Fostering Sociomoral Reasoning Through The Development Of Critical Thinking And Discussion Skills
Clary Milnitsky-Sapiro, PhD.
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Porto Alegre, Brazil
Copyright © 1996, Clary Milnitsky-Sapiro
Generally, the vocabulary adopted by the developmental psychologists devoted to moral education doesn't have to include the sociological jargon. Concepts such as "the school as an ideological apparatus of the State", "symbolic violence", "hidden curriculum", "ideological reproduction" are ignored. However, I realized that in our last three meetings, I have been using many of these concepts without giving a second thought whether they were being grasped by the audience as I wished to, in the context of moral education in Brazil. I want to justify this mutual unawareness and the reasons I attribute to, either for the use and emphasis from my side and for the omission from your side: One reason, starting from the latter, is that most of the scholars here, were born and live in developed countries where democracy and education are taken for granted. Therefore, the issue of engaging in democratic schooling as part of a project on moral education is usually related to creating "moral" schools as contexts for individual moral development (Higgins, 1995). There is no apparent need to take a critical perspective, and to investigate in the educational system, what the "hidden curriculum" that underlies the formal one is.
I don't believe that any of the scholars among us would be so naive to think that in any country the educational system is organized around the tenets of educational ideals only. However, I do believe, that many, among us, have not asked ourselves yet, what the relationship between education and the larger society is, without adding modifiers such as "excellence" or "improvement". Once these modifiers are added, believe it or not, we are then taking an ideological stake in relation to what education should be, without questioning its multiple origins, meanings and affiliations ( as stated by Michael Apple - an American educator in Education and Power, 1982).
The second reason, is that the purpose of this Conference- moral development, is detached of any ideology (understood here, as the body of ideas, dogma, principles) besides the ideology that maintains the democratic ideals, such as the principles of welfare and distributive justice, building up autonomy, etc. Consequently, there is no apparent need of being aware that children's exclusion from the school system is also a form of adherence to what the critical sociology calls "symbolic violence." Hence, as a supra-theoretical stance, I propose to examine today, quoting Apple again: "who ultimately gains the most from the ways our schools, and the curriculum, and the teaching practices within them, are organized?" (1982, preface). Let's work on Apple's question while trying to integrate some explanation about my reasons for using the sociological jargon.
If your answer about who gains the most is "the society or the children," you are already assuming that every citizen has access to a good education in every society, which is embedded with your democratic ideals and ideology, although not less moral. However, from my perspective, the issue whether the educational system itself is really democratic, thus, carrying or not a great potential (once all methodological problems are overcome) to embrace the principals of moral education, is crucial for starting any lasting project on this subject (moral education) in developing countries.
Conversely to the previous perspective, most countries of Latin America, and I can speak for Brazil, have faced a different reality: the fight and struggle for democratic principles ought to antecede the objectives, foundation and methods of moral education. Therefore, before any discussion or prescription regarding the theoretical foundations of moral principles and behavior, or the appropriateness for using these or those methods and measures, we have to critically recognize the limitations of the general education in Latin America, and in this case, specifically in Brazil. Regarding this issue, during the dictatorship in Brazil, moral education was an obligatory course in high-school and college, under the name: "Moral and Civic Education," and its ideological function was to teach how to be "a good Brazilian citizen". Developmentally speaking, the military government forced an heteronomous behavior through the repression of ideas in the educational system.
Following, I would like to invite you to work out with me the distinction between educating morality through a program or discipline from what moral education in the school context is, as a quite different matter.
Most scholars here, speak on moral education as the development of permanent skills that should be practiced in the school setting, and hopefully as adopted values within the larger society. The very idea of enhancing democracy through moral education is taken as implicit realization for most of us, and we rely on the methodological procedures and on theories only to obtain "the most significant results." However, again, this is not true for the so called developing countries. I can mention Brazil that still in 1991 depicted a figure of 20 million illiterate people, and 4 million children out of the schools (1991, Frigotto). I guess none of us would consider this neither democratic in terms of society, nor moral in terms of education, since these two concepts are very much interconnected. Consequently, to believe that we could teach or foster moral development, just by making a neat intervention in a Brazilian school, without becoming aware that the educational system was set for maintaining "the reproduction of our social classes," would be self- defeating. It could maybe, generate nice publications, but it wouldn't really make any contribution in the most moral sense. This would be a good example of going along with "the school as an ideological apparatus of the State", in the sense that we would be ignoring that the school system itself is not fair by the simple reason that good education is selective and not granted to everyone in our society.
