ontology in the classroom

This weeks reading brought a number of things to mind for me. I tend to be too wordy so I'm going to try to keep to my major points here. Last semester I took a class Sociology of Education, and one thing we talked about in that class was that there is sometimes, at least in the context of the U.S., an overemphasis on the ability of schools to be transformational for a countries population (Bankston III & Calderas 2009). That is, by placing too heavy of burden of things like social mobility and preparation for workplace integration in addition to the normal curriculum, policies can focus too much on schools without recognizing other societal forces are at work (i.e. politics, the economy, and so on). I think this is relevant to our upcoming discussion because the author of the article for this week suggests that training in “being” and “becoming” should be added to professional training education. This is another transformational expectation. While education can and is transformational, the question is how much transformation can we expect from schools? Being is intertwined with the whole world, and of course education has an impact on the possibilities opened, but at the same time we invest more in the transformational potential of education its possible external constraints may limit those possibilities. A practical example merely being budgeting. Some schools may not be able to afford a revamped curriculum that incorporates being. There are many other potential constraints as well. This does not mean such practices cannot be implemented, its just a warning about investing too much in the transformational power of education while ignoring other social forces.

Placing that aside, if such a program were implemented it another threat is posed. Milton Friedman, in Capitalism and Freedom, makes an interesting point that social programs like social security are not necessarily bad things, that their intention is to help people so they may reach a fuller capacity (Friedman 1977?). The problem Friedman notes is that the programs once designed with a benign intent can and often are confiscated by others who lose touch with its original purpose and exploit that program to garner favor amongst people or toward their own end (for instance using “being” education toward a particular type of “being” that favors them, could be Orwellian or much less sinister in nature, but regardless it loses its original purpose). Training in being could mutate from being a training toward becoming a professional and entering that community toward a being that is somehow favored by people controlling said training. This favored being may not necessarily be straight out of George Orwell novel, but there is potential there for abuse (e.g. professors could train graduate students that their method or theoretical framework is an essential part of 'being' an engineering educator, and that others are not really part of that being). Of course if you take Friedman too far you can use that logic to preclude the creation of any program. I think there is a risk in trying to develop programs that incorporate being into the curriculum directly.

On a more fundamental level, and to this I have little answer because I am not very familiar with Heidegger, I wonder how directed our being is. Is it always a conscious process? Are we always directed, becoming, toward something? Are there times we are not headed in particular directions or is being sometimes unconscious? If it is unconscious or indirect/not always active it becomes exponentially harder to “train” one in being. My overall point here is that I think what the author is talking about is a very complicated process where we are entwined with many people, places and things both locally and on a large scale. We will be regardless, so given some of the other potential problems mentioned here, is being training necessary? Or should that process be left to unfold naturally?

--Corey

A Brief Philosophical Primer

(For those of you who want to watch a video of Martin Heidegger, here is an excellent series on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKhUyU8UQEI).

So this week we have a paper by a member of our community trying to make a call back to an age old discussion of being. I do not know a single member of the Academy who believes in his/her heart that a university education is not a place for growth and development of the individual as a whole; however, the day to day hustle and bustle of the disciplines can turn idealism sour.

To use a Welsh expression, Martin Heidegger is a strange duck. When I teach Martin Heidegger to my friends and fellow engineers, I always start off with the statement, "Martin Heidegger is a lot like Bill Clinton, he wants to know what *is* is." More importantly, he is fundamentally concerned with igniting a new fire about the work of Rene Descartes and what he feels are some unaddressed problems with classic and modern philosophy. His primary claim to fame (to the armchair philosopher,) is that he tackles "je pense, donc je suis," in a way that had his peers thinking in different ways. I will expound upon this either in class or maybe in another post, but all of you should know at the very least that Heidegger != Descartes.

Here are some important people/concepts/battles/struggles to understand:

Husserl's Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften. Here Husserl argues that there are four important revolutions in history of thought: Socratic/Platonic arguments based on logos and its subsequent development into scientific thought; the Cartesian revolution; the transcendental revolution of Kant, whereby the only source of necessity is subjectivity and thus follows knowledge; and finally, the phenomenological revolution, which incorporates the form of and content of acts of knowing into a subjective framework.

Descartes vs Husserl. In short, Descartes (who wrote the Discourse on the Method in French, not Latin,) believes that we have method in order to overcome a tendency to accept naive uncertainties (2). Here the method in the Cartesian sense admits that the subjective paints our experiences and reasoning.

