presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov.

2012

A. Solomonick, PhD in Pedagogy, Israel

How to reform Secondary-school Education

Introduction

Semiodidactics is a new approach to pedagogic thinking that I am trying to establish, an approach that is based on my version of semiotics. Semiotics studies signs, sign-systems, and semiotic reality in general. It investigates the role of signs in people's acquisition of knowledge, both individually and as a group. That is why it is very important to consider what kinds of signs are contained in the material taught in schools and other educational institutions, to investigate whether this material is absorbed by pupils easily, whether they find it interesting when they are studying it, and other similar problems. At first glance, these seem to be problems that can be handled competently by specialists in education. But in reality, nobody currently relates to the heart of these issues, because they do not have tools for comparing the signs that are incorporated into the materials that are studied. And I have found these tools in my version of semiotics. The existing realm of semiotics has not yet produced methods for completely implementing such comparisons. It is still in the early stages of its development as a distinct field, and has not yet given its adherents instruments for comparing the quality of the signs they use. Until now, semioticians have only rated signs from three angles: semantic, which looks at the ties between signs and their referents; syntactical, which studies the ties between signs and their sign-systems; and pragmatic, which identifies practical applications of sign usage. From the outset of my involvement in the field, I have focused on a fourth parameter for comparing signs: their charge of abstractness. (I sometimes call this the quantum of abstractness.) This is a factor that can give us instruments to help us choose the proper signs to use in any given case. I believe that the nature of every type of sign (and, consequently, every sign-system) is inherently cast by its quantum of abstraction. We are still far from defining these quanta of abstraction in exact quantative terms this is a matter that will have to be dealt with further in the future but it is clear that this 1

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

characteristic of signs exists and can be of great significance in many respects. It is this trait that I utilize in this article for rating teaching materials as more or less appropriate for study at particular stages of secondary education. This is the foremost problem that I will tackle in this article. The second problem I treat in this article is how to deal with what I consider to be the most important stage of school education what I call the intermediate level of education. This is the level that is preceded by primary school and followed by high school. (In different countries, the intermediate level includes different grades and age ranges, but the category is broadly recognizable.) Most educators consider it to be very difficult to define the appropriate content for this intermediate level of education. They say that it is comparatively much easier to define the proper content for the other two levels that the appropriate scope of the middle stage of school education is much harder to determine. My approach is different. I treat this intermediate level as the starting point for defining the content of all the school curricula, leaving the primary school and high school curricula auxiliary to and dependant upon the curriculum of the middle school. There is one further issue that I want to clarify from the outset: the problem of specific terminology. Since I want to construct a new branch of science, I cannot avoid dealing with its terminology. Although the bulk of this terminology will only come into existence at later stages, as the field matures and research work is more systematically pursued, I will nonetheless be so bold as to make some preliminary decisions about terminology right now. In my discussions, I differentiate between two concepts: curriculum and syllabus. By curriculum I mean the general teaching plan of a particular selection of subjects in a specific educational institution; by syllabus I mean a plan for teaching a concrete discipline, such as Medicine or History. I also distinguish between a discipline meaning a school subject that corresponds to a complete field of the corresponding science, like botany, mathematics, or geography and a topic meaning a concrete theme of study that unites features from various sciences, like Caring for our environment or Home collections. Both disciplines and topics can be called school subjects or just subjects. More new concepts will be added below in the course of my deliberations. Keeping these preliminary remarks in mind, we may now move on to the substance of this article.
Extracting a New Attribute of Signs from Their Classification

At the very beginning of my study of signs, I created a general taxonomy of signs. (For our current purposes, this could also be called a classification of signs. It is a collection of signs that represents each of the categories of signsystems we have identified.) This taxonomy was built by defining the basic natures of the sign-systems in which each known type of sign is included. To further elaborate on how these various types of signs develop, I created a diagram:

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

Types of Sign-Systems
Formalized systems of the second order Formalized systems of the first order

Their basic signs (taxons)

