Not just falling off a horse: Conversion and insight in pedagogy and classroom practice

Abstract

This paper seeks to make use of the theological concept of conversion as a means of understanding and explicating the process of insight and understanding as it is experienced by students, and, in so doing, make proposals that can aid in both in pedagogy and classroom processes. Philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan described a cognitive structure that begins with insight that leads to judgements and reasoned action. Flowing from this, he describes intellectual conversion as a reflective self-appropriation of the cognitive structures that lead one to transcend naïve intellectual approaches in favour of more critical ones. This conversion is not a singular event but can be seen to be cumulative iterations of insight, judgement and action. An intellectually converted person is one who is aware of cognitive processes and structures and thus acts to develop intellectually and morally. This would in turn lead to the ability to reflect critically about both knowledge as well as the processes that lead to it. This critical awareness of learning myths as well as intellectual horizons would place learners in good stead to act positively to learn well in the dynamic modern context. The connection between conversion and teaching will be explored by looking first at the conditions for the possibility of conversion in the classroom in both students and educators, and later at how the latter can be better prepared to catalyse this process in the students. Particular contexts that emphasise problem solving and the development of higher-order learning skills will ground the conception of conversion in current educational environments.

Introduction

The image of St. Paul falling off a horse in Caravaggio’s dramatic painting Conversion on the Way to Damascus found in the Cerasi Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome gives a popular conception of what religious conversion could feel like. It is presented as immediate, dramatic and, quite often, a one-off event that has tremendous repercussions on one’s life. ¹ The aim of this paper is not to discuss or describe religious conversion or the change of one’s state of life in favour of a life that is in line with the will of God but will instead explore the idea of conversion as described by philosopher and theologian Bernard Lonergan and how it can be relevant to classroom processes and pedagogy. Lonergan often refers to conversion as a process through which a person changes his or her approach to thinking of and knowing things in the world. It is this second sense that serves as the basis for this look at conversion and its links to classroom processes and pedagogy.

The first section of the paper will discuss Lonergan’s notion of conversion, showing how it can be immediate and personal but far from dramatic or one-off event. Conversion, especially in its intellectual form, is a process where a person grows to recognise the structure of how one learns, which in turn allows the same person to be more critical of the world around them. With this form of conversion seen as a possible pedagogical aim, the second section of the paper will explore the conditions for conversion in the classroom and the role of the teacher or educator in catalysing this process. The benefits of introducing the possibility of conversion in the classroom will be balanced by the challenges that both student and teacher would face during the process of intellectual conversion. Policy implications with regards to the formation and training of teachers will be discussed at the end of this section.

On conversion

Religious conversion, in the Christian tradition, is used to describe a change in thinking that results in a fundamental change in one’s state of life, living in accordance with the will of God. Commonly linked with the Greek word μετάνοια (or metanoia), conversion also points to repentance and a repudiation of a former state of life (Ratzinger, 1989, p. 55) that one realises does not fit with the new beliefs and thinking that the conversion brings. Conversion, in theological terms, is much more than an intellectual act, although the latter does play an important role in the event itself. Traditional descriptions of conversion tend to portray it as sudden insights or illuminative events that provide a definitive break from the old, unconverted life. While the object of conversion as described in this paper differs from the traditional Christian one, the idea of conversion as the recognition of the need for change and the subsequent actions to effect this change remains. Conversion is a key process that is based in and flows from Bernard Lonergan’s description of human understanding and provides a worthwhile means of approaching cognitional change in a person as he or she learns.

A brief look at Lonergan’s description of human understanding that was explored in his foundational work Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (hereafter referred to as Insight) begins the exploration into conversion. Lonergan proposes a four-stage structure of human understanding. He saw understanding as a process that begins with experience of the world, that passes through reflection leading to a personal reaction to the experience which he calls insight. This allows a person to make a judgement about one’s knowledge that then leads to a reasoned decision about one’s actions. This process is not abstract and is iterative in that insights and decisions can feed into further, deeper, insights and actions. The process that leads to understanding is not just a collection of external experiences but looks also into the practice of cognition itself (Lonergan, 1992, pp. 95–96). What this implies is that the very acts of understanding that lead to action are self-justifying and can be used to understand their very activity and provenance (Tekippe, 1996, p. 104), and that one who truly understands something not only knows the object that is known but the process by which this knowing occurs. This self-justifying nature of the structure of understanding is key to the use of Lonergan’s conception of conversion as the knowing of the process of understanding represents one of the primary aims of conversion.

