Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Providing a Warrant for Constructivist Practice 483
into a narrow and predictable range. We effectively eliminate the possibility for a diverse range
of responses, and for unusual or creative responses. Furthermore, when I expect students to limit
what they learn to what I already know (or is provided as part of my design), I am treating them
as an extension of my own cognition. This is an essentially oppressive activity. For learners,
following another’s prescription puts that person at the center of their cognitive activity, they
follow that person’s trajectory, not their own. You allow yourself to be used as a trivial machine.
Every person needs to feel at the center of their own cognition. Finally, when I predetermine
what my student may learn and further limit it to what is already known, I deny my charges the
opportunity to make a valuable contribution to a community of importance to them. If I pretend
that my prescriptions are the correct, or best, way of engaging a domain of knowledge I discourage
learners from taking multiple perspectives on a given way of knowing. Those behaviors that we
say we cherish most in learners: responsibility, creativity, and a critical stance are possible only
when learners find themselves at the center of their own cognition.
Proscription as an Alternative
Proscription has a different logic than prescription. Prescription puts us in a place where what
is not allowed is forbidden, proscription a place where what is not forbidden is allowed. One can
argue, for example, that the viability of the U.S. constitution depends on its proscriptive logic.
What is not specifically proscribed by law is permissible, and rights not specifically granted to the
federal government belong to states or to individuals. In addition, the making of certain kinds of
laws is expressly forbidden. If we consider what makes two cultures distinct, it is obvious that they
offer their members different life experiences. We cannot know what we do not experience. We
are enculturated through the proscription of certain experiences. While no culture can prescribe
that all its members have a given set of experiences, cultures can establish taboos or experiences
that are not allowed, or, even more effectively, cultures can simply ignore the possibility of certain
experiences. Issues related to values are central to a proscriptive logic.
While design by telling people what not to do seem unpalatable, it is less constraining than
prescription which tells people what to do. When I prescribe a series of steps for someone else to
follow, I am proscribing an unknown set of alternatives. There is no mechanism for questioning
what I have proscribed. When I set constraints by proscribing certain steps, I am providing
guidance, but not determining how a goal may be reached. By naming what is proscribed, I
am making the proscribed visible and open to question. What would otherwise be invisible
may be critically analyzed. Proscription does not define a correct route to attainment of some
goal, making the discovery of new alternatives possible, so learners in such an environment are
constantly challenged to be creative.
Proscription can be seen as a humanistic alternative to prescription, because it determines
what will not happen rather than what will happen, thereby allowing for diversity in practice.
Proscription also seems to be a component of the process of creativity: Creative artists take account
of the constraints of a given situation, often turning those constraints to their advantage. Within
the enactive framework the concept of creativity is brought into the foreground: context and
common sense are the essence of creative cognition. Common sense is defined as an individual’s
bodily and social history and this context provides the constraints imposed in a given situation.
What matters is to maintain a history of effective action even while the obstacles or constraints
that one encounters change.
Learners as Designers
It seems impractical to expect prescription to totally disappear. Novice members of communities
of shared understanding will continue to rely upon the instructions of more expert members