Assessment of teachers’ gains across multiple historic site-based professional development programs

This paper reports on Y3/3-year project to assess teacher growth in historical knowledge, skills, and dispositions, at historic site-based teacher PD programs (HSBPD). This third year study, drawn from two different historic sites—Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and George Washington’s Mount Vernon, we found a plurality of teachers evinced growth in historical thinking after exposure to on-going archeological and interpretive work at the sites. This is the first study to tie historical thinking gains to specific elements of teachers’ work with historic dssites. As part of the larger study, these results move us towards more generalizable understandings of HSBPD outcomes.     

董仲舒依“三统、三道”不断更化的辩证进步历史观

以“三统、三正”的循环论,论定董仲舒“天不变,道亦不变”之形而上学的天道观与历史观,是错误的。董子的社会历史哲学是“继乱世者其道变”的不断更化的历史观;一切论定董仲舒的历史观为循环论者,实际上都有意或无意地回避了他对“汤武革命”的肯定;其历史哲学方法论是“举往以明来”;是“治国者以积贤为道”的政治论。概括起来即是：依照“三统、三道”不断更化的辩证进步的社会历史观。     

Persuasion: Principles and method

The Control of the Breath, by George Dodds and James Dunlop Lickley. London. Oxford University Press. 1925. 65 Pp.

Better Speech, by Annie E. Polk. Century Co. 1924 pp. XXVI, 251. (Preface by H. B. Moore).

A Manual of English. By George B. Woods and Clarence Stratton. Doubleday, Page &; Co., 1926. Pp. xxv &; 282.

The Phantom Public. By Walter Lippmann. New York. Har‐court, Brace and Company. 1925.

Best Sermons—1925. By Joseph Fokt Newton. New York, Har‐court Brace and Co., 1925, pp. 337.

Speech Correction. By E. C. Borden and A. C. Busse. New York. F. S. Crofts and Co 1925. 295 Pp.

Speech Training for Scottish Students. By William Grant and Elizabeth H. A. Robson. Cambridge University Press. 1925. Pp. xiv—128.

Verbatim Record of the Sixth Assembly of the League of Nations; Reports of the Plenary Meetings. Boston. World Peace Foundation.     

On the Dangers of Antiquarian Investigations: Nietzsche,the Excesses of History,and the Power of Forgetting

Drawing on Nietzsche’s insights as well as those of his critics, this article explores the dangers and limitations of the antiquarian type of historical investigations. The author begins his analysis by closely examining Nietzsche’s conception of antiquarian history and explaining why he finds this mode of historical investigation so troubling. Next he shows that the problem that Nietzsche associates with the antiquarian type of historicizing can be seen in a contemporary genealogical investigation: Daniel Mendelsohn’s book The Lost. Returning to Nietzsche, he then analyzes the meaning and value of his notion of the ‘power of forgetting’ and argues that it can serve as an antidote to some of the dangers of antiquarian history. In the final part of this article the author examines how the power of forgetting might be educationally valuable.     

中加高职课程模式比较研究

在不同的历史背景下,中国与加拿大高等职业教育课程有着不同的开发方法和课程特征,因此形成了各具特色的课程模式.本文以加拿大乔治布朗学院建筑技术专业的课程计划、课程开发、课程特征为例,对两国的高职课程模式进行比较、分析,以期为我国高职课程改革提供借鉴.     

The ethnic minority achievement grant: a critical analysis

This article critically analyses the extent to which the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant (EMAG) has been successful in meeting its core objective of raising the achievement of minority ethnic groups who are at risk of underachieving. The article provides an historical analysis of the Grant, sets the Grant within the context of the Labour government’s policies relating to minority ethnic groups and social inclusion and reports on the authors’ research into the use made by Local Education Authorities (LEAs) of EMAG based on an analysis of LEA EMAG action plans. It suggests that although there have been some improvements in closing the gaps between minority ethnic achievement and national averages since the introduction of the Grant, these have been largely limited to groups receiving English as an Additional Language (EAL) support, although these groups continue to underachieve. Further the relative achievement of some groups, notably Black Caribbean pupils, has not improved at all since the introduction of the Grant. The article proposes that if the government wishes to more effectively tackle minority ethnic underachievement then it needs to increase the overall amount spent on the Grant, which has been frozen in recent years, and demonstrate more commitment to tackling institutionalized racism within the education system and the national curriculum. Although the government is issuing guidance to schools to address historic weaknesses in the way that the Grant has been deployed, the guidance itself does not go far enough in acknowledging the role of schools and particularly LEAs in tackling underachievement. Nor does the proposed new guidance recognize the importance of including the perspectives of local Black and Asian communities in decisions on how the Grant is deployed.     

