to pick up elements lost from various syntheses that are left scattered by the visit of “evidence,” leaving education as an “impure” education. In its place, we get a language of “pure” education that often forgets, or outright excludes, the concepts of “impure” education. Sometimes the concepts mentioned under the heading “im-pure” education are used as strategic passages for the system of ““im-pure” education.
This happens, for example, when a high score on a “democracy ranking” is used to promote national competitiveness. Such instrumentalisation of “democracy”
means, of course, that democracy will only last as long as it is effective for the system of “pure“ education.
I suggest three ways in which evidence can be linked to educational thought.
One is through instrumentalism, the implementation of teaching methods in order to meet external targets such as social or economic figures with no intrinsic value. “Pure” education, as mentioned above, is an example of this. Instrumental-ism assigns a place of honour to “evidence.” However, the price for this honour is that evidence becomes detached from the theory and practice of education, because the purpose and content of education are excluded by the very process of “evidence” “establishing” itself as a concept.
Another way in which evidence can be linked to educational thought is through rationalism, in a broad sense, which refers to a set of desirable states of affairs that the method is developed to promote. For example, “citizenship” or
“being able to sing beautifully” could be such desirables, and methods could be designed accordingly so as to promote the realisation of such aims. In this way, rationalism assigns a place for evidence, but it is not as central as in instrumental-ism. Within a rationalist paradigm, evidence is always subordinate to the desired goal, and the question is, “Is the concept of evidence even necessary?” Words such as “reasoning,” “knowledge,” “judgement,” and “deliberation” are closer to the rationalist intellectual baggage. In my opinion, the classic German didactic tradition lives here, as well.
The third way to link evidence to educational thought is through pragmatism, also in a broad sense. In pragmatism, “evidence,” if you still need to use the word, must find its place within much more comprehensive concepts of nature and experiential philosophy, concepts that are deeply linked to community practice and common habits. Thus in pragmatism the concept of evidence is completely subsumed under the domain of education, and is restored only as an everyday concept, as it was about twenty years ago.
Instead, concepts with much deeper roots in our cultural heritage should dominate educational theory and practice.5 Biesta’s previously mentioned criti-cism is an example of a critique of the concept of evidence from such a pragmatic point of view. There are also other options, but, in my view, they share the same conclusion: namely, that the concept of evidence disappears from the field the closer you get to education as such.
Finally, I want briefly to return to the points made by Kvernbekk, Hargreaves and Jensen, as presented in the introduction. Kvernbekk’s position is, I think, a mixture of rationalism and pragmatism. She situates the whole discussion as a matter of argumentation and epistemological pragmatics, in line with the Wittgensteinian and Deweyan influences on the philosophy of Stephen Toulmin.
Therefore one is left with the impression that the word “evidence” is not re-ally necessary, and that it is part of a much more comprehensive totality called
“educational knowledge.” Hargreaves’s position oscillates among all three levels.
The actual 1997 paper is very much embedded within pragmatic and rationalist discourse. There are no signs of the sheer instrumentalisation that sets in later on. Evidence is still just a minor practical concept which, along with other kinds of argument and reasoning, may improve the art of teaching. Finally, Jensen’s approach is in line with my argument, because his point is that evidence-based medicine is situated in a political and ideological context, that is, in social and educational theory proper, an insight ignored by the instrumentalist proponents of “pure” education.
Now, it may sound as if I am advocating the possibility, or even the desir-ability, of a simple return to earlier forms of educational theory: for example, traditional didactics or a communitarian pragmatism. I am not. This is because the concept of evidence has left an exploded and scattered field in its wake where the concepts of education are no longer linked to one another in a natural way.
In a sense this is an advantage, because the “things” of education are now freed from the taming discourse of neo-structuralism and critical theory, for instance.6 Therefore, in my view, we must return to very basic studies of each individual element and its possible connections with one or the other piece of philosophy.
In the words of Walter Benjamin, we should dig into the ocean of language, dive for pearls, and polish them for a renewed attention (Gordon, 2001).
Thus after the bombardment by evidence there is the opportunity, even the necessity, to apply a little philosophical activity to “things” that have become detached from the main pedagogical narratives: to take a look at them, flip and rotate them, and examine what happens if you place them in new, even strange, contexts. The raid of evidence has, in a sense, suspended the force of our language games. Evidence has given us the opportunity to return to a Greek idea of school-ing, where things are investigated, and appear without any economic or social pre-structuring. It is as if the objects have been set free once more, freed from the moderating and taming influences of social constructivism. It is as if “things” are philosophically released.
But surely, this will only happen if we abandon the taming influence of “evi-dence” as well, and begin to experiment with some other words again. If we do, we will be whirled into a great abyss of interactions that will sustain us and give us both a home and an attentive energy. Here, science is not about investigating what works, but about letting “What is going on” reveal itself; and schools are not instruments for global capitalism, but free “Greek” time for attention to things that come forth (Masschelein & Simon, 2013). And here, education is not about using techniques to maximise a ranking score, but rather about appearing in an effective and energetic culture in full, vibrant memory (Rømer, 2013).
Notes
1 The Danish Clearing house for Educational Research is partly an example of such a shift in vocabulary.
2 This is not quite correct. Actually, “evidence” is important in the French rationalist tradition of Descartes, but this plays no role in recent educational uses of the word.
3 This is a similar analysis to Biesta’s (2010, p. 45-46). Biesta focuses on how means and ends are separated in ways unacceptable to the concept of education as such. He claims that, in education, means and ends are internally related to one another.
4 In fact, the title of John Hattie’s book is Visible Learning.
5 See Rømer (2013) for a discussion of John Dewey’s concept of “method.”
6 I use the word ”things” in accordance with the philosophy of Graham Harman (2005) and Martin Heidegger (2001).