Pedagogies of Hauntology in History Education: Learning to Live with the Ghosts of Disappeared Victims of War and Dictatorship

Michalinos Zembylas examines how history education can be reconceived in terms of Jacques Derrida's notion of “hauntology,” that is, as an ongoing conversation with the “ghost” — in the case of this essay, the ghosts of disappeared victims of war and dictatorship. Here, Zembylas uses hauntology as both metaphor and pedagogical methodology for deconstructing the orthodoxies of academic history thinking and learning about “the disappeared.” As metaphor, hauntology evokes the figure of the ghost in order both to trouble the hegemonic status of representational modes of knowledge in remembrance practices and to undermine their ontological frames and ideological histories. As pedagogical methodology, hauntology reframes histories of loss and absence and uses them as points of departure to acknowledge the complexities and contradictions that emerge from haunting. Pedagogies of hauntology are constituted as responses to “spectacle pedagogy” in teaching about the disappeared, that is, a ubiquitous form of representation that manifests the ghosts in a sensationalized and ideological manner.     

Centring the Subject in Order to Educate

It is important for educators to recognise that the various calls to decentre the subject—or self—should not be interpreted as necessarily requiring the removal of the subject altogether. Through the individualism of the Enlightenment the self was centred. This highly individualistic notion of the sovereign self has now been decentred especially through post‐structuralist literature. It is contended here however, that this tendency to decentre the subject has been taken to an extreme at times, especially by some designers of school frameworks and curricula, who have eliminated the subject altogether. Such elimination is argued to contribute to the numbers of youth who are dropping out of school. By adopting an existential perspective and by drawing mainly upon Kierkegaard's subjective truth and Dewey's notion of centeredness, the case is made that for education the subject should not only be included but should actually be centred—at least momentarily.     

The Relevance of Hans‐Georg Gadamer's Concept of Tradition to the Philosophy of Education

In this article, Anniina Leiviskä argues that the educational relevance of Hans‐Georg Gadamer's concept of tradition has remained unacknowledged because of the conservatism that has been associated with Gadamer's hermeneutics, particularly his notion of tradition. Therefore, Leiviskä seeks to reveal the reflective, nonconservative nature of Gadamer's concept of tradition in order to illuminate its significance with respect to the philosophy of education. Utilizing Gadamer's reinterpretation of the Aristotelian notion of phronesis, she outlines a concept of situated rationality that rests upon the idea of the historicity of human existence, and she suggests that this concept may be used to define a central aim of education. Leiviskä argues that instead of disengaged objectivity, rationality as phronesis stands for the reflective reappropriation of one's tradition, which is enabled by one's situatedness in history and requires encountering other horizons — including the horizons of the past — through which one may be addressed and challenged.     

Characterizing Practices Associated with Functions in Middle School Textbooks: An Empirical Approach

Exercises and problems about functions found in 24 middle-school textbooks from 15 countries were analysed using an adaptation of Balacheff's theory of conceptions and Biehler's notion of the prototypical domain of application of concepts in order to describe the practices associated with the notion of function. The analysis yielded five different practices — symbolic rule, ordered pair, social data, physical phenomena, and controlling image — that were present both across and within the textbooks analysed. The existence of different practices might help to explain the compartmentalised and sometimes contradictory notions that students and teachers have about functions and might shed light on the processes of designing curriculum and instruction on functions.     

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 Cost-Benefit Transfer Model: An Adaptation from Medicine

How does transfer work? When is transfer likely to come about, and when is it likely to fail? Several theorists view transfer as a complex process involving the interaction of multiple variables. The cost-benefit transfer model which we introduce in this article is in keeping with the trend to consider transfer a complex process accounting for a performer's perceptions. The model considers a performer's perception of need, sensibility, and effort to determine the likelihood of putting to use an idea learned in training. In contrast to existing models, the cost-benefit transfer model focuses on the perception of the performer and broadens the definition of the notion of use. The model predicts use through an elegant mathematical formula—specifically, the product of need and sensibility divided by effort. In support of this model, we cite case evidence of academic physicians who used what they learned from a yearlong training program.     

Doonesbury versus the tobacco institute: The smoke starters' coupon

Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury launched repeated attacks against the tobacco industry. These messages argued that tobacco was a health hazard and that cigarettes are addictive, they ridiculed the tobacco industry's campaign for smokers’ rights, and they charged that cigarettes are marketed to our nation's youth. This series of attacks culminated in the “Smoke Starters’ Coupon” strip, which promised free cigarettes to those who returned the coupon if they were under‐aged and provided the address of the industry lobby, the Tobacco Institute. The Institute responded with a brochure ("Smoking and Young People: Where the Tobacco Industry Stands") sent to the hundreds of people who mailed in coupons. This essay applies the theory of image restoration discourse to this controversy, concluding that Doonesbury's attack was powerful and the industry's response ill‐conceived.     

