Herbart and Apperception

Johann Herbart was a German philosopher and psychologist born in 1776. Herbart looked scientifically at pedagogy and created a method of instruction still used today; he is most famous for his theory of apperception and his five-step model of instruction. Herbart studied under Immanuel Kant and utilized Kant's ideas of humanism and individualism in his research and within his teaching. Much of Herbart's work was created out of his own experiences as a tutor, professor, scientist, and philosopher.

Keywords Aesthetic Perception; Analysis; Apperception; Educational Psychology; Educational Philosophy; Herbartianism; Pedagogy; Synthesis

Overview

Johann Herbart’s name was not well-known until his students furthered his work after his death in 1841. Herbart was a psychologist who took the science of his field and combined it with the concept of pedagogy, creating teaching methods still used today. Much of Herbart's work was created out of his own experiences as a tutor, professor, scientist, and philosopher. He studied in Germany under Immanuel Kant, a well-known philosopher in the mid 1700's. To truly understand Herbart, one must first understand Kant.

Kant's Influence

Kant believed that the only way to really know something was to experience it for oneself. For example, a person following Kant's philosophy would not believe that the sun is yellow simply because someone told him that was the case. A student of Kant's would have to see the sun's yellowness himself to make that deduction. In addition to experience, Kant held that humanity should be the goal of all people in that within humanity, intimacy as a universal concept can be found. According to Minnich (1990),

To insist on both intimacy and universality, understood as regulative ideals rather than possible achievements, is to insist on openness to the individual, to the particular, as well as to the general, the universal. Intimacy is a mode of relation that refuses generalizations: to be intimate means to break through what someone is in order to become open to who s/he is, to experience this person as she is herself, not as she seems to be when filtered through pre-judgments (p. 182).

As Kant's student, Herbart followed this idea of humanism by seeing the concept of education as a humanistic endeavor, inclusive of effective socialization, sympathy for others, and teaching as one source of education. In his book, entitled General Pedagogics, Herbart almost apologizes for his view. "I confess [...] that I have no notion of education without teaching just as, by corollary, at least for the purposes of this publication, I recognize no teaching which does not educate" (Herbart, 1982b, p. 22, as cited in Hilgenheger, 1993, p. 7). As a child, Herbart was tutored, and he took that experience and related it to tutoring his own students; in doing so he transcended teaching as a process of doing something to somebody and created a methodology of educating as a form of enlightenment.

That enlightenment established a firm distinction between teaching and educating. Teaching does not assure education; it does, however, assure the activity of one person and the passivity of another. Educating, on the other hand, ensures the active participation of all; a child and her parents, a priest and his neighbor, a professor and a class of students, etc. The basis for education in these examples is socialization as much as the conveying of information. Children learn constantly but can only be considered educated when they apply new information to that which they already know. Once connections are made between the old and new information, that new information will be kept for later use, which is the basis of Herbart's theory of apperception.

The Theory of Apperception

Apperception (assimilating new information based on previous perceptions) is an activity experienced on a regular basis by just about everyone. Herbart labeled the concept as a theory and extended it to the philosophy of pedagogy, more specifically, knowledge acquisition. Herbart contends that in order to learn a concept, a person needs to relate (by assimilation) that concept to what he already knows. Apperception is related to application in that what cannot be applied cannot be perceived.

For example, within the study of statistics, students are exposed to the concept of probability. In many instances, this is explained through generalizations about using a deck of cards. However, predicting the likelihood that a black ace will be the next card flipped over while randomly overturning cards is an application lost on most students. As such, students make temporary room for this knowledge in their consciousness until the material has been tested. As there is little use for this knowledge past the testing phase, students tend to lose it to an idea that is necessary (more easily applied, that is) for daily living, like driving a car or manipulating mom and dad.

