DOCUMENT RESUME

AL 001 653
ED 026 628
By-Macdonald, James B., Ed.; Leeper, Robert R., Ed.
Language and Meaning.
Washington, D.C.
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,
Pub Date 66 Research Institute, Miami Beach, Fla., Nov. 21-24, 1964,
Note-120p.; Papers from ASCD Tenth Curriculum
Detroit, Mich., March 20-23, 1965.
Curriculum Development, NEA, 1201 Sixteenth St., N.W.,
Available from- Association for Supervision and
Washington, D.C. 20036 ($2.75).
EDRS Price MF -$0.50 HC Not Available from EDRS.
Development, *Educational Philosophy, Elementary
Descriptors- Applied Linguistics, Child Language, *Curriculum Psycholinguistics, Secondary Education,
Education, English, *Language, Language Proficiency, Motivation,
Values of language and
James Macdonald introduces six papers on
various aspects
the development of educational curricula. Dwayne Huebner discusses
meaning in
traditional tasks and educational realities and points out value systems affecting
He concludes that educators should free themselves from present
curricula. life in the modern world.
methodologies and find new ways to relate education to must be directly based
Philip Phenix emphasizes that both philosophy and education of language provides
the logical analysis
on the various scholarly disciplines and that Eugene Cendlin urges
insight into the ways which human experience is understood.
the development of thinking based
more attention by educators to "felt meaning," and
on it, to .enlarge student perception and application of constructs. Walter Loban
discusses the multifaceted meanings of language and some of the problems of
distinguishes between "attached"
teaching effective language use. Mary J. M. Aschner thinking, and relates these to
and "addressed" meanings and their relationship toThomas J. Johnson discusses
classroom practice and teachers' preparations. research to classroom activity. (MK)
motivation and the application of motivational
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Language
and
Meaning
Papers from
The ASCD Tenth Curriculum Research Institute
Miami Beach, Florida, November 21-24, 1964
Detroit, Michigan, March 20-23, 1965

Edited by James B. Macdonald

Director of the Institute Staff
and
Robert R. Leeper
Editor, ASCD Publications

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, NEA

1201 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. 20036
 , 4"..? At0',14.6 0.4,2,43.9,70,0t.

Permission to reproduce this copyrighted work has been

granted to the Educational Resources Information Center
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with the Office to Education to reproduce documents in-
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but this right is not conferred to any users of the micro-
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Service. Further reproduction of any part requires per-
mission of the copyright owner.

Copyright © 1966 by the

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, NEA
1201 Sixteenth Street, N.W., Washington, D. C. 20036
Price: $2,75

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-23878

 7

Contents
Foreword v
Arthur W. Combs, President, ASCD, 1966-67
Acknowledgments vi
Language, Meaning and Motivation: An Introduction, 1

James B. Macdonald
Chairman, Elementary Education Area and Professor of Curriculum
and Instruction, School of Education, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 8
Dwayne Huebner
Professor of Curriculum and Instruction, Teachers College,
Columbia University, New York, New York
Curriculum and the Analysis of Language 27
Philip H. Phenix
Professor of Philosophy and Education, Department of Philosophy,
Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, New York
The Discovery of Felt Meaning 45
Eugene T. Cendlin
Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Chicago, Illinois
What Language Reveals 63
Walter Loban
Associate Professor of Education, School of Education,
University of California, Berkeley

iii

J,Lrc, ,}47.1,-7a r'a

iv Contents
Meaning and Thinking 74
Mary Jane McCue Ascluler
Associate Professor of Education, Boston University, Massachusetts
Motivation: Some Principk s, Problems and Classroom Applications 93
Thomas J. Johnson
Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison

'
 Foreword

THROUGH its publications, commissions, committees, and its

national conference, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development has constantly sought to reduce the gap between new
understandings arising in the scholarly disciplines and their implementa-
tion in the practices of education. As part of this program it has offered
through its Research Commission, in cooperation with the National
Institute of Mental Health, a series of research institutes in various
the
parts of the country devoted to the exploration of new ideas from
learned arts and sciences and the stimulation and design of research
in many phases of educational thought and practice. To do this they
have sought the assistance of a distinguished list of scholars from
psychiatry, psychology, anthropology, economics, sociology, philosophy,
medicine and the various branches of the physical sciences. The papers
presented in this booklet are in that tradition.
Tremendous efforts are currently being aimed at producing change
in the curriculum through manipulation of content and subject matter,
by shifting patterns of school and classroom organization, by electronic
and mechanical gadgets or simply by increasing the output expected
of students and teachers everywhere. In the midst of all this activity
deliberately planned to
the Tenth ASCD Curriculum Reseal ch Institute
devote its attention to the problems of language and meaning. The
choice seems especially appropriate in these times when many educators
are deeply concerned that the human aspects of schooling are (1-ten
neglected. Language, after all, is the vehicle by which most teaching
is accomplished. Meaning is the human goal
of learning, the ultimate
test of any curriculum change.
To set the stage for the discussions in this institute a group of
eminent scholars was invited to share their thinking with the institute

1
vi Foreword
members. Following this the participants spent several days in lively
discussion on the implications of these questions for our public schools.
Unfortunately, we cannot share in all those discussions. It is a privilege,
however, for ASCD to publish the papers of the distinguished con-
sultants who spoke at the institute and so to make these available to
the profession. The papers from previous institutes have also been pub-
lished by ASCD and are available from the Association's headquarters
in Washington.

April 1966 ARTHUR W. COMBS, President

Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development

Acknowledgments
Final editing of the manuscript and production of this booklet were
the responsibility of Robert R. Leeper, Associate Secretary and Editor,
ASCD Publications. Technical production was handled by Mary Ann
Lurch, Editorial Assistant, assisted by Teo la T. Jones, Staff Assistant,
under the general supervision of Ruth P. Ely, Editorial Associate.
 Language, Meaning and Motivation:
An Introduction

James B. Macdonald

NECESSITY can be both the father of innovation and the hand-

maiden of disaster. Any administrator could tell us, with a little re-
flection on his part, that the pressure of decision can spur one on to
new insights or encourage one to seek simple solutions for complex
problems. The pressures on our educatiunal system today have pro-
duced the necessity for change and consequently an unparalleled chance
for progress or disastrous error.
The direction and format for change are becoming clearer each
year. The direction of change is toward increasing use of technology
and automation in education and the critical revision and reformulation
of subjcct matter. The format for change is increasingly toward central-
ized direction in the hands of an oligarchy of scholars and bureaucrats
buttressed by the immense expenditures of federal monies for centrally
selected purposes.
We are riding a crest of a wave of socially expedient reform in
education rather than reform emerging in light of the historical perspec-
tive of curriculum development. The changes themselves may be poten-
tially reasonable but the method of bringing them about has faced the
educator with some of the realities of living which he either chooses to
ignore or has been too naive to recognize before this time.
It is interesting to note that the prominent critics have selected John
a

Dewey and Progressive Education as their antithesis. There is some

reason to doubt the acuity of their awareness of Dewey and the Prag-
matic philosophy he espoused. The critics in essence believe in the
same central idea of progress brought about by rational problem solv-
ing, and apparently the collateral idea that the worth of their doing

.17..124*
2 Language and Meaning
lies in the consequences of their actions, although they have not
shown much interest in empirically evaluating their projected conse-
quences (see, e.g., [1]).

Structure of the Disciplines Approach

There is at this time no basis for seeing current curriculum reform
as progress or disae.er; however, already some doubts are beginning to
form. What was accepted uncritically as the need of our society to up- 0

grade education through discussion and description of the structure of

each discipline, is not clearly as useful asit was first thought to be (see,
e.g., [2]).
Indeed one might say that tne scholars have pmetrated and pro-
jected an experiment upon the schools. Their efforts are witness to at
least as much faith that structures and modes of inquiry exist, as they
are evidence of some sort of access to knowledge that ordinary mortals
do not possess.
The scholars, of course, speak from strength and authority. When
they tell us there is a structure of a discipline and a mode (or modes)
of inquiry, they appeal to experience beyond our own ability to validate.
Thus, we must accent their statements upon faith in their authority.
Yet the results are not impressive. Some few scholars (see, e.g., (3])
say the whole movement is hogwash, and other scholars (especially in
the social sciences) have not been able to produce much in the way of
structures.
From another viewpoint the scholars' behavior could almost be said
to be irresponsible. It is at least possible that it would have been more
useful in the long run if scholars had reorganized their own material for
courses at the college level and tried it out with their own students
before they moved so definitely into other levels of the curriculum.
Public education is providing them with an opportunity to learn a great
deal at the expense of others.
The universities, with rare exceptions, have infrequently shown
any desire or ability to bring about curriculum change in their own
settings. They are wedded to the concept of academic freedom in which
they apparently see no corollary at lower levels. Is it all a matter of
degree or a difference in kind? Does the university professor (or his
graduate assistant) know so much that no syllabus or course of
study is necessary for him in contrast to the public school teacher?
Charity begins at home and the college student is suffering ills that
need the expert attention of the scholar.

41,1. %pm ,. - `-f",.- 744...e,

 Language, Meaning and Motivation 3

Perhaps the most difficult thing to understand is the apparent lack

history of curriculum in the
of comprehension by the scholars of the Conference, for example,
20th century. The outcome of the Woods Hole
makes no
popularized by Jerome S. Bruner in The Process of Education,
Judd's (5) state-
reference to Alfred North Whitehead's (4) or Charles Even
ments early in the century about "structure" of the disciplines. in
attempts to organize social studies around the basic generalizations
mentioned. In all, the per-
the area, found in the 1920s (6), are never
formance has been a very unscholarly one on the part of scholars.
1) What assurance is there that the new movement in any way evades
all
the criticism of the old subject matter curriculum? Curriculum,
dressed up in its new suit may well appear to the child much like the
emperor's clothes. Public school people may perhaps
have been seduced
into thinking the emperor has a new suit.
There is, indeed, nothing in recent curriculum development which
available thought in the
alters in any fundamental way the historically
and
field of curriculum. Indeed, there is much in the present process
direction of change that violates long lasting values and/or develop-
the
mental procedures that have been hard won from experience over
and
years. This being the case perhaps a reminder of the larger context
meaning of education is in order.

Beyond Formal Knowledge

There is a deeper and broader reality than the substance of our
communications to one another. Somehow the rationally intended and
and respond to
agreed upon messages we send and receive, interpret
Deeper than the
are a crucial but partial part of our meaning structure.
formally structured concepts, ideas or insights are
the very meanings
inherent in the structure of language; and broader than these same
make
ideas are the personal connotations, motivations and desires that
them relevant.
the suggestion that we
It is senseless and stupid to quarrel with
organized sense. Thus,
ought to know what we know in a formal and
pedagogical tool. Still, bet-
the structure of a discipline can be a useful
replace the function of
ter organizing schemes for knowledge cannot "out-
language itself, or breathe life for the individual into the essential
thereness" of culturally accumulated knowledge.
packaged cultural
Indeed, schools must have both a pedagogically
the
heritage and the means for bringing to life and for understanding

.q
4 Language and Meaning
deeper meanings of individual and cultural existence which pervade
learning in tbe experiences of persons.
The past few years have revealed an increasing growth in societies'
concern for tbe forms of knowledge. We have moved a great distance
from what our critics might call a lack of concern for the functions of
knowledge. Frequently this dichotomy has been posed in tbe terms
,
"content" versus "process." Yet the dichotomy is just thata dichotomy
and the two, form and function, are so intertwined that they cannot
be viewed as mutually exclusive terms.
Attempts to substitute a new process have been proposed under the
aegis of "modes of inquiry." By this proposal the dichotomy is hopefully
resolved into the formal areas of knowledge, and concepts become one
side of the coin, inquiry processes the other side.
If this is indeed true, then we need a three-legged stool for analogy
rather than a two-sided coin; for a third elementpersonal meaning
must still be involved.
The present concern for the disciplines, their structure and modes
of inquiry, reflects a social theory of knowledge (see, e.g., [7]). Thus,
knowledge is formed for its social uses and discovered r invented as a
result of social stimulation. Groups of scholars can LI and are sub-
systems of society with their own status and roles, prestige and reward
systems. Knowledge is created for the use of the scholar in this erudite
but not less social system. This created knowledge can then be made
available for tbe broader society in applied packages of a variety of
sorts.
The broader and deeper meanings of knowledge go beyond a
contemporary societal view and reflect cultural and personal theories of
knowledge. A functional conceptualization of culture would suggest the
development of a social theory of knowledge which "fits" our culture.
The very fact that ours is a "scientific" culture, at least in some sense,
may be related to the broader cultural values found in our society; and,
at the root of this rests the cause-effect thinking inherent in our subject-
predicate language forms. Thus, the "structure of our disciplines" and
the "modes of our inquiry" are as surely grounded in a selected set of
cultural values, of which they represent one set of alternatives, as any
other select phenomena of language.
Personal knowledge brings depth to meaning and reflects the
uniqueness of our own experiences.The connotation we bring to words,
tbe commitments we give to certain ideas, or the perceptual selections
we make from among relevant alternatives are all predicated upon and
integrated through the unique being of each individual.
 F.:41.47a516512=2:05"172EnZinIMZEWRI

Language, Meaning and Motivation 5

Reid (8) phrases the personal aspect of knowledge succinctly. He

says:
Yet, without denying at all the absolutely crucial importance of symbolic
statement of different kinds for the growth and development of human under-
standing, one can also say that knowledge, although partly expressed in state-
ments, never consists of the statements; and the living mind is always much
more than can be contained in any number of statements.
Gaining knowledge, then, is not quite the simple matter of mastering
man's statements about reality, no matter how well organized these
statements may be for pedagogical purposes and social 'uses. The very
forms of man's symbols are creations of the culture in which he lives
and predispose him to limit and shape his awareness of the "to be
known" in the forms of his symbolic structures. Yet the abstracting of
experience through symbolic form does not encompass all of what is to
be known with reference to the statements of reality, nor does it pre-
clude the necessity of knowledge being possessed by a living person.

Focus of the Institutes

Sometimes the ferment which stirs a now "untidy" life in a pupil's mind
is much more valuable than the assimilation and tidy reproduction of state-
ments given to him. It is doubtful whether by present standards we do justice
to this. The concepts of "knowledge" and "knowing" need attention. There is a
tendency among scientists and philosophersand educationists influenced by
themto "corner" the word "knowledge" and exploit it for important but
limited ends. The ordinary uses of the word are much more liberal. Reflec-
tion upon the more liberal uses may liberalize the concept of the increase of
"knowledge" which we seek when we educate (9).
It was the very hope of the Curriculum Research Institutes that
the presentations of the invited speakers would provide a fresh impetus
to revietv the perspective of a broader and deeper meaning of knowledge
and refocus educators upon the more liberal uses of the concept.
There is no intention here to reject the social uses of knowledge,
but primarily to temper the present resurgence of structures and modes,
big ideas and logical strategies, with the heat of perspective.
There is, after all, no reason to suspect that the reformulation of
content alone in the schools will suffice to counter the loss of self, the
dehumanization and depersonalization of people living in a technological
society such as curs. Further, there is no reason to suspect that the
structure of the disciplines can by magic of the reorganization reduce

a't h 4,1 9
6 Language and Meaning
the threat of nuclear holocaust, bring justice and equality to ll peoples,
or provide a basis for freedom from poverty for all.
No one, to be sure, has made such claims, but we might pause to
ask why the climate of our time makes education "ripe" for this
epistemological recipe. Is this phenomenon another example of rational-
izing rationality? Could this movement be related to the overall
technological trend to systematize all human interaction? Is this primarily
a project of human engineering based upon an efficiency motif?
Perhaps only time will tell. However, it will do no harm and may
promise some good to stretch the rubber band of educational thought a
bit to include a clearer understanding of language, meaning and
motivation within the knowledge package.

Relationships of the Papers to the Theme

The concepts of language, meaning and motivation encompass
a phenomenally wide variety of potential topics. The papers presented
here only make a small offering to the altar of the intellect in these areas.
Yet perusal of these statements should prove to be challenging and
productive of exciting ideas for most readers.
Dwayne Huebner brings the discipline of commitment and historical
perspective to the problems of curriculum conceptualizations. His search
among the broader aspects of our culture for old and new ways to talk
about curriculum provides a much needed "set" for viewing the cur-
riculum scene.
Philip H. Phenix supplies the framework of analytic philosophy to
the problems of knowledge in the curriculum. His refusal to lose sight
of the contextual elements of our knowledge statements is impressive
both in its exhibition of scholarly discipline and in the insights it can
stimulate for curriculum developers.
The element of felt meaning is deftly probed by Eugene T. Gendlin.
His journey takes us into the reaches of the unstatable but knowable
interplay of affect and cognition in human activity. From the perspective
of the clinical psychologist, be clearly exposes the depth of personal
knowing in a stimulating and suggestive manner.
Aspects of the potential multi-faceted meanings of language are
discussed by Walter Loban. His lucid and fast moving statements about
what language reveals about people and itself; and the problems and
prospects of teaching people to use language effectively reflect the
curiosity, concern and understanding which have grown out of years of
research in the area of children's language learning.
4.1.71" trkikeri4,-",

Language, Meaning and Motivation 7

and
Mary Jane McCue Aschner's distinction between "attached"
"addressed" meanings and their relationship to thinking is fruitfully
of three con-
descriptive of important understandings. Her discussion
interesting setting
ceptions of thinking in classroom research provides an
tasks.
for the development of suggestions for the design of curriculum brings
The final paper deals with motivation. Thomas J. Johnson
psychologist to one of the
the skill and perspective of the experimental
most perplexing areas of psychology. His review of motivation theory,
imaginative research is im-
and his description of his own unusually
pressiv,e, refreshing and promising.
In all, then, the papers in this publication provide a wide and varied
of the Curriculum
display of special interests and perspectives on the topic
patterned essence, if not in
Research Institutes. They are dedicated in
specific intent, to a broader and deeper awareness of the problems and
curriculum. To this extent
insights concerning knowledge of and in the
one may feel confident they have succeeded with a flourish.

References
Invention." Saturday Review,
1. Jerome S. Bruner. "Education as Social
Educational Supplement 44 (8): 70-103; February 19, 1966.
2. Herbert M. Kliebard. "Structure of the Disciplines as an Educational
Slogan." Teachers College Record 66 (7): 598-603; April 1965.
A Sharp Dissent."
3. Alexander Calandra. "The New Science Curriculum:
School Management 8 (11): 76-82; 1964.
York: A Mentor
4. Alfred North Whitehead. The Aims of Education. New
Book, The New American Library, 1949.
5. Charles H. Judd. Education as Cultivation of the Higher Mental Process.
New York: The Macmillan Company, 1955.
Basic to the Social
6. Neal Billings. A Determination of Generalizations
Studies Curriculum. Baltimore: Warwick and York, 1929.
Its Political and Economic
7. Michael Polanyi. "The Republic of Science,
Theory." Minerva 1 (1): 54-73; Autumn 1962.
International Publication
8. L. A. Reid. Philosophy and Education. New York:
Service, 1962. p. 34-35.
9. Ibid., p. 35.
Curricular Language and
Classroom Meanings

Dwayne Huebner

THE educator participates in the paradoxical structure of the

universe. He wishes to talk about language, but must use language for
his talk. He infers that meanings exist, but has only language, or other
symbol systems, as a vehicle for his inference. Hemmed in by his
language, he nevertheless has audacity to tackle problems on the edge
of his awareness. The educator would talk of the language of children?
With what language would he do this? Would be identify file meanings
significant for young people? What meanings, shaped by what language,
give him the power to do so? It is as if he detected a speck in his
student's eye, but failed to notice the log in his own.
Release from the confinement of existing language, or more appro-
priately, transcendence of existing patterns of speech is available through
several channels. The theologian would argue that the vicious circle is
broken or transcended only by grace, mediated through the openness
and receptivity available through prayer. The aesthetician would argue
that literature, specifically poetry, enables lowly man to break out of
his verbal prison and to achieve "a victory over language." The scientist
would point to his success with observation, classification, hypothesis
formation, and experimentation as a way of breaking through language
barriers. The critic of social ideologies would argue that "conventional
wisdom"2 is destroyed and reformed only by the "massive onslaught of
circumstance with which they cannot contend."3
1 John Mkldleton Murry. The Problem of Style. London: Oxford University
Press, 1922. p. 101.
" John Kenneth Galbraith. The Affluent Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Company, 1958. p. 9.
3 Ibid., p. 20.

8
var

Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 9

Unfoaunately, the language which shapes the thought of the

curricular specialist is not usually part of prayerful acts, nor can the
educator depend upon revelation or prophecy to refresh and recondition
his language. If grace operates in the educational realm, it does so
through other channels. Likewise, curricular language is, again unfortu-
nately, not within the realm of literature. The formulator and writer of
curricular language is seldom an artist. The penetrating image or signifi-
cant metaphor is infrequently found in pedagogical materials. This mis-
fortune is intensified by the nearsightedness of the educator who tries to
be scientific by throwing out subjective formulations, yet who never quite
produces a language system which can be made, shattered and reconsti-
tuted through the creative methodologies of science.
The curricular worker is stuck, so to speak, with conventional
wisdom, which yields only to the "onslaught of circumstance." The
onslaught of educational circumstances is felt differently by various
educators. The individual educator's professional sensory and cognitive
system is a delicate instrument for detecting shifts in his educational
world. His responsiveness takes the form of new actions and new speech.
Fortunately, all educators have not been shaped by the same conditioning
agents, their sensory and cognitive systems detect different shifts, and
their responsiveness takes different forms. Who knows, from such chaos
a science might emerge! Civen sufficient grace, the educator might even
be blessed with the highest possible form of human creationpoetic
wisdom.
Today's curricular language seems filled with dangerous, non-
recognized myths; dangerous not because they are myths, but because
they remain non-recognized and unchallenged. The educator accepts as
given the laaguage which has been passed down to him by his historical
colleagues. He forgets that language was formed by man, for his
purposes, out of his experiencesnot by Cod with ultimate truth value.
As a product of the educator's past and as a tool for his present,
current curricular language must be put to the test of explaining existing
phenomena and predicting or controlling future phenomena. Such
curricular language must be continually questioned, its effectiveness
challenged, its inconsistencies pointed out, its flaws exposed, and its
presumed beauty denied. It must be doubted constantly, yet used
humbly, with the recognition that that is all he has today. Perhaps
tomorrow the educator will have better language, if he stays open to
the world which speaks to him, and responds with the leap of the
scientist, or the vision of the poet.
10 Language and Meaning
Myths in Curricular Language
Two tyrannical myths are embedded deeply in curricular language.
One is that of learningthe other that of purpose. These have become
almost magical elements within curricular language. The curricular
worker is afraid to ignore them, let alone question them, for fear of
the wrath of the gods. Fortmately, curricular language is not basically
frequently offered in the
a ritualistic form, although incantations are
educational temples identified as college classrooms and in sacramental
gatherings called faculty meetings. The roof will not fall in if
these
elements are deprecated and partially ignored. A
talisman need not be
rubbed if one acknowledges that learning is merely a retulated concept,
needed for
not a reality; and that goals and objectives are not a:ways
educational planning.
Indeed, curricular language seems rather ludicrous when the com-
plexity and the mystery of a fellow human being is encompassed in that
technical term of controlthe "learner." Think of itthere standing
before the educator is a being partially hidden in the cloud of unknowing.
For centuries the poet has sung of his near infinitudes; the theologian
has preached of his depravity and hinted of his participation in the
divine; the philosopher has struggled to encomp..,.ss him in his systems,
only to have him repeatedly escape; the novelist and dramatist have
captured his fleeting moments of pain and purity in never-to-be-forgotten
aesthetic forms; and the man engaged in curriculum has the temerity
speaks
to reduce this being to a single term"learner." E. E. Cummings
with greater force to the same point.4
0 sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
Reprinted from his volume
4 Copyright, 1923, 1951, by E. E. Cummings.
Poems 1923-1954 by permission of Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

TAW
 .1, ,,---;fstezttl t4y. tk. --'"

Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 11

beauty . how

often have religions taken

thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest

them only with

spring)

The educator confronts the human being and no language will ever
do him in or do him justice. Yet the curricular worker seems unwilling
to deal with mystery or doubt or unknowables. Mysteries are reduced
to problems, doubts to error, and unknowables to yet-to-be-discoverables.
The curriculum worker cannot deal with these because his language is
selected from the symbol systems of the social scientists and psycholo-
gistswhereas mysteries, doubts and unknowns are better handled by
poetry, philosophy and religion. His language, his pedaguese, hides the
mysteries, doubts and unknowns from him. Likewise, he assumes that
all human behavior is caused or has purpose, and that consequently his
educational activities must be goal-oriented. This leads, at times, to
ignoring the fullness of the eternal present for the sterility of the known
future. This has also led to the continual discussion of educational
purpose as if such discussion is the only valid entrance into the curricular
domain.
As with any myth, there is sufficient truth or value in these concepts
of learning and goals or purpose, and the language which supports
them, to warrant their continual use in curriculum. However, to the
extent that these notions are tyrannical and prevent the development
of other forms of curricular thought, they serve demonic forces.
No language system is so good or significant that other language systems
cannot eventually take its placeunless it is an aesthetic form. But an

4 16. > s
 ,:l.,114.!7Gr.54A1PniCP:KaWf

12 Language and Meaning

aesthetic form has no instrumental value. Other conceptual models
are possible for curricular problems and phenomena, and concepts
which inhibit their development must sometimes be violently uprooted
in order that the phenomena of concern can be more clearly seen.

Traditional Curricular Tasks

More or less traditional curricular thought, at least since Ty1er,6
bas operated with four basic problems or tasks: the formulation of
educational "objectives," the selection of "learning" experiences, the
organization of those learning experiences and their evaluation. Other
curricular writers expand or add to these four, but the basic framework
does not change. Here tyrannical mythology is freely displayed. The title
is "The Organization of Learning Experiences." Why not the organi-
zation of educational experiences? The formulation of objectives is
the first step; necessary, incidentally, because evaluation is the final step.
With these objectives, experiences can be selected, organized, and evalu-
ated. By framing curricular tasks in this language, the curricular worker
is immediately locked into a language system which determines his
questions as well as his answers.
To break from this framework, the language of learning and purpose
must be cast aside and new questions asked. To do this the curricular
worker must confront his reality directly, not through the cognitive
spectacles of a particular language system. As he does this, he is then
forced to ask, "What language or language system can be used to talk
about these phenomena?" His reality must be accepted, not his language;
for many language systems may be used for a given reality.
The two major realities which confront the curricular worker are
the activities within a classroom, or activities designated in other ways
as educational, and the existential situation of choice among differing
classroom activities. This is an oversimplification, of course, for the
educator's primary dimension of existence is time, rather than space,
and the temporal nature of these realities is ignored for this analysis.

