In this paper, we draw attention to several important tensions between Kant’s account of moral education and his commitment to transcendental idealism. Our main claim is that, in locating freedom outside of space and time, transcendental idealism makes it difficult for Kant to both provide an explanation of how moral education occurs, but also to confirm that his own account actually works. Having laid out these problems, we then offer a response on Kant’s behalf. We argue that, while it (...) might look like Kant has to abandon his commitment to either moral education or transcendental idealism, there is a way in which he can maintain both. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have across the ages been amazed about the fact that development and learning often lead to not just a merely incremental and gradual change in the learner but sometimes to a result that is strikingly different from the learner’s original situation: amazed, but at times also worried. Both philosophical and cognitive neuroscientific insights suggest that experts appear to perform ‘different’ tasks compared to beginners who behave in a similar way. These philosophical and empirical perspectives give some insight (...) into what happens when a novice is transitioning to a stage of expertise. Generally, this implies that increased skill and expertise support better results and a more flexible performance, in part because these allow an agent to withdraw part of her attention and other cognitive resources from the tasks involved, enabling her to devote those resources to supporting, or completely different, tasks. As positive as these developments appear, these changes have also raised concerns. The main concern is whether gaining expertise is like raising a ‘cognitive monster’ which escapes the individual’s conscious control and influences her actions with undesirable automatisms. If so, we should ask ourselves whether experts are capable of taming this monster. The answer appears initially not to be positive. Indeed, it has been noted that since it is difficult for experts to withhold automatic responses this can lead to inflexibility or performance that is only optimal under certain conditions, because it is limited to a specific domain, often context-dependent, biased and inflexible. In what follows, I will consider this challenge of protecting expertise and harnessing this brittleness from philosophical and cognitive neuroscientific perspectives. Taking into account that action is in general determined by a multitude of factors, with learning and development affecting how these factors exert their influence, a philosophical question is how this complex and dynamic process can be explained and subsequently, how controlling it might be understood. First, though, I will present the issue at hand more closely: should we appreciate expertise if it is similar to growing a ‘cognitive monster’? Second, I will introduce the framework of a “Sculpted Space of Actions” (Keestra, 2014), which I developed in order to explain how the challenge of selecting an adequate option for action is facilitated by expertise as it helps to constrain the space of potential action options. Subsequently, the question is raised of how such a Sculpted Space of Actions influences an expert’s engagement with specific situations, like teaching students in a classroom setting. It will be argued that a well prepared expert—teacher or otherwise— is not only able to rely upon her routines but will at the same time be more perceptive and attentive to unforeseen events and actions, according to the recent cognitive neuroscientific theory of Predictive Processing. Integrating the theory of Predictive Processing with the Sculpted Space of Actions framework, I conclude that expertise contributes to adaptive and flexible responses to specific contexts, yet only if it is associated with explicit planning and articulation of situation specific intentions—the latter effectively putting the cognitive monster at rest for a while. (shrink)

Education can transform our cognitive world. Recent use of enactivist and enactivist-friendly work to propose understanding transformational learning in terms of affective reframing is a promising first step to understanding how we can have or inculcate transformational learning in different ways without relying on meta-cognition. Building on this work, I argue that to fully capture the kind of perspectival changes that occur in transformational learning we need to further distinguish between ways of reorienting one’s perspective, and I specify why different (...) ways are differently valuable. I propose that recent approaches to Confucian ritual provide a clue to what is missing in characterisations of perspective transformation and the resultant transformed perspective. I argue that focussing on ritualised interpersonal interactions provides a further clue as to what’s missing from a mere appeal to the ritual-based inculcation of new perspectives, namely the kind of lightness and flexibility that some ritualised interactions encourage participants to have, and the deepening of perspective associated with that lightness. I argue that a case study of a project implementing a highly ritualised philosophical practice with prisoners in Scotland shows how these constraints, seemingly paradoxically, function so as to actually deepen the perspectival spaces of those agents. This case study provides a proof of concept for the proposal that certain forms of ritual engagement can reliably bring about the kind of transformation of perspective that is the target phenomenon of transformative learning theory. (shrink)

Humankind is facing many existential global problems that require international and transgenerational efforts to be solved. Preparing our next generation with sufficient knowledge and skills to deal with such problems is imperative. Fortunately, the digital environment provides foundational conditions for children’s and adolescents’ exploration and self-learning, which might help them cultivate the necessary knowledge and skills for future survival. We conducted the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 2069 students from 54 Vietnamese elementary, secondary, and high schools (...) to test this presumption. The results showed that students with higher digital literacy are more curious and have better knowledge regarding global issues (i.e., climate change, disease, overpopulation, aging, etc.). Students’ curiosity also mediates the relationship between digital literacy and global issues knowledge. Based on these findings, we argue that digital explorative space is essential for digital natives’ education for survival, individually (i.e., for future employment requirements) and socially (i.e., for making informed decisions and creating innovations that can be helpful to society). Children’s and adolescents’ exposure to digital explorative space should be promoted to improve their digital literacy rather than prohibition. During the exploration, emotional intelligence is critical in mitigating existential risks, or threats, to digital natives to navigate and overcome chaotic processes occurring in unchartered waters in the virtual world. (shrink)

Numerous high-profile ethics scandals, rising inequality, and the detrimental effects of climate change dramatically underscore the need for business schools to instill a commitment to social purpose in their students. At the same time, the rising financial burden of education, increasing competition in the education space, and overreliance on graduates’ financial success as the accepted metric of quality have reinforced an instrumentalist climate. These conflicting aims between social and financial purpose have created an existential crisis for business education. To (...) resolve this impasse, we draw on the concept of moral self-awareness to offer a system-theoretical strategy for crowding-in a culture of ethics within business schools. We argue that to do so, business schools will need to (1) reframe the purpose of business, (2) reframe the meaning of professional success, and (3) reframe the ethos of business education itself. (shrink)

The relationship between space and human occurs through the actions performed with the body. The abstraction study as an exploration of the body is one of the significant practices for first-year design students. However, there are not enough investigations for design students regarding body, space and basic design principles. This paper aims to explore the potentiality and limitations of the body-abstraction process by comparing the impact of two different educational models on students' perception and improvement. The applied (...) methodology includes comparing two design processes of the basic design course depending on parameters: Given example, source of the video, type of movement, the number of the selected-used scenes, mode of sketching, the method for production, requested outcome, the scale of the study, the material of models and critique of the video. The results present that the activation of the body through mental practice, drawing and modelling stages is critical to understand its abstract and spatial capabilities. The realisation of the potentials in the relationship between body and abstraction in spatial perception would enable us to create an advanced design process addressing more original concepts. (shrink)