Symbols with transitional meanings Symbols with constant meanings

Systems of notation Language systems

Graphemes

Words Images

Iconic systems Natural systems

Natural signs

Let me begin by giving you a general explanation of the diagram. After that, I will discuss its structure. This classification diagram is most easily understood when the basic signs of each type of sign-system are explained sequentially, beginning with the lowest level of the hierarchy, as follows: Natural signs, the basic signs of natural sign-systems, are entities in and of themselves visible (or audible) elements of a thing that represent the entire thing. These objects allow us to conjure up the entire entity when we cannot sense it directly. For example, a visible pillar of smoke may tell us that a fire is burning when that fire is not otherwise within the scope of our senses. Similarly, a light coming from a window may suggest that the inhabitant of the room is at home. Images, the basic signs of iconic sign-systems, are not parts of a real object but a reflection of it; they represent the things they signify because they resemble those things. Clearly, images are more removed from the things they signify than natural signs, which are parts of the objects they represent. Words, the basic signs of language sign-systems, are generally arbitrary signs that have no intrinsic resemblance to the things they signify. As such, they are more distant from the things they signify than images are. Yet words do have an extra-systemic relationship to the things they signify, in that they represent actual things that exist in reality, beyond the bounds of the language

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

sign-system to which they belong. For example, the word table represents an actual thing that exists outside of the English language. Graphemes, the basic signs of notational sign-systems, only exist within specific sign-systems, and only in relation to the other signs in the sign-system. Their purpose is to represent something within a sign-system in graphic form. For example, the letters of the alphabet are graphemes that represent sounds in graphic form. Although graphemes are more abstract than words, they nevertheless maintain a constant relationship with the things they represent. Thus, the written form of the word table is always t-a-b-l-e, and the individual letters that compose the word table continually represent the sounds assigned to them by the particular language whose alphabet contains them. Symbols, the basic signs of formalized sign-systems (such as mathematical or formalized sign-systems), are usually arbitrary notations that are used ad hoc to deal with particular situations. For example, z may mean weight in one situation and something entirely different in another. Thus, symbols are signs with the remotest possible connection to their referents. These are the most abstract of the basic semiotic signs. Now that the items in the diagram are understood, let us look at the structure of the diagram. Each level in the structure reflects a separate level of signs and sign-systems that is mastered by a person in the course of his cognitive development. We each begin assimilating signs with those at the bottom of the diagram, and gradually expand our repertoires to include each of the levels above it, in turn. Note that in the diagram each level is superimposed on the one below it. This is because absorbing higher levels does not cause the development of the levels below them to cease, but, on the other hand, each new level can only appear when the previous level is at least partially mastered. There is always interplay between the various levels. Our inculcation of the lower levels continues advancing all the time and is enhanced by the skills we glean from the new horizons that are added by the newer levels, while the newer levels are enriched by those things the lower levels have already mastered. Their interaction is mutually profitable; the signs denoting the same ontological objects on each successive level become more penetrating in their representation of it as a result of this. If we arrange all the taxons sequentially natural signs images words graphemes symbols we see that they are arranged in an order that reflects their increasing degrees of abstractness. This reflects my contention that the cognitive development of humanity as a whole and of each person individually, proceeds along a path from lesser to greater abstractedness. I believe this assertion is so obvious that it hardly requires explanation. We experience it on an individual level in ourselves, in our children, in education, in the development of our habits in essence, everywhere. That humanity as a whole has also followed this path, mastering new signs and sign-systems in accordance with this rule, is also clearly evident: it can be observed in the development of every science, in our religions and beliefs, and a wide array of other areas. So, the first conclusion we can reach from semiotics is that all our endeavors (including our educational enterprises) advance and mature along with the abstractedness of the signs we master in the course of our constant and

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

unending learning processes processes that take place both in school and outside of it.
Additional Semiotic Considerations for the Selection of Educational Content for Schools

What I described above can be used as our chief guideline for choosing the educational materials for schools. Nevertheless, my approach has additional aspects that ought to be taken into consideration. It is to these matters that I will devote this section and some of the following sections of this article. My main point in this context is that pure educational considerations never stand alone in the realm of teaching and learning; our ideological stances always influence them. While it is true that all teaching materials come from semiotic reality, our worldviews make us prefer certain educational content over others. To clarify my assertion, I will resort once again to semiotics, namely, to the notion of semiotic reality and to the laws governing it. I view the notion of semiotic reality as one of the core concepts of semiotic studies. Because of this, I have included it in my definition of general semiotics: "semiotics is the science of signs, sign-systems, and semiotic reality." In a number of other articles, I have tried to define the main characteristics of semiotic reality as compared with ontological reality, the reality we observe and deal with in the real world. I am happy to see that this new notion has begun to appear in the scientific writings of other authors. The diagram below, which illustrates what I call the transmutation of existential events, should help to clarify what I mean by semiotic reality:

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

The Transmutation of Existential Events

1. Ontological Reality
(first- and second-nature)

3. Practical activity

4. Science

5. Arts

6. Mythology, 5. religion, , ideology

7. Education 4.

2. Semiotic Reality
(signs and sign-systems) When we are born, we find ourselves in the world of ontological reality, a world that exists independently of us and to which we have to adapt in order to survive and live comfortably. To begin adapting to our ontological reality, we study it, both at school and by ourselves. This acquisition of knowledge, and the drawing of conclusions from it about ontological reality, proceeds with the help of signs. The crystallizations of our thoughts are formed using signs: our speech consists of signs (words are signs of their referents), and the pictures, maps, diagrams, etc., that we use to explain ourselves, are all signs, as well. All cultural creations literature, ballet, sculpture, and so forth are infused with signs. Our scientific investigations are performed using signs and their systems, and the results are also expressed in signs. All of these signs and sign systems are gathered together in a special plane of our lives that I call semiotic reality. Humans use semiotic reality to help them cope with ontological reality. With the help of semiotic reality, we can penetrate into the essence of real objects, understand the ways things work or behave, and sometimes even change the course of events for the benefit of the human race. In recent centuries, scientists using semiotic reality have succeeded in introducing many changes into our lives, making them more comfortable and pleasant. Using semiotic reality, we have succeeded in creating a vast array of amenities that have completely changed us and improved our surroundings. Some of these changes were of a material ontological nature; these were added to ontological reality. Others were of a semiotic nature, and served to improve our semiotic toolbox for further and more effective usage.

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

Semiotic reality, the collection of semiotic findings about our surroundings, our lives, and our selves, can be preserved in special receptacles, such as libraries and computerized databases. From these receptacles, particular items can be retrieved, studied, and worked upon; and thereafter they can be returned to their receptacles for continued storage. Sometimes these receptacles are organized according to the type of knowledge they contain; at other times, they gather all kinds of information together. The most important point is that these receptacles are all used for safeguarding semiotic data. But one should be aware that a variety of kinds of human activities lie between the ontological and semiotic realities. These activities can change our attitudes towards the materials collected in a particular sphere of semiotic reality in very substantial ways. Consider, for example, the sphere of human educational activity. When people deal with this sphere of semiotic reality, they tend to extract only those topics that match their worldviews. Religious people choose those things that do not contradict their beliefs; scientifically oriented people tend to choose scientific research; and artistically minded people neglect most of the things that the other people tend to select, choosing instead those things that suit their creative inclinations. Even if people agree about what materials to use, they deal with those materials from very different angles and with very different emphases. Although my approach in this article tends towards educational subject matter that is either scientific or of a practical nature, you should keep in mind that these choices reflect my particular tendencies, and that other choices could legitimately be made. I will discuss this issue further in the next section; for now, I would just like to mention that my final conclusions will be split between these two ideologies (the scientific and the practical). Besides this very serious limitation, two others warrant some discussion. While it is true that any sequential pursuit of knowledge proceeds from the less abstract to the more abstract, it is also true that the pace at which the knowledge becomes more abstract varies from one human venture to another. This is evident if we compare the human activities that are included in my diagram above of the transmutation of existential events. Each of the activities differs from the others both in terms of the speed of sign-development and of the pace of the increase in abstractness. The activity that has developed the most quickly is scientific activity; it expands in a most wondrous way, and during the last few centuries, it has changed our lives tremendously, turning our former bare-bones existence into something very different. Its achievements to date cannot be underestimated, and, as it progressed, it learned to use very abstract signs to help it progress. In comparison with scientific activities, all other forms of human endeavor seem deficient. Practical ventures only require a much more simplified point of view; they use much less complicated methods of dealing with reality and much less abstract signs. The religious approach relies on beliefs rather than demonstrable findings. It also rejects further improvements to what has already been accepted as its basic truths; the more solid and unchangeable its precepts appear the better. Similarly, the artistic attitude to reality does not demand conformity with real life everything depends on the innermost feelings of the artist. The progress of sciences obviously defines the character of our existence; we depend on it to manipulate our environment and change it to our advantage. And the educational sphere has followed this trend, becoming completely