Kant vs Husserl. Kant's role in phenomenology is that of the "straw man." We can find evidence of reflections on Kant throughout Husserl's works (3-6). Husserl is concerned with the incorporation of what is now thought of as the dialectic into a discussion of objective validity and complete justification. Whereas Kant considered the metaphysical urges of the human brain to be inseparable from human thinking, thus defining one of the core aspects of his transcendentalism.

Traditional ontology by Nietzsche. Existential Phenomenologists have always had a different view of ontology than classic philosophers. Nietzsche, for instance, challenged Plato's and subsequent philosophers' ideas of the temporal nature of being, that is to say, that being and becoming are in a struggle in classic philosophy and the being part wins. That which is being, akin to the Dæmons of Socrates, is transcendental and outside of lived experience, and Nietzsche believes that classic philosophy involves itself mostly with the psychosis of wo/man to grapple the ideas that traditional philosophy has set up for him/her.

Heidegger and meaning. Meaningfulness strikes a cord with Heidegger (7). One of the primary concepts within his works addresses the human being at the nexus of object and subject, that human being's (or amalgamation's) negotiation of the world, the human being experience and the limits of being experiences through constructs such as negation and death. Ultimately, meaning presents itself to humans and is neither created nor destroyed by humans. That holds since being and what beings are are intertwined throughout the question of existence. Finally, the disclosure of being is not an objective event. Meaning is unfolded (or disclosed or presented) through a neo-classic interpretation of moods and involvement. Thus, Heidegger's work resounds well with the evolution of being/meaning briefly discussed here.


1. Husserl, Die Krisis der europaischen Wissenschaften
2. Descartes, Discourse on the Method
3. Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy
4. Husserl, Cartesian Meditations
5. Husserl, Ideen I
6. Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen
7. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit

Epistemology and Ontology

After reading the piece this week by Gloria Dall'Alba, I think I have more questions than answers. From my own experience, I tend to agree with her argument that the current process of education - and particularly education for a purpose of learning a profession - is more focused on gaining knowledge than on the process of integrating who we are into the professional we will become.

As I make connections with this thought and how it plays out in engineering education, I have lots of questions to pose and reflect upon. Are ways of being (ontology) context based? That is, is the way of being an engineer different in industry versus academia? Is the way of being an engineer different across disciplines? Or across industries? How is the learning and integration of becoming intertwined with the culture of a profession - or is learning and integration of becomming really assimilation into the culture of a profession? And what does that mean for those whose ways of being do not "fit" into that culture?

I have heard many, many, many engineering students say that working in industry through an internship or co-op experience was very different for them than the academic experience of being in school. I've heard them say that they liked working as an engineer much better than learning in a classroom. I've heard myself use this point to students who are wondering if "engineering" is right for them - working as an engineer is different than your experience in school. I've told them to try being an engineer before you change your major. I wonder then, if what we call formal engineering education is primarily the epistmological portion of becomming an engineer, and intern/co-op experiences (in some ways the apprenticeship model of educaiton) primarily the onotological portion of becomming an engineer? If this truly is an appropriate question to be asking, then we have, as Dall'Alba says, left "the most challenging task of learning professional ways of being......to the students themselves." Have we pushed that part of our educational process out to the companies and industries that hire our students? Does that mean that we accept them as partners in the educational process (which to me implies that this "pushing" was done intentionally, with full recognition of the consequences)? Or does it mean that we have abdicated our responsibilities to our students in teaching them to become an engineer? Have we explicitly decided that it is not for us to decide "whose knowing, acting and being serve as 'golden standards'" in the context of being an engineer and left it to industry (knowing that there is no uniformity, and thus not all students are developed in the same way)?

I could probably go on posing questions about the possible relationships between epistemology and ontology with regard to what we engineers call "hard skills" and "soft skills", and how our primarily epistemological approach to engineering education will likely need to change if we are to educate the "Engineer of 2020" to which the College has committed, but I think those might be ideas for a different post.

“Building Our Classroom”

In one of her post last week, Alice challenged us to think about some of the educational philosophies that have impacted our personal engineering education experience. I would like to take the opportunity to share my first engineering experience that was strongly influenced by the work of Maria Montessori.

