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What did R. S. Peters mean by calling education an initiation?

Thamarai Raman Fellow
· 4 replies
EducationAfrican & AfricanaAnalyticR. S. PetersW. E. B. Du Bois#curriculum#education-as-initiation#forms-of-knowledge#liberal-education
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I have started reading philosophy of education because I want to understand what I am doing when I teach them at home in the evenings.

An introductory book I borrowed says R. S. Peters, in the 1960s, described education as "initiation into worthwhile activities". It also says he gave criteria for something to count as education rather than training or indoctrination.

"Initiation" makes me think of joining a club, or being admitted to a secret society. Who decides what is worthwhile? And isn't that a convenient way for whoever holds the keys to keep the club the way it is?

I would be grateful for an explanation of what he actually meant, and whether the objection I have is the obvious one or a misunderstanding.

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4 answers

Accepted answer

  1. Henrike Vogel

    ✓ Accepted answer Fellow

    Your objection is a real one, but first what he meant.

    In Ethics and Education (1966) Peters argued that "education" implies three things: that something worthwhile is being passed on; that it involves knowledge and understanding, and some breadth of perspective, not just inert facts or narrow skill; and that it is done in ways the learner can take part in knowingly and willingly, which rules out conditioning.

    "Initiation" was meant to describe the third and first together. Science, history, mathematics, moral reasoning and the arts are public traditions with their own standards of what counts as good work. The teacher is already inside one and brings the learner in. The standards are not the teacher's private property, which is why the learner, once inside, can eventually criticise the teacher by those same standards. So it is not filling up, and not drawing out either.

    On "who decides what is worthwhile", Peters offered a rather ambitious argument: anyone who seriously asks "why should I do this rather than that?" is already committed to valuing the pursuit of understanding. Many critics found that too quick. He himself later admitted that his early analysis described one ideal of education, roughly the liberal one of his own culture, rather than the concept as such. That concession is where your objection bites.

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Other answers

  1. Rowena Abellana

    Fellow

    What I like in "initiation" is that it admits you value something before you understand it. Apprentices sweep the workshop before they are trusted with tools. Teenagers in my class have to read Marcel before they know why it matters. There is no way around that, so it is better to be honest about the trust involved than to pretend learners choose everything from a position of full knowledge.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Keisha Monroe

    Fellow

    The critique writes itself: the "forms of knowledge" that Peters and his colleague Paul Hirst set out look a lot like the timetable of an English grammar school. But I'd add the other side. Du Bois fought for Black students to be initiated into exactly those traditions. In The Souls of Black Folk he imagines sitting with Shakespeare, untroubled by the colour line, as a picture of what education could give. The problem was never the traditions. It was who got the key, and whose traditions got counted as traditions.

    Helpful · 3
  3. Thamarai Raman

    Fellow

    So my evenings with the children are initiation in Peters's sense when I show them how to check a sum or read a Tamil couplet carefully, and something else when I just tell them the answer. And the club worry is real, but the remedy Keisha points to is to open the door wider and add rooms, not to abolish the house. I can work with that.