Into the Distant Past

We begin in the past, more than half a century ago.

The taxonomy was first conceived in the years following World War Two.

In 1956, Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of educational goals. Handbook I: Cognitive domain was published, with Benjamin S. Bloom as editor.

This is some time ago. Over half a century.

In a different world from the one in which we live.

This throws up two questions.

First, why does the taxonomy remain in use today?

Second, is it not time we had something reflecting the changed world in which we live?

(The taxonomy was revised in 2000, by a group of academics. However, the revisions were relatively minor and, by and large, haven’t supplanted the original formulation.)

Let us answer each question in turn.

Things tend to remain in use for several reasons, some good, some bad, some indifferent.

There is inertia, familiarity, laziness, the lack of a better alternative, vested interests, stability, conservatism, gradual refinement, and continued efficacy.

I would argue it is the last of these that explains the continued use of Bloom’s Taxonomy today, more than sixty years after its print debut.

That the taxonomy retains a high degree of efficacy can be answered by turning to our second question.

While it is undoubtedly true that society has changed significantly since the time the taxonomy was put together, these changes have not necessitated or caused a change in the underlying structures of thought.

And it these structures – processes – that the taxonomy defines, orders and systematises.

Today, we see the processes applied in ways that could have barely been imagined sixty-plus years ago:

• the computer programmer who creates (synthesis) a new piece of software
• the brain surgeon who assesses (evaluates) the usefulness of a neuroscientific research paper
• the learner who comes to comprehend the importance and characteristics of newly discovered sub-atomic particles.

In each case, the content is new and previously unknown, representing an extension of the range and scope of human knowledge and understanding.

But the processes through which individuals engage with that content remain the same.

Evaluation is as relevant today as it was sixty years ago.

It retains the prominent position it previously occupied in our thinking.

The passage of time does not erode this.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Why is this the case?

A few tentative answers suggest themselves.

First, cognitive processes are constitutive of the structures of thought on which our minds rest.

This means that they are both total and unchanging.

To have a previously unknown cognitive process would be akin to seeing a colour that falls beyond the range of human perception.

The processes that underpin our thinking are coterminous with the extents of our thinking.

They cannot be surpassed.

Second, the processes can, arguably, be logically derived from the starting point of learning, which itself is a biological function of human beings.

That starting point is memory.

(Consider the impossibility of learning – as well as self-hood – for an individual without memory. Hence why knowledge, basic recall, is the foundation of the taxonomy.)

Through memory the infant child comes to associate certain things with other things.

This marks the beginning of learning.

That is, of coming to remember what the world is like, how it relates to us, how we relate to it and so forth.

As human beings we have over many thousands of years taken advantage of the evolutionary adaptation of memory to develop culture.

Culture is a world that sits atop the physical world we inhabit.

It is a world of meaning that cannot exist independently of human beings.

This is because any physical manifestations or carriers of culture require at least some degree of decoding if their meaning is to be conveyed.

The Role of Language

Included in the world of culture is language, the central way through which we as human beings communicate and pass on information.

Language allows us to store far more information than would be possible without it.

Literacy further increases our advantage (contrast the extent of a literate person’s intellectual reach and that or someone who is illiterate).

So the infant child comes to know language as well as experience.

Language then gives them a means through which to name experience.

Comprehending is derived from knowing.

This is because when we come to know things we come to remember them and, through that remembrance, are in a position to compare them.

This can be as simple as sitting two things next to each other in our minds.

Again, only possible because we can first remember the things in question.

Sitting things next to each other is perhaps the simplest way to begin building on knowledge.

If we remember that a cat is a cat and a dog is a dog, we can think of the cat and the dog and, in so doing, recognise that they are two different things.

This recognition is an act of comprehension, of understanding.

It is the beginning of coming to understand the extents of the thing remembered, as well as its relationship to other things remembered.

Once we have some form of comprehension, we can remember this (thus understanding becomes a fact or piece of knowledge, forming a part of our internal experience; my understanding and your understanding of a cat may be similar, but they are not one and the same thing).

We can then recall this comprehension in new situations and, again, make an act of comparison.

So, for example, I might encounter a creature that looks like a cat, only a lot bigger.

I apply my understanding of cats to this to see if the thing in question is a cat.

I decide that it is only partially like a cat but also notice that it fits with my existing understanding of bigness.

So, I call it a big cat.

When we can remember a thing, comprehend it and apply it, with all of this being predicated on memory of the thing in question, the higher order processes (analysis, synthesis and evaluation) become accessible.

We can analyse what we know and what we come across, basing this analysis on the existing understanding we possess.

Evaluation often then follows, where we make a judgement on the thing in question.

Or maybe synthesis, when we combine it with other things we know about to create something new.

In summary, and this explication has been both brief and partial in seeking to make the point, the general processes defined by the taxonomy can be logically derived from the starting point of being able to remember and of exercising this capacity in the context of a society that possesses language.

Much more could be said on this topic, though I leave it for another time.

Here we can say simply that the taxonomy remains in use so many years after its construction because it retains its efficacy.

This efficacy stems from the fact that it still reflects the thinking we do as well as the general structure of our thought.