Education, Experience and Existence
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"Education, Experience and Existence proposes a new way of understanding education that delves beneath the conflict, confusion and compromise that characterize its long history. At the heart of this new understanding is what John Dewey strove to expound: a coherent theory of experience. Dewey's reputation as a pragmatist is well known, but where experience is concerned pragmatism is only half the story. The other half is phenomenological, as crafted by Martin Heidegger. Encompassing both is Charles Sanders Peirce, whose philosophy draws pragmatism and phenomenology together in an embrace which enables a truly experiential philosophy to emerge. The book approaches the problem of confusion in education and philosophy by beginning with our most basic understandings of existence. Existence as an interaction is the starting point of modern science, and existence as individuality offers an aesthetic origin, attending to existence as a simple unity. In our contemporary world where scientific ways of thinking are privileged, the aesthetic whole is often overlooked, especially in education. Yet both are connected. A coherent theory of experience is therefore a marriage between phenomenology and pragmatism, enabling each to maintain its position by acknowledging how both are required. The book is divided into three main parts: - confusion in philosophy and education - a coherent theory of experience - a coherent theory of education. Quay suggests that education benefits from such a coherent theory of experience by better comprehending its connection to life. More than just knowing, more than just doing, education is about being. This book will be of interest to philosophers, educators and educational philosophers"-- Provided by publisher.
Education as Dialogue: Its Prerequisites and Its Enemies
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Although talk about dialogue is common, nothing clear, significant, and educationally useful has been written about the nature of dialogue and the principles and conditions that support or undermine it. This book argues that true dialogue and education require beliefs, rules, virtues, and habits that facilitate learning while preventing the acquisition of doctrines. The author shows that the prerequisites for dialogue and education are similar to Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of "river-bed propositions"- propositions that are the foundation of our ability to think and act reasonably. He argues that understanding education as genuine dialogue ought to become central to educational theory and practice because it is the most appropriate and effective way to motivate and engage students, and also the best way to guard against indoctrination. The pivotal importance of education as dialogue is emphasized for its capacity to encourage critical thought, in contrast to indoctrination, which arrests, limits, or frustrates thought. Taking a unique approach to thinking about education, this book provides a welcome and instructive work that stresses the importance of seeing education as dialogue. -- from Back Cover.
Education Policy: Philosophical Critique
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Education Policy sees 12 philosophers of education critique current and recent UK educational policies relating to higher education and faith-based education, assessment, the teaching of reading, vocational and civic education, teacher education, the influence of Europe and the idea of the 'Big Society'. Twelve philosophers of education subject elements of current and recent UK educational policy to critique Forthright and critical, the contributors are unafraid to challenge current orthodoxies Offers thought-provoking insights into modern education policy Wide-ranging topics cover higher education and faith-based education, assessment, the teaching of reading, vocational and civic education, teacher education, the influence of Europe and the idea of the 'Big Society'
Ideas of Education: Philosophy and Politics from Plato to Dewey
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There has always been a strong relationship between education and philosophy - especially political philosophy. Renewed concern about the importance and efficacy of political education has revived key questions about the connections between the power to govern, and the power to educate. Although these themes are not always prominent in commentaries, political writings have often been very deeply concerned with both educational theory and practice. This invaluable book will introduce the reader to key concepts and disputes surrounding educational themes in the history of political thought. The book draws together a fascinating range of educational pioneers and thinkers from the canon of philosophers and philosophical schools, from Plato and Aristotle, down to Edward Carpenter and John Dewey, with attention along the way paid to both individual authors like Thomas Hobbes and Mary Wollstonecraft, as well as to intellectual movements, such as the Scottish Enlightenment and the Utopian Socialists. Each thinker or group is positioned in their historical context, and each chapter addresses the structure of the theory and argument, considering both contemporaneous and current controversies. A number of themes run throughout the volume: an analysis of pedagogy, socialisation, schooling and university education, with particular relation to public and private life, and personal and political power references to the historical and intellectual context an overview of the current reception, understanding and interpretation of the thinker in question the educational legacy of the theories or theorists. This book will be of interest to students, researchers and scholars of education, as well as students and teachers of political theory, the history of political thought, and social and political philosophy.
Leaders in Philosophy of Education
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This volume documents the emergence of contemporary philosophy of education as seen by those spearheading these trends. Based on these narratives, the Foreword by Jane Roland Martin and the Afterword by Leonard Waks argue that the field is at a crossroads: it can be strengthened through generous, mutually beneficial dialogue among the various strands, bolstered by cooperation on pressing global problems of educational policy and practice, or weakened by further fragmentation and external neglect. This presents a challenge for those working in philosophy of education now and in the coming years.
The Philosophy of Education (RLE Edu K)
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There are many students who find philosophy of education difficult, because they have never received teaching in the basic essentials of general philosophy. This book begins by asking the basic question ‘what is philosophy?'and examines a number of possible answers. Step by step the reader is introduced to the modern techniques of linguistic and concept analysis. Whenever a technical term is used it is explained and illustrated by reference to familiar situations in everyday life.
What Is Education?
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One day in 1938, John Dewey addressed a room of professional educators and urged them to take up the task of “finding out just what education is.” Reading this lecture in the late 1940s, Philip W. Jackson took Dewey’s charge to heart and spent the next sixty years contemplating his words. The stimulating result of a lifetime of thinking about educating, What Is Education? is a profound philosophical exploration of how we transmit knowledge in human society and how we think about accomplishing that vital task. Most contemporary approaches to education follow a strictly empirical track, aiming to discover pragmatic solutions for teachers and school administrators. Jackson argues that we need to learn not just how to improve on current practices but also how to think about what education means—in short, we need to answer Dewey by constantly rethinking education from the ground up. Guiding us through the many facets of Dewey’s comments, Jackson also calls on Hegel, Kant, and Paul Tillich to shed light on how a society does, can, and should transmit truth and knowledge to successive generations. Teasing out the implications in these thinkers’ works ultimately leads Jackson to the conclusion that education is at root a moral enterprise. At a time when schools increasingly serve as a battleground for ideological contests, What Is Education? is a stirring call to refocus our minds on what is for Jackson the fundamental goal of education: making students as well as teachers—and therefore everyone—better people.
Art, Education, and Cultural Renewal
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"What good is art? What is the point of a university education? Can philosophers contribute anything to social liberation? Such questions, both ancient and urgent, are the pulse of reformational philosophy. Inspired by the vision of the Dutch religious and political leader Abraham Kuyper, reformational philosophy pursues social transformation for the common good. In this companion volume to Religion, Truth, and Social Transformation, Lambert Zuidervaart presents a socially engaged philosophy of the arts and higher education. Interacting with the ideas of leading Kuyperian thinkers such as Calvin Seerveld and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Zuidervaart shows why renewal in the arts needs to coincide with political and economic transformation. He also calls for education and research that serve the common good. Deeply rooted in reformational philosophy, his book brings a fresh and inspiring voice to current discussions of religious aesthetics and Christian scholarship. Art, Education, and Cultural Renewal is a testament to the practical and intellectual richness of a unique religious tradition, compelling in its call for social solidarity and cultural critique."-- Provided by publisher.
Beauty for Truth's Sake
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Based in the riches of Christian worship and tradition, this brief, eloquently written introduction to Christian thinking and worldview helps readers put back together again faith and reason, truth and beauty, and the fragmented academic disciplines. By reclaiming the classic liberal arts and viewing disciplines such as science and mathematics through a poetic lens, the author explains that unity is present within diversity. Now repackaged with a new foreword by Ken Myers, this book will continue to benefit parents, homeschoolers, lifelong learners, Christian students, and readers interested in the history of ideas.
