PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SOCIETY
Abstracts
Yolanda Garcia Pavón & Pablo Flores del Rosario
Una filosofía para el pensar: desde el aula, desde la infancia,
desde la filosofía misma
Parece poco plausible sostener la tesis de una filosofía para
el pensar desde el aula, desde la infancia y desde la filosofía
misma. Como si en esas tres dimensiones el pensar no estuviera presente.
A pesar de este escepticismo inicial, hemos desarrollado una serie de
argumentos que afirman la plausibilidad de nuestra tesis. Estos argumentos
implican la articulación de una concepción diferente para
cada espacio indicado. Lo que da como resultado una concepción
diferente de infancia, aula y filosofía. Desde luego, cada una
de estas concepciones parece transgredir el marco conceptual desde el
cual estamos acostumbrados a pensarlas. Pero nos parece algo necesario.
Porque solo de este modo es que nuestra tesis adquiere sentido.
A philosophy for thinking: From the classroom, from childhood, from
philosophy itself
It seems implausible to maintain the thesis of a philosophy for thinking
from the classroom, from childhood and from philosophy itself, as if
thinking did not exist in these three dimensions. Despite this initial
skepticism, we have developed a series of arguments that affirm the plausibility
of our thesis. These arguments include the enunciation of a different
concept for each of the areas indicated. The result is a different concept
of infancy, classroom and philosophy. Of course, each of these concepts
seems to transgress the conceptual boundaries from which we are accustomed
to think. But we believe this is necessary because it is the only way
for our thesis to have meaning.
Dianne Gereluk
‘
Why can’t I wear this?’ Banning symbols in schools
Dress code policies are enforced to varying degrees in schools. Schools
ban clothing for reasons ranging from protecting children’s health
and safety to creating a cohesive school ethos. Despite schools’ attempt
to set policy concerning ‘appropriate’ clothing, an increasing
number of legal cases have challenged existing school dress policies.
Inconsistent criteria are used to decide whether certain symbolic clothing
should be banned. I contend that a principle of ‘offense’ is
applied to political or social symbolic clothing; conversely, autonomy
is used when considering religious symbols. In highlighting these two
discrepant criteria, I raise concerns about the potential inconsistent
weighting given to one category of symbols over another.
James Stillwaggon
Don’t stand so close to me: Relational distance between teachers
and students
Christopher Moffett
A flower in the grim city
Silvia Grinberg
La educación y la tragedia de la cultura: Notas sobre la pedagogía
de las competencias y la instrumentalización del saber en el siglo
XXI.
Nos proponemos reflexionar sobre el proceso de la formación en
tanto práctica social implicada y constituida en y por la racionalización
de la cultura. Recuperamos como eje aquello que Simmel dio en llamar
la tragedia de la cultura. La reflexión sobre esta cuestión
creemos es central en nuestro presente dada la instrumentalización
del saber y el desarrollo de lo que en gran parte de los procesos de
reforma de la educación realizados a partir de los noventa se
expresaron en las propuestas de la pedagogía de la competencias.
Entre otros aspectos dichos cambios se realizaron sobre una profunda
degradación del saber como cosa en sí, valorizando paralelamente
la utilidad y lo procedimental del conocer. Rastrear las lógicas
implicadas en la instrumentalización del saber es central si se
desea devolver a la pedagogía alguna posibilidad de participar
en la construcción de un mundo que pueda perdurarnos.
Education and the tragedy of culture: Notes on the teaching of competencies
and the orchestration of knowledge in the 21st Century
We plan to reflect on the process of education based on implied and established
social practice in and for the understanding of culture. We recover Simmel’s “tragedy
of culture” as a fundamental idea. We believe that reflecting on
this question is paramount at this time, given the orchestration of knowledge
and development expressed in the proposals of competency instruction,
which includes many of the reform processes carried out from the nineties.
Among other aspects, said changes caused a profound degradation of knowledge
itself, while giving greater value to the usefulness and the procedural
aspects of knowledge. Tracking the implied logic in the orchestration
of knowledge is vital if we wish to give back to teaching some possibility
of participating in building a world that may outlast us.
Shelby Sheppard
Education and the virtues of controversy
Erika Kiss
The triptych of liberal education
By presenting Plato’s Protagoras as a conceptual drama about the
birth of liberal education, this paper suggests two corrections to the
thesis that liberal education is brought into crisis by the contradictory
claims of instrumental learning versus learning for learning’s
sake. Firstly, it shows how the very articulation of the antagonism between
the intrinsic and the extrinsic aims of higher learning by the pair of
Socrates and Protagoras gave birth to liberal education. Secondly, liberal
learning is the balanced system of three and not two opposing principles.
