Giving presentations and workshops

Now you've done it — agreed to give a workshop or presentation. The self-doubts begin. “I don't know anything more than they do.” “I'm not good in front of a group.” “What if they ask a question I can't answer?” All of the above are common concerns presenters have about themselves and their skills.     

Nothing Human

In this essay C. C. Wharram argues that Terence's concept of translation as a form of “contamination” anticipates recent developments in philosophy, ecology, and translation studies. Placing these divergent fields of inquiry into dialogue enables us read Terence's well‐known statement “I am a human being — I deem nothing human alien to me” as a recognition of the significance of the “nothing human” for contemporary humanism. By recasting Terence's human/foreign pairing through Freud's concept of the uncanny, Wharram draws a parallel between a “nothing human” that is radically interior to the human subject and an exterior agency of “nothing human” described by actor‐network theory and object‐oriented ontology. Only through an “alien phenomenology” (a concept borrowed from Ian Bogost) dependent on metaphors and translations that are necessarily approximate (or “contaminated”) can we begin to approach this “nothing human.”     

ORDER AND CONTENT OF THE BIBLICAL COURSES IN A COLLEGE CURRICULUM∗

The man is a blue collar worker. He tells the story of his nine year old daughter. She said that the only thing she really wanted for Christmas was a pair of Vidal Sassoon Jeans. He explained to her that they really weren't wealthy enough to afford $40 jeans. Maybe Levis would do. “Forget it,” she said. “If I can't have what I want, I don't want anything.”

The man said that they saved up and got her the Sassoon jeans for Christmas. “But you know,” he mused, “she judges the others in her class on what kind of designer jeans they have. They form cliques based on their clothes. It's their way of being somebody, being acceptable, being ‘in’.”     

A research base for new objectives of science teaching

A bright year 7 student was going through the usual steps that lead to the concept of density and its values for wood and brass and aluminium. After mensurating the volumes of cuboids of these materials he was observing the volume of liquid they displaced in a measuring cylinder. As he carefully pushed the wooden cuboid below the surface, I asked him, “Why do you have to push the wood down?” “Because it floats otherwise”, he replied. “Why didn't you have to push the aluminium down?” “Because there was not enough water to make it float”. “Tell me more”, I said. “Well, sir, you must have seen metal ships floating on the sea. If there's enough water, metal will float, but not in a little bit like this”. Just after describing for me how liquid acetone evaporated if it is placed on your skin, a first year university chemistry student with good test results was unable to give me any examples of a liquified gas. When pressed he muttered “Solids, liquids, gases” (A strangely immutable sequence that has neither evolutionary nor biblical support.) and said he thought the cO in a cylinder was probably liquid. Gases could be liquified by lowering the temperature, he said. On being asked to describe what would happen if he steadily cooled down the air in a space, he began by quoting, “Air molecules, being particles moving very rapidly with energy proportional to temperature”. As he cooled them down in thought, he held out his hands and slowed down the vibration of his fingers about a point in space. Finally, his fingers stopped and he said, “It's nothing”. “What do you mean, has it disappeared?” I said. “No”, he replied, but it's no longer a gas, and it's not a liquid or a solid. They are all just there suspended in space. It's no-thing”.     

A global collage of impressions: Preschools abroad

“What do you think of European preschools?” “Do they have good schools in Yemen?” “What are Chinese child care centers like?” I am always taken aback when asked such questions. Of course, I'm always taken aback when someone asks what I think of kindergarten education in the United States; I never know how to answer that either. Does the question refer to kindergarten classes in the school near my home? Or kindergartens across the United States? Even if the inquirer expected an answer based on the schools which I visit regularly to supervise student teachers I would have to give a general statement, followed by some qualifying statements related to different teachers, different schools, and different school districts — all withinone county! The old adage that “All generalizations are dangerous, including this one” always comes to mind.     

Engaging difference: towards a pedagogy of interbeing

In this article, I discuss how by engaging difference teachers and students can go beyond the binary of “self” and “other” towards “interbeing”. I first discuss how postcolonial and feminist perspectives can inform multicultural discourse by rethinking self and other in terms of hybrid identities and cultures. Then, I draw on Thich Nhat Hanh's (1991) concepts of mindfulness, contemplation, and interbeing; bell hooks' (1994) concept of an engaged pedagogy; and my reflections on my own practice of teaching multicultural education courses. I argue that a self-reflexive pedagogy of interbeing is transformative, enabling both students and teachers to “see with the eyes of interbeing” (Hanh, 1991, p. 98) and heal from the wounds of oppression.     

Conveying Respect and Empathy: Becoming a relational teacher educator

This is the second of two self-studies of my efforts to prepare preservice teachers for the practical realities of the classroom while being respectful of their personal practical knowledge. I coined the term “relational teacher education” to convey my approach, which is informed by Rogers' “helping relationships” and Hollingsworth, Dybdahl, and Minarik's “relational knowing.” In this paper, I share “A Letter to Preservice Teachers” before exploring the final four characteristics of relational teacher education: respect and empathy, conveying respect and empathy, helping preservice teachers face problems, and receptivity to growing in relationship.     

