Literature Review Paper Dan Royer

Dan Royer

Literature Review

EDAC 655

Dr. Bo Chang

The Knowledge Base and History of Adult Education

                The first article I encountered seemed to be a bit misplaced however, after reading through it; I began to understand how it could apply.  Michael Welton’s article called Cunning Pedagogics:  The Encounter between the Jesuit Missionaries and Amerindians in17th Century New France covers the Jesuit Missionaries use of western adult education practices to convert and alter the native world view.  In his article, he covers the early contacts between the Jesuit priests and the Huron natives.  According to his article, his research relied heavily on the Jesuit Relations, which is a multivolume collection of letters and reports from the Jesuit missionaries to their superiors in France.

                In the introduction to the analysis of the Jesuit methods, Welton writes; “The Jesuit desire to understand the Amerindian other was motivated by an interest in exercising a symbolic, cultural domination over their student adversaries” (Welton, 2005).  The beginning of the article seems to address the issues with the approach of most Western European nations of the time as they sought to colonize, conquer, and convert the native peoples they encountered. 

 The article explores the approach of the Jesuits which is one that we might relate to in our time.  They went to the effort to learn the native language, and gain an understanding of their worldview.  The missionaries used interactive teaching techniques, including plays and visual representations to teach the tribal natives what they wanted them to learn.  As the article notes, “The Jesuit attack pedagogy was aimed primarily at undermining the lifeworld foundations of Indian ways of life.  The lifeworld is the taken-for-granted source of meaning and action . . .” (Welton, 2005). 

While some of the methods may sound similar, many were shockingly different and disrespectful.  The methods of the Jesuits were also strikingly similar to some of the worst examples of teaching that I can recall in my personal experience.  These tactics included using ridicule and mockery as they attacked, insulted and made fun of the Amerindians’ beliefs.  While these insults were common in European culture, the effect on the New World native culture was to put the students in a defensive position which they were ill equipped to handle (Welton, 2005). 

It is ironic to note that the Jesuits resorted to trickery and manipulation to inject a sense of fear into their students.  They used their advanced knowledge of solar eclipse occurrences to inject a sense of fear into the native population.  They did these things to discredit the shamans, who were powerful as long as they were able to control the elements.  It is equally interesting to note that while the Jesuits discredited the shamans, they also discredited the oral record keeping of the tribal social structure.  They argued that the written word was superior because it did not rely upon fallible memory, and subsequently that the Jesuit belief system was superior to the one embraced by the natives (Welton, 2005).  The irony of the Jesuit’s argument is their willingness to overlook the oral transmission phase that took place before the biblical record was committed to writing.

The Jesuit pedagogy was to engage the full range of the senses when they were teaching.  Their methods included using items that could be seen, touched, smelled, and heard to engage the senses.  One example was the Jesuit priest who passed around a lump of sulfur to skeptical natives.  After the natives inspected it, the priest took the sulfur, crumbled it up in the coals where it burned and released a foul odor.  This demonstration matched up with the priests previous descriptions of the underworld, where the dammed would burn (Welton, 2005).

The Jesuits were highly educated, European intellectuals who brought their immense pedagogical skills to bear on the native population.  They were the product of the European hierarchy in which men dominated women, and the aristocracy ruled over peasants.  In an age of conquest and colonization, they adopted the prevailing worldview and used it to justify domination of the native population (Welton, 2005).

A second article deals with lifelong learning and approaches the study through a philosophically postmodern method using constructs of discourse and knowledge/power (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011).  In this article the authors suggest that there is an alternative narrative for the understanding of the will to obtain lifelong learning.  They relate that many of the studies dealing with the subject of lifelong learning have focused on learning, rather than its relation to knowledge.  Since the study is conducted to:  “. . . undermine any assumptions that in thinking we already know what lifelong learning is we might already know what we do through it” (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011). 