By Design
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This practical resource will guide novice or veteran Christian school educators in developing a coherent Christian philosophy of education that is rooted in a firm understanding of a biblical worldview.
Discontinuity in Learning
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Summary: "In this groundbreaking book, Andrea R. English challenges common assumptions by arguing that discontinuous experiences, such as uncertainty and struggle, are essential to the learning process. To make this argument, Dr. English draws from the works of two seminal thinkers in philosophy of education - nineteenth-century German philosopher J. F. Herbart and American Pragmatist John Dewey. English's analysis considers Herbart's influence on Dewey, inverting the accepted interpretation of Dewey's thought as a dramatic break from modern European understandings of education." -- Provided by publisher.
Even When No One Is Looking
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Summary: This book is not a list or an overview of various theories of ethics. Nor is it a didactic manual for specific teaching units on moral education aimed at some group based on age or a particular theme (although some educational frameworks will be proposed). As the title suggests, the book intends to seek the starting points or foundations without which no moral education would be possible. The goal is to formulate and tackle the key questions that precede all moral education. What makes ""good vs. evil"" language possible and meaningful? Can virtue be taught and learned? What makes our actions good? What is the condition of human nature? Are we naturally good, or evil? What constitutes an educator's right to morally influence anyone else (not just a child)? What is the goal of moral education? What does a morally educated person look like? And how can we ensure the coveted moral result? Or--in the words of Jan Amos Comenius, the ""teacher of nations""--how to educate a person to not only know what is good, but also to want what is good, and to do what is good ""even when no one is looking?"" -- Back cover.
Homeschooling
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Summary: In Homeschooling: The History and Philosophy of a Controversial Practice, James G. Dwyer and Shawn F. Peters examine homeschooling's history, its methods, and the fundamental questions at the root of the heated debate over whether and how the state should oversee and regulate it. The authors trace the evolution of homeschooling and the law relating to it from before America's founding to the present day. In the process they analyze the many arguments made for and against it, and set them in the context of larger questions about school and education. They then tackle the question of regulation, and they do so within a rigorous moral framework, one that is constructed from a clear-eyed assessment of what rights and duties children, parents, and the state each possess. Viewing the question through that lens allows Dwyer and Peters to even-handedly evaluate the competing arguments and ultimately generate policy prescriptions. Homeschooling is the definitive study of a vexed question, one that ultimately affects all citizens, regardless of their educational background. -- !c From publisher's description.
Philosophical Documents in Education
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Philosophical Documents in Education, 3/e masterfully argues that students can better understand and practice their profession by reading, contemplating, and discussing the great philosophic tradition in education. An edited anthology of 18 primary source materials in educational philosophy, this book provides a wide range of both historical and contemporary viewpoints. Works by philosophers of numerous perspectives–-including Catharine Macaulay, Hannah Arendt, Cornel West, Maxine Greene, Paulo Freire, Kieran Egan, Jane Roland Martin, and Parker J. Palmer–-expose readers to philosophical views from diverse populations and convictions. With fresh perspectives, a comprehensive and contextualizing introduction, and updated pedagogy including revised timelines and new chapter questions, this revered resource is more vital than ever for today's teachers.
Philosophy of Education
Examine the major philosophical ideas and thinkers that have influenced education.
Common Search Terms: educational philosophy, John Dewey, progressivism, perennialism, essentialism, constructivism
Suggested Resources: Books and articles from education philosophers, encyclopedia entries
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Aristotle
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Aristotle is often underrated in educational circles but the impact of his philosophy and his actions are evident in the schools and universities around us today. Aristotle developed the first proper university that had different departments and vast collections of texts and artefacts. His philosophy has also influenced the greatest minds since his time, from Aquinas to today's logicians, rationalists, and empiricists. The influence of his educational thinking and his philosophy in general helped underpin the Renaissance and the modern era. In a nutshell, Aristotle took our thinking and said,'make it sharper.'Alexander Moseley offers a thorough and comprehensive overview of the works of Aristotle and explores the influence of his thought and writings and their impact on our education systems today.
Aristotle on the Necessity of Public Education
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The book concludes that Aristotle's views yield a compelling argument for the claim that public supervision of education is a necessary condition for a just society. It examines the implications and limitations of that argument, including particularly the form and substance of the educational equality which it demands. Contrasting it with other recent arguments for educational equality, I conclude that it provides the most decisive argument for educational equality available, but also that it does not establish a legitimate basis for a state monopoly on the provision of schooling, and for ensuring its availability to everyone. Some privatization schemes, but not others, would be compatible with this result.
The Orator's Education Vol.1 Books 1-2
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Quintilian, born in Spain about 35 CE, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. The Orator's Education (Institutio Oratoria), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world. Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyzes the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures.
The Orator's Education Vol. 2 Books 3-5
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Quintilian, born in Spain about 35 CE, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. The Orator's Education (Institutio Oratoria), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world. Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyzes the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures.
The Orator's Education Vol. 3 Books 6-8
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Quintilian, born in Spain about 35 CE, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. The Orator's Education (Institutio Oratoria), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world. Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyzes the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures.
The Orator's Education Vol. 4 Books 9-10
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Quintilian, born in Spain about 35 CE, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. The Orator's Education (Institutio Oratoria), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world. Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyzes the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures.
The Orator's Education Vol. 5 Books 11-12
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Quintilian, born in Spain about 35 CE, became a widely known and highly successful teacher of rhetoric in Rome. The Orator's Education (Institutio Oratoria), a comprehensive training program in twelve books, draws on his own rich experience. It is a work of enduring importance, not only for its insights on oratory, but for the picture it paints of education and social attitudes in the Roman world. Quintilian offers both general and specific advice. He gives guidelines for proper schooling (beginning with the young boy); analyzes the structure of speeches; recommends devices that will engage listeners and appeal to their emotions; reviews a wide range of Greek and Latin authors of use to the orator; and counsels on memory, delivery, and gestures.
Plato
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Plato was the first and most formidable thinker to recognise that education is a fiercely contested concept, and to point out what great social and personal issues are at stake in education. He articulated a compelling argument for a liberal arts education as something peculiarly befitting free and autonomous beings. He understood the centrality of education for human well-being and flourishing. And he was the first to set forth a systematic theory of education.In this text, Robin Barrow concisely and convincingly establishes the continuing relevance of Plato's views to debates on such issues as nature vs. nurture (or genetic inheritance vs. social background), philosophy vs. sophistry (or the pursuit of true understanding vs. the pursuit of reputation, or perhaps simply truth vs. politics and the media). Questions concerning the fair distribution of education, moral education, value judgments and human nature are explored along with themes more specifically associated with Plato's philosophy such as the Theory of Ideas. The whole is embedded in a clearly presented account of the historical background to Plato's thought.
The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education
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Summary: "Children are natural learners, and building a core foundation at an early age is critical to their success both educationally and in life. Yet academic excellence is lacking in many school systems throughout the country. In this book, education expert and author Leigh A. bortins incoroprates the best ideas from the ancients and gives parents the tools to revive classical learning" --Cover, p. 4.
Classics
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Summary: "Classics ought to be obsolete. And yet it survives, not (or not only) as a marker of wealth and privilege but as a forward-looking and even radical discipline. In this incisive book, Neville Morley explores the present and future of the subject"-- Provided by publisher.
