| The Educated Mind | |
| Author: | Kieran Egan |
| Release Date: | 1997 |
| Isbn: | 0-226-19036-6 |
The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding is a 1997 book on educational theory by Kieran Egan.
Egan argues that much educational theorizing pivots around three basic ideas about the aim of education:
Egan argues in Chapter One that "these three ideas are mutually incompatible, and this is the primary cause of our long-continuing educational crisis";[2] the present educational program in much of the West attempts to integrate all three of these incompatible ideas, resulting in a failure to effectively achieve any of the three.[3]
Egan argues that knowledge and understanding arise through five kinds of understanding. This development can be explained by "logical and psychological pressures." Egan differentiates his theory from the conceptions of recapitulation common in the late 19th century and early 20th century.
People can learn cognitive tools that are grouped and classified into five kinds of understanding:
"Drawing from an extensive study of cultural history and evolutionary history and the field of cognitive psychology and anthropology, Egan gives a detailed account of how these various forms of understanding have been created and distinguished in our cultural history".[4]
Each stage includes a set of "cognitive tools", as Egan calls them, that enrich our understanding of reality. Egan suggests that recapitulating these stages is an alternative to the contradictions between the Platonic, Rousseauian and socialising goals of education.
Egan resists the suggestion that religious understanding could be a further last stage, arguing instead that religious explanations are examples of ironic understanding preserving a richly developed somatic understanding.
Egan's main influence comes from the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. The idea of applying theory of recapitulation to education came from 19th century philosopher Herbert Spencer, although Egan uses it in a very different way. Egan also uses educational ideas from William Wordsworth and expresses regret that Wordsworth's ideas, because they were expressed in poetry, are rarely considered today.
The same year the essay was published (1997), Italian comedian-satirist Daniele Luttazzi used Egan's ideas for his character Prof. Fontecedro in the popular TV show Mai dire Gol, aired on Italia 1. Fontecedro was satirizing the inadequacies of the Italian school system, and the reforms proposed by Luigi Berlinguer, 1996-2000 Ministry of Education of Italy. Fontecedro's sketches brought Egan's theory to extreme levels with surreal humor. The jokes were later published in the book Cosmico! (1998, Mondadori,), where the five stages of mind development are also cited at pp. 45–47.
previous works on ironic knowledge:
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