Studying apperception and learning, Navaz (2013) investigated the perception and practice of lecturers and students with regard to lecturer-student interaction in English-language science lectures at a Sri Lankan university where English is a second language. He concluded that “dialogic lecturer-student interaction, which enables students to take a more active role in discussions … is likely to be beneficial for students’ lecture comprehension and language development” (Navaz, 2013).

According to Herbart, studying literature and history lead to a form of learning that is most applicable to students, that of aesthetic knowledge. Math and science, on the other hand, are the keys to truly understanding concepts of psychology (Watson, 1978). Within each experience we have, Herbart saw pieces of information combining to create individual ideas. Each idea is then placed in our minds for future use, like putting money in a bank. As Watson (1978) points out, the ideas can work against each other.

One idea may be so much a hindrance to another that the second is not even available in consciousness. This hindered idea, although not in consciousness, still exists ... Ideas may arrest, but they cannot destroy one another. When the hindrance is lifted, the idea will again appear in consciousness (Watson, 1978, p. 32-33).

In this regard, we never lose the concepts we truly learn. Multiplication is an example of this. As children, we learn multiplication tables and are able to figure out even the most complex problems without the use of a calculator. Once we learn the technology of math, we have little use for calculating multiplication problems in our heads. Yet, when called upon to do so, we still have the skills to carry out problem solving strategies like carrying numbers and using a zero to mark the hundredths place. As we experience the world around us, we create ideas about our surroundings. What is not essential in the here and now (multiplication calculations, for example), we simply store for later use.

According to apperception, interest is the key to motivation and education. When we experience something new that sparks our interest, it invades our conscious awareness while our mind (without us noticing) searches our unconsciousness for a connection between the new concept and what we have already experienced. The new idea will only be deemed important if it can be connected to some other idea; if it can't, the idea is lost - predicting a black card, for example, is interesting but not something so interesting it needs to push out a separate, more important concept, like how to drive using a manual transmission. .FT.-In experiments related to apperception, learning, and memory published in 2013, however, Rerko and Oberauer challenged such theories as the limited-number-of-slots or limited-resource theories of attention and memory, whereby one learned idea “pushes out” another one. Their study investigated the effect of selection cues in working memory (WM) on the fate of not-selected contents of WM, and their experiments showed that focusing on one cued item in WM does not impair memory for the remaining items. The nonfocused items are maintained in WM even when this is not required by the task. Additional experiments showed that items that were once focused on in WM remain strengthened after the focus shifts away from them (Rerko & Oberauer, 2013).

Herbart based his apperception theory on his own experience as a tutor and a teacher. At the University of Jena, Herbart lectured in both philosophy and pedagogy. He wrote many books on the topic of pedagogy, but his method of instruction isn't notable (in most research) until he accepted a position at the University of Königsberg. Taking over Kant's role as dual chair in the departments of philosophy and pedagogy, Herbart strengthened his teaching practice using his own classes as a basis for experimentation. He practiced various teaching methods in his lecture seminars and later held discussions within the same classes in which both he and his students critiqued his methods. This practice was utilized in many disciplines throughout Germany based on Herbart's work (Cruikshank, n.d.).

Applications

Pedagogy

As far as Herbart is concerned, the intellectual mind perceives information in one of two ways. The first is through analytical-pedagogical thought. The second is through speculative thinking. The former is based on experience and experimentation; the latter is based on principle. The two can be explained using a common example. When a man is faced with the challenge of programming a remote control, he can do so in one of two ways. He can read the directions, or he can guess. Both strategies can yield the same result, that of a programmed remote; however, guessing will probably take more time and may leave the man in a similar quandary if the situation should arise again in the future. Without previous experience with the directions, he is again forced to guess or read the directions for the first time. Reading the directions is based on analytical-pedagogics. The man reads and does, based on what he read. Guessing, on the other hand, is basing the hope of a programmed remote on pure speculation. Clearly, these are two contrasting ideas, and Herbart believed that utilizing both modes is the key to ethics (the ends: a programmed remote) justifying the psychological (the means: how it is programmed).