Gender differences in national assessment of educational progress science items: What does “i don't know” really mean?

The National Assessment of Educational Progress Science Assessment has consistently revealed small gender differences on science content items but not on science inquiry items. This assessment differs from others in that respondents can choose “I don't know” rather than guessing. This paper examines explanations for the gender differences including (a) differential prior instruction, (b) differential response to uncertainty and use of the “I don't know” response, (c) differential response to figurally presented items, and (d) different attitudes towards science. Of these possible explanations, the first two received support. Females are more likely to use the “I don't know” response, especially for items with physical science content or masculine themes such as football. To ameliorate this situation we need more effective science instruction and more gender-neutral assessment items.     

Rejoinder to Aaron Cooley's Review of Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism: A Critical Pedagogy

Because of Professor Cooley's prosecutorial review, I want to make clear at the outset that my rejoinder is not a codefendant's answer to a plaintiff's replication. Instead, I first attempt to provide an “immanent” analysis of Cooley's indictment, in the sense of dealing with what dwells within his reasoning. A specific philosophical definition of “immanent” reads: taking place within the mind of the subject, but having no effect outside (this does not apply to me as an outsider). I intend to battle with Cooley up close—no “dancing”—my defense against his offense. In the second part, the focus will be on what I think is missing from Cooley's attempt to discredit McLaren and Farahmandpur's book. His decision or failure to deal with what Marx and the most effective Marxists have written, and how some of this provided analyses that could be and/or was acted upon, may be more serious than his beating up on the book's authors.     

A critique of neo-Hahnian outdoor education theory. Part one: Challenges to the concept of “character building”

Abstract

Within the diverse and sometimes amorphous outdoor education literature, “neo-Hahnian” (NH) approaches to adventure education are exceptional for their persistence, seeming coherence, and wide acceptance. NH approaches assume that adventure experiences “build character”, or, in modern terminology, “develop persons”, “actualise selves”, or have certain therapeutic effects associated with personal traits. In social psychological terms NH thought is “dispositional”, in that it favours explanations of behaviour in terms of consistent personal traits. In this paper I critically review NH OAE in an historical context, and draw on Ross' and Nisbett's (1991) seminal review of dispositional social psychology to argue that OAE programs do not build character, but may provide situations that elicit certain behaviours. For OAE research and theory, belief in the possibility of “character building” must be seen as a source of bias, not as a foundation. The conceptual analysis I develop provides not only a basis for critique, but also offers a way forward for OAE.     

“We Are Not Free”: The Meaning of <Freedom> in American Indian Resistance to President Johnson's War on Poverty

This essay examines how the ideograph <freedom> was crafted through dialectical struggles between Euro-Americans and American Indians over federal Indian policy between 1964 and 1968. For policymakers, <freedom> was historically sutured to the belief that assimilation was the only pathway to American Indian liberation. I explore the American Indian youth movement's response to President Johnson's War on Poverty to demonstrate how activists rhetorically realigned <freedom> in Indian policy with the Great Society's rhetoric of “community empowerment.” I illustrate how American Indians orchestrated counterhegemonic resistance by reframing the “Great Society” as an argument for a “Greater Indian American.” This analysis evinces the rhetorical significance of ideographic transformation in affecting policy change.     

SKWL DAS: Emerging literacy in children

“There Mommy.” A little girl turns to her mother from the kitchen blackboard on which she has written SKWL DAS. “That's to help you remember the name of the song my class will be dancing to in the recital.” The mother observes the proud look upon her kindergartner's face and looks at SKWL DAS on the board. Quickly, the mother says, “Thank you for writing the name of the song. Now I will remember it. Can you read what you wrote, too?” “Of course,” retorts the girl. “It says SCHOOL DAYS.”     

A SYSTEMATIC CLASSIFICATION OF PUBLICATIONS RELATIVE TO THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION

“The accent in cultural history is on close examin‐ ation — of texts, of pictures, and of actions — and an open‐mindedness to what those examinations will reveal, rather than on elaboration of new master narratives.”

Lynn Hunt (Ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley, Calif., 1989), p. 22.

“[Films] are a legitimate way ... of representing, interpreting, thinking about and making meaning from the traces of the past ... that seriously deals with the relationship of past and present.”

Robert A. Rosenstone (Ed.), Revisioning History (Princeton, N.J., 1995), p. 3.

One of postmodernism's major lines of development collapses the boundaries and hierarchical distinctions between elite or academic culture and popular culture, giving us new opportunities to cross boundaries separating history from literature and the arts, the “academic” from the “popular”, the archival from the imaginative. I embrace the freedom that postmodernism offers to entertain new ideas, play different kinds of language games, challenge established “ways of seeing”.

