PEDAGOGICAL DESIRE AND THE CRISIS OF KNOWLEDGE

Every voice speaks to particular ways of knowing as it positions the speaker within an epistemological community. Each of our images of what constitutes knowing, and hence knowledge, is part of what structures one's subjectivity: what is valued as truth or discarded as fiction... Views of knowing tell individuals which accounts count and likewise which accounts do not count. Knowledge then, is not so much about immutable truths as it is about “historical products of certain practices.” (Britzman, 1991, p.23‐23)     

Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers: the time of friendship

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an introduction to the enduring friendship between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers. It shows how their intellectual development as public educators was sustained by their ongoing dialogue which flourished not in spite of but because of their huge differences of circumstance and personality. This friendship between two renowned scholars raises – by implication at least – the question as to what part friendship plays in academic and intellectual development and to what extent institutions, in their administrative systems and practices, encourage or even allow for the kind of friendship that Arendt and Jaspers shared. The paper does not seek to address these questions directly, but rather to ground them in the particularities of a unique correspondence between two major public intellectuals and to highlight their relevance for those currently working in the higher education sector.     

The Change Room promotes teachers’ agency to change their practice

It is generally agreed that it is difficult for schools to bring about lasting changes in classroom practice. This paper gives an account of an action research group of 21 practitioners in an upper secondary school in Iceland, where a new model, the Change Room, was introduced to enhance changes in classroom practice. The aim was to increase students’ sense of responsibility for their studies. The Change Room connected the Change Laboratory, one of the methods of developmental work research established by Engeström and action research as elaborated by McNiff. In the Change Room the activity theory provided the teachers with a conceptual framework and tools to analyse what changes were needed and wanted in classroom practice and action research provided an approach to guide them when carrying out and evaluating these changes. Change Room meeting records were used for reflection, which revealed that the main tensions teachers experienced in classroom practice was firstly between didactic and dialogic teaching methods, secondly between the demand to cover the syllabus and a sense of urgency for deep learning and thirdly between active and passive students as learners. In order to resolve these tensions teachers tried out new methods to attempt to change their practice in the direction of more active student learning and more listening to students’ voices. The Change Room offers a promising direction to increase teachers’ agency to change their practice and sustain that change. As such, it speaks to international concerns about effective school reform.     

Student Success and Failure: As a matter of fact or just how they are portrayed?

This paper introduces and analyses three broad discourses of academic achievement and failure, specifically those that speak of students' deficits, disadvantages and differences. It draws on interview data collected from teachers working in Australian primary (elementary) and secondary (high) schools and on academic literature that speaks to the field. The paper argues that 'deficit', 'disadvantage' and 'difference' represent discourses of considerable influence in determining how teachers, students and parents define what constitutes success or failure in schools, which respective approaches educators employ, and the beliefs we hold about students who fail and those who succeed. In this respect, the paper is concerned with matters of inclusion and exclusion in schooling. In particular, we seek to tease out the stories that these discourses tell about student diversity, as a way of unmasking how students are differently represented and how these representations serve to include some and exclude others from the benefits of schooling and society more broadly.     

The Formation of Identity: The importance of ideals

In the formation and composition of what might be termed personal identity a key but often neglected aspect is ideal identity. While comprising aspirations rather than realities, it makes a major contribution to the definition of self-identity. It does this as a result of: (a) clarifying what kind of person the individual wishes to be; and (b) an interrogation of how she sets about achieving her ideal identity, intimating what kind of person she is at a particular moment by virtue of the way in which she strives to achieve her ideal. The article argues for a re-appraisal of the notion of ideals in education and for its reinstatement as a significant feature of education. Indeed, we argue, children cannot avoid ideals--they are presented to them everyday from a wide variety of sources. But these sources or the ideals that they promote are not necessarily good for the child's well-being or for her fellow citizens. Consequently, teachers as moral agents have an important role in assisting children to acquire ideals that do meet such a criterion of goodness in addition to helping them reflect critically on the range of ideals they may encounter in their communities and society.     

