The relationship between adults and children in liberal democracies is based on two flawed assumptions that are widespread: first, that childhood is an impediment, a passing phase of impaired maturity; and second, that children benefit from the proliferation of rights ascribed to them. Social institutions, and particularly the education system, are correspondingly misconstrued. This article focuses on the combined effect of vulnerability and autonomy as they construct contemporary childhood. I conclude that adults’ obligations rather than children’s rights are the appropriate (...) social, political and educational basis for adult society’s relations with children. (shrink)

Rather than using literary texts to evidence an analytic argument, within this piece we read Julia McNair Wright's (US, 1840?1902), Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette's (France, 1873?1954), and Willa Cather's (US, 1873?1947) texts through theoretical lenses that expose their educational meaning and value and that create conversation among them concerning girls? and women's educations. While we do not claim that one can generalize these women's works and lessons to every life, we contend that these women and the literary products they created offer girls (...) and women powerful lessons about resistance, subversion, and nurturing one's intellect, lessons that in some ways transcend class and race in particular. First, we define and explain Bruner's concept of the more using Rosenblatt, Gallagher, and Gardner's theories and findings to illuminate his concept. Next, we identify and examine three themes that emerge across these authors? texts?subverting through the everyday, becoming one's own steward, and moving from survival to self-actualization. Establishing these themes first in Wright's texts, we then use them to frame Colette's and Cather's fiction and support these themes by focusing on one lesson that emerges from each author's work(s). Finally, we ask what one might learn about educating girls and women from these texts and others whose educative meaning and value remain hidden. (shrink)

This paper heeds the advice of EPAT's editor, who said he 'will be happy to publish further works on Heidegger and responses to these articles' after introducing four articles on Heidegger and education in the August, 2005, issue. It discusses the papers in order of appearance critically, for none of them shows understanding of Heidegger's writings and descriptions of human existence in his most important work, Being and Time, nor the work of the internationally recognized educational philosopher who has written (...) about educational problems using Heidegger's perspective over the past forty years and that should be considered in any application of Heidegger's thought to education if educational philosophy is to become a cumulative discipline. Because philosophy of education is notoriously non-accumulative and requires far more than referring to education in the first and last paragraphs of an article in order to be about an educational problem or phenomenon, the publications of this scholar in the phenomenology of education are mentioned throughout, as are Heidegger's works, to show how the four authors might have benefited from library research to utilize existing understandings and go beyond them. Finally, some suggestions are made about how to read with understanding Heidegger's magnum opus, Being and Time. (shrink)

John Henry Newman provided the basic vocabulary and guiding rationale sustaining the ideal of a liberal education up to our day. He highlighted its central focus on the cultivation of the intellect, its reliance upon broadly based theoretical knowledge, its independence of moral and religious stipulations, and its being its own end. As new interpretations enter the debate on liberal education further educational possibilities emanate from Newman’s thought beyond those contained in his theory of a liberal education. These are found (...) in Newman’s broader idea of a university education, incorporating social, moral, and spiritual formation and in his philosophical thought where he develops a theory of knowledge at odds with the Idea of a University. There are, in addition, intriguing possibilities that arise from Newman’s theory of reasoning in concrete affairs both because of their implicit challenge to inherited theories of a liberal education and because of the educational possibilities they hold out in their own right and in actual educational developments to which they may lend support. (shrink)

John Henry Newman provided the basic vocabulary and guiding rationale sustaining the ideal of a liberal education up to our day. He highlighted its central focus on the cultivation of the intellect, its reliance upon broadly based theoretical knowledge, its independence of moral and religious stipulations, and its being its own end. As new interpretations enter the debate on liberal education further educational possibilities emanate from Newman’s thought beyond those contained in his theory of a liberal education. These are found (...) in Newman’s broader idea of a university education, incorporating social, moral, and spiritual formation and in his philosophical thought where he develops a theory of knowledge at odds with the Idea of a University. There are, in addition, intriguing possibilities that arise from Newman’s theory of reasoning in concrete affairs both because of their implicit challenge to inherited theories of a liberal education and because of the educational possibilities they hold out in their own right and in actual educational developments to which they may lend support. (shrink)

In their influential book, The Child Centered School, Harold Rugg and Ann Schumaker wrote that, in traditional schools, students found “that behind each classroom door lurked a deceptive Pandora’s box of fears, restraints, and long, weary hours of suppression” (Rugg and Shumaker 1928, p. 4). The American child-centered, romantic progressives were known to quip that educators of the old, traditional education did not care what students were taught, as long as students didn’t like it. Isaac Kandel, the longtime critic of (...) child-centered progressivism, retorted that, for progressives, “it does not matter what a student studies, so long as he does like it” (Kandel 1943, p. 49). And so a debate took root about several fundamental educational questions: just how important is it that students enjoy themselves, that they are self-motivated, and that they are interested in what they were doing? What role is left for the curriculum, discipline, and students’ intellectual inheritance? So the debat. (shrink)