Educational Realities
The first reality is that of educational activity. What is and what
is not educational activity becomes, at the extremes, a category problem,

5 Ralph W. Tyler. "The Organization of Learning Experiences." In: Toward

Improved Curriculum Theory. Virgil Herrick and Ralph Tyler, editors. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1950. p. 59-67.
 er.,e7W.Crger.i*

Curricular Language and Classroom. Meanings 13

but generally educators can walk from one classroom or school to

another and point out to a non-educator what they consider to be
educational activity. Furthermore, they can dream about the future and
envisage educational activity in certain places or among certain people.
The language problem which emerges when the educator confronts
this educational activity, his first reality, is how to talk about it or how
to describe it. How does the teacher talk about his instruction as he
plans it or as he describes it to another? How does the supervisor
describe the classroom situation as he seeks to help the teacher? How
does the curriculum planner talk about events which he wants to happen
in classrooms?How does the teacher educator discuss classroom phenom-
ena with his students? How does the researcher describe the classroom
events that be studies?
The power of curricular mythologies becomes visible when the
problem is posed this way, for the educator is apt to describe the
student as a learner, the teacher becomes a goal setter, or a reinforcing
agent. Classroom activity is seen as a learning process in action, and
indeed teaching is often seen as the mirror image of learning. This
problem of description of educational activity has been solved in many
ways. Most methods books have some kind of solution. The studies of
teaching by Hugbes,8 Smith,6 Aschner,8 Bellack,7 and many others are
all efforts to develop a language which can be used to describe classroom
action. Teachers have their own way of talking and thinking about
what they are doing in the classroom. Many of the studies of newer
curricula are descriptions of what teachers can do in tbe classroom with
students. This descriptive problem is both a scientific problem and an
aesthetic one,8 for it is at the level of description that science and
poetry can merge.
The first reality is also related to a second problemthat of choice .!;

among viable alternatives. Selection among alternatives requires some

form of valuing, or at least some hierarchy of values. The second
language problem becomes that of making conscious or explicit the
value framework. When values are explicated a rationality is produced
which enables the maximizing of that value. In turn, this rationality
contains descriptive terminology which may be used to solve the first

Arno Bellack. Theory and Research in Teaching. New York: Bureau of

Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1963.
7 Arno Bellack. The Language of the Classroom. New York: The Institute of
Psychological Research, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1963.
8 F. S. C. Northrup. The Logic of the Sciences and the Humanities. New York:
The Macmillan Company, 1947. p. 169-90.
 AAA C...." .5 A V 6-

14 Language and Meaning

problem. The valuing problem and the description problem are con-
sequently intertwined, thus complicating curricular language.
The key curricular questions, rather neutral from most descriptive
and value points of view, are "What can go on in the classroom?" and
"How can this activity be valued?" The central notion of curricular
thought can be that of "valued activity." All curricular workers attempt
to iden ify and/or develop "valued educational activity." The most
effective move from this central notion is the clarification of the value
frameworks or systems which may be used to value educational activity.

Value Systems
Five value frameworks or systems may be identified. The terms
which identify them are not as precise as they might be, but discussion
and criticism should aid in sharpening them. For purposes of discussion,
and eventually criticism, they may be labeled technical, political, scien-
tific, aesthetic and ethical values.

Technical

Current curricular ideology reflects, almost completely, a technical

value system. It has a means-ends rationality that approaches an
economic model. End states, end products, or objectives are specified
as carefully and as accurately as possible, hopefully in behavioral terms.
Activities are then designed which become the means to these ends or
objectives. The primary language systems of legitimation and control
are psychological and sociological languages. Ends or objectives are
identified by a sociological analysis of the individual in the present or
future social order, and these ends or objectives are then translated into
psychological languageusually in terms of concepts, skills, attitudes
or othewbehavioral terms. With these ends clearly in mind the language
of psychology, primarily of learning, is used to generate, or at least
sanction, certain activities which can produce these defined ends.
Major concerns for the curricular worker are the mobilization of
material and human resources to produce these ends. Books and audio-
visual or other sensory aids are brought to the students, or students
are taken to actual phenomena. Teachers are trained, hired or placed
to produce the right mixture of human and material resources. Organi-
zation, and, to an extent not readily recognized in curricular thought,
costs are carefully scrutinized and some effort at efficiency is made.
The control of the input of materials and human resources is a major
 Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 15

source of control of this means-ends system. Evaluation, from the point

of view of the technical value system, may he considered a type of
quality control. The end product is scrutinized to see if it can go on the
market with the stamp of approval, or if not yet at the end of the
production line, the inadequate products-in-process are shunted aside to
be reworked 1-y remedial efforts until they can return to the normal
production line. Evaluation, or inspection, also serves to check the quality
of activities in the producing sequence. These activities may be improved
or altered if the end states are not what they should be.
Technical valuing and economic rationality are valid and necessary
modes of thought in curriculum. The school does serve a technical
function in society by conserving, developing and increasing human
resources which are essential for the maintenance and improvement
of the society. This technical function is obvious during wartime, when
schools and universities are taken over to serve national purposes. During
peacetime, the same social needs exist, but the technical values and
economic rationality are apt to be bidden behind the verbal cloaks
which a democratic society wraps around itself. So the educator talks
of the need for individuals to read, to write, to compute, to think in
certain ways, and to make a living in order to exist productively in his
society. Technical valuing and economic rationality are necessary in
curricular thought, for problems of scarcity and of institutional purpose
do exist. However, this is but one value system among five, and to
reduce all curricular thought to this one is to weaken the educator's
power and to pull him out of the mysteriously complex phenomena of
human life.

Political

The second category, political valuing, also exists in curricular

thought; more often covertly than overtly. This value category exists
because the teacher, or other educator, has a position of pow3r and
control. He influences others directly or through the manipulation of
resources. To remain in a position of effective power, he must seek the
support of thoge in positions to reward him or influence his behavior
in some way. His work, his teaching or educational leadership, becomes
the vehicle by which people judge the worth of his influence and hence
decide whether he is worthy of their support, respect, or positive
sanctions. Educational activity is consequently valued by the teacher, or
other curricular leader, for the support or respect that it brings him.
1(3 Language and Meaning
The teacher acts in ways that bring positive support from the
principal, superintendent, parents, colleagues, or college professors.
Merit ratings, promotions, positions of responsibility, respect in the
community, informal leadership among staff members are all fruits of
acceptable and enviable efforts. The teacher may produce classroom
activity which pleases the custodian, thus assuring him of a quick response
when the room needs special attention or when supplies are needed.
The superintendent may act to create classroom activity which brings
forth rave notices from critical reporters, or accolades from university
professors, thus gaining him more prestige in the community. H. may
need to act in certain ways, to influence classroom activities, in order
to gain maximum support for the next bond issue.
The search for increased recognition or power is not inherently bad.
A teacher or educational leader must have minimal power to influence
others. His efforts are apt to be more successful if be has this power,
or at least the trust and respect of those who count. The rationality that
accompanies this form of valuing is a political rationality, in which the
curricular worker seeks to maximize his power or prestige in order that
he may accomplish his work as effectively as possible.
All educational activity is valued politically. The teacher who
claims to be immune is so only because be is in equilibrium with his
educational community. But given a change of situation, administrators,
lay attitudes, or colleagues, that one-time non-politically oriented teacher
must again rethink how his educational activity reflects upon his standing
in fine local educational Community. There is nothing evil or immoral
about political rationality and valuing. Indeed it is necessary if personal
influence and responsibility arc to be maximized. Of course, if power
and prestige are sought as ends, rather than as means for responsible
and creative influence, evil and immorality may be produced. Yet dreams
and visions are not realized without personal or professional power.
Hannah Arendt, in her Human Condition, identifies politics as one of
the great arts of man, a fact too often forgotten in this clay of self-
aggrandizement and materialism.

Scientific

Scientific activity may be 1.)road1y designated as that activity which

produces new knowledge with an empirical basis. Hence educational
activity may be valued for the howledge that it produces about that
activity. The teacher, the curricular worker, the educational researcher
are always in need of more and better warranted assertions about edu-
 Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 17

cational activity. They can construct and manipulate teaching situations

to test new hypotheses, or to produce new facts as new technologies
and techniques are introduced. Whereas technical valuing seeks to
maximize change in students, scientific valuing seeks to maximize the
attainment of information or knowledge for the teacher or educator.
The rationality by which scientific values are heightened is some
form of scientific methodology. This methodology may take the form
of action research or of controlled experimental design. It may be nothing
more than exposing students to new situations and ordering the forth-
coming responses. Teachers may seek to create unique classroom situ-
ations which will give them more information about individual students.
Researchers may expose children to new teaching strategies in order
materials or the
to discover necessary conditions for the use of given
accomplishment of certain ends. A total packaged curriculum may be
tested to produce information about how teachers and students respond
to a given curriculum.
Scientific valuing is a necessary form of curricular valuing. Only
as new facts are produced and as new assertions are warranted can
the educational enterprise keep pace with the world of which it is a part.
Only as individual teachers seek more precise knowledge about their
students and about their teaching procedures can they stay abreast of
the "onslaught of circumstance." Educational activity valued only for
the change produced in students or for the support it brings to teachers
is narrowly conceived, for it may also produce significant changes in
the educator if he undertakes it with the sensitivities of the scientist.

Aesthetic
The aesthetic valuing of educational activity is often completely
ignored, perhaps because the educator is not sufficiently concerned
with or knowledgeable about aesthetic values or perhaps because
aesthetic activities are not highly prized today in society. Scientific
and technical values are more highly prized consciously, and political
values are more highly prized unconsciously or covertly. Valued aestheti-
cally, educational activity would be viewed as having symbolic and
aesthetic meanings. At least three dimensions of this value category may
be identified.
First is what Bullough calls the element of psychical distance.9
The aesthetic object, in this case educational activity, is removed from
Edward Bullough. "Psychical Distance as a Factor in Art and an Esthetic
Principle." In: A Modern Book of Aesthetics. Melvin Rader, editor. New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 1952.

14' 1 0. to .111
', 1:
18 Language and Meaning
the world of use. It is a conditioned object which does not partake of
the conditioned world; that is, it has no use, no functional or instru-
mental significance, and consequently may partake of or be symbolic
of the unconditional. It is possibility realized, ordinarily impossible in
the functional world. It is spontaneity captured, normally lost in the
ongoing world. Because of aesthetic distance, the art object, in this 4
case educational activity, is the possibility of life, captured and height-
ened and standing apart from the world of production, consumption
and intent. The art object has beauty. Educational activity can have
beauty.
The second dimension of the aesthetic category is that of wholeness
and design. Because the aesthetic object stands outside of the functional
world it has a totality and unity which can be judged or criticized.
The art critic speaks of balance, of harmony, of composition, of design,
of integration and of closure. The art object may be a source of content-
ment and peace, of a unity to be found only in the realm of perfection,
the land of dreaming innocence. Educational activity may thus be
valued in terms of its sense of wholeness, of balance, of design and of
integrity, and its sense of peace or contentment.
The third dimension of aesthetic value is that of symbolic meaning.
Any aesthetic object is symbolic of man's meanings. It reflects the
meanings of the artist as an individual; it also reflects the meaning
existing in and emerging from man as a life form. The aesthetic object,
indeed educational activity, may be valued for the meanings that it
reveals, and may be valued for its truth. Educational activity is symbolic
of the meanings of the educator, as an individual and as a spokesman
for man. The teaching of educators who are spiteful, unrealized human
beings reflects these inner meanings. The meaninglessness and routine
of much educational activity today reflects the meaninglessness and
routine of a mechanistic world order. In the rare classroom is the
possible vitality and significance of life symbolized by the excitement,
fervor and community of educational activity. Educational activity can
symbolize the meanings felt and lived by educators.

Ethical

Finally, educational activity may be valued for its ethical values.

Here the educational activity is viewed primarily as an encounter
between man and man, and as ethical categories for valuing this encoun-
ter come into being, Metaphysical and perhaps religious language become
the primary vehicle for the legitimation and thinking through of edu-
 Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 19

cational activity. The concern in this value category is not on the

significance of the educational act for other ends, or the realization
of other values, but the value of the educational act per se.
For some, the encounter of man with man is seen as the essence of
life, and the form that this encounter takes is the meaning of life. The
encounter is not used to produce change, to enhance prestige, to
identify new knowledge, or to be symbolic of something else. The
encounter is. In it is the essence of life. In it life is revealed and lived.
The student is not viewed as an object, an it; but as a fellow human
being, another subject, a thou, who is to be lived with in the fullness
of the present moment or the eternal present. From the ethical stance
the educator meets the student, not as an embodied role, as a lesser
category, but as a fellow human being who demands to be accepted on
the basis of fraternity not simply on the basis of equality. No thing, no
conceptual barrier, no purpose intrudes between educator and student
when educational activity is valued ethically. The fullness of the edu-
cational activity, as students encounter each other, the world around
them, and the teacher, is all there is. The educational activity is life
and life's meanings are witnessed and lived in the classroom.
Educational activity is seldom, if ever, valued from within only
one of the value categories. Rather all five are, or may be, brought to
bear in the valuing process. Today, classroom activity is viewed
primarily from the technological value category, but political consider-
ations are also brought to bear; and scientific, aesthetic, and ethical
values may be brought to bear. The proposition may be put forth that
educational activity in classrooms will be richer and more meaningful
if all five categories are brought to bear. Indeed, the insignificance and
inferior quality of much teaching today may be a result of attempts to
maximize only the technical and political and perhaps scientific values
without adequate attention to the aesthetic and ethical values. Classroom
activity which is socially significant because of heightened technical
efficiency might have greater personal significance for students and
teacher if the aesthetic and ethical categories were also used to value
the activity. But these notions become possibbities for further search and
eventually research.

Systems of Rationality
Curricular language is not simple. Many ways can be found or
utilized to identify and choose "valued educational activity." The five
value categories which have been proposed carry with them forms of
20 Language and Meaning
rationality which may be used to talk about classroom activity. These
forms of rationality are not adequately developed here, and require
much more effort before they can be used to analyze, describe, or
create educational activity. However, the general aspects are perhaps
sufficiently developed to explore the dimensions of classroom meanings
which may exist. Attention will be given to ethical and aesthetic valuing
and possible forms of rationality which may accompany them. The
technical is well represented in current curricular literature. The scien-
tific and political are hinted at in a few places, although specific
curricular implications need to be developed.

Ethical Rationality

Ethical valuing demands that the human situation existing between

student and teacher must be uppermost, and that content must be seen
as an arena of that human confrontation. This human situation must
be picked away at until the layers of the known are peeled back and
the unknown in all of its mystery and awe strikes the educator in the
face and heart, and be is left with the brute fact that be is but a man
trying to influence another man. A man is being influenced, even if
in the form of a child. And it is another man who is influencing, some-
how daring to make judgments, to direct attention, to impose demands,
and to recommend action and thoughts. How dare be so dare? Probably
because be is aware that be has, as have all beings, the power to influence.
Awareness of the power to influence may lead to hubris, the demonic
state of false pride in the educator's own omnipotence, or to the
bumbling recognition that with the power to influence comes th life-
giving possibility of being influenced. The humble acceptance of his
power to influence and to be influenced makes possible his freedom
to promise and forgive and his willingness to do so. An act of education
is an act of influence: one man trying to influence another man. Edu-
cational activity is ethical when the educator recognizes that be partici-
pates in this human situation of mutual influence, and when be accepts
his ability to promise and to forgive.
The educational activity differs from other human encounters by
this emphasis on influence, for clearly the educator is seen, and accepted,
as a person who legitimately attempts to influence. However, he operates
within the uniquely human endeavor of conversation, the giving and
receiving of the word at the frontiers of each other's being. It is in
conversation that the newness of each participant can come forth and
the unconditioned can be revealed in new forms of gesture and language.
 Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 21

The receptive listener frees the speaker to let the unformed emerge into
new awarenesses, and the interchange which follows has the possibility
of moving both speaker and listener to new heights of being.
Educational activity is activity not only between man and man,
however. It also involves activity between the student and other beings
in the world. The student encounters other people and natural and
man-made phenomena. To these be has the ability to respond. Indeed,
education may be conceived to be the influencing of the student's
response-ability. The student is introduced to the wealth and beauty
of the phenomenal world, and is provided with the encouragement to
test out his response-abilities until they call forth the meaning of what
it is to be thrown into a world as a human being.
Here, then, arc concepts which might possibly be used in an ethical
rationality of educational activity: response-ability, conversation, influ-
ence, promise, and forgiveness. How can these concepts be used to
explore the meanings of classroom activity?
First, the sanctity of response-ability and speech must be recognized.
The human being with his finite freedom and his potential participation
in the creation of the world, introduces newness and uniqueness into
the world, and contributes to the unveiling of the unconditioned by
the integrity of his personal, spontaneous responsiveness. His responses
to the world in which he finds himself are tokens of his participation
in this creative process, and must be accepted as such. Forcing responses
into preconceived, conditioned patterns inhibits this participation in
the world's creation. Limiting response-ability to existing forms of
responsiveness denies others of their possibility of evolving new ways
of existing.
Speech may be considered a basic form of man's response-in-the-
world. Indeed, Heidegger" equates speech with man's reply as he
listens to the world. New speech, poetic nonritualistic or non-conditioned
speech, is part of this creative unfolding of the world, and demands
from the other a response in kind. The expressions of young children
may be pure poetry, in that they can reveal to the adult previously
unnoticed newness and possibility. The new fly-vies of the scientist
are likewise poetic statements which partake of this joy of creation.
Unfortunately, the expressive statements of young children are too
frequently ignored or pushed into the venerable coin of the realm by tired
adult questions or coriditioned responses, and science is taught as a
body of knowns and sure things rather than as an activity of man which
10 Martin Heiclegger. Being and Time. Translated by John MacQuarrie and
Edward Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.
22 Language and Meaning
illuminates the unknown and man's poetic character. To accept the
non-conditioned speech and response of the student is to accept him,
and in so doing to accept the emergence of the unformed and to-be-
formed in the world.
Next, knowledge and other cultural forms must be seen as vehicles
for responsibility, conversation, and promise. The various disciplines
mathematics, biology, physics, history, sociology, visual arts, drama and
othersare not only bodies of principles, concepts, generalizations and
syntax to be learned. They are patterned forms of response-in-the-world,
which carry with them the possibilities of the emergence of novelty
and newness. Introducing tbe child to the language or symbols and
methods of geography or chemistry or music or sculpture is not to
introduce him to already existing forms of human existence which he
must know in order to exist. Rather these disciplines increase his ability
to respond to the world, they increase his response-ability in the world
and thus aid in the creation and re-creation of the world. Through them
he finds new ways to partake of the world, and he becomes more aware of
what be can become and what man can become.
Furthermore, the existing disciplines are language systems linking
men to each other via a vocabulary, a syntax, a semantic and a way of
making new language. The botanist is not simply a man who is inter-
ested in plants; he is a man who talks botany with other men. Disciplines
define language communities with their own symbolic rules, and knowl-
edge facilitates the conversations which may emerge. Knowledge
becomes a way of conversing between educator and student about some
phenomenon in the world. The educator, as a more experienced member
of the language community, responds to the student's speech critically
yet supportively. Knowledge, used in the process of educational influence
between educator and student, becomes an instrument of promise.
The educator does try to influence, but with the optimism and
faith in knowledge as a vehicle to new response-abilities and to new
conversational possibilities. In essence, be says to the student, "Look,
with this knowledge I can promise you that you can find new wonders
in the world; you can find new people who can interest you; and in
so finding you can discover what you are and what you can become.
In so doing you can help discover what man is, has been, and can bp.
With this knowledge I promise you, not enslavement, not a reduction
of your power, but fulfillment and possibility and response-ability." The
real teacher feels this promise. He knows the tinge of excitement as the
student finds new joys, new mysteries, new power, and new awareness
that a full present leads to a future. Too often today, promise is replaced
 Curricular Language and Classroom. Meanings 23

by demand, responsibility by expectations, and conversation by telling,

asking and answering.
Finally, ethical rationality for thinking about educational activity
provides the concept of forgiveness. This comes from the educator's
awareness that with the power to influence is the power to be influenced.
To avoid hubris, the educator must accept the possibility of error
error as be influences and as be has been influenced. Hence forgiveness
becomes necessary as a way of freeing one's self and the other from the
errors of the past. Forgiveness unties man from the past that he may
be free to contribute to new creation. With the power to forgive and to
be forgiven, the educator dares to influence and to be influenced in
the present. With the possibility of forgiveness the student dares to
express himself, to leap into the unknown, and to respond with the
totality of his being. As long as man is finite, promise must be accom-
panied by the possibility of forgiveness, otherwise only the old, the
known, the tried and tested will be evoked. Because the educator dares
to influence, he must have the courage to permeate classroom activity
with the ever present possibility of forgiveness; for if he does not, his
influence carries with it seeds of destruction through omniscience which
can be only demonic.

Aesthetic Rationality

When clascroom activity is viewed from the point of view of an

aesthetic rationality, quite different categories of meaning are derived.
As with the ethical, a variety of aesthetic vievvpoints is possible, but
Paul Valery'su view will be used here. The general scheme is that the
teacher creates an aesthetic object to which the students respond.
Their responses may also be considered aesthetic objects to which the
teacher responds as a critic. The intent throughout classroom activity
is not a search for preconceived ends but a search for beauty, for
integrity and form and the peace which accompanies them, and for
truth as life is unveiled through the acting and speaking of the
participants.
Valery defines the execution of a work of art as a "transition from
disorder to order, from the formless to form, or from impurity to purity,
accident to necessity, confusion to clarity."12 André Maurois expands
this by stating that aesthetic "order must dominate an actual disorder ...
11 Paul Valery. Aesthetics. Translated by Ralph Mannheim. New York:
Bollingen Foundation, 1964.
12 Ibid., p. 158.
24 Language and Meaning
the violent universe of the passions, the chaos of color and sound, domi-
nated by a human intelligence.... In great music, the torrent of sound
seems always on the point of turning into hurricane and chaos, and
always the composer, ... soars over the tempest, reins in the chaos.
But it is because the chaos has overwhelmed us that we are moved when
it is checked."'"
The teacher, then, in classroom activity can tame the incipient chaos
and dominate it with human intelligence. Classroom activity can seem
ready to disintegrate but for the aesthetic order imposed by the teacher.
The influence of this ordered disorder upon the student, if it is an object
or event of beauty, is to make him mute.14 But the response is not dead
silence, nor a response of admiration, but of "sustained attention."15 The
artist's intent is "to conjure up developments that arouse perpetual
desire,"" "to exact of his audience an effort of the same quality as his
own,"17 and "to provoke infinite developments in someone."18
The students, awed by the teacher's art, can be moved, then, "to the
enchanted forest of language ... with the express purpose of getting lost;
far gone in bewilderment, they seek crossroads of meaning, unexpected
echoes, strange encounters; they fear neither detours, surprises, nor
darkness; but the huntsman who ventures into this forest in hot pursuit
of the 'truth,' who sticks to a single continuous path, from which he
cannot deviate for a moment on pain of losing the scent or imperiling
the progress he has already made, runs the risk of capturing nothing
but his shadow."1° So the student seeks to dominate his newfound chaos
by his own intelligence, and as a critic the teacher responds with critical
concern but sympathetic intent. Classroom activity unfolds in a rhythmic
series of events, which symbolizes the meanings of man's temporal
existence.
Here, then, are concepts which could serve in an aesthetic rationality
of educational activity: the continual caging of chaos, psychical distance
or non-instrumentality, beauty or harmony and form, truth as unveiled
meaning, and criticism. How can these concepts be used to explore the
meanings of classroom activity? It would be possible to use these
notions to discuss the dynamics of teacher-student interaction. Yet mole
13Ibid., p. 163.
14ibid., p. 58.
15 Ibid., p. 161.
10 MU, p. 193.
IT Ibid., p. 161.
18 Ibid., p. 151.
19 Ibid., p. 48-49.
 Curricular Language and Classroom Meanings 25

fruitful in this day of knowledge and intellectual concerns is to hint at

the place of knowledge in educational activity from the point of view
of aesthetic rationality.
First, knowledge can be viewed as the ordering of particular bits
of chaos. The irrational or unconditioned constantly creeps out of all
forms of knowledge. As Jaspers states:
We become aware of the fact that in cognition we have moved in
categories which, even in their totality, are like a fine filigree with which we
grasp what at the same time we conceal with it ... pushing ahead restlessly
into the ocean of Being, we find ourselves always again and again at the beach
of categorically secure, definite, particular knowledge.20
In science it creeps out through the continual destruction and con-
struction of existing concepts and theories through the methodologies
of science. In social ideologies it creeps out through the onslaught of
circumstance. Thus in teaching, educational activity must order, but
the unbridled chaos should not be hidden from the student. To do so is
to deprive him of the element which calls forth the mute response, the
"sustained attention" and the "perpetual desire."
The psychical distance or non-instrumentality of valued educational
activity means that the playful involvement with the tools and products
of knowledge need not be subjugated to the demands of social or
biological necessity. The teacher and the students can be freed from the
demands of utilitarianism, and the classroom can become a place where
the purity and beauty of knowledge may be enjoyed for itself. The
student can be freed to use knowledge to heighten his own significance,
to enlarge his own sensitivities to tbe world, and to realize what he
could be. The near infinite possibilities of knowledge and knowing can
be hinted at, and the mysteries of the world can be pointed to without
the need to reduce them to problems to be solved.
Aesthetically valued, knowledge has more than power; it has beauty.
As a man-made form its balance and harmony, its composition, its
integrity and wholeness, point to the peaceful possibilities inherent in
human existence. The scientist, the engineer, as well as the artist, are
creative artists who engage in the creative evolution of new forms and
who bring harmony to a discordant world. Participating in the making
of his own knowledge, the student can recognize his inherent potential
to add to, and conversely to subtract from, the possibility of man-made
beauty. Intellectual disciplines as well as aesthetic crafts are vehicles
for this continuing creation.
20 Karl Jaspers. Truth and Symbol. Translated by Jean T. Wilde, William
Kluback and William Kimmel. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1959. p. 38 and 79.
26 Language and Meaning
As an aesthetic form, knowledge in educational activity becomes
symbolic of man's meanings and of his discovered truths. ICnowledge as
an aesthetic form is a token of man's responsiveness to his own feelings
and inner life and to his being a part of its world. Scientific forms of
knowledge point to man's willingness to listen to and observe the world
around him and to be conditioned by the unknown world. Technical
forms of knowledge are symbolic of man's power over the world, and of
his desire to shape the world into his own image. Knowledge treated as
having an existence beyond the individual or separated from man may
be symbolic of man's unwillingness to assume responsibility for his own
condition. Knowledge being made and remade in educational activity
may symbolize that the educator recognizes that his knowledge is but
one of the flowers of his life, which blooms and dies, and yet is the
seed of new life.
Finally, the act of criticism becomes a part of the aesthetic process.
/..l aesthetic events and forms must be able to withstand the criticism of
knowledgeable and responsible critics. The utterances and acts of
teacher and student are proper targets of sympathetic but critical con-
cern. Scientific criteria of empirical validity, parsimony, and logical .

structure are instruments for the criticism of scientific knowledge.

