ISSN 1743-4912

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's philosophy of education Ronald Swartz, Oakland University, United States of America

'To

LEARNING FOR DEMOCRACY An international journal of thought

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: Learnlns for Democracy, Vol, ::l, No. 2, 2006

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education RONALD SWARTZ Oakland University, United States ofAmerica

ABSTRACT In this article th6 author retrieves and reconsiders Joseph Agassi's scattered accomplishments in the philosophy of education. H. outlines a link between Agassi's educational philosophy and the epistemology of Karl Popper, and shows Agassi to be a long-time adoocate of th, development of liberal democratic educational philosophies, rooted in the ideals of Socrates as h, is portrayed in Plato's the Apology. Agassi's contribution to education is construed in tenns of the challenging questions .he has raised about the nature and content of schooling, and his persistent championing of a progressive approaCh to education, specifically the nonDeweyanform ofprogressivism exemplified in the ojten-overlooked writings and practices o/Homer Lane andA. S. Neill. Outline

1. Introduction

·

·

·.·

·

··.·· .. ·· p. 45-46

2. The Influence of Karl Popper

p. 46-49

3. Against Intellectual Tyranny in Schools

p. 49-50

4. The Work of Lane and Neill: Lawrence Cremin's Omission

p. 51-53

5. Two ProgressiviSOlS

· p. 53-54

6. Socrates

p. 56-58

7. Concluding Remarks

p. 58-59

8. Correspondence 9. References

" '"

p. 59

p. 59-60

CORRESPONDENCE Prot Ron 8w~ Sehool of Education and Human Services, Oakland University, Rochester, Mi 48309, USA. Email: sw;[email protected]

t

,,

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LEARNING FOR DEMOCRACY Volume

2

Number

2

June

2006

ARTICLES

Science, normal science and science education - Thomas Kuhn and education Richard Bailey, Roehampton University, United Kingdom

7

On the significance of 'World 3' for the depersonalization of inquiry and the democratization of education Darrell Patrick Rowbottom, University of Aberdeen, United Kingoom

21

Learning from mistakes: creating a new spirit for a democratic school system in South Africa Jeanette de Klerk, Universityof Stellenbosch, South Africa, and Gerhard Zecha, University of Salzburg, Austria

31

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's philosophy of education Ronald Swartz, Oakland University, United States of America

45

Self-managing, learning and democracy Ian Cunningham, Centre for Self Managed Learning, United Kingdom

61

A response to 'Self-managing, learning and democracy' Jon Griffith, University of East London, United Kingdom

76

Reply - self-managing is not structurelessness Ian Cunningham, Centre for Self Managed Learning, United Kingdom

79

REVIEWS Books reviewed by John O'Neill, Jancis Long, Jeanette de Klerk, Keren Brooking and David Stephens

81

About the contributors

94

Criticai Press, 34 Sandilands, Croydon CRa 5DB, United Kingdom 'Nww.learningfordemocracy.com

ISSN 1743-4912

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Learning for Democracy An International Journal of Thought and Practice ISB1\': 1743-4912

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Contact: International Adyisory and Reyiew Board Learning for Democracy publishes selective scholarly articles and book revievvs that have incurred a blind j uried reviev, process. Guidelines for author submission and communication will be publicly available in the online and hard copy formats and on the LFD website (forthcomim.'. to the SILE website).

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Journal JWission. Founding editor. Joanna Swann described the Popperian focus of the journal in a 2005 editorial: "Learning for Democracy has been founded on the assumption that we [the community] have three resources of particular significance: a facility for learning.... the contentious and somewhat unclear concepts of an open society and democracy" (p.7). Learningfor Democracy is published three times a year in an online format. LFD is not an open access journal: subscription rates are available upon request. A hard copy yearbook edition of Research on Leaming/c)r Democracy is expected to be published March. 2009. Regular issues of LFD will be available in a dual format-hard copy and electronic format beginning with the winter edition 2009.

Vlanuscript submission date for the winter edition is December 30, 2007 Learningfor Democracy v,eIcomes articles. dialogues. notes and further comments. in keeping with editorial policy. AI1icles should normally be between 4.000 and 8.000 words (including references). The journal contains two separate but related sections: (a) Theoretical and historical research in learning for democracy and (b) School practice and applied research about learning for democracy.

Learning for Democracy, Vol.