Engineering and technology aim to lead a better life for people. But the meaning of “better” is highly contested in modern democratic societies where different citizens have different cultures and values. Engineers, as one of the citizens in such societies, are also living in multicultural and multi-value settings, and therefore they need to be responsible for such diversity when they engage in technological developments. Therefore, in engineering education, it is necessary to aim at not only acquiring the specialized technological knowledge (...) but also cultivating citizenship. By citizenship, it refers to a set of abilities to communicate and care for people with respect by taking into account different opinions and expertise of others. Nevertheless, this has not been emphasized much in engineering education in Japan. For example, even in the class of engineering ethics, emphasis is placed more on the acquisition of textbook-based knowledge and virtue of problem cases, and less on abilities to discuss freely and gently. Then, in general education of NIT we have conducted a dialogue-based educational program where learners/students ask questions, listen together and discuss with others. This program is designed based upon so-called Philosophy for/with Children (P4C). Matthew Lipman, one of the founders of P4C, defined the primary aim of P4C as multidimensional- thinking: critical thinking, creative thinking, and caring thinking. In addition, this multidimensional- thinking may, according to many P4C scholars, have a potential of creating active citizenry. The discussion by P4C has three characteristics as follows: 1) People make a circle in the classroom and create a space where students can feel an emotional and intellectual “safety”. 2)Questions being discussed is proposed by students themselves based on their interests, not by teachers 3) Rather than rushing to reach a conclusion, students are asked to concentrate on listening to the differences between each other. This paper begins by explaining what P4C is and why/how P4C is suitable for citizenship education, and then the following sections show our P4C classes in NIT (Tokyo and Ube) and learner's responses. Finally, we claim that the “community of inquiry” created through P4C can prevent the “self- righteousness” of engineers. (shrink)

Some international researchers assume that there is a lack of ethical review of research in many countries of the Global South. However, numerous African countries have recently introduced local and national research ethics guidelines. This article unpacks how ethical reviews of research in education are negotiated in a higher education institution in Ethiopia. It employs a critical analytical lens to challenge some of the assumptions of Beaty’s (2010) Institutional Review Board (IRB) stakeholder model. The article begins with a discussion of (...) the limitations inherent in the IRB model. Critical analyses of institutional documents and non-confidential, off-the-shelf IRB minutes are also conducted. The analysis shows that researchers within the medical and health sciences disciplines have well established organisational engagement when it comes to handling issues related to research ethics. However, limited representation of the educational and social and behavioural science disciplines remains a challenge. Furthermore, ethical issues in conducting educational research are hardly addressed in the national guidelines for granting research ethics approval. This results in further marginalisation of the contributions of educational research to knowledge production. (shrink)

Selective permeability holds that people’s distinct capacities allow them to do different things in a space, making it unequally accessible. Though mainly applied to urban geography so far, we propose selective permeability as an affordance-based approach for understanding diversity in education. This has advantages. First, it avoids dismissing lower achievements as necessarily coming from “within” students, instead locating challenges in the environment. This implies that settings (not just people) need remedial attention, also raising questions about normative judgments in disability (...) nomenclature. Second, affordances can be negotiated in numerous ways to reach a goal, analogously to how people with missing arms have learned to drive with their feet, so restrictive problem-solving methods are often counterproductive. Third, our approach illuminates how cultural factors ranging from gait styles to language and hence group coordination modulate action possibilities, so that cultural groups may encounter objectively different affordances in the same classroom. But fourth, while fit with environment allows for skill refinement, non-fit can contribute to growth situations, which suggests a degree of selective closure can be desirable. Throughout, we argue social constructs—including educational ones—are literally built or enacted barriers or openings that have reality in environments in the same way that affordances do. (shrink)

Democratic education is one of the significant challenges facing state education in Israel. This is one of the most sophisticated versions of alternative education, which clearly criticizes the traditional education that is centered on curricula and the assessment industry that brought the strongest expression.) This article seeks to contribute to the discussion of the place of democratic education as normalizing education. Democratic schools in Israel, as a space of opportunity and limitations. The article will incorporate a historical overview of (...) the philosophical approach underpinning democratic education while highlighting the opportunities it provides as a space of active and vigilant dialogue, both on its organizational and pedagogical dimensions, and will seek to clarify its social and educational opportunities. (shrink)

By its nature, comparative education values diversity. Respectfully studying how different groups pursue education provides opportunities to learn about the variety of human experience, expand the boundaries of the field, and ultimately re-understand ourselves. At its core, the field leverages the dynamic space between life as culturally located and being human. This chapter contributes value to comparative education from an Oceanic viewpoint. Oceania is the world region with more water and languages than any other. Because of its diversity and (...) colonial histories, Oceania is a site of creative tension between regionalism and self-determination. Unsurprisingly, conflict exists in the region. However, a key need in our ‘sea of islands’ for sustainability is to live well together. Faced with the uncertainties of the future such as climate change, mutual understanding and support is at a premium. The collaboration of writers; Solomon Islander, Tongan, and Anglo-Welsh, embodies this, as does the chapter’s woven mat-based structure. The thrust of this chapter is that through walking backwards into the future and embracing solidarity through diversity, we can promote a sustainable educational journey that offers the hope of continuity in the face of the challenges ahead. (shrink)

This study aims to examine how interdisciplinary urban interventions within architectural education can effectively address social justice issues. Motivated by the growing need for inclusive and equitable urban spaces, this research explores the potential of collaborative design and participatory research methods to foster social awareness and community engagement. Focusing on student-led projects in cities such as Houston, San Diego, and Amsterdam, this study addresses social justice challenges across themes like Art Activism, Tactical Urbanism, environmental justice, and gender equity. Using case (...) study analysis, digital mapping, and poster creation as core methodologies, the research demonstrates the value of multi-scalar, interdisciplinary approaches in tackling complex urban problems. The key findings highlight that integrating these approaches into architectural education promotes critical engagement with social justice issues, equipping students with practical skills for future professional challenges. The implications suggest that expanding this framework to diverse urban contexts could enhance its impact, offering a foundation for further studies on interdisciplinary design as a tool for urban equity. (shrink)

Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship (Stratton, 2016) is much more than a history book about American education. It is a critical work that provides philosophical undertones that challenge our perception about the imperial roles of the U.S. school system. Stratton very clearly and meticulously presents the intricate relationship between history, civics, and geography within school curricula and textbooks. He shows us how these subjects have been manipulated by those in power to promote a (...) hidden agenda. One that instills national pride, American loyalty, and patriotism, and is designed to turn students into supporters of U.S. imperialism and of their racial and class hierarchies. An example of this is Stratton’s own examination of the content of books like, Complete Geography written in 1899. Stratton claims this text was widely used in American public schools and it explicitly states that, “the Caucasian or white race is most intelligent and most powerful of all races.” Education for Empire: American Schools, Race, and the Paths of Good Citizenship helps us understand why it has taken so much time for people of color, like me, to occupy academic spaces and to begin the dismantling of oppressive governmental and pedagogical systems that have intentionally kept us from having a dignified education. (shrink)

The first year of design education is essential for students as it is their initial interaction with the design process. Awareness of the body through dance has the potential to reveal bodily experience in space. Abstraction of embodied experience contributes to realising the significance of the body and its analytical dimension for spatial and structural design. This study investigates the impact of embodied experience and abstraction on the architectural design process and the outcome through correlation and regression analysis. We (...) observed that increasing awareness of the space through bodily movement and its drawn representation positively impacted students’ success in architectural design. Also, the measures related to space and structure mainly advanced students’ success in the final design. However, the association of the abstraction process with the final design remained limited. The study’s contribution is the systematic and statistical evaluation of the relationship between body, movement, abstraction and architectural design by constructing a set of measures from various stages of the design studio. We hope our research will provide a basis for the upcoming discourse. (shrink)

The essay approaches the relationship between education, didactic content and transamazonic geography. Objective to question the sharing of the sensitive present in the current format of geocartographic contents in the textbooks, as well as to express, in an embryonic state, the possibility of another sharing, centered in the emerging geography of the places on the verge of the Transamazonica Paraense, especially students and teachers in vicinal , Valuing localized expressions as paths of educational geocartography. Methodologically, the text is part (...) of the action-research movement inspired by the existential phenomenological atmosphere. I conclude as a suggestion of deepening that: the transamazonic between-places, materialized in the vicinities, is ignored as a space for the creative existence of other regional narratives; Generalizing geographical fictions must be confronted with other fictions, in view of the differentiation and creation of new positions and interpretability criteria of the Amazônia; The corporal engagement and the experiences in the field require description, interpretation and understanding, already begun, but not yet affirmed in terms of the production of dialogical content with what already circulates via didactic books; It is central to focus the subjectivity and corporeality of individuals / collectives as creative powers of the space culture, not just recipients of that culture. (shrink)

This article considers friendship as a channel for education and as one of its objectives, as it is a necessary ingredient for a fulfilled life. This requires an initial study of interpersonal relationships in the postmodern context, considering their opportunities and risks. Our aim is to draw a topography of these relationships by analysing texts by major thinkers of the last four decades. The result of this analysis is the core of the article, namely, that there are four categories which (...) seem to give a proper account of the characteristics of interpersonal relationships in postmodernity and are relevant in education: 1) the questioning of the individual; 2) the appearance of the internet; 3) the recoveryof emotions; and, finally; 4) the extension of the feminine space. As a conclusion, they may all be said to have an ambivalent character that requires central issues in education to be reconsidered: the awareness and emotional regulation; the new constitution of identity and intimacy on the internet; education for male-female relationships, which now exist outside the sexual sphere, and preventing violence in these relationships; as well as how to educate for cooperation in an individualistic society. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that one way in which friendship contributes to moral growth is by means of developing self-knowledge. The chapter starts out with an explanation of the privileged space that friendship offers for the cultivation of character. Next, the chapter develops the connection between friendship and self-knowledge. Here, the chapter makes a distinction between self-knowledge on the psychological level, and self-knowledge on the anthropological level. The chapter then turns to an analysis of the two proposed core (...) texts on friendship, Lewis' The Four Loves and Laín Entralgo's On Friendship, in order to articulate a pathway for character education at university. (shrink)

This text is part of an on going research. It deals with the relationship between the production and experience of the places on the edge of the Trans-Amazon Highway (BR 230), which cuts the North and a Northeast portion in the East-West direction. Considering its programmatic sense of occupation of the territory, as opposed to the explanation already accepted, which expresses the road as an engineering system, therefore, means to flow, is that I propose to think the road as an (...) everyday living space, emphasizing the educational dimension to understand the existence of places. My purpose is to analyze the spatial imagination underlying the external understanding to the Trans-Amazon, in the educational plan, regarding the unique geographicity produced by local groups living near the road. Methodologically, I seek a dialogue between a phenomenological design and the existentialism, developing field of research procedures, literature review that supports the concepts of spatial imaginations, place and field education, critical reading of official documents in the MEC sites imagery record in dialogue with the representation of those that live on the edge of “Strip”. As an indication of preliminary findings point out: 1. The denial of places as a geopolitical strategy which is materialized in the educational process and planning politics; 2. The inescapable geographicity of groups that self recognize and are related contradictorily to the Trans-Amazon Highway; 3. The Countryside Education as opening or denial of the place, both for those who live it, and for those who do not live it, which can be ignorance widespread factor in terms of knowledge of the Amazon spatiality or coping and creation of a new geographic and cartographic knowledge about the places cut by “Strip”. (shrink)

A safe and secure environment is an essential part of the early childhood development of any child. This study aims to investigate the safety and protection practices of early childhood centers in the Anambra state, Nigeria, and to determine if any improvements can be made to them. This study analyzed data collected from 60 Early Childhood Care Centers (ECCE Centers) and 60 Pre-Primary Schools (Preprimary School) in Anambra State using the Evaluation of ECCE Implementation Kit (KEIEP), direct observation, and unstructured (...) interviews, all of which were conducted using the evaluation tool. Using descriptive statistics, chi-squares, and student t-statistics, the data were analyzed. According to the results of this study, 28.0% of the private ECCE centers were in compliance with the requirements for enough space for children to play, fenced facilities, a standard first aid box, a splint bandage and an antiseptic. It is important to note that the majority of public early childhood education centers (62.0%) comply with the requirements for fencing, a first aid box, splint bandages, cotton wool, antiseptic, scissors, methylated spirit, liniment, analgesics, and thermometers, whereas 31% of those centers do not have the remaining seven practices. A conclusion of the study was that both private and public ECCE centers in Anambra State comply with the safety and protection provisions and practices in place. (shrink)

