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Adler, Mortimer, and the Paideia Program
Adler、Mortimer 和 Paideia 计划
by, I 作者:我
Mortimer Adler, professor, philosopher, and educational theorist, was born in New York City in 1902. He left school at age 14 to write for newspapers and initially enrolled in Columbia University to improve his writing. Because he never passed the swimming test, he never earned a baccalaureate degree, but he did eventually earn a PhD from Columbia University where he studied with John Dewey. Adler eventually repudiated Dewey’s faith in progress and in science, positing instead the argument that while human situations may change, human problems remain the same. For education, then, we should look to the ancients and to philosophy rather than to fashion and science.
莫蒂默·阿德勒 (Mortimer Adler) 教授、哲学家和教育理论家,1902 年出生于纽约市。他 14 岁离开学校为报纸撰稿,最初进入哥伦比亚大学以提高他的写作水平。因为他从未通过游泳考试,所以他从未获得学士学位,但他最终获得了哥伦比亚大学的博士学位,在那里他师从约翰·杜威 (John Dewey)。阿德勒最终否定了杜威对进步和科学的信仰,转而提出了这样一个论点:虽然人类的处境可能会发生变化,但人类的问题仍然存在。因此,对于教育,我们应该向古人和哲学看齐,而不是向时尚和科学看齐。
It is not surprising, then, that “Mortimer Adler” and “great books” are often considered synonymous categories. Adler believed that the classics are the foundation of a good education for all people because they pass down the “great ideas.” Reading the great books develops ethical, socially responsible citizens who have in the great ideas the basic tools for living a good life. While Adler defines the three main objectives of education as (1) preparation for earning a living, (2) learning to be a good citizen of the republic, and (3) leading a morally good life, it is clear that he thinks the latter two purposes take precedence over the first because they lead to human happiness. Since learning to be a good citizen and learning how to lead a morally good life (and in fact actually doing so) are attainable through reading the classics, that mode of study should be primary and universal.
因此,“莫蒂默·阿德勒”和“伟大的书籍”经常被认为是同义词也就不足为奇了。阿德勒认为,经典是所有人接受良好教育的基础,因为它们传递了“伟大的思想”。阅读伟大的书籍可以培养有道德、有社会责任感的公民,他们在伟大的思想中拥有过上美好生活的基本工具。虽然阿德勒将教育的三个主要目标定义为 (1) 为谋生做准备,(2) 学习成为共和国的好公民,以及 (3) 过上道德上良好的生活,但很明显,他认为后两个目标优先于第一个,因为它们会带来人类的幸福。既然学习成为一个好公民和学习如何过上道德良好的生活(实际上这样做)是通过阅读经典著作来实现的,那么这种学习模式应该是主要的和普遍的。
The Paideia Program (from paidos, Greek for “raising a child”) was based on an educational reform proposal from Adler and a group of like-minded scientists, educators, and business leaders intended to promote the reading and study of the great books. The program was based on the following tenets:
Paideia 计划(来自 paidos,希腊语,意为“抚养孩子”)基于阿德勒和一群志同道合的科学家、教育家和商业领袖的教育改革提案,旨在促进对伟大书籍的阅读和研究。该计划基于以下原则:
- All children are educable.
所有孩子都是可教育的。
- Education is a lifelong activity.
教育是一项终生的活动。
- The primary cause of learning is the activity of the child’s mind, which is assisted by the teacher.
学习的主要原因是孩子的思维活动,这得到了老师的协助。
- Multiple types of learning and teaching, including coaching and extended discussion, should augment lecturing.
多种类型的学习和教学,包括辅导和扩展讨论,应该加强讲课。
- Preparing to earn a living is not the primary objective of education.