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No.2, 2006

45

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education RONALD SWARTZ Oakland Universit)j, United States ofAmerica

ABSTRACT In this article the author retrieves and reconsiders Joseph Agassi's scattered accomplishments in the philosophy of education. He outlines a link between Agassi's educational philosophy and the epistemology of Karl Popper, and shows Agassi to be a long-time advocate of the development of liberal democratic educational philosophies, rooted in the ideals of Socrates as he is portrayed in Plato's the Apology. Agassi's contribution to education is construed in terms of the challenging questions he has raised about the nature and content of schooling, and his persistent championing of a progressive approach to education, specifically the nOT!Deweyanform ofprogressivism exemplified in the often-overlooked writings and practices of Homer Lane and A. S. Neill. [1]n saying that we begin with a problem and end with another problem, we point to one very important lesson: the lesson that the more our knowledge grows, the more we realize how little we know. This Socratic lesson is as true in the natural sciences as it is in history: to become educated is to get an inkling of the immensity of our ignorance. Karl Popper The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality, chapter 7, § III INTRODUCTION Joseph Agassi's most well-known work is in the history and philosophy of science. But during the past 40 years he has also written books and essays about the development ofliberal democratic educational philosophies that are rooted in the ideals of Socrates as he is portrayed in Plato's dialogue, the Apology (1981[C. 360 BCE)). Moreover, even in his vvritings on non-education matters, Agassi occasionally articulates significant educational questions in either a footnote or a passing point. The purpose of this article is to retrieve and reconsider Agassi's scattered accomplishments in the philosophy of education.

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education Agassi's articulation of significant educational problems began in the early 1960s, when he published the monograph Towards an Historiography of Science (1963). In the penultimate footnote (ibid., pp. 116-17), Agassi quotes the following passage from Bernard Cohen (1960): in discussions on science teaching in schools we raise the question of syllabus and method but usually ignore a more fundamental question. The how and what of science teaching are dependent on the why, and the primary question for educationalists, administrators and teachers is 'why should we teach science?' ... it is very important to consider afresh what can be said for the modern tradition of science teaching. The question raised in this quotation is just one in a range of perennial educational problems addressed in Agassi's writings. In addition, as well as challenging people to reconsider perennial educational problems, Agassi has suggested the need to deal with unconventional and little understood problems such as whether all members of a school, regardless of age, should be given an equal vote (Agassi, 1970). This problem, and others associated with it, can be construed as part of a plan to develop self-governing educational programmes that promote autonomy in learning. Throughout Agassi's writings he argues for a version of a Popperian educational revolution. He also addresses a complex network of questions which, when taken as a whole, clearly suggest there is great merit in having educational theorists and practitioners reconsider the value of the liberal democratic self-governing educational programmes created by individuals such as Homer Lane, A. S. Neill, Janusz Korczak, and Daniel Greenberg. In particular, Agassi has argued that 'the best school is a democratically run school' (1977, pp. 314-5). My intention in this article is to lay the groundwork for examining this and other challenging claims of Agassi's. I do not wish to argue here that Agassi is correct in all he has written about liberal democratic self-governing learning situations, but I do suggest that in light of what he has written about democratic schooling there is a need to discuss further what we think we know about these educational programmes and experiments. THE INFLUENCE OF KARL POPPER In Agassi's books and essays there appears to be a tacit assumption that something is wrong with the practice of dividing human knowledge into distinct academic disciplines, such as chemistry, biology, sociology and physics. Following in the tradition of his teacher, Karl Popper, Agassi's scholarly endeavours are not bound by the idea that our knowledge is best characterized by the bodies of information or subject matters that are often associated ""1th traditional academic disciplines. And Agassi's writings would seem to endorse Popper's notion of 'the myth of the subject':

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subject matters in general do not exist. There are no subject matters; no branches oflearning - or, rather, of inquiry: there are only problems, and the urge to solve them. A science such as biology or chemistry (or say physical chemistry, or electrochemistry) is, I contend, merely an administrative unit. University administrators have a difficult job anyway, and it is a great convenience to them to work on the assumption that there are some named subjects, with chairs attached to them to be filled by the experts in these subjects. It has been said that the subjects are also a convenience to the student. I do not agree: even serious students are misled by the myth of the subject. And I should be reluctant to call anything that misleads a person a convenience to that person. (Popper, 1983,P. 5) Popper's notion of the myth of the subject has potentially far-reaching implications for the way learning is organized in educational programmes. I will not say much here about these implications; what I wish to note is that Popper offered a view of human knowledge that is rooted in the idea that problems are at the heart of our efforts to learn more about the world. For Popper, inquiry is always an attempt to solve a problem. Of course, he allows for the idea that at times people may be confused, unaware, or mistaken about the problem in which they are interested. And Popper's views on problems incorporate the notion that one person may be mistaken about the problems that interest another. Moreover, Popper does not consider all problems to be of similar value. For Popper, and those who have been influenced by him, it is possible to discuss problems and perhaps even at times agree that some problems are more worthy of consideration than others. Problems, and the questions in which they are presented, lie at the heart of Popper's view of human knowledge. Any question can be viewed as a problem which might be worth discussing (as a means of finding a solution). Similarly, any problem can be formulated as a question to which people may wish to seek an answer. Whatever the case, for Popper problems are central to human inquiry. In order to understand the significance of problems in Popper's life and work, it is worth noting the words of John Watkins (1997, p. 218): A BBC producer once asked me: 'What motivated him?' Well, whatever it was, it drove him with a demonic intensity. The best answer, I think, is: problems. Keynes said that for Moore propositions had the same objectivity as the furniture. For Popper, problems had something of the objectivity of an old bureau with inner cabinets and hidden recesses full of rich material. And he had a marvelous ability to draw others into his problems ... Some people scoff at Karl Popper's World-3 metaphysics, but it grew out of his own experience of problems that are 'out there' and that turn out to be deeper and richer the more one explores them.

