Immanent Pedagogy

Immanent Pedagogy

Texts in Immanent Pedagogy

New Pedagogy


The evolution of the education system has reached a point that many consider to be in crisis. Who discusses this? One could say - everyone, from housewives to retirees. Each offers their own explanations for the causes of the crisis. I believe there has been enough discussion, and adding more won't help. Therefore, I propose a new practical pedagogy for achieving successful learning, upbringing, development, and personal growth in modern conditions. This pedagogy is applicable to parents, students, and teachers.
Unique changes in society, in worldviews and perceptions, in morality and ethics, in value systems and empathy; as well as unprecedented information technologies and an overwhelmingly chaotic flow of knowledge - all demand a pedagogy that is strictly personalized for each individual, in other words, an Immanent pedagogy.
Immanent pedagogy is an educational approach that is tailored for each student, taking into account their personal and individual characteristics, which belong exclusively to them and no one else. The development of each person (student) occurs through a unique project.
Regarding pedagogy in general, it’s essential to acknowledge that in today's highly diverse conditions, where students are being shaped, there should be a multitude of pedagogical approaches. Pedagogy that fosters logical thinking differs from pedagogy that shapes a metaphysical worldview. Various pedagogical approaches employ different methodologies, content, and the organization of teaching activities for both teachers and students.
For Immanent pedagogy, a different educational system is created. Relationships between teachers and students are structured differently, there's an alternative organization of lessons and extracurricular activities, and a distinct structural organization of schools and school management. However, this doesn’t negate the achievements in pedagogical thought and practice accumulated over many generations of teachers. Positive experiences are used for further evolution.
We will explore the specific features of Immanent pedagogy in the next article.

The Methods of Immanent Pedagogy


Immanent Pedagogy requires a different methodology and a new organization of activities for both the teacher and the student. Immanent Pedagogy is unique for everyone — each student has their own.
Immanent Pedagogy is the pedagogical activity of an individual aimed at self-development, self-improvement, and independent learning. Here, the individual creates their own harmony between the “science of pedagogy” and the “art of pedagogy.” This is a special form of activity that requires internal motivation, discipline, determination, and self-control.
There are fundamental differences between traditional and Immanent Pedagogy:
·       In traditional pedagogy, the teacher determines the student’s preferred style of perception and learning, organizing the educational process in accordance with a curriculum, methodology, plan, and their own pedagogical competence.
·       In Immanent Pedagogy, the student personally (!) takes responsibility for organizing their own educational process. They actively involve parents, teachers, their social environment, and information sources, using them for personal self-improvement in accordance with their individual style of perception and learning. Together with the teacher, the student develops their own program, plan, and methodology for growth, applying the resources of parents, educators, online environments, and the capabilities of artificial intelligence.
A modern person learns, works, and develops under conditions of numerous constantly changing circumstances. If a person does not manage these circumstances, then the circumstances begin to manage them. To achieve success in self-improvement, one must master the craft and art of Immanent Pedagogy.
To master the craft means to understand and acquire the fundamental laws of psychology, pedagogy, and methodology.
To master the art means to apply one’s pedagogical skill creatively, unconventionally, and inventively.
In Immanent Pedagogy, both the craft and the art are equally necessary for both the student and the teacher.
More about the conditions, tools, methods, and content of Immanent Pedagogy will be presented in the next article.

