2014 Australian Association for Research in Education Presidential Address

The 2014, 41st Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) presidential address is both inspired and guided by the discursive genres of presidential addresses and the role of the president in a member association such as AARE. In the address, typically the president speaks to the members on an issue or issues that are to shape or conclude their term of office, as it is in my case. Like many of the 40 AARE presidents who have gone before me, I will embed some things that are professional, personal and political—not in the interests of advancing my research agenda, but to add “to the weave and pattern of the association’s history” (Reid 2010, p. v). Threads of my research since completing my PhD in 2000 will appear to support the broad argument. Also, I will draw on the outcomes of the 2014 Australian Research Council Discovery round (see Australian Research Council: ARC archives 2016) to encapsulate my key argument that educational research and its (ex)changes are being reshaped: in a post human digital age, the tree of knowledge is mutating. To make my argument, I will review how the thinking and doing of educational research mid-way through the second decade of the twenty-first century is constructed and ask what research endeavours might be created to make the best possible worlds for our member community and the aspirations of the association.     

No science today—the demise of primary science

In this second article on the theory of ‘ground rules for talk’ I extend a debate between myself and Professor Neil Mercer over the introduction of ‘ground rules’ into classrooms. I critique ground rules through the use of sociological theory and argue that advocates of the ground rules perspective need to recognise the ideological nature of their theoretical position. In making this article a clear extension of my previous argument I introduce the work of Bernstein and Fairclough to support my new arguments. I use Bernstein's theory of pedagogy as cultural relay and Fairclough's appropriateness model of language variation to critique ‘ground rules perspectives’. In doing so, I draw out the political nature of educational theory and curriculum within the context of a specific socio-economic society.     

The Place of English Revisited

In this essay I explore the constraints and opportunities confronting me as a newly qualified teacher and how these affect my pedagogy. I have reflected on my own development from beginning to newly qualified teacher and considered how such forces have shaped my identity as a teacher, my values and my approach to the job. As part of my exploration of my practice and the values I hold, I have revisited ‘The Place of English’, an essay I wrote midway through my Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) year; I have reconsidered how the current climate of educational reform and my subsequent experience have altered or strengthened these initial perceptions. In what follows I have reflected critically on two episodes of teaching and learning with my Year 10 class, my most challenging group, in order to further understand the way in which I have responded to the responsibilities and pressures placed on a classroom teacher. These pressures, I suggest, are intensified by the preconceptions of age and gender within my school and implicit more widely in the traditional values of our culture. The fragments of my practice that I have explored reveal tensions that gesture at a gap between educational theory, first-hand professional experience and governmental policy. They present an argument to resist the temptations of oversimplified, linear conceptions of teaching and learning, and maintain the place of English as a subject of creativity, exploration and expression that, at its heart, values both individual and collective student voices and identities.     

Educating Sentiment: Hume's Contribution to the Philosophy of the Curriculum Regarding the Teaching of Art

From the perspective of art education, the worst‐case philosophical scenario is the hedonist‐subjectivist account of art. If we measure art by the pleasure we gain from it, it may seem senseless to attempt teaching the reception of art. David Hume's ‘Of the Standard of Taste’ provides an argument for the art‐education enthusiast, explaining that—even on a subjectivist account—art education crystallises our own preferences. While I refer to a historical debate and provide a close reading of an 18^th‐century essay, my goal is to offer a philosophical solution to an ongoing dilemma; I use Hume's essay to ground the justification of art education.     

Social epistemology and the theory turn: a response to Niesche

ABSTRACT

This paper is a response to Richard Niesche’s recent JEAH paper claiming a ‘theory turn’ in educational leadership. Bringing Niesche’s argument into conversation with recent work on social epistemology in the field, I argue that any claim for a theory turn is premature and arguably requires further nuancing of enduring issues. Framed around the relational methodology, the argument articulates my own complicity with the proposed theory turn, before problematising the idea of a turn and highlighting the importance of time and space. Importantly, I seek to go beyond the analytical dualism of theoretical and atheoretical categories for the purpose of offering a productive contribution for advancing understanding in the field. This is not to refute Niesche’s argument, rather to highlight some of the problems and possibilities it identifies and to the push the ideas further in the interest of scholarly dialogue and debate.     

Defending Dramatism as ontological and literal

For twenty years, scholars have contested Burke's argument—originally offered at an Eastern Communication Association convention — that dramatism is ontological and literal. These Burkean scholars have instead emphasized dramatism as epistemological and metaphorical. In this essay, I reread this dispute in support of Burke's position. I conclude that this debate contains two separate claims by Burke: (1) dramatism is ontological, and not epistemological, because it begins with language as action, not representation; and (2) this starting‐point can claim a privileged (literal) status because it offers the most complete approach to its topic. Through this interpretation of the debate, I make a case for a rehabilitated (and ontologically‐grounded) notion of literality—and sketch its implications for contemporary rhetorical theory.     