This study begins with the discussion of previous research which connected the learning apparatus with the ‘will to learn’, which Nicoll and Fejes connect to the Foucault concept of will to knowledge.   This will to knowledge concept will then be identified as the motivating factor for learning (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011).  This apparatus, the will to learn (now the will to knowledge), is carried out through the function of discourse and other elements.  The discourse is the element of that which is spoken, as well as the non-spoken (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011).

For this study, the authors are interested in shifting the locus of power (a central concept of Foucault) from learning to knowledge.   The point of the shift comes because the knowledge obtained through life-long learning is increasingly economically empowering because of its usefulness.  While the authors argue that power is contained in knowledge, they also appear to link the life-long learning to the educational institution of the university.  Additionally, they seem to have some ambiguity about the locus of power as they point out:  “The university is key as it acts in the production and dissemination of disciplinary knowledge and in the allocation of people to social roles and statuses.” (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011) 

The authors’ identify the linkage between power and knowledge as the work of the educational processes, which act as intermediaries to bring the two concepts to the individuals who are included in the educational system.  Their argument ultimately concludes that there are new forms of learning in which learning is dispersed and knowledge is not static.   They conclude:  “Either way knowledge is no longer so much governed by university-based disciplinary parameters for the production of knowledge, even though these are still a partial focus as workplace forms emerge to be incorporated.” (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011)  Ultimately they conclude that knowledge is critical to an information based economy, and that as a result a shift toward work based, problem solving applications, the knowledge base becomes more open and uncertain (Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes, 2011).

A third article discusses the development of professional expertise in the workplace.  In the post-enlightenment period, the concern of many professions was to provide increasing oversight and accountability to the public and legislative authorities (Mott, 2000).  The article presents three different general approaches to Continuing Professional Education:  1) the update model, which describes CPE as information-intensive and didactic in nature with the purpose of keeping professionals up to date with developments in their professions, 2) the competence model in which skills are combined with other considerations which include interpersonal, ethical and motivational to construct relevant curricula, and 3) the professional model which factors in a more complex picture of the professional based on developmental, social and interdependent considerations and guides the professional in guided self-assessment to ask what they are all about (Mott, 2000).

The author discusses different models of learning, the first of which is the Mental Schema Model.  This model depends on cognitive psychology, which describes learning as the rearrangement of new knowledge into easily recognized interpretations of interrelated information (Mott, 2000).  This means that the learner must take the new information and construct a new personal meaning, making the information relevant through application in a specific context (Mott, 2000).

The second model is the Skill Acquisition Model, which suggests that professionals learn in the context of practice. This model emphasizes learning from practice.  The suggestion is that what has been learned in a university or other setting is transferred into practice.  According to some theorists, this initial knowledge when put into practice is actually used to create new knowledge through experience (Mott, 2000).

The third model is called Schön’s Reflective Practitioner Model which argues that professional practitioners find themselves in ambiguous and ill defined situations for which their previous education has not equipped them.  This model centers learning in practical experience, but also in the self-reflection that occurs when facing new and unclear situations.  The concept teaches that a set of rules and procedures are learned which are applied and confirmed.  It is in the new and ambiguous situations that the reflection on these principles leads to new applications (Mott, 2000).

The article concludes by recognizing that common themes present themselves which are that Continuing Professional Education must be:  1) Dynamic and developing rather than static, 2) Authentic and emphasizing self assessment, 3) Practice-based from the complexities of real situations, 4) Collaborative, with a focus on communities rather than individualism, and 5) Future oriented preparing for effectiveness in the future (Mott, 2000).

Another article discusses the conventional methods for assessing professional learning in continuing professional education (Fenwick, 2009).  This examines the question about assessing the level of actual learning occurring in continuing professional education.  This study examines Teacher Professional Growth Plans, Pharmacists self assessment checklists, and Certified Management Accountants learning event logs. The study was conducted in Alberta, Canada, where the provincial regulation mirrors U.S. state regulation and licensing methods for professionals.  All of the above professions are engaged in individual learning activities and assessments (Fenwick, 2009).