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

dependent on scientific progress and focusing almost entirely on science as the source of its subject matter, to the point that most school disciplines are simplified versions of corresponding sciences. Whether this is the best way to handle school education will be discussed later in this article.
Didactic Conclusions

As I stated above, the advances of science are so impressive that they quash all other considerations for selecting study material for school education. It is taken for granted that most school disciplines must be based on branches of science. Botany should be taught in schools as it is formulated in science, or at any rate as a clone of the chief features of scientific botany; geography should be taught only in its cartographic form, while its topographic level, which is nearer to what we see in our real lives, should be ignored; and so on. And the more closely a school subject matches the contemporary state of a science, the better it is considered to be. It is felt that schools should not deviate from the classifications of science or omit even one of its important offshoots. This also means that we have to teach all the significant features and concepts of the sciences, however abstract they are, even though schoolchildren cannot possibly understand them at their age. In this respect, our school curriculum was directly inherited from past school curricula. In ancient Greece, people did not have a lot of scientific information, but whatever they knew, they taught in their schools (rhetoric, for example). In the Middle Ages, this practice was no longer in vogue; teachers primarily taught their students the skills and behaviors of young warriors and courtesans. When humanity entered the scientific era, people began to include the advances of the quickly developing sciences in the school curriculum. Up to a certain point, this worked reasonably well, but over time, the scope of scientific discoveries made it impossible to squeeze everything into the time limits of school hours and the children's abilities to digest the material. At that point, it became necessary to choose limited parts of the vast scope of the sciences to teach in the schools, with the result that the selection became quite arbitrary and often inexplicable. A lot of necessary scientific information was left untaught, while what was taught was often not useful to school children outside the boundaries of the schools, in their lives outside of school. I am not against using the scientific approach as one of the main guidelines for setting up a school curriculum; after all, science is ultimately the driving force behind our survival in the world. I am only against applying it in an unrestricted and inappropriate way. I want to define limits for it, and to regulate how it is applied to different age groups, especially since the scientific approach as it is understood today is not free of contradictions and drawbacks. (I will describe some of these below.) When school disciplines are automatically planned to be replicas of scientific fields, as is usually done, they very often do not coincide with the actual interests of many of the pupils. Such disciplines are approached by pupils as formal requirements that they only study because they are included in the school curriculum; they do not study them of their own volition but because they must master them for matriculation. Many of us, years after graduating, think back on our school years and reflect that a lot of time was spent worthlessly on one 8

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

subject or another for no apparent purpose. Even the order in which the material is presented is defined by the needs of the science rather than the pupils' developmental needs. And, even more significantly, much of the material is presented in a form that is simply beyond the children's cognitive abilities. The sciences have quickly reached the point that it is not possible for the majority of school children to master them at their early age. It is beyond their capacity to grasp these subjects not only because they penetrate deeply into the topics, but also because they present a world that is vastly different from what we observe in our day-to-day reality. Consequently, people who are inclined to see reality simply as it appears find themselves confused and frustrated by the picture painted by the sciences. Many philosophers and specialists in education have taken notice of this inconsistency in planning school curricula and have made suggestions about how to improve the situation. One important example is John Dewey (18591952), who initiated such teaching methods as Dalton's plan and teamwork in schools. Dewey declared that the school education of his time was too theoretical. He held that the curriculum should be reconstructed by the pupils themselves, who would, he felt, take the themes of study from their own life experience. Naturally, this reform failed, as pupils are too young to extract the topics for their education from their surroundings and to formulate them based on the knowledge they have already acquired. I agree with Dewey's negative appraisal of the existing curricula in schools, but I do not support his method of reforming them. Rather, I only propose that scientific material should be presented in a different form. Indeed, why should we imitate the existing sciences and present them in schools exactly as they are dealt with by mature scientists? Why should we not show them in their earlier stages of development, when they had just begun to evolve and had not yet achieved their contemporary forms? If we do this, we can present them in a more down-to-earth manner that will be easier for our children to comprehend. This will help pupils to connect to the subject matter, which will, in turn, make it easier for them to understand and give it greater appeal. After all, those things that we experience as nearer to us are more intelligible to us and we tend to accept them with greater delight. That is why I propose modifying the intermediate level of school education by replacing disciplines (botany, geography, physics, etc.) with topics that incorporate science in a more intelligible form. Thus, the intermediate-level curriculum I propose would contain topics like Growing Plants or Our Fruit and Vegetable Garden instead of Botany, and Great Voyages and Discoveries instead of Geography (see my list of suggested topics below). Only at the highschool level will we encounter complete disciplines of the kind that are now included both in the intermediate and higher levels of schooling. Even in high school, these disciplines should only be taught as special subjects for specific students.
Topics vs. School Disciplines at the Intermediate Level of School Education