“What if we were in a test tube?” Students’ gendered meaning making during a biology lesson about the basic facts of the human genitals

This paper explores what happens in the encounters between presentations of “basic facts” about the human genitals and 15-year-old students during a biology lesson in a Swedish secondary school. In this paper, meaning making was approached as relational, context-dependent and continually transacted. For this reason the analysis was conducted through a series of close readings of situations where students interacted with each other and the teacher in opening up gaps about alternative ways of discussing gender. Drawing on Foucault’s theories about the inclusion and exclusion of knowledge and the subsequent work of Butler and other feminist researchers, the paper illuminates what gendered relations remain tacit in the conversation. It then illustrates possible ways in which these tacit gendered meanings could be made overt and discussed with the students when making meaning about the human genitals. The paper also shows how the ways in which human genitals are transacted in the science classroom have importance for what kind of learning is made available to the students.     

What do families of the ‘professional and managerial’ class educate their children for? The links between happiness and autonomy

Based on a qualitative study involving 124 professional and managerial class families in Catalonia (Spain), this paper describes the aims and objectives these families have for the education of their children. During the fieldwork, when asked what they were aiming for in the education of their children, almost all of the parents replied ‘for them to be happy’. But what kind of happiness are they talking about? What kind of education might lead to happiness? Drawing principally on the work of Kellerhals and Montandon and their ‘contractual model of education’ and Bauman’s concepts of ‘secondary security’ and ‘homo eligens’, although also taking into account the related contributions of Lareau, Vincent and Ball, Stefansen and Aarseth, and Kusserow, the paper aims to demonstrate the strong connection these families make between happiness and ‘absolute’ autonomy, understood as two sides of the same coin and seen, by the participants, as the guiding principle that should shape the way they bring their children up.     

Chemistry practical lessons: altering traditions for students’ emancipation

This paper is a response to Maria Andree’s paper. Andree tells in the paper how mistakes in practical lessons may be critical events to change students’ attitudes in regard science. While traditionally mistakes in practical lessons could obligate students to repeat the experiment in order to get the ‘right result’ in the paper we have a good example how we can use the incident to potentiate students’ participation. In my response I illustrate how transferable is what Andree speaks about but I put forward further reflections about the traditions that may act as impediment for students’ participation. I thus suggest that the critical paradigm should be a component in reflecting about science classroom practices in order to alter the traditions.     

中学语文教材课文编选中的体裁判定问题分析

读者对一篇课文的体裁判断并没有明确的认知,一篇短文,在通常情况下,无论是把它分为小说还是散文体裁并不影响阅读。而对于选入教材的课文来说,读者是特殊的主体——教师和学生。因此,在编选文章时应准确进行体裁判定,在古代短篇小说与散文的判定上显得尤为关键。本文从现行教材中存疑课文入手,由此分析入选课文体裁判定存在分歧的原因。     

农村留守儿童问题研究及对策——以福建省安溪县为典型调查

据相关数据显示,从2000年到2008年间,我国农村留守儿童数量翻了将近3番,从约2000万人增加到约5800万人。随着数量的增加,越来越多的问题也日益暴露出来。留守儿童在“不得已”的情况下与父母双方或一方长期不能共同生活,会对他们产生怎样的影响以及如何消除这些影响越来越受到国家及社会各界的关注。     

论大众文化价值功能的两重性

中国学界关于大众化价值功能的阐释一直存在着精英主义的偏见，这一偏见可以具体通过“谁在说”、“说什么”、“怎么说”三个方面来检讨。大众化的价值功能的两重性是指大众化同时具有善／恶、利／弊等两种互相矛盾对立的属性。道德理想主义和历史主义的理论话语皆造成对大众化价值功能的单一化的误识，现实主义的判断标准提供了正确分析大众化价值功能两重性的可能性。大众化善恶同体、利弊参半的两重性可以在多个层面上加以求证。     

忠诚的天使——从清教主义与新女性主义的冲突中分析

19世纪后半期美国女作家露易莎·梅·奥尔科特以其长篇小说《小妇人》而一举成名。马奇姐妹不满足家庭主妇式的生活,要求走出家门、步入社会,渴望通过发挥自己的才智以实现自我价值,在一定程度上对当时父权社会下推崇的“真正女人”进行了反抗。这样的描写体现出了清教主义与女性主义的冲突,马奇四姐妹身上的忠诚这一品质就是这种冲突的一个结合点,这种品质展现了她们的魅力,也让读者去深入思考当今社会的女性应如何定位。     

《新青年》所倡导的“新青年派人生观”

