The pedagogy of Kenneth Burke
The ideas of Kenneth Burke are ubiquitous in the study of communication, and as such, scholars have extended them to most areas of human symbolic action. However, studies of Burke in educational contexts often reduce his pedagogy to questions of how to teach Burkean concepts, rather than exploring how Burke educators to teach any subject (Smudde and Brock xi-xii). Consequently, it is not surprising that his essay “Linguistic Approach to the Problems of Education” is among the least studied of his major works (Wess 166). The essay’s marginalization within the Burkean cannon is particularly ironic because, as Williams found during archival work, Burke himself thought the paper was a masterwork, exclaiming, “It’s not just an essay, it’s an ORATION” (227). …show more content…
That year’s theme centered on the application of modern philosophy to the issues of education. Cahill notes that the inclusion of Burke in the volume was surprising as Burke did not have a record of pedagogical writing nor was dramatism widely thought of as an influential philosophy. Despite this unlikely inclusion, Burke was able to craft an educational theory that was distinctly Burkean. In LAPE, Burke’s pedagogy is reminiscent of the project of ad bellum purificandum outlined in Grammar of Motives (Grammar, 319). Specifically, Enoch notes that during his time at Bennington college, a school founded on Dewey’s philosophies of pragmatism, Burke demonstrated a commitment to a cross-disciplinary, reflexive, pedagogy designed to remove students from contemporary psychologies of information that reify the mindsets that exacerbated cold war tensions (277). A method which Enoch argues still bears important lessons for contemporary
The ideas of Kenneth Burke are ubiquitous in the study of communication, and as such, scholars have extended them to most areas of human symbolic action. However, studies of Burke in educational contexts often reduce his pedagogy to questions of how to teach Burkean concepts, rather than exploring how Burke educators to teach any subject (Smudde and Brock xi-xii). Consequently, it is not surprising that his essay “Linguistic Approach to the Problems of Education” is among the least studied of his major works (Wess 166). The essay’s marginalization within the Burkean cannon is particularly ironic because, as Williams found during archival work, Burke himself thought the paper was a masterwork, exclaiming, “It’s not just an essay, it’s an ORATION” (227). …show more content…
That year’s theme centered on the application of modern philosophy to the issues of education. Cahill notes that the inclusion of Burke in the volume was surprising as Burke did not have a record of pedagogical writing nor was dramatism widely thought of as an influential philosophy. Despite this unlikely inclusion, Burke was able to craft an educational theory that was distinctly Burkean. In LAPE, Burke’s pedagogy is reminiscent of the project of ad bellum purificandum outlined in Grammar of Motives (Grammar, 319). Specifically, Enoch notes that during his time at Bennington college, a school founded on Dewey’s philosophies of pragmatism, Burke demonstrated a commitment to a cross-disciplinary, reflexive, pedagogy designed to remove students from contemporary psychologies of information that reify the mindsets that exacerbated cold war tensions (277). A method which Enoch argues still bears important lessons for contemporary