Love Foolosophy: Pedagogy,parable, perversion

Abstract

Popular filmic and literary stereotypes of teachers from Brodie and Chips to Keating and Schneebly have not only reflected a public desire for radically innovative and perverse teaching practices, but also created those paradigms in ways that are not always readily identifiable or traceable. This article seeks to analyse tensions between traditional institutional protocols and contemporary populist opinion on the role of the effective teacher. In doing so, the article takes Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society (1989) as a primary example of those tensions and argues for a perverse ‘foolosophical’ view of pedagogical performance and a new appreciation for the necessity of ignorance in the classroom. Since ignorance and understanding are not taken as unambiguous antonyms, the article proposes that effective teaching and learning occur most effectively in the interstices between humility and hospitality.     

The Introduction of Portfolios in Higher Education: a comparative study in the UK and the Netherlands

This article describes a comparative study of the introduction of student portfolios in two departments of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Nottingham Trent University in the UK. Portfolios are designed to facilitate effective management of lifelong learning, to provide a record of achievements and to encourage self-reflection by students.
The justifications for the portfolio initiative are different in the two countries. At the Vrije Universiteit, the initiative arose within the University but is being implemented by individual faculties. There is no standard model of implementation. At Nottingham Trent University, portfolios are being introduced as a response to a government directive, as part of a lifelong learning portfolio that each individual will carry forward into their working life. The University's response to this imperative is top-down and a University-wide model is being sought. The department model is one of several models that are being evaluated for this purpose.
This research project investigates whether these alternative starting points lead to differential responses from student users or not. Data are drawn from quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews with managers, consultants and teachers) sources. Similarities and differences in students' responses to the portfolio exercise are identified and discussed in terms of factors such as the way the portfolios are introduced, the incentives offered to complete them, the role of the lecturer and peers in the monitoring of study progress, the quality of self-regulative skills, and students' learning expectations.     

Unveiling the Colours of Cellulose Nitrate Black and White Film-based Negatives in Colonial Photography

ABSTRACT

Aiming at contributing to the preservation of black and white (B&W) film-based negatives held by Portuguese archives, four photographic collections from the first half of the twentieth century were selected for study. During the macro assessment of the collections the preservation condition and hues found in photographic negatives from the Elmano Cunha e Costa (ECC) were noticed, distinguishing this collection from the remaining ones. Additional attention was given considering that the ECC collection was formed in a colonial context in the 1930s, while the others were formed on the Portugal mainland. The ECC collection results from an ethnographic survey of Angolan tribes recorded with B&W film-based negatives. In this collection, sets of negatives with pink, lemon yellow, greenish, orange brownish, and red brownish hues were found. To identify the origin of such hues, the image layer was analysed by microscale energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (μ EDXRF) and scanning electron microscopy with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). Additionally, to assess the base decay and its effect on the formation of hues, the plastic supports were characterized by Fourier transform infrared microscopy (μ FTIR). To complement the assessment of the film-base decay, pH was measured by using combined microelectrodes. The identification of mercury, iodine, chromium, and iron by μ EDXRF allowed correlation of the hues found in the negatives with chemical corrective treatments performed to improve the image quality. SEM-EDX confirmed those results and proved that the elements found were in the photographic emulsion layer. The results obtained are relevant since the hues identified may now be used as markers to indicate the technical work performed on colonial photography. Additionally, the visual and molecular assessment of the negatives’ supports (good to fair condition) allow proposing that the original storage conditions may have had a beneficial contribution to their present condition.     

Françoise Dolto (1908–88)

Conclusion Her brief experience of paediatrics and her subsequent discovery of psychoanalysis gave Fran?oise Dolto access to a therapeutic practice enabling her to apply ethical principles that were in conformity with her view of the human person. This path led her to develop a prophylaxis, put to the test in various institutional projects, with a ‘socializing’ or ‘educational’ value. Psychoanalysis thus not only enabled her to bring the light of ethics stemming from it to bear on the therapeutic process, but also stimulated her in her educational and spiritual activity. It was, no doubt, that feature of her thinking that prompted Dolto, in her relations with others, always to use speech for the benefit of the person by calling or recalling each person to his or her archaic desire. This is perhaps the origin of what prompted in her readers and listeners that jubilant enthusiasm so decried thereafter. There is a paradox here between the rejection of any claim to set standards and any imitation, and the power to attract an extensive readership or audience that ‘imitated’ and ‘set standards’, and, above all, was not steeped in the ethical convictions that she alone knew to be essential to any application of her ‘advice’. The very inner distinctiveness of her therapeutic, educational and spiritual action no doubt explains the absence, as Dolto saw it, of pupils to whom she might have taught the essence of her practice, since her subjectivity—the sense of her genius, her faith—is not something that can be taught. Original language: French éric Binet (France) Clinical psychologist in the public child welfare department of the département of Hauts-de-Seine, Paris, and mother and child welfare service for the City of Paris. He is also an instructor at the National Childhood and Family Institute, Centre d'Innovation et de Recherche dans le Champ Social, Paris. He is at present working for a doctorate in the educational sciences at the Université Lyon II, under Professor Guy Avanzini, and completing a thesis on the educational thinking of Fran?oise Dolto. I wish to thank Colette Parcheminier, who is in charge of the association ‘Archives et documentation Fran?oise Dolto’ [Fran?oise Dolto: records and documents], for her invaluable assistance in this work.     