Teaching as Theater

As new media proliferate, professors need to be particularly attentive to the ways by which students learn—in and out of the classroom—and how scarce classroom time can be organized. This article argues that professors' comparative advantage lies as an exemplar of discipline‐based thinking. Effective training in how to think about problems (the essence of any discipline) demands that professors embrace the classroom as theater, where business drama and the story it tells can capture the hearts and minds of the student participants. The article talks through a case as theater.     

Writing the Self: Wittgenstein,Confession and Pedagogy

In this paper I investigate ‘the confessional’ as an aspect of Wittgenstein's style both as a mode of philosophising and as a mode of ‘writing the self’, tied explicitly to pedagogical practices. There are strong links between Wittgenstein's confessional mode of philosophising and his life—for him philosophy is a way of life —and interesting theoretical connections between confessional practices and pedagogy, usefully explored in the writings of the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The Investigations provides a basis and springboard for understanding the notion of ‘writing the self’ as a pedagogical practice which encourages a confessional mode compelling us to tell the truth about ourselves and, thus, creating the conditions for ethico‐poetical self‐constitution.     

Ong and Derrida on Presence: A case study in the conflict of traditions

Ong and Derrida are concerned with presence—for Ong the presence of the other; for Derrida the presence of the signified. These seemingly disparate epistemological meanings of ‘presence’ actually share some striking similarities, but differ about how reason should be figured, that is, what metaphors should be used to conceptualize reason. This disagreement is fundamentally about what Ong called ‘analogues for intellect.’ After describing the history of Ong's and Derrida's concept of presence, we indicate how the ethical and religious implications Ong and Derrida draw from ‘presence’ proceed logically from the analogues for intellect that each assumes. We will conclude, first, that these implications reveal a conflict of traditions—philosophy and rhetoric—but we also indicate how Ong's own rhetoric may permit dialogue between traditions     

For the Love of Our Children: Hannah Arendt,the Limits of Freedom and the Role of Education in a Culture of Violence

This essay critically examines the underlying assumptions about freedom and democracy at the basis of those like the NRA who argue that the United States does not have a gun problem and that the second amendment protects citizens' rights to own any gun they wish. Inspired by Hannah Arendt's political philosophy, the author first discuss three problematic notions of freedom—free will, sovereignty and liberation—and show how they have been appropriated by the NRA and other pro-gun organizations to justify their agendas. Adopting Arendt's conception of political freedom, he then demonstrates how it is integrally related to the notions of civic responsibility and plurality. In the last part of this essay, the author introduces Arendt's understanding of educational authority, which she defined as assuming responsibility for our common world. He argues that this notion of educational authority can help us address the issue of the role that education ought to play in a culture that glorifies violence.     

Virtue Epistemology and the Philosophy of Education

This article initially provides a brief overview of virtue epistemology; it thereafter considers some possible ramifications of this branch of the theory of knowledge for the philosophy of education. The main features of three different manifestations of virtue epistemology are first explained. Importantly, it is then maintained that developments in virtue epistemology may offer the resources to critique aspects of the debate between Hirst and Carr about how the philosophy of education ought to be carried out and by whom. Wilfred Carr's position—that educational practitioners have privileged access to philosophical knowledge about teaching practice—will in particular be questioned. It will be argued that Carr's view rests on a form of epistemology, internalism, which places unreasonably narrow restrictions upon the range of actors and ways, in which philosophical knowledge of and/or for education might be achieved. In declaring that practical wisdom regarding teaching is ‘entirely dependent’ on practitioner reflection, Carr not only radically deviates from Aristotle's notion of practical wisdom, he also, in effect, renders redundant all philosophical research about education that is not initiated by teachers in this manner. It is concluded that Aristotle's general approach to acquiring information and knowledge about the world might yet still offer a foundation for a more comprehensive philosophy of education; one that makes clear that the professional testimony and reflection of teachers, observation of teaching practice, and already existing educational philosophy, theory and policy can all be perceived as potentially valuable sources of philosophical knowledge of and for education.     

Surveymania in HRD Program Evaluation

“Smile sheets” and other survey-like devices are favorites in human resource development program evaluations. Managers and clients are comfortable with and expect to see numerical data on the success of their programs— even if the numbers convey information that is misleading or that is of little use in making decisions about the program. The drawbacks of surveys themselves and of blind adherence to one evaluation method are explored. Both are considered as symptoms of a larger problem—unplanned evaluation that fails to deliver pertinent information based on decision-makers' needs. The evaluator's role in combating these problems is explored, and rules for the evaluation change-agent are presented along with supporting tools. The case of a corporate training department with a long history of poor or nonexistent evaluation planning and an overdependence on surveys illustrates the challenge facing HRD program evaluators.     

