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A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

by Gabriele Boselli.

Translated by C. Bertacchini.

For some decades phenomenology and its derivations have favourably represented the epistemological design which is among the most adanced and varied scientific research work subordinate to anna teresa Tymienicka with her World Institute for Advanced phenomenological research and review Anacleta Husserliana.

Every view of scientific progress in the world of physics and especially in spiritual science evidences how “the phenomenological Movement “has made available to every form of knowledge of a language , a type of approach and a method useful for any science when carrying out the task of individualizingthe meaning, correctly interpreting experiences, outlining projects.

In this report I will deal with a field of research which phenomenology has generated in the pedagogic sector, through some scholars who,as from the 1980s elaborated a theory of pedagogic planning , namely “Post programming “

in opposition with leading theories of that period.

The practice and theory work was performed in the militant school field ,however with active support and encouragement of Enciclopaideia, a group of scholars that since 1987 are to befound in Bologna under the leadership of Piero Bertolini , who since the 1960s is the authentic Master of Italian studies

on educational phenomenology.

1) PEDAGOGIC EFFECTS of ECLITTIC MODERN PROCESSES

The fact that man and project (hopefully also expectancy, dreams and fantasy)are practically contiguous terms is well known : Man has always planned , searched for ways of reducing his own and other tension in order to achieve fulfilment .Teachers have always planned ,and been involved in determined goals , guided by the pre- categorical experience and culture.

This report between subject and other (other being both the subject and the exterior )in a cultural context ,is a topic that educational theology has dwelt on in the history of western pedagogy .There has always been an aim whereever an educational objective has been proposed: this could be declared openly or not, known or not,considered or completely ignored. in the present , past or future of subjects ,it involved them in trans-formative processes ,in metamorphosis, in the passing through new lands.

With Modernism, recognizablestarting from comenio and terminating with the expansion of programming studies and experiences, we have a decline in meaning of the theologyand educational pragmatic progressively restricted only to education and confined to more detailed syntagmatic structures , definitely concluded and forbidden in the emrging of the New and Other , unable to seize the opportunity .

Nowadays we are at the height of bureaucracy that has invaded not only offices but classrooms so much so that many believe it is impossible (some say non- scientific) to imagine educational planning in terms other than programming. The name ( and substance ) of this restriction in planning goals, of this limitation of subsystemic aims, of this failure in recognizing tradition is therefore Programming . A word dominating schools in developed countrieshiding behind the wellknown terms :Reason,Tchnology , economy, Power.It well suits the needs of having certainties , information and efficiency which are increasingly required in our end the millennium society.

I trust however that at medium term (historical times ) other configurations of Postmodernism will be operative: the system of late modernism will become constellation, the contrallable complexity ,hypercomplexity; that history now partially suspended from technology will once again gain headway into the general awareness. In theory this is already widely recognized : in the general

expansion context concerning the phenomenological approach , the theory of complexity /hypercomplexity and hermeneutics is becoming the most important code to interpret planning phenomena .

Years ago I wrote these things in a book “Post-programming “ which attempts to propose through phenomenological perspective educational planning on the basis of new ideal openings of Post modern , appliable also in compliance with ancient paths of idealism.

2) THE SOURCES

Husserl

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Together with Husserl ( and Rosenweig , author of “Stella della Redenzione” )we have listened to the words of Israel , a country deprived of its native lands for 2000 years, at the second roots of the western world.

With the author of “Crisi delle Scienze Europee e la Fenomenologia Trascendentale “, we have read and held a lesson on education as a refusal of any fact-study technique, namely the erroneus claimining of events without a subject, the mere accumulation of systemic elements .

Educating is , on the contrary the sustaining of life, a transcendental act whereby man is shaped when encoutering the Other, recognizing him , since recognition and awareness is also partecipating in the forms of historically constituted intersubjectivity ( the disciplines ). Above all we have learned the art of radical questions , learned how to avoid being afraid when coping with the neormous prejudice and bias.

Programming is virtually similar to a mountain , it is sufficient to eliminate some of the ideological theories of modernism, and it will disappear.

