The present,past, and future of the gardening metaphor in education

Educators and educational theorists frequently employ a gardening metaphor to capture several child-centred principles about teaching and children, i.e. teachers must respect a child’s unique interests and abilities, recognise what is developmentally appropriate for students, and resist pursuing a narrow set of outcomes. Historically, however, educational theorists were as likely to use the gardening metaphor to support teacher-centred, ‘moulding’ ideals as they were to support child-centred ideals. Furthermore, in stark contrast to the contemporary optimism about a child’s innate, unique potential, the use of the gardening metaphor in the past sometimes supported prejudicial, deterministic views of children. In many ways, therefore, the contemporary use of the metaphor reflects genuine progress in educators’ ideas about children and their potential. Nevertheless, those who employ the gardening metaphor today might learn from some of its past users. Eager to avoid imposing their own goals on children, today child-centred gardeners have resisted articulating normative ideals by which teaching and parenting might be guided. Yet a normative ideal of the educated adult is not inconsistent with child-centred gardening.     

孤独和荒谬：曹七巧的“他残”与艾莉森的“自残”的女性隐意

张爱玲和卡森·麦卡勒斯是20世纪中国和美国最为著名的女性作家之一。这两位20世纪著名的女性作家,虽然出生在不同的国度,但是她们通过艺术作品探寻人之生存状态和人之生存意义的信念,尤其是中西方女性的生存状态和意义却是如出一辙。由于所处时代相当,在她们的作品中,除却孤独的主题,还有其他的方面都有很多相似的地方。这两位杰出的女性,在孤独中浅吟低唱,用自己的智慧和生命为人类留下了永恒美丽的财富。对比张爱玲作品《金锁记》中的曹七巧和卡森·麦卡勒斯作品《金色眼睛的映像》中的艾莉森,觉得无论是曹七巧对他人的摧残还是艾莉森无法忍受生命之重对于自己的自残,都是女性在男权社会里被压抑的体现。     

‘Whatever Else May Be Going On:’ Sharing Books in Bechdel’s Fun Home

ABSTRACT

In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel recounts a version of her family’s history through moments of meaningful textual exchange. This paper takes up one such moment, when Alison’s father Bruce offers his daughter a queer text, which she uses both to understand her own sexuality and to broach the the queer connection she has just learned they have. I read this exchange as a case study for considering what happens when we share our meaningful books with others. Here I map the way literary works function in this text both developmentally, following Grumet’s reading of Winnicott, and erotically, following Bechdel’s own narration. I read the act of sharing books as an act of love that helps build the world worth noticing, core relationships, and individual identities, reading too how literature functions as ‘currency’ in the difficult father-daughter relationship at hand in this graphic memoir.     

当代女性主义理论和行动:六个全球性问题

21世纪女性主义者将面对许多与上个世纪全然不同的理论问题。这对女性主义理论家们构成了挑战,需要她们进行深入地反思、在全球化语境下,谁已经被解放了;这到底意味着什么;什么和谁被牺牲了;我们在哪儿失败了,又打败了谁;谁被包括在这个"我们"中;还应该再做点什么。现实状况意味着人们在观念上仍然存在着束缚,并与信息技术革命一道使问题变得格外复杂。女性主义理论不仅仅涉及女性本身,还为人们应对当前许多全球性问题提供了一个独特的视角。