The Private Voice: Homeschooling,Hannah Arendt,and Political Education

What becomes of the political orientation of American education when children are educated in the home rather than in public schools? Homeschooling critics raise concerns over the larger consequences: political exit and even indoctrination. Drawing on a recent study of 62 interviews with 35 homeschooling families in 11 states in the USA, we offer a theoretical argument grounded in empirical observations and perceptions of homeschoolers themselves. Using the work of political theorist Hannah Arendt as a guide, we suggest that, contrary to critics’ claims of political exit over voice, homeschooling may provide the opportunity for some families to respond with a “private voice” that is politically robust because it is intentionally subversive to a (perceived) homogenous dominant culture. We thus argue that some homeschoolers offer an understanding of private life that is political without being “public,” and that they reconcile this irony by attempting to cultivate reflexive “thinking” in their children regarding questions of conformity, materialism, and plurality.     

THE STATE,PARENTING, AND THE POPULIST ENERGIES OF ANXIETY

In this essay James Conroy raises the question of how far the state should engage in the rearing of children, looking in particular at homeschooling as a site for contestation. He considers this question by looking specifically at recent developments in the United Kingdom around the elision of child safeguarding issues with concern about the control of home education. In the first part of the essay, Conroy explores some general questions about the relation between politics and populism, and the consequences for the prerogatives of parents. In the second part of the essay, he interrogates constructivist accounts of the family and offers something of a historical corrective to the widely held view (emanating from Philippe Ariès) that the very conceit of the family is a “modern” invention. This analysis leads Conroy to conclude that, while states do have a proper locus in the upbringing of children, they must make certain presumptions in favor of the parent if governmental responses to home education are to be considered political rather than populist and “controlling.”     

Does hothousing rob children of their childhood?

Since individuals construct educational policies and practices according to their beliefs, the conceptual systems of proponents and opponents of hot-housing must be considered. Such systems can be based either on “closed beliefs” or data. Such consideration may provide an answer to the question, “Does hothousing rob children of their childhood?” Belief systems are built with the constructs of belief, intention, attitude, and value concepts. Beliefs of parents develop from both broad socio-historical views and from the parents' personal histories. If parents and educators form beliefs about hothousing which ignore relevant data, they may educate in a manner which increases “achievement anxiety,” and makes children feel they have value only when they are “producing.” As an alternative, children should be offered learning activities which provide opportunities for intellectual exploration and flexibility.     

Homeschooling Associated with Beneficial Learner and Societal Outcomes but Educators Do Not Promote It

This article reviews research on homeschool learner outcomes and evaluates opposition to homeschooling. It synthesizes research on learner outcomes related to homeschooling in areas of students’ academic achievement and children's social, emotional, and psychological development and the success of adults who were home educated and finds generally positive outcomes on a variety of variables are associated with homeschooling. The author identifies four classes of negativity expressed toward home-based education by the education profession, such as the claims homeschooling is bad for the collective good and that without much state regulation significant numbers of homeschooling (home schooling) parents will harm their children. The evaluation reveals that proactive opposition to homeschooling and calls for significant state control over homeschooling do not offer any empirical research evidence that homeschooling is bad for individual children, families, neighborhoods, or the collective good. The alleged harms of homeschooling or arguments for more control of it are fundamentally philosophical and push for the state, rather than parents, to be in primary and ultimate control over the education and upbringing of children so they will come to hold worldviews more aligned with the state and opponents of state-free homeschooling than with the children's parents and freely chosen relationships.     

解决“农民问题”的根本出路在于发展农村教育

“三农”问题的核心是农民问题,而解决农民问题的根本出路在于大力发展农村教育。当前,农民子女受教育的年限和受教育的质量都与城镇居民的子女有较大的差距,现在的首要问题是各级政府要加大对农村教育的投入,真正使农民的子女接受九年义务教育;同时,采取各种途径大力发展职业教育,让农民掌握现代农业生产技术,从根本上解决“农民问题”。     

美国家庭学校教育的特点及对我国教育的启示

介绍了家庭学校教育的内涵,追述了美国家庭学校兴起的历程及原因,分析了美国家庭学校教育的教学特点及它对中国教育理论和实践产生的影响。指出其在更新教育理念,重视家长在教育中的作用,加强对学生创造力的培养,以及建立家长与学校教育互动方面具有重要启示。     

A Review of the Empirical Research on Private School Choice

Parents in the United States have had the legal right to choose the school their child attends for a long time. Traditionally, parental school choice took the form of families moving to a neighborhood with good public schools or self-financing private schooling. Contemporary education policies allow parents in many areas to choose from among public schools in neighboring districts, public magnet schools, public charter schools, private schools through the use of a voucher or tax-credit scholarship, virtual schools, or even homeschooling. The newest form of school choice is education savings accounts (ESAs), which make a portion of the funds that a state spends on children in public schools available to their parents in spending accounts that they can use to customize their children's education. Opponents claim that expanding private school choice yields no additional benefits to participants and generates significant harms to the students “left behind” in traditional public schools. A review of the empirical research on private school choice finds evidence that private school choice delivers some benefits to participating students—particularly in the area of educational attainment—and tends to help, albeit to a limited degree, the achievement of students who remain in public schools.     