Heidegger

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With Heidegger (and Gadamer ) we have meditated on the technicalideology as a system capabale of managing any practical activity , from the producing of washing machines to the formation of Man. we have seen man as the subject (not object ) of inite knowledge, knowledge (such a didactics)essentialy narrative and not descriptive, intersubjective and not objective , epistemological and not epistemic. Being a subject , becoming a subject , helping others to become one entails waiting, listening, interpreting , planning oneself and planning in general. in other words going beyond dependency,becoming what one is authentically and what one can become.

3) THE PROS and CONS of a CONCRETE PHENOMENOLOGICAL PROJECT

A refusal of the hegemony of the technical aspects of economicism has led us to erase from the pedagogic practice “ the corallaries “ : thus no hierachic pre-ordered objectives , no executive protocols , no verifications.Yes, to the aims, to the creativity of the relation, to the interpretation of the effects. No to burocratical practices, to technicism, to the triviality deriving from cultural segmentation. above all no to the non recognition of the subject. Recovery of the transcendetal Point of view .Re-elaboration of the discipline .

In “ Post programming “ an evaluation without a verification claim is involved to assess the subjectivity of evaluating and opening the way not to objectivity (impossible ) but a possible intersubjectivity .

THE CONS

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No, to technology .

Programming is a mythical expression of late modernism: Technology. It is a way of putting one’s competence in educational processes into practice, knowing how to employ means and events for an economic carrying out of qualitative and quantitative objectives , namely ........

a series of norms for the managing of practical activities .

A restricted form of rationality like technology is nowadays (mainly owing to the seduction of the products deriving from this )identifiable with the aim in itself . The excessive power of late modernism technology has led to its becoming an ideology , a syntagm operative in every field of human activity .

Moreover it is an ethic . What can becalled technical is good and rational.Technique is almost a religion that from early morning to late night guides the actions and thoughtsof the subject in this end of millennium.

It was impossible to imagine that tecnology would not colonize , beside the other fields, the school too, ignoring its peculiarity , its high values in respect to other associations which would not confirm it as belonging to the rest of the system , regarding it as a site of production as any other , calling teachers “operators “or” professionals “ and flattering the modest vanity of headmasters by calling them “managers “.played by men and children , should not intefere with determination and objectives as often happens in every system which has acquired too much power.

In my opinion technology should not ruin the chasm of the game should not ruin the charm of the game played by men and children , should not interfere with determination and objectives, as often happens in every system which has acquired too much power . The power of technology makes deserts grow and reduces woodland and forests, it creates enormous areas of waste land on the

face of the earth . Scholastic programming , a modest form of technological planning can contribute to extend internal deserts to the human soul.

No to Objectives

-Programming entails acting according to objectives relevant to the action itself, classified by hierarchy and succession , treceable through coherent behaviours with these .(Tyler , DeLanscheere ,Filograsso )

The objective can be a valid criterion when it is concerned with producing objectives , when what is important is not the producer, but the object . if this is favourable for material things ,it is not so for a spiritual thing like education. It may represent a criterion for action on the part of soldiers or managers or agents, but educating is a completely different matter of facts .To set objectives and work hard to have them carried out crashes the intentionality

of the Other and leads to neglect the aim itself. As in many aspects of a contemporary way of thinking ,only the immediate counts , what is made explicit and imposed as a goal to beachived from the productive or dispersive structure. Only the target count s,but do not know where will lead us .

Having objectives means neglecting opportunities ; ignoring unforseen events occasions which have not been programmed , fragments of the universe that can not be pieced together. At the most world itself and its organic chaos are considered interference .

It is reassuring to note that the masses of objectives written (or more often transcribed ) in school registers frequently represent a tiring ,but harmless pretense. The common sense of teachers and professors does not allow us to overlook the necessity of Sense, namely the authentic intentionality which has not been subordinated to structures .

No to (the demand for ) Verification

In every system for the production of objectives there is a structure for the qualitative and quantitative control of the product . Since the production of objects is concerned , this control can only be “objective “.

