The essay develops a case study about a young boy playing with a toy train to address neoliberalism's problematic discourse that depicts learning as instrumental, as something that can be caused by teaching. This paper's perspective is enactive, taking the view that central to understanding learning is not the mind or brain working in isolation…

Philosophy for Children (henceforth P4C) is a program and a pedagogy for teaching philosophy in k-12 school that was first developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp. The P4C approach is generally presented as a valuable form of education for democratic citizenship. This relationship is so obvious that it often remains underdeveloped: P4C…

This essay explores the possibility that a particular type of video game--real-time strategy games--could have worrisome educational impacts. In order to make this case, I will develop a theoretical framework originally advanced by French social critic Paul Virilio. In two key texts, Speed and Politics (1977) and "The Aesthetics of…

At a time when an ethics based on responsibility for the Other offers a counter to the individualism of neoliberal ideology, I argue that it is crucial to recuperate the possibility of creating the conditions for ethical moments of facing through all means possible, including art. I deliberate the possibilities for art in sustaining Levinas's…

This article examines a Confucian conception of competence and its corresponding response to the competencies agenda that underpins international large-scale assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It is argued that standardised transnational assessments are undergirded by a technical rationality that…

The problem of paternalism, widely discussed in moral and political philosophy, has not received much attention in the philosophy of education. Yet Johannes Drerup claims that paternalism should be considered 'an indigenous concept' of educational theory, and 'the indigenous model of justification' in education. This essay explores Drerup's claim,…

Numerous studies have shown that secondary and college students are increasingly apathetic and disengaged from their schooling. The problem of student disengagement is not confined to under-represented socioeconomic groups; it is found across the country: in cities, suburbs, and rural communities; in wealthy schools and poor schools; in public…

In teacher education programs, there is a prevalent belief that having teacher candidates compose personalized 'my philosophy of education' (MPE) statements is a valuable exercise that prepares them for the teaching profession. This paper argues that the prevailing intentions for, and common practice of, assigning these MPE statements to teacher…

This essay argues for the urgent need for philosophy as the necessary first step in any educational undertaking. Philosophy is involved with making fine distinctions which are necessary to clarify concepts and terms. The paper focuses primarily on the problems with an overreliance on scientific research in the social sciences, with special…

Robin Barrow has critiqued the use of the concept of "skill" for a wide range of human attributes that are not skills in the precise sense he articulated, namely: "a capacity that is discrete and can be perfected through practice and exercise." Skill talk has persisted, though today commonly under the guise of "competency…

In his 2006 essay, "Moral Education's Modest Agenda," Robin Barrow argues for a clearly bounded conception of morality; he presents the moral domain as concerned with moral principles, and moral education as the cultivation of moral understanding. Barrow rejects behaviourism, character education, values clarification, developmentalism,…

This paper offers a defense of Robin Barrow's main arguments in "Giving Teaching Back to Teachers", including additional material concerning the inability of the aggregate data and statistical methods employed in research in education (and research on teaching) to speak to individual teachers and students or to particular classrooms.…

This paper considers the plight of Western education and the demands it makes upon us. It argues that the feared end of education underpins and unduly shackles reflection on the current crisis of education. As a spectral, abysmal prospect, it both fetters and stimulates educational critique, mobilising critique to the support of a cause it cannot…

Cosmopolitan education has been much theorized, discussed, and proposed, but what exactly might it look like and what specific processes might it involve? Cosmopolitanism's recognition of shared humanity and the subsequent entailment of democratic inclusion make explicit the moral and political nature of cosmopolitan education and philosophy. As…

Agonistic critiques of democratic theory conceptualize democracy as a site of conflict and struggle; as the fight against privatization escalates, these critiques become more relevant for educational governance. Public education governance has, in addition, increasingly been the site of conflicts between federal, state and local levels, as…