the ernest james goddard oration 1982: education for tomorrow

Australian Dental Journal, December, 1983

DECEMBER, 1983

335

Volume 28::Number 6

The Ernest James Goddard Oration 1982*

Education for tomorrow

Edward Scott, B.A., Ph.D.(Syd.), M.A.Ps.S., F.A.C.E.t

Ernest James Goddard, distinguished scholar of diverse interests, and a man of culture, lived through some of the most turbulent times of the century-two world wars and the great depression of the thirties. His service to the sciences and to the cause of dental training, in particular, was marked by a responsiveness to the social and technological climate of the times and by the vision of the tomorrow he strove to achieve-the professional training of dentists. In the course of his lifetime, he did much to effect the change of dental training in Queensland from an apprenticeship system in the early twenties to a full professional training through the creation of a Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Queensland in 1935. The biography of the life and times of Ernest James Goddard epitomizes the contention of the noted an- thropologist, Margaret Mead, that ‘no one will live all of his life in the world to which he is born and no one will die in the world in which he worked in his maturity’.

You and 1 live in an age that is changing faster than ever before. Children born in 1982 will enter the workforce in or around the year 2000. What does the future hold for them? How will it be shaped?

As the great economic depression of the thirties bore down upon the western world, Bertrand Russell made the prophetic statement that ‘Education is the key to the New World’,’ this statement sets the theme of this address ‘Education for Tomorrow’ for I will argue that our society is unlikely to survive long as we presently know it and that the shape of society tomorrow will be determined by events in the classrooms and lecture theatres of our educational institutions today.

It is surely an undisputed observation that the remainder of this century will see Australia, as with other nations of the world, in one of the most critical periods of its history as it faces a set of complex interacting

*Delivered at the Australian Dental Association Queensland Branch. Brisbane, on 12 October 1982. tProfersor, School of Education, James Cook University of North Queensland. Townsville.

B

’ Russell B. The aims of education. In: Education and the good life. New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926.

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value judgements, necessary to become effective partici- pants and problem solvers in the unknown world of tomorrow.

The implications of sharing such a concern are fundamentally attitudinal reflecting as they d o on how educational institutions conceptualize their roles and responsibilities, what they value, and how they determine their priorities. For example, speaking of the role of the school, in his Future Shock, Toffler argues that what passes for education today is a hopeless anachronism. In particular, he says, schools face backwards to a dying system rather than forward to the emerging new society. It would appear that what Toffler says of American schools may apply equally well to many of our own. One has only to read several excerpts from Dany Humphrey’s and Ken Newcombe’s book Schools Out,’ based on an essay competition conducted by the daily newspaper The Australian, to illustrate the point.

Colin, a 17 year old, had this to say: ‘Obsessional insistence upon obedience, punctuality, conformity and uniformity and competitive scrambling for marks and examination results, all add up to contribute to the denial of children’s individualism. When children cannot identify with these tribal aspirations, they fall away into a state of apathy or open hostility’.

Sue, a 16 year old, comments: ‘There are many . . . facets o f . . . school institution life but what they all have in common for the student is boredom, repression, stagnation. Probably little is relevant to the student’s interest. Work is exam oriented. There is a minimum flow of ideas and diversity of opinions from the world out- side. In short, such education is anti-life and is dangerous because it leads to stagnation and passive acceptance of ideas’.

Finally, Pandora, a 15 year old, says: ‘To me, school should be more than an academic institution but a place where one learns to live with others, respect and accept other people and beliefs’.

These excerpts illustrate well the attitudinal problem to which I have referred. There is a marked tendency for our schools to be mainly reactive to change rather than proactive in shaping change. Generally, what has been said of our schools may also be said of our colleges and universities which, with few exceptions (such as Griffith University), are conservative institutions disciplinary oriented and steeped in the traditions and structures of the past. Griffith University, of course, has departed very much from tradition by the establishment of problem- centred schools of study in which courses are designed and taught on an inter-disciplinary basis.

phenomena which it has never known collectively before and whose pressures it cannot escape.

Examples of the phenomena to which I refer are the rapid expansion of knowledge and its early obsolescence; the emergence of technologies requiring less labour, resulting in mounting unemployment and overproduction; scientific achievements such as cloning, human organ transplants, artificial intelligence, and the silicon microchip (to name but a few)-achievements with potential for both highly beneficial and horrendous social consequences.