Further to the self-justifying nature of the structure of understanding, the intentionality of the subject who seeks to understand is also brought into view as Lonergan describes the experience of cognition as being rooted in ‘radical intending’ (Lonergan, 1979, p. 11). Intending is used here to indicate the personal nature of the seeking of knowledge in that a subject who extends him or herself in the process of knowing actively seeks to do this through a conscious decision to do so. It is radical because it is a self-justifying process and the intention to know takes one beyond what is just experienced to seek the hows and whys of one’s knowledge. This radical intending is thus the ‘objectification of intelligent intending’ (Lonergan, 1979), indicating that a person who truly intends to know would in some way see the process as an object to be apprehended and understood. Objectification, according to Lonergan, does not contain the pejorative connotations of instrumentality or the creation of distance but is instead a dynamic process that makes possible the movement from ‘mere understanding towards truth and reality, from factual knowledge to responsible action’ (Lonergan, 1979, p. 12). The process of understanding becomes in itself an object of knowledge and the recognition and internalisation of it becomes part of the end of conversion.

It is with this consideration of the objectification of the process of learning that Lonergan moves into his later work Method in Theology (hereafter referred to as Method ) where he described that the process of learning or insight is ‘concerned with meeting the exigencies and exploiting the opportunities presented by the human mind itself’ (Lonergan, 1979, p. 14). The gaining of insights and their use to make intelligent reasoned decisions is not one that is confined to particular fields or disciplines. Furthermore, the process of cognition or method thus exists within the individual and is both real and personal. It is real in that it is part of all the cognition that takes place in a person’s approach to knowledge across disciplines. The operations within this process of cognition (experiencing, understanding, judging and deciding) are also dynamic in that they are used according to the needs and situations that a person finds him or herself in (Lonergan, 1979, p. 16). What this points to is that learners would be better able to learn when they are able to recognise the structure of understanding, consciously applying it to the situations that they find themselves in, which in turn would give them further experience and practice in the operations of understanding.

It is this approach to understanding and acting in the world that lies at the heart of the Lonergan’s study of insight and understanding, but this process is predicated upon a prior, more interior process of conversion. Conversion, used in the context of this paper, is not exclusively religious and Lonergan also distinguishes that form of conversion with intellectual and moral conversion. ² Conversion thus suggests a change in orientation that stems not from an aversion from something but an intention to move towards things yet to be attained or grasped (Butler, 1975, p. 330). It is an internal human process that, while normally used theologically, is eminently relevant to intellectual and moral processes as well. Conversion is necessary because it implies the progress of the person from an infantile naiveté to a more mature approach to the world. In intellectual terms, conversion is a ‘radical clarification’ (Lonergan, 1979, p. 238) that would entail recognising the limitedness of naive, mechanistic ways of knowing and a subsequent drive to move towards a critical awareness of how one learns. A point made by Lonergan in both Insight and Method is that an intellectually aware person would recognise that knowing is more than just what is sensed and that full appropriation of the learning process is an integral part of being one who knows (Lonergan, 1979, p. 16, 1992, p. 659). However, knowledge of the knowing process, while necessary, is insufficient to count as full conversion (Lonergan, 1979, p. 239) as the person may have the knowledge of the processes of knowing without the requisite intentions to make him or her want to learn.

Lonergan writes of moral conversion that occurs in tandem with the intellectual. Just as the latter points one towards the recognition of the processes of cognition, the intention and impetus to develop the same processes of cognition come from moral conversion. Both work in tandem to change the way a person approaches knowledge. This demonstrates how conversion is not merely a single change or turn but is a process of transformation (Butler, 1975, p. 332) that brings with it the attendant ebbs and flows of one’s own humanity. For instance, a learner who recognises that learning mathematics is not just about the memorisation of formulae but about the learning about the application of numerical concepts in various situations could be said to be on a path towards intellectual conversion. That conversion occurs when the learner is able to articulate to him or herself the processes that allowed the learning of the concepts and to see these processes as objects of learning in themselves. The moral conversion that can occur alongside the intellectual may entail changes in how the person values the subject and the intellectual practice of mathematics as well as how he or she chooses to make use of the knowledge and skills in other situations. The connection between the recognition of the cognitive process and the choice to make use of it also demonstrates the connection between the learning processes and the intentionality of the individual, between intellectual and moral conversion.

