Interesting application of Aristotle and Kuhn. It's interesting to note that Kuhn's theory about paradigms was inspired by his struggle with Aristotle's On Physics and in particular his understanding of motion.
I'm not sure that it the disagreement in education would be solved simply by being aware of the rhetorical space we are residing in. Personally I have found that in most conversations, beyond the purely pragmatic and operational, establishing the epideictic is an essential part of the process. Certainly, as a school leader, although I don't frame it in the ornate garb of Aristotle. I do always consider how to establish the epideictic parameters. To take a simple example, in talking to teachers about learning one has to tease our shared meaning, congruency if you will, between my understanding of learning and theirs. To fail to do that is to fail overall. It's why a critical part of the job of school leadership is the continual articulation of values in principle and in action. When I ran admissions meetings for prospective families one part of the communication I realized early on was expressing to families what the school actually set out to achieve and what it didn't. That I learned through paying attention each day to what was going on in every classroom and continually asking faculty, students and parents to explain particular concepts in their terms. You build up background knowledge (Kuhn's paradigm so to speak).
Thank you for this. I just got off a webinar about the importance of content knowledge in education and one comment that resonated was that people don't all have the same conception of what we mean when we say "knowledge." I think there are also fundamental differences in people's views about what education itself means. You also observe that: " 'Rigor,' 'equity,' and even 'learning' often mean different things to different stakeholders." Your piece is an excellent reminder to be clear in education advocacy. Thank you!
Interesting application of Aristotle and Kuhn. It's interesting to note that Kuhn's theory about paradigms was inspired by his struggle with Aristotle's On Physics and in particular his understanding of motion.
I'm not sure that it the disagreement in education would be solved simply by being aware of the rhetorical space we are residing in. Personally I have found that in most conversations, beyond the purely pragmatic and operational, establishing the epideictic is an essential part of the process. Certainly, as a school leader, although I don't frame it in the ornate garb of Aristotle. I do always consider how to establish the epideictic parameters. To take a simple example, in talking to teachers about learning one has to tease our shared meaning, congruency if you will, between my understanding of learning and theirs. To fail to do that is to fail overall. It's why a critical part of the job of school leadership is the continual articulation of values in principle and in action. When I ran admissions meetings for prospective families one part of the communication I realized early on was expressing to families what the school actually set out to achieve and what it didn't. That I learned through paying attention each day to what was going on in every classroom and continually asking faculty, students and parents to explain particular concepts in their terms. You build up background knowledge (Kuhn's paradigm so to speak).
Thank you for this. I just got off a webinar about the importance of content knowledge in education and one comment that resonated was that people don't all have the same conception of what we mean when we say "knowledge." I think there are also fundamental differences in people's views about what education itself means. You also observe that: " 'Rigor,' 'equity,' and even 'learning' often mean different things to different stakeholders." Your piece is an excellent reminder to be clear in education advocacy. Thank you!