The late modernized world , in its technocratic and ideological economicist development , according to orders of efficiency , efficacy, productivity has extended this criterion to all fields of human activity ,including the school and its every scientific form .

Of little importance is the fact that epistemology has abbandoned any demand for verification; little attention is paid to the contexts, to history .We go ahead just the same, like Japanese bulldozers in the sacred forests of Indonesia, onlyconcerned with the tons of wood produced . Countries rich in pedagogic traditions have evaluation system based on the international ideology of verificationism.

I think it is necessary to note that:

1) In schools no objects are produced. the formation of subjects is involved .

2) The object as such has no recognizable truth. This can presumably derive from recognition by a subject (subjectiveness of the verification) or by a plurality (intersubjectivity of the act of “verifying” ); but it would be the subject’s truth (or better still, of the anonimous Heideggirian ) make itself known , not that of the object .

However,there is no “ objective “verification but possibly a declaration of recognition as true by one or more subjects. There may be operations of recognition “prone to regard as true” a phenomenological hypothesis.

3) The evaluation ( regulations connected with the subject’s own values and those of the assessing system) in any case precedes since it pre-comprises the verification , transforming the results according to conscious or unconscious intentional deformations.

4) For the subject and for a school based on experience

Despite useless clatter ( TV , the press, sometimes the school itself) and consequent less frequent authentic words, the subject is not yet extinct .

He has given up changing the world, but he is still able to prevent the world from changing him , according to planned systems .

Those who are responsible for education should reinforce what there is left of authentically subjective, to help those pupils in the initial stages of their formation. with this aim in mind,they should find direct access to cultural sources and propose them to students outside mediations ,e.g. programming or even worse ,didactic guides.

Subject , namely without predetermined limits to his existence, the master ( teacher or manager ) should cooperate in the formation of subjects who like him, in time will not find the limits of their end. This is why he feels he is a contemporary of all educatorsthat, at alltimes, have coped with their pupils. He is an autnomous subject helped by the quality and variety of his own intellectual network such as the non defining of his own models of interpretation and of the design of which he is a part and of which he makes others a part.

He is free......, free from........... and free to .........(and he himself finds the words to fill in the gaps) He has no objectives : he has asense of the aim , thehorizon and “beyond “. He knows that to educate is to transcend and help others to transcend , not through common ways ,but through paths laid out by the passing of other generations.

Yes to relationships

In the world of production , interaction among operators comes about through schemes relating to the subjects , where what counts is not their identity, but their staus and role. There is no reciprocity , role exchanges nor emotional partecipation in the experiences of other actors. Only the achievemnt of the organization’s goals count and the lives relationship or interaction where institutional rules are of secondary importance , what counts is the subject’s wellbeing, their happiness, their encountering difficulties connected to knowledge and existensialism. In the post- programming there are no pre-established schemes; participants play the game by exploiting opportunities.

The relationship , a bond that liberates , helps to draw oneself and others out of unauthenticity , establishes connections with the other that is found in others and in ourselves. In this perspective the classroom is a tent temporarily set up in a sort of middle-land by those sharing a path giving importance to being together, heeding the voices of texts from the other times and other places . A tent which will be taken down the following morning , since it is important to move on.

Yes to disciplines ( but in certain conditions )

If for disciplines we mean mere sedimentation of secular events, the simple coding of knowledge , the description of a strong subject, the episteme ( what dominates ) , I believe any disciple is miseducational.

Instead of “ ducere ex “ , the subject would be presented with a pre-established view of the world .

In my opinion Discipline is not a sort of revelation , but an unprogrammable voyage inside the enigma of the world, discipline linked to seeing , being and

“indicating “. Thus in a post-programming discipline is intended as :

a) the representation of phenomena considered in the fourtuitousness of their occurance,

b) a compromise between experiences and subjective/intersujective intentions,

c) weak decree gathering the opportunities of producing evidence of physical or cultural phenomena ,

d) distorting of phenomenon,

e) differentiation of the event,

f) questioning , reciprocal questioning of teacher and pupil,

g) common interpretation of a subject who has experienced an organic confrontation within an area of knowledge .

