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CEDAR COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

It came to our attention that we may be able to reply to the National Curriculum Statement. Time does not permit a fuller response, a fact that does concern us. In an issue of this importance more time should have been allocated for due consideration, consultation and response. This is therefore a hurried reply and does not adequately cover all the areas of concern. Nevertheless, we felt that this represented an opportunity to state our views on the present situation in education in our country and so have attempted to put together a short statement of our analysis of the situation. We have concentrated on the ideological aspects of the problem as we feel this is where any reassessment of education policy and practice must begin. To ignore the ideological foundations is a grave oversight that tragically too many theories of education fall into. We realize that in a reply of this length, full treatment of the different issues is impossible, and some important ones may have been left out. Nevertheless we have made an attempt to articulate in some form what we feel are the major issues in this debate. We have also attempted to show where and how these issues apply in practice. We hope however that it will contribute in some way to resolving the complexities in the debate.

mail@cedar.org.za
www.cce.org.za

by, Dr M. Hailstones

Response to Curriculum Statement.

Summary:

• Firstly we wish to attempt to point the way forward in a situation which seems to have lost its way intellectually and morally and is in danger of collapsing into itself and retreating behind ideology and claims to uphold the traditions and values of a largely imaginary past. Lest we fall into the trap of trying to make the wrong idea work, a hard, honest look at our presuppositions and assumptions that underlie our ideological justifications of the state of affairs in our country is needed. We hope that this response will contribute in some way to making such a hard look possible.

1. The post-modern hearer (pupil, learner) or teacher (interpreter, facilitator, mediator) stands at the end of a long tradition of historical and social interpretation; a tradition which in turn moulds his or her own understanding of the socio-historical curriculum and her or his own attitude towards it. This attitude may be positive or negative and the controlling assumptions may well be unconscious ones. We are often blind to reality and the lessons of history, an important aspect of this reply as we will later see.
2. Our ideological presuppositions and assumptions distort our interpretation of the true meaning of reality. The task of education is to overcome the linguistic distance between the learner and reality. More importantly, the texts must speak anew to our experience. They must interpret us. We feel that the new curriculum does not address this issue, and the child is left in its own world of meaning and is unable to adapt and cope with life.
3. We insist on the practical relevance of the curriculum for the world of today. How does language, especially the language of the curriculum "strike home" to the post-modern hearer? We feel that the curriculum is being pressed into service of State Ideology and not the best interests of the child.
4. We express an intense concern about the position of the child, particularly the underachiever. Educational teaching loses its character when it anticipates or presupposes understanding. The criterion of the understandability of our teaching is not the achiever but the underachiever. The new curriculum seems to subvert the needs of the child "in the interests of the system" and withholds from the child the skills and knowledge that will lead to increased personal potential, freedom and self-actualization.
5. It is crucial to our position that the content itself effects change, change in situation and more crucially change in ones pre-conscious standpoints. The language of the curriculum must single out the individual and challenge his or her deepest perceptions. Reality must confront us. This is an evidentialist (scientific) rather than a presuppositionalist (ideological) approach to this issue. The approach adopted by Deputy Minister Mangena in a recent statement that "people draw their understanding of the world, ethical principles and human values from sources independent of religious institutions" is not only wrongheaded, but deeply ideological (i.e. religious).
6. All speculative metaphysical or ideological views and religious assumptions must be laid aside in favour of a disciplined seeing. But we must go further than this. We must be able to step back from our perception of reality in a sort of self-dissociation or reflective distance in order to see the essence or meaning of reality. We are very concerned that this is not happening on policy making in the Education Department, nor is the curriculum equipping the child to do this.
7. As stated by Mangena, the core values of "equity, tolerance, multilingualism, openness, accountability and social honour" must be ensured. That form of intolerance that would deny freedom of speech and freedom of conscience in the name of ‘political correctness’ or religious sensitivity must be avoided. The Education Department cannot afford to be associated with such a view, as this will seriously undermine its credibility and legitimacy. People must be free to express their beliefs in public, even if we would want to disagree. It is our concern that adopting a fundamentalist position will lead to the charge of ‘social dishonour’ in the annuls of history, and a breach of human rights and human accountability by acting above the law i.e. unconstitutionally.
8. Finally, openness must be fostered. Closure, that is the unwillingness to see and admit anything that would challenge our constructed worlds of meaning, must be avoided. It is effecting the transition from a closed to an open worldview that is the essence of the educational task at hand. Until we can render the "framework or system of convictions which cohere in an orderly fashion in a pattern and which reveal an inner interdependence and consistency" modifiable or changeable, we will not succeed in our vision for a new Africa. The teacher must open up the content so that it confronts or addresses the child, who in turn must open themselves to the challenge and summons which the content contains. The central issue here is how to effect or facilitate this opening up. We have grave misgivings about the ability of C2005 to achieve this outcome.
9. The problem of truth and myth in the curriculum and our worldviews must be more clearly recognized in the analysis of ideologically based education practices within different cultural traditions. It is partly in connection with these problems that we insist on the necessity of an evidentialist (scientific) rather than a presuppositionalist (ideological ) approach to the content of the curriculum to avoid its subversion by an ideological or mythical cultural tradition. In other words we are dealing here with the issue of truth and myth (including modern and post-modern myths) in cultural and political traditions and the role of scientific inquiry (critical thinking). We furthermore feel that the new curriculum statement defaults here.

Professor Kader Asmal.

We have already commented on the earlier C2005 proposals in a submission to the Chisholm commission. There we concentrated on the philosophical aspects of the problem as we felt (and still feel) this is where any reassessment of education policy and practice must begin. To ignore the epistemological foundations is a grave oversight that tragically too many theories of education fall into. It is with some concern that we feel that our recommendations and the above caution fell on deaf ears. Because of this we sense that the process has moved out of the domain of intelligent inquiry and into the domain of ideology and world view, in which religion plays a major role. We feel that their is a real danger that the Education Department might fall into the mistake of trying to make a wrong idea work, and in the process violating your own canons of "equity, tolerance, openness, accountability and social honour".