Field of education is associated with herculean task and innate responsibility of escorting societies forward. Across space and time, it has been an unambiguous synthesis that education should precede any progress or change. It helps humans to understand themselves and better their interaction with rest of the society. Hence the field of education and dissemination of knowledge is very much a pivotal entity in the evolution of human civilisation. No country in the globe over centuries could afford to flourish (...) on the paths of growth and development while ignoring the crucial role of education. Country like India where in there has been a perpetual struggle over the decades to overcome perils of colonisation and social stigmatisation reflective in terms of poverty, unemployment and illiteracy. In order to overcome these bottlenecks ‘knowledge dissemination’ must spearhead the change. Apart from other funding inadequacies, infrastructural lacunae, education sector in India has also been grappling with certain innate contradicting and counterproductive structures. Hence in this paper we have made an effort to address and assess the nature and impact of these dichotomies over the field of Education in India. (shrink)

This study aimed to examine the perception of Engineering students about importance of educational needs and satisfaction about it. A descriptive correlational design was used for this study. The present study was conducted at engineering faculties in Dire Dawa University. The present study included a total coverage sample includes all four academic years engineering students during academic year (2021). Total number of students was (n = 727). The study tool consisted of Engineering Education Satisfaction Instrument (EESI) consist of two (...) questions (question one about importance of educational needs and question 2 about satisfaction with the educational needs) contained the same items, the five sub‐scales related to the five levels. This study revealed that, there was a highly statistical significant differences among the four academic years engineering students as all 5th year engineering students had reported that the educational needs is very important and a highly statistical significant differences among the students of the 4 academic years in which the second year and 3rd year students had the highest mean scores according to perception of the engineering students about satisfaction with the educational needs. There was a highly statistically significant positive relationship between perceptions of the engineering students in the four academic years about the importance of educational needs. Also, observed that there was a highly statistically significant negative relationship between perceptions of the engineering students in the four academic years about the satisfaction of educational needs. Ask authoritative persons to improve educational environment through providing more space and educational resources for conducting teaching learning process. (shrink)

In this paper, we give a flavour of how, against the odds, Reggio-Emilia-inspired pedagogical documentation can work in reconceptualizing environmental education, reconfiguring child subjectivity and provoking an ontological shift from autopoiesis to sympoiesis in teacher education. Working posthuman(e)ly and transdisciplinarily across three foundation phase teacher education courses at a university in South Africa, we situate our teaching within current environmental precarities. We show how we stirred up trouble in and outside our university classroom and provoked our students to “make kin” (...) with children, each other, other animals, and the more-than-human, but also to stay with the trouble, that is, to learn to be truly present in colonized spaces. (shrink)

The article explores the landscape in higher education in which old binary divisions are officially denied yet have been reinvigorated through a mix of conservative and neo-liberal policies. Efforts to resist such pressures can happen at different levels, including, in this case, module design and classroom practice. The rationale for such resistance is considered in relationship to the authors’ political and moral standpoints. Debates within higher education policy circles are invariably reduced to a series of oppositions: theory and practice; training (...) and education; research and teaching. The article seeks to break down such polarities through an exploration of classroom practice. In fact, we argue that such distinctions help to legitimize the existing inequalities in higher education and group-based harms, which characterize the sector. Instead, a case is made for a pedagogy that enables students, particularly those from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds, to use their experiences, values, etc. to exchange and develop ideas in a group context, thereby providing an important means of collective empowerment (intellectual and practical, both at work and in their private lives). In this process students are encouraged to use ethical theories as tools to explain and underpin their understanding of work-based scenarios. The role of the academic is to facilitate such exchanges and foster new ethical approaches and a public awareness and engagement that goes beyond the classroom. The pedagogic approach, drawing on notions of relational autonomy and narrative methods as well as providing spaces for the co-production of new knowledge, confirms the indivisibility of research and teaching. (shrink)

Unless indigenous languages are revitalized in research and instruction, education itself will become the totalizing machine that will shut off spaces of discourse in the regions. This is due to the fact that language is the primary medium through which education and its cosmopolitan aims are carried out in pedagogical institutions. Knowledge, skills and principles are structurally transmitted in schools that employ the mainstream language either of the national, i.e., Filipino, or the international level, i.e., English, in instruction. But the (...) hegemony of the mainstream language, without discounting the cosmopolitan value of the aims of education, threatens to silence diverse voices of discourses that operate within local and regional spaces. This threat becomes real when the agents of the educational enterprise in the regions embrace the promise of cosmopolitanism at the expense of or to the forgetfulness of their own socio-cultural resources especially their language. (shrink)

Replacing the value-free ideal (VFI) for science requires attention to the broader understanding of how science in society should function. In public spaces, science needed to project the VFI in norms for science advising, science education, and science communication. This resulted in the independent science advisor model and a focus on science literacy for science education and communication. Attending to these broader implications of the VFI which structure science and society relationships is crucial if we are to properly replace the (...) VFI with a better ideal. (shrink)

The article describes a comparative analysis of research on the approaches and peculiarities of the implementation of supervision and intervision in the professional activity of teachers abroad and in Ukraine. The concept of supervision and intervision in the work of teachers in the secondary school is revealed. The use of supervision and interference in the professional activity of teachers makes it possible to effectively prevent their emotional and professional burnout. It is noted that in Ukraine, for the first time, a (...) program of psychosocial support, which includes regular supervision for teachers and school psychologists, was developed and implemented by specialists of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with the support of UNICEF in the eastern regions of the country where the military conflict has been taking place. However, among the teachers around the country, this practice is not used because there is no system for the preparation of supervisors; most teachers are not familiar with this concept at all. Intervision in schools abroad is quite developed, it is carried out systematically, it is aimed at creating a special and safe space for professional support, exchange of experience, and information, and it prevents emotional and professional degradation. In Ukrainian schools, the intervision between colleagues is partial. Therefore, this form of work needs support and development from the school administration. Examples of the plan of work during intervision among the teachers on the basis of foreign experience are given and recommendations on conducting intervision in pedagogical collectives are offered. (shrink)

This article investigates the specific cultural and collaborative nature of China’s public spaces and how they are formed through performative appropriations. Collective cultural practices as political participation were encouraged during the Mao era when cultural activities played a key role in workers’ education and participation. Since the opening-up period, performance in public space has become widespread in China and creates alternative community spaces that constitute alternatives to capitalist spaces of consumption. Using Habermas’s theory of communicative action, we argue that (...) cultural practices performed in public space create a proletariat public sphere that plays a wider role in governance and China’s democratization. Further, the article examines performative practices in public space. It traces the popular activity of public square dancing through history and counters this research with a parallel study of a much younger skateboarding practice. The two practices are very differently rooted. Yet both practices appear to move through cycles of disruption and appropriation, followed by an affirmation of governmental rule. The studies reveal that western ideas of citizenship and individual leisure are less applicable. Public spaces are largely managed through collaborative practices, whereas contemporary scholarship reaffirms Fei Xiaotong’s description of Chinese society as individuals positioned within a complex network of concentric circles. (shrink)

