In this paper, we discuss some conditions for understanding silence as an act of self-criticality and caring for the Other, rather than as an instrumental or technical act identified through discipline or reflection. We first engage into a critical reading of Western and Eastern traditions of silence and use this to explore the pedagogical value…

Past and present discussions on education all too frequently neglect the role that silence plays in learning. In this article I set out to demonstrate that silence is the very foundation of learning. My claim is that we must find ways of freeing silence in our pedagogical practices so that our discourse does not denigrate into mere empty words,…

This paper analyzes the impact of the idea of accountability on education. It considers the kind of relationships that are promoted or produced by the culture of accountability, both in order to understand what kind of relationships are made possible and to understand what kind of relationships are made difficult, or even impossible, as a result…

This essay begins with Karl Marx's notion of alienation, and then explores a form of alienation specific to education. It examines Mikhail Bakhtin's treatment of alienation in connection with his participative thinking theory and suggests strategies for overcoming educational alienation that are based on Bakhtin's notion of the eventness of Being.…

The basic question of this essay is what motivates a person to act on behalf of the ethical good Critical theorists such as Max Horkheimer, Paulo Freire, and Sharon Welch have proposed the educational development of critical rationality as the answer to this question, with Freire adding the notion of love and Welch adding the notion of dangerous…

The child's attention, how this attention is reasoned about, and how attention works as a surface for pedagogical intervention are central to understanding modern schooling. This article examines attention as an object of knowledge related to the organization and management of individuals. I address what we might learn about attention by studying…

Among proponents of critical thinking, Harvey Siegel stands out in his attempt to address fundamental epistemological issues. Siegel argues that discursive inclusion of diverse groups should not be confused with rational justification of the outcome of inquiry. He maintains that epistemic virtues such as inclusion are neither necessary nor…

This paper explores the impact of John Dewey on the field of educational psychology. Dewey raised issues and ideas, such as the role of context and the reapproximation of knowledge, that would come to haunt education and psychology for the next century. And yet soon after the turn of the twentieth century, Dewey abandoned psychology and redefined…

Educational theorists should engage more deeply with normative religious traditions because people often consult their traditions for guidance about education. Projects that work within such traditions, however, often seem irrelevant or irrational to those on the outside. In contrast, I argue that there are at least three intellectually…

The question motivating this paper is whether or not there can be standards governing the evaluation of truth claims in religion. In other areas of study such as physics, math, history, and even value-laden realms like morality there is some widespread agreement as to what constitutes good thinking. If such a standard existed in religion, then our…

Challenging formal education's traditional monopoly over the mass-scale acculturation of youth, the technological infrastructure of the new economy brings in its wake a new attentional economy in which any connected adult or child owns and controls a full economic share of her or his own attention. For youth who have never known the text-bound…

In this article I examine Dewey's ambivalent attitude toward art museums criticizing their existence as repositories for the rich, while exploring their educational potential by analyzing Dewey's comments on museums in various texts, by relating his ideas to museum education theories and practice of the time, and by exploring his involvement with…

Israel Scheffler, one of the most important figures in the history of philosophy of education in the United States, has recently introduced an interesting idea in terms of the long-standing debate between constructivism and realism. Scheffler's idea has its roots in his debate with Nelson Goodman, his Harvard colleague, who defended thoroughgoing…

Our review of Henry Giroux's Stealing Innocence, Alex Molnar's Giving Kids the Business, and Kenneth Saltman's Collateral Damage describes how these authors assess the problems posed by contemporary corporate influences on public schools and considers the solutions they offer to counter those influences. We also examine Henry Levin's edited…

This paper demystifies reflective practice on teaching by focusing on the idea of reflection itself and how it has been conceived by two philosophers, Plato and Irigaray. It argues that reflective practice has become a standardized method of defining the teacher in teacher education and teacher accreditation systems. It explores how practices of…