Utilising creative methodologies to elicit the views of young learners with additional needs in literacy

The research described in this article aimed to explore and examine the dominant ‘assessment’ and ‘participation’ stories of upper‐primary pupils with long‐standing and marked literacy learning needs, their views on how their level of participation in the assessment and remediation of their additional needs might be increased and also how they perceive themselves as literacy learners. This qualitative small‐scale study adopted a case study approach and utilised creative methodologies in the context of focus groups to investigate sensitively the views and experiences of Key Stage 2 pupils with additional needs in literacy. The findings discussed here are based on the outcomes from the four Northern Irish schools that participated in the original cross‐border (Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland) study. Findings are discussed in the context of strategies for promoting holistic and empowering pathways for learners with additional needs in literacy.     

Distributed Teaching Presence and Participants' Activity Profiles: a theoretical approach to the structural analysis of Asynchronous Learning Networks1

The rapid spread of learning networks based on asynchronous written communication — Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs) — makes it crucial to assess the possibilities offered by these new environments to facilitate and promote learning processes and learning outcomes. Our interest in this area is specifically directed towards the study of distributed teaching presence understood as the exercise of educational influence, i.e. as the help provided to each other participant in an ALN to promote individual and collective learning. We adopt a multi-method approach that integrates the structural analysis of presence (access and participation) and connectivity (reciprocity and responsiveness) with the content analysis of the participants’ contributions. This article focuses on structural analysis as a relevant and powerful tool for the study of collaborative learning in networking and asynchronous contexts. Its main objective is to show how a relevant and useful system of indicators and profiles, which identify and examine the distribution of educational influence in ALNs, can be constructed. We present the theoretical assumptions surrounding the concept of distributed teaching presence and illustrate the analysis with data from two didactic sequences in higher education. The results show that the structural analysis, when theoretically grounded and oriented, is a powerful tool for identifying different activity profiles related to different levels and modalities of the exercise of educational influence and for assessing the distributed teaching presence in learning networks. Finally, we discuss the benefits and constraints of this kind of analysis.     

Engineering Education in ERASMUS: an overview

The ERASMUS Programme has meant a leap forward in both the quality and the quantity of student exchange programmes in engineering. About 4700 engineering students will be involved in the first three years of the programme. There is a variety of organisational patterns in the inter-university co-operation programmes, ranging from bilateral exchanges of short duration (three months) to fully integrated multilateral programmes leading to a double qualification. The ERASMUS exchanges have proved to be highly beneficial to students: in addition to the basic academic training, the period abroad allows students to improve their language proficiency, obtain cultural and social enrichment, and develop important personal virtues like openness, adaptability and the ability to stand on their own feet.     

Evaluating the teaching and learning experience for the child with dyslexia in special and mainstream settings in Ireland

This study examines and evaluates special provision for pupils with dyslexia in three different settings: reading schools, reading units and mainstream support. The research focused on the teaching and learning context for pupils with dyslexia, the support teacher, the mainstream teacher and the experience of the student. The main participants were teachers and tutors supporting pupils with dyslexia, and the parents of these children. Survey methods included questionnaires, focus group discussions, interviews and quantitative data on pupils' reading attainment. In addition, a total of six schools, two representing each model of support, were selected as case studies. This article reports part of a larger survey, which evaluated the effectiveness of three models of special provision for children with dyslexia in primary school. The study shows that there are academic and social benefits for the child with dyslexia who is enrolled in a special setting. However, placement in a reading school or reading unit per se does not guarantee that a child will ‘catch up’ with his or her peers. The findings reported a similarity in the methods and practices teachers use in both mainstream and special settings. The discussion suggests that if teachers are to ‘catch them before they fall’ there are serious questions that must be asked about how we are teaching basic literacy skills. The findings suggest an urgent need for a more balanced approach to teaching reading and writing.     

Educação Integral e Pedagogia Social: Reflexões Aproximativas Com Base No Contexto Brasileiro

As relações entre as políticas educacionais no Brasil e as discussões da Pedagogia Social se evidenciam a partir da análise crítica da implementação da Educação Integral em escolas brasileiras. Neste trabalho, a abordagem da análise documental permitiu acessar os conteúdos das políticas para relacioná-lo aos fundamentos da Pedagogia Social. Uma das conclusões é que a escola e as políticas que a ela se dirigem consideram cada vez mais aspectos sociais, gerando novas demandas formativas e a outra é referente ao debate nacional atual sobre a formação dos Educadores Sociais para atuarem em diferentes espaços educativos, incluindo o escolar.