Applying learning to life: a theoretical framework in context.

This paper places the educational framework of Rachel Lauer in the context of psychology, philosophy, and education. Lauer has developed a broad theoretical framework, as well as a pedagogy and curriculum, aimed at human development. Her work responds to deep educational questions of what we should consider progress, how to unify the disciplines, and how to apply learning to life. She emphasizes empathy, choice, and cooperation. Her overall approach aims at cultivating changes in the ways people conceive of their experiences, and heightening the degree to which people are aware of their own consciousness and choices. Lauer suggests that to evoke such consciousness requires sensitivity to the way people develop over time.

Some background in human development and the evolution of worldviews will serve to show the uniqueness of Lauer's contribution, which I will then summarize. Related theories will then be discussed, and finally, ways to encourage development will be suggested.

Background

Arguably, past accounts of student development have been most strongly influenced by the pioneering research of Perry (1970, 1981; see King & Kitchener, 1994; Knefelkamp, 1974; Knefelkamp & Cornfeld, 1979; Moore, 1994; Parker, 1978; Widick, 1975). A second influential body of groundbreaking research is that of Piaget (1926/1963, 1950). Lauer (see note 1) (1965-66, 1971, 1974, 1983, 1990a, 1991, 1996-97, 1998, 1999) provides a third and comprehensive framework. Her work elaborates on that of Piaget (1926/1963, 1950), Fromm (1941/1961, 1947), Horney (1945), and Rogers (1961), among others, and builds upon the general semantics of Korzybski (1933), the "epistemics" of Bois (1970), and critiques of science by Capra (1975, 1982), Harman (1988), Bohm (1980) and others.

Lauer's work brings together approaches from psychology, history of science, general semantics and epistemology, in an attempt to yield a cohesive, evolutionary system for cultivating awareness of patterns of thinking, and applying such awareness to issues in all domains. Her theory (called "Roots of Knowing") is arguably unique in the way it engages with active transformation of human consciousness through an interdisciplinary conceptual framework, pedagogy, and curriculum. Lauer's framework has advantages for its particular comprehensiveness, clarity, explicitness, consistency, practical usefulness, and communicability.

To describe what factors encourage or inhibit growth, a theoretical base is necessary (Knefelkamp, Widick & Parker, 1978). Lauer presents such a base, as she emphasizes: 1) the need for awareness of patterns of consciousness, 2) the usefulness of conceiving of such patterns in terms of five major epistemological orientations or worldviews, 3) application of such awareness to life issues through four basic universal operations used daily, 4) application of such operations in ever expanding contexts, from intrapsychic to interpersonal to increasingly large communities, 5) the usefulness of identifying interdisciplinary, connective "meta-concepts" that may be organized either under the five orientations (see Table 1) or four operations, or in terms of structure, order, and relations, 6) a pedagogy for evoking awareness and facilitating application of all of the above. Lauer has argued that the aim of education should be to encourage growth in clear, creative, and critical thinking, as applied to life issues (Lauer, 1990).

Why worldviews?

Development of worldviews. It has been empirically observed in human development (King & Kitchener, 1994; Perry, 1970; Piaget, 1926/1963, 1950) that individuals tend to think in distinct patterns, and that this thinking develops according to characteristic stages, orientations, or worldviews. It has further been theorized (Bachelard, 1940/1968; Bois, 1970; Korzybski, 1933) that western culture as a whole has evolved through distinguishable periods of development characterized by overall patterns of thinking and knowledge.

Historically, philosophers, particularly phenomenologists concerned with the subjectivity of the observer, initiated the discourse of Weltanschauung around the ways we view our place in the universe. Dilthey (1976) held that philosophies fall into three types of worldviews (materialism, vitalism, and idealism), and by studying them and life in general, people approach, but never attain, objective self-knowledge. Jaspers (1969-71) investigated the roots of worldviews in our subjective experience, while Scheler (1973) argued that because we cannot avoid a worldview, we should choose it reflexively and by a valid method.