A short summary paper of my Orbital Space Domain Ontology project (purl.org/space-ontology), originally conceived in 2011. Since then I've sought (without success) opportunities to realize it (either as a PhD or other degree thesis; or in an employment position) toward my original passion of entering the space sector and gaining further space education. Since then persons in the relevant space disciplines have seen the potential in it, and unfortunately some have taken advantage of my ideas (...) yet excluded me from work. I continue to struggle to fight for my own ideas as I see others professionally and financially benefit at my expense. References and documentation are available upon request to confirm my early ideation and origination on this topic. Please contact me if you have opportunities. Thank you. (shrink)

Based upon the Ukrainian hierarchs’ epistolary legacy, the article analyzes characteristic features of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy intellectual space, which was created by Academy alumni of different generations and various hierarchy levels. The author establishes that the closest relations were between correspondents belonging to the same or almost same hierarchy level and who were bonded together by the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy educational system and school comradeship, eventually obtained high positions in the hierarchy. Communication within the boundaries of individual centers (the Kyiv-Mohyla (...) Academy, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, collegiums in Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Pereiaslav, seats of Ukrainian bishops in Russia, etc.) depended on specificity of the environment. Predominant themes encountered in the letters of the Ukrainian bishops included needs of the alma mater, the Kyiv Academy, and the collegiums. The correspondence addressed issues of their legal status, academic staff, financial support, as well as the literary work and publishing activities of the hierarchs. (shrink)

Background: Although inclusive education is widely discussed, its implementation has not, arguably, been far-reaching. There remains a lack of specific, targeted approaches towards fully including learners with physical and mental impairments in the educational space. Objectives: This study investigated the extent of the inclusion of learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in three schools in Johannesburg. Method: A qualitative interpretivist design was adopted. Teachers who work with learners with ASD were interviewed using open-ended questions. The sampled data were (...) analysed using thematic analysis, making use of both a priori codes and emergent codes that arose from the open-ended questions. Results: The findings reveal numerous pedagogic strategies such as differentiation, scaffolding, use of visual cues, group work and collaboration that can include learners with ASD in the classroom space. Conclusion: Teacher collaboration and teacher training are vital in ensuring that learners with ASD are fully included in the classroom space. (shrink)

In the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy, Lauren Freeman (2014) advocates that faculty turn their classrooms into “safe spaces” as a method for increasing the diversity of philosophy majors. The creation of safe spaces is meant to make women and minority students “feel sufficiently comfortable” and thereby increase the likelihood that they pursue philosophy as a major or career. Although I agree with Freeman’s goal, I argue that philosophers, and faculty in general, should reject the call for turning classrooms (...) into “safe spaces.” I begin by distinguishing extra-curricular safe spaces from the classroom as a safe space. I then argue that although faculty should not object to extra-curricular safe spaces, they should reject curricular ones. I argue that the classroom as a safe space is currently an impractical and inappropriate goal given the nature of academic philosophy, and that encouraging students to think of classrooms as safe/unsafe does not facilitate learning. Nonetheless, I agree with Freeman that faculty should take steps to ensure that students from all backgrounds have the tools they need to be successful in the classroom. I further argue that faculty calls for safe spaces creates confusion concerning the educative environment one should expect to find at the majority of America universities. (shrink)

In recent years, the educational-system development specialization of the MA program in the University of Haifa’s Faculty of Education has held an annual seminar on Philosophy for/with Children (P4wC). Under my guidance, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, and Circassian students have formed a group embodying a living and breathing dialogical space. Despite the global spread of P4wC principles following the emergence of the P4C movement promoted by the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry and its practice in dozens of national (...) and regional centers, neither approach is formally taught in Israeli universities and colleges. Both thus remain outside the pedagogical mainstream, the University of Haifa—where I teach—being the only institution at which they can be studied at an MA level. I have also established the Israeli Academic Forum for Philosophy with Children, which conducts seminars and offers professional development, etc. (shrink)

From its inception, philosophy for/with children (P4wC) has sought to promote philosophical discussion with children based on the latter’s own questions and a pedagogic method designed to encourage critical, creative, and caring thinking. Communities of inquiry can be plagued by power struggles prompted by diverse identities, however. These not always being highlighted in the literature or P4wC discourse, this article proposes a two-stage model for facilitators as part of their ethical responsibility. In the first phase, they should free themselves from (...) assumptions and closed-mindedness. They should liberate themselves from pedagogy of fear and “banking education” in order to act freely in an educational space characterized by improvisation that cultivates participation of the children. Here, the text is based on normalizing education principles, counter-education and diasporic-education approaches in order to ensure openness and inclusiveness. In the second, they should embrace enabling-identity views and practices in order to make the community of inquiry as identity-broad and -rich as possible, recognizing and legitimizing the participants’ differences. Here, the text is based on principles such as recognizing power games as part of the community, ensuring multi-narratives human environment and enabling epistemic justice in order to ensure perspectival multiplicity, multiple identities, and the legitimization of difference characterized by pedagogy of search. (shrink)

The emergence of COVID-19 has made it ever more onerous for the world economy to rethink the way things are done and to be done. The need and almost compulsory way of services being catered for will never have been made so practically obvious without the influence of a pandemic like COVID-19. The world at some point in time was almost brought to a standstill, with services pertaining to supply-chain deliverables, education / professional development and many more almost brought to (...) a halt. This paper has the platform for critically assessing the pathway SSA economies (SSA) should follow, notably creativity in new technologies, while adopting a stance on ISI approach in order to reduce its reliance on the importation of essential commodities, which seem to have been a worrying concern throughout the crisis of COVID-19. Suggestions for SSA economies to embrace the notion of creative destruction is the focal point in this paper for the realization of growth and development, while at the same time harnessing the power of human integrity to champion competitive innovation. (shrink)

The increasing religious diversity in educational space has raised a legitimate question on how Catholic theology/ catechesis must be taught in Philippine Catholic universities given the institutional mandate to educate students “into the faith of the Church through teaching of Christian doctrine in an organic and systematic way” (Wuerl, 2013, 1). On this note, the paper makes reference to “centered plural- ism” (CP), a positional posture espoused by Georgetown University in dealing with this predicament. In an attempt to (...) (re) appropriate CP into local context, there is a need to explore the Filipino conception of self/others as enveloped within the indigenous concept of kapwa. Hereon, the paper finds that CP is not just feasibly suitable in local context but with kapwa's more inclusive description of the relationship of self and others, a CP‐based teaching paradigm in theology/ catechesis is a promising project in the educational scene of the Philippines. (shrink)