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Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education

For Popper, any solution to a problem cannot be shown to embody the absolute and eternal truth. And even for a scientific or empirical problem, which suggests a solution (that is, a theory) that can be tested by experience or observation, Popper argued that no amount of positive evidence can be taken to indicate that the theory is justified, verified, or confirmed to be true. Popper readily admitted that at times some people may indeed know some eternal truths, but he claimed it was impossible for human beings to know for sure that they do indeed know the truth - we cannot help but be fallible. For Popper, even the most widely accepted solution to a problem might at some future date be improved upon or superseded by some unknown, or yet to be created or discovered, idea. This notion that all human knowledge has a chance to progress and grow over time clearly suggests that what is taught in schools at any time may not be the last word in human understanding. Popper also criticized the work of Thomas Kuhn for not perceiving difficulties with an approach to science education that incorporates the teaching of a dogma (for relevant discussion, see the article by Richard Bailey in this issue of Learningfor Democracy). For Popper, 'Normal' science, in Kuhn's sense, exists. It is the activity of the nonrevolutionary, or more precisely, the not-too-critical professional: of the science student who accepts the ruling dogma of the day; who does not wish to challenge it; and who accepts a revolutionary theory only if almost everybody else is ready to accept it - if it becomes fashionable by a kind of bandwagon effect. To resist a new fashion needs perhaps as much courage as was needed to bring it about .. , I believe, and so do many others, that all teaching on the University level (and if possible below) should be training and encouragement in critical thinking. The 'normal' scientist, as described by Kuhn, has been badly taught. He has been taught in a dogmatic spirit: he is a victim of indoctrination. (Popper, 1970, pp. 52-3) In turn, Agassi asserted that the Popperian revolution in science entails killing offscience textbooks which teach the paradigm endorsed by the leaders in any scientific community. Indeed, he went further, claiming that many textbooks are used in schools as a means of 'intellectual tyranny': We should not teach any textbooks in schools - not creationist, not evolutionist. The technical part of instruction should be frankly confined to handbooks, the intellectual part should comprise the history of ideas ... And if a pupil asks: 'Whom should I believe?', offer him Galileo's answer: Make up your own mind! The question is political: how can we kill the science textbook? This will be the Popperian revolution, the killing of the textbook, not the killing of logical positivism and not the pious declaration that science is our open society when science produces science textbooks. The

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worst of it is that the science textbook is called a paradigm, and declared sine qua non. The secular revolution was the biggest revolution in the West not because it undermined religion: contraI)' to all forecasts it did not. Nor did it even undermine theology. It undermined tyranny - in particular it undermined tyranny in the name of religion. But we still have tyranny, and some, though by far not the worst, is exercised in the name of the best in science. We now need to undermine the tyranny in the name of science. Popper himself says so, and even emphatically. But, alas! not consistently. Nor is it easy to find out the techniques of intellectual tyranny - in religion or science - especially in education, and to design means for countering them. (Agassi, 1988, pp. 493-4) Are science textbooks contributing to intellectual tyranny in schools? Are textbooks which teach the latest, most up-to-date and widely accepted scientific paradigms inadequate? Do we need to design means for countering intellectual tyranny in our schools? These are just a few of the questions suggested by Agassi's comments, all of which he answered in the affirmative. It is unfortunate that they are rarely invoked during dialogues about educational programmes. AGAINST 'INTELLECfUAL 1YRANNY' IN SCHOOLS What makes Agassi a higWy provocative thinker on education - and perhaps also explains why he is often ignored - is that he asks unpopular questions. Agassi's efforts to develop a programme for countering intellectual tyranny in schools, and articulate a programme for educational reform, can be found in: 'Training to survive the hazard called education' (1984); 'The myth of the young genius' (1985); 'The autonomous student' (1987); 'Science education without pressure' (1997). These essays by no means present all that Agassi has to say about developing liberal democratic self-governing educational programmes, but they and his few other essays on education do suggest that it is worthwhile to ask and address questions such as: 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Why should we teach science in our schools? Is science taught in our schools in a dogmatic manner? Is it desirable to avoid dogmatism in teaching? How can we evaluate whether teachers are teaching a dogma? How can we evaluate whether students are learning to be dogmatic? What should be included in a school's prescribed curriculum? How can we develop ways to alleviate the suffering inflicted by the present education system on students and others? How can we avoid having educational programmes which train large numbers of students to hate mathematics and/or histoI)' and literature?

50 9.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20.

