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Sincerity and Reading: Dilemmas in Constructivism

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SINCERITY AND READING: DILEMMAS IN CONSTRUCTIVISM
By

Michael J. Pardales

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education

200 l

Abstract
SINCERITY AND READING: DILEMMAS IN CONSTRUCTIVISM
BY

Michael J. Pardales

In an attempt to understand the way social and individual
forms of constructivism might manifest themselves in
classroom practice, this dissertation studies the
theoretical discourse over constructivism in education,
and, empirically studies the shift in one teacher’s praxis
as he moves from an individual constructivist pedagogy to a
social constructivist pedagogy, in middle school
philosophical inquiry classes. Since this is a study of my
teaching, this work is, in part, a self-study of teaching
practice. While there has been theorizing about the ways
individual constructivism translates into pedagogy, social
constructivists do not say much about the specifics of
teaching and learning as they are mostly engaged in
postmodern critiques of modern epistemology. This leads me

to ask the following questions:

1) How does a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy
differ (for the teacher) from a modern form of
constructivism?

2) How does a teacher trying to enact a postmodern social
constructivist pedagogy remain faithful to both subject
matter content and their students’ ideas, experiences, and
developing understandings?

3) What role does “community of inquiry” play in modern and
postmodern forms of social constructivism?

Two significant dilemmas appeared through my study of
the discourse and practice of social and individual forms
of constructivism. First, taking a constructivist stance
towards teaching can create an illusion for a teacher
committed to a discipline based pedagogy. This illusion can
make a teacher think he is being more humane to his
students when he may be seducing them into learning what he

was going to teach them anyway. This introduces the issues

 

of sincerity into the discourse over constructivist
teaching by examining what of a teacher’s pedagogical
motivations he is obliged to reveal to his students.
Second, the empirical study raised questions about the
enterprise of reading in constructivist classrooms. These
questions lead to a revealing discussion about the purposes

of reading beyond exegesis in constructivist classrooms.

Copyright by
Michael James Pardales
2001

To Stacey and Isabella, whose patience, love, and support
make everything possible

ACKNOWLEDGMENT S

I would like to thank David Wong, the director of this
dissertation and my advisor; his steady confidence and
interest in this project made it possible. Steve Weiland
hired me to be his graduate assistant six years ago, and
helped me transition to the college of education from
philosophy. I would like to thank David Pearson: all of my
interactions with you have been to my benefit. I would like
to thank Helen Featherstone whose interest, kindness, and
support always came at the right time.

Mark Girod and I had many conversations about our
dissertations over pizza at Georgio’s; these conversations,
and our relationship, were vital. Gina Cervetti and I have
been collaborating since we met, and it is this
collaboration which inspired the topic of this
dissertation.

My parents have never given me anything but support,
even when I told them 10 years ago that I was going to
study philosophy. They made most of the good things in my
life possible. And thanks to Paul, Andrea, Amy, Erin, and

Kevin who always asked how things were going and assumed

vi

only the best. And “thank you” to Mom and Dad Lamparter,
for the people you are; I've learned much from you. Also,
my grandmother — sharp, caring, and always encouraging.

I am indebted to all of the students who participated
in philosophy over the last three summers, and to the
administrator's of the Dimensions program.

The following people have all been important to me,
and I cannot begin to detail in how many different ways
(in alphabetical order): Greg Alexander, Martin Benjamin,
James Damico, Matt Ebert, Carol Sue Englert, Steve Esquith,
Tanna Girod, Bill Hoaglin, Carolyn Jaynes, Rachel Lander,
Matt Lipman, Dick Prawat, Cheryl Rau, Shari Levine Rose,
Ann Schulte, Jack Smith, Brandon Stallard, and Valerie

Worthington.

vfi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION

Constructivism. . . . .
Individual/Psychological Constructivism.

.1
6

Criticisms of Individual/Psychological Constructivism.

Social Constructivism.

Criticisms of Social Constructivism. .
Critique of Social Constructivist Teaching
Modernism and Postmodernism

Postmodern Social Constructivist Pedagogy.
Broad Purpose of this Dissertation.

CHAPTER TWO
INTRODUCTION

C. S. Peirce and Community of Inquiry.

Community of Inquiry in Philosophy for Children.

Mechanisms of Community Formation in P4C.
Other Understandings of Community of Inquiry.
Community of Inquiry and This Dissertation

CHAPTER THREE.

Methodology. . . .
Data Collection and analysis.
Description of Teacher's Stance.

CHAPTER FOUR
INTRODUCTION.

Analysis 1: Treatment of Text.
Analysis 2: Opening Day.

Analysis 3: Topics of Discussion.

CHAPTER FIVE

vfii

10

.12

.14
.17
23

.32

34

37

.38
.45
51
56

.60

63

.63

69

.71

.77

.78
.98

.109

DISCUSSION.

A Look to This Summer’s Philosophy Class

Concluding Remarks.

REFERENCES .

ix

118
133
134

138

LI ST OF TABLES

Table l - Analysis of Discussion Topics (p. 111)

Chapter 1

Introduction
In this chapter I will examine issues relating to
individual and social forms of constructivism, modernism
and postmodernism. My purpose is to review the various
forms of constructivism and their connections to modernism
and postmodernism, corresponding views of teaching, and
then consider the relationships between pedagogy and

purpose.

Constructivism

There are terms used in specific discourses that take
on almost transcendental status as they get defined,
redefined, and used in many different ways in the service
of influencing, arguing, questioning and the like. In
educational parlance, “constructivism” is one of these
terms. Constructivism is used in many different ways. There
are constructivist learning theories, world views, teaching
methods, theories of cognition and more. In his

introduction to the NSSE yearbook, Constructivism in

 

Education, D.C. Phillips (1999) offers an initial

distinction in an attempt to begin mapping out the broad
landscape of constructivism. He distinguishes between
constructivism as “a thesis about the disciplines or bodies
of knowledge that have been built up during the course of
human history (p. 6)”, and constructivism as “a set of
views about how individuals learn (and about how those who
help them to learn ought to teach) (p. 7).” While this is a
sweeping cut in the landscape, it is an important
distinction that I will make use of. It is interesting to
note that Phillips has divided the constructivist
landscape, roughly, in terms of individual and social
sorts, corresponding to an individual/social distinction.
Next, I will briefly consider some of the ideas which
helped contemporary constructivist discourse take shape,
and then attend to some broader characterizations of
constructivism which fall on either side of Phillips’
distinction.

Within the broad domain of constructivism, there are
many places one could begin an analysis of important
philosophical influences. I will deal specifically with

Kant and Wittgenstein.

Kant can be given credit for synthesizing the dominant
world views of empiricism (starting with Locke), and
rationalism (starting with Descartes), and can also be
considered one of the seminal theorizers of constructivist
epistemology (Bredo, 2000, p. 128). Kant argued that
neither the empiricist nor rationalist traditions
adequately dealt with the subject of how individuals make
sense of the world. While classical empiricists struggled
with how the mind receives (constructs) experiential
knowledge from the outside world, rationalists struggled
with how the mind reasons about (constructs) an apparently
given world. In the empiricist View, we find an emphasis on
experience, and in the rationalist View we find an emphasis
on reason. Kant sought to synthesize the two Views by
claiming that the mind is predisposed to organize
experience in a particular way because of its fundamental
organizing categories of space, time, causation, and
substance. Howe and Berv (2000) sum this up nicely,

Kant’s View exemplifies a true constructivist View

because it is more thoroughgoing. . .It denies that

there can be any Egg sensory experience that the mind

takes as given and then performs its formal operations
on (empiricism). Alternatively, conceptual schemes are

not pgrg (rationalism), but have meaning only as they

construct experience. (p. 21)
It is important to note the influence Kant had on Piaget
here. Piaget adopted the Kantian categories, and
experimented and theorized on the developmental unfolding
of these categories in children. While I will say more
about this later, for now suffice it to say that Kant was
one of the key figures in the development of
individual/psychological constructivism and dictated some
of the very terms key psychological constructivists (like
Piaget) used in developing their theories of learning and
development.

The linguistic turn in philosophy (Rorty, 1992; 1991)
placed language, as opposed to experience, as the new unit
of analysis in theorizing about mind and knowledge. One of
the key figures in this turn was Ludwig Wittgenstein. The
later work of Wittgenstein was radical both in its form
(Wittgenstein wrote in an aphoristic style), and in its
claims about the traditional projects of epistemology.
Wittgenstein believed that to understand anything about

mind or knowledge we must understand something about how

language works. He posited the notion that how we talk
about things dramatically effects how we learn and
understand because how we talk about things is governed by
rgles, or, forms of life (Wittgenstein, 1953). That is, we
learn about happiness, pain, knowledge, etc. by
participating in language games where key terms are used in
particular ways. An example of a language game would be the
practice of a discipline like chemistry. Chemists use the
particular nomenclature of the discipline and the
corresponding actions (laboratory practices and
scholarship) to constitute the practice of the language
game of chemistry. One becomes a chemist by using the
language and performing the actions (participating in the
form of life) of the chemistry discipline.

The thinking of both Kant and Wittgenstein influenced
the way constructivist epistemology took shape. Kant,
through his synthesis of rationalism and empiricism, forced
us to think about the human experience in the world as a
experience shaped by particularly human categories of
understanding. Wittgenstein helped introduce language as

the new unit of analysis and shifted the emphasis of

construction away from experience to discourse. Other
scholars have given more thorough accounts of the
philosophical underpinnings of constructivist thinking
(Steffe & Gale, 1995; Elgin, 1997). Given Phillips general
distinction between constructivism as either a thesis about
the bodies of knowledge of human creation, or a set of
views about how individuals learn (and teach), some general
comments about constructivism can be offered along those

lines.

Individual/Psychological Constructivism

Ken Strike (1987) has said, “the claim that people are
active in learning or knowledge construction is rather
uninteresting because no one, beyond a few aberrant
behaviorists, denies it” (p. 483). This statement contains
one of the most basic tenets of individual constructivism,
that people are active in learning/knowledge construction.

In trying to consider strains of constructivism that
start from individual/psychological concerns, we must
consider the work of Jean Piaget. As mentioned earlier,

Piaget was heavily influenced by Kant, and took Kant’s

categories as an important starting place for his
theorizing about learning and development. Piaget’s genetic
epistemology can be understood as a theory about how innate
structures of knowledge develop as the individual matures
and interacts in the world (Piaget and Inhelder 1969,
Piaget, 1954). Fundamental to this is the process of
equilibration, which entails the processes of accommodation
and assimilation. Piaget believed that cognitive structures
develop as individuals assimilate new information, situate
new information (accommodation), and reach subsequent
stages of equilibrium. This process is brought about when,
through one’s interactions in the world, one’s cognitive
understandings meet with conflicting information (cognitive
dissonance). In general, Piaget’s theory of genetic
epistemology and his account of learning and development
have been criticized as overly individualistic, relying too
much on a rationalistic world view (Bruner, 1985). However,
his ideas have had great influence on constructivist
thinking and have infused such notions as prior knowledge
into the discourse of education (Leinhardt, 1992). Piaget’s

work has greatly influenced another theory of

individual/psychological constructivism, Ernst Von
Glasersfeld’s (1995) theory of radical constructivism.
McCarty and Schwandt state that, “Von Glasersfeld’s
views on the fine details of constructing derive from a
careful reading of Piagetian developmental theory on which
a child builds up concepts and cognitive schemes by
isolating different experiences and treating them as equal
or near equal (p. 45).” For von Glasersfeld, individuals
engage in an unending series of constructions that the
individual either accepts and makes use of, or rejects
based on the viability of these constructions for their
life purposes. That is, the individual only has knowledge
of whether their constructions work in the world and never
directly knows or experiences anything outside of his own
constructions (Von Glasersfeld, 1991). As McCarty and

Schwandt (2000) state,

Von Glasersfeld does not deny extra—mental existence
outright (and, on this point, joins forces with Kant
against Berkeley and Hume), but prefers to insist that
external reality cannot be known. What remains of
knowledge for the constructivist extends no further
than the edges of the individual mind.(p. 44)

From these constructivist views of individual learning,

corresponding views of pedagogy can be extrapolated as

well.

Howe and Berv (2000) identified two premises of

constructivist learning theory as,

(1) learning takes as its starting point the
knowledge, attitudes, and interests students bring to
the learning, and (2) learning results from the
interaction between these characteristics and
experiences in such a way that learners construct
their own understanding, from the inside, as it
were.(p. 31)

 

Both of these premises have a direct lineage to Piaget's
work. Beyond these premises of constructivist learning
theory Howe and Berv identify two parallel premises of
constructivist teaching. The first premise states that
instruction must begin by considering the knowledge,
attitudes, and beliefs that learners bring to a learning
situation (p. 31). The second premise is, that “instruction
must be designed so as to provide experiences that
effectively interact with these characteristics of students
so they may construct their own understandings (p. 31).”
Interestingly enough, nothing in these premises reveals

anything about a learner’s relationship to a discipline, or

about a learners relationship to other learners. These are
truly premises of individual learning. These points give a
fair characterization of some basic constructivist beliefs

about individual learning and teaching.

Criticisms of Individual/Psychological Constructivism

Matthews (2000) summarizes what he believes to be the
main contributions of constructivism at the same time
qualifying these contributions as not of purely

constructivist inspiration,

Constructivism has done a service to science and
mathematics education by alerting teachers to the
function of prior learning and extant concepts in the
process of learning new material, by stressing the
importance of understanding as a goal of science
instruction, by fostering pupil engagement in lessons,
and other such progressive matters. But liberal
educationists can rightly say that these are
pedagogical commonplaces, the recognition of which
goes back to Socrates. . .Constructivism has also done
a service by making educators aware of the human
dimension of science, its fallibility, its connections
to culture and interests, the place of convention in
scientific theory, the historicity of concepts, the
complex procedures of theory appraisal, and much else.
But again realist philosophers can rightly maintain
that constructivism does not have a monopoly on these
insights. (p.187)

10

Matthews also suggests that the influence of constructivism
has resulted, in part, in a substitution of terms. For
example, he contrasts what he calls “Orthodox Old Speak”
with “Constructivist New Speak”, in the following
translations: learning = construction of knowledge, theory
= scheme, graphs = mediational tools, writing = discourse,
education 2 cognitive apprenticeship, paying attention =
student engagement, etc., (p. 182).

Howe and Berv (2000) point out the basic premises that
constructivist thinking has introduced regarding learning
and teaching (those of individual constructivism), but
there are those who believe that reform oriented teachers,
whether they profess a commitment to constructivism or not,
enact such premises of teaching and learning all the time
(Ball and Bass, 2000; Solomon, 2000). While on one hand the
contributions of constructivism seem to be noteworthy, they
may not be the contributions of constructivism alone. Also,
as Matthews (2000) points out, one can enact constructivist
premises of teaching without being a constructivist: he
gives Plato’s Meno, specifically Socrates work with the

slave-boy, as an example of constructivist teaching

ll

informed by an epistemology that is not really
constructivist (p. 187). This suggests that constructivists
who enact premises of individual learning and teaching have
reintroduced some ideas that have been around for a long
time (many which can be associated with progressivism), and
have mildly supported teaching practices that are often

enacted by reform—oriented teachers anyway.

Social Constructivism

There are also some basic statements that characterize
social constructivist views about the bodies of
disciplinary knowledge that humans have come to work
within. Phillips (2000) summarizes the view of “Strong
Program” sociologists who believe that disciplinary
knowledge “can be fully explained, and accounted for, in
sociological terms (p.8).” That is, knowledge, in any
field, is constructed by sociological forces of ideology,
religion, human interests, political influence, and the
like (Phillips, 2000, p. 9; Bloor, 1976; Woolgar 1988).