When any idea achieves the status of an ideology, it tends to claim absolute rightness and invulnerability to error of judgement. It becomes very resistant to change and sensitive to criticism, which ultimately is its undoing. The old apartheid regime is a case in point. It also becomes preoccupied with its own legitimacy, and tends to reify its claims and policies and become very intolerant "in the good interests of society" of those that think differently. To further this end and establish its legitimacy, it acquires all the characteristics of a religion, which it feels it has the ‘manifest destiny’ to enforce on those ignorant souls who don’t see the inherent goodness of the idea. At this point it proceeds to violate every constitutional right in the book in the name of justice, democracy, freedom and truth, and ultimately undermines its own legitimacy and brings about its downfall. Power corrupts. Ideology is blinding. We need to resist fundamentalist positions, be it Christian or Muslim or African Traditional religion or State Ideology.

Freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of speech, and an open forum for listening to, debating and adopting any position on any issue must be ensured. We insist that human freedom, openness and accountability be respected. And ‘political incorrectness’ is part of this freedom. It would be tragically ironic if after a long and bitter struggle against one ideologically based regime, the present Education Department should become part of the State Apparatus for enforcing another.

To this end, privatization of Education, and the fostering of private education institutions should be encouraged as a very important mechanism for controlling the type and quality of education provided by the state. The right to private education is guaranteed by the constitution, and we feel that the claim of the Education Department that private education "must serve the interests of the system" (state) is unconstitutional. It is a common perception that many if not most the children of top government employees are in private or semi-private schools, and with good reason. Private schooling has acquired a sound reputation for producing achievers. If it is the right of government employees to place their children in good schools, we feel it is only fair if other people are given that right and freedom to do so too. Making exceptions here would be "unconstitutional", elitist and discriminatory. In fact we feel the writing is on the wall, and that privatization is the future of Education globally, with the Internet the main service provider. The type and quality of education will have to be determined by market principles, and over-regulation will only contribute negatively to this process. We are concerned by the tone of the recent policy statement with regards to private education. We feel that the Education Department should demonstrate their farsightedness by deregulating and fostering the process of privatization of Education service providers. If OBE and C2005 is as good as claimed it should win easily in the market place without state intervention and coercion.

We realize that in a reply of this length, full treatment of the different legal and constitutional issues is impossible, and some important ones may have been left out. We are concerned that the Education Department may become the victim of an ideologically based worldview (religion) which will cause it to adopt policies and make statements that undermine their credibility and ability to provide the sort of education needed in the New South Africa, and may even find themselves in breach of the Constitution and The Bill of Rights, with obvious legal implications.

Our main criticisms of the New Curriculum Statement are as follows,

• Despite the disclaimers, the new curriculum statement we feel is prescriptive and is very content based. This content is derived from an ideologically based interpretation of history and reality.

• We feel the New Curriculum Statement in fact entrenches rather than alleviates a mentality of victimhood.

• A policy of cognitive intervention in the life of the child must be actively and deliberately pursued. In our opinion the new curriculum statement pursues a policy of cognitive non-intervention.

• Self-defeating and negative beliefs and values are not challenged at all. Rather the new curriculum statement attempts to maintain a ‘neutral’ stance on beliefs and values. It hardly needs to be pointed out that this is an illusion. In fact it is in itself a truth-statement about reality. It is fundamentally religious, and is clearly not neutral, in direct contradiction to your stated position.

• Attempting to facilitate change (openness) without making change possible verges on the ludicrous. Failure is hereby guaranteed, with the consequence being more coercion by government, the demonizing of ‘minority’ views, prejudice and incrimination.

It is our concern that the forced implementation of the new curriculum statement will lead to a fundamental violation of the rights of the child. We reiterate that we feel the problems are not primary socio-economic or genetic (ethnic). It would appear to us that the problem in essence is not a lack of intelligence or motivation but rather a lack of proper goals, formal thinking skills and academic language proficiency which is grounded in improper mediation of world at the pre-school and primary school levels (Feuerstein, 1980). Furthermore, it seems clear that the problem cannot be solved by a simplistic ‘facilitation’ approach or the teaching of study skills as these are in general not applied even if the student knows how to use them. A two pronged approach seems to be indicated. Firstly, the re-mediation of world with particular emphasis on the establishment of proper life and learning goals and the appropriate strategies (life skills) to reach those goals. Secondly, and this we feel is vital to the success of the process, the field of conscious experience or the intentional structure of consciousness must be rendered modifiable. In other words, it is not enough to facilitate change without making change possible. We believe that cognitive modifiability (openness) is an essential and maybe more importantly, an attainable goal. Furthermore we believe that this is a weakness inherent in OBE, that is, it seeks to facilitate change without making change possible.

In order to do this a set of cognitive skills must be fostered in order to render the cognitive structure of the individual modifiable. To quote from Feuerstein and Jensen (1980), "manifest low cognitive performance need not be regarded as a stable characteristic of the individual, and that systematic intervention directed at the correction of deficient cognitive functions will render the condition reversible by producing a change in the cognitive structure of the individual." This intervention is rendered necessary by the homeostasis (passivity) of the individual. A child exhibits an openness to being and world which brings with it a feeling of threat, ambiguity and insecurity (Kilian and Viljoen, 1974). A child therefore as it develops tries to obtain certainty and security through its world of constituted meaning and this leads in adulthood to closure of the adult towards anything that may threaten or question its constructed world of existence. This makes them resistant to change.

We wish to address the phenomenon of closure and underachievement in the country. It has been estimated that as much as 80% of pupils in this country are underachieving. Given these statistics, it should be obvious that the elucidation of the underlying causes of the problem and the exploration of avenues to address the problem should take high priority. It need not be emphasized that simplistic appeals to class struggle and discrimination do not as a rule alleviate the problem. Underachievement is a global phenomenon. We must move away from the mentality of victimhood that is so prevalent today and which has created a society of sociopaths (Kierulff, 1988). As Egan (1994) points out, the victim game can be quite rewarding. "Victims are noble, good, the focus of attention, and not responsible for the evil that befalls them." However, this mentality is self-perpetuating and self-defeating. In A Nation of Victims, Sykes (1992) expresses concern with what he sees as the tendency of the United States to become a "nation of whiners unwilling to take responsibility for our actions." At least in this respect, South Africa does not seem to lag far behind. People must stop blaming everything and everyone for their predicament. We must reclaim our existential freedom and own the responsibility and accountability that goes with it.