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education

Do the educational views of Homer Lane, A. S. Neill, Janusz Korczak, Daniel Greenberg and Bertrand Russell provide the basis for liberal democratic self-governing educational philosophies that can help people to avoid some of the evils of our present-day conventional schools? Can students learn to design their own curricula? Can autonomous students be directed? How can we avoid doing damage to students? What is the function of a teacher? How can we evaluate whether the functions we want our teachers to serve are the correct ones? How can we evaluate whether teachers are successfully fulfilling the functions we have chosen? Can the tasks we want teachers to undertake be computerized? Insofar as the tasks of the teacher can be computerized, under what conditions is this advisable? Should we judge the worth of students and others independently of their academic achievement? Should civil rights, as guaranteed by the United States' Constitution, be extended also to minors? Can there be equal voting rights for all members of a school, regardless of age and status?

In his \vritings on education, Agassi has noted that many of the questions listed above are an outgrowth of the educational views developed not only by Popper, Lane, Neill, Korczak, Greenberg and Russell, as mentioned earlier, but also Anton Makarenko, Carl Rogers, E. J. Flanagan, Leonard Nelson and Albert Einstein. Furthermore, Agassi acknowledged that Plato's early dialogues had a significant impact on how he approaches educational problems (Agassi, 19 87, p. 14). Agassi has clearly stated that he makes 'no claim for priority or originality' (ibid.) in relationship to his educational ideas. His is not a new philosophy of education; rather, he has creatively interpreted the work of a variety of scholars and education reformers. He has focused on those who have struggled to understand and articulate educational problem situations which, taken as a whole, have led people to develop ideas that have contributed to liberal democratic self-governing educational programmes. Many of the individuals who have influenced Agassi's thinking about education are seldom taken seriously by mainstream educational philosophers and historians of education. In particular, Agassi (1977, p. 359) has suggested that Homer Lane should receive credit for being one of the originators of the idea of democratizing schools.

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THE WORK OF LANE AND NEILL: LAWRENCE CREMIN'S OMISSION Homer Lane (1875-1925) was born in Hudson, New Hampshire, USA. During his short life he created two experimental educational programmes for delinquent children. The first was the Ford Republic reform school for boys, located in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan. The second was 'the Little Commonwealth in Dorset, England, where in 1913 he had been appointed superintendent of a colony of delinquent boys and girls who governed themselves in a small democracy, each person - including Lane himself having one vote' (Neill, 1969, p. 5). Whether Agassi is correct in crediting Lane with helping to invent the idea of democraticizing large schools for young children is not an issue I will discuss here. It is enough to know that Lane was indeed a pioneer in the quest to free children from the intellectual tyranny that Agassi has identified in modern conventional schooling. Moreover, although Lane was to have a lasting impact on A S. Neill and his school Summerhill, it is nevertheless the case that Lane and his educational efforts are largely ignored by most of the eminent scholars who have studied the development of educational problems in the 20th century. Even Lawrence Cremin's monumental three-volume 'comprehensive history' of American education (Cremin, 1970, 1980, 1988) does not contain even a passing reference to his work. Now it is of course unfair to claim that a history of education is not comprehensive just because it does not include a reference to every educational experiment and educator who lived or worked during the historical period being studied. But what is interesting about the absence of Lane - and, for that matter, Neill - in Cremin's history of American education is that in 1976 Cremin wrote: In my study of the progressive education movement, titled The Transformation of the School ... the original plan ... included a final section addressed to the question, 'Where do we go from here?' But when the time came to write it, my thoughts were not clear, so I decided to end on a 'phoenix in the ashes' note: if and when liberalism in politics and public affairs had a resurgence, progressive education would rise again ... I did manage to work out that last section in 1965 ... in a little book called The Genius of American Education. I argued there that the reason progressive education had collapsed was that the progressives had missed the central point of the American educational experience in the twentieth century, namely, that an educational revolution had been going on outside the schools far more fundamental than any changes that had taken place inside - the revolution implicit in the rise of cinema, radio, and television and the simultaneous transformation of the American family under the conditions of industrialism and urbanization ... By the time I ""Tote The Genius ofAmerican Education, a new progressive education movement was already in the making. I would date its beginning

52

Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education from precisely the time I was wrestling with the last section of The Transformation ofthe School which I could not write. I would date it from the publication of A S. Neill's Summerhill in 1960. (Incidentally, nothing in Neill's book was new; most of what he recommended had been tried in the progressive schools of the 1920S and 1930s.) (Cremin, 1976, pp. 59-61)