基于对青年一代才是革除中国积弊,挽救中国危亡,建设民主富强的中坚力量和希望的认识,以及当时大多数青年的现状,《新青年》提倡一种新型人生观:在反对旧道德和传统的基础上,以西方自由、平等、独立、自主的价值取向为核心的一种新型的近代人生观,它对青年自身及其对社会发展的贡献提出了要求,即内图个性之发展,外图贡献于社会。它更是针对青年的糟糕状况和中国严峻的现实而提出的以启蒙救国为内在目的的一种务实的人生观。     

通过随笔辅导促进学生心理健康

随笔作为一种比较自由的写作方式，可以实现心理辅导的意义表达、情绪宣泄、沟通与建构功能。在开展学生心理辅导过程中，教师通过学生的随笔了解学生，与学生对话，引导学生在随笔中吐露心声，反思生活，建构意义。教师在通过批语或面谈与学生对话中要坚持平等、理解、鼓励的原则。另外也可以通过随笔展示开展师生间、生生间的对话，以扩大辅导效果。     

Making sense of children's sexual behavior in child care: An analysis of adult responses in special investigation reports

This paper investigates how adults respond to sexual behavior among children in child care. Culturally, childhood sexuality is variously understood as natural curiosity, a sign of sexual abuse, or a symptom of a sex-offender in the making. Given these competing cultural meanings, how are sexual-like behaviors by children managed by the adults who care for them? An analysis of qualitative data from Special Investigation Reports by childcare licensing consultants in the state of Michigan is used to examine how parents, child care providers, and child care licensing consultants manage and respond to sexual behavior between children in the context of child care. How sexual behavior is responded to depends primarily on who is doing the responding – parent, childcare provider, or state licensing consultant – rather than what type of behavior is being responded to. Parents respond to a wide range of behaviors between children as if they are incidents of sexual abuse. Childcare providers respond to many of those same incidents as misbehavior. Licensing consultants understand these incidents as violation of rules of supervision, but they were also the only group to ever ask if children's sexual behavior was potentially a sign of a child having been sexually abused in another setting. Providers and parents need more education about what kinds of sexual behavior to be concerned about and what kind to understand as common. More education that sexuality that is “rare” and persistent could be a sign of sexual abuse is needed by all parties.     

Universal Semantics in Translation

What and how we translate are questions often argued about. No matter what kind of answers one may give, priority in translation should be granted to meaning, especially those meanings that exist in all concerned languages. This research defines them as universal sememes, and the study of them as universal semantics, of which applications are also briefly looked into.     

死刑的废除与中国民意

作为社会上层建筑的法律和司法体系,是应当与其社会基础相适应的,如此,在死刑的废除之路上,民意有着举足轻重的地位。废除或者限制死刑,今天已经在世界上形成了一种共识。但是,死刑的废除和中国民意到底是怎样的关系;双方的矛盾是否不可调和;中国的民意到底是怎么回事;统治机关,学者和社会在死刑废除的民意上应当扮演怎样的角色,将是本文主要探讨的内容。     

非英语专业学生对母语文化的态度以及母语文化与英语学习的关系的调查

在大学英语教学的跨文化交际中确立母语文化地位,解决母语文化的地位失衡现象,以构建高校跨文化英语教学的合理模式是在跨文化教学中具有重要意义的。调查大学生用英语进行跨文化交际中母语文化输出的现状及问题,分析构成交际中母语文化输出的障碍和缺失的原因及程度,提出应对这种文化交流失衡所应采取什么样的相应的对策。     

Teacher Identity: Claiming Me

This article speaks to the reality of the lived experiences of student of color in society today: navigating the structures of diversity in a white world. For many, the author’s story resonates with what they feel at their core of belonging and unbelonging. It answers the age old questions, “Who am I?” and “What is my purpose?” The article gives pre-service teachers of color the ability to claim agency about who they are and what their purpose is in life. The author’s story is one of self-authorship. With the hope that White middle class teachers will better understand their students, the author also gives insight into the struggles and realities student of color face on a daily basis.     

说不可说:庄子的话语言说策略

庄子话语言说策略是庄子表达修辞策略的一个重要组成部分,它主要解决的是"由谁说"、"说什么"、"以何种态度言说"的问题。掌握并洞悉庄子的话语言说策略,至少为我们走近庄子并走进《庄子》一书增加了一条门径乃至捷径。