Finally we wish to attempt to point the way forward in a situation which seems to have lost its way intellectually and morally and is in danger of collapsing into itself and retreating behind ideology and claims to uphold the traditions and values of a largely imaginary past. Lest we fall into the trap of trying to make the wrong idea work, a hard, honest look at our presuppositions and assumptions that underlie our ideological justifications of the state of affairs in our country is needed. We hope that this paper will contribute in some way to making such a hard look possible.

1. Phenomenology and general hermenuetics.

Phenomenology aims at the elucidation of the essences (meaning) of reality which may be obscured by the perceptual distance between the observer and the phenomenon and which may distort the disclosure of reality to the individual. The aim of phenomenology is not to impose, as active observing subject, an interpretation or description on a phenomenon, but to allow reality to describe and explain itself. Similarly, hermeneutics, particularly in the view of writers from the existential school of thought such as Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, has the task of allowing the text to "come to speech" and to ‘speak anew’ to our experience. Our presuppositions and assumptions distort our interpretation of the true meaning of the content or reality. The task of education is to overcome the linguistic distance between the observer and reality or between the reader and the text. More importantly, the reality or our descriptions of it - the texts - must speak anew to our experience. They must interpret us.

2. Philosophy of Education and Existential Philosophy.

The Philosophy of Education insists on the practical relevance of the curriculum for the world of today. In this respect we welcome the insights and emphases of OBE on the importance of teaching for transfer and relevance. How does language, especially the language of the curriculum "strike home" to the post-modern hearer? From the perspective of didactics, how may the body of information (learning contents) become living contents which is heard anew or afresh?

The emphasis in the Philosophy of Education on present application rather than simply antiquarian historical or social research stems partly from the connection of didactics with the thought of Existential Phenomenology, but more importantly from a teacher’s deep and consistent concern about the relevance and effectiveness of teaching practice, particularly in a post-modern multi-cultural situation. Central to this concern is the question "What must we do to cause the pupils to learn?"

This interest in teaching articulates an intense concern about the position of the child and not the state or "the system", particularly the underachiever. Didactics loses its character when it anticipates or presupposes understanding (as does OBE). The criterion of the understandability of our teaching is not the achiever but the underachiever. OBE is a good system for the gifted child and the gifted teacher. In the South African context, this situation is hardly likely to be common, and therefore the implementation of the new curriculum will aggravate the situation, with the achiever underachieving (this has been shown to be true in diverse contexts) and the underachiever underachieving further. We cannot ignore the realities on the ground. Otherwise the charge of ‘ideological’ must apply.

3. Ideology and religion, cultural bias and presuppositions.

Nevertheless, the problem goes even deeper than this. The post-modern hearer (pupil, learner) or teacher (interpreter, facilitator, mediator) stands at the end of a long tradition of historical and social interpretation; a tradition which in turn moulds her or his own understanding of the socio-historical curriculum and her or his own attitude towards it. This attitude may be positive or negative and the controlling assumptions may well be unconscious ones (an important aspect of this whole issue as we will later see). Thus Griessel et al (1991) states, ". . .no teacher can stand aloof in respect of the particular history, way of life, traditions, values, norms and ideals of the cultural community in which he or she teaches." The contents of education and especially the new Curriculum statement, is thus interpreted today within a particular frame of reference or paradigm which may differ radically from that within which the contents first addressed or confronted the hearers. For this reason we express concern over statement like that of Deputy Minister Mangena. He seems to overlook the evidence for the above, and we are forced to suspect the role of ideological factors blinding him to the evidence. We find it hard to understand how a man in his position could opt for the position of cultural and religious relativism, while at the same time absolutizing an unstated "independent source" for values and beliefs. This seriously undermines the credibility of the Education Department. To attempt to separate religion from education is epistemologically and scientifically untenable.

The idea of a neutral curriculum or education is naive. Simply to repeat the contents of the curriculum in a ‘neutral’ sense will be in effect already saying something different from what the contents originally meant or said. Even if it does not positively alter what was once said, it may be to utter nothing more than just a tradition, a mere form of speech, a dead relic of the language of the past". "The learner then cannot be purposively involved in the subject matter, and he stands aloof and indifferent towards it" (Du Plooy, et al, 1982). The point is that every language and culture speaks from a particular world of meaning or religious tradition and does so every time it speaks. In our rapidly changing world, the issue of the gulf between the meaning (truth) of the linguistic tradition of the curriculum (primarily naturalism) and the language (world of meaning) that is actually spoken today has never been so great, even when we are dealing with a single cultural or linguistic tradition. The problem is immensely more complex in the multicultural situation where the linguistic traditions of radically diverse cultures are brought into contact with each other. There is no neutral ground.

In this respect we insist on the respect for freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. A neutral or ‘tolerant" stance is already making absolute truth-claims about the status of religious traditions and human existence in general, and furthermore, is intrinsically irrational, for it attempts to absolutizes the relative. Either there is an absolute truth, in which case racism, discrimination, sexual abuse, violence and prejudice and coercion must be wrong, or there isn’t, in which case we can’t claim that racism, murder, corruption, sexual abuse etc. is wrong. We can’t, if we are to retain our claim to reason and rationality, affirm both without becoming ideological.

4. Groupthink.

For a long time it was assumed that, when people got together in a group to discuss controversial issues, people with extreme attitudes would soften them. The effect of the group would be to influence members to adopt moderate positions. Psychologists believed that this was the virtue of groups: committees, for instance, would produce more sensible and balanced decisions than individuals acting alone. However, by the 1970s research consistently demonstrated the opposite: that groups had the effect of making attitudes and decisions more, rather than less, extreme. The recent conference on racism is another example. South Africa now finds itself in the very embarrassing position of being aligned with religious fundamentalism.

This is called group polarisation. For example, Foster and Finchilescu (1985) asked groups of South African students to discuss issues relating to race, politics and feminist viewpoints. Before the discussion the individuals’ attitudes were measured. After the discussion the group reported a joint decision on the issue. In every case, after the discussion, the group decision was more extreme than the mean response of individuals before the discussion. Where, for example, the topic is racial issues, an initially prejudiced group of students would become even more prejudiced after discussion. A less prejudiced group would shift to become even more tolerant.