Pragmatic considerations can be a form of criticism of social ideologies.
Teacher and students, through their conversations, engage in the mutual
criticism of each other's orderings, and thus contribute to the continued
transcendence of form over chaos.
In conclusion, present curricular language is much too limited to
come to grips with the problems, or rather the mysteries, of language
and meaning of the classroom. The educator must free himself from
his self-confining schemas, in order that he may listen anew to the world
pounding against his intellectual barriers. The present methodologies
which govern curricular thought must eve ltually give away.
Identifying and proposing a solution to the twofold problem of
describing and valuing educational activAy identified in this paper is
but one attempt, among many that should be made, to reformulate
aspects of curricular language. With it other meanings of classroom
activity might be identified. As Conant points out, the significance of
scientific theory is not its. validity, but its fruitfulness. The scientific
value of these roughly sketched ideas will be their fruitfulness. Their
technical and political value are of no significance. Their ethical and
aesthetic meanings may be pondered.
 Curriculum and the
Analysis of Language

Philip H. Phenix

PHILOSOPHICAL inquiry in England and America today is

largely analytical in method and critical in temper. The modern move-
ment toward critical analysis gained its early impetus from studies in
mathematics and logic by such men as Peano and Frege, whose work
was taken up and developed into a full-scale system of symbolic logic
in the Principia Mathew lica of A. N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell,
Analysis has also been the keynote of the most productive work in the
philosophy of science in the piesent century. Einstein's relativity theories
were a direct consequence of applying rigorous logical thinking to the
fundamental processes of physical measurement, and the quantum
mechanical theory of matter and energy was built upon scrupulous
concern for logical precision.
Though mathematics and physics proved most amenable to precise
logical investigation, the methods of critical systematic analysis have
not been restricted to these fields, Shortly after 1900 the influential
English philosopher, G. E. Moore, began to develop analytical techniques
for examining the import of ordinary language in a variety of fields of
inquiry. Bertrand Russell also extended his concerns to language usage
generally, (Ind in this effort was joined by many other logicians, pre-
eminent among whom were Rudolph Carnap and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein, who at first emphasized the improvement of understanding
through the construction of artificial symbolic systems, in his later
years became the leading exponent of ordinary language analysis,
which now largely preoccupies technical philosophers in England and
America.

27

11;

ilhfcge.gfilt,:figa 4,411IT
28 Language and Meaning

The analytical outlook differs markedly from two other approaches

that have been dominant in the history of philosophy, namely, the
speculative and the ideological. Speculative philosophy, which is con-
cerned with building comprehensive systems of thought about the
universe, is perhaps represented in its most extreme form in the philoso-
phy of Hegel, although the great cosmological system of Whitehead
is hardly less impressive an achievement, and one that is doubly
interesting because it was created by one of the founders of modern
mathematical logic. I include in the ideological category philosophies
that are primarily concerned with promoting a particular method of
looking at knowledge as the only admissible one. The four leading
contemporary ideological philosophies are Marxism, pragmatism, logical
positivism, and existentialism, each of which, despite denials of the
charge, does purport to exhibit the one true way to understanding
The two categoriesspeculative and ideologicalare not mutually exclu-
sive. For exampl, Marxism and pragmatism both have marked specula-
tive components. Both nonanalytic types of philosophy have in common
the quality of system, one stressing content or conclusion and the other
emphasizing method.

Analytic Philosophy
Analytic philosophy departs from both speculative and ideological
philosophy in its concern for the detailed piecemeal study of the
varieties of human signification. The analyst avoids any prescription
of method or any comprehensive description of reality. He rather limits
himself to the careful investigation of some of the many different ways
in which people talk about experience. His attitude is open and tentative.
Hc does not attempt to find any single key to the interpretation of the
world, but patiently proceeds to make distinctions and to show relation-
0-lips among the vast array of possible modes of interpretation.
Philosophical analysis is not a new invention or discovery. It is, in
fact, the most ancient and venerable of the ways of philosophizing. For
the most part it is the way of Socrates, of Aristotle, and of St. Thomas.
It is also an important ingredient even in the system-bailders and the
methodological monists. In the present century, chiefly under the
tutelage of the exact sciences and encouraged by their prestige and
success, analysis has risen to a dominant position in professional
philosophy, complementing and criticizing the efforts of both kinds of
systematizers.
 Curriculum and ihe Ana 10,9 of Language 29

Since philosophy of education consists in the philosophical considera-

tion of educational practice, the character of this branch of philosophy
depends on one's general philosophic attitude and approach. Until the
last ten or fifteen years philosophy of education has been almost ex-
clusively of the speculative and ideological types. The standard approach
in courses in this subject was, and to a considerable extent still is, to
present the various systems of philosophy, such as idealism and realism,
or the various methodological ideologies such as pragmatism, Marxism,
existentialism, and logical positivism, so as to exhibit the supposed
"educational implications" of each "ism."
It is now becoming increasingly recognized that this approach to
educational orientation through philosophic systems is at best of very
limited validity and at worst seriously misleading. One difficulty is that
educational practices are not related to theoretical philosophies in any
pattern of simple deductive inference, as the "isms" approach assumes.
Another related problem is that the issues and the categories that are
appropriate to the discussion of educational concerns do not coincide
with those that are used in setting up the various systems of philosophy.
The attempt to fit educational issues into neat' systematic packages
according to speculative or methodological criteria thus proves to be
a questionable exercise in pedantic ingenuity.
Into this situation of sterile academicism, philosophical analysis
has brought new hope for the philosophy of education. A fresh start has
been made by returning in piecemeal fashion to the patient, critical
exploration of educational issues, without any attempt to comprehend
everything within a single grand scheme or to comprise all inquiry
within a single methodological framework.
Accordingly, in recent years a new analytic movement in educational
thought has rapidly emerged to supplement and, I hope, eventually to
displace the traditional "isms" type of educational philosophy. Thinkers
like Israel Scheifier, Robert Ennis, Kingsley Price, and James McClellan
have begun to produce and collect a considerable body of literature
dealing with educational ideas from the standpoint of logical analysis.
Much of the analysts' attention has been devoted to the careful discussion
of the various uses to which such educational terms as "teaching,"
"learning" and "knowing" are put, with the aim of demonstrating by
typical examples that no single definition will suffice, but that a number
of different interrelated logical constructions must be distinguished. In
view of these distinctions, the analysts show that broad generalizations
about the process of education, which are standard for the speculative
and ideological types of educational philosophy, have no specifiable
30 Language and Meaning
meaning, but serve mainly as slogans for the propagation of special
pedagogical interests.
From the pursuit of the analysis of educational language, a further
noticed
consequence ensues that I believe has not been clearly enough
thorough-
even by many who espouse and employ analytic methods. A
"learning" shows not
going treatment of an educational conerpt such as
only that no satisfactory idea of learning-in-general can be set forth,
but that one cannot even do justice to this concept by making a variety
of generalized distinctions such as between
"learning that;' "learning
how," and "learning why," that is, between fact, skill, and explanation
further analyzed into a
uses of "learning," even when these types are
number of distinct typical sub-uses.
It is now becoming evident that the significance of educational
ideas cannot be assessed apart from a detailed analysis of the specific
contexts in which they are employed. What are these specific contexts?
The answer to this question depends on the content of the curriculum,
which includes the various distinctive types of experiences into which
the student is guided. Now the school is not a separate and autonomous
institution. It is one institution among others in an interdependent cultural
complex. If the school is to serve the needs of real persons in a real
society, the curriculum must do justice to the many different types of
experience that people actually have. Furthermore, in order to give
students the benefit of the accumulated wisdom of civilization, so that
they do not have to try to recapitulate the whole history of invention
and discovery, the curriculum should consist of opportunities for experi-
ence selected so as to make available to the learner the best organized
and the most productive insights. In view of the vast amount of knowl-
edge that can be learned and the relatively limited time in which to
made,
learn it, careful selection of curricular materials should be
eliminating not only what is misleading and erroneous, but also
everything that is routine, commonplace, uncritical and superficial.

Disciplined Inquiry
As I have argued at length elsewhere, the curricular materials
meeting the requirements of a modern school arc derived from scholarly
and professional disciplines. Disciplined knowledge is that which is
produced by communities of expert inquirers whose efforts have proven
reliably fruitful in insight and fresh discoveries. The task of the educator,
then, is to introduce students to the methods and results of disciplined
 Curriculum and the Analysis of Language 31

inquiry, thereby mediating to the nonspecialist the cognitive benefits

of the major areas of specialized investigation.
The disciplines are also the basis for distinguishing the sub-types
of knowledge into which analytic inquiry ought to he directed. The
various disciplines differ by virtue of the different kinds of things
investigated and the different conceptual schemes used in the process
of investigating. They represent a primary source of conceptual dis-
criminations that mark the path for philosophical analysis to follow.
The meaning of "learning" cannot be stated in general or even in
certain broad limiting categories. Instead, it ought to be analyzed
within the context of each discipline, to show what it signifies under
the actual conditions in which knowledge is gained and validated,
"Learning" in mathematics is not the same as "learning" in biology, in
morals, or in history. Each discipline has its characteristic ways of
learning, which should be the object of analytic investigation.
It seems clear that the study of typical concepts and methods in
the disciplines is the task to which philosophical analysis may most
profitably he directed. Such an approach emphasizes the virtual identity
of philosophy and philosophy of education, for the divisions into which
philosophic study naturally falls are mainly the disciplines, which also
constitute the basis for the curriculum. In this connection it is interesting
that a recent series of thirteen introductory studies in the "Foundations
of Philosophy," edited by Elizabeth and Monroe Beardsley, includes
eight that deal with specific discipline areas, namely, mathematics,
language, natural science, social science, art, morals, history, and religion.
Two others, logic and theory of knowledge, concern problems wbich
underlie analysis of the specific discipline areas. The study of meta-
physics, which is in large part a philosophy of human nature, as well
as the study of political philosophy, are also both fundamental to the
consideration of educational issues. The one other study, entitled
Philosophy of Education, is manifestly concerned explicitly with
education.
The point of emphasis in all this is that, in order to be fruitful and
relevant, both philosophy and education must be related directly to
what specialized investigators are doing in the various disciplines.
Philosophies of everything-in-general, as propounded by the system-
builders and congealed in the "isms" of their followers, no longer
represent a sufficient interpretation of human experience. Modem
philosophy must be closely linked with what is actually going on in the
32 Language and Meaning

specific areas of disciplined investigation. Likewise, the curriculum needs

to be directly related to the various disciplines of knowledge.
In thus stressing piecemeal analysis and the specialized disciplines,
I may appear to be ruling out the integrative element in both philosophy
and education. Surely there is a great need in modern culture for unifying
ideas and ideals to encourage personal and social coordination. It would
be a matter for regret if the growth of specialization should only increase
the fragmentation of modern life. Fortunately, there are disciplines that
are specifically designed to serve the purposes of integration. Their
characteristic concepts and methods are chosen so as to reveal significant
relationships. Philosophy itself is integrative, especially in such branches
as metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and social philosophy, in which
interpretive categories of wide applicability are developed. The
disciplines of history, religion, and literature are also synoptic in
perspective, as are some of the more concrete empirical sciences,
including anthropology, sociology, political science, and geography.
Philosophy goes astray when its integrative function is conceived in
the manner of a monolithic system or method, for the result of such
restriction is just the opposite of unification, namely, the generation of
sectarian philosophical orthodoxies. Furthermore, education organized
under the guidance of such philosophies is diverted from its proper
connection with the living sources of culture. For example, an existential-
ist, a Thomist, or an experimentalist philosophy of education, seriously
applied, would impoverish teaching and learning by directing attention
too narrowly to certain aspects of experience. In contrast, philosophy of
education conceived analytically is open to the full range of possibilities
for the interpretatibn of experience. It is not designed to provide a grand
alternative to the detailed insights of the many specialized disciplines,
as the systematic and ideological philosophies in effect aim to do, but
to contribute to the logical interpretation and symbolic elucidation of
the knowledge coming from every domain of human experience,
including the whole spectrum of organized disciplines.

Logical Analysis of Language

in the Disciplines
I want now to illustrate the sort of contribution that philosophy
conducted as the logical analysis of language in the disciplines can make
to educational theory and practice. For this purpose I shall cite several
introductory studies, each dealing in an analytical fashion with one
discipline in the curriculum.
 CurrWulum and the Analysts of Language 33

Ordinary Language
The first reference is a collection of analytical essays entitled
Philosophy and Ordinary Language, edited by Charles E. Caton. Philo-
sophical analysts have given considerable attention to the logical
structure of ordinary language. Though often concerned with what seem
to be inconsequential trivia, their discussions are of direct relevance to
language education. First, analysis encourages due respect for the
subtlety and complexity of ordinary language. In an essay in the Caton
volume, J. L. Austin, for example, shows that there is no sense to
questions about the meaning of a word in general. Individual words
ordinarily do not have meaning; sentences do. Hence the meaning of
a word must always be determined by reference to its syntactics and
semantics, that is, to the kinds of sentences in which its use is appropriate
(and inappropriate) and to the sorts of experiences to which it is (and
is not) relevant. The analytically guided language teacher will help
his students toward a dynamic, functional, and organic approach to
language, in which words are not studied in isolation, but always in
relation to other words in complex syntactic structures and with reference
to specific uses.
In view of this complexity, the logical analyst is a critic of all
simple and absolute distinctions. Thus, in another essay, Austin discusses
the common distinction between performative utterances, which are
actions (e.g., "I welcome you"), and constative utterances (e.g., "I am
an American"), which declare something to be the case. The customary
distinction is that constative utterances are either true or false, but
that such judgments do not apply to performative utterances. Analysis
soon discloses that this clear-cut distinction does not bold, since both
kinds of utterances are subject to much the same sorts of problems,
involving appropriateness to the situation, attitude of the speaker,
degree of precision, etc. Thus, truth or falsity is not a simple criterion
but "a whole dimension of criticism," which may apply to different sorts
of utterances.
Similarly, S. E. Toulmin and K. Baier in their chapter analyze the
distinction that C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards made between descriptive
and emotive expressions, and show that no such simple division can
be defended, since there are many different ways of classifying the
utterances of ordinary discourse, and these classifications cut across
one another in complex fashion, The authors further illustrate a number
of the different kinds of distinctions that can be made in anal!, zing
linguistic expressions.
34 Language and Meaning
The language analyst is an enemy of Procrustean beds and of
pedantic abstractions. He warns teachers and students against the
temptation to oversimplify language study by a tidy set of labels
and a few facile generalizations. In urging the student of language to
attend more carefully to the ways speech is actually used, in all its
variety and subtlety, he helps him to understand the depth, range and
power of human symbolization.
Philosophical analysis also directly demonstrates how language
instruction may be carried out. In fact, analysis is itself an example of
education in linguistic usage. Two features of this teaching are especially
noteworthy. The first is the pervasive use of concrete examples. The
analyst makes his case by citing cases. He shows what he means by
citing characteristic illustrations, and he tests the limitations of his
generalizations by means of boundary examples where the generalizations
cease to hold. By using typical cases, he fosters the habit of looking at
expressions in terms of the roles they perform in actual communication,
rather than in terms of some a priori static rules of grammar or dictionary
meaning.
A second pedagogical insight of analysis is contained in the analogy
of language with games, as first explained by Wittgenstein. The roles
played by various kinds of expressions arc in important respects like the
roles associated with the various pieces in a game like chess. Each
piece is capable of certain characteristic moves that are defined by the
rules of the game. Similarly, the uses appropriate to various linguistic
expressions are governed by the conventional rules of the language game.
This concept of verbal play not only helps the student to grasp the
characteristic features of language as a discipline and thus to discriminate
between essential and nonessential features; it is also likely to appeal
more to his imagination and to arouse more interest than the traditional
approach to language as a body of vocabulary and correct grammatical
forms to be memorized.

Mathematics

As in the case of language, mathematics is comprised of symbolic

systems defined by certain arbitrary rules. This insight is fundamental
in the treatment of mathematics by the analytic philosophers. In fact, as
I indicated earlier, modern philosophical analysis developed in part out
of mathematical logic. Tbe theory of sets, which has played such a
central role in some of the new mathematics curricula, is substantially
identical with the logic of classes that underlay the analytical studies of
 Curriculum and the Analysis of Language 35

Frege and Russell. The concept of sets, or classes, is

basic from an
analytic standpoint because it enables one to identify with precision
rule.
a collection of entities all of which are related by some common
It provides a means of distinguishing entities that belong to a specifiable
collection from those that do not. Thus the idea of sets, or classes, is
implicit in the making of precise distinctions. This ability is important
other domains of
for all rigorous thinking, in mathematics as well as in
thought. The modern teaching of mathematics is actually instruction
in logical analysis. Its objective is the development
of skill in the
definition and transformation of systems of symbols
according to
specified arbitrary rules.
An unusually clear and illuminating treatment of mathematics
by an analytic philosopher miLy be found in Friedrich Waismann's
Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, which draws heavily on the
classic work of the mathematician Felix Klein (in his Elementary
Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint) as well as the thought of the
philosopher Wittgenstein. Waismann's book is largely
devoted to the
analysis of the elemental concept of number. He shows that it is not
possible to assign any clear meaning to the idea of number in general,
but only with respect to specified calculation rules. Thus, the cardinal
numbers comprise one self-contained consistent system, the integers
(positive and negative) a second distinct system, the rational numbers a
third, the real numbers a fourth, and the imaginary numbers a fifth.
Each number system has its own characteristic rules of operation that
distinguish it from all the other systems.
Waismann's analysis shows that the common sense intuitive ap-
proach to the various kinds of numbers leads to basic confusions and
to a complete misconception of mathematical ways of thinking. Under
the intuitive approach, all numbers belong to a
single large class of
quantitative entities. Cardinal numbers are identified with positive in-
tegers, negative integers are regarded simply as backward extensions
of cardinal numbers, and rational numbers are taken as ratios of in-
tegers. Real numbers and imaginary numbers are further mysterious
extensions that enable one to solve equations that are not soluble by
the simpler kinds of numbers.
This rule-of-thumb arithmetical expediency wholly obscures the
postula-
most essential feature of mathematical thought, namely, the
tional method. From the very earliest years the student of mathematics
should be instructed in the playful art of constructing freely chosen
symbol systems, the elements of which are combined by specified
rules. The crucial idea is that all mathematical reasoning must take
36 Language and Meaning
place within a given system. One rnay not validly carry out a mathe-
rm t;cal argument that straddles two or more postulational systems.
Even in the elementary matter of numbers the distinction between
sys: la-is must be observed. Each kind of number belongs to its own
postula'ional system. If the student understands this principle, he will
he in possession of the sovereign means of attaining clarity throughout
the study of mathematics, at every level. When the method of system-
thinking is grasped, the student may profitably complement it by the
analysis of formal similarities between systems. For example, the cal-
culating rules for the various types of numbers are alike in important
respects. That is why it is so easy to make the mistake of regarding
tbem as all members of one class.
The essence of mathematical thinking is to understand both the
idea of system identity and integrity and the idea of isomorphic rela-
tions that preserve the calculating rules from system to system. One of
the main uses of the philosophical analysis of mathematical language
is to guide the teaching and study of mathematics in the light of these
two fundamental ideas.

Physical S,:ience
In an earlier paragraph I have already mentioned the close con-
nection between the rise of contemporary philosophical analysis and the
development of modern physics. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
philosophy of physical science today is largely informed by the methods
and spirit of analysis. An example of this approach may be found in
Stephen Toulmin's Philosophy of Science: An Introduction. The ana-
lytic study of tbe methods and concepts of physics is of far-reaching
significance for science education; it revolutionizes one's whole outlook
on the subject. Any general idea of scientific method, which students
are supposed to learn in science courses, is shown to be untenable. Not
only is there no general method of thinking; there is not even a general
rule for thinking in science. Scientific discovery and validation are many-
faceted processes that can only be understood by detailed piecemeal
critical investigation.
As an illustration, Toulmin analyzes the principle of geometrical
optics that light travels in straight lines. He shows that this is not a
fact that can be directly observed, nor is it a straightforward general-
ization based on a number of particular observations. Rather, it is a
way of thinking and talking about light that proves to be useful in
 37
Curriculum and the Analysis of Language

drawing inferences. It is a mode of representing light that enables one

phenomena.
to give a satisfactory account of certain optical
insight can be to the physics
It is easy to see how valuable such an
teacher. It suggests at least two questions
that will lead the student
other ways of
right to the heart of physical inquiry. The first is: "What they do the
representing light can be devised, and how well would this question
job of accounting for what is observed?" By asking imagination
the student is introduced to the meaning ofallscientific
productive scientific
and model construction which are basic to
investigation. analyzing the logic of this
The second question that grows out of within which
physical principle is: "What is the experimental context works well
It evidently
the model of rectilinear propagation applies?"
for the phenomenon of shadow casting,
but not for refraction, dif-
effects, which require different
fraction, scattering, and photoelectric models. In
methods of representation, including wave and particle principles not as
this fashion the student learns to regard physical but as techniques of
statements of fact that are either true or false,
inference that have specified contexts of application. The symbolisms
language and of mathematics, have
of physics, like those of ordinary
goal of analysis to delineate
certain functions to perform. It is the
application, and thus to chart the
those functions and their scope of proceed.
various paths along which productive inquiry may manifest in analyzing
The centrality of creative imagination is also
simply an inductive general-
the logic of laws in physics. A law is not that has to
ization based on observations. It is the form of a regularity
be made. Toulmin
be surmised before any meaningful observations can the procedure
points out the decisive difference in this respect between
of the physicist and that of the
naturalist. The latter starts with obser-
themselves in
vation. He studies the world of things as they present
nature, and devises a language of classification to represent the forms he
begins with an idea, which
finds. The physicist, on the other hand,
formula, concerning certain theo-
is often expressed in a mathematical
by observation, and only then
retical relationships that can be tested whether, to what
does he construct experiments that will determine hold.
degree, and under what conditions these relationships analysis of phys-
One of the most illuminating results of the logical
physical theories and
ics is the analogy that Toulmin draws between kinds of maps, and
familiar with various
maps. Students are generally used depends on the use one
they understand that the type of map for purposes of aerial navi-
intends to make of it. For example, a map
38 Language and Meaning
gation is quite different from one used for making an automobile trip,
and both differ from it map used in oil prospecting. It is important to
know that theories in science are in many respects like maps. They
guide the experimenter in successful experimental journeys. They are
ways of looking at the world that are productive of results in investi-
gation. Like maps, they are abstract ideal constructions designed to
serve in specific types of experimental situations. The student who grasps
the cartographic logic of scientific theory will have taken a major step
toward understanding the methods of exact science.

Aesthetics

One might be tempted to think that while logical analysis may be

useful in the sciences and mathematics and in the technical investi-
gation of ordinary language, it would not apply to the study of the
humanistic disciplines. This is not the case. In fact, it can be argued
that the analytical approach is peculiarly salutary in the humanities,
in order to rescue them from irrationality, confusion and sentimental-
ity, which the scientific disciplines are explicitly designed to minimize.
For example, Virgil C. Aldrich, in his book called Philosophy of Art,
applies analytic methods to aesthetic problems. He shows that our
understanding of both science and art has long been distorted by a
misleading subject-object dualism in the theory of perception. Accord-
ing to the standard account, science yields knowledge of objective
facts and art is concerned only with subjective feelings. The cultural
and educational consequences of this dualism are disastrous. Science
is regarded as the only valid source of truth, and art is relegated to
the domain of individual private emotions. As in so many other prob-
lems, logical analysis upsets this simplistic dichotomy. According to
Aldrich, there are different ways of looking at things, each serving a
different purpose. "Observation" is one mode of perception, yielding
knowledge of qualities. Aesthetic "prehension" is another equally valid
mode of perception, in which other characteristics of material things
are realized in experience. These other characteristics are not the meas-
ured properties of scientific description, but objective impressions or
"aspects" that "animate" the objects perceived. Both physical and
aesthetic perception presuppose minds entering into relation with
material objects. Both are inescapably at the same time subjective and
objective. Yet material things are perceived according to different and
equally valid categories in the two cases, namely, those of physical
space and of aesthetic space, respectively.

ft, - *OF
 Currieulum and the Analysis of Language 39

Once the status of aesthetic experience has thus been established,

a second task of analysis is to delineate the various factors that enter
into a work of art, including materials, medium, content, subject matter,
and form. These factors, each of which needs to be further analyzed in
detail, comprise a framework into which the intelligent consideration
of works of art can be set, both for those who are learning to make
them and for those who seek to appreciate them. These analytic
concepts provide a symbolic system in terms of which the creation
and enjoyment of art objects can fruitfully proceed. Thus, they consti-
tute basic foci of emphasis for the teaching of the arts. They are
primary categories for aesthetic instruction and topics for the agenda
of art education.
Yet the analytic thinker in aesthetics is not content with making dis-
tinctions about aesthetic experience in general or even about the part of
it that is concerned with works of art. He goes on to distinguish the
specific; meanings of the various artistic factors in the several arts,
stressing the characteristic features of each art that follow from utilizing
its particular materials.
A third task of analysis in the arts is to provide a basis for critical
evaluation, If aesthetic experience is not merely inchoate subjective
emotion, then it must be possible to make defensible judgments about
the meaning and worth of works of art. Such judgments presuppose
that objects of art have logical structures to which standards of excel-
lence can be applied. The person educated in aesthetic matters should
be able to give good reasons for prizing a particular work of art. It is not
enough merely to state preferences. The special contribution of analytic
philosophy to the field of criticism has been twofold: First, it has helped
to provide an array of relatively clear concepts for speaking about
aesthetic objects. Second, it has turned critics away from large scale,
general categories of judgment, whether psychological, metaphysical,
or theological, and focused attention on the values inherent in individual
works of art. Such individual intersubjective norms are the only kind
that are consonant with the essential logic of aesthetic meaning. The
analytic insistence on discovering the reasons for preferring a work
of art within the work itself is one of the controlling principles of
aesthetic education.