Three components of Immanent Pedagogy


I had to philosophize. Otherwise, I could not live in this world. – Edmund Husserl.
“Know thyself.” – Inscription on the wall of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.
The tasks solved by Immanent Pedagogy consist in creating conditions and methods for self-improvement. Becoming better in comparison with oneself in order to solve personal tasks more correctly and successfully — this is the main goal of immanent pedagogy.
Self-education, self-knowledge, self-development of the mind, self-improvement of morality, self-maturation — this is the Immanent Pedagogical process of perfecting one’s abilities in order to correctly solve emerging problems. Immanent pedagogy includes the following closely interconnected components:
➤ Introspective Pedagogy is based on the results of personal analysis of one’s characteristics, talents, motives, preferences, worldview.
On the basis of introspection, the following are developed: a personal program and plan; methods of self-formation and self-improvement.
Role of parents: Parents can and should teach their children introspection, that is, to analyze their behavior, thinking, and emotions. To do this, mother and father should master pedagogical knowledge and basic child psychology.
Role of the teacher: The teacher is an ideological, moral, and practical leader, coordinator, organizer, and creative manager of the student’s self-analysis. If the family has not taught self-analysis, the teacher should eliminate this deficiency.
➤ Teacher Pedagogy includes all relevant pedagogies effective in working with the student.
Each pedagogy can and should be applied to the formation of personality within the process of Immanent Pedagogical activity. It is important that the teacher and student make the correct choice together.
Role of the teacher: The teacher helps the student choose the correct and most suitable pedagogy for a specific case. Taking into account the results of the student’s introspection, the teacher helps (if needed) to develop a program and work plan for independent personality formation. Having realized what the student needs, the teacher selects appropriate methods and creates the necessary conditions for self-formation.
The teacher and the student become a single whole in joint research-oriented immanent pedagogical activity.
Role of parents: Parents should organize conditions in the family for successful self-formation, encouraging the manifestation of immanent independence and responsibility.
➤ Social Pedagogy is a system of pedagogical influences on the student’s immanent world: family, friends and peers, media, culture, traditions, living environment, and Internet networks.
Role of the teacher: The teacher organizes favorable social influences affecting the student’s immanent processes. The teacher is a morally wise advisor for the correct selection of external sources of influence and a protector against harmful impact (an active filter). The teacher protects the student from harmful social influence (if not the teacher, this role will be taken by another authority, not always a desirable one).
Role of parents: Parents consciously contribute to the harmonious influence of the external environment on the child’s immanent activity. Parents create conditions for success “here and now,” shaping the future and protecting against evil.
Conclusion: Success in the harmonious formation of personality is ensured through the harmonious interaction of introspective, teacher, and social pedagogy.
More about the content of Immanent Pedagogy will be presented in the next article.

Conditions of Immanent Pedagogy


Immanent pedagogy is necessary because the world is changing extraordinarily fast. We barely manage to take our place in culture before we must either return to the school bench or engage in self-education. Immanent pedagogy is independent pedagogical activity aimed at achieving personal goals in the formation of the self. An independent person identifies simultaneously as both student and teacher for oneself. An autonomous individual who wishes to change their destiny has the following conditions available: Thinking, Self-Control, Worldview, Morality, Education. Each of these concepts simultaneously serves as a condition, means, method, and content of Immanent Pedagogy:
• Thinking is the most important means of forming worldview, knowledge, and personal improvement. Thinking is the most essential instrument of Immanent Pedagogy, shaping our being.
• Self-Control is the foundation of success in improvement and self-development. In the modern world, fast-paced and oversaturated with information, self-control acquires paramount importance for professional success and psychological health. The nervous system consumes a vast amount of energy. One must be able to manage this energy rationally.
• Worldview is the functional content of a person, the meaningful principle of human activity based on a system of values. As the worldview is — so is the person — so are their relationships, actions, and thoughts.
• Morality is the foundation of thinking, actions, and worldview. Morality is the basis of activity. By forming one’s moral imperative, a person forms their personality, and consequently shapes their destiny.
• Education. If you intend to change your life, you should acquire education that is decisive for your destiny and formative for your future. One should choose education that brings satisfaction through activity, realizing one’s abilities, motives, and dreams.
By improving thinking, worldview, morality, self-control, and education — you will change your destiny. A teacher who contributes to the improvement of a student changes the destiny of that student

Worldview – The Phenomenon of Emergence

Every process is an energetic phenomenon, and energy can be generated only by the tense unity of opposites. – Carl Jung.

The Concept of Emergence

Emergence, in the context of worldview formation, manifests in the fact that the interaction of various influences on an individual generates new, qualitatively distinct properties of the worldview that cannot be reduced to the sum of these influences.

This process is nonlinear and unpredictable. It is emergence that makes each person’s view of the world a unique result of a complex, dynamic system.

Emergence in the Era of the Information Flow

Although emergent phenomena were observed in earlier eras, today we live under the influence of an unprecedented mass flow of information (cultural, social, political, scientific-technological), which overwhelms a person not only throughout life but even within a single day.