Group polarisation can have beneficial effects. For example, it can strengthen group resolve to undertake a certain course of action. However, it can also have negative consequences. It could take an extreme form called groupthink. The tragedy of the space shuttle Columbia is a well-documented case. Groupthink happens when a group is faced with very stressful problems. There is an authoritarian leadership style which encourages strong in-group cohesion, conformity and obedience. This in turn causes group polarisation and encourages faulty decision-making. The ill-fated effort by America to invade Cuba in the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco was shown by American psychologist, Irving Janis (1972), to be a result of groupthink. This turned out to be a bad and dangerous decision: the troops were captured and the incident led to a major crisis in international relations.

The phenomenon of groupthink has the following characteristics:

• Members overvalue the group and think that they are morally correct. They believe that the group is invulnerable and that any decision they make will be morally right. This is a form of self-delusion and aggrandizement.

• Members’ minds are closed to other possibilities. They surround themselves with those who support their views. They ignore or block off those who criticize them, sometimes in hostile or defensive ways. They demonize dissenting "minorities".

• Members isolate themselves from critical people. They often build walls of secrecy and strict confidentiality around their operations. This can easily happen in political, religious and military contexts.

• There is overwhelming pressure toward uniformity and conformity. Even those who privately have doubts do not speak about their misgivings. Some members adopt the role of ‘mindguard’. They block information that will question the wisdom of the group or its leaders and subtly (and often not so subtly!) intimidate others who would express their doubts. As a result the group gives an impression of unanimity.

It is our concern that the Education Department has become victim of this kind of thinking. Groupthink is not caused by any one factor. Each factor mentioned above may operate in ordinary groups. It is the combination of them all together that produces this extreme effect. More and more information has come to light about disastrous decisions that were made in South Africa during the apartheid years. These decisions were made by government and military leaders, by members of the liberation armies and by groups affiliated with the IFP and ANC in KwaZuluNatal. Close examination of some of the atrocities committed is likely to show that groupthink often played a role.

Janis suggested that groupthink may be overcome by:

• encouraging open debate and expression of dissenting opinions. We feel that the Education Department discourages open debate and is very intolerant of dissenting positions.

• giving the people the task of identifying problems and criticising draft plans. The Education Department had (deliberately?) given very little time for an appropriate response from interested parties and stakeholders. The is the strong impression that the Education Department lacks the courage of their own convictions and harbours doubts as to whether the new Curriculum could stand up to open debate and public and private criticism and have tried to slip it through the system without to many noticing. We urge the Education Department to democratize the process by giving other parties due notice and more time to debate the important issues.

• adopting a democratic leadership style and having less hierarchical group structures. This point has been addressed above. We call for more transparency and openness on the part of the Education Department. The policy of the Education Department would appear to be to discourage this. The statement that there will only be one final examination is undemocratic and reflects centralized state control and fundamentalist policy. By your own canons, diversity must be respected and even encouraged.

• taking note of minority views. The Education Department it would appear is not open to dissenting views and is even openly antagonistic to certain "minority" groups. And you ironically charge others of being intolerant and fundamentalist.

It would be presumptuous in the extreme to think that we are not open to this process, and indeed such a response would in fact prove the presence of the above processes. We need to take it seriously, and take steps to avoid falling into the above error, with all the consequences.

5. Education and world view (religion).

Worldviews can ossify and suffer from closure. In this case it becomes an ideology. In such an event the worldview becomes a veil or screen which shields the individual from reality. This we think is the rule rather than the exception. The worldview provides a security against the threat and ambiguity of existence. Behind the objectifying stance of all people’s worldviews is a desire to be in control and to make life safe and predictable. Both the rationalism and individualism of the West and the Spiritualism communalism of Africa is at heart a "will to power". In contrast to this, there is an attitude of acceptance of human finitude and freedom, and the accountability that goes with it, and that lies at the heart of existence, an openness to Being, a "will to truth". It is effecting the transition from a closed to an open worldview that is the essence of the educational task at hand. Until we can render the "framework or system of convictions which cohere in an orderly fashion in a pattern and which reveal an inner interdependence and consistency" modifiable, we will not succeed in our vision for a new Africa. Change is of crucial importance for our time.

We have argued that a presuppositionless or "neutral" stance to education is impossible. A person’s ‘subjectivity’ (beliefs) will always be fully engaged at a more-than-cognitive level. However, following this, to use the words of Brockelman "one must first bracket all speculation and theoretical constructions. All speculative ideological views and religious must be laid aside in favour of a disciplined seeing." To quote Brokelman again "Phenomenological reflection brings us face to face with . . . not the objects of the natural standpoint . . . but the field of conscious experience, a field which remains veiled and hidden by that natural attitude". The aim is to encounter the experience of reality ab origine. The truth of the text must actively grasp us ‘deep down’. But we must go further than this. We must be able to step back from it in a sort of self-dissociation or reflective distance in order to see the essence or meaning of it. In our opinion, this is nothing other than the scientific or evidentialist approach, to be distinguished from presuppositionalist approach or rationalism. Brockelman states further, "the reflective question embodies a kind of stepping back from the life of our ordinary activities in the world and shifting our attention to the pre-conceptual experience itself. As Socrates was aware, it is also and at the same time the root origin of the philosophical and intellectual (scientific) endeavour in general".

In the light of the above, we must express concern that the Education Department actually whishes to impose a rigid, inflexible worldview on children rather than equip them with the cognitive flexibility to make their own decisions. We urge the Education Department to ensure that freedom of choice, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of association remain in place in the curriculum. By your own canons, all religions have an equal status in the marketplace of ideas.

6. Interpreting the curriculum.

The key question in the interpretation of the new curriculum then, is ‘relevance’ – how the content may speak to us anew or ‘come to speech’. The ‘neutral’ repetition of the content proposed by the new curriculum statement cannot guarantee that it will speak to the post-modern hearer. It is doubtful therefore that the new curriculum will achieved the stated goals. The child may understand the individual words yet fail to understand what is being said. In a changed and rapidly changing world, "the traditional phrases, even when presented accurately, do not mean what they did at the time of their original formulation". We seriously doubt therefore whether the stated policy of the new curriculum will foster the openness and accountability it envisages. The same thing could be said to another age and to another culture only by being said differently. Cultural and religious pluralism cannot be ignored, nor can the problem be solved by enforcing an alternative ideological position, namely cultural relativism.