The overlooked principle is the Platonic aim at the re-enactment of ancestral
ideals of a common origin. The real crisis of liberal education today
lies in the fact that the sophistic principle of education as an instrument
of socio-economic progress and the Platonic principle of cultural appropriation
of (biologically/regionally determined) ancestral heritage are not curbed
and balanced by their antagonistic counter-principle of Socratic education.
Frank Margonis
Seeking openings of already closed student-teacher relationships
Peter Giampietro
(Un)Disciplining virtue: Autonomy as attunement and relation
Jessica Hochman
Writ large: Graffitti and praxis in pedagogical third spaces
Mario Di Paolantonio
Framing trials for past abuses through an 'educative dialogue': Recovering
the formative role of conflict in a democracy
Diverse thinkers of transitional democracy have justified trials for
past state-sanctioned abuses by gesturing to their pedagogical ability
for showcasing the principles and benefits of deliberation. Such trials
are thought to stage a public forum where post-conflict disagreements
can be conciliated through an “educative dialogue” sustained
by the regulative principles inherent in court procedures. I argue that
an interpretative model that seeks to justify and understand such trials
by emphasizing the conciliatory effects of an “educative dialogue” elides
the formative pedagogical role that conflict plays in a democracy. Drawing
on “radical-democracy” theory the paper critically engages
the work of Mark Osiel and Carlos Nino, two legal scholars who develop
a deliberative-pedagogical proposal from their reading of the 1985 Trial
of the Military in Argentina.
Teresa Yuren
The philosophy of education in the official educational programs in Mexico – a
reconstruction of epochal philosophies
Se expone cómo se reconstruyó la filosofía de la
educación epocal contenida en los proyectos educativos oficiales
en México, articulando: a) el concepto de educación, b)
los fines y principios que orientaron políticas y prácticas
educativas en un momento histórico, y c) el criterio axiológico
estructurante de cada proyecto. La reconstrucción con base en
el análisis del discurso: filosófico, normativo, y político.
Se distinguieron seis proyectos a partir de 1821: ilustrado, civilizatorio,
positivista, revolucionario, desarrollista y modernizador. En ellos,
se reveló la presencia de diversas filosofías académicas,
pero dicha presencia se fue perdiendo por la sobredeterminación
del campo económico sobre el educativo. Se encontró que
las filosofías epocales responden a relaciones de fuerza pero
en todas hay elementos que responden al principio de dignificación.
Todd Rowen
A retrieval of awe: Examining disruption and apprehension in transformative
education
Dale Turner
Critical thinking and intractable disagreement: Temptations, dangers,
and cautions
One of the functions of argument—giving reasons for a view—is
the rational resolution of disagreement. However, Fogelin (1985) suggests
that argument cannot live up to its dialogic promise in contexts of “deep
disagreement’ because in such contexts the conditions essential
for arguing are systematically undermined. But the standard way to teach
critical thinking is to appeal to just the kinds of cases Fogelin suggests
cannot be resolved by appeal to argument—hot social controversies.
In this paper I defend a more modest version of Fogelin’s seemingly
radical claim against criticism and tease out some of the implications
of this claim for the teaching of critical thinking.
Helen Anderson
Renovating the schoolhome
In this paper, I examine Jane R. Martin’s work The Schoolhome in
relation to Cris Mayo’s criticism of the desire to create comfortable
learning environments. I argue that despite the apparent incompatibility
of their work, Martin’s Schoolhome may be read in a way that not
only addresses many of Mayo’s concerns, but also complements and
is complemented by Mayo’s own work. While Martin’s educational
focus seems to be on young, marginalized students, Mayo’s attention
appears primarily drawn to students in positions of social privilege.
I suggest that when read together, Mayo and Martin offer a more adequate
account of anti-oppression education than when read individually, although
questions remain about the ability of the Schoolhome to address oppression
on a systemic level.
Tyson Lewis
The ethics of the negative: Overcoming the frustrations of thinking dialectically
in Hegel’s Phenomenology of spirit
In this paper, I argue that the most important aspect of Hegel’s
thinking for educational philosophy has been largely overlooked: the
ethics of tarrying with the negative. The result has been a formulaic
treatment of dialectics drained of any consideration of intellectual
affect or a deterministic reading that represses the contingency of intellectual
labor. As such, I return to Hegel’s phenomenology in order to examine
the correct ethical virtues that inform his dialectical process. In particular,
I highlight the centrality of restraint, patience, and concentration
as opposed to self-righteousness, stubbornness, and vanity. In conclusion
I speculate how it is the role of the teacher not so much to teach content
as to facilitate this ethical relationship between subject and object,
thus promoting self-determining learning.