Sourcebook of Experiential Education
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Experiential education is a philosophy and methodology for building knowledge, developing skills, and clarifying values by engaging learners in direct experience and focused reflection. To understand experiential education, what should one be reading? This sourcebook introduces philosophers, educators, and other practitioners whose work is relevant to anyone seeking answers to this question. Following brief snapshots of John Dewey and Kurt Hahn, the book is organized in four sections: Philosophers and Educational Theorists, Nature Educators and Outdoor Educators, Psychologists and Sociologists, School and Program Founders. Each chapter focuses on an individual whose philosophy and practice exemplify a biographical and historical model for reaching a deeper understanding of experiential education. An appendix includes short biographical sketches of forty-five additional people whose contributions to experiential education deserve a closer look. This volume provides a much-needed overview and foundations for the field – for students in courses addressing experiential education, challenge education, outdoor experiential education, recreation education, and related fields; for learning theorists and curriculum specialists; for experiential educators; and for educational philosophers.
Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition
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Summary: The educators of ancient Greece and Rome gave the world a vision of what education should be. The medieval and Renaissance teachers valued their insights and lofty goals. Christian educators such as Augustine, Erasmus, Milton, and Comenius drew from the teaching of Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian those truths which they found universal and potent. Charlotte Mason developed her own philosophy of education from the riches of the past, not accidentally but purposefully. She and the other founding members of the Parents' National Educational Union in England were inspired by the classical educators of history and set out to achieve their vision in modern education. They succeeded. Thanks to Charlotte Mason's clear development of methods to realize the classical ideals, we can partake of the classical tradition as well.--amazon.com.
The Great Tradition
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Frustrated with the continuing educational crisis of our time, concerned parents, teachers, and students sense that true reform requires more than innovative classroom technology, standardized tests, or skills training. An older tradition—the Great Tradition—of education in the West is waiting to be heard. Since antiquity, the Great Tradition has defined education first and foremost as the hard work of rightly ordering the human soul, helping it to love what it ought to love, and helping it to know itself and its maker. In the classical and Christian tradition, the formation of the soul in wisdom, virtue, and eloquence took precedence over all else, including instrumental training aimed at the inculcation of "useful" knowledge. Edited by historian Richard Gamble, this anthology reconstructs a centuries-long conversation about the goals, conditions, and ultimate value of true education. Spanning more than two millennia, from the ancient Greeks to contemporary writers, it includes substantial excerpts from more than sixty seminal writings on education. Represented here are the wisdom and insight of such figures as Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Basil, Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Erasmus, Edmund Burke, John Henry Newman, Thomas Arnold, Albert Jay Nock, Dorothy Sayers, C. S. Lewis, and Eric Voegelin. In an unbroken chain of giving and receiving, The Great Tradition embraced the accumulated wisdom of the past and understood education as the initiation of students into a body of truth. This unique collection is designed to help parents, students, and teachers reconnect with this noble legacy, to articulate a coherent defense of the liberal arts tradition, and to do battle with the modern utilitarians and vocationalists who dominate educational theory and practice.
Jesus and the Ways of Socrates
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Summary: "Socrates and Jesus are the most eminent teachers in history-yet they never wrote books. What they did do was ask simple, profound questions that were easy to understand, ensuring their audience would remember and ultimately learn from the discussion. Jesus and the Ways of Socrates delves into the similar teaching styles of Socrates and Jesus, and shows how their manner of communication became an indispensable educational tool." The author " takes an in-depth look at how discipleship-communicating with a small group and asking thoughtful questions-was the most effective means for Jesus to communicate the Gospel and for Socrates to impart his wisdom. Dr. Iverson dissects the Socratic method and offers convincing evidence that this is the type of education needed in teaching theology today, whether in schools, churches, or discussion groups. He also explores the philosophical underpinnings of Socrates and Jesus, addresses the importance of a well-read populace, and examines the method of discipleship in the city, the church, and in teaching the humanities. Jesus and the Ways of Socrates sheds light on how education remains a fundamental component of Christian ministry."--Publisher's description.
On Education, Formation, Citizenship and the Lost Purpose of Learning
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The Reading Augustine series presents concise, personal readings of St. Augustine of Hippo from leading philosophers and religious scholars. The looming crisis in higher education appears to be a matter of soaring costs and crushing student debt, but the problem is actually much deeper. It is a crisis of soul; a question of the very purpose of learning and the type of people that our educational system produces. Today, in the age of academic hyper-specialization and professional knowledge, the moral and spiritual purposes of learning have been eclipsed by a shallow view of career and success. On Education, Formation, Citizenship, and the Lost Purpose of Learning turns to the influential figure Augustine of Hippo to explore how he saved the liberal arts at the end of the Roman Empire and how his inspiring vision can do the same for higher education today. It offers a roadmap for reviving the soul of education - presenting concrete ways that the intellectual practices and economic enterprise of learning can lead once more to a fulfilled life of knowing God and loving others.
Calvin: Ethics, Eschatology, and Education
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This study examines the influence of John Calvin in ethics eschatology and education, as well as those influences that affected him. It examines his writings to determine if his vision made him an innovator. The research searched for reforms in the areas of ethics, curriculum, understanding of the teaching office, and universal education. It also looked at philosophy, economics, and labor. A belief in the after life and end times was an ethical motivation for Calvin and education was a means by which the people that he worked with and wrote to could understand how they should live and why they should live like that. Thus, there is an important connection among ethics, eschatology and education. All people were to work to their potential at their job because in doing their job they would honor God. Teachers were especially important. Those who taught would affect the quality of education. Calvin worked to provide teacher training and support. He believed that all occupations could be a special calling from God and education was a means to prepare the young person for his or her calling.Schools existed in Geneva before Calvin arrived in 1536; however, they did not function in the way that Calvin would have liked. Calvin provided the elementary students with a needed text when he prepared a catechism. The students had written material that they could read and study and a systematic presentation of the basic doctrines of the Christian faith. Calvin also wanted more appropriate facilities in which the students could learn. Although his organization of the schools improved the atmosphere for learning, the building of the Academy was his dream and became his major educational achievement in the city of Geneva.Because16th century students needed to be prepared for the new world, there was a need for curriculum change. The students were required to read many of the prominent Greek and Roman authors in the ancient languages but the student learned theology, Hebrew, poetry, dialectic and rhetoric, physics, and mathematics as well. Calvin wished to graduate a well rounded scholar who could take his or her place in society. In this way the citizens of Geneva and all those of the Reformed belief would be better prepared for life on earth and the after life.
Desiderius Erasmus: Concerning the Aim and Method of Education
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The book discusses the life and educational views of 16th century humanist philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, exploring such subjects as the study of languages, Erasmus' philosophical anthropology, ...
Elementary and Grammar Education in Late Medieval France
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The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw a marked increase in the availability of elementary and grammar education in Europe. In France, that rise took the form of a unique blend of trends also seen elsewhere in Europe, ranging from Church-dominated schools to independent schools and communal groups of teachers. Lyon, long a crossroad of ideas from north and south, was home to a particularly interesting blend of approaches, and in this book Sarah Lynch offers a close analysis of the educational landscape of the city, showing how schools and teachers were organised and how they interacted with each other and with ecclesiastical and municipal authorities.
Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence
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Erasmus: His Life, Works, and Influence is a comprehensive introduction to Erasmus's life, works, and thoughts. It integrates the best scholarship of the past twenty years and will appeal to undergraduates in all areas of cultural history as well as Erasmus specialists.