Herbart based this thinking on his experience tutoring Provincial Governor Steiger's children, aged 14, 10, and 8. As shown previously, Herbart believed that a person can be taught or a person can be educated. When faced with tutoring these three children, Herbart took the role seriously and set out to educate his students rather than simply teaching them facts. By educating them, Herbart socialized them to the world, helping them develop moral values; this is where he closely mirrors Kant. Herbart's course of instruction followed two categorical lines: "an aesthetic/literary aspect; and a mathematical/natural scientific side" (Hilgenheger, 1993, p. 5). In doing so, his students became adept both linguistically and scientifically, studying history and literature as well as math and experimental science.

The purpose of literature and history study was twofold: Herbart wanted his students to be fluent in their language use, and he wanted them to be sympathetic toward their fellow man. Reading classic literature and historical accounts of the world helped to achieve this goal. It also impressed upon his students the necessity of a strong moral character and the need for community socialization. Building knowledge and character, in Herbart's mind, was achieved through educating his students and could not be done by simply filling them with the common rhetoric of the time: facts versus purpose. Any other attempt to build character would fail in Herbart's view. As such, the methodology of teaching - how to teach effectively - is the primary focus behind Herbart's pedagogical foundation.

English (2011) examined Herbart’s view of the teacher as moral guide to argue that critical listening in contemporary teaching contributes to the moral education and development of the learner. English contends that reexamining Herbart’s theory of education can “productively inform our understanding of moral education in democratic and pluralist societies” (English, 2011).

Teacher Training

Herbart's biggest contributions to education lie in both the theory of apperception (how students learn) and in the way that teachers are taught how to teach. A person can be knowledgeable in an area of science, mathematics, or literature but be lacking in the skills with which to impart that knowledge to other people, and would be considered an inefficient teacher. Communication theory, social communication theory in particular, maintains that people do not communicate in a vacuum. That is, when people write, speak, or hear ideas, those ideas are also considered in relation to the people surrounding or influencing them. As such, and based upon his own experiences, Herbart implored that teachers must always consider their students before the concepts they plan to teach.

Clark (2000) identifies Herbart as being the first scientist to take the stand that instruction (the art and methodology of teaching) needs to be at the forefront of teacher education. Rather than studying subject matter like chemistry or physics, student teachers, in Herbart's view, need to be able to teach, that is, to be able to communicate with and to meet the needs of, their students. For example, students who write essays usually take their teachers into account while writing, considering what the teacher already knows about the ideas or subjects presented in the paper. If the same students know their essays will be used for peer critiques, the writers will often consider what the entire class knows about the topic when choosing words or phrases to describe it. This is common as well during speeches and oral presentations.

Herbart inspired one of the first secondary teacher training programs based on these concepts (Rust, 1977). He believed that the more teaching experience a student teacher received during her training, the more effective she would be. Teacher trainers, then, according to Herbart, need to transfer classroom management skills onto student teachers while those student teachers are becoming proficient in their subject areas. This assumes a formula similar to A (pedagogy) + B (subject) = C (effective teaching), which is not a far-fetched concept, but clearly puts pedagogy (A) first. Yet, many teacher training programs include theory courses that delve into complex issues like statistical analysis prior to the student teaching experience, making the actual teaching aspect of the training seem secondary.

Herbart's 5-Step Model

Herbartian theory also follows that when training prospective teachers, pedagogy needs to include the creation of lesson plans according to "five formal steps of the recitation" (Hilgenheger, 1993). These steps include the following sequence of activity:

• Preparation

• Presentation

• Association

• Generalization, and

• Application (Clark, 1999).

