Discovery
Michael Polanyi (Personal Knowledge) outlined the stages one goes through to solve a problem. One begins with Preparation leading to Illumination, and concludes with Verification. The original study of H. Poincare he is pulling from listed four stages: Preparation – Incubation – Illumination – Verification.
Coleridge begins his essay, The Education of Children, by stating,
In the education of children, love is first to be instilled, and out of love obedience is to be educed. Then impulse and power should be given to the intellect, and the ends of a moral being be exhibited.
The classroom principle both of these proposals hit on is the principle of imitation. Every individual learner (student and teacher) must go through the three stages of imitation: perception, absorbtion, and re-presentation. In fact, the teacher must work through this process first before she can ever take the student through it.
The goal in education is to embody ideas. But before an idea can be embodied it must first be seen (perceived), and secondly absorbed so as to in-form the soul. Only then can the idea take outward form (re-presentation)–then can they be verified and “the ends of a moral being be exhibited.“
Buck Holler
Buck Holler is a former horse trainer and rodeo cowboy from Red Bluff, CA. Retiring from the rodeo circuit, Buck headed to New England to study theology and languages at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 2001. Since then he has worked as an educator and administrator in CA, New York City, and eastern NC. Buck first joined The CiRCE Institute as an apprentice in 2007, became a head mentor for the East Coast III apprenticeship in 2017, began the Latin Apprenticeship in 2019, and now serves in Concord, NC as CiRCE’s director of consulting.
