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Translation of the text that was used as a reference on September 15, 1997 to describe the worrying state of University education to a group of English-Canadian judges gathered in Quebec city within the framework of a French immersion program.
This presentation was made upon invitation from Mrs. Yolande Cloutier-Turcotte, director of Judges' Language Training at the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs.
In reference to the Quebec International Bookfair on Human and Social Sciences that was to pen two days later, Mrs. Cloutier-Turcotte invited me to say a few words about a recently edited book that will be offered to the public on that occasion.
It is a popularization work aimed at spreading anew in the general population an important line of knowledge that appears not to be taught any more anywhere in the world. Here is a short overview to clearly set the focus on the subject.
In the first part of this century, after having completed his research on animal behavior, research that served as a foundation for the behaviorist school of thought, Pavlov set out to explore the working of the human mind. He eventually perceived a direct link between conceptual thinking and language.
Paul Chauchard, French neurophysiologist, understood his conclusions and went on to push the limit of that research still further, deepening his understanding of the links between thought, language and intelligence, that is, the ability to comprehend. From his work, an important comclusion could be drawn: that the degree of awakening of intelligence is directly related to the degree of mastery of language in youth.
Many people, specialist and non-specialist, are deeply aware that proper learning of language in youth is very important. But few, however, could clearly state the underlying reasons for that need. Still fewer are in a position to perceive the degree to which numerous social problems can be mainly rooted in a lack in this respect.
Since I realized las year that this line of research appeared not to be taught anywhere, I have become acutely interested in teaching at the University level.
So, for the past year, I have been asking numerous questions and have also been examining the curricula of a number of occidental universities that are widely available on the Internet, looking for traces of that research or else for reasons that could explain why research, the importance of which appears so fundamental, could have been neglected to the point of being completely forgotten. Some common grounds have emerged that could constitute the foundation of a valid explanation.
Here is a brief summary of the state of affairs that I observed.
Education in universities appears to be structured in such a manner as to favor extreme specialization in very narrow fields of the various domains of knowledge.
The time needed to hyper-specialize, during the period each person allocates to formal education, realistically leaves little time to allow acquiring a sufficiently wide ranging general basic education even in his (or her) own domain of interest.
Given the narrowness of the range of lines of knowledge that need be mastered to hyper-specialize in whatever direction, it seems realistic to think that the lines of research that are not currently popular at any given moment will tend to be neglected and forgotten, even by the scientists, because, as time passes and generations of scientists come and go, those lines eventually stop being referred to in the texts used the community.
I have talked with linguists that have never heard of Alfred Korzybski and his important explorations of the relations between language and objective reality.
I have talked with a doctor specializing in neurobiology who had never heard of Paul Chauchard, possibly the greatest French neurophysiologist, certainly one of the greatest in the world, let alone the extremely coherent synthesis that he made on the state of knowledge on the brain and mind.
I have talked with graduates in psychology for whom the name of Ivan Pavlov was totally unknown, let alone his research on understanding the thinking process.
It is not surprising that persons who are not specialized in a given field would not know the names of scientists or be familiar with research already made in that field.
But It is totally abnormal and disquieting that graduates in a given field would never have heard, even summarily, about important research that has been carried out in their own field and that even the names of the scientists involved could often be unknown to them.
The only information that appears to be generally available concerning Pavlov's work seem to be the fact that he has explored animal behavior and that his research has been one of the foundation of the behaviorist school of thought.
As far as I can ascertain, there seems to remain no trace in the currently available scientific literature of Pavlov's research on the human mind.
To briefly return to the problem of general education at the university level, I can even refer to a case relating to law.
Here, contrary to the case of the abandonment of Pavlov's research, which I am trying to have rechecked, to no avail up to now, and for the case of the pitiful state of basic general education in universities, for which many others sound the alarm once in a while, and into which I see a clear and very straightforward explanation for that abandonment, I readily admit that the case I which to concisely submit to your attention is a matter of opinion. Everyone be the judge (no pun intended!).
It concerns the Padfield ruling made by Lord Reid (House of Lords and Privy Council, 1968) in the case "Padfield v. Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food".
For many years this ruling was given as an example, here in Quebec, in the curriculum of lawyer's education program. It would appear that it is not mentioned any longer, however, because it apparently is not considered a "novelty" any more.
Four important points are highlighted by this ruling:
It rules that the Minister has a duty to act whenever there is a relevant and substantial complain that a board created by his ministry is acting in a manner inconsistent with the public interest.
Lord Reid apparently rests his judgment on the notion that since it is not specifically mentioned in the British Act that the Minister does not have this duty, the duty de facto exists.
Moreover, he concludes that if the Minister refuses to act and that such refusal were to frustrate the policy and objects of the Act by rendering nugatory a safeguard provided by the Act in depriving complainers of a remedy which Lord Reid was satisfied that Parliament intended them to have, he felt that the court must be entitled to act.
Finally, he rules that to determine whether in the frame of the British Act, a duty should be associated to a power, there was ample authority for going behind the words which confer the power to the general scope and objects of the Act in order to find what was intended.
In my opinion, a ruling that could be brought as an argument in any lawsuit where there is allegation that a minister or a government agency has acted in a manner inconsistent with the public interest or that could help determine if, in whatever frame of references, to any power a duty is not de facto attached unless a specific provision to the contrary has been made, should not have been excluded and should continue being part of the basic education of every lawyer.
In conclusion, the problem appears of defective general formation at the university level seems to be worldwide and I it is quite possible that other important research could also have been neglected and forgotten in the same manner.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Copyright © 1997 - André Michaud