Worldviews in science. An argument for what should be considered progress requires an understanding of the historical evolution of the notion of progress in science. Worldviews evolve in an attempt to solve increasingly complex problems; it was Kuhn (1970) who showed that "examples of actual scientific [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] practice... provide models from which spring particular coherent traditions of scientific research" (p.10). The classical science of Bacon, Descartes, and Newton, for example, share related visions of the world as a machine composed of separate, discrete parts. The postclassical science of quantum theory and chaos theory on the other hand involve a major shift to a more relational understanding, less one of parts and more one of a complex web of interdependent forces.

Postclassical science, often referred to as "the new science" or "the new physics" (Capra, 1975, 1982; Wheatley, 1992; Wolf, 1989), has entailed radical reconceptions of how we judge the truth or validity of our observations of reality. Postclassical scientists themselves differ, however, in their positions. While Einstein (1936/1954; Einstein & Infeld, 1938) broke from Newtonian mechanics to suggest the relativity of flames of reference, he nevertheless insisted that God does not play dice - i.e. that objective truth can be attained by scientific methods. It was Bohr (1928) who most radically problematized the relation of the observer to what is observed, by showing that the observer is never actually separate from the observed. Perry (1970) pointed out that this relation of observer to observed holds not only for the physical sciences (Bohm, 1951; Heisenberg, 1952; Kuhn, 1970; Polanyi, 1958), but even more so for the social sciences (Erikson, 1963, 1964) and for educational and psychological practice. Perry (1970) argued further that a primary task for educators is to find improved ways to encourage growth in light of such scientific insights.

Lauer's approach: Understanding the "roots" of knowing

To address what people need in order to develop throughout life, Lauer (1996-97) articulates an approach to lifelong education called "Roots of Knowing" (ROK). Focusing on what people essentially have to do in personal, work, and community life, Lauer finds that people use four principal operations daily: Perceiving, Evaluating, Deciding, and Acting (called the "PEDA process"). In Lauer's system, students learn, for example, that they cannot choose a course in school without observing and evaluating what is going on inside themselves and out, and then deciding to take particular actions. The process applies to any issue, be it personal, work, or civic. Lauer therefore argues that these four PEDA process usoperations can be considered the basic processes of knowing. Anything and everything people experience can thus become reasons for improving PEDA skills.

Concepts that structure, order, and relate. Lauer suggests that certain concepts if mastered can help improve PEDA skills (Lauer, 1985a; 1986). Using criteria from general semantics (Korzybski, 1933; Bois, 1970), Lauer chooses universal concepts that describe structure, order, and relations. Whatever the events of our inner and outer lives, they have organization or structure, they occur in relative degrees of sequence, cycle, or order, and they have relationships to other events (Lauer, 1996-97). For example, a classroom discussion may have an authoritarian, democratic, or other structure, relatively orderly or chaotic proceedings, and changing relationships among members and outside people and events, as found in empirically based research (White & Lippit, 1953; Lippit & White, 1960). Likewise, any situation or issue may be understood in terms of the basic filters of structure, order, and relations.

To clarify structure, order, and relations, Lauer (1996-97) specifies overarching, critical concepts she calls "metacepts" (for "meta-concepts," or higher order concepts about concepts). We use metacepts of structure, such as category, theory, context, ideology, paradigm, hierarchy, pattern, system; concepts of order such as sequence, process, cycle, trend, rhythm; and concepts of relations such as interdependence, analogy, transaction, empathy, ratio, synergy, reciprocity, etc. None of the terms or ideas refer to concrete realities such as objects or people, but each refers to ways in which issues or events can be conceived and integrated. Increasing understanding of each helps increase awareness of daily perceptions, evaluations, decisions, and actions. Metacepts, then, conceptually "provide us with the warp and woof, the interlacing threads, of any fabric we might perceive or create" (Lauer, 1996-97, p.377).

Epistemological orientations. Lauer finds that her list of concepts requires a structure of its own. She organizes several dozen concepts of perception, evaluation, decision and action, by clustering them to explain each of five orientations or "epistemes" (see again Table 1).