Remembering Peter Medway

Peter Medway was an exceptionally able teacher, researcher and thinker, and his work throws light on governments, inspectors and educators. In the early 1960s, Peter met a theory which ‘established language as a major means of constructing our realities’. Later, after teaching English in secondary schools for two decades, he reflected on why this theory had failed to make English more serious and more central. In his research, he looked into the history of English, its assumptions, practices and motivations. He also wrote about the significance of the students’ experiences, looking carefully (and critically) at what they produced in talk and writing. Persuaded that English needs to be about using language rather than studying it, he helped students find the right words. Starting with their own words, Peter focused on the business of making interventions without compromising students’ own agency. When he returned from Canada to take up a lectureship at King’s College, London, he was dismayed by the state of English in schools. His dissatisfaction with current English teaching led to a fully funded research project as well as a major publication that tells a story of the way teacher-led change transformed English in post-war London, English Teachers in a Postwar Democracy. Here we remember what was special about his contribution, his legacy and why we will miss him.     

Book Reviews

Theodore F. Wolff and George Geahigan, Art Criticism and Education Grant Cook, Deirdre Griffin and Maureen CoxTeaching Young Children to Draw: Imaginative Approaches to Representational Drawing Margaret Morgan and Gillian Robinson, Developing Art Experience, 4–13 Peter Dormer (ed.), The Culture of Craft Students, Essays by Students on the Victoria and Albert and Royal College of Art Course in History of Design     

美的守望与守望的美

王向峰与牟心海都是美的守望者。几十年的守望成为一种更加别致的风景,正是这种风景铸成守望之美。牟心海以饱满的学术激情走进王向峰的美学世界,他的研究严谨而自成体系,在回归历史现场中探求王向峰马克思主义美学思想的形成与发展,抽炼其美学思想核心。牟心海回归历史现场,并不总是寻找那些大历史,有时他更喜欢打捞历史的"碎片","避重就轻",建构一个新的"意义场",为我们揭开另外的"谜底",回归历史现场,更突出之处在于,他回到实践场,探求王向峰美学思想的实践性特征。对于王向峰的每部美学著作,牟心海几乎都是在理论与实践的双重观照中进行研究,并型塑美的守望者。而这一切源于他几十年对于美的守望情结。     

The complexity of intellectual currents: Duncan McArthur and Ontario’s progressivist curriculum reforms

This paper concentrates on a seminal figure in the history of Canadian education who has never previously been the subject of historical examination: Duncan McArthur. As Deputy Minister, then Minister of Education, in Ontario between 1934 and 1942, he guided the province’s public schools during a period of dramatic reorganisation within a context transformed throughout the interwar years by modernity, economic instability, urbanisation and industrialisation. Under McArthur’s leadership, revised programmes of study formally introduced the rhetoric of progressive education into Canada’s most populous public school system. This rhetoric wove together three distinct themes – meliorism, efficiency and child study – articulating a progressivist educational vision for Ontario’s teachers and students.     

Hofrat Dr. Adolf Hübl

George, seated midway back in Miss Tiffin's class, looked as though he might cause trouble. And he did. Not aware he was being watched, he poked Fred. Of course Fred poked back, and the fray was on. Both suddenly stopped, conscious of Miss Tiffin's hard glare. They looked up guiltily, expecting her to speak. She did. She was determined not to let her new class get out of hand. As she reprimanded Fred and George, she found herself becoming more angry. Her voice rose shrilly and her words became caustic. A few seconds later she realised her words weren't having the effect she intended. She wasn't handling the situation well. What had been a small disturbance seemed to spread. She just wasn't getting through. Suddenly she wished she had taken a different approach.     

Challenging fundraising,challenging inequity: contextual constraints on advocacy groups’ policy influence

School fundraising is known to reproduce inequities in schools, yet it remains common practice in Ontario, Canada; findings from a critical policy analysis of an advocacy group’s efforts to change fundraising policy help explain why this is the case. Adopting a discursive understanding of policy, the study used rhetorical analysis to identify how the group has engaged in a decades-long struggle over the meaning of fundraising policy. The findings of the rhetorical analysis were examined in light of an historical narrative of Ontario’s social context to understand how the policy’s contexts have constrained the group’s influence. The study’s findings demonstrate that challenging school fundraising by defining the policy as a problem of equity is not strong enough to overcome neoliberalism’s pressure on parents to provide their children with educational advantages, a trend toward privatization in public education, neoconservative interests in reduced government spending, Canadians’ belief in meritocracy, and historical fundraising practices and dominant meanings. Further, the continuance of school fundraising even after Ontario’s government introduced policy that explicitly addressed the group’s concerns about equity and aimed to limit the practice challenges traditional notional of group influence and success in policy processes.     

Vision and Leadership in Educational Administration: Sir George White of Norwich (1840–1912)

This article considers the usefulness of current models of leadership in change situations for an analysis of a historical case study of educational leadership. It uses the life of Sir George White (1842–1912) and his leadership in the field of education in Norwich and at the national level in the UK to examine the nature of effective leadership in a context of social change. The leadership traits of cultivating relationships, leading with a clear moral purpose, creating coherence through the communication of a strong vision, sharing knowledge and understanding the possibilities offered by change in a specific context, are used to frame the analysis of George White’s leadership style.     