Ethics

Moral or ethical education presents some of the same problems as

aesthetic instruction, since both are concerned with action (making or
 40 Language and Meaning
doing) and with judgments of value. A good example of introductory
ethical analysis may be found in R. M. Hare's book, The Language
of Morals. Just as Aldrich had to clear away the prejudice that em-
pirical observation is the only kind of objective perception, so also
must Hare argue a basic preliminary point in ethics that statements
of fact are not the only kind of sentences to which we can give good
reasons for assent. Hare establishes the point by an analysis of pre-
scriptive hmguage generally, of which the language of morals is a part.
The clearest case of prescription is the imperative, which discussion
shows to be a close logical kinsman to the value judgment. The irre-
ducible logical difference between statements and commands is that the
former are indications of believing something, while the latter are
attempts to induce ation. Moreover, because of this logical difference,
no amount of factual information can ever by itself add up to an im-
perative conclusion. Every imperative conclusion must be justified in
part by reference to some imperative premise.
This analytic insight about the irreducibility of prescriptives to
indicatives is of fundamental importance for moral instruction. It sug-
gests that responsible moral persons can never be nurtured by being
taught only facts. No accumulation of information can tell anyone
what he ought to do. The ideal of the teacher as one who remains
uncommitted and adheres to objective facts without involving himself
in judgments of value or affirmations of obligation thus proes to be
far from ideal. Sound moral judgment requires not only knowledge
of the facts but a substantial stock of well-tested moral principles
(prescriptions) for the guidance of conduct.
Important as principles are, they are not sufficient for moral growth.
The other essential element is practice in making deliberate choices.
The centrality of choice making comes out wish particular force in
Hare's analysist of the meaning of the term "good." He argues that
"good" is not an indefinab'e quality, like "yellow," as G. E. Moore
and other intuitionists held, but that "good" is to be defined with
reference to the act of choosing. One regards a thing as the "best"
among several alternatives if it is the one he would choose to fulfill
the function for which it is intended. That is to say, the choice is
guided by some standard of preference. This holds both for nonmoral
choices, where the standards are those of functional efficiency, and
for moral choices, where nonfunctional standards of virtue apply. In
every case, the essence of evaluative judgments is rational preferences
manifest in making choices.

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 Currioulum and the Analysis of Language I

The teacher who understands the logic of morality will insure,

first, that his students are well supplied with moral principles, repre-
senting the accurnulat d practical wisdom of the past; second, that
they learn how to use their factual knowledge to assess the effects that
follow from taking particular actions and from adhering to certain
principles of action; third, that they gain skill in reflecting about the
whole way of life with which particular actions and principles of
action cohere; and finally, that they have ample opportunity actively
to choose what they will do in concrete cases, to reconstruct the array
of principles upon which they rely for direction, and to elect the total
pattern of life with which they intend to become identified.
Analytical ethical theory clearly does not provide the teacher with
a catalog of virtues to be taught, any more than aesthetic analysis
reveals the content of the beautiful, or analytic philosophy of science
yields knowledge of the laws of nature. In each discipline the office
of analysis is to suggest the terms in which inquiry can fruitfully
proceed and to keep attention focused on matters that are relevant
to the characteristic purposes of the study being pursued. The special
contribution of ethical analysis, on the one hand, is to save moral
judgments from irrationality and subjectivism, and on the other, to
rescue them from objectification either through intuitionist introspection
or naturalistic reduction, by pointing to the centrality of principled
choice, informed by pertinent factual knowledge.

Religion

Finally, let us look briefly at the pedagogical importance of the

philosophical analysis of the language of religion. Of all the disciplines,
one might suppose religious studies to be the most unpromising for
analytic treatment, concerned as they are with matters that transcend
the world of finite affairs. The positivistic ideologists did (and still do)
dismiss religious utterances as meaningless. In recent years, however,
this dogmatism has somewhat waned, and a number of respectable
analytic philosophers have begun to work in the philosophy of religion.
In doing so, they arc reestablishing an ancient tradition, for many of
the classical theological controversies, particularly in Christendom, have
been conducted from the standpoint of the analysis of symbol systems.
A good example of an elementary approach to the analytic phil-
osophy of religion may be found in Ian T. Ramsey's book, Religious
Language: An Empirical Placing of Theological Phrases. Ramsey begins
by describing the kinds of situations in which the use of religious Jan-
42 Language and Meaning
guage is appropriate. These are principally of two kinds, namely, those
of discernment and those of commitment. Discernment situations are
ones in which a fresh and unexpected disclosure occurs, yielding a
new insight into the depths of meaning in experience. Commitment
situations are ones in which a person is grasped by a sense of the
intrinsic worth of something to which be is willing to dedicate him-
self. Both types of situations are most fully exemplified in the experi-
ence of worship, in which discernment takes the form of joyous wonder
at the revelation of love manifest in the gift of existence, and in which
commitment consists in reverent devotion to the source of all being.
Of course, not all discernment and commitment situations are
religious. They become religious whenever ordinary insight and devo-
tion become occasions for worship, that is, for acknowledging the in-
finite mystery of being and the unconditional quality of one's dedica-
tion to its ground. However, ordinary situations do provide models for
the formulation of theological ideas, For example, the idea of Cod as
First Cause is based on the model of causation drawn from the ordi-
nary discernment of connections between events, The qualifier "First"
indicates that the model of dependence or derivation applies in a super-
ordinary sense, that is, within a worship situation. The term "First"
in this expression does not indicate the initial member of a finite series
of causes, but the mysterious depth of causality in which all causation
is grounded. Similarly, the concept of "good" is a model drawn from
ordinary value experience. When it is accompanied by the qualifier
"infinitely" to signify one of the divine attributes, it does not connote
the end term in a finite ordered sequence of increasing values. It is
used rather for expressing complete devotion in a worship situation.
Ramsey characterizes these qualified models as "logically odd."
That is to say, their logic is not what their grammatical form would
suggest. The logic of the term "First Cause" is not that of members
in ordinary causal chains, nor is the logic of the term "infinitely good"
that of members in ordinary hierarchies of value. The leap from ordi-
nary to theological import is somewhat analogous to the mathematical
process of passing to the limit of an infinite series. Though the idea of
a limit is significant, it is never definable by any finite series of steps,
but only by the process of successive approximation. Thus mathe-
matical limits have a logic different from that of terms in the series.
So also is theological language about the infinite different from but
functionally related to the language of ordinary events.
The logical analysis of religious language provides a major clue
to the place of religion in the curriculum. It suggests that traditional

15.7.,« Ms* $ ?IR

 43
Curriculum and the Analysis of Language

catechizing is likely to contribute very little to religious understanding.

offers models
Instead, it appears that every phase of the curriculum worship. All studies
of insight and devotion which may eventuate in lead into
when pursued in sufficient depth and with enough concern
education is secularized
the divine presence. From this standpoint,
of finituda, and, on the other
insofar as it remains within the safe limits
venture hito the ultimate
hand, any education that encourages students to
appropriate
mysteries of being and value is in fact religious and requires
language to express its concerns.
analytical treatment in a
In conclusion, the foregoing examples of
the nature of
number of disciplines only suggest in a cursory way
make to the problems of
the contribution that language analysis can
psychology, history,
education. Other disciplines, including biology,
subject of
and the various social sciences, have also been made the further
philosophical analysis and might have been cited by way of the
illustration. The purpose here is merely to indicate something of
that
mood and method of analysis and to show the kind of insights
curriculum theorists and practitioners may expect from it.
which it seems
My main effort has been to sketch the lines along
most profitably
to me contemporary philosophy of education may "isms" in
develop. The older speculative systems and the ideological
aid in under-
my opinion are more likely to distort and mislead than to
standing education. Even some contemporary philosophical analysts
by attempting to expli-
of educational concepts fall into the old ways regard to the
cate the language of education too generally, without of civilized
complexities of context. I have argued that the realities
organized disciplines as
endeavor require consideration of the various
successful. Each disci-
the ways in which inquiry has actually proven
and methods that may
pline offers a particular family of concepts
logical analysis can
fruitfully be explored analytically. Furthermore,
of inquiry
reveal the similarities and differences between the patterns
and cognition in the various disciplines.
In this way insights may be
obtained into the structure of the various disciplines that constitute
interrelationships among the disci-
the basis of civilization and into the
plines comprising the curriculum as a whole.
the logical analysis of the
A philosophy of education based upon another system. It is an
language of the various disciplines is not just
of insights into the many dif-
always tentative and unfinished array productively
ferent ways in which the world and human experience may

.0°4'7,4 tfrAhrle.,~opro le*

44 Language and Meaning

be understood. Each discipline provides a set of valuable characteristic

perspectives that have a logical structure distinct from those of other
disciplines, but bearing certain formal Hationships to them. It is the
function of the philosopher of education to make clear the logic of
the major disciplined perspectives that the curriculum aims to foster,
thereby providing a critical and comparative grasp of the organized
resources for human understanding.

Illustrative Readings

Language: Charles E. Caton, editor. Philosophy and Ordinary Language.

Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1963.
Mathematics: Friedrich Waismann. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking.
New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1959.
Physics: Stephen Toulmin. The Philosophy of Science, An Introduction. New
York: Harper Torchhooks, 1960.
Art: Virgil C. Aldrich. Philosophy of Art. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963.
Ethics; 11. M. Hare. The Language of Morals. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1964.
Religion: Ian '1'. Ramsey. Religious Language, An Empirical Placing of Theo-
logical Phrases. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1963.

5,74 #4, r4
The Discovery of Felt Meaning

Eugene T. Gendlin

LET me begin with the question: What is thinking? What is

"a thought" or "a chain of thought"? In this question I am not asking
for a definition or an answer in logic. Instead I want to invite you to
pay attention directly to your own thinking. What do you have thele?
What goes on that you call "thinking"?
For example, just now, you are thinking this question, "what is
thinking?" Let us see what this is. First of all there are the words:
What is thinking? But is that all there is to thinking? Just the resounding
of the sounds, the reverberation of the verbal symbols? In addition to
sounds you have a feeling of questioning, of expectancy, a sense that
you know what these sounds meanand are asking for and about.
You do not have a chance at the moment to elaborate this felt sense of
the question. But if you were going to think through more exactly what
these words mean, then you would attend to this sense of them, which
you have. If you beard some words in a language which you do not
know, you would still have the sounds, perhaps you could repeat them
to yourself, but you would lack the other part of thinking, the felt sense.
Thus, thinking is not only sounds but also felt sense. Really we
should call it a flow of felt sensing, not individual bits. Such sensing
may seem as if it were only one unit, the meaning of a given set of words,
the sense of this question, but when expl icated in words, it turns out to
be many, many things. For example, if you were now to stop reading
and instead continue with words of your own, you might now say quite
a lot about this question I asked. But if you do not actually work it out
in words, you have only this one felt sense of "oh yes"you know what
the question means. Such felt sensing always contains implicitly, in one
feeling, a great many different facets we could explicitly verbalize.
45
46 Language and Meaning
Anything we say or think always involves many facets; for instance,
the larger point someone is getting at, the whole context of the situation,
perhaps also a puzzlement, a sense of something unclear, perhaps
conflicting or unresolved, a sense of direction as well as always many
other aspects.
A feeling is never just an affective tone, an emotional quality. It is
never just "in us." It is always at, or about, or for, or in a context of
perceptions and events. For example, one never feels anger, as a thing-
within, an affective state, inside like undigested food is inside the
stomach. Rather, one always feels anger-at something or someone. If we
explicate any feeling, it always turns out to be a long chain of the
following sort: I am angry at Mr. A's doing so and so, which I need to
do because if I cannot, I will have to do certain things instead, but I
know I will fail when I try them because I am so and so in such
situations, which I know I ought to change but cannot, ... and on and on.

A Living Texture
The first words we use to spell out a felt sense may not seem very
promising, e.g., "this feels vague" or "I do not know what you are
getting at." Yet, if we explicate the felt sense further, we never find
that it is "just" vagueness or confusion. It is always of the sort: what
you said seems vague because I know you do not mean it to imply "X"
(since before you said "Y") but if you do not mean "X" and still it is
supposed to apply to that other stuff, then what do you mean?" If we
really pursue such a felt sense of thinking we produce these long chains
of perceptions of the situation, of the conversation, the subject matter.
This is also why thinking works, why our felt sense leads to words
about the situation we are in. The human being, in fact, any animal, is a
highly complex organism. An organism is an ongoing moving system
interacting with the environment in which it lives, breathes, digests food
and gives off wastes, and against the ground on which it steps and puts
pressure. In this environment the animal feels very finely many slight
shifts and happenings, as these are significant in the body's life processes
of locomotion, digestion, reproduction, respiration, etc. Thus anything
"has meaning" in the sense that it affects a living system ... and affects
it therefore always in complexly organized respects. Because the body
is a completely organized interaction, therefore, anything that impinges
on it has a complex meaning.
In itself, what happens may only be a falling pebble, but when it
hits the skin of an animal it may create an impact in the animal which

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 The Discovery of Felt Meaning 47
that
is not only a powerful feeling, but highly organized meanings
complex reactions, of intense
is to say, the pebble may stir the animal to
listening, of utterly still run-ready tensed muscles, of complex felt knowl-
places, of its young
edge of the possible nearness of some foe, of hiding
to be protected, of pathways to run, of scents to Allseek, of the directi
this is what I call
of wind and oncoming weather, and much more.
"implicit" in that first felt impact which the falling pebble stirred.
Feeling is always a living texture of environmental interaction.
Therefore the flow of felt sense whichalong with verbal sound-images
is our thinking, this flow of felt sense implicitly contains the complex
world we live in, the environment, our perceptions, the context of the all
that has been done and said tiii now, what is being gotten at,
purpose, the definitions, and a very great deal more. And therefore,
possible truths with
thinking can be about something, we can arrive at
it, even though it seems to be only sound echoes and felt sense.
Therefore feeling is capable of being explicated into such complex
chains of meanings.
Of course, there is not only felt sense but also logic. In its precise
definition, any word, concept or sentence has precise logical implica-
tions. Any concept is a particular pattern and just certain things will
follow. Other implications will not follow, will not be logically consistent
with it, will contradict or disorganize the concept if forced onto it.
the pattern,
Our logical precision comes from the logical structure,
precision, other-
the construct character of a concept. We need construct
have
wise we could not make sense with language. However, as I
shown, when a human being thinks a concept, we have more going on
than just the given construct and the implications consistent with it.

The Nature of Coricepts

What really is a concept? A concept is both logical and felt. It is a
logical construct but since it is also a thought, it has a "soft underbelly,"
it is made of felt sensing. We "know what it means" or "what we mean
by using it" ... we know what we mean with it in a felt sensing way.
We mean with the concept to make a certain point, to take exception to
which are
an aspect of what has been said, to point out certain things
important because ... and so on (again the chain of many many implicit
facets, as with any felt sense, so with felt sense of a concept-in-use).
When we think (for example about a problem), we use some
precise verbalized constructs. We may say these over and over to our-

Yer,,e
48 Language and Meaning
selves: Thereby we review the "givens" of the problem. As we do so,
we get the sense of the problem. These givens do not go together.
Given this purpose and that fact and that other condition, it will not
work out. It is a problem. To solve it, something will have to "give."
We will not get the new facet that solves the problem out of the given
concepts directly. If we could, it would not be a problem, just an
oversight.
To think, we cannot repeat over and over the sentences that say
what is given. As long as we keep saying these sentences over and over
to ourselves we are not thinking. We have to "know" them well enough
to have them in a felt sense, so we can skip the reviewing in words,
and just say: "Let us see now, there is this, and this, and that, and we
want ... yes, that ... so ..." and then we "mull," that is to say, we
depend for new ideas on the felt sense directly. We may say "Oh ... just
a second, I've got something ... " There is a felt sense of "give"1 (referent
movement1) but as yet no words. As we explicate in words the new
aspect of felt sensing, we may find that we have a step toward a possible
solution. Or, as we explicate in words we may find it disappointing or
erroneous. Thinking and problem solving always occur as felt sensing
and not with only the given verbal conceptual constructs.
We break out of the conceptual boxes to think. After we take a
"mulling" felt sensing step, then we explicate by modifying the con-
structs, we make the new step fit in with what really counts about the
constructs we had, we make it logically consistent, but we do this by
modifying our constructs, by making distinctions, by noting now that we
did not really have to mean this or that seeming implication of what we
had before. We reformulate the construct so it does not mean that, or
we add something. We arrive at something logically consistent and we
can fill in the steps we took in a logically consistent way. ... but only
afterwards can we do this. Before we have had the movement of felt
sense we only know that something has to be altered, but we cannot
know what. The conceptual boxes we had (in the way in which we
had tbem) constituted the problem. The problem can be worked on
only by the process of felt sense. How might we make a method of felt
sensing? Today we are in a very advanced position to do just that: to
use and teach the use of felt meanings systematically.
1 Eugene T. Cendlin. "A Theory of Personality Change." Chapter in: Personality
Change. Philip Worchel and Donn Byrne, editors. Symposium on Personality Change,
University of Texas. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1964.

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 The Discovery of Felt Meaning 49

Using the Process of Felt Sensing in Teaching

reader of the current
What we have been saying will remind the usually defined as a
widespread work on "creativity." Creativity is of look'ing
capacity to get free of given conceptual boxes, given ways said about what
at something, given constructs. Not much has yet been hold "loosely"
else there is, other than these constructs which one should
defined rather negatively: "Don't
to be creative. Creativity has thus been
of seeing something." Yet,
hold too tightly to your constructs and ways
instruction, it is not a method you can
of course, that is not a helpful something new and
use, it does not say how and where to look for perceptions you do
different, other than the conceptual constructs or
have. than
Holding tightly or holding ever so looselywe must say moreto the
that; we must say just where to look and what to do in addition felt sense
constructs we hold loosely. Where to look: at our directly
(which we always have along with words).
What to do: pay direct
it, put words
attention to that felt sense and carry it forward, explicatethought along
to it and freshly phrase it, allowing thereby a move in of the
lines that are not just those implied by the logicil structure
constructs we have. Let us make this more specific:
At any point in any discussion we can say to the person speaking:
other way." The
"I don't get what you're driving at. Tell me some has said another
person who has been speaking can always put what he the words (he will
way. Why? Because what he has said was not just of what he
now use different words). He also had a directly felt sense this from bis
was getting at, trying to say. When we do not grasp be is
words, what does he do? He goes back to his felt sense of whatlet me
trying to say. He pays attention to this directly. He says "Aaaa ...
." and thereby he phrases
see now, what I really meant was, . . words
it freshly. He gets the fresh phrasing not from the constructs and
what it was.
of what he said, but directly from his felt sense of
We are all familiar with this when we teach a class. A teacher
prepares students in this process,
and we can become quite systematic
form of a question.
about it. A student says something, often in the
brought up some-
We answer it, perhaps we are glad that the question the student
thing we meant to discuss and so we do. Then we glance at
let us say, rather glum.
who asked the question and he looks ... well,
something clarified was unsuc-
We know thereby that his effort to get we did a good
cessful. Yet we answered his questionand, let us assume
after!"
clear job. Now we say: "I guess that wasn't what you were
 50 Language and Meaning
He says, no, or perhaps he says, "Oh, that's OK." We say: "But, you
were after something in asking that ... tell us what it was." He says:
"Oh, nothing." Yet we know it was something.
In asking that question (any given question) one might be intending
many different things. People often think something but when they
speak they ask a question instead. For example, right now the reader
might be thinking: "What be is saying doesn't fit such and such which
happens to me when I . .. etc." If you were now to speak, you might
put it in the form of a question: "Have you ever run into a situation where
you encounter such and such when you ...?" I would then answer, telling
about my experiences or viewpoints which are probably irrelevant to
what happens to you, which puzzles you and which you could tell about.
We tend to begin speaking quite some miles away from what we
really mean. If we might like to bring up something, we first test the
water, we politely sec if we can tease tbe conversation in the general
direction of what w might like to bring up, we ask or comment in a
way that is peripheral to what we are really interested in saying. In effect,
we ask to be invited to say more, and if that does not succeed, we are
perfectlyor almost perfectlyhappy, never to say at all what we really
meant. It is, therefore, almost always necessary to invite people to say
moreespecially to say why they asked or commented as they did, what
they were getting at, or just to say more about whatever they briefly
said or asked.
This applies even when the individual knows exactly what he would
like to say. It applies very much more importantly when he does not
know exactly, sharply and clearly what he might wish to say or why
he thought it interesting to ask, or why specifically something puzzled
or struck bim. He may have a felt sense but not a worked out verbalized
, explicit knowledge.
In that case, if as teachers we wish to invite the person further to
explicate what he senses or means, we may have to insist. We say,
"What were you getting at?" He says: "Oh, nothing." We say: "No, I
know you were after something, there when you said so and so, but I
just didn't quite get it." He says, "Oh, no, it was nothing it all." Perhaps
we give up then and say, "Oh, all right," but we know there was some-
thing. Perhaps be finally says, "Well, ah, I guess I'm confused but, ah,
well, let me see, all, well when I try to apply such and so which you
mentioned, I get this and this and it doesn't fit in with what you said
before." At this point the student makes sense.
Perhaps now we can easily show him what he omitted, or perhaps his
question is so good that we can't answer it at all, or we can slow at

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4111}.,

The Discovery of Felt Meaning 51

what point be diverged from our train of thought. Perhaps his train of
thought is also valid, or perhaps it is erroneous. Even if it involves
several errors, it makes sense, that is to say, we can now see how, given
this error and that omission, one could see the matter as he does and
could wonder about what he wonders about.
It is a basic principle not enough recognized, that feelings always
make sense. This does not mean that they are logically or factually
correct. On the contrary, to discover the error involved (if an error is
involved) is precisely a recognition thatgiven the errorthe erroneous
result does make sense. But, this requires attention to, and explication
of his felt sense.
In fact, very many people have not discovered felt meaning at all.
They do not feel that it is worth while or possible to pay such
attention to theiralways at first vaguefelt sensing. They read a book
or think some propositions, but they override their fuzzy, slightly
disturbing feelings. They never look to see what this "felt something"
might be, nor would they expect it ever to become anything more than
just a fuzzy feeling. And yet, precisely in that at first fuzzy feeling lies
the individual's reaction to what he reads and says and hears. We call
it his "reaction" only while it still is only a feeling. As he explicates i
it becomes a "good question" or an "original idea" or a "clever insighe'
or a specific "error." Perhaps the only difference between highly crea ive
original people and those who consider themselves uncreative is wh ther
or not they give this sort of gentle attention and explication to their felt
sensing reactions, as they read and think.
It involves a certain attitude of self-worth to give one's felt
sensing this kind of patience and attention. At first it is only fuzzy.
Then, at a second step (moments later) one gets a first formulation,
still not usually an attractive one: For example: "This doesn't make
sense to me because of that ..." or "I'm upset when he says such and
so because it makes me think of X which I don't like because ..." But if
one bears with this (at first poorly sounding) thought and further
explicates one's felt sense of its import or point, one soon comes upon a
fully sense-making formulation. One may then be startled by one's
capacity for great original thoughts.
A class is quite exciting when the teacher often does this kind of
inviting and insisting which leads to the students discovery of their
capacities for original thought.
Moreoverif you have not always done this you will find it quite
exciting: as you read something, you stop reading sometime, and pay
attention to theat first fuzzy feeling you have of the whole thing, to
 52 Language and Meaning
see then, moments later, the budding significance of your thought, as you
freshly phrase and explicate the felt sense of what you read, or say,
or the words you at first think. But do not look among the abstract
sentences for original ideas to come, full blown. The source of further
thinking is in thatat first fuzzyfelt sense. Original ideas have their
source there where you also feel it when you are hungry or tense. They
do not arise full blown and explicit; you must explicate that felt sense.
So far, I have been writing as a teacher. I have been trying to
make systematic where to look for, and what to do withthe process
which makes for creative thought (and which is, at any rate, an
essential aspect of all thought). Where to look: there, where we feel
hunger, discomfort or relief, for there also we feel directly the sense
we make, the point we are after, the thought we have with our words,
and the thing we are about to say. What to do with it: to pay direct
attention to it as felt or sensed, and to allow words to comewords which
at first admittedly will be rough and poorbut which freshly phrase and
explicate further and further the sense we implicitly made. One can do
this at any point of any discussion, with any concept or proposition,
and one thereby makes transitions and evolves chains of thought which
are not limited within one's original words or constructs.