Two considerations reinforce the contention about the inadequacy of mere neutral repetition of the content from the standpoint of hermeneutics. Firstly, we already recognize the fact that in translation literalism is often the enemy of faithful communication. To put it into another language is to think it through afresh. Any reissue of the facts is already an interpretation based upon a particular hermeneutical paradigm. The Education Department’s position amounts to a reification of their interpretation of reality and human existence. By your own standards, this is unconstitutional.

Secondly, we have already given tacit recognition to this principle where ever we stress the importance of ‘facilitation’. The teacher translates the content by placing it at the point of encounter with the hearer, from which it speaks anew into the pupils own ‘world’ in their own language. This hermeneutical procedure is demanded of all interpretation which is faithful to the disclosure or unlocking of the truth of reality. Klafki’s double unlocking theory has obvious relevance here. The teacher must open up the content so that it confronts or addresses the child, who in turn must open themselves to the challenge and summons which the content contains. The central issue here is how to effect or facilitate this opening up. So Griessel et al (1991) states, "The teacher designs, directs and makes the educative teaching event unfold in such a way that the child can encounter . . . reality". "It is the responsibility of the school to bridge the gap between the life-world of the child and the adults life-world (reality) by means of learning contents; to facilitate understanding and constitution of world . ." For education consists simply in enabling people to state the truth in their own language. In other words, religion is always going to be involved. Therefore Deputy Minister Mangena’s statement that schools should not teach religion is wrongheaded. They always will, one way or the other.

7. Truth and myth in the content.

This is not to depart from the uniquely normative and particularistic nature of the content (facts), an error that too many Educationists, in their attempt to solve the problem of understanding, fall into. We feel that the new curriculum is also open to crirticism here. There seems to be less concern about the truth of facts, and too much about their meaning or interpretation. We feel that the new curriculum distorts and misrepresents history and science in order to protect itself from challenge by both. By cutting loose the meaning of the curriculum from its grounding in history and reality, the Education Department attempts to make its own ideology invulnerable to criticism and disproof. While we welcome the emphasis on understanding, we feel the de-emphasis of the importance of content (fact), and to relativisation truth is precisely to fall into the epistemological error we are seeking to avoid here. Pupils and teachers alike are left in the semantic room of their own particular linguistic and religious traditions and the content is unable to speak, to challenge, to effect change. In short, no learning takes place. We feel that this is a major weakness in the new curriculum statement.

The problem may be more clearly recognized when questions arise in the analysis of ideologically based education practices and curriculum statements within different cultural and ideological traditions. It is partly in connection with these problems that we insist on the necessity of an evidentialist (a postiori) approach to the curriculum to avoid its subversion by an ideological or mythical cultural tradition. In other words we are dealing here with the issue of truth and myth (including modern and post-modern myths) in cultural and political traditions and the role of scientific inquiry (critical thinking). It is our concern that the inherently presuppositionalist (a priori) approach to curriculum design adopted by the education department with interfere with these goals.

8. How then may the content of the curriculum speak anew?

A number of considerations are relevant to a positive answer.

1. Language world.

Firstly, we draw a contrast between the problem of words (language) and the problem of world (language world) from which the language speaks. We admit the fact that teaching today often sounds like a foreign language. However, we need to emphasize that the problem lies too deep to be tackled by cheap borrowing of transient, outdated socio-political or educational jargon for the teachers stock of words. We also decry the intellectual obscurantist approach that views renaming things as a panacea and the almost irrational belief that new is better. It is not a matter of understanding single words but of understanding world (reality) itself; not a matter of a new means of teaching or a new curriculum, be that Christian National Education or Curriculum 2005, but a new "coming to speech". The child must be able to encounter the truth of reality and to be modified by it. Our constructed world’s of meaning serve the fundamentally different function of screening us from reality. Mere modern or post-modern ideas and theories of Education, including Outcome Based Education, do not as a rule address the problem. The concern is rather that reality itself should ‘come to speech’ in the technical sense this phrase has come to bear in the philosophical writings of Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer. It is our concern that the new curriculum is open to serious criticism here. For their chosen approach to work will almost necessitate state coercion and intervention. The Education Department cannot afford this if it wishes to maintain its credibility.

2. Hermeneutics and epistemology.

Secondly, the curriculum must not be reduced to a collection of rules and prescriptions which teachers must unthinkingly follow. We notice that the curriculum statement states that it does not intend to be prescriptive, although in many places it adopts a position that could well be abused by the Education Department to enforce compliance with state ideology. In this event, the Education Department would again find itself in breach of the constitution and in violation of the Bill Of Rights.

You rightly state that the curriculum cannot be used to support, secure and clarify an already existing and accepted understanding of reality within the traditional community (religion or ideology). The curriculum achieves the fundamentally different function of first of all making understanding possible and secondly of deliberately initiating understanding in each individual case. Du Plooy et al (1982) states that a teacher is an "initiator of knowledge in inspired participation in the acquisition of this knowledge". Similarly, Van Zyl (1975) states that the task of education is to "facilitate understanding". This touches yet another central and crucial feature of the curriculum. The concern is not simply to support and corroborate and existing understanding of the curriculum but to lead the hearer or teacher onwards beyond his own existing horizons so that the content addresses and judges him anew. So Du Plooy et al (1982) states "the teacher . . . makes deep inroads into the life of the child . . . –inroads that will bring about a change, a reorientation, a changed attitude in the child’s life." In other words the aims of education is to facilitate change in the epistemological stance or orientation to world of the individual. This issue of change was clearly seen by Dewey. We feel what the new curriculum has defaulted on its own canons here, and attempts to entrench a particular interpretation of reality and existence (i.e. foster stasis), not cognitive flexibility and openness (i.e. foster meaningful change).