I propose here that we extend the range of what we regard as historical “source” to include film, and that film be accepted by historians of education as a legitimate form of textual representation and important evidentiary “source” for our exploration and interpre‐ tation of culture and of education. What follows is an attempt at integrating film into the historiography of education. For illustrative purposes, I've chosen Peter Weir's “Dead Poets Society” ("DPS”, 1989) for my text. I don't presume to give “the” meaning of “DPS” for understanding recent American educational history, but to suggest some of its possible meanings, which, given the problematic nature of “meaning” in our postmodern epoch, is about all we can hope for, but which may be enough to continue the conversation about movies after the movie is over.     

Some family matters that affect young children

I recall a teacher who helped an apprehensive boy become adjusted to his classroom without his mother. His teacher enumerated the various body parts that he had brought to school that day—“his arms, legs, eyes, ears” and so on. He watched with anticipation for a while, then looked up wearily at her and said, “I know I'm all here. Butwhy am I here?”     

A Sticky Business? Exploring the “and” in Teaching and Learning

This article takes as its focus the “and” in discourses of teaching and learning. Drawing upon the work of Deleuze and Guattari, I argue that the “and” signifies a complex, sticky relationship between teaching and learning, and that we can radicalise our conception of “and” to bring forward a range of different discourses. The argument suggests that those critiques of discourses of teaching and learning which argue for an alternative discourse of pedagogy can be supplemented by the radicalising of the “and”. I am therefore proposing the possibility for different forms of immanent and transcendental critique in relation to contemporary debates about teaching and learning. And that there is significance in the apparently insignificant?…

In real life people fumble their words and stare blankly off into space and don't listen properly to what people say. I find that kind of speech fascinating but it seems writers never write dialogue like that because it doesn't look good on the page. (Christopher Guest, Theatre Director)     

DEVELOPING A ZIONIST CURRICULUM FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS

Our Theme is a significant one: “The Role of Jewish Education in Shaping the Jewish Future.” It speaks to some of our current concerns and emerging needs as educators. Yet, I must confess I didn't choose that wording. If I had titled it, it would have been titled “The Role of the Jewish Educator in Shaping the Jewish Future.”     

Still Burning: Self-Immolation as Photographic Protest

Examining Malcolm Browne's photograph of the burning monk as well as appropriations of it by the Ministers' Vietnam Committee, I argue that self-immolation is a powerful rhetorical act that utilizes self-inflicted violence as a means of performing a visual embodiment of violence done by an “other.” I assert that the power and resonance of Browne's photograph stem from its freezing in time of what Barbie Zelizer terms “the about to die moment.” Additionally, this study expands Zelizer's concept by examining how appropriations of the burning monk image demonstrate the resonance of images of the dead and their potential to promote agency and civic engagement.     

COMMUNITY BUILDING: A NEW ROLE FOR THE JEWISH DAY SCHOOL

Wearing a swastika armband, I entered the classroom carrying a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf. Placing it on the music stand I employed as a makeshift lectern, I peered around the room until the students became silent. Then I began to read sections of Hitler's venomous tome, the hateful words cutting through me like a knife. As I read, I noticed that a few students stiffened. I had students analyze Hitler's quotes, addressing them as either “Herr” or “Fraulein.” After this lesson, I explained why I used such tactics. I told them death and destruction during World War II was only part of studying the Holocaust. Learning where the Jew-hatred came from and its context within Nazism was also important. And that meant comprehending Mein Kampf. Closing the book, I removed the twisted cross and slowly tore it into small pieces.     

Passing by Proxy: Collusive and Convulsive Silence in the Trial of Leopold and Loeb

Despite unfolding as it did during the sexual revolution of the 1920s, Leopold and Loeb's “trial of the century” elicited a deluge of constitutive discourse that struggled against overt articulation and circulation of the boys’ queerness. In this essay, I argue that those discourses—dominant reportage, in camera courtroom conferences, and Clarence Darrow's famous summation—manifested what I label “passing by proxy,” a collusive and convulsive act of straight closeting that speaks queer sexuality despite concerted effort to silence it.     

PROTECTing the figure of innocence: child pornography legislation and the queerness of childhood

In US v. Williams (2008), the Supreme Court upheld the PROTECT Act; this law's “pandering provision” prohibits the distribution and solicitation of child pornography, but does not distinguish between real child pornography and “virtual” child pornography (images that are digitally created or manipulated and do not depict a real child). Situating this case at the intersection of rhetorical studies of the law and queer studies, I read the Court's opinions as rhetorical and cultural texts that circulate a strategic figuration of the child that emphasizes its sexual purity, vulnerability, and whiteness, and disavows the queerness of childhood desires. I argue that the Court's decision virtualizes the figuration of the child through the performative “collateral speech” act, ultimately conflating virtual materials with real children. Furthermore, I contend that the language of the law, as it taxonomizes and disciplines illicit desires, also expresses desire through its passionate figurations of childhood innocence and adult sexual morality.