Kenneth Gergen’s (1994) Social Constructionism is one of

12

the more coherent views about the social construction of
knowledge and reality. Gergen believes that,
1” The terms by which we account for the world and
ourselves are not dictated by the stipulated objects of
such accounts.
2.’Fhe terms and forms by which we achieve understanding
of the world and ourselves are social artifacts, products
of historically and culturally situated interchanges
among people.
Z3.The degree to which a given account of the world or
self is sustained across time is not dependent on the
objective validity of the account but the vicissitudes of
social processes.
4.Ianguage derives its significance in human affairs
from the way in which it functions within patterns of
relationship.(p. 48—52)
This View is different than other social constructivist
views as it mostly ignores metaphysical talk of reality in
favor or a focus on microsocial processes (p. 69). Though,
I agree with McCarty and Schwandt (2000) who point out that
Gergen (and Von Glasersefeld) can be criticized for
smuggling in talk about knowledge and reality even though
he denies these charges.
Vygotsky’s (1978) Cultural—Historical theory spans

both sides of Phillips’ broad distinction. Vygotsky

proposes mechanisms by which individuals internalize

13

thought and the broader norms of culture by participation
in linguistic communities. He also proposes a theory of
human development along onto and phylo genetic lines that
accounts for the broader development of the species. Bredo
(2000) summarizes Vygotsky’s place in this landscape and
elaborates in a way that illuminates this side of Phillips
distinction,
Vygotsky can be viewed as a constructivist because he
considered basic forms (and contents) of minds to be
socially constructed (and constructing). He Viewed
symbolically mediated thought as a social process,
like a dialogue, that is “internalized” through
participation in social interaction. . .As Russia
modernized, for example, people’s ways of thinking
changed to become more formal-logical as a result of
schooling and other experiences. Seen in this way,
society is not just an environmental variable or a

content that one learns about. Rather, modern social
life creates the very form of modern minds. (p. 133)

Criticisms of Social Constructivism

The side of Phillips' distinction that does not talk
about views of individual learning is concerned with the
bodies of knowledge that have been constructed by humans
throughout history (disciplinary knowledge that is). The

wars over epistemology in educational theory over the last

14

twenty years have been largely due to social constructivist
criticisms of disciplinary knowledge as not reflective of
some external reality, but as constructions dependent upon
such things as power, particular discursive communities,
and ideology. In part, these critiques have been inspired
by neopragmatists and poststructuralists philosophical
critiques of modern epistemology. This has led to debates
within education, like the “science wars” (Slezak, 2000)
between those who uphold the legitimacy of the modern world
View and preeminence of science, and those who believe
science to be claiming foundations it cannot support.
However, these debates mirror, and draw upon, the debates
in philosophy between realists like Popper and Fodor, and
neopragmatists and poststructuralists like Rorty, Derrida,
and Foucault. This kind of constructivism does not have as
its primary focus, teaching and learning. There are general
statements made that resist authoritarian forms of
teaching, and a call for communal learning and dialogue,
but no detailed accounts of what teaching as a postmodern
social constructivist might look like (McCarty and

Schwandt, 2000). So, it would seem that social

IS

constructivist theorizing, with its powerful critiques of
foundationalism and the modern world View, offers no
significant prescription for teaching and learning, and
mostly mirrors the long standing debate in philosophy.
Thousands of pounds of paper and gallons of ink have been
used by educational theorists in recreating the
philosophical debate between realists and those espousing
non—realist (often postmodern) theories. Burbules (2000)
brings a note of clarity to these debates,

In short, realists on this issue are more likely to
think that knowledge can be objective, complete, and
unchanging, and that knowledge disputes can be settled
by allusions to “the way the world is.”
Constructivists and others who reject that premise are
more likely to think that knowledge will be partial,
provisional, and imperfect, and that knowledge
disputes will be more intractable because strongly
held beliefs are intertwined with other social and
cultural elements that groups may be reluctant to give
up or change. Who is right on this issue? I hope to
have made it clear that the question cannot be
answered at that level; bgth positions tend to
prejudge what sorts of social agreement will or will
not be possible, and they use claims about “reality”
(one way or another) to undergird what are really
premises about the likelihood of being able to settle
certain types of disagreement. (p. 317-318)

What Burbules is suggesting is that the debates on this

side of the constructivist landscape are of little use to

16

educators and have more to do with matters of temperament

than anything productive for thinking about teaching and

learning. He echoes this claim when he gives his view,

which I agree with, on the metaphysical war between social

constructivists and their critics,

On the issue of metaphysics, we come to the timeless
philosophical question about the independent existence
of an external world. I have given long and careful
thought to this problem, and I would like to propose a
seriously considered response: Who cares? The question

 

of the existence of an external world is,

I believe,

one of those philosophical pseudo—questions that are
not answerable in the terms given. . .It expresses an

article of faith rather than a demonstrable

philosophical postulate, and as with other
faith it is not interesting to ask whether
or not, but only why people believe it and
effects their belief has. (p. 317—318)

I accept Burbules’ criticisms and think it wise

the topic of conversation to ones of importance

practical effect.

Critique of Social Constructivist Teaching

articles of
it is true
what

to change

and

Some of the criticisms made of both kinds of

constructivism point to a real problem for educators. If

one is charged with the responsibility of teaching a well

defined set of facts/concepts, say in Biology,

17

Algebra, or

American history, how does one balance that responsibility
with staying committed to helping students construct their
own knowledge and understandings? This question has been
wrestled with by several scholars working with
constructivist ideas within the context of disciplinary
teaching (Ball, 1993; Ball and Chazan 1999; Rose, 1999;
Yackel, Cobb, and Wood 1991). These studies have shown that
there is a place for constructivist premises of teaching
within the teaching of a discipline, but, that the
disciplines have their own requirements for what counts as
legitimate, contested, appropriate, etc. As Ball and Bass

(2000) point out,

As children engage with interesting mathematical
problems, they produce different solution strategies
and solutions. Quite often, however, classes end with
no comparative inspection of these. Instead, multiple
representations, methods, and solutions are left to
uneasy coexistence, implying either a mathematically
unverified equivalence, or the message that multiple
solutions simply exist, much like multiple
interpretations of text. But the disciplines of
mathematics and literary interpretation differ, and

the imperative to inspect and compare multiple ideas
is central to mathematics. (p. 199)

While I think that there is an imperative to inspect and

compare in any subject, I take from Ball and Bass that some

18

of the premises of individual constructivist teaching can
open up spaces for dialogue and inquiry within what are
sometimes thought of as air-tight spaces (mathematics
teaching); also, that the opening of space for dialogue and
inquiry must be accompanied by a certain rigor dictated by
the specifics of the discipline. But this points to a
potential disconnect when a teacher has content that they
“have” to “get” to the students, yet, they want students to
construct their own knowledge. Smith, et al. (1993)
skillfully point this out in their criticism of
misconceptions research. It seems that in many cases the
attempt to apply constructivist premises of teaching within
disciplines has taken the form of trying to relieve and
replace students misconceptions, which, as Smith et a1.
point out, is not very constructivist. Sexias (1993) points
out this discrepancy in relation to the teaching of
history,
Even where alternative interpretations of the past are
presented, they are conveyed with the authority of a
community of which the students are not a part.
.rather the voice of the historical text
systematically excludes them. If the constructivist

theories are right, there is not much room for real
learning here. If the philosophers of hiStory are

19

right, there is not much real history, either (p.
314).

In the examples of disciplinary teaching cited above we see
students working in communities, with the teacher playing
an important role as leader and moderator. The students are
given the space necessary to explore their reasoning with
one another with the result that students often engaged in
similar activities to their professional counterparts in
the disciplines (Ball, 2000; Rose, 1999). That is, students
reasoned in mathematically (in Ball, and Cobb et al.) and
historically (in Rose’s case) sophisticated ways that
sometimes resembled the kinds of moves mathematicians and
historians make. These teachers consider and make use of
their students’ attitudes, beliefs and understandings, and
use these to foster a lively discourse around the subject
matter they are teaching. They also use a more communal
organization as opposed to a more didactic style. Ball and
Chazan (1999) and Rose (1999) skillfully illustrate the
tensions constructivist teachers face as they try to
balance student understanding and lively discourse with the
demands of subject matter knowledge their students need to

know. While the level of student engagement is remarkable,

20

and they have fascinating conversations that defy what many
believe students capable of, perhaps this is a more humane
way of seducing students into learnigggwhat states,
districts, and teachers want them to know? Wouldn’t a
serious attempt at trying to teach in a social
constructivist way demand that teachers not just use
premises of individual constructivism as a different way to
“get” the content of a course through to students? Doesn’t
taking both sides of the constructivist distinction
Phillips makes require a different, more critical stance
towards disciplinary thinking? Doesn’t more need to be made
of the understandings students construct, knowledge in
general, and issues of authority and power, etc.? The
disciplinary attempts at teaching in a social
constructivist way, while they have many positive things to
teach us about the kinds of thinking and inquiry students
are capable of within disciplines, while they are
skillfully enacting the premises of individual
constructivist teaching and should and can be held up as
exemplary cases in skillful constructivist teaching in

inquiry oriented environments, wrongly identify what they

21

are doing “social constructivism”. I am not saying that
this teaching is not constructivist, it is. I am suggesting
that it is more akin to individual constructivism or
sociocultural theory than social constructivism. If we take
Phillips distinction, and look at the some of the premises
of social constructivism, we see that these
teacher/researchers are not enacting the beliefs of social
constructivism. In fact, the social constructivist
discourse discussed above has very little to say about
pedagogy. It is possible constructivist teaching has not
gone far enough in attempting to employ more of its
philosophical tenets in the realm of pedagogy?

It would seem that outside of the research on
disciplinary teaching cited above, which is really more
sociocultural than social constructivist, we have few
examples of what taking a postmodern constructivism
seriously, would look like. Wouldn’t we be doing something
different than trying to find a more humane way to get
students to know what we want them too? This analysis
suggests that the contribution of constructivism,

especially the side of Phillips’ distinction having to do

22

with views of how individuals learn and how people should
teach, has mostly been a cognitivization of the idea that
we should listen to what students think and encourage them
to work together so we can better teach them what we were
going to teach them anyway. Also, it suggests that we have
not seen a more thoroughgoing social constructivism that
incorporates its postmodern, philosophical points into

pedagogy.

Modernism.and Postmodernism

In the 1996 special issue of The Educational

 

Psychologist, Richard Prawat identifies six constructivisms
and undertakes the task of organizing these six views into
two camps, one modern the other postmodern. The distinction
between modernism and postmodernism, for Prawat, lies in
the epistemology of each of the two groups. The difference
between the modern and postmodern epistemologies is, the
postmodern views, “refute the assumptions that knowledge is
primarily the property of individuals and that, if it is to
have any claim on our allegiance, it must be the product of

a foolproof inferential system (p. 215).” The modern

23

constructivisms Prawat identifies are Radical
Constructivism and Information Processing. The postmodern
constructivisms he identifies are Sociocultural theory,
Symbolic Interactionism, Social Constructionism, and his
own, “idea-based social constructivism” which is supported
by the thinking of Peirce and Dewey.

In the constructivist literature reviewed thus far,
knowledge (and to some extent, reality) is a key issue. But
the lines cannot be drawn quite as cleanly as Prawat
suggests. For example, McCarty and Schwandt (2000) put Von
Glasersfeld’s radical constructivism squarely in the
postmodern camp because of its refusal to speak of reality
and knowledge as anything but personal constructions. And
while Sociocultural theory, specifically Vygotsky’s
Cultural-Historical theory, and Symbolic Interactionism,
the view of Mead, have distinctive postmodern elements (the
way they ignore mind/world, inside/outside binaries, and
focus on language), they also have commitments that would
classify them as modern in orientation (their developmental
theory and taking of reality as essentially given). The

lines between different forms of constructivism quickly get

24

blurry, and trying to differentiate the pedagogical, let
alone the epistemological, elements of modern and
postmodern constructivisms is difficult. So, I will attempt
an analysis of modern and postmodern discourse that will
help bring into relief different aspects of what a
postmodern social constructivist pedagogy might look like.
This analysis will help us answer the questions posed above
as to what a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy
would need to entail. So, let us move to consider the
discourse over modernism and postmodernism. This will help
us better understand what difference these differences
make, and will suggest what the important differences means
to educational enactments of social constructivism.
Discussion about modernism and postmodernism is
contentious. Neither term designates a particular theory or
a comprehensive philosophy. While we can identify certain
beliefs and values as modern or postmodern, no description
or attribution is final or definitive. Even the words
modern, postmodern, modernity, postmodernity, have
contested meanings and uses (Usher and Edwards, 1994). On

this point, Usher and Edwards (1994) state,

25

To talk about postmodernity, postmodernism, or the
postmodern is not therefore to designate some fixed
and systematic ‘thing’. Rather, it is to use a loose
umbrella term under whose broad cover can be
encompassed at one and a the same time a condition, a
set of practices, a cultural discourse, an attitude
and a mode of analysis. (p. X)

My tack will be to lay out some thoughtful descriptions of
these terms in an effort to paint, in broad brush strokes,
postmodernism in contrast to modernism in a way that will
render a fuller account of social constructivist teaching
and learning.1

Modernism can be used to describe a historical period
and corresponding world views beginning with the
Renaissance and Enlightenment, and leading into the 19th and
20th centuries. John McGowan (1991) describes events
connected to the Enlightenment that helped create the
conditions of the modern world,

The challenge to Catholicism by various protestant

sects, the challenge to Eurocentrism in the discovery

of radically different societies in other parts of

the globe, the challenge to religion manifested in

both new scientific discoveries and new economic

practices, the challenge to monarchy/oligarchy in the

rise of popular, democratic agitation, and the
challenge of traditional patterns of social

 

lFor expanded treatments of the discussion over Modernism and
Postmodernism see, Usher and Edwards 1994; Best and Kellner, 1991;
Jameson 1991; Featherstone 1991; Hassan 1987; Smart 1992.

26

integration in changing modes of production and
distribution and the growth of towns and cities all
combine over a three—hundred-year period (1500—1800)
to transform Europe. By the end of this period, the
West has recognized, in the face of diversity and
change, that it is thrown back upon itself to ground,
legitimate, and make significant its own practices.
(p. 4)

Challenges to traditional forms of authority and knowing
created the conditions from which a new View of the world
would emerge. Vaclav Havel (1992, Quoted in Cherryholmes
1999) communicated some of the spirit of the modern world
View in a speech he delivered to the United Nations:

The modern era has been dominated by the culminating
belief that the world. . .is a wholly knowable system
governed by a finite number of universal laws that man
can grasp and rationally direct for his own benefit.
This era, beginning in the Renaissance and developing
from the Enlightenment to socialism, from positivism
to scientism, from the Industrial Revolution to the
information revolution, was characterized by rapid
advances in rational, cognitive thinking. This, in
turn gave rise to the proud belief that man, as the
pinnacle of everything that exists, was capable of
objectively describing, explaining and controlling
everything that exists, and of possessing the one and
only truth about the world. It was an era in which
there was a cult of depersonalized objectivity, and
era in which objective knowledge was amassed and
technologically exploited, an era of belief in
automatic progress brokered by the scientific method.
It was an era of systems, ideologies, doctrines,
interpretations, of reality, an era in which the goal
was to find a universal theory of the world, and thus
a universal key to unlock its prosperity. (p. 15)

27

The modern world is very much the world we still live in.
The preeminence of scientific method is palpable. This
preeminence, as Havel noted, is fueled by the desire to
explain, predict, and control as mankind continues to
progress via the technological advancement and control of
nature and self. In the modern world View, the individual
(especially the individual mind) is the preferable unit of
analysis, and is conceived of as a unified, autonomous,
subject with a stable identity. These dispositions, and
View of the self, it is assumed, helps us get along in our
world. It is precisely these drives that postmodernists
criticize as being the product of a scientistic View of the
world. Feminist scholars have pointed out that these drives
have a basis in gender differences (Harding, 1987). It is
this world that many theorists believe to be in transition:
transition to a world “after” modernity, that is, “post”
modernity.

