Teaching critical thinking: The struggle against dogmatism*

Abstract

From a Wittgensteinian point of view, my goal is to argue against the idea that teaching critical thinking should have as one of its aims the possibility of changing or adapting our deeply held beliefs. As pointed out by the Austrian philosopher in On Certainty, we have a world-picture which is neither true nor false, but above all, ‘it is the substratum of all my enquiring and asserting’ (OC, §162). Besides that, in his remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough, Wittgenstein insists on the idea that different communities have their own rituals that express ways of acting, which become crystallized in their customs and institutions, similar to the magical rituals described by Frazer. The degree of similarity among them is greater than we suspect, and what interested Wittgenstein was to understand how we see things by looking for the links between the various ritualistic events. Based on these remarks, I argue that, if our deeply held beliefs are a source of necessity, instead of aiming to change/adapt them, teaching critical thinking should—by showing the links between diverse cultures—essentially avoid employing them in a dogmatic way, since our own deeply held beliefs could have been different ones.     

三年奋进三年跨越

2002年全国职教工作会议以来,我省职业教育在教育部的大力支持下,省委、省政府强力推进,广大职教工作者抢抓机遇、奋力拼搏、扎实工作,实现了连续三年的跨越式发展.2004年,全省中等职业学校招生26.08万人,比2001年增加14.02万人,增幅116%,中职招生占高中阶段比例达到39.3%;高等职业教育迅速崛起,高职高专学校招生10.58万人,占省属高校招生总数的61.94%.全省职业教育形成紧贴地方经济、与普通教育共同发展的新格局.     

Student counselling in Australian universities: Forty years of development

Since the first development of counselling services in Australian universities in 1953, the tertiary system, and counselling services within them, have undergone a forty-year period of growth and change, and now all universities have counselling services which typically focus on short-term counselling interventions and are characterised by high levels of professionalism. Two case studies provide a picture of the situation in Australian universities. One case is that of an older and larger institution recently formed as a multi-campus university by amalgamations and with its main campus in the inner city of Australia's second-largest city. The contrasting case is of a newer, suburban university in one of the smaller capital cities. The challenges facing university counselling services in the future include the continuing pressure for greater accountability, the increasing demands of a multi-cultural clientele, the temptation to take on a wider range of tasks than can be sustained, and its obverse, the risk of over-specialisation.     

The Catholic school and social justice in Africa: a Zambian case study

Abstract

This paper will argue that the state-aided Catholic school in Zambia has contributed significantly to the development of the country over the years. However, because of its enmeshment in the state system of education it has inadvertently become an instrument of underdevelopment. It is structurally complicit in alienating some of the poorest sectors of society, which runs counter to its professed religious mission. This essay presents the Zambian situation as a case study where it is contended that in order to understand the current situation there is need to see it in the light of its history. The discussion is intended to explore how faith-based educational settings within the state systems in Africa may become complicit in sustaining forms of oppression. It will include a consideration of how, as part of this, religion has been reduced historically through being too closely allied to a modernisation framework generating the illusion of promoting social justice. The article notes that in the light of better historical appreciation of the issue there is need for a review of the faith-based school’s pedagogy.     

革命根据地反奴化教育的斗争

晋察冀等敌后抗日根据地广大师生,在严酷的战争环境下,为反抗敌伪奴化教育,采取多种形式瓦解了敌伪教育、坚持了抗日教育阵地,为夺取全国抗战胜利优做出了杰出贡献。     

拒腐防变:执政党建设的历史性课题——重温邓小平党风廉政建设思想

邓小平同志关于党风廉政建设有许多的重要论述,如"一定要恢复和发扬党的优良传统和作风"、"在整个改革开放过程中都要反对腐败"、"要靠教育、更要靠法制"、"党要管党、从严治党"、"党的监督是最直接的"等.当前,我们要以邓小平理论和"三个代表"重要思想为指导,始终坚持立党为公、执政为民,坚持从严治党,与时俱进,树立科学发展观,不断开创中国特色社会主义事业的新局面.     

The work of illiteracy in the rhetorical curriculum

It is conventionally held that illiteracy is simply the absence of literacy, however the latter term happens to be defined. As such, illiteracy is nothing more than failure to achieve the literate foundation upon which success in the rhetorical curriculum depends. I challenge convention by arguing that literacy is fundamentally a rhetorical construct and that the idea of illiteracy, integral to compelling identification with literacy, is an intentional product of the rhetorical curriculum. This relationship of illiteracy to the rhetorical curriculum can be glimpsed in narratives of literacy, especially those that circulate to mass audiences in popular films. Scholars have looked to such films for evidence to illustrate academic theories about literacy. By analysing several films and their reception, I show that non-academics are actively engaged in re-theorizing illiteracy. This engagement illuminates the rhetorical dimensions of illiteracy in a way that has the potential to revise the informal rhetorical curriculum, thereby changing conventional understandings of illiteracy.     