Important to the conception of conversion discussed thus far is what Lonergan calls ‘horizons’, which describe a person’s field of vision or perceptions as well as the person’s scope of knowledge and range of interests or preferences (1979, pp. 235–237). These horizons are the bounds of knowledge and experiences that a person has and can be seen to be the broad starting points from which conversion can occur. Educationally, horizons can be seen to be akin to the concept of prior knowledge, which can be defined as the dynamic and multidimensional knowledge and skills (Hailikari et al., 2008, p. 1) that learners bring into their classrooms. It is acknowledged that learners do not begin their learning in vacuums and thus it should also be recognised that one does not convert to a new state from a vacuum. Therefore, understanding the horizons or contexts from which people convert from is key to understanding how the conversion process can occur and what it might look like in the individual. Revisiting the example previously raised, the horizons of a person who might have a less critical and unconverted view of mathematics may be that mathematics is about the learning of formulae without a clear understanding of their use in a broader context. Going beyond such strictures through the examination of the formulae and their provenance as well as reflecting on the various approaches to the study of mathematics can allow the person a broader view of what the subject actually is about and how it can be used in a broader context. A person’s horizons and prior knowledge bring with them a wealth of experience of culture, education and tradition that cannot be divorced from future learning. In fact, it is these very horizons that lend personal meaning to future learning experiences, which would in turn broaden or deepen them.

Another aspect of intellectual conversion comes in the ‘elimination of an exceedingly stubborn and misleading myth concerning reality, objectivity, and human knowledge’ (Lonergan, 1979, p. 239). The myth being referred to here is that of naïve empiricism that Lonergan describes as being infantile and unrepresentative of what the world has to offer. ³ Instead, he writes of the world that is mediated by meaning that brings with it the wealth of knowledge and experience that one’s community, traditions and history can bring. Knowing is not just about sensing or ‘taking a look’ at things (Lonergan, 1992, p. 658) but is about the entire cognitive process of experiencing, understanding, judging and acting (Lonergan, 1979, p. 238), indicating also that learning has to take place within the fourfold movement of Lonergan’s structure of human understanding. This process, which Lonergan calls self-transcendence, is of breaking from one’s own myths of reality and moving onto new horizons of learning and knowledge, cannot occur unless one acquires mastery of the processes of human understanding which in turn entails knowing precisely what one is doing when one is knowing (Lonergan, 1979, p. 240). It is this movement towards self-transcendence that most accurately describes the process of conversion which can then be taken as an important pedagogical end. Leading students towards this sense of conversion from myth to self-reflective, critical knowing should be an integral part of the work of the teacher, not as a goal to be achieved or task to be ticked off a list but as a process to be incorporated into the classroom to bring students closer to the possibility of self-reflective understanding.

Conversion, according to Lonergan, is a process. Robert Doran proposed that conversion can be seen to be a shift of one’s fundamental orientation but that it is not a momentary phenomenon and occurs in incremental steps (Doran, 2011, p. 4). Specifically, Doran describes intellectual conversion as the ‘effort to reach cognitive integrity in one’s intellectual positions’ (Doran, 2011, p. 5), indicating that the intellectually converted person is one who is not only aware of what could be the truth but is aware of the means to get there. It is a shift from a position of naivety in one’s approaches to the truth towards a recognition of the varied and often contentious means of reaching knowledge. There is also an acknowledgement of the self as a knowing being who is aware that one comes to know through experience, understanding and judgement and who is able to ask and sometimes answer the relevant questions that could lead to knowledge (Doran, 2011, p. 19). This points to conversion as the growth in the recognition that it is not just the processes that lead one to knowledge that are varied and contentious but that knowledge itself is very much a multivalent entity with myriad meanings and approaches. One who is in the process of conversion would thus not only be aware of the diverse nature of learning processes and of knowledge itself but would also be willing to make the changes in one’s approaches to the world to develop and clarify one’s cognitive structures.

