De-intellectualisation and Authority in Education

'De-intellectualisation' is a typical piece of educational jargon, for which I apologise: my only defence must be that I try to explore its meaning in what follows. Another apology, or at least a reminder, is due to those readers who may react with instinctive hostility to any suggestion that education has taken a wrong turning in this respect. In my experience dovecotes here are easily fluttered: "Who are you to criticise hardworking teachers... ?", "What right have you philosophers to say... ?" and so forth. This reaction is an important feature of the situation which I deliberately elicit; if there is a certain odiously superior intellectualist approach to education (many Oxbridge worthies still, I suspect, believe that any really intelligent person can straighten education out after a few minutes thought) there is also a good deal of defensive and hostile reaction to intellectual criticism, amounting at times to paranoia. This is a crucial difficulty in the problem of de-intellectualisation: the parties concerned with the enterprise of education do not, often, trust each other (or their own self-esteem) enough to engage in any serious and hard-hitting dialogue. Most debates are either ideological or ad hominem, or both. This is a vicious circle also, only to be broken by an increase in fraternity. We shall return to this later. The first thing, then, is that we should be able and willing to communicate effectively with each other; and this means that serious attention to the meanings of words and concepts must lie at the heart of-or, at the very least, be an essential first step in-any intellectually serious debate about educational issues. It lies also at the heart of any serious philosophical enquiry, as Socrates first saw (and put into practice): in that sense 'philosophy of education', if that is not too dauntingly academic a phrase, is crucial. The recent marginalisation of philosophy of education in most of our teacher-training institutions is certainly one of the most obvious and alarming symptoms of de-intellectualisation. I do not want to expand on this here, or on the nature and psychological difficulties of analytical philosophy, having done so elsewhere (Wilson, 1987); but the common-sense points I have just made about communication lead inexorably to it. Anyone who is serious about making sense of education will find himself involved in philosophy, whether he likes it or not (often, I am afraid, not). Much of what follows is not, in a strict or professional sense of the word, 'philosophical'; or at least it is not cast in that style, which is intended for the general reader rather than the professional philosopher. It is, however, based on what I take to be conceptual points, or points of logic, rather than-as some will be tempted to suppose-a set of ideological preferences that may seem 'traditionalist', 'conservative', 'academic' or whatever. For the enterprise of education does carry certain conceptual trappings and presuppositions with it. The concept of education logically implies