Learning from the tragedy at Kent State: Forty years after May 4

Sadly, the last few decades have not seen a lack of tragedies big or small on U.S. campuses of higher education. Erica Eckert demonstrates that such profound events, when faced openly and honestly, can provide useful learning opportunities for educators and students.     

A struggle of civilization against barbarism: about universities as autonomous zones

This paper takes a longue durée look at universities at the core of the world economy, where the modern idea of intellectuals as trustees of the reflexive structures of society has achieved its most enduring institutional form. To wrest thinking away from a conformism that makes us see universities as nothing more than organisations amongst organisations forever in process of adapting themselves to the exigencies of world ordering, we focus on three moments of rupture: (i) the ‘prehistory of higher education’, when the work of the medieval renaissance was ‘largely done’ and original universities where founded in the folds of the nascent European économie-monde, (ii) the crisis of the Bretton Woods world order, and (iii) the present juncture     

Forty years of Finnish pre-school education: the development of curricula between 1972 and 2000

Since 2001 in Finland, all six year olds have had the right to free pre-school education, and almost all pre-school-aged children take advantage of this opportunity. The purpose of this article is to dissect the development of Finnish pre-school education curricula within the societal context and within the changes in trends of curriculum planning between 1972 and 2000. The study analysed five curricula texts through qualitative content analysis by paying attention to the functions of pre-school education and the positioning of children and educators. The development of pre-school education consisted of four phases: (1) the era of pre-school education trials; (2) the era of heterogeneous pre-school education arrangements; (3) the era of changes in curriculum policies; and (4) the era of pre-school education establishment. The results indicated that the changes in pre-school education curricula related to the changes in Finnish society and in basic education.     

The social circumstances of illiteracy: Interpretation and exchange in a class-based society

Illiteracy, an extreme form of educational failure, is best understood in social structural terms, rather than as an individual psychological phenomenon. This structural interpretation of illiteracy is similar to critical institutional treatments of poverty, inadequate health care, and other persistent “social problems.” Instead of treating such problems as manifestations of remediable systemic imperfections, they are construed to be predictable consequences of the routine working of basic institutions in a class-based society. The institutionally determined social circumstances of illiteracy, moreover, are complemented by a context-specific logic that makes illiteracy a substantively “rational” achievment. In spite of its interpretable rationality, however, illiteracy retains the character of a self-inflicted wound that indexes a broad range of even more debilitating grievances.     

Student estrangement in higher education: identity formation and the struggle against stigma

Abstract

While investigation on family estrangement is growing within academic circles, research regarding the interconnection between experiences of estrangement and higher education (HE) is still limited. Sociological understandings of these issues are even scarcer, with policy interventions and practical guidance forming early interventions in HE. Set within the context of Scotland, this paper explores the experiences of HE students who are estranged from their family, and interrogates the ways students develop a sense of identity in the context of their academic lives. The paper applies Goffman’s work on stigma and identity management in relation to Bourdieu’s concept of capitals to cast a critical eye on the identity formation of estranged students. In doing so, we challenge normative assumptions of what it means to be a university student in contemporary society and urge institutions and policy makers to rethink the complexity of students’ academic lives in more inclusive ways.     

葡萄平声话40声母与中古40声类

分布在阳朔县葡萄镇的桂北平话称为“平声话”，其声母的特点非常突出。主要几点是：与中古40声类的框架相近。古全浊声母今天仍然保持着独立的浊音类别。古次浊声母各自一分为二，一套浊音色彩较重。一套浊音色彩较轻。知庄章三组全面合流。读[ts]等。精组遇洪音读[ts]等，遇细音读[tG]等，与见组不混。     

Forty years in the union: Incubating, supporting, and catalyzing socially just educational change

North American teacher unions’ positive contributions to educational change have historically flown under the radar of educational policy makers, a situation that has been reified by recent attacks on public sector unions. In this article, I draw on social movement theory and an institutional case study of a self described social justice union to analyze teacher unions’ unique contributions to educational improvement. The primary product of this analysis is a cyclical model of union-supported, teacher-initiated educational change that codifies 40 years of social justice activism incubated, supported and catalyzed by a Canadian teacher union.