Further examples include such social phenomena as a shift in employment from the industrial to the service and leisure sectors; escalating industrial disputation; an aging population; the rise and tolerance of pluralistic value systems; the growth of the human rights movement and the emancipation of minority groups; the breakdown of marriage and the family; the escalating problems of drug addiction, alcoholism, hedonism and epicurean attitudes; poverty and the emergence of the welfare state. These phenomena, and many more, exist in a context of conflicting political ideologies, national and international economic uncertainty and international turbulence.

I do not intend to join with such writers as Alvin Toffler in his Future Shockz and The Third Wave’ and James Bellini in his recent Rule Brittania,‘ and the growing guild of academic futurists, to speculate as to the nature of the new society which will emerge as we grapple with the problems that beset us. Suffice it to recognize that major social changes are with us, that the rate of these changes will inevitably increase and that the complexity of the problems our society faces demands unprecedented many- sided solutions.

Whatever the solutions are, there are two things of which we can be reasonably certain. First, it is people who will determine the solutions and, second, it is people who will be affected by them. Consequently, such solutions will demand citizens who possess the intellectual skills of enquiry, problem solving and decision making, who have a breadth of knowledge, and who are capable of evaluating the personal and social efficacy of such solutions. Our society cannot hold together over the long term unless our decision making becomes more sensitive to, and more considerate and more aware of, the human consequences.

If my thesis, that events in our schools, colleges and universities today will shape the solutions to society’s problems tomorrow, perplexes you, let me clarify my argument. It is basically this. All educational institutions (from pre-school to university) should share a concern for developing in their students the breadth of knowledge, the intellectual and social skills, and the ability to make

* Toffler A. Future shock. New York: Random house, 1970. ’ Toffler A. The third wave. London: Pan Books, 1980. ‘ Bellini J . Rule Brittania: A progress report for Doomsday 1986.

London: Jonathan Cape, 1981. Humphreys D, Newcombe K . Schools out. Harmondsworth:

Penguin Books, 1974.


In terms of direction, our educational institutions are at the crossroads. They may continue in the direction of adaptation to changes as they occur, or they may pursue the path of deliberate innovation aimed at shaping the nature of change through cultivating in their students a strong social consciousness, and through providing them with experiences and opportunities which will develop their potentialities for improvement of the quality of human life. In the long run, if, as a society, we wish to avoid being swept towards an unknown future, if we wish to participate in evaluating alternative directions, if we wish to help in shaping the future, then our educational institutions have no choice.

I t behoves me to outline those changes I see as necessary if education, generally, is to serve the future more effectively. Before I do so, however, 1 want to acknowledge my awareness of two things, neither of which can be dealt with within the parameters of this address. I refer first to constraints imposed upon change by the ‘condition’ of the economy and available finances, and conflicting political ideologies and attitudes. Second, I acknowledge that education is not confined to the formal education system. However, I propose restricting my comments first mainly to changes I see as necessary in schools and schooling and subsequently to changes in professional education at the tertiary level.

To achieve the objectives of preparing young people to help shape the future, our schools across the entire spectrum, must increasingly become learner-centred. Though important, the concern of education must not stop with what knowledge the learner gains but rather must be extended to what that knowledge does to the learner and what the learner does with the knowledge. Such a commitment requires ridding our education system of the discontinuity between the successive levels of schooling and between the secondary school and tertiary education thus allowing students to develop and mature in their learning at their own rate to the level determined by their motivation and ability. This challenge is already being recognized in the various states at the school level with the development of syllabuses of study spanning kindergarten to year 10. But nowhere to my knowledge in the Australian scene does that continuity extend to the tertiary sector.

The commitment also requires an organization of schooling providing for self-pacing along alternative pathways or tracks designed for differing aptitudes, abilities and interests, with cross-overs from one to the other becoming possible. Recognizing that excellence is a relative notion, we must accept that, if we want the best possible solutions to the problems which will beset our society in the future, we must strive to stimulate every learner’s potential to the maximum. In this regard, it is surely time we stopped pandering to mediocrity and recognized first rate potential wherever it may be and made special provision to foster such potential. Although there is a very high acceptance of the need to provide for

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the slow learner considerably less concern is addressed to the plight (the frustration) of the gifted learner.