Felt Sensing
Let me now speak as a psychotherapist. This process of focusing
(Gendlin, 19642) on directly felt ongoing experiencing, felt meaning or
felt sense is also what the patient does in any effective psychotherapy. No
matter how the various schools of psychotherapy differ among them-
selves, whatever constructs they employ, they all agree that real change
and resolution of personality trouble comes only through a feeling
process, only through the individual's attention to, and carrying forward
of, his feelings. One's concrete bodily sensed meanings implicitly contain
one's whole life context and perceptions. Resolution of personality prob-
lems is possible only through concrete movements of felt sensing. With-
out this, concepts may be as accurate as you please, they may constitute a
knowing how it is and how it should be, but they change nothing.
A patient who uses his concepts and words in a "dissociated"
way, apart from explicating his felt meanings directly, is said to "intel-
lectualize" or "rationalize." It is well known that intellectualizing does
not help. Concepts, no matter how accurate and true, are only general
constructs. They tap only a very little of the finely grained com-
2 Cendlin, ibid.
 The Discovery of Felt Meaning 53

plex organic texture which we are and concretely feel in a bodily way.
The patient in psychotherapy changes only if he works with and through
that whole, concretely felt texture, itself. Then he moves from step to
step through this whole texture. If, on the other band, be employs
concepts only, then he is limited. He remains within the implications
what follows from
of the constructs he employs. He can think only just
just those ways of construing which be already has. And so he does not
change. He misses, instead of using, that whole complex organic life
process within which lie all the many potential meanings of his living
and hif trouble.
This way of using felt meanings is not a matter of emotional health.
I know people who do not use their felt meanings. They see themselves
as not very creative, or at least, as not very good thinkers, but many
of them are as well adjusted as anybody. This process of focusing on
felt meanings is a discovery anyone can make. It is a skill anyone can
learn. Research shows that this skill is not the same thing as emotional
health.
Therefore, Carl Rogers and I at one time thought that the success-
ful client would begin psychotherapy with little use of felt meaning and
then move toward more and more use of his feelings. Research proved
us wrong: we found that successful clients are mostly those who use
this process of explicating felt meanings throughout therapy. Clients
who fail in therapy never refer to or employ felt meaning at all.
The findings say that focusing is an essential skill for getting
out of emotional trouble if one is in trouble. This leads me to the
conclusion that, if this is such an important skill, we ought to teach it in
schoolnot just because it is creative thinking, but also because the
same method (applied to personal feelings rather than intellectual
reactions to subject matter) would enable people to resolve many of
their personal conflictsand to be more able to listen for felt meanings
in those around them and aid them also. It seems quite a vital skill.

The Social Implications of Felt Meanings

Now I want to talk as a philosopher about meaning and science
and the basic aims of education. If we grant the patient in psycho-
therapy the necessity of working with his felt meanings, of getting out
of his construct-boxes, of moving not only with logical steps but also
with steps through the complex felt concreteness, if we call anything
less an ineffective way of being caught in conceptual boxes, in the
happenstance of one's given assumptions and constructswhy then
 0-3.72, JOT,.

54 Language and Meaning

would we wish these severe limitations to remain in man's methods of
thinking about man, about education, about society?
It is trite to say that our thinking about man and society has not
kept pace with physics and natural science, that we must make com-
parable advances, really radical breakthroughs a la Galileo in our modes
of thinking about the human world, otherwise our natural science
advances may desUoy us, and our calculating machines may exceed
our human wisdom and may ruin us. We have given vast physical and
mathematical powers into the keeping of a political and social system f

of power and education which has not advanced much in two thousand
years of history.
Yet such a breakthrough in the human fields can only be of two
sorts: either with or without our own personal humanness as individuals.
If it will be without this, if there will eventually be a really successful
and powerful science quite apart from your own and my own persons,
your own and my own growth in regard to our human personal lives
if without this, then it cannot help but be a technology, a mechanized
really nonhuman system working successfully enough apart from your
and my life struggle not to need us, to run us without our living say-so.
Such a scicnce must make us less human (though perhaps more con-
tented) and therefore it cannot be a science of humans as they really are.
For to be human is to create meanings, values, problems, surprises even
to ourselves. And so, it is a contradiction in terms (though realistically
a possibility all the same) to hope for major scientific advance in the
human fields without this involving the use of one's own personal living
humanness.
Yet this means that, even though we may have given up in our
own lives we must turn back from having turned backwe must hope
to grasp the personal truths in our own struggleswe must use this
superior method of thinking which employs our own felt meanings, even
though in feelings are also our hurts, defeats, missed opportunities,
and the sense of death soon to come. And, if I bad somehow escaped
these and been given everything I needed and all the luck and timely
insight, then I should only have missed some of the complexity of felt
life significance.
Why do I say all this? Because I am defending the now method of
thinking against the charge that it is only as good as the individual
personthis scems like its weakness. We are so used to a science that
is independent of man, a science whose very basic constructs abstract
the human element out, as though to assume as a basic principle of
science that humans do not exist. We are so used to a science that does

t..
OA,

The Dkcovery of Felt Meaning 55

not need us that consists only of conceptual structures perfectly repre.

sented pn paper and capable of being fed into calculators without loss,
whose implications are always only the necessary analytic mathematical
ones so that no human felt sensing is needed.
But, even in physics this applies only to the finished product of
science. In the making, science, discovery, new ideas, new hypotheses,
have
new constructs, problem solving, all involve the kind of thinking I
described. Only the finished, precision product of physical science eau
stand alone without the felt sense of an individual.
There could not be a successful science in the human fields which
would not use us as humans in its very method of thinking.
What is there in us which makes us so hesitant to confront our felt
meanings and use them? What scares us so that we cling to our con-
structs only, that we find comfort in limiting ourselves to grinding out
implications from given constructs only? I believe that it is our failures
at living and the poor quality of the human being which we so often
feel we really are, underneath. Yet this is no reason to turn away.
In class, in psychotherapy, in friendship, for example, what counts
is not the quality of human being I am, or my wisdom. What counts
is whether I will he a human being with people (if I will be a human
being, I can only be the one I am, but fortunately this need not be so
great or good or wise, it needs only to be a human being, and this
we all are).
Similarly, in the new method of thinking one does not need one's
feelings to be true or good or beautifulthe fuzzy feeling of some
incipient thought I have need not be attractive-seeming nor after I
explicate it does it need to turn out to be true.... I win soon change and
modify and correct and test and rework it. My motives need not be pure.
... I soon sce the irrelevance of the irrelevant ones and how theyfailsblock
to
my further efforts to solve and resolve what still feels tense or
work in situations, and fails at its empirical tests. I soon create new con-
structs and work out their logic. I correct, elaborate, and fill in the
breaks and the inconsistencies. But I can do it along new lineslines
that come from some felt aspects of my whole organically felt context
instead of only the thin constructs I was given to begin with. All methods
of logic and empirical testing in situations and research remain intact
with this new method of thinking. Only, the original questions and
constructs no longer need limit us. We can keep these and their impli-
cations but we can also create new ones, getting at new facets and
formulating these in new constructs which lead to new implications
and new variables and truths to test.
56 Language and Meaning
Measuring Felt Meanings
We used to think that this mode of thinking is "not measurable,"
that it is totally private, that we only bear and observe the conclusions
and actions of a person, and cannot tell whether he arrived at these
conclusions and actions through this sort of genuine thinking process,
or some other way. This is not so. Today we have objective measures of
the degree to which an individual employs his feeling process as a
continual basis for his verbalizations and behavior.
Although the kind of thinking I refer to here is the same, there
are many different kinds of situations in which we might want to
measure it. Classrooms are different sorts of situations from therapy
sessions, they have different specific aims, different kinds of behaviors
appropriate to them, and hence the measures will have to be created
anew for classrooms, even though we already have them for tape recorded
psychotherapy.
The basic principle of these measures (rating scales, questionnaires,
etc.) is to measure the kind of process going on rather than the kinds
of content how things are said and done, rather than what is said
and done. For example: the sort of interaction between teacher and
student, willich I described and of which I said that it teaches this new
kind of thinking (explicating the felt sense of thinking) ... this kind of
interaction can be observed and measured. However, it cannot be
measured in terms of the content, of what is being said ... because the
same method can apply in any field, with any content. Nor can you get
at it by counting the number of times the teacher asks questions, or
answers questions, or presents factual material, or tries to get up discus-
sion. For in all these different aspects of teaching there may be, or
there may not be, the teacher's effort to pay attention to, to invite, to
explicate, to go s.everal steps with . . . the student's felt, as yet unformu-
lattd sense.

Felt Meaning as a Research Variable

How do we observe when an individual explicates his felt sense?
We observe a search for words, we observe metaphorically novel ways
of phrasing, we observe phrases that refer directly to something sensed
(like "this thing" or "what I'm getting at" or "what puzzles me is,
. . ." or "it's something like.", phrases which have no meaning
. .

whatever unless we accept them as pointers at something concretely

there, felt, directly referred to by the individual within himself.
 The Discovery of Felt Meaning 57

In research it is all-important, what variables you choose to define

rating scales and
and measure. Good quantifying methods for tests,
questionnaries exist: many judges rating separately, one-way-vision
research we most
glass, and tape recordings, many methods exist. In
often fail not for a dearth of methods but in the poor variables we
first defin$3.
From the things I have been saying two conclusions follow for the
creation of research variables: First, let us define and measure the sorts
of behaviors by teachers and students which I have been describing:
the teacher's inviting and aiding students to explicate their feltnot
yet explicitthoughts and reactions, and the students' doing just that.
Often this requires several steps of interchange and it is not at all difficult
to notice (recall the rather characteristic descriptions I have given,
which we all recognize).
Second, and more generally, you can take any interesting aspect
always a
of classroom behavior. As it is currently phrased, it is nearly
content variable. You can convert it into a process
variable (which, I
think, will be much more likely to give you results). The procedure is
and
as follows. Suppose you think you might take classroom interaction
system with
divide the teacher's behaviors according to a classification
variables like: asks question, presents information, approves student's
instructions, etc. Now, my
speech, disapproves student's speech, gives
prediction is that one is most likely to find nothing with these variables.
of
They concern what the teacher does. But, why then would one think
more,
studying them? Because we may think that teachers who approve
or who ask for discussion more, are more successful teachers.
We still think in terms of what is done. Let the next step be why.
Why would one think that more approval makes better teaching? Because
approval makes students more comfortable and hence more
able to
Then the third
have and express their reactions and to think and learn.
step is: that is a process variable: measure that directly. Always, your
will
real and good reasons for being interested in the content variable
lead to an underlying process variable which can be measured directly.
For example, now that we want to measure students' freedom to have
and express their reactions, we can set up various measures: a standard
five-minute procedure in which a picture is shown by the teacher being
tested, and the class is asked to describe it (or anything appropriate
that will get at
to the age and type of class, so long as it is a measure
comfort-to-express. Hence it must be something to which anyone could
have reactions he would like to express, not only bright children). Or, if
you still want to classify teacher classroom behavior, you can now
58 Language and Meaning
formulate a classification system that will really be relevant to what you
want to measure: encouragement or discouragement of comfort-to-
express.
You will be more concerned, now, with different manners in which
material is presented, different manners in which questions are asked
(rather than just whether material is presented or questions are t

asked). Is the material presented so that student-reactions to it can be

appropriate? Is it presented wholefor comment, or cut up and only
good for memorizing? Must student expressions be answers to questions
only? Are questions sometimes directed at student reactions, or only to
obtain student productions of correct answers?

From Content to Process

If we thought earlier that a large number of questions makes for
discussion, we see now that our real interest lay in the kind of questions,
in how questions were intended and posed. If, before, we thought large
proportions of material-presenting behavior would be bad, we now
realize we meant only a manner of presenting which precludes the
student-expression we are interested in.
This, of course, is only an example, to illustrate that from any
content variable that seems interesting we can move (via asking our-
selves why it seems interesting) to the process variable which we really
intend, and then we can measure it directly. (Of course, this requires
devising a new instrument, a new rating scale, test situation or ques-
tionnaire, but the stage of development in our sciences about humans
is such that, indeed, we usually must define new and more specific
variables, categories and tests.)
Such instruments (for example, a rating scale used by several
independent judges listening to tape recordings of classroom interaction)
give us mathematical scores which we can then correlate with other
measures, for example the number of failing grades or the number of
dropouts or the increase over a year's period on intelligence tests, or
any other measure you wish.

Transcending the Controversy between

Content and Progressive Educafion
You will notice that I am proposing as worthwhile research vari-
ables (and as worthwhile aspects of practical teaching method) some-
what different issues than those argued about a few years ago in

*a-:
 The Discovery of Felt Meaning 59

education. I am saying neither that there should be an intellectual em-

phasis (e.g., we need more physicists to catch up Vv'n the Russians) nor
a personal adjustment emphasis ( as in some extremes of progressive
education ). I am not saying that teachers should place emphasis on
subject matter (though better quality performance by students on all
subject matter is desirable) nor am I saying that teachers should drop
the material they teach and become psychotherapists (though one must
often respond to the child and not only to what he says).
I am not advocating the lecture method or the discussion method.
We can move beyond these older divisions of viewpoint, to more basic
goals of education. These older divisions are based on content, on what
should be talked about and taught: should teacher and student talk about
personal aspects or subject matter, should they talk about something the
teacher brought up or something the student brought up, should there
be more or less material presented by the teacher compared with the
proportion given to student discussion? I am not talking about such
questions of what, I am concerned with how.
It is true, with this new method of thinking as the basic "how"
one cannot lecture all the time. However, it does not follow that one
must never lecture. One should not force one's class structure on students
without making room for and giving time to their reactions and to an
explication of what it means to them, but it does not follow that a teacher
must not impose any structure.
The underlying educational aim of those views that championed
students' setting their own course of study and giving themselves their
grades, the view which forbade lectures and the presentation of ordered
material, which viewed it as a violation of freedom to give assignments
or examsthe underlying educational aim oi all that, was the student's
developing his own process of thinking and inquiry. But we can hold to
that principle without limiting what we do as teachers. The basic issue
is not the assignment, but how it is given and used; not the grades but
how they affect the nature of the whole course and class, not the
teacher's presentation of ordered material but whether he does or does
not then make room for steps of thought and explication as these occur
in the student.
Years ago, before coming into a university I taught in a city college.
Our students took printed city-wide exams mathematically graded. If I
was not to cheat the students then it was my responsibility to give them
the materials they would be tested on. I found that there was no con-
tradiction between this and my other aims. I could present the material
in ten minutes of each hour (our standards on content are too low!) and
60 Language and Meaning
give the other forty minutes to the students' reactions and thinking
about it. (Before I found this, I used to present my material, then ask
for questions. No questions. So I would present it again, ask for questions,
discuss with one or two bright students till the end of the hour, review
the material again next time, and at mid-term snd before the final.
What a waste of time!) The basic principle of giving time to discussion
is not a law against lectures, not that we must not present material in
our own orderly way. The basic principle is that we must not imp the
material only in the order and conceptual boxes in which we present it,
but we must also teach the students to think on it, i.e., to move through
their own steps (in orders and steps different from those our presentation
implies); in short, that we help them think ... recognizing however that
thinking is not only words and constructs but also felt sense and its
explication.

Relevance to Experience
The controversy between content and progressive education can
be resolved by being transcended. Progressive education (while my
views probably come from some of its influence) is too often misunder-
stood as content: then it seems a de-emphasis of subject matter in favor
of personal growth, play, unstructured classes, little real intellectual
growth. It was not so intended. Rather, education must be viewed and
studied as processthe kind of process going on in the student.
Aiding a student to explicate his felt sensing in thinking means
aiding him to explicate his sense of the world and context he lives in,
since that is what feeling and sensing is . . . our organic sentience of
being bodily alive, interactively, in an environment. But this means that
we must let the student live with, and interact with the actual subject
matter so that it is part of the context in which he lives. This involves
more and more direct, higher level subject matter, so that the student
has a direct experiential sense of it. The teacher must not be the
only one who really studies the subject matter directlyas it were,
the teacher standing on a mountain from which he alone can see the
real subject matter which he only reports indirectly in a secondhand
and boiled down way to the students.
Some have tried to make this point by saying: make the class
relevant to the student's "experience." Yet this is too often misunderstood
to mean that you must bring the subject matter down to what the
student has already experienced ... when it should mean, rather, that
you must extend the student's experience so he experiences the subject
 The Discovery of Felt Meaning 61

matter! Thus higher intellectual quality, not boiling down, is implied

in the new method.
As an illustration of the difference, consider the attempt to bring
mathematics down to the student's "experience": mathematical problems
are phrased in terms of "a boy goes to the store . . ." or "bags of brown
candy and bags of red candy." To appeal to the student's experience of
stores and candy does little for mathematics. What is really wanted is
to extend the student's experiencing of mathematics (as the newer
methods do, ming rods of different length to teach quantitative relation-
ships). The rods are tools: The point is not that rods can be experiences,
but that with them there can be an cxperiencing of quantitative relation-
ships. Thus, in mathematics we now extend the child's experience of
the subject matter, so that the child does not have to learn by rote the
steps of adding, then of subtracting, and so on, but can operate on his
own with the directly experienced quantitative relationships of mathe-
matics itself.
Similarly, in history, to bring it down to experience might be (when
studying Lincoln ) to remind students of who is on the penny, while to
help them to extend their experience of history would involve marveling
Hnd puzzling (as historians do) over whether Lincoln could have avoided
the war if he had been less stubborn ... explicating the student's felt
sensed reactions which then soon come to similar questions.
In conclusion, basic new trends of human thought are always funda-
mentally reflected in educationbecause education is the process of
creating and fashioning human nature and society. In today's new trends
of thought, the concrete experiential aspect is becoming more and more
central. People used to think, centuries ago, that human nature was set
and defined and tbey knew what it was (though they did not all agree,
each group thought it knew). Human nature and reality seemed ade-
quately dealt with in these, or those, constructs, definitions, concepts.
Even in the nineteenth century, when so much cultural relativism and
historicism showed the vast variety of what men can be and think
even then there were thought to be at least laws of history, of the
historical evolution of cultures. But the 20th Century has seen us break
all forms: in religion, in values, in bow subject matter is presented, in
social patterns of living, in non-Euclidean mathematics, in art.
Once forms have been broken through, once we see them as relative,
we can no longer cboose them as they were, absolutely and with seeming-
organic solidity. They become mere forms and we must meet something
else, something more. Experiential concreteness is not given in just one
 't

62 Language and Meaning

set of forms but it can always be carried forward, explicated and formed.
A thinking which does that is a more powerful method of education,
of psychotherapy, of human relations and of thinking generally, than
any of the erstwhile absolute-seeming forms. Yet this method of proper
interplay between felt concrete sensing and concepts is new.
We have only recently emerged from trendsin the first part of this
centuryin which this breakage of forms meant either a merely formal
playing with these forms (a formal playing, logic-chopping, calculus-
making, which was possible just because the forms had been pulled away
from concreteness and shown to be so easily variable), or a glorification
of the emotional, the merely felt and unexplicated, the ambiguous,
ephemeral and unspeakable (again that sort of view was possible only
because forms had been pulled off and had been found so variable).
Thus there was Logical Positivism and Existentialism in philosophy,
intellectual and personality emphases in education; and in society on
the one hand an increasing technologizing abstracted from one's being
human, and on the other hand an increasing emphasis on psychotherapy
and the emotional needs of this individual human who now had to live
in a more and more complex, rationalized, social system which was
more and more swiftly changing and variable, no longer organically
embodied in his living identity, as preindustrial social forms had been.
if you consider feeling and form as two static entities, then the
split is devastating: it results in unexamined inexplicit blind emotionality
(be it beautiful or Nazi-like) on the one hand, and mere formalism on
the other side. Yet if we take these two, not as static, if in thinking
and explication they are in motion, each carrying the other forward,
then this modern rJativity of all values and forms will have given
birth to a new and much more powerful method of human thinking in
the sciences about man, as well as in living socially and individually,
in how we deal with ourselves and our feelings, and in our thinking
about education as well as in our practical procedures and research
variables.

References
Eugene T. Gendlin. Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning. New York:
Free Press, 1962.
Eugene T. Gendlin. "A Theory of Personality Change." Chapter in: Personality
Change. Philip Worehel and Donn Byrne, editors. Symposium on Personality Change,
University of Texas. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1964.

-
 ''' ,45,111:54-4,1Z2.41 ,44..f.,51,,..14e,U

What Language Reveals

Walter Loban

LANGUAGE is the base of almost all modern education. Below

this language base one finds not subjects for instruction but the
bedrock itselfhuman perception, emotion, volition and thought. But
these four are, in themselves, mere energies without direction. Perceiving,
feeling, willing and thinking are shaped through language and action.
Through language and action they are given form and design, thereby
gaining meaning and significance. Language and action, these are the
two crucial ways of educating mankind. Of the two, language gains in
importance as any culture or nation moves from primitive to civilized
conditions.
Although we will here discuss only one of the two, language, I wish
to comment briefly on the other, action, or as it is sometimes phrased,
experience. Modern societies have never fully envisioned the educational
uses of experience and as a result our schools remain excessively verbal
in their emphasis and incomplete in their accomplishments. Crucially
important though language is, especially for developing the powers of
reasoning, language is nevertheless limited in its powers to educate.
The time must come when schools develop the full range of human
experience. In future schools, outdoor camping will appear often in the
curricula of younger pupils; art, music, drama and the dance will assume
their important central roles for everyone; older pupils will design,
build, decorate and sell houses and machines; work experience will be a
part of general education and travel will not be an unusual educational
event. Future pupils will learn much through experience, much that
cannot be fully conveyed by words alone, and language will often be
linked to experience.
Nevertheless words are of immense importance. Through language
an individual classifies the objects and experiences he encounters, and
63

C50.55,6,71.5, 5 1 . .47.4,1
 , Lt. ;;.,

What Language Reveals 65

important to remember that language is learned in one's family and

group. Only by actually being among those who speak differently does
anyone modify his language. Traditional instruction, exhortation and
drills are not enough. If minority groups who speak differently are to
be drawn into the mainstream of a nation's life, they must not attend
schools where they are grouped by themselves; rather they and their
families must enter all social and economic spheres of living. Language
is thus an important means of social class solidarity and adjustment
to social necessity.
Those whose lives relate to complex and abstract thought develop
the most effective uses of language complexity. Those who dwell in
slum or pioneer conditions often find language less useful than action.
Juvenile gangs and antisocial leatherjacketed motorcyclists do not talk
out their probioms; they act out their problems. Those who occupy
the least favored economic positions of a nation are mainly (and
understandably) concerned with the immediate present; they seldom
use language to examine the past or to anticipate the future. They do
not verbalize the nuances of subjective feeling, and their lives orieg
them to descriptive rather than analytical uses of language. As a result
their language, in comparison to that of more favored social groups,
employs fewer complex sentences, subordinate clauses, infinitive and
participial phrases, nominative absolutes, appositivesall those devices
most effective speakers use to show distinctions and precise relationships.
To those whose language is restricted, people such as teachers
sound very prolix, very "talky," and in school their children find them-
selves puzzled by so much strange talk. For self-respect such children
often turn back to their own group, reject the school, and become
problems until they drop out. Valuable and comforting though their
own social group and language may be, such children have missed an
opportunity to learn those forms of language which enable an individual
to think precisely and to cope more effectively with his environment.
The fault is not, of course, theirs, nor is the school always lacking in
desire to help. Nevertheless, much could yet be done in education to
induct such children less traumatically and more gradually into a fuller
use of the potential of language. There is nothing in the basic structures
of their language to prevent their learning the ways of elaborating those
stmctures to express more complex ideas. However, they will not
elaborate the sentence structures they know unless life at home or in
school makes it important and desirable to do so.
If language reveals much about social groups, it reveals much
about individuals, too. It reflects their view of themselves and their

e.ry., 4 r tr
ff, .=-474,414.19.1W.a. W.:T=41114r ',47%.-WiT.IRON.r.r41:tt.

66 Language and Meaning

personal security with others. People who have power over spoken
language are typically those who feel secure, are at ease with other
people, respecting themselves and others, and therefore able to speak
easily and sincerely. They have tbe flexibility and resiliency deriving
from a realization that the world is complicated and that there are no
simple solutions for most problems; they are sensitive to other people
and perceive how others receive what they say. They use the prevailing
language conventions of the community in which they live, enunciate
clearly, use a pleasant tone of voice, and speak with reasonable fluency. v

Although this is not always true, tbey are frequently the ones who can
adapt their language to different listeners.
Such individuals usually come from backgrounds of aspiration and
are open to and interested in experience. Vitality, wisdom, integrity
and courage manifest themselves in oral language, and the ability to
speak easily and well has deep connecHons witb one's security and
self-image. Insecure people often talk either too much or too little.
They, too, are trying to adjust to their environment, and language or
silence is their attempt. Violent dogmatism, false humility, smugness,
and snobbery are typical of other undesirable personal factors that show
up in vocabulary, style, diction and tone. Thus, schools cannot do much
with language apart from a concern with the child's self-image.
About human worth, however, language reveals nothing. Individual
worth and dignity cannot be estimated by the dialect or manner of
speech a man uses. Many admirable people of noble behavior lack the
educated language ease of typical community leaders and do not
necessarily speak the prestige dialect.

What Language Reveals About Itself

It is an interesting historical fact that mankind has been slow to
apply the methods of science to language. Apparently man bad to
observe the stars and fix his course on desert or sea before he could
turn much of his attention to the phenomenon of self. Astronomy was
followed by other sciences. In our own time anthropology has led us
to the beginnings of a sc:entific study of language. We realize now that
language is a system, that it is a system of arbitrary voice signals, that
it is essentially speech. Writing is a way of reproducing speech, but no
written language exists unless there is first a spoken language. We know
also that language changes, the sounds and words more rapidly than
the system, and that all languages communicate by utterances using

40, not. . t
 What Language Reveals 67
important of all,
subjects and predication about those subjects. Most
we know that language and thinking are closely interlock( d.1
Language and thinking are interrelated by virtue of .the fact that
human language is composed of symbols. A fundamental difference
between the animal and the human world is linguistic. Animals can
with symbols. A growl, a call,
use and understand cues; they cannot cope
even a green tr ffic lightcues like these, directly tied to a concrete
situation, can take on meaning foz animals as well as for human beings.
Symbols, however, are instruments of complicated thought. They are
not necessarily tied to the immediate situation, for by means of symbols
human beings can allude to objects or concepts even in the absence
of those objects or concepts.
This language system is amazingly flexible. It can be enlarged to
1960, and
name new concepts, such as camouflage in 1918, jet plane
co6monaut in 1967. Also, the individual symbols in the sy3tem can
be
used for more than one symbolintion. Response to any linguistic symbol
is contingent upon the symbols with which it is combined. ?or instance,
in English-speaking communities, response to the symbol crop differs
in the following four sets of utterances because of the surrounding
symbols:
The stone stuck in the bird's crop.
She carried a riding crop in her hand.
The shepherd watched his sheep crop the grass.
The farmer reaped a crop of barley.
The cues used by animals never become language for discourse
because animals are incapable of separating the cues from the particular
concrete situations in which cues are embedded. No evidence of animals
having made the leap from cues to symbolic language, to words freed
from situations and arranged in systems of contingency has ever been
verifled.2 Until the day she learned water as a symbol, and thereby
disassociated the symbol from any particular wetness, Helen Keller lived
the life of a gifted animal using cues. On that day, in a spectacular
leap, she extended her potential limits to the mental horizon of the
human family. Human beings use cues, of course, but they also use

See Harvard Educational Review 34 (2 ): 354; Spring 1964.

language may
2 A summary of research on behavior in animals in relation to
Illinois: The Free Press, 1958.
be found in Roger Brown. Words and Things. Glencoe,
Linguistic Reference," p. 155-93.
See chapter V, "The Comparative Psychology of

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68 Language and It/leaning

symbols. Without symbolic language there would be no formation of
concepts, no dominance of abstract knowledge over concrete knowledge.
Without symbolic language, there would be no civilization, no passing
on of cultures.
There are many ways of thinking with language symbols, ways
that need to be part of every child's education. Thinking with language,
he can classify into categories, comparing and contrasting, making subtle
distinctions. He can deduce and induce. He can generalize. He can see
relationships and he can reason by analogy. He can also dream and
imagine and make intuitive leaps in the dark. He can unify his thoughts
by imposing either a rational or an imaginative design upon the content
of his thought. The language of uneducated men is distinguished from
the language of educated men by the greater disjunction and separation
in the component parts of whatever they wish to communicate. There
if: in their language a lack of that "prospectiveness of wind, that surview,
which enables a man to foresee the whole of what he is to convey; and
by this means so to subordinate and arrange the different parts according
to their relative importance, in order to convey it as an organized whole."3
Another aspect of language that education can use more fully may
be called the two countenances of language. Language can be shaped
toward objective, dispassionate referential use, as science and mathe-
matics do. Or language can be bent toward subjective, vivid emotive
use, as literature does. Through scientific language we understand;
through literary language we realize. Both formsand their mixtures in
everyday discoursereveal much about how language is related to
thinking and feeling. Both forms are important to man and need to be
taught as a part of education.
Language has its limits, nevertheless, and beyond language lie
ways of expressing what exists within the potential of man which cannot
be communicated through grammatical discourse. Music, art and dance
release these ineffable feelings and concepts, and literature, too, although
anchored in the grammar of a language, transcends discourse to become
an art and communicate through aesthetic modes.