At the intermediate level, I think topics have definite advantages over the disciplines as they are taught now:

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

1. Like disciplines, topics represent scientific knowledge, but topics do this not in its present scientific form, but rather at the incipient stage of its development, when it had just begun to be researched. This choice is based on the recognition that as a scientific field penetrates deeper into the aspects of reality it studies, it uses its own categories more and more to explain that reality, and gradually distances itself from the reality we experience in our lives. To jump immediately from the starting point to the end point of the evolution of a science is very difficult for the untrained mind; the mind must pass through some transitional stations along the way before it can succeed. One such station is what I have called topics. 2. Disciplines tend to focus their attention on the latest achievements of a scientific field. Thus, they typically present the results first and then (if there is time) go back and explain how these results were achieved. Topics, by contrast, will concentrate instead on the turning points in the research process on research that led to discoveries that were used to benefit mankind. For this purpose, some scientific laws will be omitted, but the general course of the scientific investigations will be preserved and dwelt on in detail. 3. The current approach frequently presents material using its most abstract signs and notions. This is very difficult for children at this stage of schooling. In fact, this type of presentation will remain beyond some of them permanently, and will thus remain useless. But even high school students who choose to focus on a particular science must have it presented to them in a more coherent form.
Proposed Topics

I will not keep you in suspense any longer; here is a list of 20 topics that I propose introducing at the intermediate level of schooling. This list is neither complete nor obligatory. Each educationalist may improve it or even completely reject it. Its only aim is to give readers an idea of what I mean by the notion of topics. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Inventions that changed our world Battles that affected human history Conquering the cosmos Caring for our environment Healthy body and healthful behavior First aid and home remedies Healthy food and healthful eating Animals and humans Domestic animals and pets Growing plants

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presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

11.

Great voyages and discoveries

12. Ancient civilizations (Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, ancient Greece and Rome, China, India, Inca, etc.: a short history of a particular ancient country or culture) 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Museums and home collections Particular architectural monuments Deciphering dead languages Systems of writing Systems of counting Systems of measurement History of clothing fashions History of money and financial institutions

This list is not final and will surely be expanded if my proposal is accepted. The directions in which it will expand depend in part on what we decide to retain of the current school curriculum. Some of the topics in the list include material from more than one scientific field. For example, systems of measurement is currently divided among a variety of sciences, and among many school subjects to boot. Similarly, the topic battles that affected human history is dispersed among many national histories. In fact, many important battles are currently ignored in school curricula because they are not included in the national histories that are being studied. For example, children in the Eastern hemisphere do not learn about the war waged by Hernn Corts against the Aztecs (in the beginning of the 16th century), even though his victory over the natives led to the colonization of both of the Americas and to the upper hand the Europeans had there from then on. And I wonder whether children in the Western hemisphere learn about the battle of Waterloo, since it did not take place in their territory. Even more noticeable is that many of the topics included in the list are not taught in schools at all like museums and home collections and first aid and home remedies. Yet who can deny their significance to the lives of our children? Admittedly, children may not be able to cope with serious illnesses without the help of medical professionals. But we would certainly wish them to be able to deal with small injuries and minor indispositions by themselves. And this is something they do not learn in school today, even if they study the school subject called biology. But the most convincing argument on behalf of the proposed topics is the fact that they will conquer the hearts of the pupils in the intermediate grades. Their attractiveness, in comparison with long and tedious disciplines, is so obvious, that it would be a great omission not to teach them to the younger generations.
Disciplines That Cannot Be Removed from School Curricula

Now that the concept of topics is understood, we must consider how they should be introduced into the existing curriculum. First, we must take into account that some of the disciplines that are currently part of school curricula

