Mr. Reece B. Bothwell: Dr. Harry S. Broudy will be introduced to you

SEXTO SEMINARIO DE FILOSOFIA EDUCATIVA
27 de enero de 1971
CONFSRENCIA DICTADA FOR EL PROF. HARRY S. BROUDY, Ph. D.
DEL COLEGIO DK EDUCACION DE LA UNIVERSIDAD DE ILLINOIS
"LA fUNCION DE UNA FILOSOFIA EDUCAIIVA"
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Mr. Reece B. Bothwell: Dr. Harry S. Broudy will be introduced to you by
Dr. Jose Caceres, Dean of the School of Education. This will be our sixth seminar
on education, the philosophy of education. I hope that we are going to learn a lot
from Dr. Broudy who is a scholar and man of great prestige in the field of education.
I leave you with Dr. Jose Caceres.
Dr. Jose Caceres: Dr. Harry S. Broudy its a professor of philosophy of education
at the University of Illinois. In 1957, her served first as professor of philosophy and
psychology of education at the North Adams and Framingham State Colleges in
Massachusetts for 20 years. He has also been a visiting lecturer at Boston and
New York Universities, the Universities of Southern California, California at Berkeley,
and Florida.
He was educated in the public schools of Milford, Massachusetts, attended
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took his AB degree from Boston University
and did his graduate work at Hcrvard University, taking his doctor's degree in philosophy in 1935. He received an honorary doctor of humanities degree from Oakland
University in 1969.
While at Harvard he was a teacher assistant to Professor William 2. Hocking
and a student of Alfred N. Whitehead, R. B. Peivy, Harry A. Wolf son. C. I. Lewis,
and John Wild. Uj-cer Professor Wild he became interested ia the works of Soren
Kierkegaard and his discussion of this founder of existentialism was one of the first
to appear in the United States. Although labeled as a classical realist. Dr. Broudy *s
work shows a strong interest in the phisolophical problems raised by existentialism.
His major publications include: Building a Philosophy of Education. 1954
revised in 1961 and translated into Korean and Spanish, Paradox and Promise. 1961;
with Eugene Freel, Psychology for General Education. 1956; with B. O. Smith and
j. R. Burnett, Democracy,and Excellence in American Secondary Education, 1964;
with John S. Palmer, Exemplars of Teaching Method. 1965, and with M. J. Parsons
I. S. Snook, and R. D. Szoke, Philosophy of Education: An Organization of Topics
and Selected Sources, 1968. He has contributed chapters to a number of yearbooks
and symposia volumes and many of his periodical articles have been reprinted in
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books of readings and anthologies.
He delivered the Boyd H. Bode Memorial Lecture in 1963, the first Cornell
University School of Education Lecture, 1962, and one of the Jennings Scholar Lectures
in 1965-66. In 1967-68 he was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences. He has been editor of the Educational Forum since 1964,
and has served on the editorial boards of The Music Journal and Educational Theory.
Among his current interests are the foundations of aesthetic education, on which
he has written and lectured, and a design for the professional preparation of teachers.
In the past year he was asked to devote some time to the philosophy of higher
education and was appointed director of the professional staff of the Commission of
the Reform of Undergraduate Education at the Urbana Campus of the University of
Illinois.
He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and honorary member of Phi Kappa Phi,
Laureate Member of Kappa Delta Pi, the American Philosophical Association, The
American Psychological Association, the John Dewey Society, and the American
Metaphysical Society. He is a past president of the Philosophy of Education Society
and the Association for Realistic Philosophy.
I take great pleasure in presenting to you tonight Dr. Harry S. Broudy.
Dr. Harry S. grpudy: Dean Caceres, meirbsrs of the Board, and ladies and
gentlemen. I was told by my hostess, Dr. Izcoa, not to prepare a long formal address
because this was a group that likes to discuss things and that there is no point in
taking too
much time in making a formal presentation. I understand that this Board
has been engaged for some time in exploring the formulation of a philosophy of
education, and I am sure that the longer I speak the more I will be telling you
things that you heard before, so I shall take the privilege of just sketching out an
approach to the problems of formulating a philosophy of education and if you will be
good enough to raise questions and make comments, perhaps we can fill in any
necessary details.
I suppose the first point I will want to notice is that when many people, or in
a group, tries to formulate its philosophy of education it's a sign that the unity of
feeling and the unity of thought of that group has been ruptured. One has to become
reflective about one's educational system, and one gets doubts about the commitments
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of the various parts of the population. As long as the people is united in thought and
feeling the question that never arises is this, as to what is our philosophy of education?