John Amos Comenius: Bishop of the Moravians: His Life and Educational Works
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Luther on Education: Including a Historical Introduction and a Translation of the Reformer's Two Most Important Educational Treatises
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A Renaissance Education: Schooling in Bergamo and the Venetian Republic 1500-1650
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The skills, ideas, and behaviours imparted through schooling provide insight into the collective outlook of a society in any age. Deeply rooted in archival sources, Christopher Carlsmith's A Renaissance Education uses a case study approach to examine educational practices in the north-eastern Italian city of Bergamo from 1500 to 1650. Carlsmith illustrates how education in this and other Venetian cities was affected by Renaissance humanism, Tridentine Catholicism, and Venetian domination, and how cooperation among various institutions resulted in a surprising array of options for schooling in these provincial cities.A Renaissance Education's close analysis of civic, ecclesiastical, confraternal, and family records not only paints a vivid portrait of how schooling functioned in one city but also explores this small city's dynamic interconnections with other locales and with larger regional processes.
St Augustine
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After setting Augustine's thought firmly within the context of his life and times, Ryan Topping examines in turn the causes of education (the purposes, pedagogy, curriculum, and limits of learning) as Augustine understood them. Augustine's towering influence over Medieval and Renaissance theorists – from Hugh of St Victor, to Aquinas, to Erasmus – is traced. The book concludes by drawing Augustine into dialogue with contemporary philosophers, exploring the influence of his meditations on higher education and suggesting how his ideas can reinvigorate for our generation the project of liberal learning.
Thomas Aquinas
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Thomas Aquinas, an Italian Catholic priest in the early thirteeth century, is considered to be one of the great Christian thinkers who had, and who still has, a profound influence on Western thought. He was a controversial figure who was exposed and engaged in conflict. This Very Short Introduction looks at Aquinas in a historical context, and explores the Church and culture into which Aquinas was born. It considers Aquinas as philosopher, and looks at the relationship between philosophy and religion in the thirteenth century. Fergus Kerr, in this engaging and informative introduction, will make The Summa Theologiae, Aquinas's greatest single work, accessible to new readers. It will also reflect on the importance of Thomas Aquinas in modern debates and asks why Aquinas matters now. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
The Calvin Handbook
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Research on French theologian John Calvin is flourishing around the world, and his quincentennial in 2009 has given such research even greater momentum. Designed to support and stimulate this research, The Calvin Handbook gathers contributions from internationally renowned scholars. Offering a comprehensive view of Calvin’s life, his theology, and the history of his reception, this handbook is a uniquely helpful resource on Calvin for readers of every interest level.
The Great Tradition
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Frustrated with the continuing educational crisis of our time, concerned parents, teachers, and students sense that true reform requires more than innovative classroom technology, standardized tests, or skills training. An older tradition—the Great Tradition—of education in the West is waiting to be heard. Since antiquity, the Great Tradition has defined education first and foremost as the hard work of rightly ordering the human soul, helping it to love what it ought to love, and helping it to know itself and its maker. In the classical and Christian tradition, the formation of the soul in wisdom, virtue, and eloquence took precedence over all else, including instrumental training aimed at the inculcation of "useful" knowledge. Edited by historian Richard Gamble, this anthology reconstructs a centuries-long conversation about the goals, conditions, and ultimate value of true education. Spanning more than two millennia, from the ancient Greeks to contemporary writers, it includes substantial excerpts from more than sixty seminal writings on education. Represented here are the wisdom and insight of such figures as Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Basil, Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Erasmus, Edmund Burke, John Henry Newman, Thomas Arnold, Albert Jay Nock, Dorothy Sayers, C. S. Lewis, and Eric Voegelin. In an unbroken chain of giving and receiving, The Great Tradition embraced the accumulated wisdom of the past and understood education as the initiation of students into a body of truth. This unique collection is designed to help parents, students, and teachers reconnect with this noble legacy, to articulate a coherent defense of the liberal arts tradition, and to do battle with the modern utilitarians and vocationalists who dominate educational theory and practice.
The Legacy of John Calvin
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Summary: David Hall identifies 10 seminal ways that Calvin's thought transformed the culture of the West, complete with a nontechnical biography of Calvin and tributes by other leaders. The Legacy of John Calvin is brief enough for popular audiences and analytical enough to provide much information in a short space. To augment the introduction to the life and thought of John Calvin, the author has included a helpful time-line of Calvin's life. - Publisher.
Martin Luther
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Summary: "Combining biographical narrative and analytical essays, this book provides a view of Martin Luther's life and times, along with an examination of the radical theology that sparked the Reformation and changed the Christian world forever. Drawing on sources new and old, the authors retell the fascinating, turbulent story of the Great Reformer from a historical point of view"-- Provided by publisher.
Martin Luther in Context
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Summary: Martin Luther remains a popular, oft-quoted, referenced, lauded historical figure. He is often seen as the fulcrum upon which the medieval turned into the modern, the last great medieval or the first great modern; or, he is the Protestant hero, the virulent anti-Semite; the destroyer of Catholic decadence, or the betrayer of the peasant cause. An important but contested figure, he was all of these things. Understanding Luther's context helps us to comprehend how a single man could be so many seemingly contradictory things simultaneously. Martin Luther in Context explores the world around Luther in order to make the man and the Reformation movement more understandable. Written by an international team of leading scholars, it includes over forty short, accessible essays, all specially commissioned for this volume, which reconstruct the life and world of Martin Luther. The volume also contextualizes the scholarship and reception of Luther in the popular mind. -- !c From publisher's description.
The Roots of the Reformation
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Summary: Contravening traditional paradigms of interpretation, Evans charts the controversies and challenges that roiled the era of the Reformation and argues that these are really part of a much longer history of discussion and disputation. Evans takes up several issues and traces the shape of the charged discussions that orbited around these through the patristic, medieval and Reformation eras. In this, she demonstrates that in many ways the Reformation was in considerable continuity with the periods that preceded it, though the consequential outcome of the debates in the sixteenth century was dramatically different. --from publisher description.
The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Jefferson
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Jean Jacques Rousseau and Education From Nature
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Jefferson's Vision for Education, 1760-1845
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Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau
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This book’s chapters present a series of lectures which John Plamenatz wrote but was unable to deliver in Cambridge in 1975. The chapters cover the political thought of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau, in each case combining textual analysis and argument and using the texts as a springboard for discussion of issues that remain central to the way in which we think of politics, especially concerning the relationship between morality and politics, the character of natural law, the nature of sovereignty, the place of religion in the state, and the links between the psychological, the social, and the political. These discussions extend and revise Plamenatz’s work in his Man and Society and offer a set of challenging readings of three of the major figures in the canon of political thought. An introduction sets the lectures in context and linking them to more recent scholarship.
The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) was not only one of the most important leaders of the nineteenth century women's rights movement but was also the movement's principal philosopher. Her ideas both drew from and challenged the conventions that so severely constrained women's choices and excluded them from public life.In The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sue Davis argues that Cady Stanton's work reflects the rich tapestry of American political culture in the second half of the nineteenth century and that she deserves recognition as a major figure in the history of political ideas. Davis reveals the way that Cady Stanton's work drew from different political traditions ranging from liberalism, republicanism, inegalitarian ascriptivism, and radicalism. Cady Stanton's arguments for women's rights combined approaches that in contemporary feminist theory are perceived to involve conflicting strategies and visions. Nevertheless, her ideas had a major impact on the development of the varieties of feminism in the twentieth century. Thoroughly researched and engagingly written, The Political Thought of Elizabeth Cady Stanton draws on a wide variety of primary and secondary sources and promises to fill a gap in the literature on the history of political ideas in the United States as well as women's history and feminist theory.