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presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

must remain there even when topics are introduced. These disciplines can be divided into two groups: core disciplines and character-building disciplines. The core disciplines are disciplines without which other sign-systems could not be created or disseminated. These are disciplines that cannot be removed from the curriculum because they lie at the basis of all our knowledge. They can be divided into two categories: codes of codes and retrieval tools. Codes of codes is the name that I use in my semiotic works for the signsystems that make it possible for all the other sign-systems to function. Two disciplines belong to this category: national languages and mathematics. Languages, in both their oral and written forms, are necessary both to bring most other sign-systems into existence and to explain them. Mathematics is required for all the calculations that are performed in various sign-systems. In pedagogy, this means that the disciplines in the school curriculum that correspond to these fields of study must be given a special place; that is, national languages and mathematics must be studied and mastered in all their possible ramifications for school children throughout the entire period of schooling. In fact, we should continue to improve our knowledge of our mother tongues and mathematics throughout our lives. The second category of the core disciplines, retrieval tools, contains two other disciplines: computer use and foreign languages. These are fields that give us the means to receive the existing information that is being disseminated throughout the world. The skills and methods for finding and retrieving required information are necessary prerequisites for the modern lifestyle, and we must do our best to teach youngsters the appropriate ones. Admittedly, the task of gleaning information with the help of computers and foreign languages is smaller in scope than that of learning native languages and mathematics. Accordingly, these subjects can be allotted less time in the curriculum than the first two. But their importance still gives them a significant value and role. Character-building disciplines, the second group of disciplines that require special treatment and a leading role in the curriculum, include subjects that are oriented more to the upbringing of schoolchildren than to providing them with knowledge. The aim of these subjects is to turn the pupils into decent citizens and to introduce them to the traditions and ideals of earlier generations. These goals are no less important for schools than the object of inculcating the knowledge and techniques that can assist the children to cope with their natural and social surroundings. For the realization of these goals, special disciplines exist that should be represented in every school curriculum. The two prominent groups of subjects, both of core and character-building disciplines, I will call leading disciplines in secondary school curriculum. The exact scope and content of this second type of discipline must be defined separately in each society. It should be based on the reining views of what an all-around educated and cultured person, a worthy future member of that particular society, should know and be like. One approach to this would be to find ways to develop and improve the main facets of human nature to find ways to help create a person who is knowledgeable, physically healthy, aesthetically aware, morally stable, and patriotic. In every school curriculum, we find subjects that are primarily oriented towards achieving these aims: Subjects that are aimed at procuring knowledge

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presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

Sports and other physically demanding lessons to help keep pupils physically fit Drawing, singing, music and other aesthetically oriented disciplines National history, national geography, traditional religion, and sometimes even purely moral instruction for inculcating patriotic views.

Subjects of these kinds (as well as the core disciplines) should be present in every school curriculum. In fact, they can be introduced either in the form of disciplines or topics, as I will discuss below.
Three Levels of School Education and how They must be Organized

It is normal in most countries to divide the school years into three stages: primary school, intermediate grades (middle school), and high school. This division reflects the gradual maturing of pupils and the consequent expansion of the expectations of the educational authorities and the public at large. As a result of these changing expectations, many aspects of the teaching process the content, the degree of abstractness of the signs used, and the methods of teaching are also altered as we advance from one level to the next. In most pedagogic discussions of these stages, you will find the assertion that it is easier to define the best approaches to primary school and high school education than it is to define those of the intermediate level. I will quote one source as an example of this viewpoint: a special report to the Sector for General Secondary Education, a group affiliated with UNESCO, called, "The Content of Secondary Education Around The World: Present Position and Strategic Choices," which was written by Roger-Francois Gauthier, a well-known specialist in the field of education, in 2007 1 : "Primary education for young children concentrates on literacy and the acquisition of skills defined without giving rise to any controversy, while higher education aims at specialized knowledge. What kind of education should be provided between these two stages? The predominant feeling at present is that this stage is of capital importance since it is the stage at which the future worker, citizen and adult must be trained. Who, then, can deny that it would be a grave mistake to overlook the issue?" 2 I completely agree with Gauthier that the middle stage of school is the one for which it is the most difficult to define the appropriate content and methods of teaching. Moreover, I think that, if we handle this problem effectively, the solution will set the stage for managing the teaching content at schools from this stage on through high school. That is, while my suggestion about introducing topics instead of disciplines concerns, first and foremost, the intermediate stage of schooling (approximately from the 4th to the 8th grades), it may become the starting point for solving the general problem of the content of secondary education. It is in the intermediate stage that our pupils are not yet mature enough to master the material in the form of school disciplines. It is this stage in which we cannot introduce the issues we teach from the most advanced
1