A Mythical Realist Orientation for Religious Education: Theological and Pedagogical Implications of the Mythical Nature of Religious Story

This article proposes a concept of “mythical realism” as a way of understanding important characteristics of religion and orienting religious education. The focus is on beliefs as one central aspect of religion. The author draws on recent cognitive studies in religion to illumine the “counterintuitive” and “mythic” character of religious belief, while also arguing that religious thinking should be and commonly is held together with “intuitive,” “scientific” understandings of experiential reality. A case is made for the enhancement of “mythical realist” religious understanding as a fundamental goal of religious education. Pedagogical suggestions are given for nurturing such mythical realist faith.     

Asking Children to “Be Helpers” Can Backfire After Setbacks

Describing behaviors as reflecting categories (e.g., asking children to “be helpers”) has been found to increase pro-social behavior. The present studies (N = 139, ages 4–5) tested whether such effects backfire if children experience setbacks while performing category-relevant actions. In Study 1, children were asked either to “be helpers” or “to help,” and then pretended to complete a series of successful scenarios (e.g., pouring milk) and unsuccessful scenarios (e.g., spilling milk while trying to pour). After the unsuccessful trials, children asked to “be helpers” had more negative attitudes. In Study 2, asking children to “be helpers” impeded children's helping behavior after they experienced difficulties while trying to help. Implications for how category labels shape beliefs and behavior are discussed.     

L’ÉCOLE PUBLIQUE AU SÉNÉGAL : APPROCHE PSYCHOSOCIALE DES PRATIQUES PARENTALES DE (NON) SCOLARISATION ET DES EXPÉRIENCES ÉDUCATIVES DES ENFANTS

PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN SENEGAL: ANALYSING THE REASONS FOR (NON) ENROLMENT – This study focuses on Senegal, where the education system is split between traditional Koranic schools and purportedly “modern” public schools, which have been compulsory since 1990 but which are currently attended by only two-thirds of children eligible to enrol. The article argues that a number of psychosocial factors need to be studied in order to understand this issue fully. By analysing responses gathered from 20 parent-child units, the authors reveal: (a) how parental identity strategies affect how they choose to school their children, and (b) how children’s attitudes are shaped in different ways depending on whether they attend “traditional” or “modern” schools.     

The research of social-design-based maker education: based upon “The old man and the sea” text

Since 2015, the Taiwan government has endeavoured to uphold maker education for all-level schools. In addition to “learning by doing” or “learning through play”, maker education believed to have varied features that set it apart from preceding pedagogical approaches and have possibility to reform learners’ requisite competencies for future. Engaging with “social care” as the mind-set for example, it could drive maker movement towards a value-oriented disposition. This paper discusses the theoretical roots of maker education, collates its beliefs about the whole, and probes the correlation between social design and maker education. We studied how the experimental pedagogy of social-design-based making based on the text of “The Old Man and The Sea” was used at the 2017 New Taipei City Maker Workshop in Taiwan. And we constructed a case study to document its effects within the classroom context. The study revealed that the teaching model of social-design-based maker education would be the sequence as “topic choosing, problem defining, sympathy triggering, conception outputting, prototype making, integrating and sharing”, the proportion of teachers’/students’ roles in maker courses should be in half of the overall lessons, and teachers’ instructions should be concentrated on offering key questions and assisting on integrating learning points mainly.     

Schooling in the Information Age: Old Academic Goals in New Societal Contexts

Both scholarly and popular publications in the United States have always contained critical comments about schools and education, but lately what is usually a trickle has become a raging torrent. Each professional journal and edition of the daily paper or weekly news magazine contains stories about the “great crisis” in American education and the perceived gap that exists between what children and adolescents know and what adults think they should know to become useful and productive citizens in the 21st century. This great concern over what is thought to be a “quality” education has ushered in one of the most intense and long-lasting reform movements in the history of our educational system (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983; Cremin, 1989).     

Elementary teaming: Learning improvement or administrative ploy

Trends suggest that homeschooling continues to increase among black families. Yet, research on contemporary Black homeschooling remains scarce. Given black educational history, the phenomena of Black families choosing homeschooling over public and private schools in the post-Desegregation era is worthy of investigation. Further, documenting the ways in which black homeschool families engage their children in learning will inform the needs of black education in conventional schools, public and private. The phenomenon of increasing black home education represents a radical transformative act of self-determination, the likes of which have not been witnessed since the 1960s and ‘70s. This work highlights the primacy of agency among black homeschooling families. Thus, contrary to the negative depictions of black families as disengaged from the educational pursuits of their children, we evoke hooks's (1990) notion of homeplace to argue that black home education represents a vehicle of resistance to institutionalized racism and ideological mismatches between black families and their children's educational needs.     