People living, they don't talk about it. As one sees the division, one sees
a plurality of culture, one sees a plurality of values, and a conflict of values then
one is forced to reflect from these conflicts and try to restore the unity in some way
or other. So, all over the world today a group, and nations, and people are interested
in a philosophy of education because it is very difficult to find the people today that
is said unified in its commitments, in its aspirations, that it does not have to think
about it. When you try to restore the unity, we ask ourselves what kind of unity
can we achieve? Can we achieve political unity in the group? There is a difficult
thing to achieve; political unity, once a political unity has been broken. Because
the conflict of commitment is represented by a political division. Can we achieve
economic unity? Well, I don't know of any society of modern life today that has
economic unity Jn the sense that there is no economic conflicts whithin it. Where
there is not equal distribution of economic power? There are very few societies
pretending to have social unity, but without classes and without conflicts between
social classes. And there are very few societies today where there are any symbols
of culture of unity, where all the people like the same ads, all the people like the
same music, where all the people are committed to the same style of life. Now, in
a situation like this where there is already a ftaocure. a fractionation in the culture,
where there are conflicts of interests, where there are differences in loyalty, differences in values commitments, no educational system can be unified.
It behooves that I present these conflicts of interes or I will try to ignore
them or one group would become so far that cannot afford to ignore the rest. If we
try to unify all the varying groups into one philosophy, one commitment, what we are
likely to get is a verbal agreement. We are likely to state our objective at such a
high level of generalization that nobody objects to it, but then it does not mean
anything for anybody. For example: I don't know of any philosophical statement of
objective in education that does not include at least in the western world something
about educational equality or equality of educational opportunity. Now, who would
object to equality of educational opportunity, who would possibly object to saying
we are going to allow every individual to realize his highest potential? Nobody
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would object to that. And very few people have any intention of giving any groups
or all groups equal educational opportunity. And if they have the intention, they
haven't the means. So what happens very often is e total statement of the aspirations of the group at so general level that it no bnger becomes a directive for education. It becomes a set of slogans that rarely the best sentiments of the people for
something made for education, but it does not serve as a directive for the construction of an educational system or for its operation.
So I ask myself and I was afraid of what the topic of this talk would be, if
there is any other way of trying to restore the unity of the work of the school, or
the unity of an educational system. If the school cannot be used to people for
political differences, or to abolish economic differences overnight, or to abolish
cultural differences, if there is any sense in which the school as a social institution
can have a unified purpose, and in a few minutes that I am going to take, I won't
take the liberty of suggesting to you a way I am trying to think about an educational
system which I hope allows all parties, all economic groups, to participate.
I begin by asking you or asking myself, this question: What is the probability that in the next 50 years that we shall abandon the idea of a technologically
dominated mass production society. I am sure you heard, as I heard in the last
few years, the tremendous damage that a technological society has done to our
environment, to certain parts of our culture, to the spirit of the young, to all
segments of the population. What has beer done •-. the way of war, and human
losses, and today there seems to be a kind of pes*Tusm about the future of technology. The fu-vre of a mass production society that turns out tremendous amount
of material goods and services at the lowest unit cost that the world has ever known.
Let me put it this way, that never had so many lived so well on the brains of so
few. This is what mass production, technology, dominated society has done. But
we been having doubts about this, and thinkers, and all countries have been having
doubts about the future of their society, and maybe we are to up date it, go badcto
earlier days when one had fresh vegetables, and when the rivers were clean, the
air was clean, and the birds flew, and the fish were not poisoned, and we were
not poisoned when we ate the fish, and a return to nature. It seems to me .for a
group that is interested in education that this is the first question. What are the
chances that we shall abandon, the mass production technological system? I
myself lack the imagination to believe that we will abandon, and I would adduce
only two reasons for believing that we will not abandon it. In the first place that
unless there is a catastrophic destruction of population in a magnitude not of one
million or two million, or let's say 500 thousand, unless we can perceive a radical
decrease of population, not cero increase but let's say 50 to 70 per cent decrease
over a fairly short time; unless this happens, when there is no other way of sustaining
the population other than through mass production. The ecology of the planet was
ruined the day Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, and started to till the soil
by the sweat of their broughs and the more people the more the ecology will be ruined.
So it seems to me there is no turning back to the pre-modern era and this means a
development of technology not an abandoning of technology.
My second reason for not believing that we will abandon technology is this:
As long as I am thinking back, in spite of the hard things we say about mass production there has been no greater creator of the potential of human values than technology
Why? Because it has increased the power, and the more power the more responsibility
I think I may have mentioned to some of the people that Socrates who was probably
one of the greates more genuises of the V'estern world ever known, could do nothing
about cancer; he could do nothing about poverty. Therefore, Socrates has no more
obligation regards to cancer; where there is no power, there is no responsibility.
