Abstract
This paper begins with a discussion of Stanley Cavell’s philosophy of language learning. Young people learn more than the meaning of words when acquiring language: they learn about (the quality of) our form of life. If we—as early childhood educators—see language teaching as something like handing some inert thing to a child, then we unduly limit the possibilities of education for that child. Cavell argues that we must become poets if we are to be the type of representatives of language that education calls for. In the final section of the paper I discuss the work of Lucy Sprague Mitchell, someone who developed an approach to language teaching that overlaps in interesting ways with Cavell’s approach in The Claim of Reason.
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Notes
In this paper I will be drawing on Cavell (1999) (hereafter cited as CR).
For an excellent description of this, see Cavell describing the process of how his daughter learned the word cat (CR, 171ff.). I will also explain this process in more detail later in the essay.
I do not want to give the impression that I am expressing any misgivings about the work of Johannson or Bøyum, or that I think I am in some way offering a corrective to their analysis. Rather, I find myself agreeing with their papers and hope to open up new lines of inquiry from them.
As I hope is clear, I am not here offering an interpretation of Wittgenstein; instead, I am drawing out the implications of Cavell’s interpretation of Wittgenstein, one that is not without controversy.
Cavell’s idea of “philosophy as the education of grownups” is tied up in the process of adolescence and coming to adulthood, and ties his work on language acquisition into his later work on perfectionism. This work has received a great deal of attention in the philosophy and education literature. For some representative examples, see: Saito (2006); Standish (2006, 2005, 2004, 1995).
By early childhood educator, I mean a person who takes responsibility for teaching the young how “we” do things. This can be a parent, a grandparent, a guardian, a preschool teacher, a daycare provider.
This is not the same thing as saying that Cavell’s work hasn’t influenced the philosophy of childhood or philosophy for children. For Cavell’s own interpretation of this influence, see Cavell (2008).
Here we see again a different worry from the worry—much discussed in educational literature—of the “lunatic” child—I use the word recalcitrant in this essay when discussing Bøyum and Johannson—who doesn’t carry on the way that we do (see CR, 112 ff., and Saito (2006), 91 ff.).
For a wonderful discussion of deflection, see Diamond (2008).
For more on this point, see Frank (2008).
See Cavell (1992), a book he finished while writing and revising The Claim of Reason.
In addition to Senses of Walden, see Cavell (1994) especially p. 17 ff.
Although far too brief to do Dewey justice, I interpret interest as the term that mitigates between the strong dualism of formal discipline/student-centeredness as giving into the whims of the child. Interest is that which promotes growth: by creating an educative environment, the teacher can channel the (latent) powers of a student through the formal curriculum in ways that make a child take ownership of her own education. Neither following her whim—in a narrow sense—or (merely) acquiescing to the demands of the teacher/classroom, the child is productively between these two and so experiences growth.
One of the most quoted lines from Cavell in the education literature comes from The Claim of Reason, where Cavell describes philosophy as the education of grownups (CR, 125). In the following paragraph I show that what Cavell means by philosophy in this heavily quoted line relates to poetry and literature, thereby echoing another well-know line that closes the Claim of Reason: Can philosophy become literature and still know itself? (CR, 496).
For a discussion of the significance of this way of taking Cavell’s response to skepticism in relationship to other minds (that is, responding and not refuting), see Bates (2003).
Richard Poirier—see Renewal of Literature and Poetry and Pragmatism—would call this “troping.” His work shows how authors like Emerson and Gertrude Stein are engaged in the practice of troping language as a means to creating words and phrases that they mean.
Mitchell—someone who influenced (and was influenced by) progressive education, developmental psychology, child study, and psychoanalysis—is probably best known as a founder of Bank Street, and for her work in literature for children, most notably her Here and Now storybooks. For an overview of Mitchell’s life and work, see Antler (1987). It is important to note that though Mitchell was influenced by Dewey, her other influences—most notably psychoanalysis—move her philosophy of language learning—as I read it—away from the community and communication focused approach I describe when discussing Dewey and Addams, and closer to the work of Cavell.
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Frank, J. The Significance of the Poetic in Early Childhood Education: Stanley Cavell and Lucy Sprague Mitchell on Language Learning. Stud Philos Educ 31, 327–338 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-011-9275-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-011-9275-2