Essays on Personal and professional development of each individual

Part 1

Education is extremely important for the personal and professional development of each individual. However, approaches to education vary consistently. In this regard, some specialists, such as Jacques Ranciere, suggest absolutely unique and, to a certain extent, paradoxical approaches to education. For instance, Jacques Ranciere, in his book “The Ignorant Schoolmaster”, reveals the severe criticism of the education system based on the explicative system. Instead, he develops the concept of the education grounded on the interaction between educators and students as equal, who have their will and, what is more, he insists that students can learn independently of educators realizing their intelligence and having the will to learn. However, it is obvious that independent learning of students is important but not always possible and teachers should work as guides, who help students to reveal their full potential and the argument of Ranciere that students can learn from anything without any external assistance is quite doubtful.

In the opening chapters of his book, Jacques Ranciere argues that the explicative system of education has to be overturned. He is very skeptical about the explicative system, which he considers to be ineffective. Instead, he suggests the introduction of the new system, which could revolutionize the traditional approach to education. He develops the idea of the education as the process of interaction between two equal parties – educator and student, who have their own will and who strive to be equal, whereas the explicative system impose the will of teachers on students making them obeying to the will of educators.

In such a way, Ranciere attempts to debunk the pedagogical myth. He argues that the pedagogical myth divides the world in two: inferior intelligence and superior one. Hence, teachers possess the superior intelligence, whereas students possess the inferior intelligence a priori in terms of the explicative system. However, the author wants to close the gap between the inferior and superior intelligence. He argues that understanding is never more than translating, that is, giving the equivalent of a text, but in no way its reason. Therefore, explicative system does not bring students to understanding of reasons but just supplies them with a set of knowledge, which they are supposed to take for granted.

Furthermore, Ranciere argues that in the act of teaching and learning there are two wills and two intelligences. Their coincidence is called stultification. The act of an intelligence obeying only itself even while the will obeys another will is emancipation. This is exactly what Ranciere appeals to. In fact, he insists on the emancipation of students because, according to the author, they should hold the equal position compared to educators and their will should be equal to that of educators.

Ranciere believes that individual must learn something without any means of having it explained to him. However, the problem is to reveal intelligence to itself. Man is a will served by intelligence. The discovery of intelligence will bring man to knowledge. Therefore, the individual will be capable to learn even without the external assistance and explicative system. At the same time, Ranciere warns against two fundamental lies: “I am telling the truth” and “I cannot say”. He insists that any individual is capable to learn, even without the assistance of educators, at least well-qualified ones, who possess superior intelligence. Instead, he argues that only an equal understands an equal.

Equality and intelligence are synonymous terms, exactly like reason and will.

Part 2

In spite of innovativeness of Ranciere’s iedasa, they still look quite arguable. In this respect, I would debate in regard to his idea that understanding is never more than translating, that is, giving the equivalent of a text, but in no way its reason. In such a way, Ranciere turns understanding into a simple process of translation. However, if he is right, than understanding becomes a thoughtless process, in which an individual just receives certain information, translates it in comprehensible terms and retains in his or her memory, without even thinking or critically evaluating the information the individual receives. In fact, I strongly believe that each individual has more or less developed critical thinking skills and understanding comes, when an individual understands the reason but not just interprets the information he or she receives in comprehensible terms. Instead, an individual should understand why the information he or she receives is trustworthy, why it happens and how it happens. To put it in simple terms, Ranciere believes that to understand means to answer a simple question “what?” without asking “why?” but I believe that this is an erroneous view because we cannot understand properly any piece of information, if we fail to understand why, for instance, why this information is true, why this information is trustworthy, why an event the information contains occur, and so on. In other words, we should understand reason and without reason the process of understanding is just impossible, while Ranciere insists on the contrary. Nevertheless, some of his ideas are noteworthy.