The Pedagogy and Pleasures of Teaching a 21st-Century Skill

Since at least the 1990s, voices both inside and outside the academy have vigorously debated whether the university has the responsibility to educate students in ‘transferable skills’ in addition to disciplinary content. Lists of these skills often include critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and innovation, and, almost always, communication, this article's focus. I briefly review the debate on whether such skills should be a prominent part of the university curriculum, and specifically address one argument advanced by the critics—that these skills cannot be taught. I describe my experience teaching communication relying on research-based practices and reflect on what it means to teach transferable skills in the digital age, as pedagogy changes and the university extends its reach. The article concludes with a recommendation to expand the teaching and learning of transferable skills and suggests how this can be accomplished.     

The Prudential Value of Education for Autonomy

A popular justification of education for autonomy is that autonomy possession has intrinsic prudential value. Communitarians have argued, however, that although autonomy may be a core element of a well‐lived life in liberal societies, it cannot claim such a prudential pedigree in traditional societies in which the conception of a good life is intimately tied to the acceptance of a pre‐established worldview. In this paper I examine a recent attempt made by Ishtiyaque Haji and Stefaan Cuypers to respond to this challenge by reestablishing the intrinsic prudential value of autonomy, and I argue that although their work has merit in some respects, it suffers from a notable theoretical deficiency as well as a practical deficiency. Like Haji and Cuypers, I wish to argue that autonomy has intrinsic prudential value; but my argument is not grounded on the claim that autonomy is a necessary part of well‐being. I argue, rather, that it stands to reason—and that liberals and traditionalists alike have reason to accept—that autonomous assent to a conception of the good life is an intrinsically prudentially better state of affairs than nonautonomous assent to the same. My goal in this essay, then, is to clarify the prudential significance of (and to provide a justification for) education for autonomy in a manner that will be appealing to liberals and traditionalists alike.     

American Philosophy,Translation and the Time of the Pandemic: A Rejoinder to Ruth Heilbronn and Adrian Skilbeck

In response to Ruth Heilbronn and Adrian Skilbeck's thoughtful review of my American Philosophy in Translation, I take up three aspects of the argument about which I want both to defend my position and to clarify it further. The first is the use of examples in philosophy and philosophy of education. The second raises the question of how far American philosophy, as a philosophy in response to crisis, can answer to the contemporary crisis of the pandemic. The third addresses some educational implications of American philosophy in translation by paying attention to the particularities of its language—especially in respect of such considerations as distance education, international exchange without travel and alternative routes of political education through withdrawal and through the creation in digital space of what Thoreau called ‘beautiful knowledge’.     

“A Creative Psalm of Brotherhood”: The (De)constructive Play in Martin Luther King's “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

Scholars have celebrated the spoken word in King's “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” but they have overlooked the significance of the Letter's writing. In this essay I closely read King's act of writing the Letter, along with the figures of speech he employs in it, and I show how both—by enacting the mass media's ability to cross contexts—are essential to King's political strategy of nonviolent direct action, as well as to the Letter's argument against segregation—an argument that, before the fact, follows the steps we have since come to associate with deconstructive analysis.     

‘In-between’ Asia and Australia: on the politics of teaching English as the ‘Other’

This article mobilizes story-telling to narrate my lived experience of teaching English as a minority academic in one Australian university. Positioning myself as living ‘in-between’ two cultures and as an ‘Other’, I tell my story of how I have been ‘racialized’ and ‘Othered’ because I do not look White, and my spoken English is distinctly accented; hence, my legitimacy of teaching English is held suspect. My story contributes to the theorizing of the sociology of the in-between with the argument that while living in-between culture can be a space of negativity, it can also be a space of empowerment if one exercises choice and agency by forging new spaces. I end my story-telling with a happy ending by presenting a contrasting story of how my run-away from Australia to (a new space in) Hong Kong to teach English has reaffirmed my cultural capital as I morph into a different ‘Other’.     

No End to Equality

John White argues that 'egalitarianism, in education as elsewhere, is a will-o'-the-wisp'.¹ He claims that recent defences of egalitarianism, among which he kindly includes my own along with those of Thomas Nagel and Kai Nielsen, have failed to answer the basic question of why a more equal society should be regarded as valuable. I shall try to show that the positive philosophical commitments contained in his argument may point the way to an answer.     

Constructivism: Sound theory for explicating the practice of science and science teaching

Critics praise applications of constructivism in science pedagogy, but they argue that constructivism is severely impaired and hopelessly flawed as a theory. Flawed theory should not be employed to explain innovative practice. My purposes are twofold. First and foremost, I present a case to support my own and others' assertions that constructivism is a sound theory with which to explain the practice of science and science pedagogy. In accomplishing my primary purpose, I also fulfill my secondary purpose, to respond to constructivism's critics. My argument is presented in three parts. In Part 1, I delineate the epistemological ground with a brief synopsis of the purpose, nature, and orientation of radical and social constructivism. I then offer a synthesis of their foundations. In Part 2, I offer a constructivist account of five long-standing epistemological issues, including truth, solipsism, experience, instrumentalism, and relativity. Truth is the center piece of the argument, and I show how constructivism avoids the root paradox by embracing truth as coherence. Next, constructivism is shown to be a rejection of solipsism. Then, an account of experience based in neurophysiological theory, emergent properties, and the brain as a parallel data-processing organ is provided to support constructivism's inside-out view of experience, in which meaning making occurs within individual minds and in communities of individuals. In the final segment of Part 2, I present a constructivist account of relativity which focuses on physicists' acceptance of relativity, its translation to constructivist epistemology, and constructivists' request for silence regarding ontology. Response to critics' objections are also presented at appropriate points throughout Part 2. In the third part, I present constructivism as an epistemological foundation for a cybernetic perspective of knowing. I then summarize the value of constructivism in explaining and interpreting the practice of science and science pedagogy. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 35: 501–520, 1998.     

