As Basden notes, Dooyeweerd did not elaborate much on learning and education.
One problem is that Dooyeweerd himself did not seem to discuss learning. The word ‘Learning’ does not appear in his index, and ‘Education’ only three times, all within the context of his discussion of the family as a social structure (NC III: 267, 274, 275). (It seems that a Dooyeweerdian view of learning and education is long overdue.)
I’m interested in education entities as social structures. While Dooyeweerd did not write specifically about schools or educational entities, his writing can be seen to support the theory that schools are of the voluntary organization type, meaning that they are historical founded and ethically qualified. However, others have expressed different theories. In his The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Roy Clouser gives us a brief aspectual analysis of Schools:
Here are a few more examples of the results such a pluralistic view of social authority and communities affords. The owners of a business will properly exercise authority over it in virtue of their ownership. But that is because a business is an economically qualified organization and so has an economically qualified authority. The authority of parents over minor children in a family, by contrast, does not derive from the fact that they own the home in which the family lives or even in the fact that they economically support the children. It resides in the ethically qualified relation which exists between parents and child in virtue of the way God has created humans. That is, their authority is qualified by love. So even if a family is not supported by the parents but subsists on welfare, the authority of the parents is normatively intact. On the other hand, a school is a logically qualified organization. By means of education, our concepts of ourselves and the world around us are expanded, enriched, corrected, etc. So the authority in a school is an authority based on competence in knowledge; it belongs with those who are experts in the concepts of the subjects to be taught.
Clouser is not clear, but I assume that here he is referring to Leading Function, which governs the internal organization and development as a whole.
On this view, Schools are different than most Social Structures (that I know of, and have seen analyzed): the Aspect of its Leading function precedes the Aspect of its Founding function.
Adding SCHOOL to our chart of Structures helps clarify this difference. In addition, changing the colors of the Foundational and Leading Functions helps demonstrate how SCHOOL is different than other Social Structures.
What are the implications of this difference? To Be Determined.
Schools Logically Qualified
As Basden notes, Dooyeweerd did not elaborate much on learning and education.
I’m interested in education entities as social structures. While Dooyeweerd did not write specifically about schools or educational entities, his writing can be seen to support the theory that schools are of the voluntary organization type, meaning that they are historical founded and ethically qualified. However, others have expressed different theories. In his The Myth of Religious Neutrality, Roy Clouser gives us a brief aspectual analysis of Schools:
Clouser is not clear, but I assume that here he is referring to Leading Function, which governs the internal organization and development as a whole.
On this view, Schools are different than most Social Structures (that I know of, and have seen analyzed): the Aspect of its Leading function precedes the Aspect of its Founding function.
Adding SCHOOL to our chart of Structures helps clarify this difference. In addition, changing the colors of the Foundational and Leading Functions helps demonstrate how SCHOOL is different than other Social Structures.
What are the implications of this difference? To Be Determined.
PHOTO: The teacher by kevindooley