To achieve these objectives the school curriculum should be organized along an overlapping continuum of core and elective learning experiences, the range of options becoming fan-shaped as the learner increases in intellect and social maturity thus choosing in accordance with his or her interests, orientations and ability to cope- accordingly, the early years of schooling should primarily be concerned with core. Core in this sense does not relate to specific content but rather a core of learning experiences that will focus on developing types of skills, abilities and qualities viewed as essential for effective functioning in Australian society,6 namely,

(1) the skills of learning, (2) thinking and reasoning techniques, (3) the skills of organizing knowledge, (4) the formation and recognition of attitudes and

values and the development of criteria for evaluating their efficacy,

( 5 ) the skills of communication in language and mathematics,

(6) skills in developing interpersonal relationships, (7) forms of expression (such as short-story writing,

film making, music, drama, painting, sculpture and the like),

(8) an awareness of the multi-cultural nature of our society.

Beginning in the earliest years, these skills, abilities and qualities should be continually reinforced as the learner moves to higher levels of schooling. Within the core schools must aim to enable all students to perform as well as they are able and to succeed within their individual competency. Opportunities must be provided within the elective components of the curriculum for the full development and training of special aptitudes and talents.

To reinforce my earlier comment, within the total curriculum (core plus electives), the pursuit of skills and knowledge per se must become subordinate to the pursuit of such skills and knowledge as the media for the better- ment of the individual and his society. I hasten to assure you that such an orientation is appropriate even at the youngest age levels. If this belief is pursued, the university inspired subject-oriented curriculum must cease dominating our schools and must yield to a genuinely integrated experience or problem oriented curriculum out of which interest in elective specialist studies may emerge. Such studies would then be pursued with the learner more fully aware of their interdependence upon other areas of knowledge and provide a more appropriate base for problem solving. Society’s problems, and personal problems, seldom, if ever, are solved on the basis of a specific discipline orientation.

Curriculum Development Centre. Core curriculum for Australian schools. What it is and why it is needed, Canberra: Curriculum Development Centre, 1980.

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Whatever the total curriculum may be, it must be pursued, from pre-school to university, in such a way as to facilitate the students’ ‘freedom to learn’, the opportunity to acquire flexibility, a vital interest in life and an eagerness to learn, courage to face situations without fear and unselfishly, sensitiveness, tolerance, the ability to think afresh, to resolve problems, and to develop creativity. It must lead to students being prepared for life in the year 2000, being able to identify with and cope with their society, to understand themselves, to understand their investment in the future, to understand the nature of change, to see the means of affecting the direction of change, and to identify roles they can take in the change process. To facilitate the development of these attributes, our educational institutions-schools, colleges and universities alike-must change their attitudes to assessment and (as mentioned earlier) become more oriented to the problems of how to learn and how to use learning rather than focusing almost exclusively on what is learnt. There is considerable evidence that assessment is an inhibitor of ‘freedom to learn’. Though educational institutions must monitor the learning process, formal assessment should be minimized and restricted to the credentialling role of such institutions.

Some of the most marked changes in education at the school level are in instructional techniques. Our schools have access to modern educational technology (such as the microcomputer) as aids to learning, however, apart from speedy access to knowledge, such technology without constant interaction with peers and teachers is of little assistance in the pursuit of evaluating one’s interpretation or extrapolation of such knowledge. Increasingly schools are coming to adopt approaches to learning, such as discovery learning and problem solving, and role playing and simulation games, which provide greater opportunity for fostering human relationships and cooperative problem solving.

Among the many problems confronting today’s schools are those of multiculturalism and what has become known as transition education. The increasing multicultural nature of our society imposes pressure on our schools to encourage learners to know and respect the diversified cultural origins of their peers and to recognize and value those aspects of Australian life, achievements and culture that mark its national identity. The problem of multiculturalism also poses a major problem for schools in terms of the language of learning. While considerable resources are devoted to English as a second language, to avoid the problem of cognitive lag (or the falling behind in scholarship because of a language problem), our education systems must come to grips with the problem of basic teaching in schools in appropriate ethnic languages. This is, of course, a contentious issue but one that cannot be pushed aside-for access to the talents of all citizens is essential to the task of shaping the future.

With regard to the relationship between school and work, it is essential that our education system recognize


the dual problems of alienation and stress created by the transition gap that will increasingly exist between school and work for many young people. This is the critical period in which the inability to fulfil the basic human need for both felt and perceived self-respect, together with a feeling of failure, creates among young people the basic conditions for succumbing to such escape avenues as drug addiction and alcohol. In the millions of dollars currently being spent on school to work transition programs in our education systems, as a reaction to the social conditions, care must be taken to ensure that young people are prepared for future jobs rather than present jobs which may no longer exist. I can see no better preparation than a young citizen who manifests the characteristics I’ve already advocated that schools should promote. On this issue, it should be remembered that education for work is not the responsibility of the school alone. There is a major responsibility on employers for on the spot specific job learning.

