critical thinking

Andrea R. English’s Discontinuity in Learning re-links the work of Johann Friedrich Herbart with that of John Dewey. Dewey criticized Herbart’s work, causing, English argues, future critics to separate Dewey’s thought from its European predecessors (xx). English argues for continuity, that both thinkers want to identify and develop ways “for learners to recognize and respond to the other in judgments and actions” (104), through the experience of discontinuity.

English’s excellent analysis of Herbart focuses on discontinuity, offering frameworks to analyze educational theories and practices that ignore discontinuity and reconnecting Anglo-American and Continental philosophies of education (xxiii-xxiv). I cannot do justice to this rich book here. I will focus on its main idea: education as discontinuity.

English examines Herbart’s analysis of the educational possibilities in his contemporary’s (Kant’s) Categorical Imperative. To act so as not to treat others as things and as any other ethical person would act, one engages in moral choice. Herbart argues that educators can work with the experience of the discontinuous that emerges in encounter with the “other,” identifying where a learner already acts out of inner freedom (46) to move that learner to greater freedom, the capacity beyond “self-interested desires,” in recognition of and respect for the other (7).

Discontinuity causes a pause (34) at the limits of one’s abilities and/or knowledge (xxii). This “in-between” (Dewey), “distance” (Herbart 16, 27), or “break” (English, 17) is a site of struggle (59) to transcend a limit. There, the learner can “identify and potentially change” her relation to the other (65). A teacher does not choose for the student, but designs an intellectual experience, to use Donald Finkel’s term, to scaffold the struggle (17), while, simultaneously, being open to improvisation on the design.

Dewey agrees with Herbart: discontinuity is to “undergo or suffer the world” that upsets stable understandings (66), a starting-point for reflection (68). In learning, teacher and student struggle together in ongoing “critical self-relation.” For Dewey, the classroom is not just a site of moral struggle but of democratic action (89). Arriving at the social, as well as personal, “limits of thought and ability” (102), one learns, potentially, to choose for the good of all. Both the classroom and democratic society should support the deep learning that ensures freedom.

For Dewey and Herbart, the goal of learning is right orientation to the other (105) through disorientation and reorientation, guided by the teacher who listens intently and generates dialogue, moving students to greater inner freedom and just action. The skilled teacher deploys “pedagogical tact” (50ff, 126ff.), discerning when to intervene in student learning and when to improvise (129) on the learning design. Neither teaching nor learning, therefore, can be determined as complete in outcomes and measured fully by evaluations. Nowadays we experience such “urgency” (55) about measures that we want to “predetermine” and “guarantee” learning (156). English argues, instead, for cherishing the discontinuous and valuing the improvisational space of the classroom in which teachers “acquaint the next generation” with their present world and prepare them for a “future yet to be discovered” (160).

This interdisciplinary collection of twenty essays makes the case for the benefits of collaborative thinking in a variety of settings. These brief essays are packed with useful classroom activities to promote collaborative learning. Several essays offer first-hand examples of how collaborative learning is vital to architecture, industry, orchestras, theater, and athletics. Few would dispute that these are team-based enterprises. Still, these experiential accounts yield worthwhile reminders.

Readers will also appreciate the contributions from researchers in the cognitive sciences. The neuroscience behind collaborative thinking is presented in clear and jargon-free language. Evolutionary biologists reveal how the human brain evolved to allow more complex social organizations. Neuroscientific research explores how brain structure and function are enhanced in collaborative settings. Moreover, good collaborative work dispels our instinct for survival and engages our capacity for emotional awareness and control. In addition to increasing the brain’s plasticity, there are chemical benefits to thinking with others. Collaborative activities release dopamine and other pleasurable chemicals in the brain.

So if interdependent thinking is so good for the brain and for human well-being, why is it so hard to achieve in the classroom? The remaining essays illumine both obstacles to and strategies for promoting interdependent thinking. Many contributors focus on the important role the facilitator plays in teaching others to become better listeners, to develop skills such as empathy, paraphrasing, productive questioning, as well as managing gender and cultural dynamics. Some essays offer productive verbal cues and exercises to promote better collaborative thinking in the classroom. Yet, this is more than a “talking cure” to our false sense of independence or autonomy. One essay, by David Hylerle and Larry Alper questions whether verbal expression alone is too linear to capture the highly associative and non-linear patterns in collaborative thinking. They thereby promote the use of visual tools and cognitive maps to capture and advance more interdependent non-linear thinking.

Although presuming K-12 settings, this volume has much to offer college and seminary professors who value engaged and productive classroom discussion. First, it provides useful essays on telling the difference between activities that promote shared thinking and those that generate more meaningful interdependent thinking. In addition to providing a detailed index, several essays include helpful comparative tables of collaborative discussion strategies (for example, pausing, paraphrasing, posing questions, providing data, generating ideas, attention to self and to other, and positive dispositions) and the nature of independent, shared, and interdependent thinking.  Lately, a bestseller – Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking (Broadway Books, 2013) – asks whether group work ignores some important voices. The Power of the Social Brain offers a welcome counterpoint to Cain’s caveats. The essays here remind faculty of the need to foster meaningful group work. Educators will appreciate this volume’s concrete suggestions for cultivating effective strategies to make classrooms even richer transformational spaces.