A somewhat new, post-Deweyan progressive educational movement in the United States did indeed have its earliest beginnings in 1960, when the 76year-old Neill published his book Summerhill (1960). This book, 'which drew on four of Neill's earlier works' (Croall, 1983, p. 350), endorsed a liberal democratic self-governing educational philosophy which clearly argued for the idea that students should not be compelled to attend lessons (Neill, 1960, p. 13). When it came to answering the question, 'Should elementary and secondary schools make the learning of academic skills and information optional?', Neill's writings implied an affirmative answer. On the other hand, the progressive educator John Dewey argued in his writings on education that progressive schools which allowed students to choose not to learn academic subjects were highly unsatisfactory. As Paul Goodman noted (1962, p. 45), Dewey disagreed with the Summerhillian idea that students should be given the 'freedom to choose to go to class or stay away altogether'. As with Dewey and many other progressive educators before him, Cremin would eventually decide that schools such as Summerhill were not significant or serious educational endeavours that merited much attention. By the time Cremin wrote his American Education: The Metropolitan Experience 1876 to 1980 (1988) more than a quarter of a century had passed since Neill's book Summerhill had been a best-seller. As it turns out, the liberal democratic self-governing educational reform movement, which Neill had helped to start, was a flash in the pan. Within two decades of the publication of Summerhill the American version of this book was out of print. And by the 1980s much that Neill had to say about educational problems was viewed as incorrect and highly inadequate not only by Cremin, but also by educational writers such as Jonathan Kozol who, in Free Schools (1972, p. 75), dearly argued against the kind of freedom that Neill advocated. Also, by the early 1970S, Neill and Goodman - and many of the other educationists who had argued for Summerhill-style schools - were dead. Cremin was one of the great, if not the greatest, American educational historians of the post-World War II era. In works such as The Wonderful World of Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (1965), Cremin outlined a theory of history that would guide the way he wrote books such as American Education: The Metropolitan Experience 1876-1980. This book (1988), and the earlier two volumes in his series on American education (1970, 1980), are not mere compilations, they combine in a higWy creative fashion what Agassi has called compilations and critical surveys (Agassi, 1970). Yet the critical surveys that

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form part of Cremin's work are not centred around problems in the sense suggested by Agassi (1963). And although I greatly admire and find much of value in what Cremin has written, it seems to me that in his treatment of the strand of the progressive education movement that is exemplified by the work of Lane and Neill he was more of a compiler, and less of a critical surveyor, than is desirable: 'since the experimental school is marginal, the compiler unlike the critical surveyor - hardly ever mentions it and never does it justice' (Agassi, 1970, p. 118). I realize, of course, that those who have taken liberal democratic selfgoverning educational programmes seriously comprise a small minority of educators, and they have had little or no impact on the way most educational programmes are organized in western societies. One reason why I consider Agassi's educational writings to be significant is that for nearly four decades he has attempted to keep alive a dying tradition of education that may help people to learn to avoid much of the unnecessary pain and suffering that educators often unknowingly and unintentionally inflict on children.

nvo PROGRESSMSMS In Experience and Education (1938) and How We Think (1910), John Dewey seems to have made an effort to understand schools such as Summerhill, the Ford Republic and the Little Commonwealth, but his preconceived ideas about what should count as a legitimate or reasonable encounter between a student and a teacher prevented him from fully engaging with Lane's vision for education. In one of his few attempts at humour, Dewey provides what he considers to be devastating critique of a Summerhill-style school: In reality the teacher is the intellectual leader of a social group. He is a leader, not in virtue of official position, but because of wider and deeper knowledge and matured experience. The supposition that the principle of freedom confers liberty upon the pupils, but that the teacher is outside its range and must abdicate all leadership is merely silly ... It is held that, out of due respect for the mental freedom of those taught, all suggestions are to come from them. Especially has this idea been applied in some kindergartens and primary grades. The result is often that described in the story of a young child who, on arriving at school, said to the teacher: 'Do we have to do today what we want to do?' (Dewey, 1933, pp. 273-4) Dewey's attempt to demonstrate the folly of Summerhill-style schools should not lead us to think that these educational alternatives are mistaken or inadequate. After laughing, or perhaps just smiling, when we read the child's question in the above quotation, we can perhaps decide to take it seriously. For educationists such as Neill and Lane, who advocated the development of liberal democratic self-governing educational programmes, the teacher should

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Revisiting Joseph Agassi's Philosophy of Education

indeed provide an affinnative answer. But the teacher should also address such questions as; Can students learn to design their own curricula? Can autonomous students be directed? Do the educational views of Homer Lane, A. S. Neill, Janusz Korczak, Daniel Greenberg and Bertrand Russell provide the basis for liberal democratic self-governing educational philosophies that can help people to avoid some of the evils of our present-day conventional schools? It will be remembered that these questions were among those identified earlier as being a part of a philosophical research programme for developing liberal democratic self-governing educational programmes. One of the reason's why Lane's work is of historical significance is that it can help us to see that perhaps, just perhaps, it is possible to advance beyond the progressive educational ideas advocated by Dewey and those who followed in, and worked within, his pragmatic and progressive educational tradition. Going beyond the progressive educational ideas of Dewey is a major intellectual task. What is so remarkable about Neill's work at Summerhill is that throughout his life he lived in the shadow of Dewey's powerful ideas and influence. When people compared Dewey-type schools to Summerhill-type schools, Summerhill was usually viewed as far inferior to the Laboratory School that Dewey helped to create at the University of Chicago in 1898. Even in the 1990S, when Alan Ryan wrote about the Neill and Dewey schools, the idea still remained that what Neill was up to at Summerhill was 'much less impressive' than what Dewey had done. Ryan has written that to the extent that progressive education came to be a label for an educational theory that overemphasized the importance of teaching what interested the child, that overemphasized the child's responsibility for what went on at school, what rules governed the school activities, and what he was or was not supposed to learn, Dewey was utterly hostile to progressive education so described. He said endlessly that he believed that his emphasis on the need to take the child's abilities and interests seriously had been taken by some people as a license to abandon teaching, that 'child-centered' had come to mean that it was unimportant what the teacher did, and for any such views he had complete contempt ... The 'Dewey School,' otherwise the Laboratory School, was suppose to be what its name suggested: a laboratory. It was not a teacher training institution or primarily intended to provide a dazzling different elementary education for its students. In practice it became a test bed where Dewey's ideas about how to teach children were put into practice ... Dewey's school lasted only seven and a half years; it was closed by being wholly merged with the training school at the institute when Dewey left for Columbia. With adequate financing there was no reason why it could not have gone on forever. Its educational results were entirely satisfactory, as everyone from the most to the least committed agreed. It was on this quite