以改革创新精神建立”三个自信”视阈下高校思政课教学评价体系

以改革创新精神建立"三个自信"视阈下高校思政课教学评价体系,是把"三个自信"的教育落到实处的重要举措,首先要明确高校思政课教学评价体系改革创新的必要性;其次要明确高校思政课教学评价体系改革创新的主要原则;第三是以改革创新精神建立"三个自信"视阈下高校思政课教学评价体系,要实现评价性质人性化,评价主体多元化,评价指标设计整体化,评价方法多样化,教学评价动态化,评价设计真实化,从而建立完整的教学评价体系,有力地促进高校"三个自信"的教学质量。     

The beliefs and perceptions of pre-service teachers enrolled in a subject-area dominant teacher education program about “Effective Education”

Teacher educators and researchers have studied the improvement of teacher education programs so that pre-service teachers may be well prepared. Research has shown that not only teachers’ knowledge but also their beliefs have major influence on their approach to teaching. This present research examined the mathematics and science pre-service teachers’ beliefs and perceptions in Turkey. Specifically, the study focused on the student–teachers’ perspectives on “effective education” at the end of their subject area dominant program before the student teaching and the changes in those beliefs after having teaching experience. Many pre-service teachers described the teacher-centered environment as effective, and those who supported a student-centered environment discussed difficulties they faced in creating it during student and full-time teaching.     

The Role of Empirical Research in Informing Debates About the Constitutionality of School Choice

ABSTRACT

Federal constitutional law currently permits choice programs that include religious schools only if they provide parents with “genuine and independent choice”; as the leading federal case demonstrates, whether this test is satisfied is an interesting and difficult empirical question. State doctrine regarding establishment of religion can be similarly empirically informed. School choice programs must also be consistent with the education clauses of state constitutions, which require state education systems to be “public” and to meet quality baselines. Determining whether these requirements are met also raises many questions that empirical school choice research can address. doi:10.1300/J467v01n03_12     

Multicultural education and cosmopolitan citizenship

In the United States, canonical multicultural education (CME) advocates propose that schools should view children always as “different, not deficient”, that curriculum incorporate “multiple perspectives”, and that classrooms emphasize the “knowledge construction” process. The argument is made in this chapter that CME advocates need to argue directly for “different, not deficient” without relying on some commendatory meaning of “culture”. Furthermore, they must show that the “knowledge construction” process reduces to exposure of students to multiple perspectives. Finally, they must sketch a path for CME's transcending its restricted focus on race and ethnicity by understanding its goal as the creation of cosmopolitan citizens.     

Children’s correspondence as a pedagogical tool in the Netherlands (1770–1850)

Correspondence can be studied as a social practice, letter writing being influenced by several cultural and social values and habits. In this article, letters to and from children of the Dutch elite from the period 1770–1850 are studied as results of a social and educational practice. Correspondence was used as a pedagogical instrument. Parents and other relatives instructed children how to write correct letters. They commented on style, tone and contents of children’s letters. Dutch elite parents wanted their children to write in a confidential tone, since they strove to be their children’s best friends. In practice, however, this confidentiality was limited. Children should not complain about their teachers in boarding school and their letters were sometimes read aloud to relatives or friends. The ideal style, taught to children, was the natural style. This did not mean that children were completely free to write what they wanted. “Natural” could be opposed to “artificial”, but could also mean “decent, as a bourgeois should” or “as a child”. The themes children were encouraged to write on were topics that testified to their moral and intellectual progress. Beneath the surface of confidentiality, childishness and naturalness, each parent revealed to value deference and neatness in style. By defining confidentiality, childishness and naturalness implicitly as “appropriate for polite society”, elite parents found a solution to the ambiguous bourgeois “pedagogic double ideal”, the tension between seeing the child as a free child and raising it to be a decent bourgeois citizen.     

Teaching the way they were taught? Revisiting the sources of teaching knowledge and the role of prior experience in shaping faculty teaching practices

An oft-cited maxim in higher education is that “faculty teach the way they were taught” because they receive little formal training in teaching before entering the classroom. However, little is known about the origins of faculty knowledge about teaching or the role their prior experiences play in the development of their teaching practices. In this exploratory study, we interviewed and observed 53 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics faculty at three research institutions. Using qualitative analysis methods (i.e., thematic and causal network analysis), we find that faculty do not only model their teaching after previous instructors, but also draw upon a varied repertoire of knowledge and prior experiences. These include knowledge derived from their experiences as instructors (46 respondents), their experiences as students (22 respondents), their experiences as researchers (9 respondents), and from their non-academic roles (10 respondents). In-depth analyses of two faculty members elaborate on the relationship between these varied types of prior experiences and how they interact with other factors including beliefs about teaching, instructional goals, and features of the organizational context to ultimately shape their classroom practice. The results suggest that instead of assuming that faculty lack any knowledge about teaching and learning, professional developers and policymakers should instead acknowledge and build upon their preexisting “craft” knowledge as professional teachers. Future research should focus on relationships between specific types of knowledge and teaching practice and how these varied experiences influence identity formation.