LIVING THE QUESTIONS: RILKE'S CHALLENGE TO OUR QUEST FOR CERTAINTY

A bstract .  In this essay, Mordechai Gordon explores the significance of Rilke's challenge to "live the questions" and embrace uncertainty with respect to the quest for certainty in education. The quest for certainty in education refers to our desire to gain a sense of psychological security and more control over a field that is fundamentally indeterminate. This quest implies an unwillingness to live with the inherent complexities and risks of education. After exploring the meaning and import of Rilke's challenge and comparing it to the position of Socrates, Gordon uses Rilke's insight to analyze a specific educational experience and then discusses some of its educational implications for teacher education.     

Is giving up traditional religious culture part of the price to be paid for acquiring higher education? Adaptation of academic Western culture by Jewish Israeli University students of Middle Eastern origin

This research was designed to investigate whether the Middle Eastern student feels that attaining the status of a “Western modern man” is incompatible with maintaining a traditional, religious way of life. In 1980, a representative sample of the Jewish University student population (N = 1250) responded to a questionnaire aimed at measuring religious attitudes, beliefs and practices. The students of Middle Eastern origin proved to be more religious than their Western counterparts, however their feeling about themselves is that not only are they less religious than their parents and grandparents but that they are less religious than they themselves have previously been. This feeling stemmed from their having discarded or having become lax in the carrying out of some of the more extreme religious practices even though they still maintain many of the same religious practices, attitudes and beliefs as their forefathers. The degree of religiosity, both of the Middle Eastern students and their Western counterparts, is strongly influenced by the home, the high school attended and youth movement membership, with the former two having a stronger influence on the Western student and the latter having a stronger influence on the Eastern student. The findings show that though there is some loosening of certain extreme practices on the part of the Eastern student, there is no revolt against home or tradition and the student has found the way to the “new life” without breaking off from the “old ways” of the parental culture.     

On the Dangers of Antiquarian Investigations: Nietzsche,the Excesses of History,and the Power of Forgetting

Drawing on Nietzsche’s insights as well as those of his critics, this article explores the dangers and limitations of the antiquarian type of historical investigations. The author begins his analysis by closely examining Nietzsche’s conception of antiquarian history and explaining why he finds this mode of historical investigation so troubling. Next he shows that the problem that Nietzsche associates with the antiquarian type of historicizing can be seen in a contemporary genealogical investigation: Daniel Mendelsohn’s book The Lost. Returning to Nietzsche, he then analyzes the meaning and value of his notion of the ‘power of forgetting’ and argues that it can serve as an antidote to some of the dangers of antiquarian history. In the final part of this article the author examines how the power of forgetting might be educationally valuable.     

An enquiry into the ethical efficacy of the use of radio frequency identification technology

This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the privacy rights dilemma surrounding radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. As one example of ubiquitous information system, RFID has multitudinous applications in various industries and businesses across society. The use of this technology will have to lead to a policy setting dilemma in that a balance between individuals’ privacy concerns and the benefits that they derive from it must be drawn. After describing the basic RFID technology some of its most prevalent uses, a definition of privacy is derived in the context of information systems. To illustrate current attempts at controlling the undesirable side effects of RFID, Lessig’s cyberspace framework is presented. It is found that each of Lessig’s components is inadequate at preventing individual privacy violations in RFID. The main focus within this framework is on the norms of society. The social norm mechanism that addresses privacy issues in cyberspace is the Fair Information Practices Principles (FIPP). After an analysis of these principles, it is posited that the FIPP only deal with procedural justice issues related to data collection and omit distributive and interactional justice reasoning related to the actual beneficial and detrimental outcomes to the individuals whose data is being obtained. Thus, RFID is presented in the context of the tension between the many benefits that are provided by the technology in social exchanges, and the risk it carries of the loss of privacy. The new, expanded framework recognizes both sides of the issue with the ultimate goal of providing a greater understanding of how privacy issues can be addressed with RFID technology.     

“The good university teacher” as perceived by the students

Many universities, recognizing the student as the main consumer of college instruction, have begun to seek his views regarding the quality of teaching. In this study the Israeli student's concept of a good teacher has been investigated. A sample of second year university students were asked to select the three most important characteristics of a good teacher from a list of fifteen.It was shown that students attached primary importance to method of instruction. Of secondary importance was the teacher's ability to spark intellectual growth. Research talents, personality, and academic status were of relatively little concern. Social science, life science, law and medical students all concurred in emphasizing the importance of the teacher's ability to communicate ideas, whereas humanities students stressed his ability to stimulate thinking.It appears that undergraduate students rate teachers by their ability to transmit knowledge rather than according to the university's criteria of research and publication.The concepts good teacher and effective instruction are used interchangeably in this article, although they are not identical.     

The NOMA of Yishayahu Leibowitz

Stephen Jay Gould presented his position on science and religion – Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) – without justification. A detailed justification of the NOMA position can be found in the earlier work of scientist and philosopher Yishayahu Leibowitz; his work is especially interesting because it comes from a religious person. This paper summarizes Leibowitz's philosophical and theological position, and claims that his version of NOMA, and by implication similar versions of NOMA, are not applicable in science education.     

Fertile Zones of Cultural Encounter in Computer Science Education

We explain certain learning difficulties in computer science education as resulting from a clash between the students' culture as computer users and the professional computing culture. We propose the concept of fertile zones of cultural encounter as a way of overcoming these learning difficulties. This pedagogical approach aims to bridge the gap between cultures by designing interventions that are appreciated by members of both cultures, yet also guide the student to engage in the practices of the professional culture. The learning difficulties are demonstrated by a detailed analysis of episodes taken from an advanced high school computer science course in concurrency. We show that fertile zones of cultural encounter can be successful in significantly improving learning of this subject.