Saving Schools
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In this book Peterson interprets the history of American schools by placing major educational reformers in the context of their times and relates their thinking to our own era by scrutinizing the often unanticipated consequences of their commitments and ideas. These extraordinary individuals provided the critical ideas and articulated the ideals that motivated many others to search for ways to save the schools from the limitations in which they were embedded: Horace Mann, John Dewey, Martin Luther King, Al Shanker, William Bennett, and James S. Coleman. The drive to centralize was pervasive despite repeatedly expressed reform desire to customize education. Peterson argues that education has become an increasingly labor intensive industry that must reverse direction and become more capital intensive or it will descend in quality. Fortunately, technological change is making it possible radically alter the way in which education services are delivered, providing a new chance to save our schools.
William McGuffey: Mentor to American Industry
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A Call for Character Education and Prayer in the Schools
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Summary: "According to William Jeynes, the lack of both school prayer and consistent moral instruction in our schools has had devastating consequences both for our education system and for the nation as a whole. In A Call for Character Education and Prayer in the Schools, Jeynes makes a compelling case for restoring moral instruction and nonspecific religious moments to the classroom as a way of restoring a much needed moral grounding in American society in general. The book traces the history of character education in the public schools, including coverage of leading advocates of their inclusion from Thomas Jefferson to DeWitt Clinton to Horace Mann. Jeynes then offers a broad survey of the country since the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963, asserting that most of America's greatest problems are moral in nature, and could be addressed by making moral instruction and a focus on the spiritual a part of our young citizens' school lives."--Publisher's description.
Have a Little Faith
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It isn't just in recent arguments over the teaching of intelligent design or reciting the pledge of allegiance that religion and education have butted heads: since their beginnings nearly two centuries ago, public schools have been embroiled in heated controversies over religion's place in the education system of a pluralistic nation. In this book, Benjamin Justice and Colin Macleod take up this rich and significant history of conflict with renewed clarity and astonishing breadth. Moving from the American Revolution to the present from the common schools of the nineteenth century to the charter schools of the twenty-first they offer one of the most comprehensive assessments of religion and education in America that has ever been published. From Bible readings and school prayer to teaching evolution and cultivating religious tolerance, Justice and Macleod consider the key issues and colorful characters that have shaped the way American schools have attempted to negotiate religious pluralism in a politically legitimate fashion.
Horace Mann's Troubling Legacy
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A righteous reformer committed to the power of education, Horace Mann became a national figure by championing the common school movement. Mann's message, which he preached at every opportunity, was that universal public education was the only means to transform America's disorderly masses into a disciplined, judicious republican citizenry, thereby removing the dangers of anarchy and class warfare. In his new look at Mann's work and thought, Bob Pepperman Taylor shows that Mann's ideas on civic education have had a lasting impact on the way that we still think today about education and its relation to our civic life. Written from the perspective of democratic theory and practice, Taylor's work reassesses Mann's philosophy of civic education and deeply resonates with today's pervasive and highly political debates about the role of education. By conceiving of public schooling as serving primarily political ends, this nineteenth-century reformer fostered an enduring tension between educational values and political purposes. Taylor contends that Mann's approach to civic education marginalized the role of schools in training the intellect, and that this anti-intellectual component has been retained in the current model of schooling in the United States. He contends that Mann's schooling model promotes moral certainty and political consensus over intellectual doubt and political disagreement—an imbalance that erodes and weakens both educational and democratic ends. By considering Mann's unique influence as a theorist of civic education, Taylor argues, we find both his greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses. And when we take Mann seriously as a contributor to American political thought, we find that the challenge he presents is more significant than concerns about the lack of originality or the unscientific nature of some of his ideas. Ultimately, Mann can tell us a great deal about the very best in our educational tradition, as well as help us see some of its significant flaws and show us how both strengths and weaknesses have played out in our current public and higher systems of education. By examining how Mann was the first to articulate a cohesive vision of the relationship between civic education and democratic practice, Taylor demonstrates that Mann belongs among the key founders of the American political tradition.
Horace Mann on the Crisis in Education
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Democracy and Education
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John Dewey's Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education seeks to both critique and further the educational philosophies espoused by both Rousseau and Plato. Dewey found that Rousseau's ideas overemphasized the individual, whereas Plato's did the same with the society that the individual lived in. Dewey felt this distinction to be a false one, seeing the formation of our minds as a communal process, like Vygotsky did. Hence an individual makes sense only as a part of society, and the society makes sense only as a realization of its individuals.
Dewey's Dream: Universities and Democracies in an Age of Education Reform
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This timely, persuasive, and hopeful book reexamines John Dewey's idea of schools, specifically community schools, as the best places to grow a democratic society that is based on racial, social, and economic justice. The authors assert that American colleges and universities bear a responsibility for-and would benefit substantially from-working with schools to develop democratic schools and communities. Dewey's Dream opens with a reappraisal of Dewey's philosophy and an argument for its continued relevance today. The authors-all well-known in education circles-use illustrations from over 20 years of experience working with public schools in the University of Pennsylvania's local ecological community of West Philadelphia, to demonstrate how their ideas can be put into action. By emphasizing problem-solving as the foundation of education, their work has awakened university students to their social responsibilities. And while the project is still young, it demonstrates that Dewey's "Utopian ends" of creating optimally participatory democratic societies can lead to practical, constructive school, higher education and community change, development, and improvement.
Dewey, Russell, Whitehead
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In Philosophers as Educators Brian Patrick Hendley argues that philosophers of education should reject their preoccupation with defining terms and analyzing concepts and embrace the philosophical task of constructing general theories of education. Hendley discusses in detail the educational philosophies of John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead. He sees in these men excellent role models that contemporary philosophers might well follow. Hendley believes that, like these mentors, philosophers should take a more active, practical role in education. Dewey and Russell ran their own schools, and Whitehead served as a university administrator and as a member of many committees created to study education.
Education, Experience and Existence
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"Education, Experience and Existence proposes a new way of understanding education that delves beneath the conflict, confusion and compromise that characterize its long history. At the heart of this new understanding is what John Dewey strove to expound: a coherent theory of experience. Dewey's reputation as a pragmatist is well known, but where experience is concerned pragmatism is only half the story. The other half is phenomenological, as crafted by Martin Heidegger. Encompassing both is Charles Sanders Peirce, whose philosophy draws pragmatism and phenomenology together in an embrace which enables a truly experiential philosophy to emerge. The book approaches the problem of confusion in education and philosophy by beginning with our most basic understandings of existence. Existence as an interaction is the starting point of modern science, and existence as individuality offers an aesthetic origin, attending to existence as a simple unity. In our contemporary world where scientific ways of thinking are privileged, the aesthetic whole is often overlooked, especially in education. Yet both are connected. A coherent theory of experience is therefore a marriage between phenomenology and pragmatism, enabling each to maintain its position by acknowledging how both are required. The book is divided into three main parts: - confusion in philosophy and education - a coherent theory of experience - a coherent theory of education. Quay suggests that education benefits from such a coherent theory of experience by better comprehending its connection to life. More than just knowing, more than just doing, education is about being. This book will be of interest to philosophers, educators and educational philosophers"-- Provided by publisher.
