“Yet the Root of the Matter is Not in Them”: Reclaiming the Lost Soul of Inspirational Teaching

This essay by Dirck Roosevelt and Jim Garrison seeks to reclaim the lost soul of teaching by examining distortions wrought upon or threatening it by practice‐based teacher education (PBTE) and like developments. The notion that teaching centers upon mastery of “core” practices understood as routinely skilled performance is inadequate to the almost intractable complexity of teaching. After critiquing PBTE and associated forces, especially the performance assessment edTPA?, Roosevelt and Garrison turn to John Dewey's notion of the teacher as “inspirer and director of soul‐life.” Among other important attributes involved in forming the soul of inspirational teaching, the authors discuss moral perception of the needs, desires, and interests of unique individuals participating in specific situations, and also moral imagination, which allows teachers to see beyond the actual to conceive better possibilities. Roosevelt and Garrison conclude with depictions of two student‐teachers, one troubled by her inability to hear the souls of students and another experiencing the loss of his teaching soul.     

The Controversy Over Controversies: A Plea for Flexibility and for “Soft‐Directive” Teaching

A controversy rages over the question of how should controversial topics be taught. Recent work has advanced the “epistemic criterion” as the resolution to this controversy. According to the epistemic criterion, a matter should be taught as controversial when contrary views can be entertained on the matter without the views being contrary to reason. When an issue is noncontroversial, according to the epistemic criterion, the correct position can be taught “directively,” with the teacher endorsing that position. When there is a legitimate controversy, the view should be taught “nondirectively,” with the teacher remaining neutral. In response, Bryan Warnick and Spencer Smith argue that the proponents of the epistemic criterion fail to recognize the multidimensional nature of what it means to learn to be rational. Recognizing this complexity undermines the link between the epistemic status of the controversy and directiveness of one's teaching, suggesting more flexibility in how teachers approach controversial issues. It also implies the need for a new category of teaching, which Warnick and Smith call “soft‐directive” teaching.     

“A Liberation of Powers”: Agency and Education for Democracy

In this essay Harry Boyte and Margaret Finders argue that addressing the “shrinkage” of education and democracy requires acting politically to reclaim and augment Deweyan agency‐focused concepts of democracy and education. Looking at agency from the vantage of civic studies, which advances a politics of agency — a citizen politics that is different from ideological politics — and citizens as cocreators of political communities, Boyte and Finders explore the technocratic trends that have eclipsed agency. These disempower educators, students, and communities. Using the case study of the youth empowerment initiative Public Achievement and its translation into the Special Education Program and partnerships of Augsburg College, the authors conclude with an examination of how agentic practices have survived in “shadow spaces” in schools, how such spaces might be turned into “free spaces” for democratic change, and how teacher education needs to prepare “citizen teachers” as well as promoting pedagogies of empowerment. These suggest grounds for a movement of hope and democratic change.     

TEACHING MORAL CHARACTER: TWO ALTERNATIVES FOR TEACHER EDUCATION

Debating whether or not teachers should teach values addresses the wrong question. Education already is a values-infused enterprise. The larger question is how to train teachers for positive character formation. Two teacher education strategies are presented in this article. A “minimalist” strategy requires teacher educators to make explicit the hidden moral education curriculum and to reveal the inextricable linkage between best practice instruction and moral character outcomes. The “maximalist” approach requires preservice teachers to master a tool kit of pedagogical strategies that target moral character directly as a curricular goal. To this end, the Integrative Ethical Education model outlines five steps for moral character development: supportive climate, ethical skills, apprenticeship instruction, self-regulation, and adopting a developmental systems approach.     

EDUCATION AND “THICK” EPISTEMOLOGY

In this essay Ben Kotzee addresses the implications of Bernard Williams's distinction between “thick” and “thin” concepts in ethics for epistemology and for education. Kotzee holds that, as in the case of ethics, one may distinguish between “thick” and “thin” concepts of epistemology and, further, that this distinction points to the importance of the study of the intellectual virtues in epistemology. Following Harvey Siegel, Kotzee contends that “educated” is a thick epistemic concept, and he explores the consequences of this for the subjects of epistemology and philosophy of education. Ultimately, Kotzee argues that its nature as a “thick” concept makes education suited to play an important role in explaining how the intellectual virtues can be acquired.     

“OUR SHARED VALUES” IN SINGAPORE: A CONFUCIAN PERSPECTIVE

In this essay Charlene Tan offers a philosophical analysis of the Singapore state's vision of shared citizenship by examining it from a Confucian perspective. The state's vision, known formally as “Our Shared Values,” consists of communitarian values that reflect the official ideology of multiculturalism. This initiative included a White Paper, entitled Shared Values, which presented pejorative assessments of the ideals of “individual rights” and “individual interests” as antithetical to national interests. Rejecting this characterization, Tan argues that a dominant Confucian perspective recognizes the correlative rights of all human beings that are premised on the inherent right to human dignity, worth, and equality. Furthermore, Confucianism posits that it is in everyone's interest to attain the Confucian ethical ideal of becoming a noble person in society through self‐cultivation. Tan concludes by highlighting two key implications for Singapore from a Confucian perspective on the Shared Values: first, schools in Singapore should place greater emphasis on individual moral development of their students, and second, more avenues should be provided for residents to contribute actively to the development of the vision of shared citizenship.     