Cherryholmes outlines this transition with regard to
education,

For much of the twentieth century, efforts to

describe, explain and prescribe theories and practices

of education have been couched in a modernist rhetoric
that has highlighted rationality, hierarchy,

28

expertise, accountability, and differentiation in
order to promote progress and productivity.
.Modernism and rationality assume distinctions between
logic and rhetoric, planning and spontaneity, text and
context. Empiricism granted a central role to logic
validating theories, practices and discourses. . .We
are required to abandon a logic/rhetoric distinction,
however, because of developments in modern logic.
.The effect for educators and others is that we are
forced to think about the world in a way that relies
less on logic to validate our conceptions and more on
rhetoric to persuade ourselves and others about the
world and how it operates. (p. 91)
The “post” in “postmodern” attaches to other areas that go
along with this purported shift. Analytic philosophy
transitions to postanalytic philosophy; Structuralism in
linguistics transitions to poststructuralism, and
colonialism transitions into postcolonialism. That is, each
of these movements develops in reaction to an established
tradition, as opposed to an apriori justification based on
a new epistemology or metaphysic (Cherryholmes, 1999, p.
89). For example, certain poststructural criticism made by
Derrida, of the structural linguistics of Levi—Strauss,
involve Derrida’s using the very logic of structuralism to
show its inconsistency and ambiguity. He does this by

showing how Levi—Strauss’ use of the binary nature/culture

deconstructs: within Levi-Strauss’ own studies one can find

29

phenomena that fall into both the natural and the cultural
(Derrida, 1974/1997, p. 101—2). This means that what is
considered postmodern, or entailed in any of the “posts”,
was, in some measure, already present in what came before
it. As Natoli and Hutcheon (1993) state, “Postmodern
paradox, ambiguity, irony, indeterminacy, and contingency
are seen to replace modern closure, unity, order, the
absolute, and the rational (p. ix).” In many ways,
postmodernism arose out of modernism.

Thus, postmodernism can be seen as a reaction to
modern projects and views of the world. While it cannot be
labeled as only a particular time, logic, argument,
architecture, or theory, it can be thought of as all of
these things, and more. As Usher and Edwards state,

The postmodern moment . . .can therefore be seen as a
celebration and tolerance of pluralism, and difference
leading to a much more ambivalent and less fixed
positioning of subjectivity. The self and subjectivity
can no longer be thought of as unified and coherent
but ‘decentered’. . .the ‘centered’ subject does not
exist naturally and preformed but is rather a cultural
construct, inscribed by the meaning system that is
language and by discourses, particular and systematic
uses of language. . .As the postmodern problematises
the logic of naming, representation and language, so
the constitutive power of language is foregrounded.

.Being located in the postmodern also points to the
importance of textuality, of writing, and of

30

reflexivity in the sense of having an elaborated

awareness of what is done and what is constructed

through text and discourse. (p. 16)

Of course, postmodern thinkers (those who propose such
ideas), have their critics.

Frederic Jameson (1991) proposes the idea that a close
examination of postmodernism shows that all of its elements
can be found in Modernism. This leads him to suggest that
what is called postmodern is actually not a new period so
much as a late stage of Modern Capitalism. Terry Eagleton
(1996) takes a hard line against postmodernism and has made
critiques against it similar to the ones postmodernists use
against modernism. He states,

for all its talk of difference, plurality,

heterogeneity, postmodern theory often operates with

quite rigid binary oppositions, with ‘difference’,

‘plurality’ and allied terms lined up bravely on one

side of the theoretical fence as unequivocally

positive, and whatever their antitheses might be

(unity, identity, totality, universality) ranged

balefully on the other. (p. 25—6)

The debates around postmodernism are intense, and
thoughtful scholars in many different disciplines have

lined up on every possible side of it. I am not so much

interested in a correct characterization or description of

31

any particular side of these debates. I assume the social
constructivist critique of modern epistemology, at least as
it animates educational discourse, is as much at play and
to be learned from as modern, psychological constructivism.
With this, albeit brief, assemblage of

characterizations of the tension/transition between
modernism and postmodernism, let us move to consider what
these characterizations might mean in relation to a social

constructivist pedagogy.

Postmodern Social Constructivist Pedagogy

First of all, postmodernism necessarily shifts our
attention away from a preoccupation with the individual
toward issues of sociality. Therefore, we are more likely
to consider constructivist premises of individual learning
within the broader context of thinking about learning and
teaching as social enterprises. Also, students
constructions will be taken up as key texts in the class
and not considered only for the purpose of more effective

disciplinary teaching.

32

Postmodernism gets us talking about the role of
language and discourse, specifically textuality. Textuality
can be thought of as a way of being in the world that takes
seriously the idea that the world is socio-politically
layered/constructed and must be read purposefully.
Following certain post-structural lines of thinking,
specifically Derrida, we consider an exploded notion of
text as any attempt to mean/interpret, whether spoken,
written, or gestured. As Derrida (1982) states,

It is precisely for strategic reasons that I find it
necessary to recast the concept of the text by
generalizing it almost without limit, without any
limit that is. That’s why there is nothing ‘beyond the
text’. That’s why South Africa and apartheid are, like
you and me, part of this general text, which is not to
say that it can be read as one reads a book. That’s
why the text is always a field of forces:
heterogeneous, differential, open. That’s why
deconstructive readings are concerned not only with
library books. . .they are not simply analyses of
discourse. They are also effective or active
interventions that transform contexts without limiting
themselves to theoretical utterances even though they
must also produce such utterances. (p. 167—8)

This means that textuality will be an important issue in

any enactment of a postmodern social constructivism.

Trying to describe a notion of postmodern social

constructivism also requires that we pay attention to

33

authority and relations of power that shape subjects in the
classroom. A postmodern social constructivism will consider
issues of authority and power central and explicit
resulting in teaching that will make these issues central
to the teaching.

Given that social constructivism, as noted earlier in
the chapter, consists mainly of critiques of modern
epistemology, a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy
will directly confront issues of disciplinary faithfulness
in the context of teaching. That is, while teaching may
occur within the outward confines of a discipline, the
borders of disciplinary practice will be crossed in the

process.

Broad Purpose of this Dissertation

This dissertation will present an examination of my
own teaching, which changes from a modern constructivist to
that of a postmodern social constructivist within the
context of a sequence of philosophical inquiry classes. In
order to clarify what the differences might mean in terms

of an actual teacher and actual students, I will look at my

34

pedagogy in philosophical inquiry across the three years
and compare the teaching on a set of issues that will bring
into relief modern constructivist teaching that was
discussed earlier with a postmodern social constructivist
style of teaching. I am, in one sense, the same teacher
across the three years. But, my own thinking changes across
a three year period of time. In the first year I enacted a
traditional, disciplinary based philosophical inquiry. As I
begins to interact with more postmodern/critical ideas, my
teaching in the second year began to look different, and so
the community of inquiry looked different as well. In the
third year I attempted to enact a fuller postmodern
community of inquiry in the classroom, one that tried to
take seriously the elements of a postmodern social
constructivism described above. Analyses that span the
three communities will help differentiate a postmodern
social constructivism from a more modern constructivism
that adheres to disciplinary boundaries. By reading the
three different communities as text, my analyses
demonstrate the differences between modern and postmodern

forms of social constructivism, and demonstrate a more

35

thoroughgoing social constructivism invigorated by
postmodern thinking.

There are few examples of teachers trying to teach on
the postmodern side of constructivism. While there are
teachers who employ social/communal beliefs and strategies
in their classrooms, there are few cases where postmodern
issues like textuality, authority, disciplinary boundaries,
difference etc., are integrated into the teaching, and
students are encouraged to interrogate the subjects of

their schooling (especially pre high—school).

36

Chapter 2

Introduction

In this chapter I will represent community of inquiry in a
way that takes into consideration its development as it
pertains to the teaching of philosophical inquiry while
distinguishing it from other notions of communal learning
that are part of the discourse of theories that are social
and constructive.

“Community” is becoming a greater and greater part of

educational discourse. Community of practice (Wenger 1998),

learning community (Peterson, 1992), community of learners
(Rogoff, Matusov, and White, 1996), classroom community
(Bridges, 1995), and other phrases involving community can

readily be found in a search of educational topics
involving the word “community”. This suggests the term
community is at play in educational discourse, and its
prolific use means that it plays in many ways in that
discourse.

My intent is to discuss “community” in relation to its

use in “community of inquiry”. How and why a classroom

37

might become a community of inquiry is different depending
on what one’s views of constructivist teaching is. The
teaching studied in this dissertation invokes different
understandings of community of inquiry and I will try to
explain the differences between them. The notion of
community of inquiry that is at work in the philosophical
communities of inquiry I will study in the empirical
portion of the dissertation has its roots in the work of C.
S. Peirce. Therefore, I will begin with a particular
consideration of the phrase “community of inquiry” in

Peirce.

C. S. Peirce and Community of Inquiry

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839—1914) was both a
scientist and a philosopher. These dispositions had a major
impact on his work as he sought to bring the method of
science to philosophy. Peirce’s drive to bring scientific
inquiry to philosophy was in large part a reaction to the
dominance of Cartesianism in modern philosophy (Murphy,
1990, p. 8—9). Peirce believed that philosophy had gone

awry with its adoption of a Cartesian View of knowledge.

38

Descartes reconstituted the Western View of knowledge by
positing the mind as an inner space which directly
apprehends ideas, and it is these ideas which, when clearly
and distinctly perceived, constitute knowledge. It is worth
quoting Peirce’s understanding and criticisms of
Cartesianism at length as it is his reaction to this system
that inspires his notion of community of inquiry:

Descartes is the father of modern philosophy and the
spirit of Cartesianism—that which principally
distinguishes it from the scholasticism which it
displaced—may be compendiously stated as follows:

1. It teaches that philosophy must begin with
universal doubt; whereas scholasticism had never
questioned fundamentals.

2. It teaches that the ultimate test of certainty is
to be found in the individual consciousness; whereas
scholasticism had rested on the testimony of sages and
of the Catholic Church.

3. The multiform argumentation of the middle ages is
replaced by a single thread of inference depending
often upon inconspicuous premises.

4. Scholasticism had its mysteries of faith, but
undertook to explain all created things. But there are
many facts which Cartesianism not only does not
explain, but renders absolutely inexplicable, unless
to say that “God makes them so” is to be regarded as
an explanation.

In some, or all of these respects, most modern
philosophers have been in effect, Cartesians. Now
without wishing to return to scholasticism, it seems
to me that modern science and modern logic require us
to stand upon a very different platform from this.
(Buchler, 1990, p. 228)

39

Peirce offers specific and fatal criticisms to what he
calls the “spirit of Cartesianism”. His objections are
important because it is within his objections that we begin
to understand the development of his notion of community of
inquiry. First of all, Perice rejects the notion that
philosophy must begin with universal doubt. He says, “We
cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all
the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon
the study of philosophy (1990, p. 228).” Peirce did not
believe a person could doubt everything as we must act in
the world, and action requires belief in a great many
things. Any attempt at universal doubt would end in self-
deception. To the second tenet, Peirce argues that if truth
and certainty are to be found in the individual
consciousness then, “If I were really convinced, I should
have done with reasoning, and should require no test of
certainty. But thus, to make single individuals absolute
judges of truth is most pernicious (1990, p. 229).” It is
in his rejection of this tenet of Cartesianism that we find
Peirce mention the importance of community,

In sciences in which men come to agreement, when a
theory has been broached, it is considered to be on

40

probation until this agreement is reached. After it is
reached, the question of certainty becomes an idle
one, because there is no one left who doubts it. We
individually cannot reasonably hope to attain the
ultimate philosophy which we pursue; we can only seek
it, therefore, for the community of philosophers.
Hence, if disciplined and candid minds carefully
examine a theory and refuse to accept it, this ought
to create doubts in the mind of the author of the
theory himself. (1990, p. 229)

 

This notion of people coming together to serve as jury to
ideas and hypotheses is the basis for Peirce’s notion of
community of inquiry. Where people come together in
agreement, “one can speak of knowledge, truth, and reality,

but these concepts will be grounded in the community of

 

inquirers, not in the individual consciousness (Murphy,
1990, p. 12).” Community of inquiry is central for Peirce
who used the terms community and inquiry to refer to a
group of individuals (most often scientists) employing an
interpersonal method for arriving at results.

In Peirce’s work, the issue of community develops
further around his treatment of theories of reality
(metaphysics). In his philosophical writings, Peirce argued
for the idea that there is a world independent of our

minds, which we can develop beliefs about. He says, “The

41

real is that which is not what we happen to think it, but
is unaffected by what we may think of it. (Peirce, 8.12)”
For Peirce, we come to know the world via a communal and
pluralistic community of inquirers engaged in a scientific
method of inquiry. If persistent, Peirce believed, the
community would eventually arrive at the same conclusions,
thus coming to know the real. In Peirce’s own words, “[T]he
opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed upon to by
all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the
object represented in this opinion is the real (p.40).”

Inquiry, for Peirce, is embodied in the scientific
method of arriving at conclusions through synthetic
reasoning. This kind of reasoning is inductive in its
character as it moves from old beliefs, through experience,
to new beliefs. Peirce believed that the human mind moves
between poles of doubt and belief. Doubts is a state of
agitation which leads to uncertainty. Belief is a state
which allows for action, and confidence, eventually turning
into habit. Between doubt and belief lies inquiry (Smith,
1983, p. 47).Smith explains this further,

Serious inquiry aimed at acquiring knowledge of the
real world. . .starts with the assumption that there

42

is an answer, thg answer to the question that directs

the process. Moreover, there is the further assumption

that this answer would be found if the inquiry

persisted. (Smith, 1983, p. 48)

So the method of inquiry for Peirce is what is crucial to
producing knowledge that can be believed. That is,
“[r]eality, insofar as it is identified through ultimate
belief resulting from inquiry, is defined by a form of
rationality rather than by the fact of a belief’s being
held (1983, p. 49).” Peirce believes inquiry to be a
rational, scientific process that by virtue of its logic
(form) will yield the same conclusion regardless of the
interests of those inquiring.

Peirce vehemently rejected the idea that we can
achieve any significant insights, or reliable knowledge,
from introspection. This belief is a reaction to the
Cartesian View that we can be clear and distinct about our
own thinking. For Peirce, it is necessary for us to subject
our thinking to standards that lie outside of our own
interests, concerns, and reflections. In this way, thinking
must continually be subject to a community whose standards
allow us to correct and revise our ideas in the course of

living our lives.

43

From this position, we get a feel for the importance
of community to Peirce’s View of inquiry. The community of
inquirers, accepting of the method of scientific
investigation, serves as the arbiter of standards and the
justification for the production of reliable knowledge. The
individual scientist conducting experiments is never really
alone, for she uses methods that are accepted by a
community and she must continually revise her thought
processes and observations in relation to the standards set
by that community. Smith adds insight to this position,

The community of investigators purporting to be

scientific is defined by the willingness of each

individual member to sacrifice what is personal and
private. . .in order to follow the dictates of an
interpersonal method that involves free exchange of

views and results. (1983, p. 50)

In this way, the individual inquirer is always subject to
the standards of the community which they have accepted by
the adoption of methods of science. Community, in this
case, is the actual community of scientific inquirers who
are engaged in the rational deployment of synthetic

reasoning. I’ll end with a quote by Smith which sums up

Peirce’s notion of the community of inquiry,

The idea of science as an activity engaged in by a
community of inquirers, and the conception of reality
as an ultimate opinion reached by the process of
inquiry, are reciprocal notions. On the one side we
have the idea of the real as an ultimate opinion which
is, though not external to thought in general, still
independent of what this, that, or the other
individual thinker may happen to think. On the other
side we have the idea of the method reaching such an
opinion that requires individual inquirers to
constitute themselves as members of the community of
science through their willingness to sacrifice their
privacy and bind themselves by the rules of an
interpersonal method. (Smith, 1983, p. 51)
A community of inquiry, Peirce believes, is the model
for the production of knowledge which will lead us from
doubt to belief, and eventually to the real. Peirce’s use

of these terms is important because aspects of his usage

remain in tact in recent uses of community of inquiry.