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unlike more radical and freewheeling undertakings, such as the school at Beacon Hill that Dora and Bertrand Russell ran in the 1920S and A. S. Neill's Summerhill. Their results were much less impressive. (Ryan, 1995, pp. 134-6) Ryan is correct to point out that the mere fact that Dewey's school closed after less than one decade has little to do with whether or not it was a worthwhile endeavour. Some experiments are brought to a close not because they are unsatisfactory, but because they cannot muster adequate resources. Similarly, we should not be too impressed by the fact that Summerhill is still in operation today, more than eight decades after it was begun by Neill in 1924. One of the reasons that Summerhill was able to sustain itself was because Neill used money made from his books to keep his shoestring experiment in freedom alive. Information about Summerhill and the Laboratory School is still easy to get (particularly from the internet). But knowing only the basic facts about these hvo isolated educational programmes does not really tell us very much. What needs to be done is to somehow find a way to decide if what we know about Summerhill and the Laboratory School can help us to solve some significant problems common to education worldwide. Specifically, if we recall that in his educational writings Agassi has pointed out that we should address questions such as, 'What is the function of a teacher?' and 'How can we evaluate whether the functions we want our teachers to serve are the correct ones?', then we can compare the answers that Dewey and Neill have offered. Moreover, we can extend Agassi's list of worthwhile questions to include: What is the function of a school? How can we evaluate whether we have chosen the correct functions for schools? It would seem to be the case that Agassi clearly agrees with Neill and Lane, rather than Dewey, about the functions of teachers and schools. In another of his remarkable footnotes he claimed that the best school is the democratically run school ... criticism of this view is always the argument that in a democratic school pupils will make study noncompulsory and then will not study at all. This argument is poor. It runs in the face of the fact that everybody agrees that character building or socialization is more important than building the stock of knowledge. (If you have character you will learn if you want to; if not, your knowledge from your school days will be of no avail.) ... Daniel Greenberg of the famed Sudbury Valley School observes, in a democratic school pupils learn what they want, not what their elders and betters think is good for them .,. schools are undemocratic because in our democratic society there is a high distrust of and dislike for democracy ... The movement towards free education, from Homer Lane to Bertrand Russell, assumed that there is no problem of motivation to begin with. As

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Russell says in his 'Freedom versus Authority in Education' ... children love to invest effort in study. (Agassi, 1977, pp. 314-15) SOCRATES In order to understand Agassi's views on democratic schools, it is helpful to know that in answering a question such as 'What is the function of a teacher?', Agassi, as with Popper before him, seems to suggest that Socrates as he is described in Plato's Apology has offered the best answer to this question. On the other hand, the kind of teacher idealized in Plato's Republic and Laws is viewed by both Agassi and Popper as being much inferior to the kind of teacher Socrates presents himself as in the Apology. And for both Agassi and Popper the dominant educational traditions in western societies since the time of Plato have, in one form or another, incorporated the image of the teacher as idealized in the Republic and the Laws. Agassi and Popper agree that since the time of Plato our knowledge of teachers and their educational relationships with students has been stuck in the 'dark ages'. For Agassi and Popper, what we can do to get out of the dark and into the light is return to the idea of the teacher as suggested by Socrates in the Apology: throughout my whole life both in private and in public, wherever I have had to take part in public affairs, you will find I have always been the same and have never yielded unjustly to anyone; no, not to those whom my enemies falsely assert to have been my pupils. But I was never anyone's teacher ... I have never withheld myself from anyone, young or old, who was anxious to hear me converse while I was making my investigation; neither do I converse for payment, and refuse to converse without payment. I am ready to ask questions of rich and poor alike, and if any man wishes to answer me, and then listen to what I have to say, he may. And I cannot justly be charged with causing these men to turn out good or bad, for I never either taught or professed to teach any of them any knowledge whatever. (Plato, 1981[C. 360 BCE], pp. 39-40) Although Socrates states clearly that he is not 'anyone's teacher', this claim has often been rejected or interpreted to mean that Socrates was a different kind of teacher to those who existed in Athens during Socrates' time. In other words, Socrates tried to disassociate himself from the Sophists who were the kind of teachers who taught valuable knowledge or information to students. Since Socrates claimed that his wisdom was 'worth little or nothing at all' (ibid, p. 28), he rightly did not view himself as a teacher in the normal sense. However, Socrates was a teacher of some, though unconventional, kind. Popper claimed that Socrates was the kind of teacher who taught people to be self-critical:

