A philosophy of flu

Although change and uncertainty are by no means conditions exclusive to the present, the speed at which information is shared, and at which students and teachers have the potential to learn and revise knowledge in any multitude of directions, is undoubtedly increasing (e.g., Bauman, 2000; Hansen, 2011). Such a climate has been referred to by sociologist Zygmunt Bauman (2000) as

impermanence of identities, institutions and meanings in everyday life.

One response to this culture of uncertainty, particularly in Finland, has been a reconceptualization of the purpose of schooling. Whereas the task of schools was once seen as inculcating students with right or true facts, Finnish schools are now seen as sites that prepare students for active participation in a democratic society, and as democratic societies in themselves (Sahlberg, 2015). In music education, this has meant a broadening of school repertoires, student-centred curricula and a constructivist approach to teaching, by which students engage in individual or collective processes of meaning-making and knowledge construction, rather than passively sitting on the receiving end of a one-way barrage of information (Dewey, MW9: 56). However, the abundance of musics that have been made accessible to the music teacher and student may be seen to reflect a ‘culture of overwhelming plenitude’ (Reimer, 1997, p. 21). With this increasing availability of musical practices and repertoire, teachers are faced with the question, ‘what to include and what to leave out?’ (Pitts, 2000, p. 210). The student-centered and pluralist approaches that have embraced difference, and promoted a welcoming of all musics as a means to offer a meaningful education and reflect this diversity, have offered the teacher very little guidance on what to teach and how to choose. As Bauman (2010) has noted, ‘[t]he art of living in a world oversaturated with information has yet to be learned’ (p. 101).

The choice of pragmatism as part of the theoretical framework of this dissertation is in keeping with the view of the world as one characterized by uncertainty and change, described already by John Dewey as one of the ‘philosophies of flux’ (LW1: 49, Experience and Nature). With a particular focus on education engaging with uncertainty and change as prerequisites for realizing democratic practices in the school and society, Dewey’s writings are seen here as a particularly appropriate lens. Dewey’s philosophy may be seen as a holistic approach to knowledge and learning, viewing the individual in relation to others as they interact in social context (Dewey LW10, Art as Experience). In this way, Dewey dismisses the Cartesian dualism between mind and matter, rather addressing learning and the acquisition of knowledge ‘within the framework of a philosophy of action’ (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 9). As a philosophy of action, human behaviour is not thought of simply in terms of responses to external stimuli, but as an ‘interaction between elements of human nature and the environment, natural and social’ (MW14: 9). In other words, ‘[a]n organism does not wait passively and inertly for something to impress upon itself from without; it acts upon its surroundings and undergoes the consequences of its own behaviour’ (Kivinen & Ristelä, 2003, p. 365).

not in the sense of performing repetitive actions unthinkingly, but through the development of ‘patterns of possible action’ (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 11) that allow for, and frame future interactions. These habits are the basis of organic learning (Dewey, LW13, Experience and Education) in that they signify a ‘special sensitiveness or accessibility to certain classes of stimuli, standing predilections and aversions’ (Dewey, MW14: 32). This idea forms the foundation of Dewey’s conception of meaning as ‘a property of behavior’ (LW1: 141), knowledge and learning, as habits allow us to reconfigure the world from ‘a vast penumbra of vague, unfigured things’ to ‘a figured framework of objects’ (Dewey, MW14: 128).

According to Dewey, learning is experimental and always active, coining the often-quoted pragmatist maxim: ‘learning by doing’ (Dewey, MW9: 192,

Democracy and Education). Through such a perspective, experience is central to

learning and education. Experience refers to ‘the whole matrix within which the human being confronts the world – the material and social environment, the ever-chancing [sic] flux of every-day life, and simultaneous doings and sufferings’ (Westerlund, 2002, p. 49). Accordingly, like human behaviour, experience is not apart from social life, and may be understood as arising in connection with others, and contextualized within a broader historical framework of meaning and values,

Experience is already overlaid and saturated with the products of the reflection of past generations and by-gone ages. It is filled with interpretations, classifications, due to sophisticated thought, which have become incorporated into what seems to be fresh naïve empirical material. (Dewey, LW 1: 40).

One task of schooling is then to attend to the habits and actions that function unreflectively in line with ‘stupid and rigid convention’ (Dewey, MW14: 115) as a means to enhance growth.

Highlighting the importance of experience in learning, Dewey called upon schools to recognize that the majority of what people learn is not done with their heads buried in books, reciting facts ad nauseam or through rote repetition. In focusing on learning by doing – as action – the purpose of schooling is not a matter of pouring information into the empty heads of the naïve and immature, but rather to direct growth in a manner that encourages students to continue learning and growing (I think here of the current research and policies promoting lifelong learning). This growth not only develops the student’s capacity to live within the existing society, but to exert influence upon it, to change it (D’Cruz & Hannah, 1979). It may thus be seen that tension, or resistance, is a prerequisite for such growth, as Dewey explains,

Nor without resistance from surroundings would the self become aware of itself; it would have neither feeling nor interest, neither fear nor hope, neither disappointment nor elation. Mere opposition that completely thwarts, creates irritation and rage. But resistance that calls out thought generates curiosity and solicitous care, and, when it is overcome and utilized, eventuates in elation. (LW10: 65, Art as Experience). Schooling is then not concerned with the inculcation of habits, but their disruption in such a way that requires individuals to reconstruct experience. The manner in which experience is reconstructed is referred to as deliberation,

an experiment of finding out what the various lines of possible action are really like. It is an experiment in making various combinations of selected elements of habits and impulses, to see what the resulting action would be like if it were entered upon. (Dewey, MW14: 132–3).

As such, the individual thinks of or imagines ‘various competing possible lines of action’ (Dewey, MW14: 132) and through this process of experimental learning, habits are modified. This disruption of habits does not concern the individual in isolation, but in interaction with others, in a process of mutual adaptation and change (Dewey, LW1, Experience and Nature). As Dewey states, ‘all human experience is ultimately social: that it involves contact and communication’ (LW13: 21). This is what he referred to as transaction, as the means by which meanings are produced, contextualized in action.

The purpose of growth, as the aim of education, is for all of the members in a society to have equal access to participation in the activities of a community (both within the school and external to it), requiring constant reflection,

disruption and adjustment of habit in transaction with others. This is what Dewey envisioned as a democratic society (MW9, Democracy and Education). The role of the school is thus to equip the child with the skills required to participate fully in democratic life. By this, Dewey argues that we should ‘demand for and from the schools whatever is necessary to enable the child intelligently to recognize all his social relations and his part in sustaining them’ (MW4: 270). In other words, to recognize the political influences that construct and confine the opportunities for experience. The school is a continuum of democratic social life, ‘school cannot be a preparation for social life excepting as it reproduces, within itself, typical conditions of social life’ (Dewey, MW4: 272). So, schooling should be democratic, facilitating equal opportunities and access to participation and promoting

‘constructive change’ (Westerlund, 2002, p. 89). Thus, when the ‘typical conditions of social life’ are fragmented and fluid, the role of the teacher and the school – more than ever – cannot rely on fixed notions of content or values. Identified by Dewey over a century ago (MW3, Essays, Democracy and Education), the challenge of integrating knowledge and practice in an education that serves, and is of relevance to, an increasingly diverse student (and teacher) population is only intensifying.