But once the possibility you are doing something about cancer, might be doing
something, even if it is no more than to contUhvtp l^;'s say a dollar to the cancer
research fund, at that moment a moral poss'bll'.ty has been created. So today there
is no way of escaping the moral responsibility for removing poverty, discrimination,
diseases, and almost every other evil. So technology does not necessarily demoralizes life, it creates the possibility of morality by creating the power to do things if
one chooses to do. Now, whether we choose to do it is not a technological matter is
a moral matter; so the responsibility comes back where it always has been. Namely
in persons who gain potentiality, choose to use them one way or another, and for
these two reasons it seems to me that the basic premises for thinking about educational system for the next 25 years, the basic premise is that we shall not abandon
technology, that it will be developed, and the mass production which goes with
modem technology will also be developed. The first corollary of this is the greater
interdependence among nations, among classes, than before. More rather than less.
I don't know about you people but 1 almost feel humiliated at how much I
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depend on other people. In Illinois about this time of the year we have very hard
ice storms. Fortunately you do not know what ice storms are, but these ice storms
are so severe that we very often loose all electric power for two days, three days,
and the moment that power goes off we are helpless, we can't cook, we can't bathe,
we can't keep warm, the water fails, we are completely helpless, until a horde of
men, workers, assemble, gear resources, and fix that piece of machine that controls
the entire system. If there is a transportation strike in San Francisco, then I have to
change all my evening habits, and whether I like it or not, and I don't like it, and
I am sure many of you don't like that notion, we don't have much choice as to whether
they will join this interdepencence or not. It is very difficult to escape the orbit of
the technological society.
Everybody becomes interdependant. With this premise
in mind I would like to ask myself, giving 25 years another educational generation,
if we were to start building a system next September, what were the things to keep
in mind to probe for?
I suggest that there are three kinds of trends. I would want
to know what it means to be vocationally adequate in the world 25 years from now.
If certain trend starts automation, communication, and other things that we are all
familiar with is very continued at the same way. What does it mean vocationally, what
does it mean for the labor force? Are we going to need young people between 16 and
21 of the labor force 25 years from today. Right now we do not need them from 62 on;
in the United States we can't find work for them below 21. So the whole economy is
really being carried on by the "filling of the sandwich", really the group between
around 22 and about 62, 63. Are we going tc r:eed even that many 25 years from
now? This is important for two reasons, one is that if they are not going to be used
on the labor force, then they probably will be asking for more school time. The other
is that if the labor force is practically reduced from materialism, then probably most
of our industry will be so alternated that the character of the vocations will be
changed. Long months ago I was on the flow of a tremendous textile factory in South
Korea. As you know South Korea is an undeveloped country. They have a complex of
highly automatic industries which deal in cooperation with certain countries; United
States supplys the oil refinery; I believe Japan supply the textile mills, and another
European country provides the fertilized fractures and there are others. And I was
with a group of vocational educators, and we looked at the tremendous floor of space
of the refinery and we asked where are the workers ? and we were told the workers
are in the office. Some of them watch gauges, they were maintenance men, but most
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of the people working in that refinery were pushing pencils around people or using
business machines. In other words they were working with symbols, they weren't
working with machine. And there is one president of an american steel company who
said that it takes a ton of paper to make a ton of steel. That ton of paper is processed
by people who deal symbols, symbols of ordinary language, symbols of mathematics,
and therefore, is one thing ahead in this question of vocational adequacy one wonders
whether simple skills training, whether simple trade training is what would be needed
at that time. I don't know what will be needed, but I strongly suspect that the kind
of vocational education that we are giving our people in the United States right now,
would not be the kind that will be useful. As a matter of fact in the United States we
are now giving the kind of vocational education which might have solved that problem
in 1939. And this is about the right leg, about 30 years. And I suspect another
country; the busy plans for vocational education are probably suited for a crisis that
occurred about 25 years ago. So, I am thinking ahead one might very well ask what
will it take to be vocationally competent 25 years from now? What kind of schooling
will help one be vocationally competent? And certainly there is a lot of room here
for cooperative planning, and for thinking, and for discussion. There is data on
this matter that could help making thorough guess. It would still be a guess but it
does not have to be all together a blind guess. There are trends, and the people in
the economics, people in the studies of manpower, many areas in which we can do
the kind of thinking that will enable us to mcJ'.e our investment early enough so that
when the time comes we shall be ready or more ready than we have been in previous
crisis.
The second area that I will be very much positive about is civic competence.
