A shared vision of human excellence: Confucian spirituality and arts education

Abstract

Spirituality encourages the individual to make sense of oneself within a wider framework of meaning and see oneself as part of some larger whole. This article discusses Confucian spirituality by focusing on the spiritual ideals of dao (Way) and he (harmony). It is explained that the Way represents a shared vision of human excellence that is embodied in the guiding discourse inherited from one’s cultural predecessors. The Confucian Way covers all the manifestations of Zhou culture, including its knowledge base, values, beliefs and practices that have been passed down through the generations. The Way is achieved through harmony where human beings find inner peace as well as co-exist with one another and their surroundings. Harmony encompasses an appreciation of beauty, joy and ethical values that may be obtained from arts education. The essay further illustrates an application of Confucian spiritual ideals through music education in a school. A Confucian aim of learning, the article concludes, is one that fosters spiritual development and contests the performativity agenda and school culture.     

中国共产党在党建上的发展创新

在众多的政党中．中国共产党在政党建设上走在时代的前列。本文从思想理论建设和组织建设两个方面,探究了中国共产党在政党建设上的发展创新。     

logR-logT图与太阳系未知行星

利用log-logT图研究太阳系的行星卫星系统,得出八大行星卫星系统都符合开普勒第三定律,推导出行星卫星系统logR-logT图线截距与中心天体质量的关系;通过描绘未知行星卫星系统、水星卫星系统和金星卫星系统的logR-logT图线,推测未知行星的质量和公转周期,以及水星和金星的未知卫星可能存在的位置与周期.     

Teacher efficacy of English teachers in urban and suburban schools

To investigate the context-related teacher efficacy (TE) of experienced teachers in Taiwan, this study examined elementary English teachers more than a decade after a major educational reform to determine whether their TE levels were affected by school location (e.g. urban vs. suburban). The 438 responses to the adapted Teacher Efficacy Scale revealed stronger efficacy regarding the teachers’ personal ability to teach less-motivated students and less confidence regarding the management of school- and government-related concerns. However, school settings did not show a significant effect on the efficacy levels of experienced English teachers. Although caution must be practiced in interpreting results related to school settings and TE, the findings from the current study are generalizable to contexts in which English is spoken as a foreign language. The results also urge much caution when making interpretation on results relating to school settings and TE.     

School violence,school differences and school discourses

This article highlights one strand of a study which investigated the concept of the violence‐resilient school. In six inner‐city secondary schools, data on violent incidents in school and violent crime in the neighbourhood were gathered, and compared with school practices to minimise violence, accessed through interviews. Some degree of association between the patterns of behaviour and school practices was found: schools with a wider range of well‐connected practices seemed to have less difficult behaviour. Interviews also showed that the different schools had different organisational discourses for construing school violence, its possible causes and the possible solutions. Differences in practices are best understood in connection with differences in these discourses. Some of the features of school discourses are outlined, including their range, their core metaphor and their silences. The authors suggest that organisational discourse is an important concept in explaining school effects and school differences, and that improvement attempts could have clearer regard to this concept.     

Frequency,duration, and speed of wheel running of rats as a function of age and starvation

The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether age differences in amounts of wheel running of starved rats were due to the frequency of bursts of running, to the average duration of bursts, to speed, or to any combination of these parameters. The experiment was carried out according to a 3 by 2 by 2 mixed model design. The independent variables were age (67, 293, and 746 days old at the start of starvation), food deprivation (total starvation vs ad lib), and occasion of measurement (initial vs maximum activity). The dependent variables were number of wheel revolutions, number of bursts of activity, number of seconds of running per burst, and revolutions per second. The results indicated that acutely starved rats run more often, for longer periods, and at higher speeds than do sated rats, and that with increased age rats run less often, for a shorter time, and at slower speeds.     

Behavioral control by stimulus components of an imprinting object

In the first of three experiments, ducklings that had received prolonged exposure to the visibly moving imprinting object subsequently suppressed ongoing distress vocalization both during brief presentations of the moving object and during brief presentations of its initially neutral stimulus components (i.e., its auditory and static visual features). Only presentations of the moving object were followed by priming aftereffects (namely, enhancement of distress vocalization over a baseline rate). In Experiment 2, weak, but reliable, priming effects were detected after very long presentations of the auditory and static visual features. Experiment 3 found that these features strongly suppressed low, but not high, rates of distress vocalization, while the visibly moving object strongly suppressed both high and low rates. These studies suggest that initially neutral features of an imprinting object acquire the same sort of behavioral control as is exerted by the object when it is in motion, but that this control is somewhat weaker.     

Living–Learning Programs and First-Generation College Students’ Academic and Social Transition to College

This study examines the role of living–learning (L/L) programs in facilitating first-generation students’ perceived academic and social transition to college. Using a sample of 1,335 first-generation students from 33 4-year institutions who participated in the National Study of Living–Learning Programs during Spring 2004, the results of the study show that first-generation students in L/L programs reported a more successful academic and social transition to college than their first-generation counterparts living in a traditional residence hall setting. In addition, interactions with faculty members and using residence hall resources facilitated an easier academic transition for first-generation students in L/L programs, and supportive residence hall climates were related to an easier social transition. A preliminary interpretation of this study’s results is that structured activities, such as faculty interaction and residence hall programming, are more influential for this population than informal peer groups. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Canada.