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Readiness to learn in itself proves the possession of wisdom, in fact all the wisdom claimed by Socrates for himself; for he who is ready to learn knows how little he knows. The uneducated seems thus to be in need of an authority to wake him up, since he cannot be expected to be selfcritical. But this one element of authoritarianism was wonderfully balanced in Socrates' teaching by the emphasis that the authority must not claim more than that. The true teacher can prove himself only by exhibiting that self-criticism which the uneducated lacks.... State interest must not be lightly invoked to defend measures which may endanger the most precious of all forms of freedom, namely, intellectual freedom. And although I do not advocate 'laissez faire with regard to teachers and schoolmasters', I believe that this policy is infinitely superior to an authoritative policy that gives officers of the state full power to mould minds ... The Platonic 'Socrates' of the Republic is the embodiment of an unmitigated authoritarianism.... His educational aim is not the awakening of self-criticism and of critical thought in general. It is, rather, indoctrination - the moulding of minds and of souls which Cto repeat a quotation from Laws) are 'to become, by long habit, utterly incapable of doing anything at all independently'. CPopper, 1945, p. 129-32) From the time he published The Open Society and Its Enemies in 1945 until his death at the age of 92, Popper argued that the works of Plato clearly articulate two very distinct and contradictory philosophical perspectives. Specifically, it was Popper's claim that in works such as the Apology and the Meno, Plato explains how it is possible to have a liberal educational philosophy that is consistent with the views developed by the 'real' Socrates who lived in Athens from 470 BCE to 399 BCE. Popper's historical interpretation of Plato's works suggests that books such as the Republic and the Laws argue for an illiberal totalitarian educational philosophy that is inconsistent with the ideas that the real Socrates was willing to die for. Of course, people familiar with the Republic will know that the principal character who eventually argues for what Popper views as an illiberal totalitarian philosophy is called Socrates. Popper's claim is, however, that the Socrates of the Republic is a creation of Plato's imagination. For Popper, the person called Socrates in the Republic is a fictitious or false Socrates who Plato uses to defend ideas developed by Plato himself, rather than ideas which would have been endorsed by Plato's teacher Socrates. Popper's historical interpretation of the works of Plato has not been accepted as the standard way to view Plato's work. And both before and after the publication of The Open Society and Its Enemies, many western scholars have tried to understand why it is that Socrates seems to argue for very

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different ideas in works such as the Apology and the Republic. Popper's claim that Socrates' teaching needs to incorporate 'one element of authoritarianism' (ibid., p. 130) has been challenged by Agassi: Popper's opinion always was that children are authoritarian by nature and they have to be charmed by their teachers and educated in an authoritarian manner - in order to have them grow out of their authoritarianism, need one say. I do not agree: A major argument in his The Open Society and Its Enemies is, after all, that we do not know what human nature is (though we may refute some views about it if they are not defended apologetically). Moreover, his view is refuted by democratic schools where authority is democratically controlled and pupils learn no worse than in authoritarian schools ... Popper's idea of the romantic element in education amounts to condoning manipulation of pupils for their own good. (Agassi, 1993, p. 59) Whether Agassi is correct about democratic schools not needing any form of authoritarianism is a topic that merits detailed discussion, which unfortunately I cannot undertake here. All I wish to note is that the debate between Popper and Agassi about Socrates and authoritarianism should be seen as significant for further discussions about the development of liberal democratic self-governing educational philosophies and programmes. CONCLUDING REMARKS I would like to conclude this article with some brief comments about autonomy as an aim of education. In an earlier article on this topic (Swartz, 1989, p. 55) I ""Tote: the issue of education for autonomy needs to begin with asking a question such as, 'Do we want to struggle with the enormous number of problems associated with creating educational situations which increase the likelihood that human beings will become autonomous in significant ways such as determining their own curriculum?' Unlike Agassi in his interesting article 'The autonomous student,' I do not think it is fruitful to start a discussion about education for autonomy with the question, 'Can a student be sufficiently autonomous?' Unfortunately, Agassi has put the cart before the horse; what first needs to be determined is whether the goal of autonomy is what we want for ourselves and those we teach. Furthermore, for individuals who choose autonomy as an aim for education and their life in general, it is extremely important to remember Freud's observation that in a civilized society people should be prepared 'for the aggressiveness of which they are destined to become the object.' That is, those who seek to be autonomous should expect others to place huge obstacles in their way partly because freedom is so very terrifying for those who do not wish to be free .