As related theorists below suggest, every episteme conveys a largely unconscious set of assumptions and premises about the way things are and how they work - a mental model that affects all thoughts and actions of individuals (see Table 2). Lauer argues that teachers could evoke an understanding of the underlying concepts behind epistemes, and thus help students gradually liberate and clarify their own thinking, until the students "could finally grasp the whole orientation, the grand theme of knowing implied in each episteme" (Lauer, 1985; 1996-97, p.378).

Lauer (1996-97) expands upon the schemes of both Bois and Piaget (which will be described below) to propose an "epistemological profile" of five epistemes: Sensory, Classificatory, Relational, Transcendent, and Unifying, in ascending order. While Lauer's epistemological framework draws on the development of humanistic psychology, it goes beyond mere change and growth. Instead, it points to the significance of entire underlying structures, cognitive and otherwise.

Lauer, moreover, reasserts the hierarchy established by Bois (1970) of the historical evolution of whole epochs of western civilization. She supports his argument that individuals manifest a psycho-social gestalt corresponding to the characteristic episteme of their time. Lauer, however, makes the distinction that within today's culture we see signs of a wide variety of epistemes, despite the fact that one seems dominant. Moreover, "with each new episteme, people can solve problems which were obscured by the last one, but [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 2 OMITTED] eventually the limitations of the new one are discovered, and people prepare themselves to emerge into yet another transformation" (Lauer, 1983, p.198). As Piaget (1950) discards limits of previous stages, so does Lauer. But Lauer proposes, with Werner (1957), that successive stages should correct for these limits.

Related theories of human development

Lauer's work relates to, and in many cases builds upon, a range of theories of human development. In articulating her language of worldviews, Lauer explicitly built on the work of Bois, who had in turn built on Korzybski, Bachelard, and Foucault. Korzybski (1933) distinguished three periods of human development, as characterized by their standards of evaluation - namely the primitive, Aristotelian, and non-Aristotelian. Bachelard (1940/1968), observing the history of human thought, argued that people in every epoch "mutate" by saying "no" in a sense to limitations of previous epochs or ages, resulting in the use of five philosophies - each more progressively advanced than the last - called naive realism, positivist empiricism, Newtonian or Kantian rationalism, complete rationalism, and dialectical rationalism. Foucault (1966/1970) argued similarly that the people of any era operate according to what he termed a characteristic "episteme" that structures the thinking of the time.

It was Bois (1970) who postulated, based on a range of scholarship, that there has been a conceptual metamorphosis of five characteristic "breeds" of humans, who organize experiences according to different "epistemes" or conceptions of reality, each evolving from a radical reorganization of every aspect of social, emotional, and intellectual understanding. Bois (1970) pointed out the importance of concepts of emergence, mutation, change, metamorphosis, in the evolution of human minds. Bois suggested that metamorphosis involves not simply separate, different, and additive change, but transformation akin to that of a larva to a butterfly: the mutation is irreversible, with successive stages radically recasting the form of the whole organism. Bois described the five epistemes - primitive, classifying, relating, postulating, and participant - as reflecting the evolution of scientific paradigms from prehistoric through postmodern epochs.

The development of individuals as outlined by Piaget (1926/1963, 1950) appears to recapitulate the first three evolutionary stages Bois describes in the history of Western humankind (Lauer, 1971, 1983, 1996-97). Piaget (1926/1963, 1950) proposed four major stages of development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations. If we group Piaget's first two stages together, the framework corresponds to Bois' primitive, classifying, and relating epistemes. Piaget's scheme, however, does not account for development into adulthood beyond formal operations, as many theorists have noted (Commons, Richards & Armon, 1984; Lauer, 1983). This is particularly significant because many college students today are older, "returning" students seeking further development.