Community of Inquiry in Philosophy for Children

Peirce’s use of community of inquiry was a reaction to
the dominant philosophy of his time. Peirce’s extrapolation
of community of inquiry from his reading of the scientific
method, and application of community of inquiry to
philosophy, was a way of establishing a new pragmatic
system in philosophy designed to challenge and replace the

preeminence of Cartesian dualism.

45

By the time community of inquiry was adopted by
Matthew Lipman, and Ann Sharp, founders of Philosophy for
Children, Dewey had adopted community of inquiry and made
it integral to his theorizing about classrooms and
curriculum (see Dewey, 1938; 1902). It is also discussed,
though not using the specific phrase “community of inquiry”
by Jerome Bruner (1960) in his influential book, The
Process of Education.

Community of inquiry receives an extended treatment in
Philosophy for Children. Philosophy for Children is both a
curriculum (in all senses of the term) from which to View
educational practice and purpose. This perspective takes
seriously the notion that philosophical inquiry should be
one of the core elements of elementary school life (Lipman,
Sharp, & Oscanyan, 1980). The reason for this? Education
should empower children to be thoughtful about the lives
they lead, and doing philosophy is important to that goal.
Philosophical inquiry involves the taking of different
perspectives and serious reflection, and it teaches ways of
reasoning about the world that enhances student’s abilities

to think critically, deliberately, and imaginatively. The

46

vehicle by which philosophical inquiry is implemented in
elementary schools is a curriculum based on philosophical
novels that students and teachers read together in teacher—
led communities of inquiry.

A typical Philosophy for Children class session might
begin with the teacher and students choral reading part of
a chapter from one of the curriculum novels. The inquiry
would begin with the teacher soliciting remarks from the
students. This is an important feature of this practice
because, in this forum, it is the students who choose what
is interesting and raise issues for discussion. To the
extent that most classrooms focus on the teacher as the
director of inquiry, this shift of power is an important
step in the empowerment of students. By shifting the
balance of power in the classroom away from the teacher,
one shifts the frameworks for participation in the
classrooms (O’Connor, M. C. & Michaels, S. 1996). When this
happens, students have the potential to become more engaged
in classroom discourse, take more speaking turns, and speak
for longer periods of time (Cazden 1988, Anderson et al.

1998). These changes are important because they position

47

students in fundamentally different ways; students become
an important part of the inquiry and their thoughts on the
issue are an integral part of any discussion. In this
environment students are actively responsible for creating
and sustaining discussions, and are confronted with their
own thinking and the thoughts of their fellow students in
an environment of mutual respect with an accomplished
inquirer (the teacher). The novels traditionally used in
Philosophy for Children are sprinkled heavily with
philosophical subject matter. Discussions about reality
(metaphysics), what is right (ethics), and language are
common topics for inquiry. In the end though, it is the
process of inquiry that is most important, and the
discussions often begin in areas that are not
philosophical. But this does not mean that the teacher does
not have any say how topics are discussed. Let me say more
about this process of inquiry.

A discourse community centered around philosophical
inquiry is the primary vehicle by which philosophical ways
of talking and thinking are fostered. Early in the

formation of a community of inquiry, the teacher

48

facilitates discussion and scaffolds appropriate forms of
participation in the community (put in “community values”
and “principles of philosophical inquiry” here). Ideally,
as the community becomes more skilled and begins to gain
confidence, the teacher takes a less active role in the
inquiry. “Inquiry”, in Philosophy for Children, means,
“perseverance in self—corrective exploration of issues that
are felt to be both important and problematic (Lipman,
1988, p.20).” In other words, an inquiry is a sustained
exploration of a topic or issue that is of interest to
students; community members participate in inquiries in the
hope of understanding the many ways of thinking about an
issue and the production of knowledge about the self and
the world.

Simply put, a community of inquiry in the discourse of
Philosophy for Children (hereafter P4C), is the conversion
of a classroom into a place for the self—corrective,
disciplined exploration of issues with philosophical
relevance. As Lipman says, “Such a community is committed
to the procedures of inquiry, to responsible search

techniques that presuppose an openness to evidence and to

49

reason (Lipman, et al, 1980, p. 45).” The community of
inquiry must arise from an environment that has certain

preconditions.

Preconditions of Community of Inquiry in P4C:

1. Readiness to reason

2. Mutual respect (of children towards one another,

and of children and teachers towards one another)

3. An absence of indoctrination (1980, p. 45)

To a certain extent, the readiness to reason is assumed by
virtue of the fact the children are language users. The use
of language necessitates certain basics of reasoning even
though they are mostly informal and implicit. Since
reasoning is one of the things the P4C curriculum purports
to cultivate, the readiness to reason will eventually be
transformed into formal abilities to reason through the
teaching of formal and informal logic.

While the second presupposition might seem overly
egalitarian, it is not the case that the teacher and
students are seen as equals. The teacher is viewed as the
authority when it comes to the procedures and techniques of

inquiry, and philosophical background knowledge. But this

authority is not supposed to extend to the favoring of

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particular points of view. The teacher must assist students
in following the paths of their own thinking. But the
teacher must always stop at the point of legitimizing or
delegitimizing particular points of View. As Lipman et al
explain, “Under the banner of “pluralism,” it may be
contended, the convergence of views is precluded, agreement
and assent are ruled out, and intellectual diversity
becomes the order of the day (1980, p, 45—6).”

Building on the previous point, indoctrination is
thought to be subverted through the adoption of a
pluralistic stance. On one level this is naive, as
teaching, of any sort, involves an ideological stance which
precludes neutrality. Pluralism is a doctrine of sorts, a
doctrine against monism. However, this presupposition is
meant to convey the idea that the teacher must not hold the
belief that ideas and opinions must always converge. They
present this precondition as necessary to the creation of a
community of inquiry. My point here is that community of

inquiry is not neutral, or without ideological commitments.

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Mechanisms of Community Formation in P4C

According to P4C, the community is brought together by

the following means:

1.Group solidarity through dialogical inquiry

2.The primacy of activity and reflection

3.The articulation of disagreements and the quest for
understanding

4.Fostering cognitive skills (e.g., assumption
finding, generalization, exemplification) through
dialogical practice.

5.Learning to employ cognitive tools (e.g., reasons,
criteria, concepts, algorithms, rules, principles)
6.Joining together in cooperative reasoning (e.g.,
building on each other's ideas, offering
counterexamples or alternative hypotheses, etc.)
7.Internalization of the overt cognitive behavior of
the community (e.g., introjecting the ways in which
classmates correct one another until each becomes
systematically self—corrective) - “intrapsychical
reproduction of the interpsychical” (Vygotsky)
8.Becoming increasingly sensitive to meaningful nuance
of contextual differences

9.Group collectively groping its way along, following
the argument where it leads (1991, p. 242)

These nine mechanisms of community formation are the
constitutive elements of Community of Inquiry for Lipman.
They are the “ways” a group of students and a teacher
becomes a community. Described a little differently, the
community forms by: being dialogically inquisitive, active
and reflective, articulate, cognitively adept, cooperative,

sensitive to context, and explorative.

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For Lipman (1991), Community of Inquiry is not just a
classroom phenomena, it is curriculum. Community of Inquiry
involves a valuing of certain stances towards written
texts. Lipman states that Community of Inquiry begins with
narrative texts that model Community of Inquiry. This is
reflected in the P4C curriculum which is organized around
novels where the characters are a community of inquiry.
This, virtual community, or, textual community, adds a
another dimension of community to the community forming in
any particular classroom. The text reflects: accepted
values and beliefs, mental reflections of an author, and,
examples of thinking that can be internalized (Lipman,
1991, p. 241). The text mediates between the culture and
the individual, and portrays “human relationships as
possibly analyzable into logical relations. (1991, P.
241).” Reading printed text aloud in the community has
ethical dimensions which involve turn taking; this turn
taking is also a division of labor. Reading aloud also
involves the reproduction of the written text into oral

form. This stance toward text allows students to discover

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that text is meaningful and worthy. That is, texts are full
of meaning and relevance (1991, p. 242).

Deciding what ideas or issues will be taken up by a
community is another key feature of Community of Inquiry in
Philosophy for Children. Agenda setting is public from the
standpoint that it begins with questions from the students.
Questions are organized collaboratively reflecting the
interests and priorities of the group (1991, p. 242). A
given starting point for an inquiry comes from the
collaboratively constructed agenda and is negotiated by the
entire community (including the teacher - who is a member
of the community — albeit a more capable one).

Specific curricular materials in P4C have been
designed to augment community of inquiry. These materials,
in the form of exercises, discussion plans, etc., allow the
methodology of P4C to more easily be appropriated by
community members, and can help instantiate particular
features of philosophical inquiry. For example, each novel
in the Philosophy for Children curriculum comes with a
teacher’s manual that gives exercises and elucidations of

key philosophical topics that appear in the novels. In the

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manual accompanying the novel Lisa, a novel which
emphasizes ethical inquiry, one can find philosophically
relevant explanations and exercises on human rights,
friendship, death, and fairness (amongst others).

Finally, efforts must be made to incorporate the
critical and the creative by exploring other forms of
cognitive expression (writing, painting, music, etc.) and
judgment (1991, p. 243).

Philosophy for Children has been practiced for 30
years. Community of Inquiry remains at the heart of the
movement and has received extensive development by those
using principles of Philosophy for Children in the
classroom.

We can see the influence of Pierce and Dewey in the
articulation of community of inquiry offered by those in
Philosophy for Children. The description of inquiry as a
self corrective process, and the emphasis on the form
(logic) of inquiry come directly from Peirce. Communities
of inquiry are modeled after scientific communities of
inquiry where the explorations of ideas and reasoning are

publicly displayed and scrutinized. This display and

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scrutiny eventually lead to the creation/construction of
knowledge about the self, and the world. While many
different avenues of thought can be explored in a
philosophical community of inquiry some topics and forms of
reasoning with be more legitimate than others. Every
participant in a community is like an individual scientific
inquirer, making the community of inquiry itself a
microcosm of the scientific community of inquirers at
large.

It is this notion of community of inquiry that
provided the parameters by which the philosophical
communities of inquiry in this study are enacted. In order
to round out this picture a little, let’s look at some

other understandings of community of inquiry.

Other understandings of Community of Inquiry

In studying community of inquiry in the teaching of
history, Peter Sexias (1993) distinguishes between two
different communities of inquiry: the intellectual
community of inquiring historians and the community of

inquiry in the classroom. The community of inquiring

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historians, Sexias notes, are engaged in the production of
historical knowledge. This community's task has been
greatly problematized by the challenges to modern
epistemology discussed in chapter 1 (some of these
challenges come from Social Constructivists, others, from
people, like Kuhn (1970), Lakatos & Musgrave (1970). As
Sexias notes, “[t]he constructivist recasting of curriculum
thought in the past 15 years has been based not in a
Kuhnian revision in epistemology of the subject disciplines
but in developments in learning theory and psychology
(Sexais, 1993, p. 306).” This re—introduces the dilemma
spoken about in chapter one, that of the relationship
between premises of individual constructivist learning and
teaching, and social constructivist critiques of
disciplinary knowledge. Sexias characterizes this tension
nicely as it relates to communities of inquiry,
First, what are the limits to the analogy between
scholarly and school—based communities of inquiry,
whose participants have not been inducted through
graduate programs and doctoral degrees? Second, if
knowledge is based on the conversation within a
community of the competent, what is the status of the
products of that conversation? Third, what is required
of teachers who, in this conceptualization, must

bridge two significantly different communities? (p.
306)

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On the one hand we have the communities of discipline based
inquirers, be they from history, philosophy, or
mathematics, and, on the other hand, we have communities of
inquiring students in classrooms. The relationship between
these two has traditionally been one way, where knowledge
constructed in the disciplines gets transformed into
curricula for students in schools. Historians have their
own sets of problems they deal with, lately ones of
epistemology and historical sense making (Sexias, 1993),
and teachers and students have their own struggles with the
teaching and learning of history. Sexias believes that any
attempt to conflate the two groups is dangerous. I guess he
has reservations about students abilities to “do” what
historians do. At the same time, he believes that many
historians would not support the one way flow of knowledge
from professional historians becoming the basis for school
curriculum (p. 313).

In some ways Sexias is caught in the constructivist
dilemma that frames this dissertation. He has pointed to,

within theorizing about the teaching of history, the

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disjunction between what historians do and what students in

school do.

Gordon Wells (1999) addresses the practice of
communities of inquiry in terms of cultural-historical
activity theory (Cole 1996). As Wells states,

Central to this approach is the building of a
‘community of inquiry’, in which students frequently
work together in groups on the same or related
inquiries, and in which a critically important
activity is whole class meetings for review and
reflection on what is planned, in progress or has been
achieved. It is in these meetings, in particular, that
the dialogue of knowledge building occurs most
deliberately and systematically as the relationship
among the individual or group inquiries are explored
in relation to the common theme, alternative
suggestions and perspectives are considered and
evaluated. . .These meetings also provide an occasion
for taking a ‘meta’ stance with respect to the
processes in which students are engaging, for
describing strategies that seem to be effective, and
for recognizing and valuing the diversity of ideas
that are contributed to the forging of a common
understanding. (p. 7—8)

We can see many similarities between, the statements Wells
puts forth and those of Philosophy for Children. The basic
idea being students and teachers engaged in communities

that actively engage in dialogue over topics of interest,

in the service of constructing knowledge and common

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understanding, and internalizing the discourse of the

inquiring community.

Community of Inquiry and This Dissertation

The description of community of inquiry I gave above,
especially the conception of community of inquiry from
Philosophy for Children, is a good statement of how I
understood community of inquiry going into the first summer
of teaching philosophical inquiry. I believed myself to be
introducing a formal discourse of philosophy (through
Philosophy for Children) to my students in a way that would
bring out what I believed at the time to be their natural
inclinations to inquire in philosophical ways. I was the
more capable other, and I would engage my students in a
discursive apprenticeship that would help cultivate
creative and critical ways of thinking (in order to improve
their own reasoning abilities) that they could partake in.

For me, at that time/place, there was no constructivist

 

dilemma, nogproblem of sincerity and reading. The teaching

 

was straightforward. But this thinking changed over the

course of the next two years. I have documented my teaching

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over these three years, and have a data set that allows me
to examine how the changes in my thinking, from a modern
constructivist discourse social constructivist discourse.
This forced me to alter my practice. The communities of
inquiry I participated in as a teacher began to look very
different.

This change forced me to consider a different
understanding of community of inquiry. Thinking about
communities of inquiry as microcosms of scientific
methodology became problematic for me as I began to
reconsider my potentially disingenuous stance as “bringer
of formal philosophical” discourse to my students. This is
a very modern notion of community with its modeling of
scientific method as its paradigm case. It is also modern
because of its focus on epistemology and the transmission
of a discourse as its goal. If inquiry is of a sort where
the rules, and sometimes the topics, of inquiry are
determined ahead of time by the teacher, where is there
room for students ideas, experiences, and developing
understandings? Is community of inquiry ever critiqued by a

community of inquiry? If, as the teacher, my stance toward

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community of inquiry is modern in its orientation, what
does a more postmodern stance toward community of inquiry
look like and how does it change things?

In the next chapter I discuss the methodology of this
of this study, and detail the procedures I used in

collecting and analyzing my data set.

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Chapter 3
Methodology
In support of theoretical frameworks for action research,
Sanders and McCutcheon (1986) make the case that
professional knowledge is essentially theoretical knowledge
because “teaching requires intentional and skillful action
within real—world situations. The success of these actions
depends on the ability to perceive relevant features of
complex, problematic, and changeable situations and to make
appropriate choices.” Argyris calls these “theories of
action”(in Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993, p. 16). The forms
of documentation and analysis for action research are
similar to traditional forms of qualitative research such
as field notes, interviews, and classroom documents.
Teacher researchers, such as myself, may also use
audiotapes, videotapes, and research journals. In addition
to using these methods for documentation, many experienced
teachers are able to provide an emic view that outsiders
could not accomplish. Some believe this makes them more
suitable for the appropriate collection of data (e.g.

Cochran-Smith and Lytle, 1993).