Finally, as far as schools are concerned, if we believe schools have a role in shaping events of tomorrow, if we contend that schools exist for the preservation and enhancement of society, then society surely has a stake in where our schools are leading us. The essential points of contact between the community and the school must be at the levels of overall policy in terms of provision for life-long education, the consequent organization of our schools, curriculum guidance, staffing, financing and strategies of accountability. 1 see such community involvement as advisory, being actively pursued in two main ways-through regional advisory bodies and through specific task forces or ‘think tanks’ assembled for specific purposes. It is easy to conceive of specific school coun- cils, and in some settings these may be the preferred way of operating. But as a general modus operandi it cannot but highlight existing inequalities due to the inevitable uneven distribution of advisory talent-thus my favour- ing of regional bodies.

The implications of the relationships I have proposed are many and the movement towards the community must be a phased operation. Clearly of primary concern is the nature of the administrative framework within which community involvement can be effective for to have advisory boards and ‘think tanks’ which have no real influence on the school is anathema to what needs to be achieved.

1 want to turn now, primarily because of the nature of my audience, to the role of professional education in shaping the society of tomorrow.

Earlier in this address, 1 indicated my unwillingness to speculate about the nature of the future other than to say that society will be confronted by innumerable complex problems requiring many-sided solutions. There can be no doubt that the professions (law, engineering, architec- ture, psychology, the health profession and the like) will be called upon to make inputs to such solutions. The professions in the future will be confronted with the same range of technological and social changes that beset


society generally. Their inputs to the solution of problems associated with such changes must also take cognizance of their human consequences. Yet in some professions the graduates are not well prepared for this responsibility.

What individual professions are going to experience more and more is the need to have inputs from other professions (for example in urban planning the architect may require consultative inputs from the sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and ecologists as well as from traditional engineering). Basically the professions have been traditionally trained as independent operators. Accordingly, future training must make provision for experience in cooperative planning. It has also been suggested by Schein6 that professional training for the future must expose students to the integrated study of cognate disciplines as foundation experiences (for example the integration of economics, political science, law, and management into a single coherent subject). Another point that Schein makes is that the ‘helping’ professions in the future will be called upon more and more to increase their ability ‘to diagnose and manage client relationships and complex social problems’-accordingly the study of applied behavioural sciences should become a core unit in the training of such professionals.

Schein also argues that the multidimensional solutions required to problems of the future may give rise to the need for new disciplines or, indeed, new professions. It would appear then that the tendency for some professions to train in isolation is the greatest weakness in some professional training. Others have suggested that the collapsing of professional schools (e.g., medicine, dentistry, nursing and paramedical studies into a School of Health Sciences) should be considered-with programmes based on a common core with alternative professional pathways opening up and crossover channels available for students wishing to change direction. Such a policy might be worthy of consideration given the near zero-population growth and ageing society varying the numbers of professionals required in some areas.

Since traditional careers pursued by some may disappear in the future, more career changes must be ex- pected. Accordingly, professional training programmes must make it possible for re-training and even retraining with advanced standing or credit from training completed for another profession. The health professions to date have resisted part-time study other than at post-graduate level. Perhaps in the preclinical years part-time study should be introduced. Indeed, given the cost of training in the clinical years of the health sciences, such an avenue may well provide a ‘motivation’ testing and academic screening device to reduce the attrition rate in clinical years. However, one might predict that the conservative forces that pervade our professions would probably be strongly opposed to such a suggestion.

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One of the basic problems confronting the professions in times of rapid change in the knowledge, technological and social states is that of obsolescence. The precise nature of such obsolescence will, of course, differ from profession to profession. But the basic dimensions of obsolescence may be seen to be constant across all professions, viz., (1) a deterioration of previously held knowledge, and (2) the failure to acquire new knowledge. The upshot of the obsolescence problem is that, to maintain quality service to the community, updating must become an integrated part of professional practice. The traditional concept of terminal education-completion of a formal programme in a prescribed number of years as adequate preparation for a life of professional work must give way to a concept of life-long continuing education as a regular concomitant of professional education and, indeed, a requirement of proof of contemporary competence for re-certification after a period of practice. Obviously a variety of models of continuing professional education could be considered. I am well aware of the range of conferences, weekend seminars and workshops that the various professions themselves conduct as they see the need for up-dating. These may well be one avenue of recognized updating.