What will it take to be a citizen 25 years from now in the kind of world that I think
that we are going to have ? I shall give you an example of my own predicaments in
this matter. Right now, I have been trying to make up my mind whether I ought to be
in favor of the protective tariffs that are being urged in the American Congress. There
is a climax for protection of certain things in America because of imports from other
countries. Should I pay or whether shouldn't pay? Even if I could figure out what
would make me rich, even if I could do that, I might be willing to vote that way,
but for the life of me, I haven't the slightes idea of whether a protective tariff
would be in my own interest, or wouldn't be in my own interest. How I'm I going
to find out? If I was to understand this one issue, I would have to know a great
more abut economics, about rail trade, about world finance, and many other things
than I know right now, and I do try, I do try to keep up. I read the standard things,
I try to listen, and yet for the life of me, today if I wanted to be an inteligent citizen,
I would not have the knwoledge at my command to make a really intelligent decision.
What I guess I am saying is that the citizen of tomorrow will have to be a far more
sophisticated person, far more knowledgeable in economics, in arts, in politics, in
every phase of human endeavor than even a college graduate of today, and unless
both of them, not just a little group, both of them are sophisticated, they don't have
the slightest hope for any democratic social order to survive. Because if only a very
few people can get this knowledge, and the rest of us have to take our ideas readymade from them, that's about the end of any hope for a democratic society. Does
the basis of a democratic society is an assumption that the citizen can moko up here
his mind and how does one make up one's mind; well by knowledge, and reflections
and a decision and a commitment, so its a little bit of affection to say I made up my
mind. I don't know who is making up my mind, but I am disturbed with the little I
have to do about making up my mind in a great many areas, again what does this
mean for education? How long will it take to give a kind of basic education that
will allow the average citizen to make up his mind intelligently even in the major
issues that are confronted?
The last area is that of personal development, self realization, or if you want
to use a less fancy term, how in the world you can say things and moderately sober,
and not desperately unhappy 25 years from now in this kind of world? Stay out of
jail, stay out of the divorce court, not become a drug adict, not to commit suicide,
not to be disgraced by your children, not to be abandoned by your children if you
are over 60, not to be subject to the anxiety and the frustrations that a great many
thoughtful people already are subjected. If we all doubt that we can achieve even
this molecule of satisfaction it may be better not to think about what it will be 25
years from today. But what will it take eduationally, here again I seem driven to
the same conclusion as in the other two areas, but the choices between being
achieved and having oneself taking care of by the mass media, by the governmental
agencies, by the other institutions that manage life for us, or to undertake the
program of self cultivation far more strenous than most people have been willing to
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undertake up to now. Because I honestly believe that despite the complexity of this
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modern technological society one can screed freedom, individuality, and quality
audio, but it won't give it up without a good screed, and it may squeeze back, so the
only lead that we have ig an increased knowledge, increased sensitive, increased
identification of the cultural heritage, increased effort. Now I am not suggesting
that this is a philosophy of education or premises; I am suggesting that this is the
field of employers in which man is a part of a variety of commitments that can undertake , and I suggest this is so because this world that is coming is no respector of
parties, or religion, or prior commitments. It probably will happen whether we like
it or dislike it; it is the commentary not only is facing you; it is facing every nation
in the world, and therefore, I venture to hope that this time of exploration, if it is
carried on may in time throw a little light and how it is when we can reunite a society,
every society, that is not suffering from serious practice or conflicts. This enquiry
is eminently philosophical if one cares to undertake it. It is not a matter of
technical philosophy perhaps, but I know of no task that is more aware of the intention of the educator and of interest in education than to explore the possibilities and
the responsibilities of the next 25 years.
I am sorry I talked a little longer than I planned. Thank you very much for
listening.
Mr. Reece.B. Bothwell: We are going to have a recess of ten minutes and then
we meet again for the question time.
Mr. Bothwell: "Pueden hacer sus preguntas y comentarios, todo ello nos ayudara
a elaborar esta filosofia educativa en cooperacidn con el Departamento de Instruccica,
No se olviden de idm tificarse cada vez que hacen una pregunta."
Please identify yourself whenever you ask a question so that we can have your
name properly recorded. Dr. Broudy will now answer your questions or if you
please, any comment you care to make.
