1. Humans move through stage of development. Ion Paradox is a functional view 1 (Rather than a structural view) of stages. This means self-development is gauged in terms of qualitative changes in complexity. There are no sharp lines at the edges of each stage. Instead the stage is a useful name or label for the collected beliefs, perspectives and ideas that help a person function as a complex and balanced individual. Stages map the individuals attempt to make sense of life. (The Structural view asserts that different structures form a rigid and invariant sequence in individual development.) See the analogy of the house in the stages section. 2. Humans seek equilibrium. Different stages (like different theories in science) work within the time frame of human maturation. Early stages function well for children, but not as well for adolescents and not at all for adults. Stages represent bundles of behaviors and perceptions that are useful at certain times but which only work as long as they adequately predict reality, resolve conflict and maintain equilibrium. When the individual faces conflict that cannot be resolved within one stage, she moves to a stage that provides better resolution. These transitions or conversions involve crisis. 3. The further you go the more you see. Human development is a matter of growing awareness as much as it is a matter of growing cells, muscles and bones. Unlike physical development, Awareness (or seeing or understanding) continues to develop or has the potential to continue to develop throughout your life. 2 4. Lifelong Learning. The different crisis's associated with the transitions from one stage to the next require you to learn a bundle of cognitive and emotional skills associated with the next stage. Since the further you go the more you see, complexity demands that at some point logic and formal reasoning become exhausted and Meta-thinking emerges. 5. The higher stages involve an embracing of paradox that results in a permanent acceptance of the flux between equilibrium and change. 1. Mal Leicester and Richard Pearce explain that, "In functional stage models, stages are representative of different ego functions in response to different "crises" and tasks. Hard structural stages, in contrast, are described in terms of different structures, or ways of thinking, in response to a single function, such as logical reasoning or moral judgment. Functional stages rely on psychological rather than logical or moral philosophical accounts of the ways in which each stage brings new "strengths" or "wisdom" to the individual. They are not hierarchical." COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT, SELF KNOWLEDGE AND MORAL EDUCATION Journal of Moral Education, Dec97, Vol. 26 Issue 4, p455, 18p. 2. "More sophisticated learning takes place when a dissonant experience ("a disorienting dilemma") leads us to reflect critically on and evaluate the socio-cultural presuppositions of our conceptual schema and in so doing to change it in order to integrate the new experience with our previous experience. This is a process of individual development, which can be deliberately facilitated by the educator to assist the learning into ever more finely discriminating and integrated conceptual schemes. Mezirow's account of "perspective transformation" as a distinctively adult domain of learning is a more fully worked out description of this meaning-making of human beings; an account which he derives from Habermas' (1971) theory of knowledge." IBID. |
Some Assumptions |
Ion Paradox assumes that: |
Some assumptions Ion Paradox makes that are helpful to know while reading on this site |
1. Humans move through stage of development. Ion Paradox is a functional view 1 (Rather than a structural view) of stages. This means self-development is gauged in terms of qualitative changes in complexity. There are no sharp lines at the edges of each stage. Instead the stage is a useful name or label for the collected beliefs, perspectives and ideas that help a person function as a complex and balanced individual. Stages map the individuals attempt to make sense of life. (The Structural view asserts that different structures form a rigid and invariant sequence in individual development.) See the analogy of the house in the stages section. 2. Humans seek equilibrium. Different stages (like different theories in science) work within the time frame of human maturation. Early stages function well for children, but not as well for adolescents and not at all for adults. Stages represent bundles of behaviors and perceptions that are useful at certain times but which only work as long as they adequately predict reality, resolve conflict and maintain equilibrium. When the individual faces conflict that cannot be resolved within one stage, she moves to a stage that provides better resolution. These transitions or conversions involve crisis. 3. The further you go the more you see. Human development is a matter of growing awareness as much as it is a matter of growing cells, muscles and bones. Unlike physical development, Awareness (or seeing or understanding) continues to develop or has the potential to continue to develop throughout your life. 2 4. Lifelong Learning. The different crisis's associated with the transitions from one stage to the next require you to learn a bundle of cognitive and emotional skills associated with the next stage. Since the further you go the more you see, complexity demands that at some point logic and formal reasoning become exhausted and Meta-thinking emerges. 5. The higher stages involve an embracing of paradox that results in a permanent acceptance of the flux between equilibrium and change. 1. Mal Leicester and Richard Pearce explain that, "In functional stage models, stages are representative of different ego functions in response to different "crises" and tasks. Hard structural stages, in contrast, are described in terms of different structures, or ways of thinking, in response to a single function, such as logical reasoning or moral judgment. Functional stages rely on psychological rather than logical or moral philosophical accounts of the ways in which each stage brings new "strengths" or "wisdom" to the individual. They are not hierarchical." COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT, SELF KNOWLEDGE AND MORAL EDUCATION Journal of Moral Education, Dec97, Vol. 26 Issue 4, p455, 18p. 2. "More sophisticated learning takes place when a dissonant experience ("a disorienting dilemma") leads us to reflect critically on and evaluate the socio-cultural presuppositions of our conceptual schema and in so doing to change it in order to integrate the new experience with our previous experience. This is a process of individual development, which can be deliberately facilitated by the educator to assist the learning into ever more finely discriminating and integrated conceptual schemes. Mezirow's account of "perspective transformation" as a distinctively adult domain of learning is a more fully worked out description of this meaning-making of human beings; an account which he derives from Habermas' (1971) theory of knowledge." IBID. |
Equilibrium is dependant upon our recognition of reality, which is the acceptance of permanent psychic discomfort, and the acceptance of psychic discomfort is the acceptance of consciousness. John Ralston Saul The Unconscious Civilization |