First, teachers need to review material taught within a day or two of the introduction of new content (information, material) in order to prepare students to receive the new information. Second, the new content can be presented via a variety of methods (Ediger, 1997). Third, teachers need to help students relate the new information to material that has been already learned. This step combines steps one and two and integrates the theory of apperception as well. Fourth, students need to generalize, be guided toward the big picture through examples of how the new information relates to their daily lives. Finally, students need to apply the information correctly, by utilizing a mathematical formula correctly, for example. This application relies on assessment as a final stage of teaching to determine whether or not students actually learned the concept.

The five steps are required in sequence and build motivation from becoming prepared to learn to identify how the learned material is applied. "Herbartianism, in predicting that learning follows from building up sequences of ideas important to the individual, gave teachers a semblance of a theory of motivation" (Clark, 2000). In every instance of instruction, Herbart held, the methodology could not encroach upon the students' individual character. This leads to teaching according to student interest.

Student Interest

Some students of statistics possibly do know the concept of probability quite well. If this is the case, it is because the concept is of interest to them. Herbart held that in order for students to be educated about anything, they need to be interested in the topics of study. Being interested allows them to make the connections that keep relevant information in the mind and to toss out the information that holds little or no meaning. When Herbart focused his instruction on literature and history, those topics could be associated with his students' lives and were, therefore, relevant to them. Further, it created an awareness within his students about the feelings of others and how relationships between people are established.

Herbart is clear about what he considers to be effective teaching practice. Effective pedagogy is different from traditional teaching (in Herbart's view) because the latter was simply employed to present as much knowledge and as many skills as possible to each student. Teaching to educate, however, holds a motivating factor for students.

It is of course a familiar precept that the teacher must try to arouse the interest of his pupils in all that he teaches. However, this precept is generally meant and understood to denote the idea that learning is the end and interest the means to attain it. “I wish to reverse that relationship. Learning must serve the purpose of creating interest. Learning is transient, but interest must be lifelong” (Herbart, 1982c, p. 97, as cited in Hilgenheger, 1993, p. 7-8).

Again, the new concepts that can be applied to our daily lives will hold our interest simply because they can be related to other ideas that we already conceptualize. If we learn and recall the steps necessary to program the remote control, it will take us less time to complete the task in the future because we can simply think about what we did in the past. If those steps have never been learned, however, we have nothing to which to refer and will go about the process as though it were new.

Discussion

It makes the process of teaching much easier if students are interested in the topic of study in the day's lesson plan. However, there are some subjects that will never interest some students and thus, those students will lack the motivation to learn them. Just as some people don't want to know how to program their remote controls, some students don't particularly care about Edgar Allen Poe or the revolutionary war. While it may be possible to make connections between "The Raven" and what students already know, if the students have no interest in doing so, a teacher - even the best educator on the planet - cannot make a student learn the dark side of poetry.

On the other hand, Herbart's theory of pedagogy and his five-step teaching sequence are concepts that are conceivable and are common to many current teacher-training programs. One thing that is not, however, is the emphasis on education as a process. Herbart based his theories on his experience as a tutor and professor. Without those hands-on experiences, he would not have come to the conclusions about learning that he did. As such, it is a wonder that all teacher-training programs do not require hands-on experience early in the study of teaching methodology.

If a potential teacher is to become a competent educator, the skill of effectively communicating ideas to another person should the topic of study on the first day rather than in the last semester. Placing methods and assessment first makes those topics seem more valuable than actually teaching.

Terms & Concepts

Aesthetic Perception: The appreciation of art or beauty (or classical literature).

Analysis: Separating ideas into different elements to examine each section.

Apperception: Relating new information to that which is already known or perceived.

Educational Psychology: The principles of education relating to thought, assessment, ability, and aptitude in learning.

Educational Philosophy: The underlying beliefs or principles of education.

Herbartianism: A segment of educational/psychological/philosophical theory based on apperception, relating new information to that already known or perceived.

Pedagogy: The discipline of teaching.

Synthesis: The result of combining ideas or elements; putting together objects or ideas to create a new object or idea.