First let me take a moment to explain that for the most part, Maria Montessori and John Dewey did not appreciate the others contributions to the field. And Nell Noddings, being a dedicated Deweyan, endorses Dewey’s perspective. But to dismiss Montessori based on the fact that she was not a good philosopher, is to me, missing the point. Maria Montessori did not consider her work in education to be a philosophical experience; she considered her work in education to be an ongoing scientific experiment in education. She was not interested in a theoretical framework, but rather a scientific explanation that would both contribute to our understanding of how children develop and our communities by educating “global citizens” capable of self-control, self-growth as well as community awareness. Considering the fact that history has recorder Maria Montessori as the first woman physician in Italy, her interest and experience in the sciences extend toward using a scientific rather than a philosophical approach to education. The fact that she was somewhat overbearing and dogmatic in her application of her methods is a discussion for another time. While Maria Montessori’s work with Primary and Early Elementary Children is well worked out, she was unable to spend as much time working out the details of her educational program for upper elementary children and adolescents. In fact her ideas on adolescents are only briefly laid out in a short essay she wrote called, “Erdkinder.” Having read some of Montessori’s translated writings, I agree that sometimes she may get caught up in the details or stray off on “mystical” tangents, but her sound advice of “Follow the child,” in the sense that one follows and nurture a child’s natural interest in his prepared surrounding, for me is at the crux of learning. It also echoes of Dewey’s endorsement of experiential education. (I wonder what would have happened if the two of them could have gotten past their biases about the other approach, but that is an essay for another day.) But there is more than just following the child involved, there also at times, has to be an introduction to an enticing idea…

When I was 10, the Montessori school I attended decided to start an upper elementary program. They hired a young man, Jerry, who had recently returned from Bergamot, Italy, one of the premier Montessori training institutes. Jerry decided very quickly into his tenure at the school that the portable building that the school had rented for our program was not going to work out. He decided that with the help of the students, he was going to build a new building for us to use as our classroom. Using some Math Materials that he had created during his time at the Montessori institute, he taught us quadratic equations and essentially as fourth and fifth graders, we had enough math and measuring skills to figure out all of the other information. Now, I know in today’s world, we see projects like this on the DIY channel accomplished in a weekend, but as fourth and fifth graders, we framed a 25’x20’ school house with four walls, a roof, four windows and a door. We were able to get one of the parents of a child at the school to pour an appropriate slab for us, and we planned, budgeted, designed, framed, sided, insulate, roofed, drywalled, and painted the room. It is important to remember that I lived in Arizona, so climate control was not essential, but other than the electricity (which one of the parents provided), we fund raised, built, worked and got the room done. I doubt that it would have survived any hurricanes, but it was a fabulous experience for me. There were 11 children involved, and we all found a niche. Some of us preferred planning, some of us preferred the actual implementation, some of us were better at motivating than doing, and others were better as historians and poets, but all of us were engaged and involved. We also learned a lot about what happens when things don’t work, and why certain projects have to be done before others. I think if you were to go back an interview any of us again, we would all say this was one of our most exciting learning experiences. One of the little girls I used to babysit, daughter attends school there now and the room is still used as a storage area. It’s rewarding to think that something fourth and fifth graders engineered is still standing; though I am sure the dry Arizona weather has helped preserve the structure. My point is that when you engage children in something that matters to them, like physically creating their own learning space, it is easy to see how they become vested in the process. My natural inclination is not toward hammers and saws, but I found that I really enjoyed framing, dry walling, and painting. I have been able to put this knowledge to use throughout my life. I worked at an interior design store in high school and helped design and construct displays. These skills have helped me countless time doing set design and construction in community theatre. However, if I had not had this early exposure to using these skills to create something that was important to me, I might never have tried on this tool belt. On my own, I would never have thought to create or engineer a classroom. But by being in community that had a need, I was provided the opportunity to be a part of a team that designed and built a building, a small one albeit, but a building nonetheless.

While some people who follow Montessori become dogmatic, others have gleaned much of both her and Dewey’s and many other educators belief that children learn through doing, but there is more to this doing than simply experiencing, it is being engaged in a meaningful process, and for most children, seeing the results of their work. Whether we endorse a philosophy of what Noddings calls Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology more frequently referred to as a theory of cognitive development, which is a highly generative theory in my experience, most children under the age of 12 are concrete thinkers. They need to see tangible results of their work. To design a house on paper, or a model is one thing, to walk into a room you built is another. I greatly benefited from having the opportunity to do this. I used to cry when I had a fever, and my mother would make me stay home from school. I loved to be engaged in the work. I loved to be at school. Thanks to Dr. Montessori’s experiment and to some of the people she influenced, I had the opportunity to be a part of engineering my own school…

Is this education?

Thinking about what I am doing in this class, reading Noddings, reading the posts, making notes, and trying to start my essay, I realized that was easier to start with an example of what is education. Understanding this process, the History & Philosophy of Engineering Education process, should help me to figure out what is education about. That is right; starting with concrete things moving through more abstract hypothesis about what is education (is this scaffolding?).