On the other hand, it is addressed by the sociologists that regarding underdeveloped and developing countries, one of the most effective ways to correct injustices is through a better and more equalitarian education. Dewey (1959), also stated that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform as he declared: "I believe that this conception has due regard for both the individualistic and socialistic ideals. It is duly individual because it recognizes the formation of a certain character as the only genuine basis of right living. It is socialistic because it recognizes that this right character is not to be formed by merely individual precept, example, or exhortation, but rather by the influence of a certain form of institutional or community life upon the individual, and that the social organism through the school, as its organ, may determine ethical results.[....] I believe that the community's duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty." (pp.30-31).
The schools have to be the privileged local for innovation, which means to have autonomy to build up its on educational project according to the specific population needs, and at the same time to its plurality. The connectedness with moral education is obvious. The atmosphere of the school has been a reflection of the "moral atmosphere" of adaptation of the whole Brazilian society. Therefore, there is a significant interest in focusing on theoretical and methodological aspects of moral education programs in Brazil, in order to change its meaning in Brazilian history.
And there is no need to be subversive to prescribe a social confrontation as means to reach social justice, because the confrontation has been explicitly manifested by the rate of violence, and drug abuse. In the schools, the teachers feel vulnerable, and react with more rigid and authoritarian behavior, getting back more indiscipline from the students. At the end of the century, while the intellectual debate has been centered around the deconstruction of knowledge in opposition to its pretense developmental linearity, there is still the emergency for holding some universal principles such as the right for a democratic education in many cultures and societies.
Regarding Apple's question of "who ultimately gains the most from the ways our schools, and the curriculum, and the teaching practices within them, are organized?" (1982, preface). My answer is from my contextualized, but not relativistic, perspective: Our approach to this situation, from a developmental and moral perspective , is to foster within the school environment the development of critical thinking and discussion skills (Kurtines, 1996), as indispensable competencies to make moral choices and permanently empower the whole society through the educational institution for a change. We have been working on a project that takes the reality of the school system as a issue to be revised also.
The aspects approached by the critical thinking and discussion method bear on the co-construction of social knowledge by building up autonomy through the evaluation of students' and teachers' own control and responsibility for their acts, as well as decentering, or "role taking" ,through the discussions in the workshops. The literature on Critical thinking usually takes this ability as putting an emphasis on the cognitive problem solving approach (Spivack & Shure, 1982) to be used with children in order to improve or to foster the development of these skills. Our intervention, besides focusing on real life choices such as career choice for the adolescents, is starting to focus also on what Piaget (1977) called empirical abstraction as a different concept than reflective abstraction.
Empirical abstraction, starting during the pre-operational period allows the child to abstract properties directly from subject actions' or from objects, and transfer them to a higher level of cognitive activity, arriving to newer and generalizing compositions. This is considered the cognitive foundation for critical-thinking and discussion skills to be worked with younger children. The "empirical abstraction", also, is used for understanding or deciphering social or interpersonal activities through assimilation (getting relationships and meaning, etc), that are not given by the objects or individuals, but constructed during their development.
Considering the interconnectedness of education and morality, Piaget offered us the main requisites for the development of both: the concepts of decentration and autonomy. Concerning education, decentration furthers object permanence, conservation, reversibility and all the fundamental requirements for achieving a higher knowledge. Autonomy, furthers the opportunity for understanding and cooperation, rather than obedience.
Concerning moral development, decentration means to be able to take the others' perspective, to abandon a rigid or selfish position, and to question of ones' rights regarding the rights of others. Autonomy, bounds the education to the development and choice of moral values. If the educational system in any society doesn't provide the development of these skills, a program on moral education ought to embrace both aspects, by fostering a gradual change in the educational institution. And this is feasible, if we foster the development of critical thinking and discussion in the schoolcontext.
Consequently, we realized that a first task for developing a genuine moral education program was to start by encouraging opportunities to improve the actual school conditions through dialogue and evaluation from both parts: students and the school boards including faculty members.
The project we are implementing is also fostering critical thinking towards the extension of interpersonal investment at a macro level of social interaction, in which reciprocal respect constitutes an investment in citizenship. In this way, it will support, the distinction between actions and attitudes that are oriented toward the general gain, from those properly related to the individual only.
We have been working to change the ideological and reproductive advantage, for education to become moral, and in the Brazilian case, for the educational system to gradually allow the making of a fairer society. The prerequisite for achieving this, is to create within the school context a permanent room for assuring to education its central role in fostering the development of democracy, moral values and societal conduct that will certainly modify the reproductive model. That is why I have been mentioning the sociological jargon so repeatedly.
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