3. Epistemological stance.

This brings us to another generally misunderstood concept in education, pupil involvement or participation. Most teachers and even educationists seem to believe that pupil involvement means participation in class discussion, group work or "discovery learning". While OBE may not be guilty of this error, we feel that most teachers have a fundamental misunderstanding of what is involved here. While we support the use of appropriate teaching methods, we are concerned with the general lack of understanding and even naivete with regard to the underlying principles involved. Pupil involvement means involvement with the content. More specifically, the child’s world and the world of the content (reality) are brought into contact with each other and encounter or confront each other. The child must then wrestle with the world of the content, and in the process accommodate the content to its existing schemas. It is as a result of the existential tension (disequilibrium) that arises between the content of the child’s world and the world of the content that the underlying motivation to learn takes place. This leads either to an openness to being and reality (a sense or experience of wonder), and learning (change in the cognitive structure of the individual) takes place naturally and spontaneously. However, if the necessary pre-knowledge or pre-understanding is deficient, the contents are merely assimilated to the child’s existing schemas. If it is unable to achieve this, it will distort the contents to make it fit, or it will simply ignore the contents, suppress the existential tension and try to avoid the learning situation. It thereby develops an attitude of closure to reality and being, which issues in a fundamental orientation to being – a passive, defensive epistemological stance to life in general and to learning in particular. To quote from John Holt, (1964), How children fail;

"But what happens, as we get older, to this extraordinary capacity for learning and intellectual growth? What happens is that it is destroyed, and more than by any other thing, by the process that we misname education – a process that goes on in most homes and schools. We adults destroy most of the intellectual and creative capacity of children by the things we do to them and make them do. We destroy this capacity above all by making them afraid, afraid of not doing what other people want, of not pleasing, of making mistakes, of failing, of being wrong. Thus we make them afraid to gamble, afraid to experiment, afraid to try the difficult and the unknown. Even when we do not create children’s fears, when they come to us with fears ready made and built-in, we use these fears as handles to manipulate them and get then to do what we want. Instead of trying to whittle down their fears, we build them up, often to monstrous size. For we like children who are a little afraid of us, docile, deferential children, though not, of course, if they are so obviously afraid that they threaten our image of ourselves as kind, lovable people whom there is no reason to fear. We find the ideal the kind of good children who are just enough afraid of us to do everything we want, without making us feel that fear of us is what is making them do it."

By attempting to enforce external conformity to a particular system of values, the new curriculum would seek to change children’s beliefs and values. In the process children are taught not to think, (don’t think, feel – and use a condom), not to question the status quo, not to be different, not to stand up for what they believe. Just get along. This is clearly Kohlberg’s "good boy, nice girl" stage of moral reasoning, and falls far short of the level of moral reasoning we should be fostering, i.e. universal principles of love, faithfulness and justice. It is our concern that the new curriculum statement is too narrow and open to this kind of manipulation. This we believe is the central underlying factor in the high rate of underachievement in our country. While past injustices and inequality certainly aggravated the situation, these were not the primary causes. The primary causes are the sub-culture of the home and community (Vernon, 1969, Feuerstein, 1980).

The barrier to addressing this problem seems to us to be a moral rather than intellectual one. To quote David Block (1992), "If rationality is a value, and indeed it is, then the decision to be rational is a moral choice. Sir Karl Popper expresses it simply: " The choice before us is not simply an intellectual affair, or a matter of taste. It is a moral decision.’" "We must be objective. We must be brave. We must be rational." The alternative is moral indifference and pragmatism, ‘the end justifies the means’. This is the characteristic claim of any fundamentalist movement. It is our concern that the new curriculum statement is vulnerable to this kind of thinking. We appeal to the department in the name of freedom, reason and truth that they distance themselves in word and deed from such a direction, lest they become another statistic in the long list of failed political experiments and gross human rights violations.

4. Closure and Viljoen’s homeostasis.

The above discussion brings us to a consideration of what Viljoen called homeostasis. A child constructs world for itself, and in the process objectifies reality around it in the attempt to control and manipulate "everything and everyone" to serve its own ends and purposes. A child, Viljoen believes, exhibits a fundamental egocentricity which results in an self-imposed "enclosure" of the child from reality around it. This is motivated by the desire for security in the face of the uncertainty and ambiguity of existence. The child becomes ‘locked up’ in itself. The child wants to be rather than become, i.e. it wants to avoid having to decide. It wants to remain stable (attain homeostasis) and thus guarantee its survival in the face of the threat of existence. Viljoen states further that it "is exactly on the grounds of intervention in the childlike mode of occupying world that education appears". "The educator is essentially to teach the child which mode (way) of occupying world is worthy of being human . . . a way in which world is re-established" (Kilian and Viljoen, 1974). The work of Feuerstein and his program of Medaited Learning Experience, together with his emphasis on the re-mediation of world, has obvious parallels here.

It is our concern that the new curriculum statement does not attempt to address this phenomenon. Instead, it adopts a policy of cognitive non-intervention in the life of the child. This reflects a relativistic stance, which ultimately leads to cynicism and nihilism. To avoid this logical regression, individuals and groups adopt a set of arbitrary ideals, often from an imaginary past, which are reified to an absolute status i.e. it becomes an ideology. This in turn must be forced upon those hapless souls who don’t recognize the inherent goodness of it.

It would appear to us that the problem we face in this country is not a lack of intelligence or motivation but rather a lack of proper goals, formal thinking skills and academic language proficiency which is grounded in improper mediation of world at the pre-school and primary school levels (Feuerstein, 1980). Furthermore, it seems clear that the problem cannot be solved by a simplistic ‘facilitation’ approach or the teaching of study skills as these are in general not applied even if the student knows how to use them. In other words, it is not enough to facilitate change without making change possible. We agree that cognitive modifiability (openness) is an essential and maybe more importantly, an attainable goal. However, we feel that this is a further weakness inherent in the new curriculum, that is, it seeks to facilitate change without making change possible. A cause for concern is the underlying idea that knowledge, science and technology are the evils in society that lead to inequality, conflict, crime and corruption, and that the Education Department may take it upon themselves to withhold knowledge or to keep it in the hands of an elite group in order to achieve the goals of a state controlled utopia.

In order to do avoid this, a set of cognitive skills must be fostered in order to render the cognitive structure of the individual modifiable. To quote from Feuerstein and Jensen (1980), "manifest low cognitive performance need not be regarded as a stable characteristic of the individual, and that systematic intervention directed at the correction of deficient cognitive functions will render the condition reversible by producing a change in the cognitive structure of the individual." This intervention is rendered necessary by the homeostasis (passivity) of the individual. A child exhibits an openness to being and world which brings with it a feeling of threat, ambiguity and insecurity (Kilian and Viljoen, 1974). A child therefore as it develops tries to obtain certainty and security through its world of constituted meaning and this leads in adulthood to closure of the adult towards anything that may threaten or question its constructed world of existence. This makes them resistant to change. It is our concern that the new curriculum does not attempt to address this problem at all, and even legitimizes closure for ideological reasons.