At: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0014/001475/147570e.pdf (retrieved in November 2012) 2 Ibid., p. 23

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presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

developments in the corresponding sciences. It is this stage in which we ought to concentrate more on the gradual development of particular issues than on enumerating all the relevant scientific rubrics and their ramifications. In short, this is the stage at which only the worthwhile aspects of the sciences will be approached with understanding and enthusiasm by the pupils themselves. Moreover, as I mentioned above, this change in our approach will make it possible to solve all the relevant issues related to the whole of secondary education. This is because the intermediate level is the link that connects the chain of schooling from primary school to high school. The primary school will then provide the initial skills for further schooling. The second, intermediate level will use these skills for mastering the initial levels of the knowledge that is needed for practical purposes in everyday life. Those pupils who desire to immerse themselves in the depths of the theoretical and abstract implications of certain scientific specialties will find a suitable framework in high school. And if even that does not satisfy some of them as their intellects mature, they will continue their studies in an institute of higher education. To clarify what I mean, I have created the diagram below:

Three School Levels (primary, intermediate and high school)

2 3 1. Leading disciplines, primarily

2. Leading and specialized

disciplines and specific topics

3. Leading disciplines and

scientific or theoretical disciplines that are relevant to the particular interests and characteristics of the class

The diagram shows the three consecutive levels of secondary education: 1. primary school, 2. the intermediate level, and 3. high school. In different countries, these levels vary in terms of duration, study contents, and learning methods, but they share the same basic properties, which are summarized briefly on the right side of the diagram. Primary school education will mainly consist of the teaching of the core disciplines the leading disciplines and subjects devoted to upbringing and character development. They are implemented by the infusion of basic knowledge in various subjects, knowledge that will be sufficient for mastering the skills and methods needed to understand simple logically coherent texts under the guidance of teachers and, sometimes, even by pupils themselves. The teaching of leading disciplines continues throughout all the years of schooling.

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presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

The content of the intermediate stage as it is taught today consists of these same leading disciplines augmented by specialized subjects, like physics, chemistry, and botany. It is at this stage that I propose introducing the specific topics I described above into the curriculum. Introducing them will, of necessity, be a gradual process, as it will take time for the topics to be created and introduced into the teaching process and for the teachers to be prepared to work differently. Hence, at first there will be more specialized subjects than topics. Over time, however, the topics will gradually supplant today's disciplines and, if the disciplines continue to exist at all, they will be altered in some ways by the topic-oriented environment. Topics, both because of their inherent characteristics and because of the role they will fill, are simply more suitable for the intermediate stage and will ultimately occupy the central place in its curriculum. Unlike the intermediate grades, the high schools must, in my opinion, be geared to specialization. By the time pupils enter high school, they must be ready for the branching of secondary education; they must be ready to enter one of the existing school tracks, in which they will study specific material of a humanitarian, technical, or mathematical nature. The reasons for the branching are two-fold: on the one hand, the age of the students already allows them to choose what really attracts them, and, on the other hand, no school plan can include all the scientific materials available at their current high levels, even in a very concise form. Thus, at this stage we can only give pupils specialized courses of a more or less homogeneous character supporting their own choice of the track. After their choices are made, each high school must build its curriculum accordingly. The curriculum at this level must consist of leading disciplines, adapted to the directions the pupils have chosen, and some specialized disciplines of the type that are already taught today.
Some Recommendations for the Implementation of my Plan