The study of a person existence in Internet space is certainly an actual task, since the Internet is not only a source of innovation, but also the cause of society's transformations and the social and cultural problems that arise in connection with this. Computer network is global. It is used by people of different professions, age, level and nature of education, living around the world and belonging to different cultures. It complicates the problem of developing common standards of behavior, (...) a system of norms and rules that could be widely accepted by all users. On the other hand, the Internet space can be viewed as a new form of existence where physical laws do not work, and in connection with this, social ones are often questioned. This paper focuses on how social norms regulate relations in Internet space. The authors represents the typology of deviant behavior in the network. The empirical basis of the research includes the sociological survey of students of the senior courses in the Institute of Computer Science and Technology of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University. Sociological survey allows to identify students’ understanding of Internet space. The selection of students is conditioned by the fact that IT professionals are considered simultaneously as ordinary users of the network and as future professionals in this field. (shrink)

Education moves in the space of distance between those who are coming into the world and the world that they arrive. Since Modern Age, this distance formed by the opposing subject and object, has tended to be an impassable abyss. In this way, the world unfolds in two: the world whose image under investigation in the field of Education is the blackboard, and the world of everyday life. In front of the blackboard the student is installed, constituted as a (...) subject, which should curtail the reality until it fits with the security and accuracy of mathematical world-object-blackboard. The world of ordinary life is there and education does not know what to deal with it, and have it for non-existent. The reality held by non-existent prevents people’s existential integration. But there’s another kind of Educations that integrates and includes subjective and objective world and needs the courage to accept and even demand the new perspectives of those who are coming to build a more complete and always risky world. (shrink)

In its ideal conception, the post-apartheid education landscape is regarded as a site of transformation that promotes democratic ideals such as citizenship, freedom, and critical thought. The role of the educator is pivotal in realising this transformation in the learners she teaches, but this realisation extends beyond merely teaching the curriculum to the educator herself, as the site where these democratic ideals are embodied and enacted. The teacher is thus centrally placed as a moral agent whose behaviour, in the classroom (...) space particularly, should, ideally, represent and communicate the values we aspire to cultivate in post-apartheid South African society generally. Thus, this notion of what teaching encompasses fits broadly into the conception of a “practice” in the sense developed by Alasdair MacIntyre, in that it is a transformative activity the enactment of which not only benefits the practitioner, but also extends to and benefits the broader community as well. Furthermore, practices are grounded in features of social or moral life we hold to be significant and, importantly, it is only through their active cultivation that they can be made tangible and further developed. MacIntyre’s theory of virtue is based on a three-fold interrelationship between practices, how they meaningfully narrate and shape an individual life, and how, in turn, this builds and sustains our moral and social traditions. Using these ideas to analyse post-apartheid South Africa, and the structural transformation paradox it is in, reveals the difficult and complex nature of a society that is in this transitional space. The claim is that attentiveness to practices in the educational space, and to the way they shape and inform moral and social traditions, is necessary to more fully understand and guide this societal transformation. (shrink)

The article conceptualizes the term Pedagogy of Fear as the master narrative of educational systems around the world. Pedagogy of Fear stunts the active and vital educational growth of the young person, making him/her passive and dependent upon external disciplinary sources. It is motivated by fear that prevents young students—as well as teachers—from dealing with the great existential questions that relate to the essence of human beings. One of the techniques of the Pedagogy of Fear is the internalization (...) of the view that without evaluation and assessment we cannot know a child’s level or “worth”—and therefore are unable to help him/her if he is “slow in learning.” In contrast, Philosophy for/with Children offers a space for addressing existential questions, some of which deal with urgent social issues. The willingness to make philosophy inquiry an alternative already from an early age seeks to allow the child to challenge him/herself with new and fresh questions. Philosophy for/with Children does not regard children as a “space of lack” (experience, knowledge, values, etc.) The new and fresh philosophical perspective of children demands the presence of a willingness to engage in dialogue and rejection of the fear of the innocent and deep questions of philosophy. Shaking free of the Pedagogy of Fear and restoring honor to children’s questions demands a fundamental conceptual change within education. The replacement of existential certainty as it is depicted by adults in the existing education system with an existential question is a heavy intellectual task that in most cases is viewed as subversive—primarily on the part of the adult. It demands a return to starting points and a willingness to allow children a free and safe educational space in which to ground preliminary and fertile questions about themselves, their lives, their environment, and, most of all, the changing world they discover with the form of originality that is right for them. (shrink)

The 21st century imposed many challenges on mankind, among them there is a very important problem of entrepreneurial leadership transformation. Entrepreneurship gradual modification under the pressure of factors of innovation, informatization of the environment and the need for socialization of the relations between businessmen and society has led to the need of new understanding of leadership positions. The purpose of this scientific research is to substantiate the style of entrepreneurial leadership, which will become dominant in the 21st century. Analyzing and (...) systematizing the scientific works of many modern scholars by the methods of theoretical synthesis, analysis and synthesis, we have solved the problems of entrepreneurial leadership transformation. The use of the historical and logical method has revealed the relationship between the entrepreneurial leadership development and entrepreneurial types. The study found that the global business environment requires new leaders, whose key competences will meet the needs of society, educational space, ethical requirements, etc. Studying the similarities and differences of various leadership styles has become the basis for the allocation of a new style – the leadership of conscious influence, the main characteristics of which are given in this research. In order to achieve the goals, set by the leader-entrepreneur, it is proposed to systematize the leadership opportunities on tactical and strategic, the factors of influence on their realization in the future are generalized. By the method of scientific and theoretical prediction the portrait of an entrepreneur in a global perspective has been formed. Prospects for further research in this area are the development of a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of business leaders' actions and systematization of ways to increase their effectiveness in the future. (shrink)

Due to the innovative nature of the world economy and the continuity of scientific and technological progress, intellectualization becomes one of the world's leading trends. The article is aimed to evaluate the state of intellectualization of the national economy of Ukraine in the context of globalization. In the article the existing approaches are considered, which are used by international organizations and expert agencies to evaluate the intellectualization level of the countries around the world. The indicators of the state of intellectualization, (...) available in the publications of the State statistics service of Ukraine have been researched. The author's deductive description of the intellectualization state of the regions (on the basis of twenty four indicators) and of types of economic activity (three indicators) of the national economy has been presented. It has been determined, that in the today's circumstances, an increasing of intellectualization level of the Ukrainian economy could happen, on the one hand, by means of getting balanced the status of intellectualization of the regions, given their natural resource potential, the socio-economic situation and the international human resources movement. On the other hand, this can happen due to introduction of new forms of national economic policies for human resources development in the fields of IT-technologies, information services, sports, education, space industry, tourism. The scientific novelty and practical importance, as well as originality of the obtained results is represented by an elaborated methodological framework for evaluating the state of the intellectualization of the national economy plus a further projecting of mechanisms of intellectualization of Ukraine in the worldwide context. (shrink)

