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Whitehead, Process Philosophy, and Education
This present study began as the author's extension and application of ideas from Whitehead's work to the subject of education, using a chapter from Whitehead's book Science and the Modern World and a pamphlet, The Rhythm of Education as the starting point. Platonic metaphysics have also found application in the author's search for a diagnosis and eventual cure for the American educational system. Originally published by SUNY Press in 1982.
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First published June 30, 1983
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April 16, 2023
Short, pithy and generally superb.
Provides a great number of provocative and insightful spurs to thought. I'm in tune with Brumbaugh's erudite insistence that education needs a radical overhaul - and that Whitehead's thoughts should be deeply in the mix.
A Whitehead thought: In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call ‘inert ideas’ – that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations. In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with the ferment if genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful …
Another: … the first requisite for educational reform is the school as a unit, with its approved curriculum based on its own needs, and evolved by its own staff. If we fail to secure that, we simply fall from one formalism into another, from one dung hill of inert ideas into another.
A third: There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.
And, finally, one from Brumbaugh, in shouting UPPERCASE in the original: SCHOOL PROBABLY SHOULD BE INEFFICIENT ABOUT HALF THE TIME.
Provides a great number of provocative and insightful spurs to thought. I'm in tune with Brumbaugh's erudite insistence that education needs a radical overhaul - and that Whitehead's thoughts should be deeply in the mix.
A Whitehead thought: In training a child to activity of thought, above all things we must beware of what I will call ‘inert ideas’ – that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilised, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations. In the history of education, the most striking phenomenon is that schools of learning, which at one epoch are alive with the ferment if genius, in a succeeding generation exhibit merely pedantry and routine. The reason is they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful …
Another: … the first requisite for educational reform is the school as a unit, with its approved curriculum based on its own needs, and evolved by its own staff. If we fail to secure that, we simply fall from one formalism into another, from one dung hill of inert ideas into another.
A third: There is only one subject matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.
And, finally, one from Brumbaugh, in shouting UPPERCASE in the original: SCHOOL PROBABLY SHOULD BE INEFFICIENT ABOUT HALF THE TIME.
Displaying 1 of 1 review