John Dewey, America's Peace-Minded Educator
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One of America's preeminent educational philosophers and public intellectuals, John Dewey is perhaps best known for his interest in the study of pragmatic philosophy and his application of progressive ideas to the field of education. Carrying his ideas and actions beyond the academy, he tied his philosophy to pacifist ideology in America after World War I in order to achieve a democratic world order. Although his work and life have been well documented, his role in the postwar peace movement has been generally overlooked. In John Dewey, America's Peace-Minded Educator, authors Charles F. Howlett and Audrey Cohan take a close look at John Dewey's many undertakings on behalf of world peace. This volume covers Dewey's support of, and subsequent disillusionment with, the First World War as well as his postwar involvement in trying to prevent another world war. Other topics include his interest in peace movements in education, his condemnation of American military intervention in Latin America and of armaments and munitions makers during the Great Depression, his defense of civil liberties during World War II, and his cautions at the start of the atomic age. The concluding epilogue discusses how Dewey fell out of favor with some academics and social critics in the 1950s and explores how Dewey's ideas can still be useful to peace education today. Exploring Dewey's use of pragmatic philosophy to build a consensus for world peace, Howlett and Cohan illuminate a previously neglected aspect of his contributions to American political and social thought and remind us of the importance of creating a culture of peace through educational awareness.
John Dewey and the Decline of American Education
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Modes of Learning
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Educators are familiar with Alfred North Whitehead’s three stages of education: romance, precision, and generalization. Philosophers are familiar with his metaphysical theories about the primacy of temporal processes. In Modes of Learning, George Allan brings these two sides of Whitehead’s thought together for the first time in a book suitable for both those initially approaching Whitehead’s metaphysics and experts alike. Educators are familiar with Alfred North Whitehead’s three stages of education: romance, precision, and generalization. Philosophers are familiar with his metaphysical theories about the primacy of temporal processes. In Modes of Learning, George Allan brings these two sides of Whitehead’s thought together for the first time in a book suitable for both those initially approaching Whitehead’s metaphysics and experts alike. Using a rich variety of examples, Allan illuminates the metaphysical ideas he explores by tethering them concretely to the educational practices in which they are rooted. This shows a key but neglected feature of Whitehead’s thought: his pragmatic theory of truth, with its functionalist approach to experience and its humanistic appreciation of the frailty of all human endeavors.
The Hidden History of Early Childhood Education
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The Hidden History of Early Childhood Education provides an understandable and manageable exploration of the history of early childhood education in the United States. Covering historical, philosophical, and sociological underpinnings that reach from the 1800s to today, contributors explore groups and topics that have traditionally been marginalized or ignored in early childhood education literature. Chapters include topics such as home-schooling, early childhood education in Japanese-American internment camps, James "Jimmy" Hymes, the Eisenhower legacy, Constance Kamii, and African-American leaders of the field. This engaging book examines a range of new primary sources to be shared with the field for the first time, including personal narratives, interviews, and letters. The Hidden History of Early Childhood Education is a valuable resource for every early childhood education scholar, student, and practitioner.
A Companion to John Dewey's Democracy and Education
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This year marks the centenary publication of John Dewey’s magnum opus, Democracy and Education. Despite its profound importance as a foundational text in education, it is notoriously difficult and—dare we say it—a little dry. In this charming and often funny companion, noted philosopher of education D. C. Phillips goes chapter by chapter to bring Dewey to a twenty-first-century audience. Drawing on over fifty years of thinking about this book—and on his own experiences as an educator—he lends it renewed clarity and a personal touch that proves its lasting importance. Phillips bridges several critical pitfalls of Democracy and Education that often prevent contemporary readers from fully understanding it. Where Dewey sorely needs a detailed example to illustrate a point—and the times are many—Phillips steps in, presenting cases from his own classroom experiences. Where Dewey casually refers to the works of people like Hegel, Herbart, and Locke—common knowledge, apparently, in 1916—Phillips fills in the necessary background. And where Dewey gets convoluted or is even flat-out wrong, Phillips does what few other scholars would do: he takes Dewey to task. The result is a lively accompaniment that helps us celebrate and be enriched by some of the most important ideas ever offered in education.
Dewey, Russell, Whitehead
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In Philosophers as Educators Brian Patrick Hendley argues that philosophers of education should reject their preoccupation with defining terms and analyzing concepts and embrace the philosophical task of constructing general theories of education. Hendley discusses in detail the educational philosophies of John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, and Alfred North Whitehead. He sees in these men excellent role models that contemporary philosophers might well follow. Hendley believes that, like these mentors, philosophers should take a more active, practical role in education. Dewey and Russell ran their own schools, and Whitehead served as a university administrator and as a member of many committees created to study education.
Discontinuity in Learning
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Summary: "In this groundbreaking book, Andrea R. English challenges common assumptions by arguing that discontinuous experiences, such as uncertainty and struggle, are essential to the learning process. To make this argument, Dr. English draws from the works of two seminal thinkers in philosophy of education - nineteenth-century German philosopher J. F. Herbart and American Pragmatist John Dewey. English's analysis considers Herbart's influence on Dewey, inverting the accepted interpretation of Dewey's thought as a dramatic break from modern European understandings of education." -- Provided by publisher.
Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic
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Summary: In Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic, Andrew E. Barnes chronicles African Christians' turn to American-style industrial education--particularly the model that had been developed by Booker T. Washington at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute--as a vehicle for Christian regeneration in Africa. Over the period 1880-1920, African Christians, motivated by Ethiopianism and its conviction that Africans should be saved by other Africans, proposed and founded schools based upon the Tuskegee model. Barnes follows the tides of the Black Atlantic back to Africa when African Christians embraced the new education initiatives of African American Christians and Tuskegee as the most potent example of technological ingenuity. Building on previously unused African sources, the book traces the movements to establish industrial education institutes in cities along the West African coast and in South Africa, Cape Province, and Natal. As Tuskegee and African schools modeled in its image proved, peoples of African descent could--and did--develop competitive technology. Though the attempts by African Christians to create industrial education schools ultimately failed, Global Christianity and the Black Atlantic demonstrates the ultimate success of transatlantic black identity and Christian resurgence in Africa at the turn of the twentieth century. Barnes' study documents how African Christians sought to maintain indigenous identity and agency in the face of colonial domination by the state and even the European Christian missions of the church. -- Provided by publisher.
Mere Equals
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In Mere Equals, Lucia McMahon narrates a story about how a generation of young women who enjoyed access to new educational opportunities made sense of their individual and social identities in an American nation marked by stark political inequality between the sexes. McMahon's archival research into the private documents of middling and well-to-do Americans in northern states illuminates educated women’s experiences with particular life stages and relationship arcs: friendship, family, courtship, marriage, and motherhood. In their personal and social relationships, educated women attempted to live as the "mere equals" of men. Their often frustrated efforts reveal how early national Americans grappled with the competing issues of women’s intellectual equality and sexual difference. In the new nation, a pioneering society, pushing westward and unmooring itself from established institutions, often enlisted women’s labor outside the home and in areas that we would deem public. Yet, as a matter of law, women lacked most rights of citizenship and this subordination was authorized by an ideology of sexual difference. What women and men said about education, how they valued it, and how they used it to place themselves and others within social hierarchies is a highly useful way to understand the ongoing negotiation between equality and difference. In public documents, "difference" overwhelmed "equality," because the formal exclusion of women from political activity and from economic parity required justification. McMahon tracks the ways in which this public disparity took hold in private communications. By the 1830s, separate and gendered spheres were firmly in place. This was the social and political heritage with which women’s rights activists would contend for the rest of the century.
Turning Pragmatism into Practice
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Despite the founding of the modern social studies curriculum nearly a century ago based on John Dewey’s pragmatism philosophy, the field has never achieved a significant and broad implementation of his ideas. Dewey’s instrumentalism offers social studies educators a tool for addressing vexing problems such as whether they should design classroom experiences using a traditional or a social studies approach to learning history, the role of digital technologies, the purpose and challenges of younger learners working with an expanding horizons curriculum, and many more. At the same time, Dewey’s time-tested theories describe how students use the social studies curriculum to make meaning as well as provide teachers a blueprint for implementing engaging and interactive lessons. We have neglected Dewey, which has led to confusion, student disinterest, and widespread teaching methodologies contrary to theoretical and research best practices. Revisiting Dewey provides the why and how of what we do, an ideal for creating a challenging and rigorous social studies curriculum while engaging students’ interests.