COMUNIDADES DE DIALOGO E INDAGACION, PARA EXPERIENCIAS AGROECOLOGICAS EN EDUCACION INTERCULTURAL / CommunitIes of Dialogue and Inquiry, for agroecological experiences about intercultural education La Comunidad de indagación, practicada como herramienta para facilitar diálogos interculturales en el ámbito de la AgroEcología, en combinación con el “Método de Campesino a Campesino”. Propuestas metodológicas de la Filosofía con niñez y adolescencia, adaptadas a espacios educativos en zonas rurales atendiendo colectivos de diversas generaciones. Compartiremos experiencias acerca de Sistematización y Evaluación de proyectos educativos, con (...) énfasis en interculturalidad, relacionadas a la praxis de la agroecología, soberanía alimentaria y sustentabilidad. Entre Chiapas, México, del año 2001 al 2016; Huehuetenango, Guatemala, de 2009 a 2016, y una estancia como docente voluntario en el Instituto de Agroecología LatinoAmericana "IALA María Cano" en Cundinamarca, Colombia, en la primavera de 2017. Con el objetivo de compartir propuestas para otros espacios de construcción colectiva de saberes. -/- Community of Inquiry, practiced as a facilitation tool for intercultural dialogues in the environment of Agroecology, combined with the Method of “Campesino a Campesino”. Proposals from Philosophy for Children and Teenagers, adapted to rural education spaces attending to collectives of diverse ages. We´ll share experiences about systematization, and evaluating education projects with an intercultural emphasis, related with the praxis of agroecology, food sovereignity and sustainability. Between Chiapas, México, from the years 2001 to 2016; Huehuetenango, Guatemala, from 2009 to 2016, and a teaching volunteer stay during the spring of 2017 at the Institute of Agroecology for LatinAmerica “IALA María Cano” of Cundinamarca, Colombia. Aiming to share proposals for other spaces of collective construction of knowledges. (shrink)

This chapter discusses a form of pedagogy of reflection suggested to be defined as the dialogical-reflective professional-development school (DRPDS)
a framework that develops and empowers students by engaging them in a process of continual improvement, responding to diverse situations, providing stimuli for learning, and giving anchors for mediation. The pedagogy of reflection relates to dialogue not only from a theoretical historical context but also by way of example
that is, it offers empowering dialogues within the traditional teacher-training framework. (...) This chapter outlines the importance of the pedagogy of reflection in the multicultural educational space of the preservice education field in Israel, analyzing the first university PDS model. The pedagogy of reflection in the context of the educational dialogue of educators is outlined as a tool for student empowerment, achieved through a community of learners who dedicate space to the development of their whole personality within the profession, taking a moral stance toward the educational discourse, minimizing judgmentalism and prejudice, creating national/gender equality with the goal of examining the fundamental question of educational performance, and reinforcing their sense of organizational belonging within the system. In these contexts, the chapter is based on the elements of dialogical philosophy exemplified in the thought of Burbules, Nelson, Isaacs, Bohm, and Heckmann and the reflective basis of educational and organizational performance exemplified in the writings of van Manen. The chapter also presents two examples from a project in which teaching units based on dialogue and reflection were developed within a dialogic community that represents in its very being collective empowerment, the possibility of coping with problems that are too large for an individual to solve on his/her own, and an alternative to sealed and alienated organizations. (shrink)

Following neo-Aristotelians Alasdair MacIntyre and Martha Nussbaum, we claim that humans are story-telling animals who learn from the stories of diverse others. Moral agents use rational emotions, such as compassion which is our focus here, to imaginatively reconstruct others’ thoughts, feelings and goals. In turn, this imaginative reconstruction plays a crucial role in deliberating and discerning how to act. A body of literature has developed in support of the role narrative artworks (i.e. novels and films) can play in allowing us (...) the opportunity to engage imaginatively and sympathetically with diverse characters and scenarios in a safe protected space that is created by the fictional world. By practising what Nussbaum calls a ‘loving attitude’, her version of ethical attention, we can form virtuous habits that lead to phronesis (practical wisdom). In this paper, and taking compassion as an illustrative focus, we examine the ways that students’ moral education might usefully develop from engaging with narrative artworks through Philosophy for Children (P4C), where philosophy is a praxis, conducted in a classroom setting using a Community of Inquiry (CoI). We argue that narrative artworks provide useful stimulus material to engage students, generate student questions, and motivate philosophical dialogue and the formation of good habits which, in turn, supports the argument for philosophy to be taught in schools. (shrink)

Is something calling us? Maybe the heart knows something we love, but the head is not aware of or does not believe in it. In cultures driven by patriarchal modes more remains unconscious than needs to because we lack the means to contact deeper dimensions which could be inherently alive. The narrowing of epistemology is a loss of self. Considering whether the heart has qualities of self, dream, and desire may provide a framework to recognise it in an embodied education (...) and to liberate ways of knowing that can deepen subjectivities and enable potentials that were interrupted to begin ripening again. It may also encourage us to consider our relational agreements and to create educational spaces that refine attention to the hosting of futures. Setting up mirrors to make the heart more cognisable may revive individualities and what is meant to be in the world. (shrink)

This paper discusses the rhetorical problems teachers face in presenting Socratic activity to students, and it then argues that parallel problems arise in presenting liberal education to many academic colleagues. Given the nature of philosophy and the nature of expertise in today’s academy, most academics will not understand, and perhaps be hostile to, philosophy, and philosophers may sometimes seem to them both arrogant and ignorant. The contemporary academy, dominated by assumptions Weber articulates in "Science as a Vocation," does not make (...) room for philosophical activity and practitioners of philosophy in the classroom (in various departments) must adopt rhetorically appropriate postures in order to create safe spaces for Socratic activity. (shrink)

Framed within the development policies for the region, educational agendas for Latin America represent specific commitments that transcend the improvement in the results of specific tests permeating both pedagogical practices and conceptual frameworks in which these ones acquire meaning. This paper covers some of the commitments made by these agendas and develops the general framework in which participation of philosophical community is expected and required as a guarantor and promoter of the construction of spaces for reflection and action on (...) educational system. (shrink)