Teaching Pupils To Use Language Effectively

What language reveals about people ond about its own nature can
be used in helping schools teach pupils a more effective use of language.
To begin a consideration of language and education, we will look more
closely at the problem of social class dialect.
3 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria.

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 What Language Reveals 69

Because his oral language is such an important part of the child's

connection with his home and social group and because it is the most
important resource available to the school for educating the child,
teachers should not inhibit the primary school child by criticizing his
language. Here, then, is the place to begin helping pupils whose
indigenous language differs from that of the larger community. A sequen-
tial language curriculum would have these strategies for pupils who
speak a social class dialect or non-standard English:
I. Start these pupils earlier than others by giving them selected
experiences in prekindergarten, experiences selected by virtue of their
necessity in forming concepts needed for school work.
2. Educate teachers, both in-service and preservice, in the true
nature of language. Many teachers still have the knowledge of quack
doctors in this field.
3. In the kindergarten and earliest years of school, the emphasis
should be upon the child's using whatever language he already has as
the means of thinking, exploring, imagining and expressing. If he does
not speak the prestige dialect, he can begin to link language with
thinking and perceiving, using his own dialect. At this stage it is much 44,

too early to press him to use standard English; such mistaken teaching
merely confuses the child and causes him to speak less in school.
4. In the primary school the teacher will begin to introduce many
listening experiences in which very brief lively stories or riddles occur
in two versions: one in standard English and one in the dialect familiar
to the child. No invidious distinctions need be drawn, but the children
will have their attention focused upon listening for ihe differences.
The child needs to imitate all the phonemes of the standard dialect
while he is still young and linguistically flexible. These skits may be
live, they may be on records or on tapes with listening post arrangements.
5. In the upper years of the elementary school the teachers will
take a further step: they will have the children further imitate many
ways of speaking English, again in skits, brief and lively. Popular songs
with many varieties of EnglishScotch, Cockney, Cajun, Pidgin, Penn-
sylvania Dutch, Appalachian, Lancashire, Southern Negro, British,
Australianwill be heard and sung. The teachers will also begin to
provide guidance in oral usage of such noticeable items as ain't and
the double negative. Usage (not grammar) will be taught orally through
imitation and listening practice.
 UKtger.~734eriefFrAfir-itittfaf4 tWIWns.'

70 Language and Meaning

6. At some point, grades six or seven, the facts about standard and
non-standard language will need to be explained by teachers whose
own security and wisdom enable them to know that standard English
is only a prestige dialect and that human worth has nothing to do with
language. The pupils will be helped to see that there is nothing wrong
with the dialect they and their parents use, but that economic and
social penalties will be exacted of them if they cannot handle both
forms of the language. Standard ways of speaking are like standard
light bulb sockets, an efficient convenience. Social studies teachers will
also deal with language as a social force, noting its social role. Also
beginning at this time and lasting until graduation pupils will study
language as content, that is, the miracle of language, looking at the
fascinating ways of symbols and cues, bow neighboring words change
word meanings, the reasons for language cbange and for dialect, the
regional varieties of speech, the true grammatical structure of English,
the social aspects that lie back of usage, the dangers of perjury, propa-
ganda, and a myriad of other interesting facets of language. Pupils will
be led to note that newspapers, texts, newscasts are in standard English
and why.
7. Throughout the entire years of a pupil's schooling there will be
many occasions when teachers read aloud, fint, speakers are heard on
recordings, and successful guest speakers of many different ethnic
backgrounds talk to the pupils. Drama and poetry will be used more
often, and tape recorders will be in all classrooms.
8. Curricula will include more attention to oral language and oral
language will be evaluated on tests of achievement.
9. Teachers will be selected for their understanding of the truths
about language, not for an illiberal adherence to so-called "correct
speech" improperly understood.
10. Implementing all this will require class size in the 20's rather
than 30's or 40's. And, lest we anticipate Utopia, all these changes will
undoubtedly bring some new problems as we solve the old problems.
Education is never perfected.
11. Junior and senior high school classes will use language labora-
tory aural-oral approaches to drill for those who are still learning
standard ways of speech.
Persistently through all of this, teachers will help pupils to elaborate
their kernel sentences in order to express complex and useful ideas.
Manipulation of sentences, not grammar, will be the method. From my

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 What Language Reveals. 71

own research I know that the difference between effective and non-
effective users of language does not appear in their control of the
grammatical sentence patterns, for all pupils know these before they
enter school. Not grammatical sentence patterns but what is done to
achieve greater flexibility and modification of ideas within these patterns
proves to be the real measure of proficiency with language.4
Since formal instruction in grammarwhether linguistic or tradi-
tionalhas not yet proved to be an effective method of improving
expression, one can conclude that pupils need many opportunities to
grapple with their own thought and express it in situations wliere they
have someone to whom they wish to communicate successfully. Instruc-
tion can best aid the pupils' expression when individuals or small groups
with similar problems are helped to see how their own expression can
be improved. This instruction would take the form of identifying elements
which strengthen or weaken communication, increase or lower precision
of thought, clarify or blur meanings. For the pupils the approach will
usually be through listening to and imitating models, through meaning
and reasoning rather than through drills and the application of gram-
matical rules. In the early yearJ, children might practice sentence
manipuiation by carrying placard words to the front of the room and
then arranging and rearranging themselves to form variations of the
sentences their placard words express. The chalk board and flannel
board, too, offer similar possibilities for getting a preliminary kinesthetic
feel for sentence manipulation. Next, word cards and linguistic blocks
for seat work and the opaque projector can provide the same approach
to manipulation of sentences. Finally they will work on their own
compositions and oral discussions.
The persistently parallel relation of language proficiency with socio-
economic status cannot be overlooked. It appears entirely possible that,
much more than previously thought, language proficiency may be
environmentally as well as hereditarily determined. If children reared
in families at the least favored socioeconomic positions receive a restricted

4 Walter Loban. Language Ability: Grades Seven, Eight, and Nine. Office of
Education, U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966.
-----. The Language of Elementary School Children. NCTE Research
Report No. 1; Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1963.
. "Language Proficiency and School Learning." In Learning and the
Educational Process, John D. Krumboltz, editor. Chicago, Illinois: Rand McNally
and Company, 1965, p. 113-31.
. Problems in Oral English. NCTE Research Report No. 5. Champaign,
Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1966.

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72 Language and Meaning

language experience at home, if their early linguistic environment stresses
only limited features of language potential, such children will indeed be
at a disadvantage in school and in the world b aond schoolunless
the school offers a planned sequential program of language instruction.
Those subjects most proficient with language are the ones who
most frequently use language to express tentativeness. Supposition,
hypothesis, and conditional statements occur much less frequently in
the spoken la.lguage of those lacking skill in language. Teachers can
help with this by asking more questions that begin with why, what if,
suppose that, and fewer questions beginning with what and when.5
From all this we can realize that the child's self-image, his feeling
toward the teacher, and his relationships with the other children in the
school constitute additional factors that will shape the style and fluency
of his language. On this matter, there are no easy educational guides.
Everything that is done to give a human kind of striving-quality to
learning and schooling will help to give the individual that self-respect
and assurance making for better control of language in one's reactions
with other people.
We can also see that much more needs to be done to link language
with thinking. Teachers who are aware of the importance of inductive
thinking, the usefulness of categories, the power of analogies, and what
it means to generalize will be teachers who are more likely to elicit
language for such purposes. Not WHAT and WHEN but rather SUP-
POSE THAT . .. WHAT IF? . .. WHY? . .. will be the approach of teach-
ers in all areas of the curriculum, not just in language arts or English.
Inasmuch as language is essentially oral, schools will give more
attention to oral languagenot, of course, encouraging mere talk and
chatter but rather emphasizing what might be called thinking on one's
feet, learning to organize ideas in group discussion, to cleave to the heart
of a topic, to make progress with ideas and to generalize when enough
illustrations have been given. Pupils in such situations will learn how
to retreat gracefully from untenable positions, to be tentative but
forceful in presenting ideas, to welcome differences of opinion, and to
realize that one should have the courage to present minority opinion so
that the group may have access to all sides of an issue.
Finally, curriculum directors and supervisors will need to aid teach-
ers in developing adequate means of evaluating growth in oral skill,
for until anything is evaluated it is unlikely to receive much emphasis
5 Walter Loban. The Language of Elementary School Children. NCTE Research
Report No. 1. Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English ( 508
South Sixth Street), 1963.
j(rATZ.T474MaMraiMINIL4VWMZ,V4WIfediatantAlinAralritseyr.wwgraap,w,wrzw.Et

What Language Reveals 73

in the curriculum. "Give me the power to evaluate and I will control

the curriculum" is a memorable saying. The boundaries of the curriculum
inevitably shrink to whatever is evaluated and at the present time oral
proficiency, the base of almost everything discussed in this paper, is
scarcely evaluated at all. With modern recording devices, teachers art.
now able to evaluate oral language and there is at last an excellent
chance of improvement in oral language instruction, an improvement
that will ultimately prove to be more valuable to education than all that
has happened in science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction.
Through experience and through language we learn.
Experience needs language to give it form.
Language needs experience to give it content.
Learners need to be open to experience, to live fully, and to
arrange, shape, and clarify their experience by expressing it in effective
language. Here is the base of all true education, whether in school
or in all of life.

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 994

Meaning and Thinking

Mary Jane McCue Aschner

THERE seems to be almost no limit to what we can consider

relevant to the topics of meaning and thinking from the standpoint of
the interests and concerns of the educator. Therefore it is necessary to
take a sufficiently narrow line of approach to these matters in order
to come out in the end with some kind of meaning for our thinking that
will have practical import for our tasks of educat g America's children.
Out of the boundless realms of what can be meant by "meaning," I
shall examine two modes or aspects of meaning that seem to have direct
bearing upon thinking in relation to its role in equipping the well-de-
veloped intelligence for effective action. One of these I call "attached
meaning" and the other, "addressed meaning." In defining these terms,
I shall try to clarify what I have in mind and to explain why I believe
these two modes of meaning are basic to the development of thinking
abilities as an educational objective.
It is the plan of this paper to begin with some considerations of
how meaning and thinking become so important in the tenure of man-
kind on this earth. From this I shall describe and illustrate the two
modes of meaning already noted. Following, there will be a presenta-
tion and discussion of some conceptions or models of thinking that
have practical relevance to classroom practice. In concluding, some
fairly concrete suggestions will be made about how teachers may go
about putting these ideas to work.
It could be claimed that meaninghowever one conceives it for
the momenthas become man's specialty. Man is a constant seeker
after meaning, a maker of meaning, and a wielder of meaning in the
pursuit of his own ends. Meaninglessness stands synonymous with
despair in the hearts of many, and in the chilly regard of the disenchanted

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 Meaning and Thinking 75

ones as the actualization of man's final absurdity. But educators are

rarely among the disenchanted ones; they are seldom cast down in
despair, though they ofte n live in days of desperation. Fundamentally
educators are optimists, and they are convinced that their life and work
are truly meaningful.

Man and Meaning in Evolution

When did man begin? Perhaps one good answer to this question
is the proposition that man began when he became dircctly concerned
with the meaning of things. Aeons beyond reckoning in the past, some
primate probab y took his first stride toward becoming human when
be began to consider his situation in the light of its possible import
for him. That was the moment when this bright anthropoid started
coping with the problem of survival by reflection rather than mere
reaction. In this moment, be stopped to examine the "givens" in his
present pl'ght in terms of what they might meansignify or portend
for his chances of staying alive. And he explored these "givens" (we
call them data of "information input") for whatever meaning they might
boldsuggest or indicateregarding alternative courses of action. When
this kind of thinking went to work, the survival quotient of the being
who began it, and that of all his kith and kin, took a rapid rise upward.
Reflective thinking, as briefly sketched in here, involves some pro-
cesses that seem to set man apart from his fellow primates. To reflect
on things, after all, is to act mentally, and at the moment at least,
independently of physical action. Such thinking also involves not only
keeping several things in mind at the same time, but manipulating
them in some systematic way. Man thinks about the possibilities for
action and explores their probable consequences; he measures possi-
bilities and probabilities in the light of his present situation and of his
present and ultimate purpose. This entails perspectivethe capacity to
take the long-term view of things as well as the short-term view. This
capacity to think reflectively and systematically equips one to be a
decision maker and a planner. This is one of our distinguishing char-
acteristics as human beingsour capacity to decide and to plan on
the basis of reflection.
It may be at this point that we moved ahead of the chimps. But
here someone may remind us of the remarkable accomplishments of
Sultan, Kbbler's famous gifted chimp (see Wolfgang Köhler's The Men-
tality of Apes, 1925). After all, Sultan was certainly capable of sizing
up a situation accurately and of taking intelligent action. That is, be

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76 Language and Meaning

could put two and two together (two lengths of bamboo) and solve
his problem efficiently by hauling in that distant delectable banana.
So we must grant that Sultan could scan his situation, and act success-
fully to accomplish his purpose. So far what separates us from the
chimps? Certainly not the ability to do problem-solving jobs well. But
was Sultan a planner? Did he plan for future banana problems? No,
it seems he never made that step ahead. Granted, he was a shrewd
mechanic, a true maker of implements and tools, as are many of his
kind. But here is where Sultan and his kind left off, and we took the
next step ahead.
This big step was taken by one of our ancestors when he began
devoting a considerable portion of his time and energies to the making
of tools and other kinds of implements, such as clay containers for
food and liquids. For in the design and manufacture of implements,
plans and provisions for the future are made. Who would bother making
a spare spear if he did not anticipate a future need? Perhaps we owe
this first specialized tool-maker a hearty vote of thanks. For in directing
his thought and efforts toward planning for his own future, he made
our appearance on the scene a part of that future.
The role of language must also be considered for its bearing
on the evolution of human intelligence. It has been claimed that man
did not progress beyond the level of his fellow primates until the
advent of language, and that it was his achievement of language which
put man finally into the lead. Yet recent studies by paleontologists
and anthropologists now indicate that man made his first major move
forward well before the invention of language as we now know it
(Spuhler, 1959). This big step was taken when man turned in earnest
to the job of making implements as a means of providing for and
planning for the future.
The other primates, though they learned to make and use tools
to obtain food, for example, never devoted serious consideration to
the possible advantages of making and stock-piling implements as a
specialized way of dealing with the environment. Chimps can consider
the "givens" about them, and make something do as a tool to obtain
the desired object of the moment. But they never quite got to the
point of seeing to making itself as a generalized instrumental goal
for managing things to come. Maybe it was man's ability to think
ahead, and the chimp's inability to do this that separated us once and
for all from our fellow primates.
It is this kind of "thinking ahead" that is evidenced in the enter-
prise of making tools that probably enabled man to achieve the level

47,3' 4 , +.4- xet

 Meaning and Thinking 77

of control over his environment that made language the next necessary
tool, for man's environment expanded with the extension of his con-
trol over it. He began coping with the problems of survivalfood
gathering, shelter, and defensethrough cooperation with other men.
And a cooperative endeavor demands communication among those in-
volved. Yet in view of all this, it is fair to say that our capacity for
reflective thinking scarcely surpassed Sultan's level of problem solving
until we had made of language our most effective instrument of thought.

Two Bask Modes of Meaning

When we consider meaning in terms of its origins in relation to
the ability to think, it becomes obvious that there is one very important
kind of meaningso far as effective thinking is concernedthat is not
related to or dependent upon the kind of meaning we associate with
language and verbal behavior. This is a form of "preverbal" meaning;
it is not man's special provinceother species deal with this mode
of meaning in their efforts to understand and cope with the environ-
ment.
Yet it would be the worst kind of nonsense to conclude that,
since this preverbal domain of meaning figures importantly in the
lives of creatures lower than we on the evolutionary ladder, it is not
as important a contributor to our thinking as the kind of meaning
that is related to language. Intelligent problem solving, decision making,
and planning depend upon the effectiveness with which we deal with
both modes of meaning.

Attached Meaning

For purposes here, the preverbal mode of meaning is called attached

meaning. It is the significance and the import that is attached or ascribed
to certain features of the immediate situation in which one finds oneself.
Attached meaning has to do with how we classify the data received
through our perception of the situation with "what we make" of the 4+,

informational input. This is meaning brought to the situation by the

individual, and which he attaches to such features of the environment
that stand outthat impinge upon his awarenessas he perceives his
situation. One's perceptions are not only determined by his present
purposes, but also by the kinds of experiences and attitudes he brings
to the present situation (Bruner, 1957). Most specifically this mode of
meaning is distinguished from others by virtue of the fact that no agent

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78 Language and Meaning
or agency sent or addressed the meaning to the individual. It is mainly
his interpretation that shapes the meaning of things for the individual.
This of course holds also for what meaning one makes of the mode
(speech, writing, gestures) in which someone has addressed him. But the
major point here is that meaning is made out of what is "there" that was
not intended to be sent forth by or from its perceived source. The source
of such meaning may be inert and inanimate, or it may be animate
and active. But the how and the why of its meaning depend more
upon its beholder than upon its own nature.
Take the meaning of a mountain peak, for example. To the alpinist
it may mean a challenge to his daring that he purposes to meet. He
plans to scale tbe peak, or else! To tbe alpine guide, tbe same peak
may mean no challenge at all, but only a somewhat tiring means by
which to earn a living from tbe tourists. To tbe poet, this peak may mean
something he expresses in writing of "sermons in stone." And the
painter may see it as tbe meaning of remote grandeur epitomized, now
to be captured on canvas.
Consider another situation involving mountains, and what most of
us call "natural signs" that something is going to happen. Take the
caveman and bis modern descendant, tbe sportsman deer bunter.
Uncounted millenia apart in time, these two individuals may very well
attach tbe same meaning to tbe same event: the sudden turmoil of
darkening, gathering storm clouds, near the saddle ridge below the peak,
toward which eachin his own timeis heading. Both men "see" these
cloud-gatherings as meaning "rain soon, and probably a big storm." Both
may decide on the basis of this interpretation to take the same kind of
action. Og heads back for the cave, and Ogden beats it back down tbe
slope to bis car and heads for home.
Even commonly interpreted "natural signs" can mean different
things to different people. Consider the case of Herr Alpenfels, a small
farmer and sage of this district. He is especially famed as a weather
prophet. He scans the same skies, viewing them from the same general
position as that from which Og and, some time later, our contemporary
Ogden looked up and saw these signs as meaningportending or signi-
fyingthe imminent onslaught of a rainstorm. But old farmer Alpenfels
sizes up tbe situation quite differently. Sniffing the wind and testing
its direction with a wet finger, Herr Alpenfels concludes that this is just
the prelude to a storm that will not break till tomorrow. So he predicts
"rain tomorrow" from the meaning he has attached to the same sky
conditions that meant "rain right soon" to otbers. Farmer Alpenfels

r.rg , 41)
 Meaning and Thinking 79

acts differently, too, on the basis of his interpretation of what the storm
clouds signified to him. He has decided to leave his cattle up on the
high alm for the night and bring them down before noontime next day,
giving them that much more time to graze the fresh grasses of his
meadow land.
People are part of our environment, too. Sometimes we attach
meaning to what they do, or do not do, or say or do not say. But again,
our ascription of meaning is still mostly a matter of our own doing,
unless the other person or persons in our situation are explicitly address-
ing their words or their actions to us. Consider the case of the mother
busy in her kitchen who becomes aware of a striking silence in the
playroom, where her two children have bee7i heard playing and
prattling steadily for some time. And now this long, noticeable silence.
"What is going on?" wonders Mother. To her the unexpected silence sug-
gests several possibilities, not all of them welcome! The children have
moved from the playroom to some other place out of earshot; they are
tired and have dropped off to sleep (unlikely, she muses); or they are up
to some kind of mischief. She decides to act in the basis of the possible
meanings of silence when silence signifies for her that something unusual
is going on. So she goes to investigate. Much to her surprise, both young-
sters have fallen sound asleep.
The silence signified something, as we have noted, but it was not a
message from children to mother. Nor would the silence itself have
consisted in a message sent to mother even if the children bad carefully
plotted silence just in order to lure Mother into the playroom in order
to play a trick on her. In that event, the children would have manipu-
lated tho situation on the basis of their ability to predict how Mother
would interpret it, and how she would then act on her interpretation.
They did not address their mother; they simply rigged the situation
so that she would read into it a certain meaning and subsequently
take action.
People often tend to interpret others' behavior as if it were intended
for them to "receive." For example, the social studies teacher has just
began an explanation of some historical issue that was raised by one
of the students in the current discussion. In the back of the room sit
Nancy and Linda. Both are apparently listening attentively to the
teacher's remarks. Suddenly Nancy frowns and shakes her head, her
eyes still on the teacher. Then she turns and whispers something to Linda.
From the teacher's point of view, it seems quite clear that some
part of her explanation has provoked Nancy to disagree with her, and

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 IV.,",0:010;070e4,1^

80 Language and Meaning

then to act rudely in turning to whisper to Linda. From the teacher's

standpoint, this interpretation of Nancy's action, as directed initially
to her in an expressed negation of something, is perfectly plausible.
Other observers might also interpret Nancy's behavior as intended to
express some kind of negative response to the teacher's remarks. But it
does not necessarily follow that what looks like "meant" behavior is in
fact "meant" to express anything to anyone.
For example, in this case, the teacher's use of the word "labor" in
discussing labor and management relations is what brought the frown
to Nancy's face. All day long she has been worried about her mother
who is in labor at this very moment to deliver a new baby. Nancy has
kept in touch with her father at the hospital L, telephone. Just before
class Dad had said it would be "any minute now." Nancy has been
trying to concentrate on class discussion to keep her mind off her worry
and fears for her mother. But that word "labor," uttered in quite a
different context of thought, brought her mother's plight vividly back
to mind. Her frown was a reaction to her own thoughts, and was in no
way a response to the teacber. Her whispers to Linda were not about
the teacher or what she had said. Nancy was telling Linda that she
did not see how she could stand it any longershe was going to leave
after this class and rush to the hospital, no matter what the principal
might do to her.
Granted, this is a rather dramatic example of how meaning can be
attached to behavior on the assumption that the behavior was addressed
to its interpreter by the person observed. Here the assumption was
mistaken; no message was meant for anyone by the frown and the
shaking of a head. (After all, such gestures and expressions do con-
ventionally express meaning.) This confusion of interpretation can cause
teachers much trouble. It is important to observe behaviors in the class-
room, and it is equally if not more important to avoid hasty interpre-
tations. This is true because our actions are in all cases based on the
meaning we see in a situation. Yet it is unwise to read into a situation
what in fact may not be there at all, and then worse still, to judge
someone (a mental action) mistakenly on the basis of that misinterpre-
tation.

Addressed Meaning

A second mode of meaning that has so much to do with thought and

action consists in what we do in our efforts to communicate with others.
We address (send) some "message" that we intend for some other person

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Meaning and Thinking 81

or persons (and some of our animal friends, too) to receive, to "take in."
Normally we intend to communicate what we have in mind in such a
way that it will be understood as meantso that our addressee, so to
speak, will comprehend accurately what we are trying to tell him.
(Of course we also tell lies and sometimes deliberately "encode" our
message so that it will be taken in a way that is misleading to its
recipient; we may appear to mean one thinge.g., friendly candorwhen
in fact our purpose is to disarm the other fellow in order to obtain
information he might be otherwise reticent to impart.)
Actions that are carried out in order to communicate are both the
vehicle and the embodiment of addressed meaning. We communicate by
using symbols, by writing and speaking, and by making certain kinds
of physical movementsgestures, expressions of feeling by face and
eyes, hands and bodythat we use to convey certain meanings according
to the conventions in force within a given social group, community, or
culture. Whatever kind of communication we use, it is shaped by con-
ventionoften by unwritten "ground rules" that determine how we can
say or tell something to someone. Moreover, and equally important,
communication is to be understood as a form of action, not merely as its
product or "content." As addressed action, meaning has its agent, its
intent, and its "target" or intended recipient.

