Curriculum Review
Beliefs and Assumptions Survey Results
The Beliefs and Assumptions Survey sent to staff and students was adapted from a
survey used in a study (Tart) to determine the range of 18 th, 19th and 20th unproven
assumptions (often unquestioned) held by psychologists. The survey is not ideal but
hopefully still useful if not too much is read into it.
World-views of Hobart College Students and Teachers
At least half of the students and teachers hold a range of mechanistic and
materialistic assumptions borne out of the reductionistic and positivistic worldviews of the 19th century. 35% of 100 students surveyed believe there is little
purpose to human life and 15% believe that not everyone has a place in the
world. One third of students and teachers hold a range of 20th century quantum
and systems thinking assumptions.
In many cases both student and teacher world-views appear to be undefined and/or
fragmentary and/or contradictory.
Why are world-views important?
World-views provide important frameworks to understand the world and our place in
it. Experiences such as failing exams, difficult relationships or coping with depression
or suicide test students' world-views.
World-views can have a profound influence on:
Solving problems and creating preferred futures: Most of the challenges facing
local and global communities are systemic in nature where mechanistic/reductionistic
thinking is much less useful than systems thinking.
Search for meaning: Many students are searching for meaning and purpose.
Mechanistic/reductionistic thinking makes it difficult to find relevance and meaning
in life. It promotes isolation and alienation.
Dealing with change - Resilience: Systems and quantum thinking involves the
principles of interconnectedness and wholeness which are key factors in increasing
resilience.
Understanding others: Different people can hold similar values but widely different
world-views. Making world-views explicit promotes understanding and growth.
Learning and open-mindedness: World-views serve two powerful and conflicting
motives. One is the need for a cognitive framework to interpret new experiences, the
other is to ward off threatening aspects of reality. World-views can help make sense
out of raw experience but they can also close the mind if necessary to preserve the
illusion of order.
Hobart College Curriculum Review
8th September 2000
What world-views do we teach?
Should a teacher with a set of beliefs and assumptions try to hide these from
students? Is this even possible or do students read between the lines and deduce
teacher beliefs and assumptions anyway? If teacher beliefs and assumptions are not
explicit do some students pick them up unconsciously and unquestioningly?
Do teachers use a range of models and metaphors from different world-views or
just those of their own world-view? Are mechanistic and reductionistic models and
metaphors still widely used because that is how most teachers were taught? How often
do teachers from all subject areas use 'billiard-ball' models of reality with 'cause-andeffect' thinking, ‘pull things apart’ processes. , How often do teachers use "wheels of
change", "machinery of government", "switched on thinkers" or similar mechanistic
metaphors?
Do we still tacitly, if not explicitly, teach that physics explains chemistry,
which explains biology, which explains psychology - and reduce love to a
chemical reaction? If we do does this make it more difficult for students to find
meaning and purpose in their lives?
Some World-views
Mechanistic
Materialistic/Atomistic
The world-view of the classical sciences which
conceptualises nature as a machine composed of intricate
but replaceable machine-like parts.
All phenomena are ultimately the result of matter/energy
interactions. Humans can be objective observers.
Reductionistic/Positivistic We learn about reality by studying what we can measure
and by reducing complex phenomena to their constituent
parts.
Systems
Natural systems are wholes with irreducible properties.
Natural systems are self-maintaining and adaptive in
response to self-creativity in other systems.
Quantum
The universe is seen as an interconnected whole that is
intimately connected to the consciousness of the human
'observer'.
Transpersonal
Higher (or deeper) states of consciousness are possible
than the limited ego-bound state.
References (all available from Amazon.com)
Zohar.D & Marshall.I (1994) The Quantum Society: Mind, Physics and a New Social Vision.
Laszlo.E. (1996) The Systems View of the World.
Harman.W. (1988) Global Mind Change
Capra.F. (1982) The Turning Point.
Tart.C. Transpersonal Psychologies
Hobart College Curriculum Review
8th September 2000