Still more criticisms come from proponents of "critical" developmental psychology, who argue that "rather than simply observing development, [developmental psychology] develops us" (Broughton, 1987, p.2). Broughton critiques typical developmental psychology for its grounding in dogmatic assumptions about the objective nature of developmental theory and intervention. He emphasizes the subjectivity of the observer, the psychologist who brings to every intervention a subjective experience and not some supposedly value-neutral view. Piaget's scheme lacks an account of such subjectivity. Lauer (1983, 1996-97), however, in her own theory of development, acknowledges subjectivity as inherent to the act of choosing patterns of thought.

Lauer shares the interest of multiple theorists related to student development, including psychosocial theorists (Chickering, 1969; Erikson, 1963, 1964) who examine personal and interpersonal life, especially the development of young adult identity. Lauer also investigates not just what people think but how they think, as do cognitive-structural theorists (Baxter Magolda, 1992, 1996; Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule, 1986; Broughton, 1975; Gilligan, 1982/1993; King & Kitchener, 1994; Kohlberg, 1969; Kohlberg & Mayer, 1972; Loevinger, 1976; Perry, 1970; Piaget, 1950) who look at assumptions used in adapting to environments. In her teaching, Lauer takes into account differences in how people learn and what interests them, as do typology theorists (Jung, 1923/1971; Kolb, 1984) interested in innate differences and learning styles. Lauer focuses as well on the interaction of person and environment in the tradition of person-environment theorists like Lewin (1936). Lauer's work also stresses conditions Sanford (1966) called readiness of, challenge to, and support for individuals. With Schlossberg (1989), Lauer too accommodates the need to fit in, and with Rendon (1994), the need for "enabling, confirming, and supportive" validation (p.46, quoted in Evans, Forney & Guido-DiBrito, 1998, p.28).

Striking parallels arise when comparing Lauer's (1983) theory with several of those above, particularly with that of Perry (see Table 3).

Both Lauer and Perry share concerns about the individual's view of knowledge, truth, authority, values, and agency. Both schemes delineate patterns of epistemological development that progress from dualistic certainty to increasing relativist uncertainty to eventual personal value commitments. Perry's investigation has proven empirically sound and richly versatile in its many uses (King & Kitchener, 1994; Knefelkamp, 1974; Knefelkamp & Cornfeld, 1978; Moore, 1994; Parker, 1978; Stephenson & Hunt, 1977; Widick, 1975), most of which in turn share insights with Lauer. However, Lauer's and Perry's schemes differ significantly in terms of exactly how each particular stage or position is conceived, and in overall purpose of the scheme. For instance, while Perry differentiates stages of commitment, Lauer would group these under her transcendent/humanist fourth episteme. Furthermore, while sharing Perry's interest in students, Lauer also has broader concerns.

Upon comparison, Lauer's theory differs from all those above in at least three significant ways. First, her theory derives from an overview not only of individual development, but of development of whole historical periods or paradigms of Western civilization. Second, her scheme incorporates in the highest stage a paradoxical spiritual understanding that "transcends language." Third, Lauer includes an extensive pedagogy and cohesive transdisciplinary curriculum aimed at actively fostering development.

How to encourage development

Lauer (1996-97) finds that students need a chance to master each of the perspectives or epistemes by starting from the earliest, Episteme I, characteristic of pre-scientific cultures. Because students usually resist advancing beyond earlier ways of processing experiences, they need first to acknowledge the value and importance of such processing as intuition, imagination, sensory awareness, myth-making, rituals, etc. Only after understanding these earlier habits of mind can they become aware of limits and transcend problematic aspects. For example, in light of Episteme II, students can learn to distinguish among sensory perceptions rather than impulsively accept them.

Therefore, in Lauer's argument, students should at first not shun the classificatory second episteme, for all its relative rigidity and logocentric absolutism. Many students lack sufficient skill in categorizing in the first place; they need practice identifying and differentiating similarities, differences, and lower vs. higher orders of abstraction - all skills central to Episteme II. When students understand this, they can then learn how such thinking overlooks contexts of time, place, and circumstance.