Ken Howe
On the (in)feasibility of school choice for social justice
Dror Post
A hope for hope: The role of hope in education
The concept of hope is often used in association with education, yet
the meaning of hope and its function in relation to education is still
considerably unexamined. The aim of this paper is to examine the role
of hope in education. The first part of the paper will look into the
concept of hope using three sources: a Greek myth, a Renaissance emblem
and a philosophical definition. The second part of the paper will employ
the renewed understanding of the concept of hope to examine the role
of hope in the sphere of education. Eventually, I attempt to introduce
a distinction between two kinds of hope, Promethean hope and Epimethean
hope, which I would like to suggest as an outline for a further investigation
in the subject.
Sharon Todd
Unveiling cross-cultural conflict: Gendered cultural practices in polycultural
society
Claudia Ruitenberg
How to do things with headscarves: A discursive and metadiscursive analysis
In this response I focus on the metadiscourse in which Todd’s paper
participates: the discourse about the sartorial discourse of Muslim girls
and women in educational contexts. I consider the wearing of head, face
and body covers discursive acts, and a law that makes wearing such head,
face, or body covers illegal in the context of public schools a form
of censorship. As this censorship is discussed in the public arena, a
metadiscourse arises. In Todd’s metadiscourse, she collapses burqa,
chador, hijab, jilbab, and niqab into the general descriptors of “veil,” “headscarf,” and “hijab,” and
uses these three terms interchangeably. This is problematic because it
dehistoricizes and decontextualizes a range of discursive acts, and leaves
the Euro-Christian interpretive framework of “veils” unquestioned.
Christian Hendricks
Trust and suspicion in critical thinking as transcendence
Matthew Jackson
Bordering on violence: A Levinasian critique of ontology and ethics in
Giroux’s critical pedagogy
This paper asserts that Henry Giroux’s pedagogical theory posits
politics as first philosophy. In contrast with Giroux, Emmanuel Levinas
argues for ethics as first philosophy wherein responsibility for the
other is a priori to consciousness. This paper argues that inasmuch as
Giroux’s pedagogical theory relies on the primacy of the political
being of reason, his conceptualizations of pedagogical intersubjectivity
will be ontologically violent. Ontological violence is done when the
alterity of the student is reduced to something the teacher can comprehend.
Giroux’s ethical intersubjectivity is thus limited to the closed
economy of critical self-reflexive reason. Through the work of Levinas
we might approach pedagogy in a way that ruptures the closed economy
of the self and opens pedagogical ethics to transcending violent egoistic
pedagogies.
Robert Roemer
Freire and Whitehead: Any difference?
Ann Chinnery
On compassion and community without identity: Implications for moral
education
In contrast to the prevailing conception of community, which is based
on similarity, commonality and identity, Zygmunt Bauman, Jacques Derrida
and others argue for a conception of “community without community.” By
this they mean communities that are porous, open to difference and the
incoming of the other. In a similar vein, I first explore what it might
mean to base community on a “negative” commonality – that
is, on our shared condition of existential lack or incompleteness. Next,
drawing mainly on Emmanuel Levinas, I posit compassion (construed as
a particular kind of suffering-with-the-other) as a disposition, or way
of being, that is especially suited to fostering community without identity;
and I close by outlining some of the attendant implications for moral
education.
Barbara Stengel
No fault responsibility
Ron Glass
Left behind once again: What’s luck got to do with education policies
and practices
This essay examines ways that matters of moral luck get turned into enduring
life realities by current education policies and school practices, leaving
the unlucky children in low-income, culturally and linguistically diverse
families behind once again. These children suffer diminished life chances
not only from the circumstances of their situation but also from the
added injuries caused by the ranking and sorting mechanisms of schools
that disadvantage the poor. Schools punish poor children for their bad
luck by transforming it into purported personal failures which become
blameworthy facts of their lives that persist into adulthood and substantively
reduce their social, economic, and political opportunities. The essay
first considers the connection between matters of luck and education
policies and practices, then it examines luck in moral judgments in general,
and finally it reconsiders the meaning of luck in education policies
and practices.
Bryan Warnick
How do we learn from the lives of others?
This paper raises questions about how we learn from the presence of other
human lives and suggests how such questions can be examined philosophically.
Although ideas of imitation, human exemplars, and role models permeate
contemporary educational discourse and the history of philosophy of education,
they have been of little interest to philosophers as an independent subject
of inquiry. This paper argues that philosophers of education can make
important contributions to contemporary educational discourse by (1)
specifying the assumptions made in discussions of human exemplars and
imitative learning, (2) making connections between these assumptions
and the disparate groups of relevant literature, and (3) assessing the
meaning, value, and genuine limitations of imitative learning. I give
examples of how engagement in these activities leads to productive lines
of inquiry about the nature of imitative learning and, in the end, I
suggest that the discourse of role models could benefit by more attention
to the larger social dimensions of imitative learning.
Sharon Bailin.
An inquiry into inquiry: (How) Can we learn from other times and places?