Throughout history, education has always been essential for humanity's justice and fundamental for the creation of a free and satisfying society with the dissemination of knowledge. Hence, in addition to the life occurrences educating people, traditional higher education methods have played an important role for a long period. However, the age of technology has changed the educational system along with the people's lifestyles to meet the continuously changing conditions. During the past twenty years, the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) (...) led to the emergence of e-learning non-traditional educational methods bringing about an innovative dimension of virtual learning. With its beneficial features provided by the Internet and various technologies, this method passes the control of time and location from the tutors to the students during the learning process. Despite the entrance of online education into the students' life many years ago, the Covid-19 outbreak initiated in 2020 turned this method into the only possible way of education for almost two years. Afterward, plenty of studies investigated its effects on students' social and academic life, mostly considering its negative impacts on their mental health and motivation due to interaction issues. They also pointed out the specific problems of tactile learner students in the lack of face-to-face design courses. As an innovative solution able to be adopted, game technologies, increasing immersion of the learner in a real-world skill, and triggering motivation are one of the best methods integrated into educational systems. Known as serious games, these games, adopted by almost any domain, convey educational content along with entertainment, increasing interaction. They train or enhance a certain skill or topic to the player by immersing them. While serious games are more expanded nowadays, they are still not being played by the mass public due to people's immersiveness expectations of a game. Hence, the Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs), with their emergence, increased the players' engagement and immersion with all types of virtual environments in digital games. This technology, however, evolved serious games area most, among others, by enabling the opportunity to provide a riskless and low-cost learning environment for real-world skills. In the process of suggesting serious games as a replacement for the traditional educational methods, the most important factor is being aware of their effectiveness for education. Generally, digital games, one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing industries, rely heavily on the virtual landscape, a major part of its development process. Its design demands remarkable effort, and it directly affects the whole game's characteristics. Hence, serious games, as a type of digital game, carry the same attributes. With the appearance of virtual reality technology, gaming started to gain more immersiveness and engagement with artificial elements and environments. Although virtual landscapes were always being developed since the emergence of digital games, the studies taking virtual landscapes into account are mostly using them as a tool for enhancing real spaces, not as a domain for the sake of its development. While other design domains are applying various design methodologies, it is challenging to find a standard design methodology for the design and production of virtual landscapes in the gaming industry, leading to inconsistent and low-quality results. Hence, it comes to the question of what is the virtual landscapes' role in serious games and their effect on the data comprehension rate. Since the literature lacks regarding the gradual change of the virtual landscape in serious games and the content they transmit, this thesis aims to figure out the gradual chronological evolution of the virtual landscapes in serious games. It also aims to seek how this change and the virtual reality technology invention have affected the contents transmitted by digital games and its influence on the player interaction and learning rate. To do so, in the process of this thesis, we developed, tested, and evaluated various serious games, both text-based and with 360° photos. The steps taken revealed the reluctance of the players to follow the providing educational content and their inadequacy of interaction. Hence, the thesis seeks the reasons ending to this result and the ways of increasing this learning rate. Afterward, the thesis uses a currently available but not massively used digital game classification methodology. This methodology, which is based on the principles of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning, classifies the games based on their constituting virtual landscapes. Hence, the thesis considers all Steam games, one of the biggest video game digital distribution services, filtered with the 'education' tag, ending in 2531 digital games. Afterward, adding the 'game' tag the result reduced to 1102 games. Finally, with some manual filterings ignoring the irrelevant content, the final number decreased to 702. Sorting chronologically, we made an Excel database including the games' introductory information, the content they transmit, their release date, if they support HMD or not, and whether they are simulation games or not. Due to Steam's dating spectrum, our database includes games dating back from 1992 to 2020. Afterward, we classified all of these games using the virtual landscape classification methodology and generated their related codes based on their player scale, story, dimension, space shape, and interaction level. Investigating the results, they revealed some growth patterns relating to the content educated in the game, the VR technology, and the virtual landscape evolution. Adding the user reviews of Steam, we reverse engineered five of the best serious games on the database due to the digital game design methodology. This methodology divides the games' virtual environment into five layers, namely, player activity map (PAM), story layer, natural environment layer, virtual environment layer, and media layer. Reverse engineering the five best digital games ever, based on the IGN database, enabled us to compare the outcomes. Due to released data, we understand how the games' assets are distributed within the various layers of the virtual environment in the most successful games. Finally, the thesis aims to provide a framework based on these results for developing serious games to increase player interaction and enhance the learning rate. However, these results can be expanded to any virtual landscape other than only serious games' for their interaction enhancement. Currently, the landscape architecture domain only adopts the virtual landscape area as a tool for enhancing design in the real world. However, in the near future, landscape architects will perform in the virtual landscape area as a domain to be enhanced. Hence, that day, the results of this study will play an important role and will be a roadmap for generating highly interactive virtual landscapes. (shrink)

Wittgenstein constantly invokes teaching, training and learning in his later work. It is therefore interesting to consider what role these notions play for him there. I argue that their use is central to Wittgenstein’s attempt to refute cognitivist assumptions, and to show how normative practices can be understood without the threat of circularity, grounded not in a kind of seeing, but in doing, and the natural reactions of an organism. This can generate a worry that Wittgenstein’s position is quietist and (...) anti-critical: critique, as a challenge to the taken-for-granted grammar of our language game, is technically meaningless. I argue that Wittgenstein does not rule out critique. His own practice demonstrates that critique is possible, but takes place within a language game, and its status as critique is always subject to challenge in the agora of a discourse. (shrink)

As a painfully outdated institution the school is accused of: being alienating, closing itself off to society and to the needs of young people; reproducing social inequality and consolidating existing power relations; demotivating youth; showing a lack of effectiveness and having great difficulty with employability. And last but not least, the school is considered redundant: the school, where learning is bound to time and place, is no longer needed in the digital era of virtual learning environments. The ultimate charge: the (...) school is a product of outdated ways of distributing knowledge and expertise, determined by primitive technologies of the past. Adieu school. This book advocates the acquittal of the school. It argues that many of the allegations against the school are motivated by an age-old fear and even hatred toward one of its radical but essential characteristics: that the school provides ‘free time' and transforms knowledge and skills into 'common goods', and therefore has the potential to give everyone, regardless of background, natural talent or aptitude, the time and space to leave their known environment, rise above themselves and renew (and thus change in unpredictable ways) the world. This defence of the school starts from an investigation of what makes a school a school and pinpoints why the school has value in and of itself. It reveals the various attempts to rob the school of its scholastic character, that is, to tame the school. The ultimate aim is to elaborate a touchstone that helps to defend as well as to re-invent school. -/- Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons are members of the Laboratory for Education and Society, KU Leuven. They share an interest in research on the public dimensions of education and are currently elaborating a philosophy of schooling. (shrink)