准备谋生并不是教育的主要目标。
In many ways, the program was a “back to basics” reform proposal, with reading, writing, and arithmetic at the heart of it. It was also a self-consciously democratic and egalitarian proposal. In the words of Adler (1998), “equality of educational opportunity” is not
在许多方面,该计划是一项“返璞归真”的改革提案,以阅读、写作和算术为核心。这也是一个自觉民主和平等主义的提议。用 Adler (1998) 的话来说,“教育机会均等”不是
«taking all the children into the public schools for the same number of hours, days, and years. If once there they are divided into the sheep and the goats, into those destined solely for toil and those destined for economic and political leadership and for a quality of life to which all should have access, then the democratic purpose has been undermined by an inadequate system of public schooling. (p. Existing Achievement
“让所有孩子进入公立学校,学习相同的小时数、天数和年数。如果他们一旦到了那里就被分成绵羊和山羊,分为只用来劳作的和注定要成为经济和政治领导以及所有人都应该享有的生活质量的,那么民主的目的就被不适当的公立学校教育制度所破坏了。(p. 现有成就
Given his argument for a universal great books education, it is somewhat ironic that Adler’s name and the Paideia Program have been associated with elitist approaches to education. There are three apparent reasons for the recurrent charges of elitism. The first is that great books curricula have usually taken root and flourished only at wealthy, private institutions such as Columbia, The University of Chicago, and Stanford-which abandoned its required freshman great books curriculum in the late 1980s but maintains an optional program (known as SLE, for “structured liberal education”), as does Yale (“directed studies”)—or at renowned, equally wealthy, liberal arts colleges. (Exceptions that arguably prove the rule are honors programs at state universities, like the Honors College at the University of Houston, that require a Paideia-like curriculum for all majors.)
鉴于他主张普遍的名著教育,有点讽刺的是,阿德勒的名字和 Paideia 计划与精英主义的教育方法联系在一起。精英主义的反复指控有三个明显的原因。首先,名著课程通常只在哥伦比亚大学、芝加哥大学和斯坦福大学等富裕的私立机构中扎根并蓬勃发展——这些机构在 1980 年代后期放弃了必修的新生名著课程,但与耶鲁大学(“定向研究”)一样,保留了一个可选课程(称为 SLE,意为“结构化通识教育”)——或者在著名的、 同样富有的文理学院。(可以说可以证明这一规则的例外是州立大学的荣誉课程,如休斯顿大学的荣誉学院(Honors College at the University of Houston),它要求所有专业都采用类似 Paideia 的课程。
The second source of suspicion of elitism derives from a constellation of practical and populist notions about the vocational purpose of education, some of the more sophisticated of which derive from Adler’s old foe John Dewey. Adler does not help his cause with such critics when he argues that the ancients regarded the training for particular jobs as the training of slaves. In Adler’s view, the ancients, always his authority on matters of education, saw the pursuit of happiness as the universal human vocation and the primary, if not the sole, purpose of education.
怀疑精英主义的第二个来源来自关于教育职业目的的一系列实用主义和民粹主义观念,其中一些更复杂的观念来自阿德勒的老对手约翰·杜威。当阿德勒认为古人将特定工作的培训视为对奴隶的培训时,他对这些批评者没有帮助。在阿德勒看来,古人在教育问题上一直是他的权威,将追求幸福视为人类的普遍使命,也是教育的主要目的,如果不是唯一的目的的话。
Finally, programs inspired or supported by Adler have faced charges of bias and elitism. In 1986, these charges flared during debates at Stanford University, when students and faculty challenged a freshman requirement and its “core list” of 15 works, from Homer and the Hebrew Bible to Marx, Darwin, and Freud. The controversy culminated in 1989 with Stanford replacing “Western Culture” with a multicultural course titled “Culture, Institutions, and Values,” or CIV. More directly and personally, charges of racism and sexism hounded Adler then and continue to this day-for his sometimes strident opposition to the inclusion of works by non-Western and non-European writers as well as works by women and persons of color and for his unwavering advocacy of the so-called canon consisting almost exclusively of “dead White males.” Champions of multiculturalism at Stanford and elsewhere included Black student organizations, feminist groups, and others on the cultural left who argued that a curriculum like Adler’s could not be relevant to the contemporary world in which students lived. The lack of “balance” in the curriculum was proof that there must be a bias beneath the egalitarian surface of the Paideia Program. Adler countered that great books, as opposed to good books, are not relevant for one moment or locale but for all time and that they provide an essential grounding for everyone-a common culture necessary for a functional democracy.