Yes to interpretation

The evaluation , which is never objective , is always subjective.

A subject can be single person or a ministry but always a subject who asses from his own point of view. I think it is important -and honest- that the subject , attempting to respect the objectuality of the object declares his subjectivity and realizes and admits that his assessment will not be a mirroring , but a portrayal of the encounter between the evoluted world abd that of the assessor.

Thus an evaluation from subject to asubject , a project that both terms help to outline:

In the hermeneutical evaluation model :

1) The assessor and the assed should both realize that they are in question .

2) There should be exchanges of meaning regardless of different powers.

3) Faces should not be disguised behind norms since evaluating does not mean keeping at a distance , but approaching the Other, his world , his history.

4) Unintentional results , those not considred in the project should be recognized and assessed .

5) Hopefully there should prove to be developments

I think that from a phenomenological point of view in the future theory and practice in pedagogy ( and not only ) may evolve towards the following schematic aims :

a ) Renouncing to inventism.

b) Perception of limits beyond which the action for- becomes an action/ agitation on .

c) Knowledge of institutions , not bases: statistical bases have irreparably deteriorated ; dynamic institutions are more resistant to unstable conditions.

d) Developing -eliminating the urge to act and thinking subordinate to action -ability to meditate and ponder.

e) Conceive the formation not asa model useful to the system (industrial and company approach), but as a “faint “ help towards an autonomous shaping of ourselves and others.

f) Avoid homologation , safeguard and exploit the differences , project suitable routes.

g) Build up awareness of historicality of every planning: pupils are not insects , they have a long memory , that of humanity.

h) Recognition of the importance of the teacher :entropathy (imagining , while remaining oneself and not presuming too much ),how the other may live the proposal we are about to make )is for us the starting point of planning.

i) Recovery from a transcendental point of view : we cannot plan from the point of view of the subject -other (impossible ), nor by a personal point of view or by society’s; ( it would be alienating ), but according to the type of relationship that the subject can deveop with elements in the field.

l) Renouncing to models (syntagmatic offered as replicas by others ) the invention of situations ( paradigmatic contexts built up like unexemplary , but instructive stories ).

m) Exploiting of expectation: the future in pedagogy cannot be imagined only aa a project but also as expectation of something that will develop even extraintentionally ,but this does not mean that it has a negative effect .

n) Invitation : act in “our”existential and professional area .Let happen and be by actively removing obstacles to the selfachivement of the subjectivity to be found in ourselves and in others.

From a didactic point of view we can think of a theoretic development characterized by :

a) Thinking without being afraid ( one should never fear and there is no longer a reason to do so ) didactics as pedagogic knowledge is tied to philosophy and science. The teacher from the nursery to University , has the duty and right to take an interest in the whole theoretic field and not only as far as concerns daily practice.

b) Viewing didactics as narrative knowledge , the history of ordinary stories and extraordinary education.

c) Making the interpretation of a plan concerning didactics quite clear.

d) Identifying of problems as problems for................somebody : problems change according to the identity and the context of the person involved .

e) Giving rise to opportunities of provocations not impositions.

f) Leading to the renouncing of taking decisions for others (those under-age should also move out of this condition) and to becoming more objective. (judging others according to our standards or worse to the standards of others).

g) Renouncing to objectives, namely to work for immediate results.

h) Designing the goals , introducing new ideas into planning and daily actions .

i) Bringing up questions and declaring one’s point of view.

l) Renouncing to demand for an objective verification ( for ethical, epistemological and practical reasons ).

m) Interpreting the consequences of our actions according to an inter-subjective point of view.

CONCLUSION

The school should ver become a “total quality “ alienating factory - it is a place for the spirit , of peace , of transcendence - it is a sincere offer for further investigation. Programming , a word carrying ten years of phenomenological reflection on the part of a small group of scholars , in it , has been dedicated to school . it entails a cultural opening of the school to the past and future , a responsible answer to the queries of many teachers , the constructive development of plans looking at the future.