Using Symbols To Mean

One of our most common nonverbal forms of communication involves

the use of symbols. These can be lights, shapes, sounds, code systems,
emblems, signs, and of course many other things. Thus the bell buoy
warns the ship away from the shoals, the beacon fire hails the rescuers
in their nighttime search for marooned mountain climbers; the siren
warns of approaching retribution (traffic cops), announces the lunch
hour, proclaims the advent of destruction by bombing, or clears the road
for an ambulance or a fire engine. Red, yellow and green traffic lights
govern our stops and starts on the streets; the curved arrow on the road
sign informs us of a sharp curve ahead.
The chalkboard teems with the sprawling cryptic codesystems
of symbols that mathematicians and scientists use in thinking their way
through theoretical problems. The score of a Mozart symphony tells
the conductor when to raise his baton as a signal to the woodwinds
section to take up their melodic dialogue with the strings. All these are
effective acts of communication, addressed, hopefully understood, and
yielding some kind of response (not necessarily overt or in direct reply).

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 82 Language and Meaning

Though symbols used in communication do not depend on "worded"

language, and their range of use is more limited, still there are some
ways of communicating that cannot be better achieved by any other
means.

Using Words and Sentences To Mean

Verbal communication is surely one of man's most complex and

highly developed forms of social and intellectual activity. There is so
much more meaning involved in communication between individuals
and groups than what naively is supposed to reside in words and sen-
tences, as the supposed containers and conveyors of meaning.
Let me underscore again the action aspect of verbal behavior as
activity that is meaning by citing the late philosopher Ludwig Wittgen-
stein, whose intent it was "... to bring into prominence the fact that the
speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life" (1953,
p. 11). The rest of that activity or form of life to which Wittgenstein
referred consists mainly in what I have referred to as communication in
and through the addressing, receiving and responding actions that in
themselves constitute meaning. The meanings of words consist in our
use of them, what we do with them, and bow we handle them within a
given context or situation.
We do many different kinds of things in our verbal activities.
In Wittgenstein's listing of some of these activities, notice how many
involve many kinds of thinking, and bow many of these verbal activities,
or "language games" are a regular feature of everyday life in the class-
room. (Wittgenstein was himself a schoolmaster for several years, and
it is quite possible that this experience contributed to his remarkable
achievements as a philosopher.) Following is Wittgenstein's list:
Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples,
and in others:
Giving orders, and obeying them
Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements
Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)
Speculating about an event
Forming and testing a hypothesis
Presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams
Making-up a story; and reading it
Play-acting
Singing catches
Guessing riddles
Making a joke; telling it

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 Meaning and Thinking 83

Solving a problem in practical arithmetic

Translating from one language into another
Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying (1953, p. 11-12).

In an earlier discussion of Wittgenstein's theory of language, I

once said, "All these activities involve in some way acts of saying or
telling" (1960, p. 245). From this view of language as action it becomes
apparent that what I have earlier described as symbolic, along with those
activities that I called non-symbolic, can all be included within the scope
of language. However, it is the intent here to draw finer distinctions
and to more clearly expose the multiple dimensions of addressed mean-
ing in contrast to those of attached meaning.
A closer inspection of the idea of "context" brings into sharper relief
the clear-cut patterns and forms that language games can take; and also
set the stage for a discussion of several studies of thinking that have
been carried on in and through the analysis of verbal interaction. (In
these studies the importance of keeping track of the context of what was
said and done in the course of a class session was truly crucial.) The
function of context in the analysis of meaning is nowhere better stated
than by P. F. Strawson, who wrote:
... the context of utterance is of an importance which it is almost impos-
sible to exaggerate; and by "context" I mean, at Icast, the time, the place,
the situation, the identity of the speaker, the subjects which form the immedi-
ate focus of interest, and the personal histories of both the speaker and those
whom he is addressing (1950, p. 336).

Conceptions of Thinking in Classroom Research

Three recent studies of thinking in the context of classroom operation
will be treated here. Each investigation placed special emphasis upon
the addressed mode of meaning, which is the prevalent mode of meaning
represented in the teacher-student activity of the classroom. Attached
meaning, however, is taken to be as basic as addressed meaning to the
content of the learning tasks and materials making up the subject
matters of instruction.
Each of these research projects involved extensive tape recording,
and the verbatim transcription of the moment-to-moment flow of verbal
interaction among teachers and students within tbe context of instruction,
study and learning. Tbe transcribed class sessions in all three studies were
subjected to intensive analysis, with particular attention given to the
relation between thinking processes and the verbal behaviors that are
taken to reflect their operation. In other words, each study sought to
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84 Language and Meaning

make use of every available contextual cue that might permit inferences
to be made concerning what kind of thinking was going on in the course
of class discussion.

The Search for Teaching Strategies

Two of these studies explored the varieties of possible strategies
that teachers might employ in fostering the development of thinking
abilities in students. Both investigations began with the study of teaching
"as is," without intervention of any kind, in order to determine what
current practices might have to do with the development of thinking
abilities, and both studies then attempted either to identify (Taba,
1963) or to formulate (Smith et at, 1964) what seemed to be promising
ways of developing effective teaching procedures for stimulating and
training thinking.
Smith (1964) and his colleagues based their analysis of verbal
interaction on a conception of thinking in terms of its logical dimensions
and manifestations in behavior. A number of logical operations were
identified and classified in performances assumed to represent such
activities as defining, explaining, inferring, designating, classifying,
evaluating, and so on. The teaching strategies sought for development
were those which would equip the teacher both with effective procedures
for fostering critical thinkingbroadly constructedand the ability to
exercise procedures exactingly and systematically within the framework
of the subject matter being studied. Teaching strategies involved combi-
nations of "moves" (tactics?) whereby particular logical operations were
either performed by the teacher in carrying on instruction, or they were
structured by the teacher for performance in the sequences of verbal
interaction carried on by the students. The Smith studies have been
conducted in high school classrooms, grades nine through twelve, in the
fields of English, social studies, mathematics, and the sciences.
Taba has also undertaken to analyze thinking processes in the class-
room verbal interaction context in order to identify and develop teaching
strategies. Her studies have been carried on in elementary school class-
rooms. As Taba says, the problem is ". . . to identify the particular
teaching strategies required by particular types of learning goals, such as
generating certain cognitive operations, stimulating certain types of
inquiry, and integrating certain bits of information into larger con-
cepte (1963).
In her analysis of classroom activities, Taba has focused her
observation upon the various patternsor profilesof instructional

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 Meaning and Thinking 85

sequences that characterize certain styles. of teaching. These patterns,

once traced, tend to reveal the manner in which the teacher paces and
phases the mode of her pupils' engagement with learning content, and
to indicate bow the teacher may modulate and temper the thinking
processes of the student by adjusting and shifting his levels of thinking
appropi:ately to the cognitive demands of the learning task and to his
present cognitive structure as a developing learner. This appears to be
a most promising and realistic approach to the development of sound
teaching strategies for use in elementary classrooms.

The Examination of Productive Thinking

Thinking operations and their correlates, both within and outside
the classroom, were investigated by Gallagher and Aschner, with special
concern for the conditions in the classroom under which productive
thinkingself-directed and self-propelled thinkingmight be found to
operate (Gallagher and Aschner, 1963; Aschner, 1963). The subjects of
this study included classes of homogeneously grouped gifted children in
school at the junior high school level. In analyzing thought processes
in terms of their productivity, Guilford's well-known "StTucture of
Intellect" model became the theoretical basis of procedure, with specific
application of its "operations" dimension (Guilford, 1959; Guilford and
Merrifield, 1960).
The formal definitions of the operations of intellect which became
the conceptual guidelines followed in development of a classification
system for categorizing thinking operations as reflective in the context
of teacher-student verbal behavior interaction (Ascbner, Gallagher and
others, 1962) are shown below. These definitions are excerpted from the
full setincluding contents and productspresented by Guilford and
Merrifield (1960).
Operations: Major kinds of intellectual activities or processes; things
that the organism does with the raw materials of informa-
tion (The authors define "information" as "that which the
organism discriminates.")
Cognition: Discovery, awareness, rediscovery, or recognition of infor-
mation in various forms; comprehension or understanding1
1 In the classification system developed in the Callagher-Aschner study, the
operation, Cognition, was assimilated to thc category Cognitive-Memory, on the
grounds that evidences of cognitive operations do not show up in the context of verbal
interaction, especially in the absence of kinescopic scanning of cach pupil in action.
It is a class of operations which we assame occurred, but which can be measured best
on pencil and paper tests designed to call them forth.
 86 Language and Meaning
Memory: Retention of information in any form
Divergent Production: Generation of information from given information
where the emphasis is upon variety of output from the
same source
Corwergent Production: Generation of information from given information
where the emphasis is upon achieving unique or conven-
tionally accepted best outcomes
Evaluation: Reaching decisions or making judgments concerning the
goodness (correctness, suitability, adequacy, desirability)
of information in terms of criteria of identity, consistency,
and goal satisfaction.
The transposition of Guilford's "Structure of Intellect" model into
the domain of verbal behavior proved feasible and yielded reliable
classifications of individual performances during class sessions in terms
of the thinking either called for or expressed by teachers and/or students.
Four primary operations categories were developed, each containing
sub-categoriee defining behaviors manifesting the primary operation in
one of several ways. A fifth category, Routine, was constructed in which
to classify all such "noncognitive" interaction behaviors as attend the
daily management (M) activities of the class, and to include also certain
behaviors that were seen to have possible import for the patterns of
thinking operations that followed them in the class session. For example,
Verdict (+ or Ver) was a category used to keep track of instances
in which individualsmore often teachers than studentswould express
praise or rebuke concerning the deportment or performance of another
individual.
Some representative illustrations of the kinds of verbal performances
classified according to the five primary categories of the Classification
System follow:
Routine (R)
T: That's a good job, Danny ( Ver), or Stop that fidgeting,
Harry! ( Ver)
S: What time does the library close this afternoon? (M)
Cognitive-Memory (C-M)
T: Who discovered the Sandwich Islands?
S: Captain Cook. Now they're called the Hawaiian Islands.
Divergent Production (DT)2
T: How many different ways can we think of for getting European
2 Divergent Production is given the symbol DT for "divergent thinking," which
was the way we got to talking about this class of operations. We did not lose sight of

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 Meaning and Thinking 87

tourists interested in coming to the United States for vacations?

S: Well, we could meet them at the airportor when their ships
come inwith a "Welcome Wagon" full of gifts.
Convergent Production (CT)
T: Let's suppose you earn $125 a week, and by the time you get
your take-home pay check, 20% of your wages has been withheld.
How much actual cash would you take home?
S: Well, I think it would be just about $100.
Evaluation (ET)
T: Do you think that it is a good idea for students in junior high
school to manage their own discipline problems through an
honor system, maybe, or in Student Council?
S: Well, I guess so; yeah.
S: Well, if you want my honest opinion, I don't think it would work.
The kids wouldn't want to squeal on each other or sentence some
friend to a real tough punishment.
The Gallagher-Aschner study made no attempt to intervene or to
shape teacher behavior; teachers cooperating in the study were asked to
do as they normally did in their teaching activities. Some remarkable
differences were found among teachers as well as students regarding
the amount and occasions in which productive thinking showed itself
in classroom discourse.
Among the many findings and new lines of research that this study
opened up, one thing became very clear. That is, the very great service-
ability of Guilford's three-dimensional model of the "Structure of -41

Intellect," i.e., not only in terms of the observation of thinking in class-

room performance, but also in relation to the products and contents
dimensions for application to the construction and evaluation of instruc-
tional materials. Teachers may use the S of I model as a focusing guide
for the observation, analysis, interpretation and diagnosis of student
behavior along its intellective dimensions. Similarly, another use of
Guilford's model is seen in guiding the design and construction of
in-class written work, or homework assignments that put thinking
work. The principle here (see two illustrations in the following section)
involves structuring the task for productive thinking, by requiring
initiative and self-directed dealings with the task.

the "productive" aspect of the operation by any means, since a central aim of the
study was to identify not only the occurrence of productive thinking operations, but
also the conditions and the context of their occurrence. CT is our symbol for
Convergent Production for the same reason.
 88 Language and Meaning
Suggestions for Teachers
A few concrete and practical suggestions for teachers have already
been pointed out in the preceding section, in relation to the use of the
Guilford model. This model helps teachers to become more sensitive
and perceptive observers of pupil performance than may be possible
in cases where teachers lack a conceptual frame of reference to deal
with various ideas and problems. People sometimes forget that the
teacher is both a theoretician and a practical cognitive and social
psychologist. Thus in a good conceptual model is a real potential benefit.
Let me reiterate the principle, enunciated by James J. Gallagher,
who said that teachers must work to provide for "flexibility within
structure." This principle can be observed in the conduct of class dis-
cussion by asking for divergent, convergent, and evaluative thinking
upon appropriate occasions. Further, it can be observed in the design
and construction of written tasks which not only require students to
apply the knowledge and understandings that they have learned, but
also to engage in productive and evaluative thinking on their own.
Below are two in-class written tasks given to two classes of the
subjects included in the Gallagher-Aschner study. In each case, the
reader is invited to examine the demands of the test-task in terms of
the kinds of thinking, organizing, and selecting for application that the
student must undertake in carrying out its instructions.
The first written assignment was inspired by the ideas of Sir Frederic
Bartlett's book called Thinking (1956). It represents a kind of task that
calls for thinking via interpolation within a closed system. What this
means is piecing together the gap in the middle of a sequential account
of events in which only the beginning and the end of the "story" are
available. In the "open middle" test, as some of my students have come
to call it, the youngsters have studied a week-long unit on introductory
bacteriology. The disease Anthrax received considerable attention both
in class and in the assigned texts. These children were ninth-graders, but
averaged closer to eighth-graders in age. They were given twenty min-
utes to study the instructions before setting to work. The two assignments
which follow illustrate the basic forms or structures into which all
manner of similar subject matters could be built.

Anthrax in Champaign
This is the beginning of a story: On the plains of western Nebraska
a rancher grazed a herd of beef cattle on a new pasture that had lain fallow for
many years. There were anthrax bacilli lying dormant on this pasture.

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 Meaning and Thinking 89

This is the end of that story: Three cases of an thrax were discovered in
Champaign.3 The first case was a nine-year-old boy named Jimmy. Three days
after Jimmy was put under treatment for anthrax, Ed, a mechanic at a service
station a few blocks away from Jimmy's horn , came down with anthrax.
The third case, reported five days later, was Dr. X, a dentist whose offices
are located in downtown Champaign.
The middle of the story? How could the deadly disease anthrax, latent in
bacilli on a pasture in Nebraska, be the original source of these three cases?
That is your problemto complete the story by filling in the gap between the
beginning and the 'encl. There is no "one right answer" or "solution" to the
problem. There are many possible ways in which this story could have really
happened.
Instructions
Use your scientific knowledge about anthrax, your imagination, and your
common sense. Make up a series of events that could have happened. Your
story should stand as a believable account of how Jimmy, Ed, and Dr. X
became the victims of anthrax from the plains of Nebraska. You will have
minutes (or time) to write the "mkklle" of the story. Be sure to write so that
the whole story fits together from beginning to end.
Read carefully. Be sure to have the "facts" in mind before you write. Head
your paper with a ti le. You may use "Anthrax in Champaign!" or you may'
think up a title of your own.
This task was assigned these subjects in March, the second half of
their year in ninth grade. This was the third time this same group of
youngsters had been tape-recorded, and the third time they had received
an assignment structured so as to require self-directed productive thinking
in the application of subject matter material they had earlier studied.
It is clear that nearly every other kind of thinking operation is invited
requiredfor a first-class performance on this task.
The second assignment, presented below, was given to these same
yo ngsters in October of the previous year. Again, they had been tape-
re corded and their reading assignments investigated to see what kinds
of knowledge they might fairly be expected to apply. This test was
the first of its kind given to our subjec s. They had just completed an
introductory study of the Colonial Period in America. Notice that there
is a different design or "ground plan" for this task. It represents the kind
of task calling for divergent thinking in the sense of "implications" in
the products dimension of Guilford's model, Students were also asked
to evaluate on a fairly strict criterion, while dealing at the same time
with a "contrary to fact" conditional hypothesis.
3 Champaign, Illinois,
 90 Language and Meaning
Teachers need not hesitate to design tests of similar kinds for their
own students. It is not necessary that the youngsters be gifted for them
to accomplish this kind of task. It is advisable when introducing children
to tasks of this nature that the "risk level" or "test anxiety quotient" be
lowered. Typically this is a novel and unfamiliar kind of assignment.
The easing of tensions can be accomplished by at least two means.
First, the children should be given plenty of time to read the
instructions and think out a plan of attack. Second, they should be
informed, quite truthfully, that since this is a new kind of assignment
that calls for a new way of thinking, they will not be graded for their
performance on it. Even without grades, the classroom teacher can
harvest a wealth of data about how bis students use wbat tbey have
studied, and the extent to which they tackle the problem with operations
of thinking and imagination that may not show up regularlyif at an
on typical olass subject matter quizzes and tests, achievement tests, or
IQ tests. In other words, these performances are a valuable source of
information for the teacher in respect to an individual child's capacities
and weaknesses. They may reveal much about the child that had simply
not been brought into action (or inaction) on more conventional
measures.
The social studies test follows. Notice the way it structures the task
very specifically, yet requires considerable reflection and consideration
of alternative possibilities and their consequences. In this test as well
as the preceding one, it is perfectly clear that certain aspects of genuine
problem solving and critical thinking are called for.

Let's Suppose.'
Let's suppose that one important fact about life in our colonies had been
different: Women enjoyed the same rights and privileges as the men. An
exercise in supposing: In an essay of at least one full page in length (longer
if you wish), do some supposing on the following questions. You will have
time to think, and time to write.
1. Tell what, in your opinion, might be two (2) of the most important
differences that equality for women would have made in the life and times
of the Colonial Period.
4 Omitted time specifications in the above test and in the preceding one are
not because they are classified information. It is to suggest that the teacher use his
own judgment on how long students should be given to study the "specs" and how
much time they should have for writing. If it were not for the risk of help from
overly helpful parents, this kind of assignment could be made for overnight or even
longer periods of time and lengths of performance as the teacher sees what is most
appropriate for the class at the present time.

rrtr, "0,07,4, r
 Meaning and Thinking 91

2. Tell why, in your judgment, each of the tw differences you have

decided upon would be among the most important ones that equality for women
would have made in colonial life.
The basic desigm of these two assignments is in neither case specific
to a given subject matter. There are almost limitless ways of adapting
them to other topics and areas of the curriculum. Much care should be
taken in how the test task and the instructions are worded. It is important
to be very specific but reasonably succinct. It is wise in dealing with
younger children to build in a little bit of redundancea slight bit
of repetition.
In reading children's performance on these tasks, there are many
things one may look for. Did the child pick up all the cues? Did he
tackle the task according to its specifications (this is not docility in
meeting these kinds of stipula ions)? Does he rely more on imagination
and literary flair than upon what be has been asked to demonstrate that
he knows from prior study? Does he break out of the framework so
creatively that it is hard to decide whether the child is a rebel for
rebellion's sake or so charged up with a bright idea that he takes it in
hand and makes off with it? Is this child fluent? Is he laconic? Does
the relation of quantity of output correlate positively or negatively with
the quality of the performance? One job for the teacher hereand not
necessarily in any concern for assigning a gradeis to examine the
degree of "match" between the kind of thinking the child's performance
reveals, and that which was programmed into and called for in the
design of the assignment.
Some progress has been made toward the development of a blank-
form rating sheet that could be used in assessing performances on
assignments of the "open middle" design. But the only recommendation
that these suggestions on task design construction merit at present is
whatever "face validity" they seem to have, and the fact that they do
offer the teacher a rich source of information about his student from
quite a different perspective in many cases.

References
Mary Jane Aschner. "The Language of Teaching." Teachers College Record
61 (5): 242-52; February 1960.
Mary Jane A schner, J. J. Gallagher and others. "A System for Classifying
Thought Processes in the Context of Classroom Verbal Interaction." Urbana, Illinois:
University of Illinois, Institute for Research on Exceptional Children, 1962. (Mimeo-
graphed.)
 92 Language and Meaning
Mary Jane Asehner. "The Analysis of Verbal Interaction in the Classroom."
In: Theory and Research in Teaching. Arno A. Bellack, editor. New York: Bureau of
Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1963.
Sir Frederic Bartlett. Thinking. New York: Basic Books, 1956.
J. S. Bruner. "On Perceptual Readiness." Psychological Review 64 ( 2); 1957.
J. J. Gallagher and Mary Jane Aschner. "A Preliminary Report on Analyses
of Classroom Interaction." Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 9 ( 3 ): 183-94; July 1963.
J. P. Guilford. "Three Faces of Intellect." American Psychologist 14 (8): 469-79;
August 1959.
J. P. Guilford and P. R. Merrifield. The Structure of Intellect Modd: Its Uses
and Implications. Report No. 24, from the Psychological Laboratory, The University
of Southern California, Los Angeles, April 1960.
Wolfgang Köhler. The Mentality of Apes. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,
Inc., 1925.
B. 0. Smith and others. A Tentative Report on the Strategies of Teaching.
Urbana: University of Illinois, Bureau of Educational Research, 1964.
J. N. Spubler, editor. The Evolution of Man's Capacity for Culture. Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1959.
P. F. Strawson. "On Referring." Mind, July 1950. p. 336.
Hilda Taba. "Teaching Strategy and Learning." California Journal for Instruc-
tional Improvement; December 1963.
Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical Investigation& Translated by G. E. M.
Anscombe. New York: Macmillan Company, 1953. p. 11-12. Quoted by permission
of Copyright owner, Basil Blackwell & Mott Ltd.

NtreteZNO. , "Oettot? et pe,

'Y -4'41.'4 Alt I O.O. I 4
 it

Motivation: Some Principles, Problems,

and Classroom Applications

Thomas J. Johnson

THIS paper will attempt: (a) to present an overview of "basic"

motivational theory, (b) to discuss some of the problems involved in
the use of the construct, and (c) to demonstrate the application of
motivational research to classroom settings.
Traditional beliefs about motivation and human behavior have some-
times led to the reification of concrete forces and structures within the
human organism. Coutu (1949) illustrates the point in his "Doctrine
of the Little Men":
According to this popular theory the soul is the chief engineer; his assistant
is a husky stoker called emotion who tends the fires, and, when bored, builds
up a head of steam on his own initiative; we also find an aggressive stationary
engineer called will who has a mind of his own, to the great annoyance and
suffering of another chap called conscience, whose assistants are censors,
superegos, and ids. All of these gremlins are under the general supervision of
a consulting architect called reason, whose executive officer is an ego, and who
is usually somewhere else when wanted. These gremlins are prolific and have
large families of self-willed urges, drives, élans, entelechies, dynamisms, and
autonomous motives, who are rugged individualists and self-made men. The
whole tribe operates in a system of social anarchy with a legal structure of
laissez faire and local autonomy under the slogan "free will for the gremlins."
These little men are constantly getting in the way of research and socially
visible (objective) thinking, and their endless quarrels and conflicts make
human behavior an unpredictable enigma. The little men are fighters, con-
stantly at war with each other, constantly blaming each other for throwing
monkey wrenches into the machinery. To cover up their own delinquencies

93

gt.S..,049
r
 94 Language and Meaning
they send the machine off on endless witch-hunting expeditions and searches
for scapegoats.1
Having thus paid tribute and homage to the hagiology of human
behavior, let us now explore some alternative conceptualizations of
motivational concepts and theory.
The history of psychology is burdened with learning and/or person-
ality theorists who have looked (sometimes with jaundiced eyes) at
various aspects of the general problem of motivation. Each of these
writers has attempted in somewhat different fashion to handle all or part
of the total range of human beavior. As one studies the multiple variations
and variegations that are manifest in these theorists, one is led to a
conviction that the "theory" is essentially a personal matter. Man observes
the same phenomenon from diverse points of view, and reasoning on
the basis of these observations, be denotes the salient features which for
him seem to be operative. Yet as for conceding that other theorists have
as much in common, as much evidence to support them, as much func-
tional value as our own, there are few who speak out boldly. Conse-
quently, the initial task is to provide some degree of closure to the
various concepts and diverse viewpoints concerning motivation.
Behavior theorists in general deal essentially with three basic con-
cepts: (a) stimulus (S); (b) an organism (0); and (c) a response (R).
These basic concepts rest in turn upon a limited number of basic
assumptions. Any theory as such can be construed as an attempt (under
these basic assumptions) to specify the relationships between these three
basic concepts which we commonly symbolize as S-O-R. While these
concepts may seem simple enough, several writers have commented on
the theoretical and empirical difficulties involved in the use of the
stimulus concept (e.g., Gibson, 1960), as well as the response concept
(e.g., Brown, 1961). I shall not attempt to point out these difficulties,
or attempt to resolve them; but the serious student is urged to examine
these authors in greater detail. The primary concern at this time is to
examine the basic assumptions which seem to underlie most theories
of human behavior.

