Part of John Andrew Rice’s legacy, besides being a founder of Black Mountain College, is his vision of what a small liberal arts college curriculum should be. This vision helps shed light on some possible avenues by which to answer the following important questions: What implications do John Dewey’s progressive educational ideas have for experimenting with curricular design at small colleges? Does the college teacher’s struggle for improvement or growth depend on her having a belief that there is an ideal (...) liberal arts college curriculum? Probably the best known of such ready-made curricula is the Great Books Program, which employs a list of classic primary-source texts as the entry point into highly engaged dialogue, scholarship and learning guided by a teacher or tutor. In order to answer these questions, the paper turns to the historical debate between John Dewey and Robert Maynard Hutchins over the relative merits of progressive educational ideals and the Great Books approach. Most who have commented on this debate emphasize the differences between Dewey and Hutchins’ views.[ii] While Dewey emphasized learning through practical problem solving, in a dynamic mix of subject matter and method, Hutchins stressed exposure to and discussion of at least one-hundred primary texts in the Western canon, from Plato and Aristotle to Emerson and J.S. Mill. Hutchins resisted what he saw as the progressive educator’s push to transform the proper end of educating the whole person into training her for a particular vocation. In response, Dewey criticized Hutchins’ insistence that there existed a “hierarchy of truths” and that higher learning should remain aloof to the concerns of everyday life. Few commentators, however, mention the significant areas of agreement between the pedagogical approaches of Dewey and Hutchins, as well as other Great Books scholars. Since Rice praised the ideas of at least one Great Books proponent (Stringfellow Barr of St. John’s College), a more positive reconstruction of the Dewey-Hutchins exchange helps us to see how Dewey’s ideas informed Rice’s vision for the experimental college at Black Mountain—or so I argue.[iii]. (shrink)

In previous papers I have brought philosophical hermeneutics in conversation with critical hermeneutics, in order to open the potential for Gadamer’s “moderate hermeneutics” to be re-considered as a potential democratic practice of discourse with the potential of transforming social situations that are unjust and inequitable . Emerging from this conceptual/theoretical “textual” analysis of philosophical hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics, I offer a reading of the ancient Socratic practice of dialectic as a form of critical, inclusive, and constructive democratic dialogue, i.e., an (...) expression of local normative hermeneutics grounded in a form of understanding that occurs through consensus and negotiation among, as Plato calls them in the Seventh Letter, “well-meaning” and “noncombative” participants. (shrink)

This paper explores how the conception and valuation of the knowledge within our educational practices determines the planning, writing, and implementation of the curriculum. There is a pressing need for educators to philosophically and systematically understand the relationship between the foundational epistemological beliefs that ground a curriculum and its relationship to forming the notions of competency, pedagogy, and the methods for evaluating and assessing student progress. These issues are not only relevant, but crucial when attempting to justify a particular conception (...) of education, which relates directly to the student's potential for intellectual growth and social development. It may be argued that the comprehensive theory of curriculum planning manifests the intersection of philosophical critique, social inquiry, and psychological theory, and the author believes that bringing philosophy, and a formal methodology, to bear on the problems of education represents an instance where philosophy might contribute in a direct manner to the active and ongoing process of current educational reform. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Different concepts of democracy are considered as they reflect deep problems in modem democratic societies such as the lack of participation by citizens, the loss of a sense of community, and excessive individualism. Three models of teaching, the executive, the therapist, and the liberationist, are then explored with regard to what students may learn about being a member of a democratic society when they are treated differently by such teachers. It is argued that while each model has its positive (...) and negative influences, the liberationist approach has the best potential for meeting some of the deficiencies of participatory forms of democratic life. (shrink)

Many high schools offer students the opportunity to take advanced placement (AP) courses in many subjects including science and mathematics. Studies have shown that students who take these classes are more likely to succeed in college and that failure in engineering education is strongly correlated to deficiencies in mathematics and science. This article presents the background of AP classes and their impact on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) career choices of college students. The results of this study confirm that (...) students who take AP classes in calculus and the sciences are more likely to select majors in careers such as engineering, science, mathematics, and the medical field. In this study, both minority and nonminority students who were taking AP calculus and/or science courses in high school selected STEM careers at a higher rate than other careers and males selected engineering at a higher rate than females. Females selected science and mathematics and the medical field at a higher rate than males. Furthermore, the size and location of the high school, profession of parents, and socioeconomic level of parents all affect the number of AP classes offered in high schools as well as which ethnic groups primarily take them. (shrink)

What should be the primary aims of education? How might these aims be realized? These are foundational questions which Plato raised long ago in his Republic. The first of these questions is a normative, and profoundly philosophical, one which provides guidance to the whole endeavor of education. The second of these questions is a pedagogical one which informs educators as to how their work can be best conducted. In this work I endeavor to answer these interlocking educational questions. I follow (...) most closely in the footsteps of John Dewey. I believe that Dewey had it right when, decades ago, he argued that education ought to be concerned with the cultivation of good judgment. But here a difficulty arises. For "good judgment" is a complex philosophical concept which spills over into considerations of thinking, knowing, deciding, and acting. Despite the efforts of philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, and Dewey, there is a lack of agreement about the precise meaning of good judgment. Before moving into matters of education, then, I first endeavor to vanquish this lack of conceptual clarity. What is good judgment? What are its elements? Can it, for that matter, even be cultivated? Having gotten clear on what good judgment is, I turn to matters of education. First, I argue that a vital task of education is the cultivation of good judgment. I then turn to the practical matter of how one might go about cultivating good judgment. The community of inquiry approach employed by The Philosophy for Children Program, I contend, is an effective pedagogical means through which to cultivate good judgment. (shrink)