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Some of the literature on self—study is drawn from the
larger field of action research, defined by Cochran—Smith
and Lytle (1993) as “systematic and intentional inquiry
carried out by teachers (p. 7).” Cochran-Smith and
Lytle (1999) provide an overview of the conceptual
frameworks for teacher research. The perspective of teacher
research as social inquiry maintains that knowledge is
constructed collaboratively with the emphasis on
transforming educational theory and practice toward a more
equitable society. Theorizing teacher research as ways of
knowing in communities blurs the boundaries of research and
practice and attempts to recognize practice as theory-
building in order to change schools. Teacher research as
practical inquiry emphasizes the use of teacher research to
create and/or enhance practical knowledge. Although this
dissertation seeks to accomplish all of those tasks, it
best subscribes to the framework of social inquiry.

A major element of the self—study process is critical
reflection. Brookfield (1995) suggests six reasons why
learning critical reflection is important: to take informed

actions, to develop a rationale for practice, to avoid

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self—laceration (self-blame for student failing), to ground
us emotionally, to enliven our classrooms, and increase
democratic trust. But reflection is not enough. “Reflection
must be placed in action and look backward and forward to
make choices about educational dilemmas” (Samaras,

1998, p. 62).

Hamilton and Pinnegar (1998) contend that self-study
is a formalization of reframing — a way to rethink and
expose yourself “to new interpretations and to create
different strategies for educating students that bring
their practice into concert with the moral values they
espouse” (p. 2). This is in line with what Dewey emphasized
as the importance of teachers being both consumers and
producers of knowledge about teaching. He encouraged
teachers to be reflective and to act on their reflections.
Cole and Knowles (1998b) define self—study research as
“qualitative research focused inward” which primarily uses
qualitative research tools such as observation, interview,
and artifact collection (p.229). More than just qualitative
research, self-study is “post-modern in its

perspective...self—study scholars attempt to embrace that

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uncertainty and reject calls for validity and reliability
as they are traditionally known” (Hamilton & Pinnegar,
1998, p. 235). Although such rebellion is exhilarating to
think about, the real world demands that self-study
scholars define it in a way that legitimizes its title of
“Research”. Some contend that participant research does not
fit neatly into any other research genre, and it deserves
recognition and acknowledgment in its own right (e.g. Wong,
1995; Baumann, 1996; Elliot, 1991).

Cole and Knowles (1995) define six major issues in
self-study and life history work: technical, interpersonal,
procedural, ethical, political, and educational. Technical
issues surround the facilitation and progression of
the self-study process. Interpersonal issues are integral
to the process when self—study is done in collaboration
with others. Procedural issues are those which involve how
the research is carried out including the methods, time
line, and routines. Because self—study is highly personal
and uncommonly revealing, ethical issues regarding
confidentiality may be unusually salient. Cole and Knowles

regard the personal revelations necessary for self-study

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work as potential political issues when, what can be, very
private analysis is read by those in the academy.
Similarly, educational issues such as the validation of
self-study research by academe constantly lingers for those
attempting to be professionally recognized for such
research.

Cole and Knowles (1998a) view self-study as a tool for
broadening the concept of research. They specify two main
purposes: personal-professional development and “broader
purposes of enhanced understanding of teacher education
practices, processes, programs, and contexts” (p. 42). The
former purpose provides a more practical goal for teachers
to engage in reflective inquiry in order to improve their
practice. The second purpose is aimed at challenging what
counts as research and knowledge.

Self—study is commonly believed to be “soft” research.
Cochran—Smith and Lytle (1993) provide four standards for
methodological rigor when discussing teacher research: the
research question, generalizability, theoretical framework,
and documentation and analysis. With regard to the research

question, they say that although teacher research questions

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are not framed in educational theory, they are “implicit
questions about the relationships of concrete, particular
cases, to more general and abstract of learning and
teaching” (p. 15). In other words, each situation “is a
case of some larger practice/theory dilemma”, and
therefore, more relevant that initially estimated (p. 15).
A common critique of teacher research is its lack of
generalizability. This critique, in a sense, speaks to the
recipe formula for teaching and denies the legitimacy of
serious research questions emanating from individual
classrooms. Cochran-Smith and Lytle argue that not only are
some teacher research questions similar to those other
teachers have, but in fact, it is often the generic
educational research that misses the point when insight is
needed about particular contexts. In this way, the import
of a piece of research is left to the readers of research
who may make use of it in many different ways. Also, the
work is generalizable from the standpoint that it is
situated in a practice (teaching) that many others are

actively engaged in.

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Educational philosophers and researchers (e.g.
Fenstermacher, 1994; Huberman, 1996) critique action
research, and by association self—study. Some critics
conceive of knowledge as formal, theoretical,
scientific and generalizable, and distinguish it from, and
in the process usually devalue, practical knowledge
(Cochran—Smith and Lytle, 1999). This type of comparison
“offers a binary description of a world that is, instead,
far more dynamic and complex” (Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998,
p. 241).

Whitehead calls self-study “living educational theory.
It is living because, as people engage in understanding it,
they learn more and their theory changes as they understand
more. Further, because they are living what they learn, new
knowledge emerges” (in Hamilton & Pinnegar, 1998, p. 242).
In support of that idea, Russell (1998) writes “There is
only one way to understand self—study, and that is to

experience it personally” (p. 6).

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Data Collection and Analysis

The site for this study was a one-month long summer program
for high-ability middle—school students held on the campus
of a major mid-western university.2 Each of the students
selected philosophy as one of two academic classes they
took during the program. Students also took one course in
the Arts. The program was organized by local (public)
schools districts, and was designed to provide students
with opportunities they might not otherwise have during the
school year. The philosophical inquiry course met one hour
each morning, four days a week. I studied three separate
classes taught over three consecutive summers (1998, 1999,

2000).

Data sources (98, 99, 00)
1. Tape/video recordings of most of the class sessions for

each summer.

 

2I had human subjects approval to begin data collection in the Summer of
1998. I received renewals of this approval for each of the following
two summers as well.

70

2. A whole class interview conducted at the end of each
course as well as individual student reactions to the class
which I have written copies of.

3. Interviews with individual students conducted during the
final week of each class.

4. Samples of student writing from each week of the class
for all students.

5. A set of notes from a colleague who observed the classes
at least once each week.

6. The teacher journal for each year.

7. Results of a short survey given to students and parents

by program administrators (not the teacher).

Description of the Teacher's Stance

I am the teacher in each year of the course. In the
next few paragraphs I characterize the stance from which I
approached the teaching of philosophy during each summer of

the philosophical inquiry class.

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My teaching during the Summer 1998

When I taught the philosophy class 2 years ago, my
pedagogy was situated in the modern world view discussed in
chapter 1. I believed in reason and rationality as the best
end for education because it would free our minds and allow
people to communicate with one another toward a common goal
of enlightenment (Cervetti, Pardales, and Damico, 2001).
These beliefs led me to dedicate myself to teaching
philosophy for children in the traditional way (discussed
in chapter 2), where my job was to cultivate and formalize
the natural “human” dispositions of philosophy that lye

nascent in young students.

My teaching during the Summer 99

During this summer I felt very much like I did in the
summer of 1998, but over time, as I continued my education
in graduate school, and confronted critical and postmodern
ideas, my thinking began to change. I became less
comfortable with teaching children how to “do” philosophy

for the purposes of increasing rational thinking and

72

enlightenment. I began to wonder, why philosophy? Why the
emphasis on reasoning? Especially a style of philosophical
inquiry whose roots sit squarely in the liberal—humanist
tradition, which I was beginning to subject to serious
criticism. I also became aware that many students were
questioning and criticizing the traditional texts, and I no
longer felt the need to defend the curriculum like I used
to. Eventually, I felt that is was more important to help
the students shape their own criticism of printed texts and
society. I altered my teaching, spending less time modeling
what I thought philosophical discourse should look like,
and more time helping the students shape their own
criticism of issues related to the traditional texts and
nontraditional texts (aspects of their own lives, non—

traditional literature).

My teaching during the Summer 2000

In this summer I taught two sections of philosophy. In one
section I used the exact readings used in the first summer
of teaching; using the same readings as the first summer

and some of the same readings as the second, should have

73

the effect of highlighting the difference between my
approach because some of the same issues arose due to the
similarities in printed material. Having some of the same
issues arise will highlight the differences in my practice
because I will be able to look closely at the different I
handled discussions around similar topics and issues.

In the second class, I used different printed texts
that I thought would correspond to a more thoroughgoing
social constructivism within the philosophy class. I tried
to make more room for non—traditional texts (student
experience, beliefs, values) to become primary texts for
the class, and to be more open to elements of a postmodern
social constructivist pedagogy discussed near the end of
chapter 1.

Since I began teaching in the first summer I have kept
a journal for each summer’s activities. My journal is part
autobiography, part field—note, part self—analysis. I used
my journal to record events that were otherwise not
documented. I also used it to have an inner dialogue about

issues that were arising in my work as a teacher of

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philosophical inquiry. This lead me to ask the following
research questions:
1) How does a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy

differ (for the teacher) from a modern form of
constructivism?

2) How does a teacher trying to enact a postmodern social
constructivist pedagogy remain faithful to both subject
matter content and their students’ ideas, experiences, and
developing understandings?

3) What role does “community of inquiry” play in modern and
postmodern forms of social constructivism?

My main strategy for analysis was to study all of the
data sources I have collected and read the data in ways
that will help me to bring the issues I have raised around
the constructivist dilemma to the fore. I created a catalog
of every recorded session by taking reflective, critical,
and descriptive notes as I listened to class sessions,
viewed videotapes, and read transcriptions. This catalog is
like a running record of the three years of philosophical
inquiry. After this catalog was complete, I studied the
catalog and coded it with topical markers related to the

issues raised in my discussion of the constructivist

dilemma. Some of the topical markers I used were:

75

1. issues of authority
2. treatment of text

3. issues of community

15

specific topics of discussion (reality, history,
community, views of philosophy, popular culture, etc.,
etc.)

5. rhetorical stance of teacher

6. students’ commentary

7. discursive moves of teachers and students

This coding allowed me to then explore the ways these
issues played in different ways across the three summers
and also allowed me to read significant thematic
differences across the three years of my teaching.

My analyses were guided by this coding and reading,
and it is within the analyses that I created responses to
my research question about the constructivist dilemma and
the possibilities afforded and constrained by my adherence
to the modern and postmodern forms of constructivist

teaching that I tried to enact.

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Chapter 4

Introduction
In this chapter I perform several analyses that will help
to explain how my teaching across the three years of
philosophy changes. These analyses bring into relief the
question of constructivist teaching in its modern and
postmodern forms. The first analysis is pivotal. It shows
the transition between a modern, discipline oriented, and
somewhat insincere form of constructivism, and, the
transition toward a more thoroughgoing postmodern social
constructivism by examining how each class treats printed
texts and issues of textuality. The second analysis looks
at the topics that were discussed in each year of the
philosophy class. This analysis suggests that as the years
of the philosophy class progressed, I included more topics
of student interest and was also more open to topics that
seemed appropriate to a postmodern social constructivism.
The third analysis shows how the beginning of each class
was different in ways that reveal the difference between a
modern form of constructivism and a form of social

constructivist teaching informed by postmodern elements.

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Analysis 1: Treatment of Text

As I looked across the three years of philosophical inquiry
I noticed that in each year the treatment of text changed
dramatically. In traditional philosophical inquiry, one
reads a text in an effort to make meaning of an authors
words. That is, the traditional project is exegesis. This
stance assumes that there are meanings in the text and the
meanings need to be extracted in order to be discussed. So,
in the community of inquiry, this would yield an activity
where the community would seek to first understand the text
and the meanings in the text, and after these meanings have
been extracted discussion about the meanings of the texts
and criticisms of ideas could be pursued. This reflects a
belief that the text is the springboard for dialogue. This
means that the text itself is given status as a vehicle of
meaning, and while the meanings in the text are appropriate
for discussion, the text as an artifact is not. This seems
like a fine distinction, but in traditional philosophy
teaching the focus is on talking about philosophical ideas.
As the teacher, I enforce this understanding and in year

one, I consider our project of reading, exegesis. Let us

78

look at some concrete examples of the stance toward text in
each year of the philosophy classes.

We begin with an examination of the year one
philosophy classes stance toward text by looking at some of
the notes I made while reviewing pieces of transcript from
day 5 and day 12 of year one philosophy class.

On the second full day of class I began by asking the
students to go back to the text and consider the questions
that the philosopher asks Sophie in the first two chapters

of Sophie’s World. I ask the students, point blank, “what

 

are the questions that the philosopher asks of Sophie?”.
Several students state the first question, “Who are you?”
and I write it down on the board. When several students
begin stating what the second question is, I make them, and
specify one student in particular, go back to the book and
find the exact wording of the second question, “Where does
the world come from?” (Transcript 6/16/98 —Day 3). This,
going back to the book to get the exact wording, seems
important. In fact, we stay very close to the text and I
make sure they are able to retell, in part, what they have

read.

79

In looking at a piece of transcript from day 12, when

our subject was Martin Luther King’s, Letter from a

 

Birmingham Jail, our conversation starts out with me
questioning the students about the basic situation
described in the text. I want to know if they understand
who’s in jail, why they are in Jail, and who is writing the
letter. After that correct portrayal of the text is
complete it seems, then, the discussion begins, and it
does. I do stop and direct the cross—talk very early in the
conversation on this day, asking the students to speak one
at a time. More references to the text are made with an
eventual visit to the text where I have a student read the
section we are dealing with. Why do I ask the students to
read the section and go back to the text so much?
Apparently I really want them to “get it” even if they have
to reread it because I let two minutes of quiet searching
time go by. Anna points to the passage and I ask her to
read it. It comes out that MLK was arrested for parading
without a permit. I ask the students for the argument that
is embedded in MLK’s writing. I ask them for no easy thing.

I then lay out the law that was used to imprison MLK on the

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board in the form of an If—Then statement. Apparently, I
think this is very important because I am really making
sure we walk through every step of the argument making
process. Connor builds on what Lara says and helps clarify
an If—Then statement. I ask them what they think about the
situation of the law being applied to this peacefully
marching group. I point out that there seems to be a
contradiction. Ahh, “contradiction”, the language of
philosophy. Example, Counterexample, fact, opinion, If—Then
statements, arguments, my language is littered with
philosophical references (referring to Day 12 transcript —
6/16/98).

This transcript commentary illustrate the exegetical
stance toward text I enforced as the leader of the
community and also reflects my strong alignment with issues
traditional to the teaching of philosophy. There is a
constant going back to the text to get the right meaning
and the exact quote to base the discussion on. While these
may not be the only reasons to go back to the text, they
were certainly the ones I privileged. I recall in other

discussions from this class that students would

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occasionally make comments about their dissatisfaction with
one of the novels we were reading (specifically the
Philosophy for Children novel, Lisa, 1983). One of the
responses I gave to one statement of dissatisfaction, “I
know this text may be a little different, but it is the
ideas in the text that I want you to pay attention to
(Class 098, Day 5)”, signals a desire to avoid spending
time critiquing the text itself, when the text, as I
believed, is merely a vehicle for meanings and ideas.

In the second year of philosophy, a different
community of inquiry and a different teacher, my stance
towards the printed text changes. In the second year, I am
more open to critique of our texts as artifacts and do not
explain away student criticism. This next data segment
offers an example of dialogue that ensues when a student
expresses discontent with the Philosophy for Children text
we are reading (Lisa). Her critique begins as an indictment
of the format of the novel. The novel is written as a
series of episodes that do not flow in a logical manner.
One episode could refer to one characters dilemma with a

piece clothing and then the next episode might be about

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another character’s argument with a friend over an ethical

issue.

-——Begins Data Segment——-
(Day 7 — 99)

Jana: Well, this book [the P4C novel, Lisa] bothers me
because it goes from —— you know that part about the
dress, you know, how she gets that dress and then it skips
right on to Maria or whoever. I wish they would have a
section of the book on Lisa and a section of the book on
Maria, because you're like well, what happens to the dress?
Is she grounded or something? It leaves you hanging. Then
you get sick of reading about all those other people.