Technology in Communications—McLuhan Reconsidered

‘When I started school—just a few years ago—neither my teachers nor I knew the term educational media. If we had, it would have meant to us textbooks, a blackboard and some squeaky chalk. Today it embraces the most exotic, complex and seemingly endless array of electronic miracles.     

Does ACCEL Excel as a Model of Giftedness? A Reply to Commentators

In this essay, I respond to commentators on my article on the Active Concerned Citizenship and Ethical Leadership (ACCEL) model for understanding giftedness. I cover a number of topics that arose in or out of the commentaries, in particular, systems inertia; toxic leadership; teaching for creativity; flight from reality; the role of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in teaching for wisdom; the developmental nature of giftedness; making a positive, meaningful, and enduring difference; IQ as a diagnostic tool rather than as a gatekeeper; meeting the needs of marginalized young people; teacher education; and retrospective studies. I conclude that the differences among all of us in this symposium are small and that we all agree that a model like ACCEL—whatever its exact terms—is needed to move the field of giftedness beyond a preoccupation with abilities, narrowly defined.     

Nonadmirable moral exemplars and virtue development

ABSTRACT

Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory claims that admiration for a person is a necessary condition for her to be a moral exemplar. I argue that this claim is empirically unsupported. I provide two counterexamples, astronauts and brain data. I demonstrate that they play the role of exemplars well but receive no admiration and, accordingly, are entitled to be called nonadmirable moral exemplars. I conclude that my argument suggests why Aristotle, distinct from Zagzebski, does not emphasise the role of the praiseworthiness of virtue in his theory of virtue development in the Nicomachean Ethics.     

Embracing and Harnessing the Intimate Connection Between Emotion and Cognition to Help Students Learn

Traditionally, cognition and emotion were believed to be independent systems; however, research in the cognitive and neurobiological sciences has shown that the relationship between cognition and emotion is both interdependent and extensive. This intimate connection between emotion and cognition is leading to a number of insights that have the potential to inform and transform educational practices at all levels—from the classroom to the curriculum to educational policy. The question that has been on my mind (and on my heart) is, as a teacher, how can I both embrace and harness the power of emotion to help my students’ learning be more meaningful, useful, and intrinsically motivated? In this article, I would like to share with you some of the effective practices that I have implemented in my classroom and how I have worked to intentionally embed the emotional aspect of learning into the framework of the courses I teach.     

The Revolutions in English Philosophy and Philosophy of Education

Abstract

This article was first published in 1982 in Educational Analysis (4, 75–91) and republished in 1998 (Hirst, P. H., & White, P. (Eds.), Philosophy of education: Major themes in the analytic tradition, Vol. 1, Philosophy and education, Part 1, pp. 61–78. London: Routledge). I was then a lecturer in philosophy of education at Sheffield University teaching the subject to Master’s students on both full- and part-time programmes. My first degree was in philosophy, read under D. W. Hamlyn and David Cooper and, given their interests, inevitably emphasized the philosophy of language, in particular the work of Wittgenstein in this field. When I subsequently turned my attention to the philosophy of education it seemed obvious to me that there were serious problems with Professor Peters’ approach to language, and I had particular difficulties with his approach to criteria, meaning theory and what seemed an odd interpretation of a transcendental argument. This article thus set out to show that the then dominant form of philosophy of education seemed not to take account of developments in the philosophy of language that preceded Professor Peters’ early work by at least a decade and which cast serious doubt on the enterprise as it was then understood. As the articles in the 1998 collection indicate, I was not alone in thinking there was something amiss, although at the time I seemed to be ploughing a somewhat lonely furrow. In revisiting this early article some 30 years after it was first published I have found to my surprise that there is little I would now change, although I have been forcibly reminded of the very lively discussions Professor Peters and I had over these issues. The fact that there is little I would now add to, or subtract from, my critique is in itself a telling comment on the enduring and influential legacy of the approach to the philosophy of education that Professor Peters championed so powerfully.     

Theoretically and Practically Speaking,What is Needed in Diversity and Equity in Science Teaching and Learning?

This article discusses how issues of diversity and equity are addressed in the preparation of science teachers who are charged with teaching diverse students in schools. Highlighting examples from my own teaching and research and other studies in education, I frame this article in terms of a broad application of theory in science teacher preparation to classroom practices in order to address science achievement and equity for diverse students. I also discuss the relevance of my argument for in-service professional development.