Dr. Colorado; I really do not have a question, I have a brief commentary. I
have been listening with great care, and I feel that the speaker has said something
which is of great value but seems to be very pesimistic to me. He has the feeling
that we cannot, that the technology is a basis of this sort of toxicating world, on
this difficulty at the same time we can't abandon, and we should not abandon
technology. There is a way to restore unity in society, there has not ever been
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unity in society, in any society whatsoever, (there is always disruption. So it seems
to me that the lecture is short of any message which can be of some adoune for us,
excepting as much as it takes that there is no possibility of a philosophy of education, perhaps no need for it, for just to prepare ourselves for 25 years ahead which
we don't know. Now my question is this, isn't there a need for mutual unity of man
even if it does not have economic, political, or social, or cultural unities. Isn't
there for spiritual unity of man for the organization that we are sons of God and
brothers, and I mean a philosophical meaning in the life of people above this political
and economic, and social and cultural things. Isn't that what has been broken in our
society? That feeling of brotherhood of man to which we give the least service,
which we don't really live for it.
Dr. Broudy: Yes, you are quite right, we have lost that spiritual unity, but I
am not sure one can restore it by merely wishing that it were solved. And when one
makes the commitment, he has to make the commitment to something and its precisely
the possibility of extracting from a technological system, the human possibility that
gives us some hope for optimism. I did no spaciate on how it could be done, because
I feel this is precisely for a group like this; it can explode. But if there were time I
could give you and you could give me I am sure, a hundred examples of how one can
explore the human values even for the development of the persons from this system if;
and this is the big in my mind, the big condition; if one is willing to accept the normaeffort needed to cultivate oneself spiritually and intellectually, and to get the moral
courage to do it; for example, because this is not the time to give you a detailed
argument but let me give an example: I buy my suits and my automobiles ready-made
most of the time. If find that the cost of a tailor-made suit isn't a little more than
the ready-made suit, it's a lot more. There seems to be a radical jump from a readymade garment to a tailored-made one. And we are in a situation where if we are
satisfied with the pre-packaged ready-made ideas, ready-made products, ready-made
way of life, we can get them at the lowest cost the world has ever known; they are
cheaper than they have ever been before. But obviously enough if you want a tailormade life, a highly individual life, never has it cost more than it costs now. So
the difference is an investment. To be a real person today is perfectly possible but
is not automatic; it does not come easily; it doesn't even come to those who are
born in families of great wealth and even of distinction. Today every man has to
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fight his way to whatever individuality, uniqueness, genuinness than he can guess
and I reiterate "an old fellow once said, that the greatest enemy of the good is the
pretty good or the good enough". It's because we live so well without much effort
that the worst effect of the technological system is the kind of spiritual lazyness that
is encouraged. It is insidious, it keeps bn without one knowing it, little by little.
We read less and watch television more; little by little we work less and watch others
more; little by little we buy our amusement or entertainment we don't make; little by
little, and when we discover it, it is too late. We are too old, we are too tired. And
this why I really I'm not pesimistic about the possibility; if I have pesimist it is that
the task of overcoming this lazyness is such a difficult one, and that is not a task
that the school have taken very seriously in the last 2 5 years. We have been so busy
turning out units for the mass society that we have not been able to fight it, to use
it as the judo expert uses it. He uses the way of the system to deal with the system,
what we have been doing more or less is helping people fit into the system the best
they can, or maybe that is enough of the response now. I quite agree that there is
a possibility for spiritual unity; it may not be a religious unity but it may be the unity
of recognizing what a moral regeneration would mean in this kind of world.
Dr. Mellado: Dr. Broudy there is a small book written by our mutual friend
Dr. Kant for education, The Promise of America. I am sure you have read it and
Dr. Kant mentioned in that book what he considers to be the moral commitments of
the American people, the Hebrew-Christian eLhics, the values of democracy, the
scientific methods and all that. I would like to hear your comments on Dr. Kant's
idea of using those moral commitments as basis for a sort of an educational philosophy
Dr. Broudy: Here again I find it difficult to desagree with the language of
George Kant or any of them, my difficulty is of this source. When John Dewey wrote
really his most important works in the field of education, I think he was under the
dominance of a vision of a society as it really was examplified in a small town from
Montilleage, Burtlington, Dumont. Now those of you who are familiar with the New
England town unit know that it is about as pure a democracy has ever lived. All the
people could assemble in one meeting and they could make all their important decisions
by face to face discussion. Furthermore, most of the people fall within an arrow
range of economic resources; there was no great spread of wealth and poverty. Third,
most of these men were independent men, they were farmers, small business men
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and it seems eminently probable to John Dewey that if these men face that comment,
predicaments, rationally through the use of problem-solving and the fundamental
basis of goodwill that they could most of the time arrive at about the best solution
circumstances will permit. What's wrong with that? Nothing.. .really, except that
the society has changed so there are no more small town meetings, as long as the
conditions that Dewey had in mind and, I think have obtained, I think what they said
was eminently sound. This is why when I look forward, and remember this is my
private looking forward, and I may be wrong, but I can't see of any other way right
now; but as I look forward, I don't find many communities that have the characteristics
of John Dewey's good society of a good community. For example: Here again I
apologize -to the people who heard some of this earlier in our conference, will you
forgive me for the repetition. I don't have that many ideas that I can change, but
one of the premises of the Dewey society which he didn't explicitly state but which
operated was community supervision of the youngs. We all supervise each other, and
as I remember in my teenage-days when I committed an offense even a small one my
parents knew it before I got home. There were neighbors who somehow knew what I
was doing and thought it was their duty to tell my father what I was doing, and I am
sure my father cooperated by telling tales than every other person in the community.