Tamara: Especially it's kind of like it doesn't seem like a
novel. It seems like something that isn't real. Like you
don't normally go and like run into your friends in the
street and start asking them the difference between right
and wrong and stuff. I mean, it just doesn't seem like very
realistic.

Michael: Mmmm. Why do you think this novel is written this
way?

Nicholas: I think it's like a discussion book. Like if I --
I wouldn't read it if it was just a book. But I think maybe
it's like that because you're supposed to discuss what you

think about the book or what's happening.

Michael: So, it's more of a book that people can discuss
things about.

Amanda: I think it tries to make you think deeper than you
thought before.

Michael: Hmm. Why so?

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Amanda: Because like the kids ask really different
questions than probably people ask. So, it kind of gets
deep a little bit.

Callie: Yeah.

Michael: Nick, you expressed some displeasure with Harry.
How's it different -- I've been calling this book a novel.
How is this different from other things you've read that
you've been told were novels?

Nick: Aren't novels usually thicker?

Michael: maybe, longer or thicker.

Michelle: They have plots.

Rhea: Yeah.

Michael: They have plots?

Michelle: Characters.

Murphy: This lacks a plot.

William: Like —— I don't know, you don't know a lot about
the characters, really. They're just who they are. It's
not like, you know, they don't go into description a whole
bunch about them.

Michael: Mm hmm. This is true.

Sarah: Kind of seems like episodes like on T.V.

Jana: Yeah. It seems more like —- it seems more like it's
written like a script than it is like an actual novel.

--—End Data Segment——-

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This kind of critique, allows the community to take a step
back from the activity of mining for meaning and see the
text as a product designed for a particular purpose. When
Nicholas commented, “I think it's like a discussion book.
Like if I -— I wouldn't read it if it was just a book. But
I think maybe it's like that because you're supposed to
discuss what you think about the book or what's happening
(Class 99, Day 7, Transcript).” he is making a critical
judgment of the text which gives him some say in how he
will think about and approach this and possibly other texts
he encounters. By doing this he has taken an important step
toward understanding that texts are not neutral, that they
are constructed, even designed, and that they have a
particular agenda. He, as well as some of the other
students, knew that this “novel”, as I called it, was
different than other novels they read, and this opportunity
to critique the texts we were reading offers them an
important sense making experience about traditional texts
as particular kinds of representations.

Terry thought this book looked more like a script for

a TV show. Her comment has to do with the fact that Lisa is

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divided into many free standing episodes within each
chapter. In this way, each episode can be likened to a
situational drama or comedy that there are so many examples
of on television.

I am not arguing for the point that there is nothing
to exegesis. There are certainly times when our purposes
dictate that we read a text in order to try and understand
what an author is saying. But, opportunities for thinking
and learning are opened up when criticism of a text becomes
a legitimate activity. This could also be a first step
toward considering that there are other potential meanings
in a text apart from the authors, even though this did not
come up in our class. It is important to ask at this point,
why is there space for this kind of critique now, when in
the previous year’s class this kind of critique was not
supported?

One answer I can give to this question is, my own
values and beliefs about texts changed. The time between
year one and two was filled with a great deal of reading in
the critical and postmodern traditions. In the intervening

year between 98 and 99 I participated in a small study

86

group that attempted to assemble an understanding of
critical literacy. We engaged with a broad range of ideas
from critical social theory to critical pedagogy (Freire,
1970) and critical literacy (Mclaren, 1992). Critical
literacy, specifically, condones an approach to reading
that seeks to illuminate the ideological and political
forces that underpin a texts construction. That is,
students need to be encouraged to research, speculate
about and second—guess the institutional agendas,
ideologies and human agents behind and at work in the
text (conditions of production). . .This requires more
than a technical analysis of language, but as well a
‘reading of the cultures’ around, behind, underneath,
alongside, after and within the text (Luke, Comber &
O’Brien, 1996).
I took this way of thinking seriously. And it was not that
I actively encouraged students to engage in the kind of
critique they did, in fact, only a year prior to this I
actively tried to sidestep this kind of critique because I
believed it to be superfluous to the kinds of discussion I
thought we needed to be having. What changed, in part, was
that I did not discourage the critique of text. I

recognized that the students had different readings of the

works we were engaged with, and I became curious about what

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a discussion of their critical readings would produce.
Since I came to understand texts as artifacts designed for
particular purposes, as representative of politics and
views of the world, it made sense to create a space for the
kind of critique we engaged in; this activity began to feel
like a natural part of philosophical inquiry.

In the year three community of inquiry, the stance
towards text takes a very different twist. In this
community, there was exegesis, critique of texts, but
unprecedented in the philosophy teaching examined in this
study, textuality as an issue in and of itself, became a
topic for inquiry. We talked about textuality, its
relationship to perspective, and what it means to read.

The following segment, which I offer at length, is the
bulk of a discussion the year three community of inquiry
had around the topic of “text”. This topic arose out of a
dialogue the community had about two different books we had
read. One of the books was a work of historical fiction,

MorninggGirl (1999). This novel was written from the

 

perspective of Arawak Indians immediately prior to the

arrival of Columbus. We then discussed a section of a

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middle school social studies textbook (American Nation,
1989) that discussed the arrival of Columbus to North
America. At the time we were beginning to inquire about the
different representations of this period in history offered
by each of these pieces. After discussing the section on
Columbus in the middle school textbook, I asked the
question, “Why are they called textbooks?”, and the

following dialogue ensued.

—--Begin Data Segment--—

(Day 7, Class 00B — Transcript)
Michael: Why are they called textbooks?

Emily: are those the things that we’re supposed to read in
class?

Michael: why are they called textbooks?

Sophie: Cause they have text

Several: all books have text

John: what about picture books?

Caitie: well, usually when a teacher says read this text
its going to be something really boring. . text means that

it's a book of boring words.

Liza: maybe it means that its only text, there’s not, its
just text

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Emma: there’s no meaning behind it, its just a bunch of
facts that we’re supposed to memorize.

Tayler: Your thinking to specifically, a textbook is just a
word that makes us think about a big book of information,
your thinking way to specifically, trying to determine what
“text” means and what “book” means. You’ve got to think
about the whole word and what it makes you think about.

Michael: What about. . um, what about a song (student:
lyrics), could we think of a song as a text.

(Some comments about listening to the words and listening
to the music. Some talk about specific bands.)

Michael: But could we think of a song, that had lyrics, as
a text?

(Some “yea’s” and “I guess” — there is reluctance to
entertain this notion)

Linda: songs are like poetry that have a melody

James: Well, when you’re using text very loosely, yeah, I
mean that depends on the specific series of text.

Michael: What if we’re using, like according to the
definition we’re discussing.

James: Well is the musician an author, is he classified as
an author?

Sophie: Well songs aren’t always written down, when you
hear them there not exactly text because their not written
down when you hear them. You can’t hear things that are
written down.

James: Are we trying to distinguish between sight and
sound?

Michael: No, I’m actually pushing the question of what are
texts?

9O

Sophie: Now if the lyrics are written down it could be text
cause their written down.

Michael: Well when you read, when you read words on a page
don’t you hear them?

Janice: yes
Sophie: In your head, yes, but its not really sound.
Mika: unless you’re trying to speed read.

Tayler: But what about when you’re speaking, just speaking,
not reading off anything.

James: Text is written
Michael: Couldn’t it be a spoken text?

Sophie: yeah you have to read it off the page and its
spoken text

Liza: yeah but I don’t think if your not reading a long it
counts as text, like, there’s books on tape, I know some
people that prefer that, and because you don’t have the
book right in front of you, I don’t think its seen as text
anymore.

Sara: But isn’t the person on the tape reading text?

Liza: they’re reading text but to you its not really text
anymore. Cause you don’t have words (Caitlin: text is
something you can see it isn’t what you hear) on a page to
look at.

Michael: But can’t hearing a book being read to you in the
same way reading a text, create sort of all of the images

and thoughts that reading the book would?

Several: yeah..uh—huh [Much skepticism]

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Liza: but also you’d see different things cause you would
have, more time, time to actually think about em. Cause
your not concentrating on going back to the next word, and
you know seeing, and if your being read to you can think of
other things and not pay attention and see things
differently.

Janice: But its kind of the same kind of thing, just
different

Michael: How’s it different?

Janice: Well, like she said, if your being read a book or
something you have more time to concentrate on the image
instead of the words

Mika: you can go at your own pace and you can look back,
like you have to actually focus on reading, its not like
some people can listen to something and do something else.
When your reading most of the time you have to actually
focus on reading, (T: okay) so you absorb most of the
material.

Michael: When I, let’s see, if I see two people, I’m just
sitting in front of the building, and I see two people
meet, and one person, ya know, shakes the other person’s
hand, and they’re talking, and one person looks like they
get really angry and they, they sort of stomp off and I
look at that situation, I have some understanding, I mean,
I can sort of make up a story about what just happened
there, ya know somebody just got really mad about something
and they disagreed and they stomped off. . Did I read that
situation.

Mika: In a sense
James: It depends how your translating it.

Liza: you didn’t read it.

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Sophie: by the definition text is something written down on
a page.

Mika: you read into what information you gathered

Chen: you read signals to

Liza: you don’t read through your mind and form the words
Sophie: its not text cause text is written on a page

Michael: did we say that it had to be words on a page or an
author’s intent?

Linda: I know like, at the library books on tape are
considered audio-text because your listening to the

author’s words

James: Isn’t that word contradictive though, audio-text,
think about it, audio—sound, text—written.

Michael: Why is it contradictory?
Matt: a text doesn’t have to be written down

Anna: well we’re defining text right now it doesn’t
necessarily have to bem(inaudible)

Matt: according to the first half of our definition it
doesn’t need to be written down

Nyali: yeah it doesn’t have to be written down it just
mean’s somebody’s reading it

Tayler: Let me ask something, let me ask something for all
of you. Are we all agreed to the idea that text is always
in written form?

Several students (in different tones of voice): no; no;
ugh-ugh; mmngh-mmngh; that’s what we’re talking about!

Tayler: okay, alright (apologetically)

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Michael: Well, if, if reading a book and listening to a
book being read, or listening to a song, all make you think
of things, and you know, feel things, do what they do, why
couldn’t we consider them all, and perhaps other things,
texts?

Janice: Because I think that everyone has always like,
kinda been taught that you have to read it for it to be
text.

Caitie: It’s not that you read it, because like, if I hear
a song on the radio, the words to the song would be text,
but if I know the song from memory, then I can just sing it
without reading anything or hearing the radio.

Nyal: Well that would be the author’s words.

Caitlin: yeah but it wouldn’t have to be reading.

Michael: So when I see two people arguing across the
street, and I make up an explanation for what happened
between them, (Nyal: you’re the author) aren’t I the
author?

Several: yeah, yes

Liza: but if you write it down and someone else reads it,
it is text but its not (inaudible)

Michael: what if I tell somebody, like I just told you

Sophie: if you actually say it in words then I think it is
text. .but it has to be the actual words

Caitie: But then everything that you think in your head

would be text because you’re the author of your thoughtsm

———-End Data Segment-—-—

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Intrigued by the critique of texts we engaged in during
year two, I designed this section of the course, where we
would look at three different representations of the same
historical time period (the arrival of Columbus to the
Americas), to see if I could cultivate a more intensive
critique of texts and get into issues of “representation”.
Why these issues?

Between the second and third year of philosophy I
undertook a more serious study of both critical and
poststructural ideas. Between year one and two, I became
sensitive to the constructed, ideological position of
texts; between year two and three, I read Derrida, and
seriously considered his phrase, “there is no outside text”
(Derrida, 1976). I became sensitive to issues of
textuality. As Derrida (1982) states,

It is precisely for strategic reasons that I find it

necessary to recast the concept of the text by

generalizing it almost without limit, without any
limit that is. That’s why there is nothing ‘beyond the
text’. That’s why South Africa and apartheid are, like
you and me, part of this general text, which is not to
say that it can be read as one reads a book. That’s
why the text is always a field of forces:
heterogeneous, differential, open. That’s why
deconstructive readings are concerned not only with

library books. . .they are not simply analyses of
discourse. They are also effective or active

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interventions that transform contexts without limiting
themselves to theoretical utterances even though they
must also produce such utterances. (p. 167—8)
The idea of textuality, that features of the world are
subject to interpretation and readings that consider the
discursive formations, and must be read in multiple ways to
unearth differential relations of power and ideological
positions, is a powerful one that changed the way I think
of reading. This explodes the notion of reading as
potential readers become interpreters who interpret for
different purposes depending on their time, place, status
in society and gender (amongst other things) (Cherryholmes,
1999). These politicized notions of text and reading come
from poststructural thinking, which can be characterized
by,
Attention to questions of language, power and desire
that emphasizes the contexts in which meaning is
produced and makes problematic all universal truth and
meaning claims; a suspicion of binary, opposition
thinking. . .; a suspicion of the figure of the
humanistic human subject, challenging the assumptions
of autonomy and transparent self—consciousness while
situating the subject as a complex intersections of
discursive, libidinal, and social forces and
practices; [and] a resistance to claims of unversality

and unity, preferring instead to acknowledge
difference and fragmentation (Schrift, 1996, p. 452).

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At many points in this discussion it occurred to me that
our discussion had strong poststructural undertones. We
were talking about what texts were, what authors were, and
what it meant to read.

The shifts in my own thinking from year one to year
two helped me make space in the community’s discourse for
previously illegitimate activities (critique of texts).
Shifts in my thinking from year two to year three opened up
more space not only for textual critique but also for
topics not previously explored in philosophy for children,
at least not in any of the discussions I had led or
observed. In fact, my orientation in the third year (in one
of the sections of philosophy) even caused me to break from
using any of the canonical texts normally used in this
teaching. I chose only a few works of literature to try out
this representation and historical place experiment, the
rest of the text came from the students: Topics they wanted
to talk about, things they wanted to read, shared
experiences from their own lives in and out of school.

I will say more about the overall implications of this

first attempt at teaching in a postmodern social

97

constructivist way in the chapter on implications, but this
analysis gives one demonstration of the shift in my
teaching from year one through to year three. The shifts in
my views on the treatment of texts created new spaces in
the community of inquiry for critique and discussions of
textuality and readings where there was once only room for

exegesis.

Analysis 2: Opening Day

At the beginning of year two, I remember thinking, “I don’t
want to start class this way”. In the first and second year
of the philosophy class I began the first day of class with
an exercise central to the teaching of philosophy for
children. The exercise begins when I ask my students, “what
is a question?" When I initiated this exercise in year one,
I did not doubt the merit of this inquiry. After all,
questions and question asking are central to philosophical
inquiry. When I began class in year two, I was less
comfortable with beginning the class in this way, but I did
not understand enough about my mixed feelings to change

what I was doing. In year three I understood my ambivalence

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a little more, and decided to do things differently. The
following analysis compares the opening day of the first
and third year classes.

In year one, the first day of philosophy class opens
(after customary introductions) with me putting forth a
question for the class to consider. The question I posed
is, “What is a question?” The students’ offered several
different responses to this question that had to do with
“why” we ask questions. For example, Greg said: “A person
asks questions when they want to know something or find
something out.” Basically, they responded to my question by
giving several different reasons that a person might ask a
question. Reasons like, to find out information, to
indirectly command (“Could someone close the door?”), to
begin an inquiry (“Why are frogs green?”), or, for the
questioner to open a place to speak for themselves, like
when a teacher asks a rhetorical question (“How did World
War I begin?”). They were very familiar with questions like
this. The students’, with some gentle prodding from me,

generated quite an impressive list of reasons why a person

99

might ask a question. We made a list on the board of some
purposes we have for asking questions.