The willingness to make changes in one’s approach to the world and to knowledge in general points to the corollary between moral conversion and intellectual conversion. The former changes the criteria of one’s decisions from satisfactions to value (Lonergan, 1979, p. 241), indicating a deeper knowledge of what one’s preferences and horizons and the willingness to act in ways that would allow one to reach them. The path towards conversion brings one towards self-reflective, critical realism – a state that Lonergan uses to describe a person who is fully aware of the concrete reality around him or her but is at the same time aware of how knowledge is always mediated through one’s cognitive processes and horizons. Ideal learners who are converted are thus ones who are not only aware of the need for self-transcendence that comes from both moral and intellectual conversion but are also willing to act in ways that would lead them towards knowledge that they know to be both real but also mediated by the very means by which they acquire it. ⁴ Thus, the conversion in educational terms is not one that requires a change of state of heart or life that follows a religious conversion but one that requires a change of mind. This change of mind is not a simple one-off change to a different point of view but is a process of growing awareness of how one’s cognitive processes affect one’s approach to the world and how the resultant knowledge is a personally mediated understanding of the realities of the world.

The segue into pedagogy and classroom practice requires a definitional and practical clarification. The critical realist mode of understanding that Lonergan suggests seems very similar to descriptions of metacognitive acts. There is one important distinction to be made in that metacognition is focused on thinking about one’s thoughts (Hacker, 1998, p. 3) and on the construction of mental representations of how one thinks. This is similar to the experience and understanding part of Lonergan’s cognitive method but lacks the elements of judgement and decision. A person who is intellectually converted would not just be critically reflective about how he or she learns but would be cognisant of the judgements and choices that he or she would have to make as a result of this knowledge. The result of this is that the learner becomes responsible for his or her learning and knowledge, acting in such a way that would lead to knowledge where possible. Conversion can lead to a myriad of decisions and judgments, but the focal point of these decisions and judgments in this paper will be on actions that would lead to learning and knowledge.

Process and pedagogy

The idea of conversion described thus far can seem abstract and somewhat detached from the classroom and the teacher. Furthermore, the connection between a concept that seems more at home in theological conversations that in the classroom can seem somewhat tenuous. However, against the backdrop of near-constant change that occurs in the classroom in the minds and attitudes of both students and teachers, conversion can be seen to be a change that is deeper and more far-reaching that can fundamentally change the way a person approaches knowledge and learning. This section will explore the connection between conversion and pedagogy, which will in turn inform some policy suggestions for practice and the preparation of both educators and students. Practices that can create the conditions for conversion as well as a look at how educators can be prepared to catalyse and support conversion will bring the discussion of conversion to the more practical level.

The path to conversion, according to Lonergan, begins with the identification of the horizons of the person and it seems apt to use this as the starting point here as well. Being aware of the contexts of the students along with the prior knowledge and experiences that they bring along with them would give teachers a good starting point for the movement towards conversion in the students. Contexts, however, are not always obvious to the individual, and one’s prior knowledge can also represent a shifting and very dynamic mix of skills and knowledge within the individual (Dochy, 1992, p. 45). Adequately describing one’s context and prior knowledge would thus be difficult even for most mature learner. However, a clear knowledge of the context is not what Lonergan is after in his discussion of the recognition of horizons. What he describes is more of an awareness of how one learns and of the importance of the recognition that there are myths that exist within one’s horizon that could stymie one’s attempts at deepening one’s understanding of the world. Thus, the first step towards conversion is the recognition of the presence of myths of learning and knowledge in one’s own personal horizons or contexts that would lead onto the willingness to overcome them.

