Second attempt. - Intro: The concept of significance

The essay requires that I pick a theory first. This is difficult for me because I generally move with a complex, complicated, approach to theory - believing that one must have no theory to go by initially, then go on to take what is good from all the theories after being initiated into them , form one's own multi-faceted theory over time and transcend theory eventually after finding out the right balance between theory and practice. Another difficulty that presents itself to me is that I am, by nature, a strongly theory-oriented thinker/writer, and left to myself I would keep writing theory and leave out documenting the practical aspect totally, because the latter is what I'm good at.
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Of the given theorists , due to familiarity and inclination the ones that attract me the most are Dewey, Skinner, Piaget, Bruner, Vygotsky, Gardner and the brain-based learning theorists. This is not a value judgment. Since that's still too long a list and the brief is to choose primarily just one or two I would like to concentrate, perforce, on Bruner and constructivism, although I will be referring, if necessary, to the other theorists.

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A major development in the twentieth century for a student of theory in the transdisciplinary field of linguistics, stylistics, literature, criticism, art, anthropology, sociology, history, politics, philosophy and psychology was the evolution of a few defining terms that were seen to be highly utilitarian in their ability to refer to all the above mentioned disciplines simultaneously, making multiple interfaces possible. These terms are the sign, signifier, signified, signification, referent and the text - in their fullest connotations.

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These words or defining terms stand for key concepts that show a shift in perception that occurred in the twentieth century, bringing in a new paradigm in theory and practice in all the above mentioned fields. The shift was away from nineteenth century trends and open to twenty-first century changes which have had to take rapid breakthroughs in science and technology - resultantly in media -into consideration.

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As to what the terms stand for - to put it in a very simplistic way which subverts the very effort of the proponents of these terms to expand their frame of reference to include, if possible, all disciplines - the sign stands for anything with symbolic value, the signifier is usually its re-presentation and the signified is the interpreted or interpretative Meaning of the sign/ifier. The branches of learning which study these phenomena are called semiotics and hermeneutics. The how, why, when , where, who and what of Meaning's occurrence , also called semantics, is called signification or the signifying process and deals primarily with the relationship between the signifiers and how it generates meaning. The sign and the signifier always stand in relation to its referent - and studying the connections between such multi-pronged terms was the contribution of Structuralism which dealt with the relationship between elements rather than the understanding of the elements themselves. The final concept I have mentioned, that of the text, assumed staggering importance after Derrida's mercurial and controversial rise to prominence in the theoretical world, with his notion of textuality as perenially closed and kinetic; a chain of endless signifiers based on difference rather than identity and repetition, a notion that neatly yet radically does away with the concepts of the the signified and the referent.

Second paragraph - for the layman. Should I use it? - depends on final word count)

Naturally, with this kind of modernist theoretical grounding, theory in these disciplines moved towards post-structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction, post-colonialism, post-feminism, post-Marxism, post- colonialism and decolonization, subaltern studies, minority and marginalized discourses being given voice etc. All this was made possible because the previous theorists had opened up whole schools of debate and their discourses dealt with subjectivity and relativization, making it difficult in the post- Nietzchean & Foucaultian ambience to come to conclusions on any "subject" without first rigorously testing whether one was thinking clearly. Theory had become meta-theoretical, a natural concomitant to its rising importance.

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As readers of learning theories may notice, these important terms did not, seemingly, leave much of an impact on the discourse of Education. My effort in this essay will not be to ask why but to connect these theoretical terms to learning theory and my practice, finally generalizing on the output. The obvious fear that comes to the surface whenever theories that stem from Saussurean linguistics, structuralism, post-modernism, deconstruction and political empowerment of the sort envisaged by Foucault are discussed in connection with learning and education is the one about whether these are anarchic and subversive and will undermine the very foundations of what education, especially child-centered education, is supposed to be. Deconstructionists will, of course, laugh at the idea that education is supposed, a priori, to be this or that . It is true that such discourses deconstruct commonly held assumptions. But to believe that they are automatically anti-constructivist is misleading. Au contraire, to rigorously test the philosophical concepts that underpin a system, an institution or a philosophy is to do it a great benefit. From this kind of scrutiny they have a chance to emerge positively cha(r/n)ged, unscathed or diminished.

So, to frame my present effort, through which I hope to temporarily discover my philosophy or theory of learning, let me start by asking a few questions that seem relevant to me. What is my main signifier and, to rephrase thnigs in terms I am familiar with as a theorist, what does it really signify? What is its referent? What is the text and what are the subtexts? My temporary answers, simply put, are: The learner is the signifier under consideration -whether in singular or plural. No learner, no education. The signified, consequently, is learning. And the referent of the process of signification which is naught but the process of learning is - a surprisingly DesCartesian finding- the interaction and interface between the self and the world. The text therefore will be, naturally, the sum of these four parts. This self-sufficient and significant system which might have been rampant once has been contaminated by bringing into it the three subtexts which are
a. the ideology of power
b, the theories of learning and
c. the need, due to financial, social and economic constructs, for (artificial?) middlemen between the learners and actual learning or education.
This impasse has to be faced now because it is a reality. My attempt will be to deconstruct these three subtexts using some of the salient principles outlined in Bruner's version of Constructivism , of which he is only one of the proponents.