1. When we don’t know

2. When we want more information

3. When we don’t understand

4. When we want to know the truth

5. When we tell a joke

6. As a polite command

7. When we are suspicious or want to accuse someone
8. When we already know the answer but want to see if
others know (teachers do this)

9. When we want to allow ourselves to speak (rhetorical)

I asked the students this question to “get them”
thinking about something important to philosophy (asking
questions), which they may not have thought much about
before. The list they generated is noteworthy for its
variety. I paraphrased the students’ contributions when I
listed them on the board (I put the students’ contributions
in my words). The activity looked very much like a

traditional Initiate—Respond-Evaluate (Cazden 1988)

100

exercise where the teacher asks a question, waits for a
response, and then evaluates the student’s response. I
spent a lot of time handling each contribution, asking
follow—up questions, and asking the students to think of
examples from their own experience. Short discussions came
out of several of the responses but not all of them. We
then spent several minutes talking about rhetorical
questions and I gave a short lecture near the end of this
class period where I explained that, “the asking of
questions is very important in philosophy, will be
important to what we do in this class, and will be
something I want you to do whenever a question occurs to
you.”

This topic was important to me. In traditional
Philosophy for Children teaching, encouraging students to
ask questions, especially questions of the form, “What is
X?” is a form that lies at the heart of Philosophy.
Philosophers have been asking “what is” questions for at
least two thousands years. The very form of this question
Suggests that there is “something” at the heart of the

Inatter, in this case, at the heart of a question.

101

Customarily philosophers have asked this question in search
of a fundamental nature or essence. Plato is perhaps most
famous for this as most of his dialogues feature Socrates
conversing with some interlocutor over the nature of
justice, beauty, love, piety, etc.

Interestingly enough, I do not announce to my class
that there is such a nature to questions, nor do I insist
that their inquiry yield a definition that would serve as
essence. In fact, I allow the class to shift the discussion
to the purposes of question asking, a decidedly different
project than essence finding. I do this in much the same
way Socrates will allow his interlocutor to offer examples
of justice just so he can later pounce on their
indiscretion of offering many where there should only be
one. But I do not pounce. While I phrase my question in the
traditional manner, “What is X?”, I do not insist, as
Socrates does, that an identity be made, “A question is X."
However, I do have the students’ create a list of possible
X’s, and I do consider this topic central to the

discipline.

102

I was very directive in trying to explore this issue
of questions. I focussed on picking this issue apart. I
really wanted to explore the different kinds of questions
that can be asked, and I really wanted to get at the
students’ understandings of what kinds of questions are in
their world. I jumped all over the response from one
student who brought up the subject of rhetorical questions.
I remarked, “I think you're right”. . .“sidebar” and point
out to students that if you take the “a” and the “1” off of
rhetorical, you get the word rhetoric. Then I ask the
students if they know what rhetoric is. When a student
offers an example of what they think rhetoric is. I side—
step it and begin to lecture about what rhetoric is.

I was thinking about rhetoric as a branch of
philosophy attributed to the Sophists (particularly
Protagoras) that has to do with making the weaker argument
.the stronger, or, the art of argument: I was thinking about
it in classical terms for the most part.

At this point, I was centered on the idea that my
students’ need to understand the importance of question

asking to the enterprise of philosophical discourse. I

103

began the year one philosophy class with a typical topic
and taught them things about question asking that I
believed they were unaware of. Also, I believed that they
needed to know something about “questions”. I remember
feeling very ambivalent about this class session when it
ended. This ambivalence lingered with me for months, and
with even greater ambivalence and more doubt, I did the
same opening exercise in year two. However, communing with
the critical and postmodern ideas mentioned in the
“treatment of text” analysis forced me to reconsider the
introduction to the course, and in year three of the
philosophy class I started things out differently.

In year three I began the first discussion of the
course in a similar, yet importantly different way. I did
ask the students a question, but it was not a question
about something so central to philosophical inquiry as

asking them to consider the nature of question asking. I

asked them, “Why are you here?" “Why are you here. . .in
school, now, this summer,”. The following discussion
ensued:

Michael: Dean did you have something?

104

Dean: Um, cause we’re smart.

Michael: Cause your smart?. .okay

Carrie: I’m here cause I like to learn. I like school.
Michael: You like school, you like to learn

Dean: Cause summer’s boring. .without anything to do

Michael: Okay, so this is better than -— Dan: Watching TV
or something Michael: (revoices) Watching TV (at the same
time)

Oliver: I would be sleeping right now.
Donna: (hesitantly) Umm, my parents made me

Michael: your parents made you, alright, that’s an honest
answer

Oliver: I liked the listing of the topics that they had

Michael: So you read the course descriptions and this
sounded interesting, more interesting than your
alternatives? Did you have any alternatives? What were the
alternatives?

Oliver: Um, I go down to a parking lot that has a big
(couldn’t hear) in it and play.

Michael: Alright, so this was better than that, at least
seemed better than that. . . Others. .why are you here?

Jack: At first like I wanted to take the two computer
classes, and neuroscience, but they changed neuroscience
and both the computer classes were filled up. So then I
thought that philosophy 1 would be okay.

~——End Data Segment—-—

105

What is important about this shift in opening topics is
that starting the courses in such different ways arose out
of a certain discontent with stance in the first years of
philosophy. I began to question why it was I would start
the class in the way I did when I did not even know how the
students had come to be in this class in the first place.
These concerns were spurred on by my postmodern and
critical studies which speak of the importance of time,
place, location, in short, context. I thought to myself, if
I begin the class with a lesson on question asking, and the
importance of rhetorical questions, yet I do not even know
how these students have come to be in my class, then I am
guilty of beginning my relationship with these students
without an appreciation for the context of our situation.
This did not sit well with me as it did not reflect the
appreciation I began to have for the contextual factors
that determine much of our existence. It was important for
me to know that Donna was in my class, in fact the program
itself, because her parents made her. It was important for
me to know that philosophy was Jack’s last choice, and that

he really wanted to be in the computer classes. It was

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important for me to understand that several of my student’s
did not know why they were in the program let alone this
class. This was, I think, the beginning of my trying to
translate into pedagogy the postmodern concerns of
historical location and one’s place in their social world.
On one level, this is not just an attempt by me to
appreciate something of my students’ situation, it is me
trying to make my students’ motives a more explicit
consideration of the class curriculum. As I look back to
year one, I can construct a plausible motive for my
question exercise: I was trying to find out what my
students’ understood about questions so I could make use of
those understandings in our discussion of the importance of
question asking in philosophical inquiry. But I was not
trying to understand my students in any meaningful way that
would help me understand their motives. In some ways this
distinction is subtle, because in both cases I am asking
the students for information about themselves: in the first
case a question about their understandings of questions and

in the second case a question about their purpose for being

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in the philosophy class. This difference has two important
implications.

First, I am still asking a question, and initiating
the first inquiry of the class. One of the seductive, even
illusory elements of constructivism is that it can lead us
to believe that there is more freedom for students than is
really the case. While in certain respects there is more
freedom, the notion that there is considerably more freedom
is a seductive illusion. So, while my asking students to
share their personal experiences about question asking was
inspired by a commitment to a modern constructivist
teaching, I chose and asked the question and I shaped the
discussion to illustrate something I wanted students to
understand.

Secondly, year three was different from the standpoint
that I felt the need to appreciate my students’ situation
in relation to the course. I did not have a specific motive
for asking them that was tied to getting them to understand
something about philosophical inquiry. It was meant to
allow me to appreciate the circumstances by which they have

come to be in the class. This reflects an attempt to

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appreciate our place in time and society, and the situated

condition of our circumstance.

Analysis 3: Topics of Discussion

In a further attempt to understand the differences in the
three years of philosophy teaching and the dilemma of
constructivism I have confronted, I decided to look across
the topics of discussion for each of the years of the
philosophical inquiry class. I believe this to be another
way of looking at my stance as a teacher shifting from a
modern form of constructivism to a more postmodern social
constructivism. In Figure 1, I have listed the topics of
discussion for each year of the philosophy. This Figure
will allow for a quick comparison between the topics.

One thing that is apparent as I look across the topics
we discussed across the three years is the focus, during
year one, on topics that are central to philosophical
inquiry in the philosophy for children tradition. One
aspect of this that is important is the fact the these are
topics that, one way or another, I knew would become part

of the class before the class even started. Syllogisms, the

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values of the community of inquiry, making arguments,
questions, etc. are all topics I would make it a point to
bring up in my classes. Several of the other topics came
directly out of the printed texts we were dealing with. The
questions “Who are you?”, and “Where does the world come
from?”, as well as the discussion about Plato and

Aristotle, came directly out of Sophie’s World (1994). The

 

topic of animal/human rights came directly out of the
Philosophy for Children novel, Lisa (1983). While a few of
the topics on that list were introduced by the students,
they were sanctioned topics from the standpoint that they
came out of the printed texts we were reading.

The fact that almost all of the topics we discussed
were either pre-selected by me or came directly from the
printed texts we read suggest to me that the constructivist
teaching going on here had more to do with how the
Students’ experiences, developing understandings, and
background knowledge were related to topics that were not
so much of their choosing as they were mine. And while I

allowed a fair amount of space with regard to how the

110

Table 1: Analysis of Discussion Topics Across Three years of Philosophy

a

-What is a
Question?

-Who are you? —
Where does the
world come from?
—Syllogisms/If—then
statements/All
statements (Logic)
—What are we doing
in philosophy?
—Creation and
Evolution and
Religious Belief
—Animal
Rights/Human
Rights

—Values of
Community of
Inquiry

—Plato and
Aristotle on
Society

-Making arguments
-Cultural
Relativism/Ethical
relativism

23

—What is a
Question?
—Purpose of Life
—Freedom of
Speech/Rights
—Friendship
—What happens in
our discussions
-Religion and
Mythology
—Belief and action
—Political
correctness—
Popular Culture
-Disney’s
distortion of
historical events
-Identity and role
playing
—What it means to
be a living being
(medical ethics)
—Pro—life vs. Pro—
choice
—Morality-
Consistency

of belief and
action
—Time/Calendars—
Measuring time

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93

-Why are you here?
—Ways of Reading/
Perspective
—Student response
to literature

—We give ourselves
Native American
Names—Meaning of a
name

—Historical Fiction
and Textbook
representation of
history

—Text and
Textuality
—Historical
Location—Context
-Who writes
History?
—Perspective

—Forms of
Government
-Power/Media
Influence

—Peer pressure as
an indirect form
of media influence
-Sharing Music &
Poetry

—Eastern Philosophy

students related to these topics in our discussions, the
students’ interests did not really become primary texts for
the class. My teaching stuck very close to my mission of
cultivating formal philosophical discourse (Pardales and
Cervetti, 1999).

In the second year topics are related to the printed
texts, but, we take a decided step away from a pre-
determined set of topics. Four of the first five topics we
discuss are either brought up by me or come from the
printed texts we are engaged with. The topics related to
political correctness, Disney’s distortion of history, and
Identity and Role playing were brought up by the students,
but the life I helped give them in our discussion was
influenced by my readings in critical pedagogy. These
topics stemmed from issues the students’ raised and seemed
interested in. But, the direction I took these
conversations in was influenced by my interests as well.
One key moment in our discussion over Disney movies
occurred when I made a move that was uncharacteristic of my

teaching in prior years. I asked the students if they would

112

consider taking action against the distorted portrayal of
Pocahontas in the Disney movie of the same name.
———-Begin Data Segment —————

Jana: I mean like in Disney shows, like MULAN, you wouldn't
have seen that back in 1970, 1960. But like it still has
like the same plot and the same basic meaning. But it has
different womanly heroic characters. It's still the same
thing, though. It's really not much different.

Michael: Is there anything that we could do to make things
actually change?

Shauna: Write Disney and send them a whole bunch of angry
letters?

Chris: Yeah!

Bryan: In my class, we kind of almost did that once, but
nobody really wanted to go through with it.

Michael: What —- what kind of letter might we write if we
were going to write one.

Lucia: Well, like say don't always make the girls get
rescued by the guys. Try to make it equal and like try to
stay true to the story.

Seely: Stop corrupting our society.

Lucia: And they shouldn't take like historical events and
sort of totally rewrite them just to make a movie. If
they're trying to inform kids about like history, then it's
not the way to do it by changing it. When everyone dies,
they shouldn't be like they all live happily ever after.

bdichael: Would you --.

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Matt: They should just end it before they die.

Michael: Is there any interest amongst you in doing that?
Bryan: I would.

Seely: I would.

James: I wrote a letter to the Kool cigarette company, but
I never sent it.

———End Data Segment--—

I had never before proposed that we move from our
discussion towards taking some action related to what we
talked about. The students’ showed a lot of interest in
discussing how many of the movies they watch are distorted
or re—written for greater appeal. I definitely encouraged
this kind of critique. In particular, it was passages from
Giroux’s (1996) book Fugitive Culture’s that spurred me in

this direction,

Given the influence that the Disney ideology has on
children, it is imperative for parents, teachers, and
other adults to understand how such films attract the
attention and shape the values of the children who
view and buy them. As a producer of children’s
culture, Disney should not be given an easy pardon
because it is defined as a universal citadel of fun
and good cheer. On the contrary, as one of the primary
institutions constructing childhood culture in the
United States, it warrants healthy suspicion and
critical debate. Such a debate should be limited to
the home, but should be a central feature of the

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school and any other critical public sites of

learning. (pp. 95—96)

So, while I did involve the students’ interests as a
more significant subject of the class, I also encouraged a
different kind of inquiry in the second year. In this way
my teaching was more social constructivist than it was in
the first year, but in some ways, aspects of my
philosophical agenda were replaced by my burgeoning
critical agenda.

In Class B (00), I made a sincere attempt at letting
the students’ background experiences and interests become
genuine texts in our class. I still needed to chose some
printed texts for the class and have some activities
planned, but more than I ever have before, I tried to
harbor less of a pre-determined agenda. And while having
less of a pre—determined agenda is still an agenda, I was
determined to dictate fewer of the topics of discussion. We
began with a different kind of question, and over the next
several days, we talked about the student’s responses to

the novels we were reading. I let our conversations in

115

these days revolve around what the students found
interesting in the novels.

One of the activities I did design was the reading of
three different texts that provided different
representations of Columbus’s arrival to North America.
This activity resulted in our discussions about historical
fiction/representation, text/textuality, who writes
history, and historical location. The rest of the topics
were ones that came directly from the students; in other
words, they told me explicitly that they wanted to discuss

these other topics.

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Chapter 5
Discussion
The analyses made in the previous chapter were conducted in
order to help me answer the research questions stated in
chapter three. I will now respond to each of these
questions and offer some response to them based on my
analyses.
1) How does a postmodern social constructivist pedagogy
differ (for the teacher) from a modern form of
constructivism?
When I taught philosophy in 98, my goal was clear: teach my
students philosophical inquiry. Do this by apprenticing the
students to philosophical ways of talking, thereby helping
them internalize the discourse of philosophy and think more
critically and reasonably. I actively scaffolded students’

3

induction into this discourse. I would publicly identify

when good reasons were given, arguments were constructed,

 

3In year one, some of the students were very willing to be inducted,
others less so, and some, resistant. I concerned myself with the first
two groups mostly. There was even one student, who, while very
interested in traditional philosophical topics, was consistently
ignored by me because her attempts to bring up these topics did not
mesh with the agenda I had. I have not stopped thinking about my
treatment of this student and fear she left my class quite frustrated
and justifiably soured to my brand of philosophical inquiry, probably
to anything called philosophy.

117

effective counterexamples were offered, and when sound
reasoning was portrayed. And when students' attempts at
participation fell outside of these acceptable forms of
participation, sometimes I would re—voice a contribution so
that it took the form I deemed appropriate, other times I
would ask students’ to reconsider what or how they said
what they said. It is clear though, I clear in my purpose
and way of teaching philosophy to them. I wanted my
students to understand something of philosophical
discourse. My agenda was clear (at least to me). Both the
form and content of our discussions was important to me,
and I largely controlled both. By any normal standards, I
was engaged in modern, social constructivist philosophy
teaching.

Also in year one, I tried to include my students’
experiences, background knowledge, and developing
understandings into discussions even though I largely
influenced most of the topics and the rules of engagement.
I felt compelled to form a community of philosophical
inquiry. I was enacting a social constructivist pedagogy,

just not a postmodern social constructivism.