With the recognition of the presence of myths of learning and knowledge comes the still more difficult step in identifying the myths, defects in knowledge and methodological problems that learners may bring with them. One myth that is discussed frequently by Lonergan is that of knowing being reduced to sight or other sense data (Lonergan, 1979, p. 239). This reliance on pure empiricism as a source of knowledge ignores the complex mental and cognitional processes that occur when a person seeks to make meaning out of what he or she senses. One cannot affirm empiricism to be true by merely appealing to empirical data because the very act of affirming it presupposes the presence of cognitional processes that occurring prior to and after it (Tekippe, 1996, p. 117). ⁵ This and other operative myths in one’s cognitive processes like unreflective assimilation of information can be detrimental to the development of good learning practices. ⁶ The identification of methodological problems in one’s approach to learning could occur prior to conversion but often comes with the process intellectual conversion and the recognition that there is a structure of cognition that can lead one to more authentic learning.

Intellectual conversion represents not just a conversion from the negative elements that prevent one from achieving authentic learning but a conversion towards a positive recognition and internalisation of the structure of human understanding. Implicit in this internalisation of this structure is the willingness of the individual to act in ways that would bring about understanding in a critical and self-reflective manner. As the structure is natural to human persons (Tekippe, 1996, p. 112), a young learner would undoubtedly possess the ability to reason in this way but may lack the means to describe the process. If one takes the role of education as not just a process of imparting content knowledge but that it prepares young people and adults with the necessary capabilities and dispositions to cope with the world that they are to face (Claxton, 2002, p. 23), then the conversion as discussed should stand as a key process in this preparation for the world. It is here where the teacher’s role to catalyse the process of conversion is important as it enables the learner to have insights into how they learn. ⁷ The process towards conversion (intellectual or otherwise) is an ongoing one, hence the educator would not begin this process but rather catalyses it to allow it to flourish or to make it clearer to the learner. For instance, it is quite natural for children to ask questions for understanding as they focus their interest or curiosity and this natural process of seeking answers (Tekippe, 1996, p. 58) should be encouraged. The educator can catalyse the conversion process by guiding the students to form questions for reflection, which turns their attention to their certainty of understanding, making them reflect on the process by which the information was gained and hence the accuracy of their new knowledge. By doing this, students would begin the process of conversion that bring them towards self-reflective understanding.

The awareness of the process of understanding and learning can perhaps be seen to be the key moment in intellectual conversion. An intellectually converted person is thus one who recognises and subsequently affirms the structure of human understanding. This does not happen once but is a continual process as judgements and actions that lead to knowledge in one instance can in turn become the experiences and insights for further judgement and action. The recognition of the dynamic nature of human understanding also necessitates a similarly dynamic relationship with the process. A pedagogical approach that takes conversion into account must thus build this dynamism into what happens in the classroom. The first step would be to acknowledge the need for students to learn about learning (Claxton, 2002, p. 21) and to develop metacognitive awareness and the ability to be self-regulatory about thinking (Hacker, 1998, p. 20), but these are necessary but not sufficient in the path towards conversion. The awareness of one’s cognition and the need for this awareness should, according to Lonergan, lead to an intentionality in the student or learner that would lead them to act in ways that would lead to understanding and insight. A learner who gets more acquainted with the processes of understanding would grow to affirm its worth in his or her intellectual life and would seek the means to continually actualise these processes. This process of awareness of one’s cognition that leads to action is the process of conversion that would require, especially in young learners or those who are unaccustomed to more critical modes of thought, external intervention from a teacher or educator.

The deliberate catalysis of conversion in learners by educators can come in two ways. The first is through the modelling of the process of understanding by the educator, and the second is through the creation of conditions for the possibility of the processes to occur in the classroom. The former is more difficult in that it presupposes conversion in the teacher but represents the clearest way of catalysing conversion as the teacher would explicitly demonstrate how one comes to insight through experience and how the judgements and choices are made with the new knowledge. In the classroom, this could come in the form of a teacher talking the students through how he or she came to insights that led to judgement and action and thereafter guiding them to do the same. By personalising the process of conversion and demonstrating the possibility of it happening, students may be encouraged to seek to replicate that in their own approaches to learning. This approach is not without its pitfalls. A teacher who does not have a sufficiently critical approach to knowledge could potentially reduce the process to a procedural one of experience and reflection without giving sufficient focus on the intentionality of the process and the need for decisions on actions later.