Basic Assumptions
Assumption 1. All behavior is determined.
Perhaps this is the most insistent and pervasive assumption under-
lying the behavioral sciences. At a common sense level this assumption
1w. Coutu. Emergent Human Nature. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
1949. p. 104.

et; , AA ..soz.rt; cf.:4

 Motivation 95

implies that human behavior is not just a haphazard movement of

muscle and limb, but presumably has some cause underlying its occur-
rencesome conditions which control the emergence of the responses we
observe.
The child in the classroom does his homework for some cause.
It may be because he is interested in getting the problems correctly
answered, or because he wants to do something else which is contingent
upon his completion of the assignment. It may also be because he
fears the teacher, or fears the effects of the teacher's influence on his
parents' behavior toward him. At any rate, the child's behavior has
some "raison d'être."
Nagel (1961) has remarked on the role of the deterministic thesis
in inquiry as "a regulative principle that formulates in a comprehensive
way one Gf the major objectives of positive science, namely, the dis-
covery of the determinants for the occurrence of events."2 In its broadest
sense the thesis implies that human behavior is lawful, and that a finite
number of variables can be postulated with which we can explain
human behavior. This assumption does not imply that we have already
conceptualized all of the factors or variables which underlie behavior.
Certainly much of human behavior appears to be "unlawful" at times.
The "lawfulness" that does exist is invented or constructed by the psychol-
ogist based upon the evidence at hand, and upon the concepts which are
avaliable to bim. Nevertheless, underlying the thesis is a faith that, given
enough time, we will be able to postulate the basic conditions which
underlie all of human behavior and that we will be able to demonstrate
empirically the manner in which these conditions affect human behavior.
It should be emphasized that this assumption does not necessarily
deny the existence of choice by the individual in regard to the behavior
in which he engages. Certainly choice can be one of the postulated con-
ditions which control human behavior, as Tyler (1962) has noted. Many
of us have chosen to be nonaggressive even though the belligerence of
our adversary has previously been the occasion for aggression on our
part.
Psychologists who would wish to do away with the condition or
variable of choice in human behavior do so under the mistaken impres-
sion that choice and chance are equivalent terms. To know the bias of
a coin is to be able to predict with greater certainty that certain events
(e.g., heads) will occur more frequently.
2 E. Nagel. The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace Sz World,
Inc., 1961. p. 605.
96 Language and Meaning
Assumption 2. Human behavior is governed by the principles of
(a) stimulus reduction, and (b) stimulus induction.
One experimenter investigates aggression, another creativity. One
theorist uses one set of concepts, a second prefers different terminology.
Empirical evidence supporting one point of view seems to contradict
another point of view. Superficially there would seem to be little basis
for agreement among psychologists that human behavior is governed
by any general principles. Nevertheless, within contemporary psychology
most theories of human behavior would seem to adhere to one of two
basic principles governing the relationship between external and internal
stimuli and the responses that are made.
Although there are many variant forms to the two principles, we
may refer to these principles as: (a) stimulus reduction and (b)
stimulus induction.
The stimulus reduction principle derives its name from the suppo-
sition that the behavior of the organism is an attempt to reduce or
decrease the extensity or intensity of some stimuli (states or events).
Tension reduction, need reduction, drive reduction, drive-stimulus reduc-
tion are a few of the more common terms which have also been used
to refer to the operation of the stimulus reduction principle.
One of the earliest formulations of the principle is contained in a
statement by Freud in the Metapsychology Papers: "The nervous system
is an apparatus which has the purpose of getting rid of the stimuli
that reach it, or reducing them to the lowest possible level, or which, if
it were feasible, would maintain itself in an altogether unstimulated
condition" (p. 63).
The principle is generally invoked to explain behavior where noxious
stimulation and unpleasant consequences are involved. However, it is
also used to account for behavior related to internal deficits (e.g., hunger,
thirst) or vague undifferentiated need states (e.g., need for attention).
The stimulus induction principle derives its name from the suppo-
sition that the 1 thavior of the organism represents an attempt to increase
the extensity or )1 Fensity of some stimulus, event or state. The principle
is generally invoked to help explain a wide variety of perceptual and
intellectual activities which seem to result in an increase in the general
or specific stimulation the organism receives (e.g., in curiosity, explora-
tory and orienting behaviors). The principle may also seem to underlie
what Berlyne (1961) has called ludic behavior (play) and epistemic
behavior (behavior which augments knowledge).
 Motivation 97

Assumption 3. The origin of behavior is related to the existence of

(a) internal stimuli (events, states), and (b) external
stimuli. (events, states).

Although most psychologists do not deny the existence of both

internal and external stimuli, there has been considerable disagreement
as to the relative importance of each in accounting for human behavior.
One point of view is exemplified by Freud who conceived of the external
stimuli as something which could be avoided by the organism, and hence
were of minor importance. The internal events (arising out of some
somatic process) could not be avoided or the organism felt tension.
There is liothing inherently wrong in this approach. That is, one may
assume the source of stimulation to be internal and show by what
process the subsequent behavior emerges.
The real problem is to operationalize, measure, and thus verify
the processes involved. However, by attributing the source of behavior
to stimulation which originates within the organism, subsequent veri-
fication of the processes is almost exclusively an inferential task. Since
these inferences are all to be derived from the behavior to be explained,
one is thrown back on the credulity with which be accepts the basic
premises. Figure 1 illustrates this viewpoint in S-O-R terms. The stimuli
(S) arise within the organism (0) and the response (R) occurs.

Fig. 1

A second point of view represented for the most part by earlier

experimental psychologists acknowledges the existence of certain external
stimuli which at birth were capable of eliciting a few differentiated
responses (reflexes) and were also capable of arousing some innate
response tendencies. At the same time, they acknowledged the existence
of certain internal stimuli (drives) which impel the organism to action.
Like Freud, they too appear to be on solid ground. Having assumed
the source of the process to be both internal and external stimuli, one
may attempt to hold the internal stimuli constant and by manipulating
98 Language and Meaning
the external stimuli observe the organism "emit" the response. Figure 2
illustrates this approach using S-0-11 terms. The stimuli (S) elicit the
response (II), and the organism (0) is conveniently bypassed.

1
O.R

Fig. 2

However, having assumed a connection between the external stimu-

lus and the response, it became necessary to demonstrate the chain of
external and internal sequences which eventuate in the terminal response.
Through inferences based upon careful, systematic observation, the
behavior ultimately emitted by the organism is now generally concep-
tualized as a complex function involving a number of different kinds of
internal stimuli or processes. These include stimuli arising from autonomic
processes, stimuli arising from cognitive processes, and stimuli arising
from the motor processes and the terminal response itself. As it has
become necessary to invoke more and more of these internal events to
explain the processes underlying behavior, the initial external stimulus
itself becomes less important in governing the final response we observe.
Figure 3 illustrates this conceptualization in S-O-R terms.

Fig. 3

The stimulus (S) enters the organism giving rise to other stimuli
and responses (r-s) which eventuate in the response (R). Should addi-
itional internal events need to be posited, we may soon come to a model
which bears a striking resemblance to Figure 1. However, it should be
obvious that behavior theory has not come full circle. The similarity
between the approaches illustrated by Figures 1 and 3 is only superficial.
A requirement of any theory of human behavior is that it form a con-
sistent whole. It should be free from ad hoc hypotheses, postulated
whenever new facts of experience appear to be in conflict with our
theory.

A - k4s.,,rro.
 Motivation 99

By introducing these concepts we can account for anything we

choose, but prediction is nonexistent because we never know what
additional hypotheses we will have to imagine later. In short, a critical
experiment becomes impossible. Through systematic experimentation the
contemporary psychologist has been able to construct and verify in part
the nature of the processes within the organism which seem to be
related to human behavior. As he comes to know more about these
processes and the manner in which they interact, the development of
more comprehensive constructs, models and theories will follow.
One such newer development in motivational theory which would
seem especially applicable to teaching situations is the "Discrepancy
Hypothesis" (Helson, 1948; Hebb, 1955; McClelland, 1953). This
hypothesis is centered upon the contention that frequency of exposure
to a particular pattern, constellation, or cluster of stimuli (states, events)
will result in the organism's becoming adapted (affectively neutral) to
the stimulation. In short, a person becomes accustomed to those things
with which he is familiar, or which are repetitive or unchanging. Figure 4
illustrates the dynamics of the discrepancy hypothesis. Slight deviations
or discrepancies from this adaptation level (AL) are hedonically or
affectively positive (points B, C); large deviations or discrepancies are
affectively negative (points A, D).
The hypothesis may be personally verified by immersing yourself
in a tub filled with water at body temperature. Turn either the cold or
hot tap and the initial sensation of change is pleasant. Empirical verifi-
cation of the discrepancy hypothesis (with humans) can be found in
studies by Haber (1955), Maddi (1961), and Pitts (1963). If one
posits an adaptation level for difficulty or complexity of intellectual and
motor tasks of the type generally found in the classroom, the generaliza-
tion of this hypothesis to the classroom might reasonably follow.

Affective
State

I, V.;:t 14-.4A
WO Language and Meaning
From the standpoint of motivational theory, the discrepancy hypothe-
sis offers a possible conceptual rapprochement between the empirical
evidence supporting either a stimulus reduction or stimulus induction
model of behavior. Whether subsequent experimentation will serve to
augment this early promise is a matter of conjecture. Judging from the
past history of motivational constructs some additional problems are
likely to occur. One continuing source of difficulty resides in the nature
of the motivation concept itself.

Nature of the Motivation Concept

In general the motive concept is derived from the observation of
behavior. That is, the term motive has generally been used to refer
to a class of non-observables which are antecedent to and explanatory
of the particular behavior under observation. We infer the existence
of the motive from our observations of these behaviors, and acknowledge
the source or "cause" of the behavior to reside in some postulated state
or condition. When we use the motive concept in this way, it becomes a
le
causal" concept. The "motive" becomes the "cause" of the behavior.
There is nothing inherently wrong with such usage. Similar infer-
ences are made in other fields. The physicist observing a moving body
in space sees it apparently change direction when in the vicinity of a
larger mass, and ultimately make contact with the surface of that mass.
This apparent change in direction is presumed to occur because of
gravity, or in more sophisticated terms, because of the particular nature
of space-time in the vicinity of matter. The physicist has postulated
the existence of these conditions in order to explain the observed
behavior. Similar postulations are made in other sciences as well. If we
grant then that we may properly infer, postulate or construct the
existence of certain states or conditions from our observation of behavior,
why do we have so much difficulty in understanding motivation?
To begin with, the motive concept is nothing other than a logical
extension of what the layman considers a self-evident fact, that generally
speaking, common causes yield common events, common events have
their origins in common causes. However obvious the validity of this
premise may be in other fields, its acceptance in the realm of human
behavior forces us into particular ways of viewing the phenomenon
under question. If we assume that "like produces like" it becomes
increasingly important to be able to denote relevant similarities and
differences, on a number of different dimensions.

CT ,7." rig g -
 Motivation 101

Certain "species" of motive in humans may be homologous in the

sense that one might be able to trace out similar origins, similar goals,
similar cues in the environment, similar instances or conditions under
which particular motivated behavior may be said to occur. One must
be careful, however, that the differences that do exist are slight, reflecting
variation only in the intensity of the specific behavior. On the other
hand, certain motives may be merely analogous, that is, certain behaviors
may seem functionally similar, but be derived from disparate sources.
Let us briefly look at the motive concept a little more closely. We
have previously stated that a motive can be considered a causal concept.
All motives or motivational variables have one essential property in
common, i.e., they produce or are capable of producing behavior. A group
of ideas, events or objects having such a common property constitute
a class. Members of the class "capable of giving rise to behavior" involve
primarily motives or motivational variables. Members of the class
"capable of giving rise to behavior x" involve, hopefully, a limited
number of motives. Whether these motives eventuate in the specific
behavior by eliciting, energizing, guiding, releasing, etc., is also important;
but for our purposes we shall not be concerned with the transfer mech-
anisms or processes involved. What is important at this time is to
recognize that when we are dealing with a cause-effect relationship,
it is a disjunctive one.
Consider the following situation:
Frank, a fifth-grader, is observed by the teacher in the act of
hitting another child. For want of a better term, let us describe this
behavior as "aggressive" and attempt to postulate the motives under-
lying this "aggression." To rephrase the problem, what we are interested
in finding are members of the class of motives "capable of giving rise
to aggressive behavior."
It should become immediately obvious that a number of different
motives, such as needs for attention, needs for power, feelings of hos-
tility, etc., may be invoked, all purporting to explain the discrete
behavior we have observed. What makes the class "capable of giving
rise to aggressive behavior" disjunctive is (a) to see the effect, i.e.,
"aggressive behavior" gives no clue as to which of the presumed motives
is operative; and (b) the motives themselves have little in common
except that they can eventuate in "aggressive" behavior. To quote
Brinier (1956): "Members of a disjunctive class exhibit defining attributes
such that one or the other of these attributes can be used in identifying
or categorizing them."
 -..m

102 Language and Meaning

Although we can classify motive as a disjunctive concept, it must be
emphasized that we are dealing with an extremely complex disjunctive
concept at best. The fact of disjunctivity as well as the complexity have
both contributed to some of the difficulty we have in understanding
motivation. To illustrate, we shall attempt to differentiate some of the
more important factors contributing to this complexity.
We have already remarked on one of these factors. A discrete
behavior may occur through any one of a number of different motives.
As can be seen by Figure 5, any of the three motives is capable of
producing the response R. To observe the behavior affords no insight
into which motive is functional.

M1
(Need power)

M2
(Need attention)

M3
(Hostility)
Fig. 5

A second factor contributing to the complexity of our concept is that

any one motive may give rise to any one of a number of different
behaviors. Figure 6 provides an illustration of this factor, To know the
motive gives us no insight into which behavior will occur. An individual
with needs for attention, for example, may be observed in a wide range
of behaviors ranging from aggression to crying to autism. The existence
of such inconsistency places some constraints on the predictive power
of the concept.
R1
(Aggression)

R2
Mx
(Need (Crying)
attention)
R3
(Autism)

Fig. 6

Ct ; vt' awe, tar,

 Motivation 103

To further complicate the concept, a third factor also must be

acknowledged. The motive itself may be operating, but no relevant
overt response occurs. The individual who is fasting is surely hungry;
yet we can observe no food-taking on his part. While we may want to
introduce "individual choice" as a contributing condition in this case,
nevertheless, the hunger "motive" has not produced its customary
response.

Mi No observed response
(Hunger)
Fig. 7
Bruner (1956) has previously remarked on some of the strategies
for dealing with disjunctive concepts. While his subjects used a number
of different strategies, they tended to focus on attempts to select attributes
which are common to members of the class or which occur in the
majority of the members of a class. Essentially, these strategies can be
construed as attempts to make the disjunctive concept more conjunctive.
Within psychology the primary method used to make the motive
concept more conjunctive has been through classification, utilizing some
existing commonalities, or employing arbitrary classification schemes to
produce a similar effect. If we examine these classification systems in
terms of the "causal" nature of the motive concept, they can be reduced
to three main types: (a) classification according to cause; (b) classifi-
cation according to effect; (c) classification according to cause-effect.
We shall discuss each of these briefly.

Classification According to Cause

In order to use a classification system which focuses on causes
only, it is necessary to assume either that the effects themselves are
of equal hierarchical value, or that they have no salient discriminable
differences, or that they are unimportant. Historically, some of the
earliest attempts at a classification scheme based on causes concerned
themselves with the nature and relationships between various types of
causesformal, final, efficient, etc. The major focus of this kind of
attempt was to shed insight into the nature of the concept of causality,
however; and it assumed that the effects themselves were unimportant.
Since the psychologist is primarily interested in human behavior, i.e.,
effects, such an assumption seems untenable. Hence, he must attempt a
different method if classifying by causes is to be functional.

fL. .fp . , 41,, ',NFU' P P e. ..APP,' Pt, 0

 104 Language and Meaning

It would be possible to postulate a different cause for every effect;

except that human behavior appears to manifest itself in so many varied
forms that such a system would seem to defeat itself by its own weight.
The only remaining possibility of using a causal basis for classifying
is to postulate a master cause for all effects. Surprisingly, a wide range
of contemporary personality theories still invoke master motive concepts
related to vitalism, finalism, aristogenesis, holism, self-realization, and
self-actualization. Unfortunately, with the possible exception of Rogers
(1954), few of the theorists who espouse these points of view offer
sufficient empirical evidence to support their positions. They apparently
view the phenomenon of human behavior with the unreasoning wonder
of a child and assume that behavior happens because it was meant to
happen. Although conceptualizations of this type have enjoyed some
degree of popularity within education in the past, they appear to be
losing ground to the more explicit models afforded by the other classifi-
cation systems.

Classification According to Effect

In order to use a causal classification system focused upon the
effects, it is necessary to classify the effects first, and then to postulate
a single cause or a reduced number of causes of any class of effects.
The early "trait" theorists essentially used this method. Important human
behaviors were first delineated, and then a biological or internal basis or
source was postulated to account for the given class of behaviors.
Gregarious people (class of effects) are gregarious (effect) because they
are naturally gregarious (cause). In its simplest form, this type of
classification scheme can lend to some problems of circularity, as the
previous example illustrates. However, as this scheme has been used by
most behavior theorists, more rigorous logical restraints have been
imposed (e.g., McClelland, 1953; Maslow, 1954).
In Maslow's theory of motives, human behavior is taxonomized
along a hierarchical social-desirability continuum which ranges from
primitive biological cravings (e.g., hunger, thirst) to the "crave of
beauty." Underlying behavior at each level then are the appropriate
needs: physiological, safety, belongingness, love, esteem, self-accualiza-
tion, understanding, and aesthetic. The strength of this method of
classification is also its weakness. By remaining at a general level and
dealing with a generalized concept of motive, we can greatly simplify
human behavior, but by using a general motive concept we also lessen
the ability to make specific predictions concerning the individual and
his behavior.

avu$..!..e4 4-"0* 4 44
Na", Rif u.r, V/4.-P1S, ann! rt.' WX,
 Motivation 105

Classification According to Cause-Effect

This method of classification involves classifying both the external
and internal conditions under which the effect occurs, as well as the
effect itself. Simply stated, this entails careful specification of the
external and internal stimuli (S and s) as well as specification of overt
and covert responses (R and r). Contemporary theories which seem to
use this scheme would include those based on a reinforcement model
(Skinner, 1953) or a neurophysiological model (e.g., Hebb, 1955) as well
as those who invoke cognitive and affective mediational processes to
account for a wide range of human behavior (e.g., Mowrer, 1960 a, b).
The obvious advantage the cause-effect method of classification
is that it facilitates the development of motivational theories which can
predict specific human behavior as well as explain why it occurs. It seems
to be axiomatic in science that predictive power increases as there is
greater specification of the conditions which govern the occurrence of a
phenomenon. And because this method requires a strong empirical foun-
dation, it would seem to have the most conceptual promise. However,
it should be recognized that the translation and practical application to
the classroom of any of these models should be done not only at the
conceptual level, but at the operational level as well. As an illustration,
let me review two recent investigations on classroom motivation.

Pupil Motives and Traits

The first of these studies attempted to look at pupil personality,
using the McClelland (1951) concepts of motive, trait, and schema.
In McClelland's theory, motive refers to the satisfactions sought by the
individual. Trait refers to the learned habits or customary responses of
the individual. Schema refers to the individual's conception of the world.
The investigation attempted to examine the relationship between (a)
students' motives; (b) the traits they manifest in the classroom; and (c)
one aspect of schemapupil expectations for teacher-leader behavior.
Subjects were 167 girls and 208 boys with normal age-grade place-
ment in sixth to eleventh grade classes. The community could be
described as lower middle-class with almost all of the parents being
semiskilled or skilled tradesmen, minor office employees, and small
businessmen.
Schema: Smith's (1960) adaptation of the Ohio State Leader
Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) was prepared for use in
the classroom using two dimensions: expectations for initiating structure,
 106 Language and Meaning

and expectations for consideration.3 The correlation between these two

sets of expectations is .19.
Motives: Four TAT type pictures were presented as a group test
using standard procedure. Scoring was done on the presence or absence
of imagery related to the three motives employed in the study: n ach,
n aff, and n pow. The scorers checked their interpretations against the
"expert" interpretation presenter'. in Atkinson (1958). Using the Atkinson
formula, interjudge reliabilities ranged from .81 - .95. Each subject was
assigned three separate motive scores ranging from 0 to 4 based on the
number of stories which contained achievement, power, or affiliation
imagery. Low, moderate, and high motive groups were tben formed,
corresponding to scores of zero, one, or two plus on a particular motive.
Traits: Sociometric data are typically used as operational definitions
of sentiment or interaction. We conceived the choices, best friend, best
student (achieving), and most influential (get the other children to do
what they wanted) as essentially veridical perceptions by the observer
concerning habits, or families of habits, which the observed either typi-
cally manifests or manifests at crucial times, each child suggesting three
or four children who fit a description and three or four who did not.
Each choice was weighted and summed. Because different size classes
were involved, a distribution of scores for each class was determined and
then divided arbitrarily at the first and third quartiles. Individuals were
then placed into one of three trait groups: Low (Q1 and below),
Moderate (Q2 + Q3), and High (Q4) depending on the relevant trait.
Figure 8 shows the plot of mean expectations for (a) conskleration
as a function of three levels of affiliation motive and trait; and (b)
initiating structure as a function of two levels of achievement motive
and three levels of achievement trait. Separate analyses of variance
showed a significant main effect of affiliation motivation on expectations
for consideration (F = 3.33, df = 2/366, p < .05) and fairly strong
effects for both achievement motive (F = 3.60, df = 1/369, p < .06)
and trait (F = 3.06, df = 2/369, p < .05) and expectations for initiating
structure. Intercorrelations between the three motives were low
( .13 to + .07).
Initiating structure refers to teacher-leader behavior which involves task
accomplishment through setting deadlines, organizing work procedures, and insisting
on good work. Consideration refers to teacher-leader behavior which facilitates inter-
personal satisfactions in the group through being friendly, listening to pupils' sug-
gestions, and taking pupils' wishes into account when decisions are made. (Sometimes
referred to as "deskside manner.")

<4.,t 44;,* 07-, tx,

°V.. 01,V-04' 7.7:1 'A'?" 6,1 .
 Motivation 107
1
otive Level:
Mod-High
49
49
Low vr.
n affiliation
48
48
0
:t1-4 4Nreki (2' 47
ct 47

-11*---- -
\Nt....-- - .4
46

45

..z° 44
.t.;(13

Motive Level. xct 43

& A High
42 _*-- *Low
ID. 40 Mod 42
'le°
41
41
High Low Mod High
Low Mod

Affiliation Trait Achievement Trait

Fig. 8. Mean expectation for (a) consideration as a function of affiliation

function of achieve-
motive and trait and (b) initiating structure as a
ment motive and trait.
children have
These results would seem clearly to indicate that
behavior based in part upon
differential expectations for teacher-leader achieving satis-
their individual motive structure and their success in the
faction through relevant instrumental activities. More interestingly,
character-
data imply that what the teacher does in the classroom, his
predictable effects on pupil motivation
istic behavior, can have important,
and behavior. consideration, and
If a teacher's behavior were generally high on children with
low on initiating structure, the level of satisfaction among
affiliation needs would tend to be optimal, and reciprocal affiliative
behaviors on their part would tend to increase. On the other hand,
only might the level of
among students with achievement needs, not
ii satisfaction tend to be lower, but achievement behavior
itself would
tend to decrease. Such an outcome could have some obvious conse-
quences for teacher-pupil
interaction and the teaching-learning process.

ra
108 Language and Meaning
The Teacher's Perception of Causation
The second study to be discussed here was designed to explore
some rather fundamental questions about motivation in the classroom.
What are the cues (from a child's behavior) which form the basis for
teachers' inferences of motivation or other "causes" underlying a child's
behavior? How is a teacher's subsequent behavior toward a child influ-
enced by his perceptions of what guides, directs, or causes the child's
behavior? The basic problem was to investigate some of the determi-
nants and consequonces of the teacher's perception of causation.
The theory and methodology underlying the study are explained in
greater detail elsewhere (Johnson, Feigenbaum, and Weiby, 1964), but
the basic experimental framework proceeded in the following manner:
Phase I. Female Ss attempted to teach an arithmetic unit (multi-
plying by 10's) to two fourth grade boys A and B (actually fictitious)
who were in another room. After S had presented the concept, the
"students" supposedly worked on problems based on the concept. After a
short period of time E returned with a previously prepared work sheet
purporting to be B's work up to that point, and S was allowed to talk
to B briefly via a one-way intercom system. E later leturned with all
of A's work and the rest of B's work on the task. S was permitted
to talk briefly to A, and the first experimental questionnaire was
administered.
Phase II. Ss were then given two "fictitious" cumulative folders
containing the personal histories of A and B. Ss familiarized themselves
with these data and then attempted to teach a second unit (multiplying
by 20's), after which the students again worked related problems.
After a period of time Ss were asked whose work they would like to
see and were allowed to talk with that student. This choice was made
again at the end of the task and Ss communicated briefly with their
choice. The second questionnaire was then administered, a plausible
(but irrelevant) purpose was explained, and the experiment was
terminated.
The experiment was designed to permit variation of (a) B's per-
formance on an initial task (low), (b) information concerning B's task-
relevant characteristics (positive or negative), and (c) B's performance
on a second task (high or low). Throughout the experiment A was
constant on performance (high) and characteristics (positive). Table 1
depicts the overall design which involved four groups of 20 Ss each.
 Motivation 109

Experimental Groups
Neg La Neg Hi Pos Lo Pos Hi
13's performance
1st task Low Low Low Low
Questionnaire Yi
B's characteristics Neg Neg Pos Pos
B's performance Low High Low High
2nd task
Questionnaire Y2
Table 1. Experimental Design
Two results are especially applicable to this discussion. Our findings
indicate that if a pupil does poorly on a task (student B), teachers
will tend to perceive the cause of this performance as internal to the
student and attribute negative characteristics to him (low IQ, low
social class, troublesome). If he does well (student A), they attribute
positive characteristics. However, when students who have done poorly
in the past improve in their performance (Pos Hi, Neg Hi), teachers
tend either to perceive themselves as responsible ("I got after him,"
"I did a better job.") or to perceive other external causes ("He copied
from A," "He cheated."). In light of these findings, it is not surprising
that classroom teachers should acknowledge "motivating" students to
be their most important problem.
Although a growing number of writers have commented on the need
to relate pure and applied research and to validate the principles devel-
oped in the laboratory to real life situations (e.g., Festinger, 1953; French,
1953; Hilgard, 1956), their admonishments are frequently overlooked.
An important methodological consideration in the previous investigation
was the use of a simulated teaching situation to manipulate the inde-
pendent variables of interest. While the particular strategy of simulation
employed in this study involved a teacher-pupil triad, alternative types
of teaching-learning situations seem equally amenable to controlled
experimentation using the simulation format. One obvious advantage
to this type of research lies in its easy generalization to the real life
classroom.
Earlier it was suggested that the application of motivational theory
to the classroom should be made at the operational as well as the con-
ceptual level. Thus it appears unlikely that popular constructs such as
needs for attention and drives (e.g., hunger, sex) are particularly useful
to the classroom teacher. If the teacher is to influence and change the
behavior of his pupils, he must either capitalize on the child's existing

e4-',14...,,:119410.V teleY
HO Language and Meaning
motive structure or use motivational techniques which are amenr:; to
his control in the classroom setting.
These latter techniques would include; (a) techniques based upon
the social system of the classronm (e.g., competition, cooperation, group
sanctions); (b) techniques based upon the fate control he exercises
(e.g., reward, punishment); and (c) techniqtws based upon the task
or activity to be completed (e.g., solubility of problems). Research and
theory Mali clarify the relationship between variables of this character
and pupil performance would seem to offer most promise for development
of viable motivational strategies. The need is manifest, but the quest
is not an easy one.

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 Motivation ill
S. Maddi. "Affective Tone During Environnwntal Regularity and Change."
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