Bibliography

Blythe, A. (1981). From individuality to character: The Herbartian sociology applied to education. British Journal of Education, 29 , 69-79. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=13357456&site=ehost-live

Clark, D. (2000, Jan.) Johann Friedrick Herbart. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from website http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/herbart.html

Cruikshank, K. (n.d.). Johann Herbart (1776-1841). Career, Contribution. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from Stateuniversity.com website: http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2040/Herbart-Johann-1776-1841.html Ediger, M. (1997). Influence of ten leading educators on American education. Education, 118 , 267. Retrieved December 10, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=234341&site=ehost-live

English, A. (2011). Critical listening and the dialogic aspect of moral education: J.F. Herbart’s concept of the teacher as moral guide. Educational Theory, 61, 171–189. Retrieved December 17, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=61352338&site=ehost-live

Hilgenheger, N. (1993). Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841). Reprinted from Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education, 23 (3/4), 649-664. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from UNESCO website: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/publications/ThinkersPdf/herbarte.pdf Minnich, E. K. (1990). Transforming Knowledge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Navaz, A. (2013). A study on perception of lecturer-student interaction in English medium science lectures. Novitas-Royal, 7, 117–136. Retrieved December 17, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=91706854&site=ehost-live

Rerko, L., & Oberauer, K. (2013). Focused, unfocused, and defocused information in working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory & Cognition, 39, 1075–1096. Retrieved December 17, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=89050792&site=ehost-live

Rust, V. D. (1977). Personalized teacher education: The example of Herbart. Educational Studies, 8 , 221. Retrieved December 10, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=7576180&site=ehost-live

Watson, Sr., R. I. (1978). Kant and Herbart: Herbart and experience, metaphysics and mathematics. In, The great psychologists. (4th edition). [Electronic version]. New York: J.B. Lippincott Co. Retrieved December 1, 2007 from Southern Adventist University website: http://educ.southern.edu/tour/who/pioneers/herbart.html

Suggested Reading

Dunkel, H. B. (1967). Herbart's Pedagogical Seminar. History of Education Quarterly, 7, 93-101.

Dunkel, H. B. (1969a). Herbart and Education. New York: Random House.

Dunkel, H. B. (1969b). Herbartianism Comes to America, 2 parts. History of Education Quarterly 9, 203-233; 376-390.

Dunkel, H. B. (1970). Herbart and Herbartianism: An Educational Ghost Story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Epstein, R. (1981, Feb). A convenient model for the evolution of early psychology as a scientific discipline. Teaching of Psychology, 8 , 42-45. Retrieved December 10, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=6802794&site=ehost-live

Felkin, H. M. & Felkin, E. (1898). Letters and Lectures on Education. London and Syracuse, NY: Sonnenschein, Bardeen.

Felkin, H. M. & Felkin, E. (1902). The Science of Education. Boston: Heath.

Herbart, J. F. (1964). Sämtliche Werke in chronologischer Reihefolge, (1887-1912), 19 vols., ed. Karl Kehrbach and Otto Flügel. Aalen, Germany: Scientia-Verlag.

Herbart, J.H. (1982). Pädagogische Schriften. Erster Band: Kleinere pädagogische Schriften. Ed. by Walter Asmus. Stuttgart.

Kant, I. (1986). The Critique of Judgment. (Translated by Werner S. Pluher). Indianapolis: Hackett, 231.

Knox, H. M. (1975, Oct). The progressive development of J. F. Herbart's educational thought. British Journal of Educational Studies, 23 , 265-275. Retrieved December 10, 2007 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Premier: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=13114257&site=ehost-live

Lang, O. H. (1894). Outlines of Herbart's Pedagogics. New York and Chicago: Kellogg.

Miller, E. J. (2003). Teaching methods, the Herbartian revolution and Douglas Clay Ridgley at Illinois State Normal University. Journal of Geography, 102, 110-120.