Continuing higher into the relational Episteme III, Lauer posits that students need a grasp of scientific method, induction and deduction, objective observational techniques, experimental investigation methods, rational skepticism, and so on, before moving to higher epistemes. This is especially so [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 3 OMITTED] because students need a high degree of concrete and scientific grounding to avoid the pitfalls of what Lauer calls "some of the more 'airy-fairy' aspects of New Age activities" (Lauer, 1996-97, p.381), as such activities, whether recent or borrowing from tradition, are often commonly confused with higher stage thinking. After mastering scientific relational patterns of thought, however, students can then afford to see their own subjectivity intertwined with the apparent objectivity of science, to transcend their patterns and contemplate other sources of truth and knowing (moving towards the transcendent Episteme IV, and even the unifying Episteme V).

Much as Knefelkamp (1974) and Widick (1975) showed with their trailblazing early creation of "developmental instruction," Lauer shows that development may be encouraged by close attention to the relationship of teaching and learning. Lauer (1999) argues that greater understanding of empathy alone could create a revolution in this respect - fostering transformation on the grandest scale. "If there is a single cause for all the trouble in the world," she writes, "it could be that people lack empathy for each other" (Lauer, 1999, p.15). According to Heath (1968), becoming allocentric, or other-centered, and less dominated by one's own immediate needs, indicates growing maturity. Key interventions enhancing ability to empathize are central to Lauer's pedagogy (Torosyan, 1998a), as are techniques for helping students understand other metacepts. Each is guided by democratic ideals in the tradition of Dewey (1916/1944).

Lauer's approach has had a history of proving useful in a variety of contexts. Early in her own work, Lauer (1965, 1965-66, 1974) applied general semantics to education. By experimenting with educating fifth-graders, she evoked in them an awareness of formulations like observer bias, nonidentity, and process/change. She found that over the course of a year, students who learned about these concepts transferred their learning to their lived behavior, and actually exhibited far less dualistic, either/or, right/wrong thinking than those who did not (Lauer, 1965, 1974). In addition, when she was chief psychologist of the New York City school system, she helped school psychologists become facilitators of change rather than mere diagnosticians (Lauer, 1969, 1979, 1980). Lauer has also helped people understand issues such as the uncertain nature of reality (Lauer, 1985b; see also Torosyan, 1998b), and Americans and killing (Lauer, 1990b).

Hussey (1988; Lauer & Hussey, 1986) and numerous other educators (see Lauer, 1991) have "benefited from puffing into practice" (Hussey, 1988, p.128) Lauer's approach in the college classroom. Faculty who have used Lauer's approach have reported that they encourage far greater interaction and more application of learning. My doctoral dissertation studies the degree to which a course I am teaching based on Lauer's approach actively encourages growth in students. After taking Lauer's courses, students say they "apply the learnings daily," and "wish all of education could be so related to life" (see dialogue analysis and course evaluations in Torosyan, 1998a). Lauer clearly shows multiple means to encourage change in thought and action.

Summary

Lauer's approach, placed in the context of education, philosophy, and psychology, shows a way to unify the insights of all the disciplines and put them to use - an accomplishment no other system seems to have achieved so practically. Lauer proposes a framework that takes as most important the universal concepts common to the many issues we face today. Lauer suggests that it is patterns of thought that constitute our environment, and therefore proposes a way of recognizing such patterns. When integrated with existing theory and research on epistemology and development, Lauer's work provides a whole way of teaching and learning to foster growth in consciousness. The approach can be of use to anyone who seeks to integrate learning and apply it to life.

NOTE

1. Rachel Lauer is Professor of Psychology, Founding Director of the Straus Thinking & Learning Center at Pace University, NYC, and formerly the Chief Psychologist of the New York City Board of Education. I owe an enormous amount to her published and unpublished work, and to our many in-depth dialogues. Any misrepresentations of her theory are of course entirely my own.

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Robert Torosyan is Adjunct Lecturer and Assistant Director at the Straus Thinking & Learning Center at Pace University NYC, and a Liebmann Fellow Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Studies in Philosophy & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where a version of this paper was submitted for his Theoretical Certification (under John M. Broughton).