The trouble with the transmission conception of the educational process, which has reigned since Aristotle, is not simply that it is wrong, but that it results in an authoritarian construction of education.Construing education as a process of transmission converts it into imposition. The teacher's task is to impose knowledge, or learning on the students. The knowledge transmitted is the acquired (justified? proven?) wisdom of society. Teachers who try to transmit usually employ many different tactics and strategems to pull this off in a benign way. They try to "motivate" students to want to learn what they are supposed to learn. They try to match the materials to be learned to the learner—to his "needs," "interests," "abilities," "aptitude," and "capabilities." But the process is still one of imposition.The argument against imposition is that it prevents growth. Here is the argument....In all cases the student learns through trial and error elimination. So when teachers and schools try to impose learning, they are simply coercing students to adopt their criteria for identifying errors. They are saying, in effect, "All knowledge that is contrary to this knowledge we present to you is false." This prevents growth.Here is another argument. Suppose teachers completely succeeded in imposing knowledge on the young and completely succeeded in "proving" that this knowledge was true. It is patently clear that for those students so taught (indoctrinated?) that the advancement of that knowledge would cease. Because, you see, these students would "know" the truth. So we are led to conclude that the growth of knowledge has occurred and will continue to occur only because teachers failed to impose knowledge on the young.
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