| Memorandum on | Mitch Bleier U ED 70300 Prof. K. Tobin Spring 2008 |
| Phillips, D. C. (1995). The good, the bad, and the ugly: The many faces of constructivism. Educational Researcher. 24(7), 5-12. |
“Informed critique must be based on a clear understanding of the position (or range of positions) being examined” (p. 5). D. C. Phillips has provided us with a guide to Constructivism(s), a collection of varied, sometimes contentiously debated, and often subtly different beliefs.
His field guide approach to stalking the wild Constructivist, or Positivist, or whatever, is immensely helpful in getting a handle on ideas to which many of us have come late in the third act, if not after the play is already over, trying to make sense of the arguments without the benefit of watching them slowly develop and evolve over time. By Phillips’ own admission, his arguments are not without flaw, and not without their legitimate criticisms, but nonetheless, provide a useful framework for exploring these topics.
Phillips provides us with a graphic scheme in three dimensions to help us organize Constructivist thinking. The first axis is “individual psychology versus public discipline.” It reflects a concern for how individuals build a body of knowledge versus how groups construct knowledge. The second axis is “nature as template” for knowledge versus “human as creator” of knowledge. The third axis is the construction of knowledge via internal cognition versus its sociopolitical construction. The various Constructivists can be placed anywhere along each of these continua sometimes in more than one location.
Phillips cautions us that defining the various epistemological camps and placing the various combatants within them must be accompanied by examination of pedagogical, social and political positions that each take.
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