最后,受 Adler 启发或支持的项目面临偏见和精英主义的指控。1986 年,这些指控在斯坦福大学的辩论中爆发,当时学生和教职员工对新生要求及其 15 部著作的“核心清单”提出了质疑,从荷马和希伯来圣经到马克思、达尔文和弗洛伊德。这场争论在 1989 年达到高潮,斯坦福大学用一门名为“文化、制度和价值观”或 CIV 的多元文化课程取代了“西方文化”。更直接地说,种族主义和性别歧视的指控在当时一直困扰着阿德勒,并一直持续到今天——因为他有时强烈反对收录非西方和非欧洲作家的作品以及女性和有色人种的作品,以及他坚定不移地倡导几乎完全由“死去的白人男性”组成的所谓经典。斯坦福大学和其他地方的多元文化主义倡导者包括黑人学生组织、女权主义团体和其他文化左翼人士,他们认为像阿德勒这样的课程不可能与学生生活的当代世界相关。课程中缺乏“平衡”证明,在 Paideia 计划的平等主义表面下一定存在偏见。阿德勒反驳说,与好书相反,好书不是在某个时刻或地点相关,而是与所有时间相关,它们为每个人提供了一个必要的基础——一个功能性民主所必需的共同文化。
With multicultural critics of content on one side and populist critics of purpose on another, Adler’s great books curriculum faced opposition on both the left and the right. During the 1980s and 1990s, the reputation of Adler’s unifying and democratizing intentions were tarnished when critics
一边是内容的多元文化批评者,一边是目的的民粹主义批评者,阿德勒的名著课程面临着左翼和右翼的反对。在 1980 年代和 1990 年代,阿德勒统一和民主化意图的声誉因批评者而受到损害
lumped him with E. D. Hirsch, who helped fan the culture wars with his call for a “national culture,” and Allan Bloom and William Bennett, both of whom Adler considered elitist. More recently, Nel Noddings developed a nuanced alternative to Adler’s program, which she calls a “Whitmanesque” curriculum, for poet Walt Whitman. Adler’s insistence on a one-track system of education ignores real differences in talent and interest, Noddings claims, thus alienating and humiliating students who are not engaged by a Paideia-like program of study. She advocates a broader, less bookish, understanding of intellectual work, one that includes those who cook and those who repair as well as those who speak and write. Summarizing, then, critics of Adler object to the impractical, nonvocational nature of his program, the rigidity of its application to all children, and the preponderance of Western, White, and male writers in his great books canon.
将他与E.D.赫希(E. D. Hirsch)混为一谈,赫希呼吁建立“民族文化”,帮助煽动了文化战争,而艾伦·布鲁姆(Allan Bloom)和威廉·贝内特(William Bennett)都被阿德勒视为精英主义者。最近,内尔·诺丁斯 (Nel Noddings) 为诗人沃尔特·惠特曼 (Walt Whitman) 开发了一个微妙的替代方案,以替代阿德勒的计划,她称之为“惠特曼式”课程。诺丁斯声称,阿德勒坚持单轨制教育忽视了才能和兴趣的真正差异,从而疏远和羞辱了那些没有参与类似 Paideia 的学习计划的学生。她主张对智力工作有更广泛、不那么书卷气的理解,包括那些做饭的人、那些修理的人以及那些会说话和写的人。因此,总而言之,阿德勒的批评者反对他的课程不切实际、非职业的性质,它适用于所有儿童的僵化,以及在他的伟大书籍经典中西方、白人和男性作家占主导地位。
Respecting the last and best known of these objections, great books programs are now often modified to include “alternative voices”: works by women, persons of color, and non-Western/nonEuropean authors. At almost every institution influenced by Adler, his 54 great books and the 102 great ideas he indexed in the Synopticon have been expanded and modified, and educators are generally less sanguine about the universality and sufficiency of their approach. Yet Adler’s central insight still underlies much of what is identified as “core” or general education in schools, colleges, and universities. If they cannot agree on a list of titles, many, if not most, educators do believe in classic, universally valuable books and perennial ideas that are relevant to human problems in all times and situations. The implicit, if not explicit, assumption is that some ideas endure and broadly influence individuals and societies, and some books, let us call them “great,” reward and sustain when read with attention and care.