冯友兰唯物史观哲学方法论述评

从20世纪20年代开始,冯友兰就已经开始受到唯物史观的影响,并逐渐将唯物史观作为其分析历史、社会、文化以及进行哲学创作的基本方法,成为当时运用唯物史观研究中国哲学的一个范例,这为我们进一步认识冯友兰新中国成立后的学术研究和"冯友兰现象"提供了部分的历史依据。     

Behind the Blackout Curtains: Female Focalization of Atlantic Canada in the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dear Canada</Emphasis> Series of Historical Fiction

Novels from the Dear Canada series of historic fiction, published by Scholastic Canada, currently populate the shelves of school classrooms and libraries across Canada. This study explores two Dear Canada novels that chronicle significant moments in Atlantic Canadian history: Janet McNaughton’s novel (Flame and ashes: The great fire diary of Triffie Winsor. St. Johns, Newfoundland, 1892, Scholastic Canada, Toronto, 2014) which explores the Great Fire of Newfoundland in 1892, and Julie Lawson’s novel, No Safe Harbour (No safe harbour: the Halifax explosion diary of Charlotte Blackburn, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1917, Scholastic Canada, Toronto, 2006), which explores the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Kenneth Kidd (Child Lit 33: 120–149, 2005) notes that “subjects previously thought too upsetting for children are now deemed appropriate and even necessary” in children’s literature (p. 12); indeed, the themes of both Flame and Ashes and No Safe Harbour resonate with recent attempts to represent broader and more diverse ranges of experiences in children’s fiction. Like many other texts in the series, these texts explore economic hardship and psychological distress. Furthermore, they explore events through the eyes of subjects who have, historically, had very little agency: female children. Drawing on narrative theory and feminist standpoint theory (Fuller in Writing the everyday: women’s textual communities in Atlantic Canada, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2004), this study examines the narrative techniques McNaughton and Lawson rely on to counterbalance difficult historical events with the appeal of young protagonists who offer subjective responses to the historical moment. This study considers both the ideological challenges and the possible advantages of circulating historical knowledge that is linked to girlhood and profoundly rooted in place. Ultimately, I argue that these young female narrators provide important inroads for interrogating what counts as history in historical narratives.     

The Aesthetic and Moral Character of Oakeshott's Educational Writings

This article is an investigation of two apparently contradictory impulses in Oakeshott's writings about liberal education. On the one hand, he implied that it was primarily ‘aesthetic’, something undertaken for its own sake with no practical consequences. On the other hand, he often implied that a student might undergo a moral transformation in the process of becoming educated. This article attempts to reconcile both these ideas in Oakeshott's thought, and to show that they are coherent within the German Bildung tradition.     

Revisiting the Analects for a modern reading of the Confucian dialogical spirit in education

Abstract

This study investigates the educational thought of Confucius with focus on the educational relationship in the Analects, which is a historical text that defines the foundations of Confucianism. The first part of the investigation examines Confucius’ concept of the educational relationship and how it is characterized with a dialogical spirit, which consists of worldly and secular human-orientedness, co-existentiality as a fundamental principle for educational practice, and dialogue to become an ideal ruler through self-discipline. The second stage of this study further examines the spirit of dialogue in the Analects with consideration of its historical–cultural context. Through this process, the study unravels the historical and cultural limitations of original Confucian educational thought for modern society and proposes a possible way to reengage Confucius’ educational value in today’s modern educational context.     

Childcare choices and voices: using interpreted narratives and thematic meaning-making to analyse mothers’ life histories

This paper focuses on the methodology of a study that asked what factors English mothers of very young babies consider when making employment decisions and childcare choices, and sought their views on the idea of carers in day care settings ‘loving’ their children. After a characterisation of life historical study, a four-staged process of analysis demonstrates how meaning was made from data created with six mothers. The discussion ‘voices’ their stories through excerpts from their expressions of emotion. The conclusion acknowledges insights generated into the dilemmas of mothers’ choices, but importantly points up how the careful listening and critical attending required by life historical study themselves generate stories that ‘go awry’ to reveal something of personal and of social importance. The paper concludes that using life story methods is a difficult process which may create discomfort for researcher and ‘researched’ long after the study is finished.     

The policyscape of transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system: a case study

ABSTRACT

In this paper, our purpose is to investigate policy informing texts and discourses referencing transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system. Drawing on scholarship from transgender, queer and policy studies, we highlight the interplay of progressive and conservative forces affecting the Western Australian education system’s commitment to supporting transgender and gender non-binary students. Based on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) project, the paper constructs a Western Australian case study, which threads together the critical examination of policy informing texts, qualitative interview data and media discourses surrounding public narratives, such as the Safe School Coalition Australia’s attempt to implement a school program, which builds awareness about gender and sexual diversity. Emerging through the material, discursive and spatial elements of locales and networks, our case study has the potential to deepen knowledge regarding the heuristic capacity of employing policyscape as an analytic category. In this vein, we draw attention to the possibilities and challenges for re-conceptualizing gender and providing trans-affirmative school spaces that promote equality.