To start looking into our process, I realize we take some key (or engaging) points from the book (or authors). As Xingyu said, she “learn from Noddings’ book that constructivism is an epistemology describing how learning happens” for example.

From those key points and thinkers’ views, we also take part of the discussion, stating what we think, like when Ben assures “I strongly believe that rational thinkers exercise their skills in familiar fields of experiences”. Also when we highlight important or interesting things, as Tatiana wrote: “I agreed with Piaget’s approach that it is impossible to know what is «knowledge» without knowing who «knower» is”.

Even more, we also appropriate some statements or make some connections around those, like Jeremy did when said “I wonder would a similar critique be given today [talking about warrior glorification] - or in any time in history, for that matter. Are traces of things our society glorifies evident in our education system”. We also reflect on how or why those connections and views are important for us, as students “From what I have been taught thus far, this is a problem solving method for technical engineering class”(Benjamin), or as teachers “Do I violate the «freedom» proposition by Existentialists if I advise them to stay away from drugs and cigarette?”(Xingyu).

To make it short, we read, we highlight ideas, we appropriate some, we connect some others… how are we constructing new knowledge?

To “appropriate” the constructivism perspective, I do think we are creating knew knowledge. About how those thinkers’ ideas can change our way of teaching, making us reflect about why is important for us as students, as well as for our students, to understand the learning process. Writing those reflections make us “dialogue” with each other, to have even more thinking inside us… Each day the conversation change, it depends on our mood, on our readings, on if is Thursday (class day) or not. But this “dialogue” is here, permanent for us to come back and reflect and connect again and again… Is our knowledge… our social construction…

Any way, I am now talking about knowledge, what is the connection with education? Does the “construction of new knowledge” implies, for me, education?

Teachers' Role and Teaching Methods-Inspired by Constructivism Theory

I learn from Noddings’ book that constructivism is an epistemology describing how learning happens. The main theme of constructivism is that people generate knowledge actively by their prior experiences and ideas.

Constructivism inspires me that students should play an active role in the learning process to acquire knowledge. Also, teachers should understand the students’ need and use suitable teaching methods. In this point of view, teachers are somewhat like facilitators. They give guidelines and emphasize more on providing learning environments than on teaching the content. For example, instead of just giving lectures that cover the contents of the subject, teachers could raise questions and encourage students to explore the domain, identify problems, and give solutions. I believe students could acquire knowledge more effectively in such self-motivated environments with teachers’ guidance.

Also, according to Jean Piaget, a pioneer of the constructivist theory, different learners construct different knowledge based on their unique internal representations of the world. Students often understand a concept easier if it is presented in a way somehow related to their former experiences in the learning process. This may be one of the reasons why some students grasp knowledge more quickly when they are presented with charts, whereas other students may prefer textual descriptions. Therefore, teacher should recognize the importance of using various teaching methods in class. For example, a math teacher can use different approaches such as graphs and formulas to solve math problems, and a physics teacher can introduce the concept of gravitation by experiments as well as formula derivation. One challenge is that when using different teaching methods, teachers must still manage to cover all the required contents in limited class hours. There should be a balance in between.

Ennie, McPeck and a Heat Transfer class...

I strongly believe that rational thinkers exercise their skills in familiar fields of experiences. Definition of rational thinkers, according to Robert Ennis, is when a person exhibit certain proficiencies, tendencies, and good habits. Under proficiencies, Ennis listed observing, inferring, generalizing, conceiving and stating assumptions and alternatives, offering a well-organized or well-formulated line of reasoning, evaluating statement and chains of reasoning, and detecting standard problems.

From what I have been taught thus far, this is a problem solving method for technical engineering class. Initially when I am given a problem, say for example a problem in Heat Transfer, I would first ask series of questions. Questions like, is the system I am solving a compressible or incompressible? Can I apply control volume analysis over the system? If I do, what assumptions am I making? These are questions I would ask and need to know in order to solve the problem or at least make it simple enough to be able to use an equation that I know to solve for it. I think this is a very technical procedure and without knowing these equations or knowledge, once cannot solve it. One can only solve it, when one is familiar with this field. I agree with John McPeck, when he says, “…that all such thinking, beyond the trivial, manifests itself as an application of one or more of the disciplines. Further he says: “There is no such thing as thinking critically in general”. I believe that students must learn the process of what it means to make valid mathematical and scientific assumptions.

It is very interesting that one of the class I took, my Professor insisted that I use following outline when submitting my HW. The outlines were:

1) State what is KNOWN:

2) State what I am trying to FIND:

3) State ASSUMPTIONS:

4) State known PROPERTIES

5) Write your ANALYSIS:

6) Write COMMENTS: