. In fact it is a bit handy because I think that the way we are built as humans. It is a part our species to have this strong tendency to classify and organize the world even if we are not trained in the area we are theorizing. We are cognitively or psychologically unable to see things or to understand things without imposing some kind of order on ourselves.

Theories of Human Development

A few years ago I have broaden my knowledge by listening “Theories of Human Development”, a series of lectures by Professor Malcolm W. Watson. In his lectures, Professor Watson introduced the six theories that have had perhaps the greatest influence on this field. I become familiar with the specific processes of human development that each theory describes and philosophical backgrounds of the people who formulated each theory and the historical contexts in which they worked.

I was struck not only by how much we have learned about child development, but also by how much our attitudes toward children have changed. For example, until the beginning of the 19th century, there was no interest in child study and, in fact, no concern for children. Such factors as poverty and high infant mortality created an atmosphere in which children were barely tolerated, or used for labor. The notion that children are different from adults, and require special care, is only about 200 years old. This fact made me realize that curriculum studies are only in the early stages of development and that curriculum differentiation is required so that education can survive.

Through these lectures, I saw not only how attitudes toward children gradually improved, but more importantly that ideas about children (whether they are inherently good or bad, or whether they actively shape their environments or passively react to stimuli), the theories of the people who have made the tremendous contribution to the field of educational philosophy still form much of the basis of our modern theories of education. Taken as a whole, these theories helped me to find the answer to the questions of human nature - how we learn, adapt, and become who we are at every stage in life.