'Moral Democratic Education and Homosexuality: Censoring morality' by John Petrovic: A rejoinder

This article takes issue with certain aspects of the argument put forward by John Petrovic in a recent issue of the Journal of Moral Education : that adherence to principles of democracy requires not only the positive portrayal of homosexuality in schools but also precludes teachers from expressing their beliefs against it. It is argued that certain of Petrovic's appeals to democracy are somewhat rhetorical, and that his fuller characterisation of moral democratic education leaves him open to charges of inconsistency. The second part of the article develops what the author considers to be a more appropriate defence of the view that common schools should indeed present homosexuality as a morally acceptable way of life that some of their students may one day elect to lead, but which argues that there needs also to be within schools (and within the curriculum) full and open debate with those whose competing comprehensive theories of the good life lead them to regard homosexual behaviour as repugnant or even sinful.     

Should Homosexuality be Taught as an Acceptable Alternative Lifestyle? A Muslim perspective: a response to Halstead and Lewicka

This article focuses upon that part of Halstead and Lewicka's argument which contends that ‘a gay and lesbian world view’ on homosexuality is, at least in certain respects, incommensurable with a Muslim view. This thesis is challenged and certain educational implications of this challenge are explored. The view originally formulated by Patricia White that in liberal, democratic societies such as the UK ‘a school has no reason not to present homosexuality as a morally acceptable way of life which some of its student members may one day lead’ is endorsed     

Habits of Mind, Scholarship and Decision Making in Science and Religion

Recent papers have drawn a contrast between habits of mind in science and religion and it has been argued that, because of the different nature of these habits of mind, science education and religious education are necessarily in conflict with each other. The present paper draws on research into habits of mind in science and their relationship with wider scholarly activity and decision making and presents a case that habits of mind in science and religion are much more alike than has been presumed. In contrast to the dogmatic materialism which others have claimed lies behind the practice of modern science a more tentative form of naturalism is advocated in this paper for those who carry out scientific research. Some aspects of the nature of exemplary religious education are pointed out and implications for science education are discussed.     

Learning,Empowerment and Judgement

Here is a distinction that appears very simple, looks compelling and seems to be deeply rooted in our reflections on learning. The distinction is between activities of learning that involve training and those that involve reasoning. In the former, the pupil is a passive recipient of habits of mind and action. The mechanism by which they acquire these habits is mimesis, not reasoning. In contrast, learning by reasoning involves considerable mental activity by the pupil who has to work out what to think and do. The very mechanism by which the pupil learns is her own capacity to reason, to things work out for herself.

In this paper I argue that there is no basis for this distinction. I argue that, contrary to the dominant empiricist thinking about such things, learning by reasoning is the only credible form of learning. I start with a brief characterisation of the distinction and an account of why it seems so compelling. In §2 I review the empirical evidence from developmental psychology for a rationalist account of language learning as learning by reasoning. In §§3 and 4 I provide a philosophical argument against the place of training and in favour of a rationalist model of learning by reasoning.     

崔子恩同性恋文本初探

崔子恩是大陆发表有关同性恋以及双性恋题材小说最多的作家,其小说被誉为"优美神妙的笔触,描摹出一种不被社会接纳的人物,对其生活感人而坦荡的承担。"虽然早在1993年他的部分小说已经成文,但由于种种原因,在2003年珠海出版社出版了以"桃色文学系列"命名的作品集以后,大陆的读者才有幸系统一窥他的文学风貌。不知何故,他的小说鲜少得到学术界的关注与重视,是名副其实的"文学孤儿"。本文试图对崔子恩的小说进行一次落后于时间的探索,从人物形象,作品形式,主题意旨等方面对其加以分析。     

The Inquiry of Care

While discussions of the moral dimensions of the caring relation and their implications for teaching and learning are well developed within the literature, there has not been much analysis of the place of inquiry within our understanding of caring and the education inspired by it. Previous discussions offer important insight into what care‐inspired education might entail, but they do not address how inquiry itself may be enhanced by an ethic of care. After arguing that we should consider reason to be more central to the caring relation than has been previously recognized, Peter Nelsen seeks to ameliorate the apparent rift between reason and the affective dimensions of caring through what John Dewey described as the body‐mind. According to this view, reason and affect are inseparable aspects of the process of inquiry; they are both always present in our caring encounters. Nelsen then explores the educational implications of envisioning the caring relation as body‐mind grounded inquiry.     

