Freirean critical pedagogy’s challenge to interfaith education: what is interfaith? What is education?

Interfaith education has been boosted recently by the imprimatur of current and previous political world leaders. However, a critical analysis of what makes good interfaith education is yet to emerge. Indeed the attention may distract from the effort needed to ensure positive outcomes. This paper questions whether the uncritical nature of some interfaith education initiatives encourages the continuation of cultural and theological bias. Critical social theorist Paulo Freire viewed education as an opportunity for social evolution. His pedagogy of freedom relied on the idea that no knowledge is out of bounds and that such freedom nurtured the security to greet difference with humility. This paper examines some Australian approaches to interfaith education in light of Freire’s challenge. It questions the persistence of an Abrahamic skew and calls for a more critical approach to differences of belief.     

What is to be done with curriculum and educational foundations' critical knowledges? Toward critical and decolonizing education sciences

ABSTRACT

As editors of the special issue in Teaching Education titled What Is To Be Done with Curriculum and Educational Foundations’ Critical Knowledges? New Qualitative Research on Conscientizing Preservice and In-Service Teachers, our purpose with this conceptual essay is twofold. First, we historicize and characterize the critical knowledges deployed in this special issue as a broad array of criticalities. Second, we provide a reading of these criticalities that together we tentatively call critical and decolonizing education sciences. In our discussion and conclusion, we focus on the dual challenges of developing work in critical and decolonizing education sciences: (a) better historicizing academic work and (b) clearly responding to demands of institutional praxis.     

Can Children Do Philosophy?

Some philosophers claim that young children cannot do philosophy. This paper examines some of those claims, and puts forward arguments against them. Our beliefs that children cannot do philosophy are based on philosophical assumptions about children, their thinking and about philosophy. Many of those assumptions remain unquestioned by critics of Philosophy with Children. My conclusion is that the idea that very young children can do philosophy has not only significant consequences for how we should educate young children, but also for how adults should do philosophy; and that further research is urgently needed.     

What is an incentive system?

Performance Technologists have come a long way—from producing zebra-striped books to implementing innovative interventions. It is about time we applied our technology to where the money is: compensation packages and incentive systems. This new series will feature articles on different aspects of developing, implementing, evaluating, and improving incentive systems.     

What is an evaluator? 1

This paper takes the view that evaluation is a trade and suggests that while psychologists and sociologists are needed in it for their skills they need to adapt some of their approaches and renounce some of their specialist values to become effective as evaluators.

A not untypical evaluation job is looked at to see whether an evaluator is more than a tradesman and the answers seem to be ‘not much’ but that he needs special skills in interpretation and negotiation. Both Hudson and Wilson are found to provide helpful rules. Where the evaluator rises above technician level is in his identification and definition of the questions he is to answer but how far can he be left to decide what evaluation is for?

     

What is an Academic Judgement?

This paper considers the nature of academic judgement. It also suggests that academic judgement is not the special preserve of academics as such and is something with which students can be imbued. It is further suggested that academic judgement is best considered in the context of critical learning which is contrasted with demonstrative learning. The paper then proceeds with an analysis of judgement by considering the ideas of Peter Geach on this particular subject. It then moves to considering judgement in the context of a practice, as set out by Alasdair MacIntyre. Whilst providing insight into the nature of practical judgement, this approach is found wanting nonetheless and attention is next turned to considering judgement within the space of reasons – that is, the approach of John McDowell. The paper then suggests that the idea of the space of reasons can be given greater substance through consideration of two further kinds of judgement – epistemic and reflective.     

What is an Academic Library?

Students' concepts of the library and its function should be brought closer to those of librarians in the view of the chairman of library services at Jersey City State College (B.A., UCLA; M.A., Columbia). He has had a notable dozen years in library work across the continent, was author of a twice printed satire “How to Appear Educated” in Library Review.     

Open educational resources: education for the world?

Education is widely seen as an important means of addressing both national and international problems, such as political or religious extremism, poverty, and hunger. However, if developing countries are to become societies that can compete properly with Western industrialized countries, not only is a fundamental shift in thinking with regard to the value of education and more/better provision of teaching required, but strong support from other countries is needed as well. This article explores questions such as whether Western policymakers can avoid a repetition of some of the failures of the past few decades in terms of providing foreign aid; how educators and providers of educational scenarios and learning contents can foster and manage the creation of a worldwide knowledge society; and in particular, if the provision of open educational resources (OER) can realistically overcome the educational gap and foster educational justice.     

What is assessment for learning?

The idea that assessment is intrinsic to effective instruction is traced from early experiments in the individualization of learning through the work of Benjamin Bloom to reviews of the impact of feedback on learners in classrooms. While many of these reviews detailed the adverse impact of assessment on learning, they also indicated that under certain conditions assessment had considerable potential to enhance learning. It is shown that understanding the impact that assessment has on learning requires a broader focus than the feedback intervention itself, particularly the learner's responses to the feedback, and the learning milieu in which the feedback operates. Different definitions of the terms “formative assessment” and “assessment for learning” are discussed, and subsumed within a broad definition that focuses on the extent to which instructional decisions are supported by evidence. The paper concludes by exploring some of the consequences of this definition for classroom practice.