Jean Piaget
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Jean Piaget was one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century. His influence on developmental psychology, education and epistemology has been enormous. This text undertakes a reconstruction of the contexts and intellectual development of Piaget's numerous texts in the wide-ranging fields of biology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, child psychology, social psychology, theology, logic, epistemology and education.Richard Kohler reconstructs the often overlooked theological basis of Piaget's theories and analyses the influence this had upon the various areas of his research and reflections, particularly in relation to education.
Rudolf Steiner
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Rudolf Steiner is one of the most controversially judged educational reformers of the twentieth century. Although he received little recognition within his field, his educational thought has had a sustained and profound influence, not only in the development of the Waldorf Schools, but also in healing, socially therapeutic work, psychosomatic medicine, biological-dynamic agriculture, corporate organisation, fine arts, and architecture. Heiner Ullrich paints a concise and well-grounded portrait of the creator of the anthroposophic doctrine and Waldorf pedagogy. The text describes a wide arc from the intellectual biography of Rudolf Steiner, across his basic ideas on human development and education, to include discussion of the organisation, curriculum, methods and success of the Waldorf Schools.
Michel Foucault
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Michel Foucault's influential work spanned a wide array of intellectual disciplines, his writings having been widely taken up in philosophy, history, literary criticism and political theory. Focusing on the implications of Foucault's theories for education, whilst characterizing them as provocative, problematizing, poetic and playful, Lynn Fendler describes the historical context for understanding Foucault's ground breaking critiques. Including a discussion of his major theories of disciplinary power, genealogy, discourse and subjectivity, this text provides generative explanations of concepts, using analogies to the Internet and to food, in order to connect Foucault's theories to everyday experience.
Loris Malaguzzi and the Reggio Emilia Experience
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The Municipal preschools of Reggio Emilia, in Northern Italy, are renowned world-wide for the excellence of their provision. This approach provides a unique collaboration between children, parents, teachers and the wider community. Loris Malaguzzi and the Reggio Emilia Experience brings together the history and context of the Reggio Emilia experience, and explores the principles espoused by Loris Malaguzzi and the Early Years'Educators of the Reggio Emilia Municipality. It critically evaluates the emergent curriculum and quality provision and offers new insights into the powerful and dominant discourses of the Reggio movement. It will provide students and educators with a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon that is Reggio Emilia.
Educator Most Extraordinary
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This is the extraordinary story of Harry Rée, ‘the pre-eminent educationalist of the post-War years'. The youngest of eight children, he went to Cambridge and then into teaching, and after ten years as headmaster of Watford Boys'Grammar School he became a fervent advocate for comprehensives. The first professor appointed at the University of York, he argued for innumerable causes: community education, comprehensives, curricular reform, voluntary suicide, and much else. His life and thought explored such questions as: What can you do if you truly believe in the power of education? What does it mean to live a life committed to public service? Is one person's compromise another's sell-out? And what does it mean to be a visionary?
Bertrand Russell on Education
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Although scholars from many disciplines have turned their attention to Russell's work and appraised its significance for a number of fields, and an extensive literature on him emerged, until this book, first published in 1963, no thorough study on Russell's contribution to education – an area to which he devoted no small part of his energies – had yet appeared. The book is based on interviews with Russell as well as diligent research in his writings and the sources of his thought and will enlighten all who think seriously about education. It addresses specifically the usefulness of Russell's thought for American educators, which was challenging as Russell dared to question traditional ends and means of education at the time.
Alfred Adler Revisited
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Alfred Adler was one of the most influential thinkers in psychotherapy - a physician, psychiatrist, author, and professor who wanted to answer the questions that plagued people during a significant time in history. His original ideas serve as a foundation for most modern theories of counseling and psychotherapy, ideas and writings that are brought back to life in this volume. Within, contemporary experts comment and introduce Adler's work through the lens of the 21st century. In doing so, they pay tribute to, analyze, and disseminate his classic, seminal papers that have significantly impacted the therapy field. The 23 papers included were chosen because of their relevance to today's issues, and their importance in Adlerian theory and practice. They detail the core elements of his theory, the tactics he used to advocate change in individuals and systems, and emphasize how contemporary his ideas are. Alfred Adler Revisited not only plays homage to a great professional, it revives his ideas and encourages debate over fundamental human issues.
Education, Literacy, and Humanization
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A critical introduction to the work of Paulo Friere. The author adopts a holistic approach in exploring the ontological, epistemological, ethical and pedagogical dimensions of Freire's thought, and discusses his approach to adult literacy education.
Education and Democracy
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This book examines critically the ideas and performance of Paulo Freire as secretary of education in Brazil in the early 1990s, during the socialist democratic administration of the Workers’ Party in São Paulo. With an emphasis on theory, the authors discuss the relationships between the state and social movements as well as the relationships between teachers and curriculum reform. In so doing, they thoroughly examine the intersection of politics and education in educational reform in one of the major urban centers of Latin America.A central focus of the book is the project of interdisciplinarity in teachers training—an essential principle of the Freirean proposal. By concentrating on classrooms, schools, and teachers and by use of a detailed empirical analysis, this book constitutes an assessment of an original, far-reaching, and radical process of educational reform. The foundations and methodologies of the São Paulo experience can be implemented in different international contexts. The authors show how students and teachers were engaged in the process of curriculum and governance reform and what kind of political awareness emerged in schools and communities experiencing radical educational reform.
The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools
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From the bestselling author of Cultural Literacy, a passionate and cogent argument for reforming the way we teach our children Why, after decades of commissions, reforms, and efforts at innovation, do our schools continue to disappoint us? In this comprehensive and thought-provoking book, educational theorist E. D. Hirsch, Jr. offers a masterful analysis of how American ideas about education have veered off course, what we must do to right them, and most importantly why. He argues that the core problem with American education is that educational theorists, especially in the early grades, have for the past sixty years rejected academic content in favor of “child-centered” and “how-to” learning theories that are at odds with how children really learn. The result is failing schools and widening inequality, as only children from content-rich (usually better-off) homes can take advantage of the schools’ educational methods. Hirsch unabashedly confronts the education establishment, arguing that a content-based curriculum is essential to addressing social and economic inequality. A nationwide, specific, grade-by-grade curriculum established in the early school grades can help fulfill one of America’s oldest and most compelling dreams: to give all children, regardless of language, religion, or origins, the opportunity to participate as equals and become competent citizens. Hirsch not only reminds us of these inspiring ideals, he offers an ambitious and specific plan for achieving them.
Multiple Intelligences
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Howard Gardner's brilliant conception of individual competence has changed the face of education in the twenty-three years since the publication of his classic work, Frames of Mind. Since then thousands of educators, parents, and researchers have explored the practical implications and applications of Multiple Intelligences theory--the powerfulnotion that there are separate human capacities, ranging from musical intelligence to the intelligence involved in self-understanding. The first decade of research on MI theory and practice was reported in the 1993 edition of Multiple Intelligences. This new edition covers all developments since then and stands as the most thorough and up-to-date account of MI available anywhere. Completely revised throughout, it features new material on global applications and on MI in the workplace, an assessment of MI practice in the current conservative educational climate, new evidence about brain functioning, and much more.