Now this concerns what John Dewey calls interest to be concerned with others, with
the community, it wasn't broken down. Today we live in flats, in condominia, and
we don't care very often whether our neighbor is being murdered. We don't think is
any of our business. So, that looks forward and say, well now, what kind of
community do we have to live in? What will be the form of behavior that will
satisfy their Christian commitments, and the commitments of the American creed,
and ail that sort of things? I think the creed is just as valid today as when Mergal
wrote about it. I think that today the Christian commitment is valid but the behavioral
form that it will have to take it seems to me a very merchy; I cannot see
them clearly,
and I don't know where to look for them except that they will have to be new forms;
they will not be a repetition of the form that was fairly valuable in the small business
community that John Dewey and others help held as the kind of the ideal good society.
Dr. Colorado: Would you tell us your ideas about the so called new generation
in the States, in the world, what is it about? what does it mean? if it means
anything? I mean the youngsters.
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Dr. Broudy: Well, some of us I guess may be tired of fighting, I don't know,
I myself as a result of having to deal with young people, a good deal, would only
make a couple of comments and neither one of them is very ordinal and profound.
One is that the best way to deal with young people when they want something very
badly, or say they do, is to let them do it. I know this sounds very dangerous but
after fighting very hard for students representation on boards of trustees, boards of
education, they won the battle. Now they don't come to the meetings. In other
words, the interest was in the fight it wasn't really in the outcome. And it's a
little bit like being a philosopher. All I've been is an academitian, and it has to
do with your question especially in the effect campus unrest. Our governor and
other governors are very puzzled of why academitians can't control the students.
He is very much upset by the inability of the college academitians to control these
youngsters. What he does not understand, and I think you will understand, that an
academitian by trade does not want to solve the problem; his life work is creating
problems, discussing them, once they are finished he is really not very interested.
Don't you have been on committees that have been dealing with the same problems
for 20 years; we don't want that thing solved... .see, the governor cannot get
through his head that we are really vocationally incompetent and unable to get rid
of the problem. So, part of the unrest on the campus is that students want things dom
now we don't understand why they want them done. Why shouldn't they be happy
discussing it? I also found that the fail that is caused in dealing with faculty is
really to let them do what they say they want to do. It's amazing how little they
do it when they are really put to the test. So in one sense, dealing with the young,
I think it has been over estimated;
I think we have fought battles on the wrong
issues. They are trying to prove their manhood, their adulthood, we aren't giving
them the merits of the issues, nothing was further from their mind than the merits
of the issues, but they wanted to prove with something that we didn't want to acknowledge. So that the sense in which there are many battles, in which the enemies hurt
each other but not by shooting at each other, by shooting all over the place and the
bullets ricochet and do a lot of damage. Now as to how deep is this? Again I find
that the younger generation today is making a big issue over manners rather than
morals. When you get really down to it, their feelings about what is right, what
is important, is amazingly like that of their olders. I know of no young person who
I
M
has celebrated cowardess, brutality, unnecessary infliction of pain, who has not
admired courage, who has not admired some form of heroism, but they don't happen
to be the forms that their olders agree about. So that the sense in which they raise
the devil by defying the manners, the morals, the bng hair, the lack of courtesy,
the lack of respect, I think most of them are symbolic rather than actual, but of
course there are a few bombs, and it's a real bomb and not symbolic bomb, but by
large I think that by sensing these difficulties that I try to talk about the next 25
years, they sense them faster than we are. They are sensing the difficulties of the
next 25 years earlier than their parents are. Once their parents are already adjuste4
and because the older generations are pretty slow in searching out the new form of
the old virtues, that I think they are getting a kind of impatience, and I am sorry to
say that if they are not all right; they certainly are, they are more than 15 per cent
right and I say near the 30 per cent right. I know this is not a very adequate
answer but on the basis of my limited experience this seems to be my reaction to it.