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In year two, I was ambivalent towards the project of
teaching philosophical inquiry displayed in year one of
this study. My studies of critical pedagogy led me to be
suspicious of attempts to apprentice others and made me
very sensitive to the act of imposing the discourse of
reason (philosophy) onto my students. I began to think of
myself as colonizing an exploiting an unsuspecting people.
I also began to question what at one time seemed to me a
tacit good, the teaching of rational argumentation and
critical thinking. The privileging of reason was largely a
product of Enlightenment rationality which my readings in
post—structuralism and critical pedagogy had forced me to
begin to criticize. This gave me reason to want to include
more of my students’ experiences and to take a softer line
toward my influencing of both the form and content of our
discussions. I encouraged social critique, and in one
instance, a pivotal moment in this summer’s teaching, I
even encouraged social action. I was more genuinely open to
the students making their specific interests part of the

text of the class. And this is evidenced in how a larger

119

proportion of the topics we discussed were not the
traditional projects detailed in year one.

Yet, by year three, I had even begun to question my
encouragement of a critical pedagogy style of social
critique and action. As Elizabeth Ellsworth (1989) argues,

critical pedagogy,

is still tied to the mastery and masterfulness of
reason with the consequence that the role of the
critical pedagogue becomes one of ensuring that
students are given the chance to arrive at the
“universally valid proposition” underlying the
discourse of critical pedagogy - namely, that all
people have a right to freedom from oppression
guaranteed by the democratic social contract — in
other words, there is the danger of an agenda being
established where learners are led to pre—defined
goals; (p. 304)

Ellsworth goes on to argue that critical pedagogy,

masks a reconfiguration of the imbalance of power
between teacher and student in its discourse of
empowerment and dialogue: student empowerment has been
defined in the broadest possible humanist terms, and
becomes a “capacity to act effectively" in a way that
fails to challenge any identifiable social or
political position, institution, or group. (p. 307)

Adhering to modern social constructivist premises of

teaching, which critical pedagogy can be included as, can

put a teacher into a position of creating illusions for

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themselves. These illusions are potentially dangerous as
they can compel a teacher to think they are doing something
much more innocent that they are. By taking students’
ideas, background knowledge, and life experience seriously,
a teacher can seduce himself into believing that he is
imposing less on students. A teacher can deceive himself—-
believing he is starting from where the students are. Thus,
the teacher can be lulled into the idea that he is really
allowing the students’ concerns and interests to become
primary texts of the class when he is actually seducing
students into learning what he wanted them to learn in the
first place.

A teacher may also be seducing himself into
believing he is being more humane to his students than if
he were inconsiderate of students’ background knowledge,
experiences, and beliefs. The seduction is strong. Even in
year three I was bringing some modern ideas/structures into
the text of the class, sometimes overtly sometimes
covertly. To the extent that I made these topics central to

the teaching, and did not render my motivations transparent

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to my students, I was engaged in as insincere a form of
constructivist teaching as I was in year one.

Alas, was my teaching in year three really any
different than what I did in year one/two? Is it anymore
sincere or insincere than my teaching in year one/two?
When, in year three, some of the postmodern social
constructivist elements were present (textuality,
authority, power, etc.) I made it clear what I thought the
issue was and why I believed it to be worth discussion. I
tried very hard to only discuss these topics as they seemed
pertinent to the students’ experiences. I was less covert
in my actions and I think I presented a style of teaching
that was more transparent.

I began to see that one has to have an agenda, or at
least be part of a system that demands that one have an
agenda, in order to teach. Trying to rid myself of an
agenda led me to a brief state of paralysis. I did not know
what or how to teach. So, with a much more modest and open
agenda than ever before, I still entered my teaching of
class B—-year three--with the agenda of being sensitive and

open to the elements of a postmodern social constructivism

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as well as my students’ interests and experiences. The only
position I have been able to live with is to resolve to be
forthright with my students about what I consider important
and why. To justify to my students what I think I am doing,
how I view their role in the process, why I think this
activity is important to them, and to be sincere in my
attempts at actually making student texts a part of the
curriculum of the class. Even this stance, though, must be
accompanied by a willingness to open up aspects of one’s
teaching to scrutiny by oneself and one’s students. I do
not think I did as good a job of this in my third year of
teaching as I might have. I did this far more than I did in
either of the first two years, but, there is still plenty
of room for reducing illusion and increasing sincerity.

I am using the term “sincerity” to indicate a
forthrightness and honesty regarding what it is I thought I
was teaching. In year one/two I was not honest with my
students about the discourse I was attempting to initiate
my students’ into. In some ways I wanted to induct them
without their awareness of what they were being inducted in

to. This reflected the belief I had that we learn best by

123

assimilation (Gee, 1989). My project in year one/two was to
get students to internalize the discourse of philosophy by
following the norms of philosophical inquiry (in year one),
and social critique associated with critical pedagogy (in
year two). To the extent that I was not honest or
forthright about my intentions and use of the students’
ideas, experiences and understandings, I was engaged in an
insincere form of social constructivist teaching. My
motivations remained opaque instead of more transparent.
Regarding the aspect of my theorizing about a
postmodern social constructivism, there was one thing I was
not able to achieve. I never managed to open a critique of
the discipline of philosophy in my classroom. One reason
for this was that I was unsure I was still teaching
philosophy. One would have to have some understanding of a
discipline in order to critique it, and while in year one I
taught a method of philosophy that the students had learned
enough about to critique (Pardales & Cervetti, 1998), I was
far less clear of what it was we would critique in year
three. Postmodern social constructivists do critique the

very enterprise of disciplinary inquiry, but we were not in

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a position to critique philosophy in year three because we
were doing as much literary criticism, social and political
critique, and historiography as we were doing something
that resembled philosophy. I personally engaged in many
critiques of the discipline, and the enterprise of
philosophy over the course of this study, but never was
able to make disciplinary critique of philosophy a

substantive part of the class.4

2) How does a teacher trying to enact a postmodern social
constructivist pedagogy remain faithful to both subject
matter and their students’ ideas, experiences, and
developing understandings?

In year one of philosophy class I faithfully enacted the
teaching of philosophical inquiry as outlined in Philosophy
for Children. To this extent, I enacted a modern from of

social constructivism and as outlined above, introduced

formal philosophical inquiry to my students, and initiated

 

4We came close one day in year two when we talked about the distinctions
between mythology, religion, and fables. This discussion bordered on
disciplinary critique from the standpoint that we were discussing

genres of writing. Also, in year three, Class B, we engaged in a

similar exercise when we talked about “who writes history”, which
broached the topic of the differences between fictional and non-
fictional representations of history. Considering aspects of

125

them into the discourse of philosophy. This was my primary
objective and I did not have, as a central concern, this
tension between the curriculum on one hand, and
disciplinary faithfulness on the other. I took students’
ideas, experiences, and developing understandings into
consideration in service to the apprenticing of my students
into philosophical discourse.

In year two I sought to make students’ ideas
experiences, and developing understandings (i.e. student
texts) a more genuine part of the class, and this was
evidenced in the way I took students’ critique of texts and
topical interests more seriously. But as the analysis of
topics suggested, this lead us into areas not traditionally
part of philosophy for children discussions. And my
encouragement of social critique and aspects of a critical
pedagogy brought discussions and printed texts not
traditionally part of philosophical discourse. We began to
transgress and cross the tradition borders of philosophy.

By year three we were engaged in an activity genuinely

different. Student texts became primary texts for the class

 

disciplinary faithfulness is the subject of my second research

126

and I no longer worried about an ultimate balance between
student texts and traditional philosophical texts. We read
and responded to literature according to student interests
and we embarked on discussions over topics that were of
concern to the students. Of course, I did initiate some
discussions and topics that were aligned to issues related
to my burgeoning postmodern concerns. But my agenda here
was less dogmatic than it was in year one, and I tried to
make my motivations for raising such topics more
transparent to the students. In short, I tried to justify
why I thought such issues were important.

It is pertinent to raise the question of whether we
were still doing philosophy in year three. As I argued
earlier, we seemed to be engaged in reader response to
literature and a more open—ended style of dialogical
inquiry about the printed texts we were reading and the
students’ emergent texts. It could even be described as a
rhetorical inquiry of a particular sort; we spent a lot of
time considering how we use language and words. This leads

me to suggest that when one makes student texts a

 

question.

127

significant part of the inquiry, it becomes difficult to

remain squarely within the borders of a discipline.

3) What role does “community of inquiry" play in modern and
postmodern forms constructivism?

As I argued in chapter two, community of inquiry can be
applied to groups of students in classrooms, or, to the
practitioners of a discipline like history or chemistry.
Peirce theorized that philosophy should adopt the kind of
community of inquiry that characterized communities of
inquiring scientists where each scientist was faithful to
the scientific method as they made their own individual
inquiries and then subjected his/her findings to public
scrutiny. Dewey naturalized this conception of community of
inquiry and applied it to schooling. Lipman gave a
distinctive characterization of philosophical communities
of inquiry while arguing for the place of philosophy in K-
12 education. Other thinkers have called for the creation
of communities of inquiry as the new form groups of
teachers and students should adopt. This would yield
classrooms where teachers and students would inquire into
topics of mutual interest with one another. Classrooms

128

would become places where interest—inspired inquiry would
become the new curriculum, replacing the model where
teachers and other authorities alone dictated what and how
things are learned. This is especially the case where an
inquiry approach to education is being practiced because an
inquiry approach, with its emphasis on student interests, i
is used to structure discussion.

In each year of the philosophy classes,

 

1“.“ III. u-—

characteristics of a community of inquiry specified in
chapter two were enacted. But in year one, the community of
inquiry was less genuine. I say it was less genuine because
I largely dictated both the content and rules of
participation in the community; in the year one class the
community was one mostly by my designation and not one of
the communities creation. One person does not a community
make. One aspect of a group of people being a community is
that they, to some extent, dictate the terms of their
relationship to one another. Now, there are many instances
where individuals join communities and accept that the
rules they are agreeing to are not one’s of their making.

In fact, joining a political, social, or academic

129

organization often requires that one accept certain terms
of membership without having a say in those terms. But
communities of inquiry in classrooms, where the community’s
mandate requires that student interest, and mutual respect
and concern, are key elements of the community, requires
that the members of the community be active in determining
some of the constitution of the community.

Apart from the unspoken agreements that are part of
any classroom environment, this did not happen in any
significant way in year one or year two. As the teacher, I
imposed the rules of engagement and the mandate that we do
philosophical inquiry. In year one and two I even presented
an exercise from a philosophy for children teaching manual
that gave characterizations of behaviors that were and were
not part of communities of inquiry. My job was to engage
students in a discussion of the behaviors on this approved
list and get them to agree to the behaviors that were
sanctioned as legitimate aspects of a community of inquiry.
If I had allowed the space for a more genuine critique of

the values and behaviors of community of inquiry, this

130

would not have been a problem. But I did not allow for this
space.

A community of inquirers must have some freedom to
dictate how it will operate and what it will operate on. In
the first two years of philosophy I never opened up a space
for the class to talk about how we should be with one
another. In year two I allowed more space for student
inspired topics of discussion to be legitimate parts of the
class, but I did not allow for or create a space for the
community to negotiate its own terms. And while most of the
communities we belong to are not constituted by our
preferences, philosophical communities of inquiry are
supposed to be more genuine in their determination of
community constitution.

In year three, we did have some discussions of how we
would be with one another. On two occasions, in each of the
classes, the students put forth the idea that on some
occasions it would be good for students who wanted to
discuss particular topics to break off into small groups

and have separate discussions. They also decided that we

131

could do things that would make it more conducive to a
larger number of people participating in our discussion.
Though I attempted to create spaces where students might
dictate the terms by which we would become a community in
year three, I still have a long way to go in re—thinking
what community of inquiry will mean in my teaching.

As I ask myself the question, “Was community present
during any of the years of philosophy class?” many thoughts
arise. My purpose in asking the question is not to answer
“yes” or “no” so much as to consider of what importance
community is in my teaching of philosophy. In Peirce’s
conception of community of inquiry, the community was
important because it held the public criteria by which
scientific work would be inspired, critiqued, scrutinized,
and legitimated. In Philosophy for children the community
served these purposes though focussed on one’s reasoning
over philosophical matters; it was also a place where
mutual respect and concern for all participants is a
primary value. But the term “community” denotes a
fellowship or togetherness that may not be a necessary

condition for the kind of inquiry we had in the philosophy

132

classes. Community might be something to strive for, but
takes a long time to develop, and may not be essential.

In the meantime, teachers can still try to have
inquiry be a sincere part of the day by limiting the topics
of possible inquiries to those topics mandated by districts
and tests. The work of Ball and Levine—Rose are exemplary
on this point. While I consider this somewhat of a
compromise, to act otherwise could handicap students in an
environment where their futures are heavily determined by

high—stakes tests.

A Look to This Summer's Philosophy Class

In the coming Summer (2001) I will again teach
philosophical inquiry. If I had the power to change the
title of the course, which I will next year if I am still
teaching in the same program, I would rename it
“Philosophical Encounters with Literature”. I say this
because, while we still engage in many of the activities
related to philosophical inquiry mentioned in chapter 2,
issues of reading have begun to be more important and

central to the class. Because of this, I have chosen more

133

genuine literary texts that take on postmodern issues, and,
I am resolved to make student text a legitimate part of the
course curriculum. Language, representation, power,
textuality, etc. will become important themes in the class
that I will attempt to occasionally culture and justify to
my students. In this way we will be engaging in some of the
same things members of a literary criticism class might. We
will make central to our projects reading, discussions of
perspective, interpretation, and other topics that the
students deem important. I will do my best to be sincere
with the students when I take a discussion in a particular

direction or am pushing an aspect of my agenda.

Concluding Remarks
The analyses I made of the data suggest that social
constructivist teaching can have potential dilemmas of
reading and sincerity. I would like to offer some final
remarks on these dilemmas.

The problem of reading came out most clearly in the
first analysis made in chapter 4. In that analysis I showed

how my stance toward the purposes of reading contributed to

134

different treatments of text, and hence, very different
kinds of activities and discussions in my classroom. As I
began to think about texts differently the issue of what to
read, how to read, and what reading is, led into issues of
textuality. We moved from reading traditional philosophy
for children texts and issues to reading less traditional
texts, and, more of the students' experiences and
understandings. My own notion of reading exploded and this
effected the kinds of discussions we had in class. We moved
from doing mostly exegesis to treating texts as socially
constructed artifacts, and eventually, we discussed texts
as representations of ideology and power. We began to read
the world.

The other issue central to this dissertation is that
of sincerity. I used the term sincerity in at least three
different ways earlier in this chapter. The three ways are,

1) being clear and up-front with my students and myself
about what my agenda for the class is;

2) taking students’ ideas and understandings seriously
enough to allow them to become curriculum, and,

3) having a modest vision of the goals of the class,

and creating a genuine space for students to develop
their own understandings.

135

In chapter 1 I suggested that constructivist views of
teaching which claim to take students’ ideas, interests,
and understandings into consideration, but, which only do
so in order to teach a well defined, pre—determined,
curriculum, can be charged with being a seductive form of
humanism that is at best illusory and at worst insincere.
To the extent that I taught philosophy with a clear vision
of the end product our class discussions were to conform
to, I was engaged in what I think was a less than sincere
form of social constructivism.

It is rarely, if ever, possible to be completely
honest or transparent. After all, there are times when we
are not clear about our own motivations. For this reason,
it would be futile for me to advocate the strong position
that, “we must always be completely honest about our
agendas with our students”. I submit the idea that it is
insincere for teachers to use constructivist thinking in
support of deceiving their students in ways that allow them
to more comfortably transmit specific content. This is an
insincere use of constructivist thinking and I submit that

there is more to be gained by being sincere in one’s

136

teaching in the ways I discussed. Given my discussion of
the issues of sincerity in one’s teaching, for

constructivists especially, it can no longer be ignored.

137

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