The “workclock”: An alternative to token economies in the management of classroom behaviors

A set of procedures for modifying the behavior of an entire class is described. The procedures involve a five-day “workclock” phase in which free time is contingent on attending behavior of the entire class while nonattending behaviors are consequated by a “strike” and time-out procedure. The second phase retains the time-out procedures while making free time contingent on individual assignment completion. The results of applying these procedures in seven classrooms as part of a larger study suggests they are effective in increasing positive classroom behavior for both referred and nonreferred students. The procedures are offered as an alternative to token economies because of the reduced amount of teacher time required, the immediacy of their effect, and the ease of withdrawal.     

浅谈如何提高新时期高校德育工作实效性

分析了新时期德育工作实效性不强问题出现的原因,提出了“做为人师表的表率,起好示范带头作用”、“走进学生的心灵世界,进行师生间精神对话”、“加强班级文化建设,铸造班级灵魂”等三个方面的做法,以提高德育工作的实效性。     

“Listening Silence” and Its Discursive Effects

While researchers have studied how white silence protects white innocence and white ignorance, in this essay Barbara Applebaum explores a form of white silence that she refers to as “listening silence” in which silence protects white innocence but does not necessarily promote resistance to learning. White listening silence can appear to be a constructive pedagogical tool for teaching white students about their implication in the perpetuation of racism. The truth of white students' listening may make it seem as if silence promotes what George Yancy refers to as “tarrying” with a critique of whiteness. Applebaum argues, however, that white listening silence is itself a manifestation of complicity and needs to be disrupted. This examination expands discussions of white silence in the scholarship not by providing a formula for when silence is or is not pedagogically necessary, but rather by demonstrating that listening silence is not a form of “tarrying.” The first section examines the unique features of listening silence and the relationship between silence, ignorance, and innocence. The second section critically examines white listening silence in cross‐cultural dialogues and draws upon the work of Linda Martin Alcoff to argue that listening silence must be understood within the discursive context in which it is practiced. Finally, three implications of this emphasis on the discursive context for the role of silence in tarrying with the critique of whiteness are discussed.     

The Role of “Small Publics” in Teacher Dissent

In this essay, Sarah Stitzlein and Amy Rector‐Aranda, drawing on John Dewey's theoretical suggestions regarding how to best form publics capable of bringing about change through deliberation and action, offer teachers guidance on how to form and navigate spaces of political protest and become more effective advocates for school reform. Using Aaron Schutz's analysis of teacher activism as a point of departure, Stitzlein and Rector‐Aranda argue for the development in schools of “small publics,” that is, Deweyan democratic spaces within which teachers can dialogue and exchange ideas about the problems they face in the classroom. While Schutz treats this type of space merely as a stepping stone toward the real locus of political action, the power public, Stitzlein and Rector‐Aranda argue that small publics are themselves important spaces where teachers can work together to frame problems and build coalitions and solidarity with other groups in order to take action in the wider public sphere and bring about change in schools.     

The “Encounter” as an “Event of Truth” in Education: An Anthropological‐Pedagogical Approach

In this essay, Vasileios Pantazis examines how two philosophers having different orientations acknowledge and study the phenomenon of the “encounter” (Begegnung) and its fundamental importance to human life and education. On the one hand, Otto Friedrich Bollnow drew on existential philosophy and philosophical anthropology in his analysis of the encounter, while Alain Badiou, on the other hand, used psychoanalysis, mathematics, and Plato in exploring the concept. The approach Pantazis takes in this essay aims at fusing the concept of the encounter as developed by Bollnow with a philosophical view, specifically Badiou's understanding of the encounter in the context of his concept “event of truth.” Through the “fusion of horizons,” as Hans‐Georg Gadamer put it, between these two views, Pantazis seeks to enrich the concept of the encounter and to draw out a renewed meaning for philosophical and educational theory.     

The Power of the “OCEAN”: Another Way to Diagnose Clients

This article outlines the five-factor model of personality (i.e., “OCEAN”) and illustrates how it can be used to diagnose clients.     

“Poetry is happening but I don't exactly know how”: Literacy Subject Leaders’ perceptions of poetry in their primary schools

Evidence suggests (Ofsted, 2007) that the role of the Subject Leader is crucial in how well poetry is taught in schools. This paper attempts to provide some insights on “what it is like” to coordinate poetry teaching in a primary school. Some of the data confirm elements of the findings from earlier research on the state of poetry in schools, particularly concerning space in the curriculum, teacher subject knowledge and personal interest in poetry. However, we attempt to show that, much to the surprise of some of the Subject Leaders, where poetry teaching in the participants’ schools was perceived to be successful it was often nourished by the combined enthusiasm and ‘zeal’ of the teachers and children experiencing poetry together, which in turn was maintained by an empowering synergy of professional/personal pleasure and engagement with poetic texts experienced by some of the teachers while in school.     