Dr. Mellado: On the other hand
Dr. Broudy: I would like very much to hear your own discussion of these things
because, after all, you have been talking about these problems, and I am learning
a great deal more in Puerto Rico than I am teaching. So I will be very happy to learn
your own views here on what you think the future seems to be like to your country,
for the world, permit me I would like very much to hear, not necessarily questions
to me but comments among yourselves.
Mr. Davila Lanausse: I am very pleased with the talk that Mr. Broudy brought
us tonight and my first impression hearing the first part of his talk was along the
lines probably of Dr. Colorado regarding the pesimism, but also I have some
questions regarding certain points that you made especially on what you call
generalized verbal agreement on the equality of educational opportunities, and I
was wondering if this syllogism may como about as a result of what you mentioned.
If men are created equal, they are not being educated equal and that may be one of
the crucial points or crucial problems to be solved not only in the next 25 years, in
the complete generation ahead of us. Regarding Puerto Rico I would say that being
your first time down in Puerto Rico, you have in my opinion clearly defined some of
this very basic issues that are really dividing our society so much and for a long
time; this unity of feeling regarding political unity in one sense, the status quo,
15
the political situation of Puerto Rico for the next 25 years, and therefore that main
problem that has been, I would say like a knap sack in our being things. We are
cognizant minds and remember all our history and that is one of the basic problems
I would think that the Board of Education and the people who are in charge of making
this philosophy; they will have that as one of the main problems also to be solved.
This is to my point of view, this equality in educational opportunities would solve
in itself a lot of the basic inequalities in daily life. Those are my comments on it.
Dr. Broudv: I might mention this in relation to what you are just saying, and
again this is a way of approaching it, it's looking into the system, see what may
happen which might help in this equality of opportunities. For a long time for two,
three thousand years, we have general ly had two systems of education; one for the
elite and one for the mass, and at least of the western culture anyway, the elite
education has been literary, it's been intelectual, later became scientific and in
general humanistic. For the masses at least in the Western part of the world,
literacy priority in the days when there was a national religion, social docility; in
other words obey the institute of government, and finally manual skill, that is,
learn enough about the world war to push your way. Now the educational system
in America, in Britain, really grows out of the charity school, of over the poor.
What do you have to do to the poor to keep them out of mischief and keep them from
overthroughting the government and that was the answer. A little reading, so that
they read the Bible and directions, poetry, social facility and keep them busy with
the lowest grade of work that you could find for them. Twelve hours a day for
twelve-year old children. Now, in atenuated form, we have kept the dual system,
and the elites, the people who run the society and whether it is in the United States
or Great Britain or in the Mona, its makes no difference, the power basis of the elites,
has always had the kind of schooling that recreated the elites, and the masses
have the other things. I really believe that in the next 25 or 30 years a technologicall
mature system will not be able to function with dual system. Because it has broken
down in two directions, the elites have to participate in the work of the world. I
remember the day when a big banker in Boston told his son, go to Harvard, have a
good time, meet the right people, and if you get c's in your classes, a gentleman Q
that is all right. Why? Because vocationally you don't have to worry, we will
take you into the firm, what you study really makes no difference because your
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vocational role has already been created. Today the banker son will probably have
to go to the Harvard Business School and learn how to run the bank. In other words,
the elites, the operating elites, have to become part of the meritocracy and they have
to have some kind of expertise, managerial, financial, even ruling expertise. On the
other end of the expectrum this technological society cannot operate if a very large
part of the population cannot consume at a very Hgh level, it just can't. As you know
we had a strike a General Motors, they lost what was about a hundred thousand units
of sales about a month or two ago. This has given a down turn to the economy that
is frightened the daylights to all of us. Again as I said the other day it is positively
un-american not to spend three times your income. And this is not the case, savings
are enourmously during this depression, and I am only hope guessing. V/hy did we
rediscover poverty in America in 1965? We couldn't afford it. Our poverty people
were not consuming at the rate necessary to keep the growth race. We have been
outpassing growth like West Germany and some any other country. Now I am not
being cynical on this; I am just happy to take advantage of a concatination of circumstances . In other words, the equality of educational opportunities may not be simply
a matter of our commitment toward humane ideas; it may be helped along very radically
by the fact that most of our people will have to obtain a degree of education that I
would say, that is now at least at the level of a high school graduation.
Works estimated 3 or 4 years ago that the minimum formal schooling required
to run the American economy is now 14 years of schooling. If that is the case, within
25 years it will certainly be more than 14; therefore, whether anyone likes it or
wishes it equality of educational opportunity will have to be increased or this
system will not be valuable, and I feel this way about many of the social evils; we
will concur with them because the system cannot tolerate them any more.