Learning is an interpretative process aimed at understanding reality. What you learn should enable you to interpret the reality in which you live and to interpret your own living (involvement) in this reality. Therefore the development of study skills is of little value "without first facilitating the development of student’s conceptions of learning" (Gibbs, 1981). Learning is therefore a means to an end not an end in itself. Ultimately, this end is defined in terms of personal goals, and goals are derived from the person’s beliefs and values. "Students must become increasingly aware of the epistemological stance they have adopted, and even aware of the next step they must take and of the disturbing consequences for the coherence of their ideas which such a step must inevitably involve". "Students’ orientation and understanding of purpose are deeply rooted, fundamental aspects of their approach to learning tasks" and existence in general, "which change slowly and with difficulty, and which can bring about disorienting consequences when they develop and change". "This is not simply ‘important things to bear in mind’ but prerequisites for development" (Gibbs, 1981) i.e. meaningful change. It is our concern that the new curriculum actually seeks to protect children from meaningful change, while at the same time using outdated and discredited Behaviour Modification techniques to enforce conformity.

"School tends to be a dishonest as well as nervous place. We adults are not often honest with children, least of all in school. We tell them, not what we think, but what we feel they ought to think; or what people feel or tell us they ought to think. Pressure groups find it easy to weed out of our classrooms, texts, and libraries whatever facts, truths and ideas they happen to find unpleasant or inconvenient. And we are not even as truthful with children as we could safely be, as the parents, politicians and pressure groups would let us be. Even in the most non-controversial areas of our teaching, the books, and the textbooks we give children present a dishonest and distorted picture of the world." ." John Holt, How children fail, (1964)

A student is not a blank slate but already has a system of goals, beliefs and attributions in place and a set of habitually used behavioural strategies and an entrenched thought pattern which changes only slowly and with difficulty. The student must be brought to the point of decision for such change through an increasing awareness of their own position (critical thinking), regardless of the consequences to the coherence of their ideas. To this end, a self-awareness or self-understanding that issues from a distancing or self-dissociation from the way our values and beliefs have become embedded in our cultural traditions must be fostered. However, we feel that in this regard the new curriculum is too open to ideological manipulation. Furthermore, despite the disclaimers, the new curriculum is very content based. This content is derived from an ideologically based interpretation of history and reality.

"The fact is that we do not feel an obligation to be truthful to children. We are like the mangers and manipulators of news in Washington, Moscow, London, Peking, and Paris, and all the other capitals of the world. We think it our right and our duty, not to tell the truth, but to say whatever will best serve our cause – in this case, the cause of making children grow up into the kind of people we want them to be, thinking whatever we want them to think. We have only to convince ourselves (and we are very easily convinced) that a lie will be "better" for the children than the truth, and we will lie. We don’t always need even that excuse; we often lie for our own convenience." John Holt, How children fail, (1964)

If we subjugate the best interests of the children to "the best interests of the system" we are being ideological and are in danger of becoming fundamentalist. The issue of beliefs, goals and values is brought into sharp focus here.

The student must be assisted to realize that change is possible and that the ultimate obstacle to change in their lives is themselves. They hold they key to their own becoming. To this end the mentality of victimhood must be actively combated. We feel however that the new curriculum in fact entrenches rather than alleviates such a mentality by shifting the imperative for change from the individual to "society" and by advocating an outdated and simplistic analysis of history and human existence.

Motivational and attributional issues aimed at minimizing risk and avoiding failure in the students’ chosen behavioural style must be identified and the self-defeating consequences of such beliefs must be brought to the student’s attention. In other words, a policy of cognitive intervention in the life of the child must be actively and deliberately pursued. In our opinion the new curriculum pursues a policy of cognitive non-intervention. In its place we find psychological coercion and manipulation.

Goals and beliefs about learning need to be directly addressed in order to bring about a change in the student’s epistemological stance. Cognitive modifiability must be actively and consciously worked towards by the students. We feel that the new curriculum simply does not address this issue. Beliefs and values are not challenged at all. Rather, the new curriculum attempts to maintain a ‘neutral" stance on beliefs and values. It hardly needs to be pointed out that this is an illusion. Such a position is already a value judgement on the nature of values. Furthermore, as we pointed out above, the teacher and child alike are left in the semantic room of their own linguistic and cultural tradition, and the content is unable to speak, confront or effect change in the cognitive structure of the individual.

In this regard we express concern over the culture of violence and mob rule which is so prevalent in our schools. We welcome the government’s concern over the physical abuse of children in the school, a problem that is particularly acute in our traditional African situation. However, we are baffled by the measures by which the government seeks to combat this. All forms of disciplinary measures and sanctions are made illegal, while the mob rule and violence of certain groups are legitimized as "freedom of expression" and their "inalienable rights". We strongly disagree. The idea of inalienable rights is a myth. While we recognize the importance of proper deference to human rights, when the exercise of one’s freedom infringes the rights of another, the person or persons must be held accountable. Deputy Minister Mangena himself identifies accountability as a core value.

We realize that this is a very complex and sensitive situation. But the beliefs and values which lead to this situation, we feel, must be challenged. The way forward seems to be in distinguishing between things that differ: between behaviour modification (rewards and punishment) and discipline, between coercion and intervention, between rights and duty.

Learning strategies must also be critically appraised in order to facilitate change in self-defeating and inappropriate attitudes to life and learning. Accuracy and efficiency (planning behaviour) is important here. Appropriate cognitive functions must be fostered and cognitive dysfunctions identified and remedied. Attempting to facilitate change without making change possible verges on the inane, and again strongly implies an ideological position.

To use an analogy, OBE says correctly that all children have the potential to learn. Secondly, children like to learn. Therefore, all that is necessary is to create an environment for learning to take place. This is tantamount to saying that because all children can learn to swim and like swimming, we must throw them all into a very large and deep pool and shout encouragement from the sidelines. Without the necessary skills in place’ the children are going to drown. Similarly, without the necessary spatial and verbal skills in place, the children are going to fail.