The second way is more general and, while it may not lead necessarily lead to direct conversion, it would provide the conditions for the possibility of conversion in the students. In the tradition of many experiential learning methodologies (Kolb, 1984; Moon, 2004), a teacher can provide a variety of experiences for students to process and then later provide reflective tools with which the students can use to reflect on their experiences. Real choices are given that students have to make and justify. What this does is that it provides an open space within the classroom for students to explore and make judgements about both knowledge and the processes that lead to it. These are the conditions for conversion and with sufficient practice and suggestion, conversion could be a possible result. While this method merely provides the conditions for conversion without explicitly encouraging it, it can be argued that constant exposure to such conditions, with some modelling by the teacher or educator, can lead to the start of conversion by the students themselves. Given the role of the educator in catalysing conversion thus described, an additional layer of complexity arises. Is it then necessary for all teachers or educators to be converted before this process can occur in the students?

Lonergan would reply in the negative as conversion occurs individually and is the self-appropriation of one’s cognitive processes and decisions. One thus cannot be coerced into conversion but given that it is experiential, one can be led to it and the process can be catalysed by appropriate experiences and examples. In this regard, an intellectually converted teacher or educator would go a long way in ensuring that the process of conversion is adequately catalysed. It should be noted that an intellectually converted educator would be able to model the process of conversion more reliably for students, but this in itself is not sufficient for conversion to occur in students. Furthermore, it is possible that students undergo conversion without the help of their teachers. However, given that intellectually converted educators have the benefit of being able to model the process of conversion for their students, it is preferable to have such educators should conversion be an educational objective. An intellectually converted teacher would be acutely aware of how one’s personal myths and contexts can affect one’s approach to knowledge, and would thus be able to notice this in their students (Melchin and Picard, 2008, p. 63). Also, being aware of how they were able to reflect and judge while continuing the dynamic process of conversion would aid them in inculcating the same in their own students.

It would follow then that fostering an awareness of intellectual and moral conversion in educators with the hopes that it would occur in them can be a useful addition to the formation of teachers. With the educational policies that emphasise problem solving (Savin-Baden and Major, 2004) and higher-order thinking skills (Hacker, 1998) becoming more prevalent and the recognition that learning how to learn better is a worthwhile aim of education (Wells, 2002, p. 206), incorporating means for teachers to be converted intellectually would not seem too foreign. In many English-speaking teacher training institutions all over the world, many prospective teachers are introduced to modes of education that emphasise the importance of learning processes (Wells, 2002, p. 208), and this would form a fertile base for conversion to occur. Having teachers who are aware of their own learning preferences and strategies can have a knock-on effect in starting the process of conversion of their own students. It would thus follow that having more opportunities for prospective teachers to reflect on their cognitive processes and decisions for action would provide the conditions for their conversion and allow them to bring such experiences into the classrooms that they find themselves in later. This implies giving space for ‘cultivating the discipline of reflecting on our own experiences of insight, asking questions about these experiences, and getting insights into the personal moments of transformation that are central to the learning process’ (Melchin and Picard, 2008, p. 75). The support of such curiosity about the self and one’s own cognitive structures would go a long way in the formation of teachers who are not only converted but sufficiently aware of how to begin this process in the students that they meet in the classroom.

Conclusion

Conversion can thus be seen not as an instantaneous change of mind or state as Caravaggio envisioned but more as a process of development. The concept of conversion in education as described in this paper can give educators an additional means of describing and understanding the intellectual changes that occur in learners and to respond with appropriate pedagogical strategies. Giving learners the opportunity to be more aware of how their cognitive structures allow them to learn and approach the world would in turn bring a greater awareness of their own subjectivity, which would in turn expand their horizons on the possibility of knowing. Conversion in a theological sense often refers to an internal change of heart or movement towards the divine that leads to desire to act in accordance with the precepts or instructions of God. Lonergan takes that as the final end of conversion but the inward movement of awareness of one’s learning processes which in turn leads to the outward movement towards knowledge of things in the world does demonstrate how the theological concept can be made use of in the pedagogical sphere as well. Conversion need not remain a nebulous term that only theologians grapple with as the very concrete pushing of horizons and breaking of myths in the process of learning can make it a useful tool not just in the classroom and in pedagogical discussions but also in the formation of teachers who are aware and able to begin the intellectual conversion of their own students.