At this point I would like to discuss how I propose to implement the innovations I wrote about above. This aspect of the proposal is no less important than the innovations themselves, as I want my project to be put into motion and not to just to remain on paper. I also do not want my suggestions to be introduced by force, by a decree from above; I have lived through too many revolutions to want to initiate another one. The changes should be naturally and smoothly incorporated into today's educational practice, as I explain briefly in this section. Before I begin, I must add one extra note: the discussion in this section relates predominantly to the intermediate level of schooling. To be sure, the extensive changes that will be made at that level will influence the other stages of education, but a detailed discussion of these repercussions seems superfluous at the moment. The chief reforms should be implemented in the curriculum of the middle grades, and I shall dwell on these at length. In essence, the gist of my suggestions concerns how best to go about introducing topics into the middle grades of schools, and how to ensure that the current school disciplines and the proposed topics coexist amicably. To begin, I propose that the topics I delineated above (or any other set of topics that are chosen) be prepared in electronic form. An office should be set up that will be responsible for collecting and storing the materials related to each 15

presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

topic. This office, which I call the center of distant education, should be part of the ministry of education of the country in which the plan is implemented. The office will locate appropriate specialists for writing scenarios of the topics. These scenarios must be methodically organized and have a very specific designated audience (for example: "history of money for the fifth grade" or "national alphabet for sixth-graders"). After they are prepared, the topics will be made available in some electronic format and presented to the ministry of education for evaluation. If they are approved for use in the relevant grade, the ministry will announce that they are available and recommend them for introduction into all the suitable educational institutions in the country. Nonetheless, there should be no requirement that every class work with every recommended topic; every teacher will have the right to choose which ones, if any, to use in his or her courses. Moreover, this decision may even be left up to the pupils themselves. This brings me to the most sensitive point of my proposals. I believe that, regardless of whether my plan is implemented or not, a global revision of school education is about to take place. School education will soon be reorganized to incorporate self-education into the structure of formal education. The present state of communications technology and infrastructure is such that we can already start to combine formal schooling with self-education by our pupils. Most pupils already have their own computers and are using them for internet explorations. But they do this instinctively, without knowing exactly what is necessary for their intellectual growth. We, educationalists, must guide them in their blind incursions into the ocean of information collected in the internet, and, conversely, we must also prevent them from gleaning harmful information from it. That is why I propose using the topics I invented to officially identify and certify material that is appropriate for incorporation into school activities. In light of what I just said, I propose allowing pupils of the intermediate level to work independently on topics that are approved by the educational authorities, to master them, and even to be tested on them and get formal school credit for them. The tests can be administered in the schools and then sent to the center of distant education for evaluation. The marks can then be entered into the matriculation documents of the pupils. In this way, towards the end of the intermediate school level, before they enter high school, pupils will be able to accumulate a lot of additional grades along with the standard evaluations that are now given at schools. Not only will this independent work help infuse students with the skills and habits of self education, the additional grades will give us a comprehensive picture of each individual's educational activities during the entire intermediate period of their schooling. This may help us to see: Whether a student is eager to study at all; whether he or she is determined enough, or simply swims passively in the educational current What each student's learning preferences are and, consequently, what specializations would be appropriate for him or her in high school.

All of these points are of great significance for the further advancement of secondary education. Nonetheless, the main advantage of my proposed plan is that it may greatly enhance pupils motivation to take part in educational activities. It will give them the chance to choose to learn what most appeals to them, to do it in their own way, and to get rewards for it in the form of additional credits for their efforts. In this way, we can also solve the most acute educational

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presentation in Bucharest, at the workshop on Semiotics, organised by the Center for Complexity Studies, UNESCO Center 25 -29 Nov. 2012

problems of our time: the problem of how to enable pupils to quickly acquire the learning skills that match their own preferences and inclinations, and the problem of school curriculum overloading. Our pupils themselves will decide, whether to study additional material in the form of non-obligatory topics. In short, with one stone we may kill two birds. To achieve these ends, the centers of distant education will have to do a lot of preparatory work. They will have to prepare many different educational topics that are diverse in content and geared to various types of schools and levels. They will have to get approval for them from the ministry of education, receive its support for implementing them, and get its permission to disseminate them to schools. They will also have to compose tests for each topic and set criteria for marking these tests. Finally, they will have to publicize information about the topics that are available and explain how they can be accessed and used. This is a project that will take many years to set up and bring to fruition. Still, in the long run the resulting topics will be of practical use, either for independent work by pupils or for teachers to utilize in a classroom setting. As the catalogue of available topics grows, related topics may be collected to create complete disciplines or incorporated into subjects that are already being taught in the schools. In the distant future, we can imagine the standard school curriculum will include both kinds of teaching materials disciplines and topics. But this is just conjecture, far distant from the initial step of creating centers for distant education, which is what I suggest be done in many countries as soon as possible. November 2012

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