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After I wrote the above comments about autonomy, I returned to the conclusion to Walter Kaufmann's wonderful book, Without Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy, in which he tells the story of 'The serpent's promise'. He makes the following observation: The serpent was wiser than man and woman and asked them: 'Are you afraid?' They answered: 'We have been told what is good and evil, and if we disobey we shall die.' ... Then the serpent said: 'Fear not to stand alone .., it is up to you to decide. It is up to you to leave behind guilt and fear. You can be autonomous.' They answered: 'But what are we to do right now to make a beginning?' The serpent replied: 'You still want to be told what to do. Perhaps your children will be ready for autonomy.' (Kaufmann, 1973,P. 237) What are we to do right now to help our children be autonomous? In many ways our answer to this question begins with cultivating the desire to live an examined life. And as Socrates noted, it is far from easy to persuade people that 'an unexamined life is not worth living' (Plato, 1981 [c. 360 BeE], P·45)· CORRESPONDENCE Prof. Ron Swartz, School of Education and Human Services, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309, USA Email: [email protected] REFERENCES AGASSI, J. (1963) Towards an Historiography of Science, History and Theory, Beiheft 2. AGASSI, J. (1970) The preaching of John Holt. Interchange, 1 (4), PP.115-18. AGASSI, J. (1977) Towards a Rational Philosophical Anthropology. The Hague, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff. AGASSI, J. (1984) Training to survive the hazard called education. Interchange, 15 (4), pp.1-14· AGASSI, J. (1985) The myth of the young genius. Interchange, 16 (1), pp. 51-60. AGASSI, J. (1987) The autonomous student. Interchange, 18 (4), pp. 14-20. AGASSI, J. (1988) The Gentle Art of Philosophical Polemics: Selected Reviews and Comments. LaSalle, IL: Open Court Publishing Company. AGASSI, J. (1993) A Philosopher's Apprentice: In Karl Popper's Workshop. Atlanta, GA.: Editions Rodopi. AGASSI, J. (1997) Science education without pressure. In: 1. Lenz and I. Winchester (eds) Toward Scientific Literacy: The History and Philosophy of Science and Science Teaching: Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference, pp. 1-13. Calgary, Canada: University of Calgary. COHEN, 1. B. (1960) The Birth of a New Physics. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. CREMIN, 1. A. (1965) The Wonderful World of Ellwood Patterson Cubbedey. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

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CREMIN, L. A. (1970) American Education: The Colonial Experience 1607-1783. New York: Harper and Row. CREMIN, L. A. (1976) The free school movement. In: M. D. Fantini (ed.) Alternative Education: A Source Bookfor Parents, Teachers, Students, and Administrators, pp. 59-61. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company. CREMIN, L. A. (1980) American Education: The National Experience 1783-1876. Cambridge, MA: Harper and Row. CREMIN, L. A. (1988) American Education: The Metropolitan Experience 1876-1980. Cambridge, 11A.: Harper and Row. CROALL, J. (1983) Neill of Summerhill: The Permanent Rebel. New York: Pantheon Books. DEWEY, J. (1910) How We Think. Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath. DEWEY, J. (1933) How We Think: A Restatement of the Relationship of Reflective Thinking to the Education Process. Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Company. DEWEY, J. (1938) Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan. GOOD11A.N, P. (1962) Compulsory Mis-education and the Community of Scholars. New York: Random House. KAUFMANN, W. (1973) Without Guilt and Justice: From Decidophobia to Autonomy. New York: Dell Publishing Company. KOZOL, J. (1972) Free Schools. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. NEILL, A. S. (1960) Summerhill: A Radical Approach to Child Rearing. New York: Hart Publishing Company. NEILL, A. S. (1969) Introduction. In: H. T. Lane, Talks to Parents and Teachers, PP.3-13. New York: Schocken Books. PLATO (1981) Apology. In: Plato, Euthyphro, Apology and Crito. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill (trans. F. J. Church, 1956) (written c. 360 BCE). POPPER, K R. (1945) The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume 1 - The Spell of Plato. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. POPPER, K. R. (1970) Normal science and its dangers. In: 1. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (eds) Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, pp. 51-8. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. POPPER, K. R. (1983) Realism and the Aim oj Science. Totowa, New Jersey: ROVvman and Littlefield (from the Postscript to the Logic of Scientific Discovery, ed. by W. W. Bartley, III). POPPER, K R (1994) The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality. London: Routledge (ed. by M. A Notturno). RYAN, A (1995) John Dewey and the High Tide ofAmerican Liberalism. New York: W. W. Norton and Company. SWARTZ, R. (1989) A postscript to Education for Autonomy. Interchange, 20 (4), PP·5 1- 6. WATKINS, J. (1997) Karl Popper: a memoir. The Arnerican Scholar, 66 (2), pp. 205-19.

About the Contributors RONALD SWARTZ received a PhD from New York University in 1971. He is now a Professor of Education and Philosophy at Oakland University, where he is a member of the Department of Human Development and Child Studies. Ron co-authored (with Henry J. Perkinson and Stephanie G. Edgerton) Knowledge and Fallibilism: Essays on Improving Education (New York University Press, 1980). He has published articles in a variety of academic journals, including the Teachers College Record, Educational Studies, Journal of Educational Thought, and Interchange. He is also the producer and moderator for the video series Education in Multi-Cultural Societies.