On the other hand the professional education schools, and this means primarily the universities, in consultation with the professional bodies, must, under their charter to maintain the standard of professional competence, become extensively engaged in professional updating and extension activities. Such programmes should not necessarily be degree-granting, and they must be at pains to promote an awareness of the theoretical underpinning of the new knowledge and skills covered, and to explore the professional and ethical connotations and human implications of such knowledge and skills and their applications.

The professions themselves have opted for accom- modating to the changing knowledge and technological state through differentiation of their respective professions into a number of specializations. Your own profession of dentistry is no exception to this model. For example, with an ageing population one can foresee the need for increasing specialization in geriodontics. Then, too, with increasing community awareness of dental care, preven- tive dentistry and periodontics may become increasing specialties. There is, of course, the major hazard of over specializaion which should be constantly monitored by all professions. I refer of course to the possibility of the oversight of the total welfare of the individual or society. It has thus been argued by some professions that the generalist must ever remain the mainstay of the profession lest the client receives either biased advice or advice in ignorance. This problem also suggests necessary modification to professional training curricula to ensure teamwork and consultative experiences.

With the advent of the welfare state, there is, in all professions, an increase in the number of salaried profes-

’ Schein EH. Professional Education: Some new directions. New York: McCraw Hill, 1972.

340 Australian Dental Journal, December, 1983

by an innovative, largely part-time faculty who are expert in learning theory, team work, and interpersonal skills; that is administered flexibly with heavy involvement from students, faculty and future employers; constantly evaluating itself, its output, and the effectiveness of the profession itself through perpetual self-diagnosis and evaluation research’.

By way of conclusion, I want to stress that I have presented a necessarily selective and kaleidoscopic view of ‘education for tomorrow’. 1 have argued new approaches to the preparation of professional persons to enable them to make ethical and considered inputs to the solutions of society’s future problems. 1 have argued that as we face the unknown future educational institutions cannot be either static or adaptive followers, but rather that they must assume enhanced leadership. They must not be on the fringe of change. They must be at the very heart of it. Our educational institutions, concerned as they ought to be with individual and community fulfilment, can, and must be a force for social regeneration. They must come to grips with contemporary life in all its stark reality, questioning their own relevance and the value systems they promote, and seek to fashion a compelling and challenging vision of human destiny.

James Cook University of North Queensland, Angus Smith Drive,

Townsville, Qld, 4810.

sional people-particularly in government departments. This is a source of potential professional conflict, viz. the extent to which some employees may exercise the autonomy of decision making traditionally associated with the professions. Members of the professions operating within the public service d o not and cannot by the very nature of the service have total professional autonomy. The possibility of conflict in such situations requires a clearly thought out value position in terms of professional ethics. Professional training should expose students to either real or simulated conflict situations to share positions and test their efficacy in terms of personal and social consequences.

The movement towards the welfare state has also dramatically increased opportunities for access to professional services. This again throws into focus the question of ethical judgements as to whether such service should be delivered on demand. One other observation should be made, namely, that the growth of the human rights movement is likely to lead, in the future, to more actions against professionals than previously. This suggests tha t studies in contemporary ethical jurisprudence should be mandatory for every professional.

Finally, I advance for your consideration a new kind of professional school which Schein thinks ought to be tried: ‘what may be regarded as a utopian concept-a professional school organized around modules that integrate basic, applied, and skill components; that is run

THE ERNEST JAMES GODDARD ORATION

The Ernest James Goddard Oration was established by the Queensland Branch of the Australian Dental Association to commemorate the work of the Professor of Biology in the University of Queensland who was virtually the pioneer of dental education in Queensland. During his association with the University he held appoint- ment at different times as Dean of the Faculties of Science, Agriculture, and Dentistry.

Ernest Goddard was born in 1883, educated at Maitland High School, and graduated from the University of Sydney, Bachelor of Arts, 1904, and of Science, 1906, and obtained the first Doctorate of Science in Zoology awarded by the University in 1910-the same year that he was appointed to the Chair of Biology in the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.

In 1922 he was appointed to the Chair of Biology in Queensland University and his duties commenced on 6 February 1923, and thus began the long, sustained effort by Professor Goddard which culminated in the University Senate decision on 12 May 1935 to constitute the new Faculty of Dentistry with Professor E. J . Goddard as the first Dean. The Queensland Government on 19 November 1935 established the Faculties of Medicine and of Veterinary Science, an act which set the corner-stone on the efforts of the man commemorated in the Oration.

the ernest james goddard oration 1982: education for tomorrow

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