灯光语言在视觉艺术中的应用及其架构方法

在“澄怀味象”中“澄怀观道”,或由“感物兴怀”而“神超理得”,一直是视觉艺术所追求的理想境界。单点布光、三点布光、综合布光等灯光语言表达必须遵循勾股定律、黄金分割定律以及双曲线定律和对角线原理等方能因常、反常皆合道。由此所造就的视觉艺术造型方能以象为基础,情为中介,理趣为归宿,实现“道一”、“道无量”、“圆融”三境相合相生的意境深层审美结构中道之认同境层。     

Scientific Habits of Mind in Virtual Worlds

In today’s increasingly “flat” world of globalization (Friedman 2005), the need for a scientifically literate citizenry has grown more urgent. Yet, by some measures, we have done a poor job at fostering scientific habits of mind in schools. Recent research on informal games-based learning indicates that such technologies and the communities they evoke may be one viable alternative—not as a substitute for teachers and classrooms, but as an alternative to textbooks and science labs. This paper presents empirical evidence about the potential of games for fostering scientific habits of mind. In particular, we examine the scientific habits of mind and dispositions that characterize online discussion forums of the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft. Eighty-six percent of the forum discussions were posts engaged in “social knowledge construction” rather than social banter. Over half of the posts evidenced systems based reasoning, one in ten evidenced model-based reasoning, and 65% displayed an evaluative epistemology in which knowledge is treated as an open-ended process of evaluation and argument.     

Thinking Controversially: The Psychological Condition for Teaching Controversial Issues

How should we teach controversial issues? And which issues should we teach as controversies? In this paper, I argue that educators should heed what I call a ‘psychological condition’ in their practical efforts to address these questions. In defending this claim, I engage with the various decision criteria that have been advanced in the controversial issues literature: the epistemic criterion, behavioral criterion, political criterion and politically authentic criterion. My argument is that the supporters of these various criteria have focused too closely on the socio‐political and epistemic qualities of controversial issues in deriving their controversial issues pedagogies and have thereby overlooked the necessary subjective conditions for teaching controversial issues. If our pedagogical efforts to cultivate students’ reason by means of controversial issues are to be successful, then we must understand controversy as fundamentally a psychological phenomenon consisting in an intellectual tension in the minds of students. In the final pages, I conclude by recommending several forms of directive teaching that promise to be instrumental for creating such intellectual tension.     

A Review of “Children and Childhood in American Religions. Edited by Don S. Browning and Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore”

Bearing the losses and inconveniences of our time as best we may, it is the part of men to labor persistently and patiently for the clarification and development of the positive creed of life implicit in democracy and in science, and to work for the transformation of all practical instrumentalities of education till they are in harmony with these ideas. Till these ends are further along than we can honestly claim them to be at present, it is better that our schools should do nothing than that they should do the wrong things. It is better for them to confine themselves to their obviously urgent tasks than that they should, under the name of spiritual culture, form habits of mind which are at war with the habits of mind congruous with democracy and with science. It is not laziness nor cynicism which calls for the laissez‐faire policy; it is honesty, courage, sobriety, and faith. (Dewey 1977,168)     

Attitudes of a southern university human sexuality class toward sexual variance,abortion and homosexuality

The attitudes toward homosexuality, abortion, and sexual variance were measured in 45 Louisiana undergraduate students before and after a course on human sexuality. The 1-semester course involved lectures and group discussion. The students overwhelmingly identified themselves as heterosexual in orientation. Post-test scores indicated that the course had not significantly changed attitudes toward heterosexuality, homophobia, sexual variance, and legal abortion. On the other hand, there was a significant change of attitudes toward homosexuality, with post-test scores suggesting more permissive, positive attitudes. The reason is unclear why attitudes toward homophobia did not change in tandem with attitudes toward homosexuality. Although attitudes toward abortion did not change significantly as a result of the course, the scores in this category (30 pre-test, 34 post-test) revealed an unexpected liberalism and were twice as high as those recorded for Right-to-Life members in other surveys.     

INDOCTRINATION AND THE SPACE OF REASONS

Abstract The “paradox of indoctrination” has proven to be a persistent problem in discussions of the cultivation of autonomy through education. In short, if indoctrination means instilling beliefs without reasons, and if children lack the rational capacity to evaluate reasons, how can that capacity be cultivated without indoctrination? Some educational theorists have relied on a transcendental justification of rational autonomy that avoids indoctrination, while others have accepted that some indoctrination is inevitable, focusing instead on defending acceptable forms of indoctrination. In this essay, Chris Hanks draws on a conception of rationality, mind, and nature developed by John McDowell to suggest an alternative understanding of the relation between indoctrination and autonomy. He argues that McDowell’s notion of the “space of reasons” defuses standard debates about indoctrination. Here, rationality is understood in both a naturalistic sense, whereby the development of autonomy is the process of being awakened to the space of reasons, and in a sui generis sense, whereby reason cannot be reduced to mechanistic principles or relations. The implications of this view for education point us to the notion of Bildung as the process that cultivates rational autonomy.     

Learning that ‘gay is okay’: educators and boys re/constituting heteronormativity through sexual health

In this paper, I draw on observations from sexual health workshops in an elementary school classroom in Vancouver, Canada and friendship pair interviews with four boys who attended the workshops. I examine how the educators organising the workshops constructed sexual health, highlighting their reliance on both a ‘gay is okay’ and a scientific discourse. I argue that by locating their discussion of homosexuality within a values framework and striving to depict gay relationships as acceptable, they simultaneously constituted homosexuality as requiring acceptance. Likewise, by subsuming references to heterosexuality within their lesson on (hetero)sexual reproduction, they framed heterosexuality as an always already accepted scientific fact. Having set the scene in this way, I then explore the ways the boys both took up and deviated from these discourses when constructing their own narratives.     