Such an unprecedented situation leads to highly unpredictable reactions and consequences for the forming worldview and value system.
In this regard, it is critically important to find relationships acceptable to the individual with all elements of the formative system in which one lives, works, and communicates.

Key Aspects of Worldview Emergence

I draw attention to the key aspects that define the role of emergence in pedagogy:

• Interactions and Connections. Emergence emphasizes the importance of comprehensive interaction between various elements of the formative system. These connections include communication between people, interaction with information, with educational materials, with tools and technology. It is within these interactions that new knowledge, modes of perception, and understandings arise.

• Unpredictability and Spontaneity. Emergent systems are nonlinear and inherently unpredictable. It is impossible to foresee exactly what knowledge or skills will emerge from complex interactions. This requires pedagogical methods that shape worldview to be flexible and adaptive, capable of responding promptly to arising situations and the individual’s needs.

• Self-Organization and Synergy. In emergent systems, order and structure may arise spontaneously, without direct external control. This means that the individual possesses internal potential for independently organizing their worldview activity, discovering new ways of solving problems, and creating personal knowledge.

• Wholeness. Emergence highlights the importance of the educational and formative system as a whole, rather than as a set of separate parts. It is necessary to consider all factors influencing a person and understand how they interact systemically.

Creating an order that is acceptable to the individual within the structure of worldview formation is vitally important. Otherwise, the influences acting upon the person will be either spontaneous or entirely controlled by external sources.
Educators must always be prepared for the fact that emergent systems may lead to completely unexpected and unpredictable outcomes.

Conclusion: Emergent systems create conditions for unpredictability in the formation of an individual’s worldview, emphasizing its wholeness and inseparability from the entire system of influences.

Immanent Pedagogy as a Reflection of Philosophy

First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must “once in his life” withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting. – Edmund Husserl.

Immanent pedagogy is the practice of philosophy — a specially organized reflection of philosophy.

Immanent pedagogy is created for thinking, self-knowledge, self-psychotherapy, self-development, self-improvement, and self-actualization.
Immanent pedagogy unites psychology, philosophy, and pedagogy within pedagogical activity.

The life of each person is unique, and likewise unique are one’s abilities, personal qualities, worldview, and talents.

Therefore, each student is provided with a personal immanent pedagogy and methodology.

Immanence

These inner motives spring from a deep source that is not made by consciousness and is not under its control. In the mythology of earlier times these forces were called mana, or spirits, demons, or gods. They are as active now as they ever were. – The one thing we refuse to admit is that we are dependent on “powers” that are beyond our control. – Carl Jung.

The immanent is an inalienable property inherent in an object or subject, characterizing a phenomenon (an action, event, or system).
Immanence is uniqueness inherent by nature.

The immanent is difficult to express adequately within conventional semiotics — just as it is difficult to fully convey one’s inner experiences, impressions, or thoughts.

Explanation:

• Immanence – a philosophical category denoting the inalienable inner property of a thing, inherent to it by its nature.

• Immanent pedagogical activity – active independent activity aimed at forming personal thinking, understanding, cognition, worldview, and self-control.

Every person contains an innumerable number of qualities, properties, and characteristics that belong only to him or her and to no one else. Immanent qualities play an extremely important role in life, in actions, and in thinking.

At the same time, people share similar personal qualities. We perceive and understand many things in the same way, reach agreements, and find common ground — while preserving a unique inner (immanent) world.

The educational system and mass media level human perception, making imagination, worldview, and thinking homogeneous.

In immanent pedagogy, each learner bears responsibility before oneself for the results — for success or failure.

The student independently (!) approaches the teacher whom they themselves have found.

The personal path in immanent education is the search for one’s teachers.

In immanent pedagogy, much is indescribable, unnamable, intangible — just like the nature of personality itself. It is unacceptable to attempt to measure the immanent with known “instruments or tools.”

Your immanent — meaning that which belongs only to you — is your essence.
The personal includes the influence of the world, society, school, family, traditions, customs, and culture. By developing the immanent, we develop the essential.

Conclusion: The goal of immanent pedagogy is the self-sufficiency of the human being.