This article addresses the world's contemporary crisis of care, despite the abundance of information about distant others, by exploring motivations for caring and the rok of imagination. The ethical significance of caring is found in performance. Applying Victor Vroom's expectancy theory, caring performances are viewed as extensions of rational expectations regarding the efficacy of actions. The imagination creates these positive or negative expectations regarding the ability to effectively care. William James s notion of the will to believe offers a unique (...) twist on rational expectations in that he regards humans as having the capacity to work within uncertainty to take decisive action. Applying this idea to caring performance is, this artick argues that peopk can have the will to care, beyond strict rational calculations or limits of social norms. Historically, caring has been associated with the imagination s ability to empathize, but the will to care offers another rok for the imagination in envisioning effective action. Given the significance of the imagination for ethical behavior, this artick explores the implications for cultivating care in terms of what educating for care might hok like. The work of feminist care ethicists, particularly Nel Noddings, is discussed, and contemporary case examples of caring performances are investigated. (shrink)

This essay responds to recent philosophical interest in the Anthropocene by asking : Can and should educators adopt, form, transmit, teach ways of living to maintain, if not enhance Earth’s habitability, especially its habitability for diverse children? This inquiry therefore calls for conceptual study of learning to live through the Anthropocene—with, despite, after, before, amid, among, away from, and against its myriad harms, possible and actual, especially its harms to children. Examining cases of environmental racism in Checker’s Polluted Promises, and (...) other cases of environmental threats to children’s health, in Steingraber’s Raising Elijah, this study begins by proposing the ecological gap in philosophy of education consequential for children resides within another epistemological gap, variously designated gender gap, love gap, care gap. Ruddick’s maternal thinking provides a conceptual frame for theorizing three moral aims of learning to live in the Anthropocene that might inform public schooling. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to make a case for Aristotelian friendship as a ‘method’ of moral education qua mutual character development. After setting out some Aristotelian assumptions about friendship and education in the “Aristotle and Beyond: Some Basics about Character Friendship and Education”section, I devote the “Role-Model Moral Education Contrasted with Learning from Character Friends” section to role modelling and how it differs from the idea of cultivating character through friendships. “The Mechanisms of Learning from Character Friends” section (...) then explores the mechanisms of Aristotelian friendship education directly: those identified by him and those which can be elicited more obliquely from his texts. I end in the “Concluding Remarks and Classroom Applications” section with some reflections on how this model of friendship as a moral method could be applied in current educational contexts. While the idea of character friendship as an educational method comes with many assets, it also imports various liabilities that may lead to painful friendship terminations. I have put the spotlight on those liabilities in two previous articles. In contrast, the goal here is to impart a new edge and added force to the idea that a certain Aristotle-defined type of deep friendships may have a unique role to play in facilitating moral growth, above and beyond other developmental learning mechanisms. (shrink)

Inequality and injustice in education have been viewed from the perspective of social justice. Since the emergence of John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice, social justice issues have attracted the attention of social and political philosophers. Theoretical consequences of social and political philosophy have been actively incorporated into the field of education. However, the issue of educational justice remains controversial and requires further philosophical consideration. To further philosophical consideration, this paper explores how the class or the classroom can generate space (...) and time for democracy, by focusing on the educational specificity of the classroom community, which is called ‘Gakkyu’ in Japanese. Social justice in education is not only a policy issue, but also a practical issue which should be tackled in the classroom. Rethinking the ways of democracy to face conflicts arising due to differences and equality of children in the classroom is an important method of bridging social justice and education. In this paper, the following question will be explored: how classroom democracy can be nurtured and the classroom community transformed into a democratic place where children from various background and experiences gather and learn from each other. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to develop a theory of peace education through an examination of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. It examines why Japan did not avoid this terrible nuclear disaster. This is an educational issue, because one of the major impacts of Fukushima's catastrophe is that it indicates the failure of peace education. In order to reestablish a theory of peace education, the concept of domestic tranquility is discussed. This article questions whether the Japanese public order is consistent (...) with democratic principles. Jane Roland Martin's examination of the concept of domestic tranquility is shown relevant. Martin's language analysis helps to distinguish whether or not Japanese domestic tranquility under nuclear crisis is democratic. I propose that post-Fukushima disaster peace education should be reformed as consistent with two democratic principles: acceptance of the diversity of peace and continuous negotiation among these different narratives. (shrink)

This article discusses what David Berliner (2005) has called the perverse ?spectacle of fear? (208) surrounding issues of teacher quality and accountability in contemporary school reform. Drawing principally on the critical semiotics of Roland Barthes' essay, ?The World of Wrestling? (1957), it examines the way that this spectacle works to undermine public education and explicates the powerful mythology behind it. The article then concludes with some suggestions on how this destructive ?spectacle of fear? might potentially be disrupted using the agencies (...) of Deweyan ?strong democracy? (shrink)

The relationship between adults and children in liberal democracies is based on two flawed assumptions that are widespread: first, that childhood is an impediment, a passing phase of impaired maturity; and second, that children benefit from the proliferation of rights ascribed to them. Social institutions, and particularly the education system, are correspondingly misconstrued. This article focuses on the combined effect of vulnerability and autonomy as they construct contemporary childhood. I conclude that adults' obligations rather than children's rights are the appropriate (...) social, political and educational basis for adult society's relations with children. (shrink)