Content,Joseph Schwab and German Didaktik

This article attempts to extend and deepen the conversation concerning the knowledge-based approach to curriculum espoused by Michael Young in his 2013 JCS paper through revisiting the structure of the disciplines thinking of Joseph Schwab and German Didaktik. It argues that curriculum making requires a theory of knowledge that not only differentiates different types of knowledge but also elucidates the concepts, theories, methods and habits of mind within a particular knowledge type that contribute to the cultivation of students’ intellectual and moral powers or capacities. Furthermore, it needs a theory of content that addresses how knowledge is selected and transformed into curriculum content, what educational potential content has, and how such potential can be disclosed or unlocked for the cultivation.     

Investigating Socioscientific Issues via Scientific Habits of Mind: Development and validation of the Scientific Habits of Mind Survey

In this paper, we describe the Scientific Habits of Mind Survey (SHOMS) developed to explore public, science teachers’, and scientists’ understanding of habits of mind (HoM). The instrument contained 59 items, and captures the seven SHOM identified by Gauld. The SHOM was validated by administration to two cohorts of pre-service science teachers: primary science teachers with little science background or interest (n?=?145), and secondary school science teachers (who also were science graduates) with stronger science knowledge (n?=?145). Face validity was confirmed by the use of a panel of experts and a pilot study employing participants similar in demographics to the intended sample. To confirm convergent and discriminant validity, confirmatory factor analysis and evaluation of the reliability were calculated. Statistical data and other data gathered from interviews suggest that the SHOMS will prove to be a useful tool for educators and researchers who wish to investigate HoM for a variety of participants.     

Teacher candidates’ epistemological beliefs, dispositions, and views on teaching as persuasion

Alexander and her colleagues proposed teaching as persuasion as a guiding metaphor for conceptual change pedagogy (Alexander, Fives, Buehl, & Mulhern, 2002). However, there is reason to suspect that the term persuasion can have negative connotations for some individuals ( Dole & Sinatra, 1999; Murphy, 2001). Therefore, we examined 182 primarily preservice teachers’ views of teaching as persuasion, and related those views to their openness/resistance to new ideas as measured by selected epistemological belief scales and dispositional measures. Consistent with our hypotheses, our results indicated that teacher candidates who believed that knowledge evolves, that beliefs can be revised, and that learning is a process of constructing knowledge were more open to persuasive teaching. Our findings provide support for Murphy’s (2001) view of persuasion and suggest further that the teaching as persuasion metaphor would be more successful embedded in an instructional context designed to broaden teachers’ epistemological worldviews.     

Masking of Children's Early Understanding of the Representational Mind: Backwards Explanation versus Prediction

3–5-year-olds heard a story involving identical twins, one of whom was absent when their ball was moved from one drawer to another. Children found it easy to infer that the twin who later went to the original location to get the ball was the one who had gone outside. Children in a comparison condition found it relatively difficult to predict where a (nonidentical) twin who was absent when the ball was moved, would search for the ball, and made the usual realist error. In further investigations involving variations on the identical twins task, children were equally successful at making the link between looking in the wrong place and having been absent, whether a backwards inference was required (as above) or a forwards one (inferring that the twin who went outside must now be the one who was at the wrong location). We ruled out one twin's physical association with the correct location as an artifactual explanation for facilitation. Children performed well whether or not the experimenter told them explicitly which twin did not know the ball had been moved. These findings support the view that children's early insight into the representational character of mind is masked in traditional prediction tests of false belief.     

In Pursuit of Knowledge: Preschoolers Expect Agents to Weigh Information Gain and Information Cost When Deciding Whether to Explore

When deciding whether to explore, agents must consider both their need for information and its cost. Do children recognize that exploration reflects a trade-off between action costs and expected information gain, inferring epistemic states accordingly? In two experiments, 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 144; of diverse race and ethnicity) judge that an agent who refuses to obtain low-cost information must have already known it, and an agent who incurs a greater cost to gain information must have a greater epistemic desire. Two control studies suggest that these findings cannot be explained by low-level associations between competence and knowledge. Our results suggest that preschoolers’ theory of mind includes expectations about how costs interact with epistemic desires and states to produce exploratory action.     

Globalization, endogenous development and education in Africa

Conclusion With this in mind, the globalization sought must be regarded not as an unwavering concept but rather as a process that all nations and regions are called upon to construct. To achieve this, they must pave the way for their own self-fulfilment. It falls to education in Africa to advance this process. Original language: French Mamadou Ndoye (Senegal) Minister of State for Basic Education and National Languages. He has extensive experience in both teaching and research. After being education inspector responsible for the Dakar city education district, he became researcher-educator at INEADE in Dakar in 1988. In 1993 he was appointed Minister of State for Literacy and the Promotion of National Languages. His many publications include:Ajustement structurel et éducation scolaire [Structural adjustment and formal education], (1991);Problèmes de réforme de l’éducation en Afrique [Problems of educational reform in Africa] (1990);Dette et éducation [Debt and education] (1989).