Mr. Miguel Rivera: (UPR student)
Sir, will you please make some
commentaries from the work of some writers who have a radical point of view of the
crisis in education now, writers like for example Leonard Illich, Freires, Silverman,
and some other American writers like thosewho have been studying in the teachers'
colleges. Some of them.
Dr. Broudy: I don't think I am qualified to speak on all of them and I am not
sure I will want to put them all together. Illich, for example, I woudn't put with
Silverman, not even the same book. I mean, they are not only different in ideas but
the profoundity of their ideas are so different that they really should not be mentioned
17
in the same breath. I don't know him, I read him second hand and I am really not
competent. If I do not misunderstand him completely, my concern with Illich is in
those ascpects of his work which coincide with the drawing from the technology for
certain parts of the end and so forth. Now I confess maybe it will be possible for
this group or that group to withdraw, get out of it. Up out, I doubt that those groups
so very large, and it will take very favorable circumstances for them to stay out of
the orbit of technology, but I confess that I don't know enough about Illich to say
much more than that.
As for Silverman or Cosal and company I don't know what to say in a short
time that would be fair to them and not be misunderstood. I'll try if you are not to
misunderstand what I'm saying. The simple fact is that these men seem to forget
that they are talking about an institution that has 50 million pupils and 3 million
teachers, distributed over a whole continent, governed by local school boards, no
two of which have the same rule, no two of which find school exactly the same way.
Now they also ignore the fact that in no time in history have young people, children,
been delighted with studing anything very formally; school has always been an
imposition on children. We have always tried to find a way of making it pleasant,
joyous, who does not want children to be joyed? Toay that the American school
is on murdering children, murdering their creativity is one of the grossest ever
simplification I ever heard, which schools are murdering? I don't know, he said
he spent 3 hundred thousand dollars, Silverman, finding out. But if you read the
preface of the book, most of the research seems to be interviewing members of the
teachers' college faculty of Colombia, and surely, I am that what he says is true
about some schools, but anything anybody said about a system like that is true
somewhere. Now if Mr. Silverman which understands the social realities, and
understands what it will take to chief the system, what pressures did will take.
For example, if you were to help us understand how you choose the thinking perceptual
habits of a whole generation of teacher personnel.. .these habits are not changed
overnight, you can't tell teachers go this way, then in '65 turn them around go the
other way. I refer to this; let me ask you to go back to 1957, recall in '57, a
spooknick went up and then everybody said the United States had been betrayed by
schools because they had not enough scientists, so there was a crash program, on
the teaching of science and mathematics, Incidentally how many of you happened to
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see the New York Times the other day? Some of you may have noticed that
Maxbibleman was one of the founders of the new math, died the other day/ he was
only a 45 years of age.
Max was developing the new math at this time, he had
been working on it for ten years at Illinois and nobody paid the slightest attention
to it. Up went spooknick the Maxbibalence project all of a sudden became the very
important thing because it will help the defense. So, we have a talent search all
over the country, we hunt out every child with an I Q of more 120, and the really
clever child was the one who its age is a talent search, we had no scholarship,
we had research, million of dollars. In '65 Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy discovered the poor, he discovered the blacks, he discovered the other minorities.
The world went on out turned around. Now the schools are supposed to redeem the
disadvantaged. What about all this intelectual excellence that we were working
for 1960-63? The same set of teachers were pushed in this direction. Teachers
aren't that bright, they aren't that flexible, they are very ordinary people. You
cannot move people like that; they'll say they'll go along with you but deep down
they don't. They don't really can change this fast. This is why I regard Silverman
as irresponsible, even though many of the things he said are true, they should be
said, we are to pay a lot of attention to, but when you want to inflame the public :
and give the impression that all it takes is a tender heart, and a concern for children,
and this is all going to change tomorrow night, then this seems to me is a kind of
inresponsible courtesy. And I am not saying hard words to you, I am giving to you
what I thought you wanted me to say, my impressions of that whole group, and if
anything they have hindered something that we are going along.
Dr. Mellado: Just a few words to tell Dr. Broudy that we have listened to
his conference
and his ideas with great interest and great delight, and I am pretty
sure that we are going to profit from this exchange of use on educational philosophy.
I want to tell you that I am more optimistic probably than some other people about
the possibilities of searching for the moral commitments of the society and using
those moral commitments as basis for the formulation of a philosophy for education.
I know it is difficult because there it is a lack of unity in modern societies but besides that, it is difficult, in no way an obstacle that would make it an impossible
task. But let me tell you Dr. Broudy, your conference has been very illuminating,
and we thank you very much for your ideas, and personally, I think that in the name
of all this group I want to thank Dean Caceres, and Dr. Bothwell for this opportunity
you have given us to listen to the very interesting ideas on education in the modern
world. Thank you very much.