This article describes the experience of two educators in a master program in Pedagogy in the Netherlands. Their experience is of an online gathering with students and educators that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students and educators were not allowed to meet face-to-face, thus resorted to online education. What happened at that online gathering was that the educators observed how the group connected to each other in a way that was reminiscent of the ‘normal’ face-to-face gatherings before the pandemic, (...) but had been absent since the group was forced to meet online. The article starts with individual, subjective descriptions of this experience by the two educators. Subsequently, these so-called thick descriptions are interpreted and analysed. The purpose of zooming in on this particular experience is to gain insight into what pedagogical forms contributed to the enabling of this perceived authentic connectedness in the digital sphere. (shrink)

While virtual simulations are a familiar professional training tool, they have only recently been implemented in teacher education programs. These simulations are used to complement traditional student teacher placement. In this paper, the author critically examines one teacher training simulation, TeachLivE, specifically in terms of its implicit conceptions of what it means to teach and to learn. The analysis utilizes Aristotle’s explanation of the Greek concepts energeia and dunamis, as well as Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. The author argues that (...) TeachLivE’s structure implies an ontology of teaching and learning that precludes the cultivation of a teacherly disposition, and that, were this ontology to be corrected, teacher training simulations would be rendered superfluous. (shrink)

In this paper I consider one aspect of how student writing is supported in the university. I focus on the use of the 'writing frame', questioning its status as a vehicle for facilitating student voice, and in the process questioning how that notion is itself understood. I illustrate this by using examples from the story of the 1944 Hollywood film Gaslight and show that apparent means of facilitating voice can actually contribute to a state of voicelessness. The paper considers what (...) recovery of voice entails and the role of the 'voice coach' both in the film, and in the classroom. Drawing on the work of Stanley Cavell, his readings of Gaslight and of the American writers Thoreau and Emerson, I explore the themes of crisis and transformation in relation to the self and society. Thoreau's notion of the father tongue and his metaphor of the axe are considered in relation to the concept of voice and are shown to be suggestive of a mature relationship to language and of an Emersonian self-reliance that is denied by the mere technical skill and mastery learning of some current approaches to academic writing. (shrink)

This article offers a critique of the notion of ‘capacity building’ in educational theory. Are the intentions behind the latter enterprise as benign and altruistic as they first appear? How is the term ‘capacity building’ to be understood? The article presents a radical and daring alternative for re-invigorating educational research that foregrounds the ethical engagement of the researcher by exploring the expressive, cognitive and imaginative possibilities of language. Drawing on the Calvino's idea of the ‘lightness of thoughtfulness’, I suggest that (...) the emphasis accorded to the notion of ‘capacity building’ may detract attention from the equally significant role of incapacity in helping us to move the discussion forward in a responsive and ethical way. (shrink)