尊重这些反对意见中的最后也是最著名的,伟大的书籍计划现在经常被修改为包括 “另类声音”:女性、有色人种和非西方/非欧洲作家的作品。在几乎每一个受阿德勒影响的机构中,他的 54 本伟大著作和他在 Synopticon 中索引的 102 个伟大思想都得到了扩展和修改,教育工作者通常对他们方法的普遍性和充分性不太乐观。然而,阿德勒的核心见解仍然是学校、学院和大学中被确定为“核心”或通识教育的大部分基础。如果他们不能就书名清单达成一致,那么许多(如果不是大多数)教育工作者确实相信经典的、具有普遍价值的书籍和永恒的思想,这些书籍和思想与所有时代和情况下的人类问题有关。隐含的(如果不是明确的)假设是,有些思想经久不衰并广泛影响个人和社会,而有些书,让我们称之为“伟大”,在全神贯注和细心阅读时会得到回报和维持。
See also Cultural Literacy and Core Knowledge/Skills; Dewey, John; Essentialism, Perennialism, and the “Isms” Approach; Multiculturalism; Noddings, Nel; Paideia; Vocational Education
另见文化素养和核心知识/技能;杜威,约翰;本质主义、永恒主义和“主义”方法;多元文化主义;点头,内尔;派迪亚;职业教育
Further Readings 延伸阅读
- Adler, M. (1997). Aristotle for everybody: Difficult thought made easy. Touchstone New York NY. (Original work published 1978).
阿德勒,M.(1997 年)。适合所有人的亚里士多德:困难的思考变得简单。试金石,纽约,纽约。(原始作品于 1978 年出版)。
- Adler, M. (1998). The Paideia proposal: An educational manifesto. Touchstone New York NY. (Original work published 1982).
阿德勒,M.(1998 年)。Paideia 提案:教育宣言。试金石,纽约,纽约。(原始作品于 1982 年出版)。
- Adler, M. (2000). How to think about the great ideas: From the great books of Western civilization. Open Court Peru IL.
阿德勒,M.(2000 年)。如何思考伟大的思想:来自西方文明的伟大书籍。伊利诺伊州秘鲁 Open Court。
- Adler, M.; Van Doren, C. (1972). How to read a book. Touchstone New York NY. (Original work published 1940).
阿德勒,M.;范多伦,C.(1972 年)。如何阅读一本书。试金石,纽约,纽约。(原始作品于 1940 年出版)。
- Bloom, A. (1987). The closing of the American mind. Simon & Schuster New York NY.
布鲁姆,A.(1987 年)。美国人思想的封闭。Simon & Schuster 纽约州。
- Hirsch, E. D. Jr. (1988). Cultural literacy: What every American needs to know. Vintage Books New York NY.
Hirsch, E. D. Jr. (1988 年)。文化素养:每个美国人都需要知道的。Vintage Books,纽约,纽约。
- Noddings, N. (2012). Philosophy of education (3rd ed.). Westview Press Boulder CO.
Noddings, N. (2012 年)。教育哲学(第 3 版)。Westview Press 博尔德公司。