No surprise in the "surprise effect" of values pedagogy
an edusemiotic analysis
pp. 93-106
in: Inna Semetsky (ed), Edusemiotics, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
Data from the Australian ValuesEducation Program, a series ofschool-basedresearch-on-practice projects that ran through 385 Australian schools from 2003 to 2010, demonstrated enhancedholisticeffectsin students evaluated acrosswellbeing, maturation andacademics. This oft-termed "surprise effect' represents a challenge to traditionalWesterneducational logic that considers learning as resulting principally from cognitive effort and concentration; with affective, social, moral, spiritual andaestheticconcerns being of less importance, if relevant at all. The chaptertracesdifferent theories of knowledge: from logical positivism,to Quine,to Habermas,toDamasio. Thedatacollected and analysed in the course of the Australian Values Education Program showed that concentration on all developmental measures, while focusing on values of the learningenvironmentand discourse, elicited an enhanced learningeffect, including academicdiligence. It is argued in this chapter that theresearchdata in valueseducationserve to illustrate that the unhelpful but still dominant Western educational logic is being superseded by new insights inepistemology, neuroscience, andcomplexsystems science that paralleledusemioticsas a new theoreticalfoundationfor education.