Leonard Waks
Intuition in education: Teaching and learning without thinking
Rebecca Katz
Communal training of the solitary individual: A Nietzschean puzzle concerning
liberal education
How is it that, according to Nietzsche, culture – which is essentially
communal – is so tightly bound with self-knowledge only gained
through solitary investigation? Using this puzzle as a springboard, I
am particularly interested in the more specific derivative tension pertinent
to concerns of Nietzschean liberal education: the seeming dissonance
between Nietzsche’s call for great solitary individuals who exemplify
human flourishing and the need for proper (communal) institutions to
train them. By giving this tension its proper due via examining and resolving
it, I demonstrate the relevance of Nietzsche’s work to the discussion
of liberal education, holding a mirror to our current state, and show
how the paradox loses its contradictory mein.
Terri Wilson
Beyond scientific vs interpretative: Deweyan inquiry and educational
research
Alexander Sidorkin
Enslavement of children, or chrysalization of class
The paper shows that emergence of modern childhood can be explained by
a need to secure unpaid labor of school-aged children by means of extra-economic
coercion. The pre-modern Europe needed to compel a growing segment of
population to participate in unpaid work of schooling. The task was accomplished
by creating a group with limited rights, and by convincing everyone that
the labor of schooling is actually a kind of service provided to children.
Ultimately, the modern conception of childhood was born of power relations
formed by economic necessity. To support the claim, the author relies
mainly on Philippe Ariès’s account. Michel Foucault and
Karl Marx provided ways of thinking about mechanics of power.
Suzanne Rice
The educational significance of trust
Karen Krasny
Seeking the affective and the imaginative in the act of reading: Embodied
consciousness and the evolution of the moral self
Dewey maintained that the sympathetic imagination that grows out of having
certain communal and intersubjective experiences is central to moral
inquiry and the development of a good moral character. To Dewey, narrowness
of mind was the direct result of a lack of the affective and imaginative
in one’s educational life. In his view, affective relations with
others and with a variety of situations signified access to a landscape
that would not otherwise be available. In this paper, I argue that recent
developments in neuroscience and the emerging field of consciousness
studies offer more adequate and embodied accounts of the structure and
function of imagery and affect that can establish literary reading as
precisely such a landscape.
Kathy Hytten
Philosophy and the art of teaching for social justice
In purpose to this paper is to rethink the role of philosophy in teaching
for social justice. I begin by describing some of the tools that philosophers
of education have developed to help us to think critically, including
uncovering fundamental assumptions, clarifying meanings, making connections,
asking questions, and offering visions. Even though these tools seem
obvious, we don’t often help teachers to use them, or use them
well. Yet while necessary, these habits of thinking are not sufficient.
We also need to learn the art of getting by in the absence of certainty
about what is the just course of action, as well as how to recognize
the limitations and disrupt the blindnesses endemic to traditional ways
of seeing. Moreover, we need to create new pedagogical tools for addressing
injustice, particularly within the context of teacher education. Narrative,
performance, and alternative forms of media in the classroom are several
possibilities.
Charles Bingham
Authority is never genuine, but neither is giving it up
Charles Howell
Is disobedience a sin? Christian perspectives on problems of classroom
management
Kunzman’s weak fallibilism thesis is applied to the debate about
discipline in public schools. Secular and conservative Christian perspectives
on classroom discipline are examined, and found to rely on contrasting
theories of responsibility. The secular social-scientific approach holds
that responsibility is diminished by social factors that influence behavior.
The Christian approach, based on an expansive view of free will, holds
agents responsible for intentional action despite social influences.
The educational implications of these theories, however, turn out to
resemble one another much more closely than the rhetoric of their advocates
would lead one to suspect. The convergence of religious and social-scientific
understandings of children’s moral development provides common
ground for religious parents and secular educators, and this result supports
Kunzman’s thesis.
Anne Newman
Transforming a moral right into a legal right: The case of school finance
litigation and the right to education
In this paper I examine two court cases, San Antonio Independent School
District v. Rodriguez, and Rose v. Council for Better Education, to discuss
this question: How can a moral claim about a right to educational opportunity
be translated into a legal right with policy traction? I highlight how
the Rodriguez decision mistakenly identifies only the extreme positions
that the judiciary might adopt with respect to education, and chooses
a miserly conception of state responsibility to avoid its opposing untenable
ideal. The Rose decision, by contrast, steps into the middle of what
is properly understood as a continuum of judicial regard for education
to affirm a right that treats education as constitutive of political
rights. I then address the broader critique that rights alone cannot
redistribute needed resources. I conclude by suggesting extra-judicial
advocacy that may help realize a right to education.
CONTACT: PES Executive Kurt Stemhagen
804-827-8415; krstemhagen@vcu.edu