This article argues that the some of these traditionally employed assessment models may constrain and distort the actual professional learning that occurs.  It is argued that while much of professional learning is treated as an individualistic effort, it should consider social, cultural, and political dynamics which can create problematic constructs of knowledge.  Some of the self-assessment activities, such as learning logs, separate the individual from the social context (Fenwick, 2009).

The next concept to be considered is reflective practice as an assessment tool; it must be considered that the method relies upon the mental recollection of the individual and their particular ability to disclose the experience.  Reflection is a valuable tool in learning, but when used as a method of measuring learning, it runs the risk of recording a distorted and unrealistic report of what actually occurred.  The recollection of individuals might be distorted by their personal perceptions (Fenwick, 2009).

A third concept is self-assessment which requires individuals to generate self-ratings, which are often difficult and many times distorted based on poor self-perception.  To correctly identify the self performance of an individual would need to adequately perceive the minimum level of performance required and then be able to accurately compare their activity to the minimum.  The problem is that many ‘poor performers’ have difficulty because they do not understand the minimum level of performance needed (Fenwick, 2009).

Learning is examined based on the socio-material perspectives of complexity science, cultural historic al activity theory, and actor network theory.  The complexity science key term is emergence, which is based on understanding complex systems and factors which are mutually dependent.  A clear connection cannot be made between individual factors and the outcomes because of the complexity of the interactions (Fenwick, 2009).  With the cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), there is a study of the historical development of cultural factors and how they came into being.  There is also a focus on the contradictions that are contained within the system.  As a result there is a great deal of discourse while the consensus is being sought.  The last of these theories to be explored is the actor network theory (ANT), which is the translation of individual elements into networks of learning which take action over space and time (Fenwick, 2009).

This particular article suggests that the traditional assumption of individualistic achievement ignores the impact that sociological, political, and cultural factors have on learning.  The assessment tools which are often applied suffer from a variety of shortcomings.

The final article I reviewed discusses the development of a knowledge base in adult education in post-World War II America.  Andre Grace, writes about the development of a knowledge based economy and the dramatic changes which were produced as a result of the rapid changing technology and other factors (Grace, 1999).

Here, the author asserts that the emphasis shifted to the production of knowledge in the period following World War II.  The rapid expansion of the knowledge base in this period created a crisis of content, the author argues.  Process, or learning how to learn, was emphasized and seemed to be the only thing that would be constant when compared to the rapid expansion of content.  As a result the educational focus divided into two different groups.  The first was a group focused on the application of education in the interests of capitalist democracy.  For this group the value of education was measured in its ability to provide a productive return.  A second group focused instead on the socially responsible aspects of education rather than the productively profitable (Grace, 1999).

The development of a knowledge base is both dynamic and evolving, which can be influenced by cultural ideology and historical contexts.   This dynamic and focus on method meant that productive applicable knowledge challenged the fields of social activism and cultural work as the dominant force in post war adult education.  The shift, however, was not necessarily complete as many academic adult educators sought to incorporate elements from both groups and produce a bridge between the two different camps (Grace, 1999).

The shaping of traditional liberal education in the post-war period, shifted in the US to be concerned with social reform supported by the government.  The Americanization of liberal education meant that there were shifts in what was traditionally viewed as foundational knowledge.    The conclusion of the matter is that cultural and ideological values determined which content was of most value. It is important to remember that during this period adult academic education was still in its infancy (Grace, 1999).

  

Reference List

Fenwick, T. (2009). MaKing to measure? Reconsidering assessment in professional continuing education. Studies in Continuing Education, 31(3), 229-244.

Grace, A. P. (1999). Building a knowledge base in US academic adult education (1945-70). Studies in the Education of Adults, 220-235.

Katherine Nicoll, Andreas Fejes. (2011). Lifelong learning: a pacification of 'know how'. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 30(4), 403-417.

Mott, V. W. (2000). The Development of Professional Expertise in the Workplace. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 86, 23-31.

Welton, M. (2005). Cunning Pedagogics: The Encounter Between the Jesuit Missionaries and Amerindians in 17th Century France. Adult Education Quarterly, 55(2), 101-115.