Acknowledging Ambivalence in Teaching about Art and Aesthetics

In this article Daniel Brodén explores the ambivalence in teaching about art and aesthetics in the humanities. By comparing and contrasting Gert J. J. Biesta's educational theory and Jacques Rancière's writing on aesthetics, he hopes to bring some of the particularities of aesthetic experiences into focus and to discuss a tension in educational situations that concern students' interpretation of aesthetic texts: how the teacher, on the one hand, will serve as a representative for a formal system of education — or what Rancière calls a system of inequality — and, on the other hand, should respect the autonomy of the aesthetic experience. Brodén argues, however, that more interesting than the ambivalence itself is the question of how we can acknowledge this tension in productive ways. Thus, his aim here is to show how the teacher can contribute to the verification of an interpretive approach to art, with Rancière's axiom of equality in mind. Drawing on Biesta's writings, Brodén also highlights how the teacher can provide students with possibilities to pursue a subject-ness and how the risks involved call for a deconstructive approach to the enactment of teacher power. The article concludes by suggesting that we would do better not to view the ambivalence in focus as a problem, but instead to see it as something that calls for continuous engagement and critical reflection.     

The Historico‐Philosophical Background of N.F.S. Grundtvig's Concept of Folk High School

Siljander, P. 1984. The Historico‐Philosophical Background of N.F.S. Grundtvig's Concept of Folk High School. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 28, 87‐99. The paper deals with the notion of history presented by N.F. S. Grundtvig, the Danish promoter of the folk cause, and the connections between his interpretation of history and his views on education. It is particularly emphasized that Grundtvig's idea of folk high school can be interpreted against a background of his philosophy of history. Grundtvig's notion of history is based on the idea that human development is always realized and manifested in a national context. The construction and creation of a national culture are hence a necessary prerequisite for the progress of general human civilization and universal culture. Thus, also the educational institutions should become aware of their task as promoters of national culture and general human civilization.     

Analogy in William Rowan Hamilton's New Algebra

This essay offers the first analysis of analogy in research-level mathematics, taking as its case the 1837 treatise of William Rowan Hamilton. Analogy spatialized Hamilton's key concepts—knowledge and time—in culturally familiar ways, creating an effective landscape for thinking about the new algebra. It also structurally aligned his theory with the real number system so his objects and operations would behave customarily, thus encompassing the old algebra while systematically bringing into existence the new.     

Theory and Practice: the Politics of Philosophical Character

This essay explores the thorny issue of theory and practice, partly in response to the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy of Education (37.2, 2003) but more especially as a way of offering a critique of Joseph Dunne's book, Back to the Rough Ground (1993). It argues that Dunne's notion of phronetic techne risks the reduction of philosophy to the merely instrumental, and, in turn, that this approach threatens the significance of philosophical character.     

Class matters in the interview setting? Positionality,situatedness and class

In this article we argue that despite methodological and analytical advancements in the field of social class research, these developments have not led to a wholehearted discussion about class positionality and situatedness in relation to interviewer–participant dynamics. Despite—or perhaps due to—this methodological gap, there remains an unspoken expectation that class matching, particularly when investigating working‐class groups and practices, is desirable as it engenders empathy on the part of the interviewer which allows for openness on the part of the participant. The team of four interviewers reflect upon their varying experiences of conducting interviews about class with a group of middle‐ and working‐class students at university, arguing that even if class matching between participant and researcher were possible, shared class position does not necessarily equate with similar life experiences, or enable a strong rapport nor a more ethical analysis or understanding of working‐class people's lives. We explore some of the complexities regarding the class‐related positions of the researchers and the participants and consequently advocate that class researchers engage in reflexive practices in order to explore the myriad ways in which the researcher's own class history and current class position both advantage and disadvantage the research process, often in unpredictable ways.     

A reconsidering chronos: Chronistic criticism and the first ‘Iraqi national calendar

Chronos is a traditionally marginalized term in rhetorical studies. Historically paired with kairos, chronos is commonly taken to refer to chronology, empty, homogenous, and external time. I argue for a reconsideration and redefinition of chronos that pairs the term with a critical materialist theory of time as change, immanent temporalities. Chronos understood as an entanglement of immanent temporalities informs chronistic criticism. Chronistic criticism is a conceptual criticism investigating the rhetorical arrangement, or synchronization, of multiple processes of change. Reconsidering chronos makes room for investigating time-related texts, like ‘Iraq's first national calendar. This calendar emerged after the establishment of the ‘Iraqi state under the League of Nation's Mandate System where British authorities were charged with building a modern nation state from territories of the former Ottoman Empire. I demonstrate chronistic criticism examining Gertrude Bell's digital archive for observations about successes, failures, and competitors with the national calendar. A vitalized chronos stands to make substantive contributions to the study of numerous rhetorical concepts. Specifically, for this investigation, chronos offers new insights into political myths, calendars, nation building, and the potential influences of nonhuman immanent temporalities.     

Parallel Structures of Computer-Assisted Signature Pedagogy: The Case of Integrated Spreadsheets

This article was motivated by the authors’ work on a project with a group of 2nd-grade students in a computer lab of a rural school in upstate New York. From this project, one goal of which was to provide a capstone experience for a teacher candidate in teaching application-oriented mathematics with technology, the ideas about parallel structures of two universes—the teacher's and the students’—that echo Shulman's structures of signature pedagogy have been developed. In the article the authors introduce the notion of computer-assisted signature pedagogy and explore its features through the combined lens of teaching and learning using the concept of Type I/Type II technology integration.