Education, Empirical Art

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Education, An Empirical Art

In empirical arts, practices with repeatable and reproducible results come first, tested via trial and error. Then theories and principles come later to summarize, to codify, to refine and even enlighten the practices. While practices or sequences of them in some empirical or hands-on arts in science, technology and business, assembly lines included, may comply with principles and standards, even be connected and organized and designed around said principles and standards, the forerunner to such organization or optimization should consists of methods that are tried and tested, methods that work in a plug and play manner, methods whose benefits, origins and limitations are described..

Education is an empirical art. We may not read a student's mind, how a student thinks or links together skills and patterns, yet we can observe and test student performance, skill by skill, concept by concept, and encourage, but not guarantee, mastery of standard calculations and standard arguments or chains of reason in algebra, geometry and beyond. In some disciplines, not all, there are right and wrong answers due to methods that lead to repeatable and reproducible, and thus verifiable results independent of whom-ever applies the method. Learning how to apply and combine methods carefully to obtain reproducible and thus verifiable results is an old sign of intelligence in many old arts and disciplines in business, trades, science, engineering, technology and bureaucracy. The latter is subject to the limitations of rule and pattern based thought and practices, and the critical knowledge that not all is certain in empirical based thought and practice.

Critical thinking in science and technology begins with an awareness that what we hope for, dream of or construct in our minds remains speculation or faith IF or WHILE it or its consequence cannot be observe or tested directly to be corroborated if not confirmed. The foregoing is a rebuttal to the constructivist theory of learning, the part which opposes testing, the existence of questions with right or wrong answers, and which says student knowledge, if individually constructed, should not be contradicted. Empirically sound education must oppose wishful thinking. That being said, constructivist methods for engaging, authentic, genuine material and the development of critical thinking could be incorporated into education as an empirical art.

More on Testing. Knowledge empirically found or tested is relative and not absolute. Instruction which relies on testing skills and concepts can only identify errors in the mastery of the latter while correct responses only confirm, but do not guarantee mastery. But the level of student competence in a discipline defined by skills and concept mastery can be estimated from the degree of difficulty, the unlikelihood of correct responses if skills and concepts have not been mastered, and comprehensive of a test or series of test. Here individualized testing may be informative that mass testing. Empirical soundness of instruction and testing, the issue of lessons and associated tests with repeatable and reproducible results locally and beyond, should not be scrutinized in an absolute manner. Cognitive theory should look at education as an empirical art.

While a teacher can not read the mind of a student, a teacher may see and correct mistakes, minor to major, in the content and style of student writings and further endeavors or products, so that the student may learn from his or her mistakes, and possibly learn how to make fewer mistakes. In the short span of education, several years or more, the student will meet subjects in which individual construction or organization of skills and concepts cannot in the first instance replace the early collective and refined products of many minds.

Instruction is an empirical art with value judgments and decision dependent on the subject at hand and what students produce - observable behaviors or products only. Any else is subjective - not repeatable and reproducible. In particular, the constructivist approach to instruction, despite fine calls for authentic, realistic and engaging material and practices in the classroom, calls that should be heeded and empirically supported as much as possible, in its opposition to the testing and measurement of skills and performance provide vacuous standards for instruction and undermines the sequential nature of learning in which skills and concepts at one level need to be learnt and verified before the next level begins.