From Genes to Environment: Using Integrative Genomics to Build a “Systems‐Level” Understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders that affect an estimated 1 in 110 individuals. Although there is a strong genetic component associated with these disorders, this review focuses on the multifactorial nature of ASD and how different genome‐wide (genomic) approaches contribute to our understanding of autism. Emphasis is placed on the need to study defined ASD phenotypes as well as to integrate large‐scale “omics” data in order to develop a “systems‐level” perspective of ASD, which in turn is necessary to allow predictions regarding responses to specific perturbations and interventions.     

Balancing classroom ready with community ready: enabling agency to engage with community through critical service learning

Recent initial teacher education policy and regulatory frameworks privilege “classroom ready” discourses. Taking up “readiness” as technical skill requiring more “practice” leads to narrowing of teachers’ roles and efficacy with increasing pressure and regulation that marginalises ideals to equip pre-service teachers to be “community ready”. We argue that enabling preservice teacher agency to engage with community beyond notions of mastering bounded classroom practice is critical to teachers’ roles. Supporting teachers to teach in context as engaged global citizens requires a readiness of relational understanding and skills about the lived experiences of learners, and their wider community contexts. Data from a critical service learning case study highlight how preservice teacher agency to engage with community is conceptualised and experienced in simultaneously beneficial and challenging ways. These findings indicate the complex, yet necessarily significant contributions of service learning experiences to the development of preservice teacher “readiness”.     

A beginning teacher's search for meaning: Teacher socialization,organizational literacy,and empowerment

Drawing on the findings from an ethnographic case study, this paper seeks to examine the socialization of a “potentially empowered” beginning teacher as a means for better understanding the socialization process and the implications for teacher education more generally. Toward this end, the discussion focuses on how the “images” this teacher brought to her first year of teaching influenced her ability to make sense of the organizational context in which she found herself. Based on this, it is suggested that some form of organizational literacy be integrated into the curriculum of teacher education programs as one means for empowering teachers.     

[Not] speaking truth to power: Ethical dilemmas of teacher candidates during practicum

This paper draws on Honig’s (1994) concept of dilemmatic space to analyze the teaching practicum and to frame the ethical dilemmas that teacher candidates experience during it. The dilemmatic space highlights the wider context in which dilemmas occur, replacing the practice of analyzing ethical dilemmas as specific disconnected incidents. The practicum is the first opportunity for teacher candidates to spend a significant period of time in the classroom during their certification process. The supervised environment is important in supporting and mentoring teacher candidates; yet the hierarchical structure of the practicum can lead to ethical dilemmas that emerge in the gap between TCs’ desire to explore their professional identity and the need to please their supervisors and “pass the practicum.” Analyzing the practicum as a dilemmatic space is important not only to better support teacher candidates, but also to critically reflect on the structures of teacher education programs and the intersection of theory and practice in teacher education.     

“I've got to do this in a Southern”: Stylized spoken literary quotation in the ELA classroom

This article investigates whole‐class discussions of literature in the English classroom and the pragmatics of teacher interpretation in and through the voices of characters. In particular, it focuses on the whole‐class oral reading and discussion of the Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire in an ethnically and linguistically diverse rural Canadian classroom, and the teacher's stylized “Southern” oral performances of significant characters as part of her responses to student answers in whole‐class talk. Using extensive audio data from a 12th‐grade English class and drawing from the analytic tools of the linguistic anthropology of education, this article raises questions of the potential functions of stylized characters' voices in literary critical talk. This research contributes to ongoing conversations regarding the pragmatics of voicing, stylization, and the intersections of teacher talk and literacy learning in classroom discourse, with specific attention to the pedagogic work of enregistering bundles of linguistic features with particular teacher‐driven interpretive perspectives on literary characters.     

Friendship and the Public Stage: Revisiting Hannah Arendt's Resistance to “Political Education”

Hannah Arendt's essays about the 1957 crisis over efforts of a group of youth, the “Little Rock Nine,” to desegregate a high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, reveal a tension in her vision of the “public.” In this article Aaron Schutz and Marie Sandy look closely at the experiences of the youth desegregating the school, especially those of Elizabeth Eckford, drawing upon them to trace a continuum of forms of public engagement in Arendt's work. This ranges from arenas of “deliberative friendship,” where unique individuals collaborate on common efforts, to a more conflictual “public stage,” where groups act in solidarity to change aspects of the public world. While Arendt famously asserted in her essay “The Crisis in Education” that political capacities should not be taught in schools, it makes more sense to see this argument as focused on what she sometimes called the conflictual “public stage,” reflecting the experience of the Little Rock Nine. In contrast, Schutz and Sandy argue that Arendt's own work implies that “deliberative friendship,” as described in her essay “Philosophy and Politics” and elsewhere, should be part of everyday practices in classrooms and schools.