While we welcome many of the insights of OBE, we feel it does not address the true problem we face in the new South Africa and is vulnerable to ideological manipulation. Related to this, there is a general trained incapacity amongst teachers and educationists to understand and deal with the philosophical issues underlying the problems that OBE attempts to address, namely transfer and relevance. For this reason, further debate over the implementation of OBE is likely to generate more heat than light, while any coercive measures adopted by the powers-that-be will only aggravate the situation, with the child being the primary victim. The leading players in Education in this country need to pay attention to their claims to uphold human rights, particularly the rights of the child. It is our concern that the implementation of the new curriculum will lead to a fundamental violation of the rights of the child and is therefore unconstitutional. This is no more clearly seen in the proposal to use the achieving children to peer-teach the underachieving pupils. For this reason we would appeal for extreme caution and due consideration of the reasons for the failure of OBE in countries with much greater manpower, expertise and wealth than ours. We feel that most of the other problems involving teacher training and logistics, not to mention the culture of corruption and incompetence we face daily, have their roots in a particular philosophy of life or a particular interpretation of reality and human existence. Our main concern is that the new curriculum wishes to facilitate change without making change possible. This can only lead to failure, incriminations (demonizing minorities - Christians and Jews have historically been favorite scapegoats for state incompetence) and coercion. This stems form trying to make a wrong idea work.

"The would-be progressives who until recently had great influence over most American public school education, did not recognize this-and still do not. They thought, or at least they talked and wrote as if they thought, that there were good ways and bad ways to coerce children (the bad ones mean, harsh, cruel, the good ones gentle persuasive, subtle, kindly), and that if they avoided the bad ones and stuck to the good they would do no harm. This was one of their greatest mistakes, and the main reason why the revolution they hoped to accomplish never took hold. The idea of painless, non-threatening coercion is an illusion" John Holt (1964)

Alternative models of education.

"When we talk about intelligence, we do not mean the ability to get a good score on a certain test, or even the ability to do well in school; these are at best only indicators of something larger, deeper, and far more important. By intelligence we mean a style of life, a way of behaving in various situations, and particularly in new, strange and perplexing situations. The true test of intelligence is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do." John Holt, (1964)

The goal of any curriculum is to foster this cognitive flexibility, spontaneity, creativity and fluency. Feuerstein maintains that pedagogic deprivation or neglect leads directly to the non-actualization of these skills. Whatever factors may lie distal to these, such as genetic endowment, environmental stimulation and opportunity, it is primarily the type and quality of mediated learning experience which the child receives that determines the actualization of the above skills or characteristics.

Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability is grounded in the ideas of cognitive learning theory. Feuerstein states that pedagogic neglect or deprivation leads to what he terms ‘secondary retardation’, in which the individual manifests an inability to think and learn, an incapacity to adapt and change, and a passive or fatalistic attitude to existence. This results in a "delinquent society" which is characterized by;

• High ideals belied by actions
• Leaders are either saviours or scoundrels (often both).
• High emotions alternating with apathy.
• State education adopts a mastery learning or social learning approach. This leads to copying without adequate understanding, and the acquisition of skills with very little transfer value.
• A strong authoritarian stance on traditions and values which foster and legitimize the status quo and must be unquestioningly accepted and dutifully memorized. Literacy is not a notable characteristic of delinquent societies. To make up for this, the memory is strongly developed. This leads to an emphasis on rote learning instead of understanding.

Feuerstein identifies two alternatives;

1. Passive acceptance approach.

This accepts the limitations of the individual and attempts to create an environment where the person can function despite their limitations. It claims to recognize and respect the differences between groups. This seems to be the approach of the new curriculum. It basically views people’s cognitive structure as a closed system which cannot change. However, history has shown this can work only for a small minority in a welfare state. Historically in this country the policy of apartheid is a good example. Ironically, the present regime would seek to emulate it. Can’t we learn from history just this once.

2. Active modification.

This involves focussed cognitive intervention to develop the pre-requisites for thinking i.e. thinking skills. Secondly, it emphasizes the creation of a ‘need to think’. Thirdly it aims at teaching ‘the skill of learning to learn’. The basic belief here is that the cognitive structure of the individual is (potentially at least) modifiable.

We feel that the new curriculum in fact fosters the first scenario, that of passive acceptance. As we have already pointed out, the new curriculum pursues a policy of cognitive non-intervention with regard to education in general, in direct contrast to Feuerstein’s well documented and tested emphasis on appropriate cognitive intervention in the life of the child. Furthermore, it adopts methods that amount to a tacit admission of the limitations and even inequality of individuals, particularly in the policy of evaluation and the position with regard to tests and examinations. We need to take seriously the shadow side of affirmative action. We reject such a subtle form of discrimination and racialism, and affirm the intellectual equivalence of all race groups. It also makes no attempt to challenge values and beliefs, thus implying that these aspects need not or cannot change. It is our opinion, therefore, that the new curriculum will only aggravate the present rate of underachievement, and lead to an entrenchment of self-defeating and unintelligent behaviour.

To summarize, we quote from John Holt again.

"The intelligent person, young or old, meeting a new situation or problem, opens himself up to it; he tries to take in with mind and senses everything he can about it; he thinks about it, instead of about himself or what it might cause to happen to him; he grapples with it boldly, imaginatively, resourcefully, and if not confidently at least hopefully; if he fails to master it, he looks without shame or fear at his mistakes and learns what he can from them. This is intelligence. Clearly its roots lie in a certain feeling about life, and one’s self with respect to life. Just as clearly, unintelligence is not what most psychologists seem to suppose, the same thing as intelligence but only less of it. It is an entirely different style of behaviour, arising out of an entirely different set of attitudes." John Holt, (1964)

What we propose is no quick fix. We believe that change is possible, if the underlying principles are accurately identified and correctly addressed. The student’s orientation to world and their understanding of the purpose of learning are deeply rooted in the values, beliefs and traditions and change slowly and with difficulty. History has shown that enforced conformity to a particular ideology has never worked. History teaches us that religious and political traditions that adopt this fundamentalist policy should be avoided at all costs, or we may have to experience another Crusades, another holocaust, another Rwanda or Bosnia, another apartheid regime, another "five year plan", another "three-self movement", another attack on a World Trade Centre. We appeal to the Education Department not to become party to such an event.

By Dr M. Hailstones

Cedar College of Education

www.cce.org.za

Wiechers, E. (1996), Early cognitive enrichment – linked to language acquisition. In Perspectives on Learning Difficulties. Engelbrecht, P., Kriegler, S.M., Booysen, M.I. eds, van Schaik.