Conflicts in Curriculum Theory
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Summary: This book challenges educators to be agents of change, to take history into their own hands, and to make social justice central to the educational endeavor. As a scholar immersed in a language of possibility, Paraskeva unabashedly embraces a pedagogy of hope championed by Paulo Freire where men and women of the world become conscious of their capacity as agents of history who can intervene in the world so as to make it less discriminatory and more humane.
Contemporary Theories of Learning
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Scope and content: "This tenth anniversary edition of Knud Illeris's classic 2008 text is an updated and definitive collection of today's most influential learning theorists, now containing additional chapters from John Hattie and Gregory Donoghue, Sharan Merriam, Gert Biesta and Carolyn Jackson. This book brings together world-renowned experts, who each present their understanding of what learning is and how human learning takes place, addressing the social, psychological and emotional contexts of learning. In this clear and coherent overview, Professor Knud Illeris has collated chapters that explain both the complex frameworks in which learning takes place and the specific facets of learning. Each international expert provides either a seminal text or an entirely new précis of the conceptual framework they have developed over a lifetime of study, such as adult learning theory, learning strategies, and the cultural and social nature of learning processes.Elucidating the key concepts of learning, Contemporary Theories of Learning provides both the perfect desk reference and an ideal introduction for students; it is an invaluable resource for all researchers and academics involved in the study of learning, and provides a detailed synthesis of current learning theories... all in the words of the theorists themselves."--Provided by publisher.
Faith-Based Education That Constructs
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Constructivism is everywhere. It is a hot issue at this time in the field of philosophy, education, technology, and religion. However, can constructivism be an alternative approach in faith-based education? While some conclude that Jesus knew learning was an active knowledge-creating process, and that he always encouraged his disciples to think deeply and go beyond the surface level, others would find that constructivism undercuts faith-based education because of its claims to relativity. For example, constructivists claim that meaning is imposed on the world by us rather than existing in the world independently from us. Thus, they proclaim that truth is relative to particular times, places, and people. Christians hold that truth does exist absolutely. So how can there be a way forward for faith-based educators who see the good in the constructivist approach? In Faith-Based Education that Constructs readers will find a unique approach whereby constructivism may appropriately be applied to a faith-based education setting. Although disagreement can occur between constructivism and faith-based education, this book concludes that constructivist thought and Christian faith-based education are, in the end, congruent and harmonious in significant ways. Those faith-based educators who continue to hold cautionary views of radical constructivist assertions against absolute truths need not disregard all other aspects of constructivism.
In the Shadow of Authoritarianism
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Summary: In the Shadow of Authoritarianism explores how American educators, in the wake of World War I, created a student-centered curriculum in response to authoritarian threats abroad. For most of the 20th century, American educators lived in the shadow of ideological, political, cultural, and existential threats (including Prussianism, propaganda, collectivism, dictatorship, totalitarianism, mind control, the space race, and moral relativity). To meet the perceived threat, the American curriculum was gradually moved in a more student-centered direction that focused less on "what to think" and more on "how to think." This book examines the period between World War I and the 1980s, focusing on how U.S. schools countered the influence of fascist and communist ideologies, as well as racial discrimination. Fallace also considers this approach in light of current interests in the Common Core State Standards. -- Provided by publisher.
Jacques Ranciere
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Jacques Ranciere: Education, Truth, Emancipation demonstrates the importance of Ranciere's work for educational theory, and in turn, it shows just how central Ranciere's educational thought is to his work in political theory and aesthetics. Charles Bingham and Gert Biesta illustrate brilliantly how philosophy can benefit from Ranciere's particular way of thinking about education, and go on to offer their own provocative account of the relationship between education, truth, and emancipation. Including a new essay by Ranciere himself, this book is a must-read for scholars of social theory and all who profess to educate.
L. S. Vygotsky and Education
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Summary: "Vygotsky's legacy in education is enduring and prolific, influencing educational research and scholarship in areas as far ranging child development, language and literacy development, bilingual education, and learning disabilities to name but a few. In this introductory volume, the author, a renowned Vygotsky authority presents a summary of Vygotskian core concepts, constituting a cultural-historical approach to the study of thinking and development. He emphasizes what he considers central tenets of Vygotsky's scholarship: the sociocultural genesis of human thinking, the consideration of active and dynamic individuals, a developmental approach to studying human thinking, and the power of cultural mediation in understanding and transforming educational practices, broadly considered. After an introduction to Vygotsky's life, the historical context for his work, and his ideas, the author provides examples from his educational research inspired by Vygotsky's work. With both critical scrutiny of current interpretations of Vygotskian theory and clear deference for the theorist known as "The Mozart of Psychology," the author stresses the many ways Vygotsky's theory can offer a theory of possibilities for positive pedagogical change."--Publisher's website.
Moral Classrooms, Moral Children
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Summary: This classic bestseller, now updated for today's diverse teaching force and student populations, explores the benefits of sociomoral practices in the classroom. The authors draw on recent research to show how these approaches work with children ages 2-8. They focus on how to establish and maintain a classroom environment that fosters children's intellectual, social, moral, emotional, and personality development. Extending the work of Jean Piaget, the authors advocate for a cooperative approach that contrasts with the coercion and unnecessary control that can be seen in many classrooms serving young children. Practical chapters demonstrate how the constructivist approach can be embedded in a school program by focusing on specific classroom situations and activities, such as resolving conflict, group time, rule making, decision making and voting, social and moral discussions, cooperative alternatives to discipline, and activity time.
Piaget and Education Primer
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Piaget & Education provides readers with a comprehensive introduction to the work of Jean Piaget. This valuable classroom work roots Piaget’s work in its historical context, and then provides dozens of classroom-based examples of how that work helps teachers understand the lives of children. It is an excellent resource for practicing teachers and student teachers, as well as undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education, curriculum, and philosophy of education.
Towards Discursive Education
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Summary: "As technology continues to advance, the use of computers and the Internet in educational environments has immensely increased. But just how effective has their use been in enhancing children's learning? In this thought-provoking book, Christina E. Erneling conducts a thorough investigation of scholarly journals articles on how computers and the Internet affect learning"-- Provided by publisher.
Vygotsky and Special Needs Education
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An international guide to using Vygotsky's theories to support children and schools in special needs education.
Vygotsky and the Promise of Public Education
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Summary: Vygotsky and the Promise of Public Education recontextualizes the scholarship of educator and psychologist Lev Vygotsky, highlighting its relevance to contemporary issues in public education. Emphasizing the historical, social, and cultural formation of conscious awareness, Jennifer A. Vadeboncoeur advances Vygotsky's project with current research in psychology, enabling the redefinition of central concepts such as learning, teaching, and developing. This attention to how we conceptualize learning and teaching is vital to the project of crafting schools to fulfill the promise of public education. Written for teacher candidates, educators, researchers, and policy-makers, this book both recognizes the complications of teaching and learning in public schools and contributes to the scholarship on the critical possibilities of schools as social institutions. The significance of public education for each and every child and teacher, and the future that is created in each student-teacher relationship, is re-centered as, perhaps, the most worthwhile project of our time. -- Provided by publisher.
Why Knowledge Matters
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In this provocative book, influential scholar E.D. Hirsch, Jr., addresses critical issues in contemporary education reform - over-testing, teacher blaming, preschool fadeout, and the persistence of achievement gaps over time. In each case, he shows how cherished truisms about education and child development have led to unintended and negative consequences. Drawing on recent findings in neuroscience and new data from France, he provides new evidence for the argument that a coherent, knowledge-based elementary curriculum is essential to providing the foundations for children's life success and ensuring equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds.
