- +1 604 754 1856
Norm Friesen
Boise State University, Educational Technology, Faculty Member
- Education, Educational Technology, Educational Psychology, Media Education, Edupunk, Media Studies, and 16 moreNew Media, Digital Media, Philosophy of Education, Philosophy of Technology, Media theory and Research, Online Media, Philosophy, Critical Theory, Phenomenology, Online Learning, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, McLuhan, History of Education, E-learning, German, and The Internetedit
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is widely regarded not only as the founder of modern hermeneutics and of liberal Protestant theology, but also as the cofounder of the first modern German university in Berlin (with... more
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is widely regarded not only as the founder of modern hermeneutics and of liberal Protestant theology, but also as the cofounder of the first modern German university in Berlin (with Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose name the university subsequently adopted). However, he is also known— at least among students and scholars in Northern Europe— as the founder of pedagogy as a modern academic discipline. But while Schleiermacher’s achievements in hermeneutics (e.g., Schleiermacher 1826/ 1998), theology (e.g., Schleiermacher 1799/1988), and the formation of the research university (e.g., Schleiermacher 1808/2017) are increasingly well documented in English, his contributions to education and pedagogy remain all but unknown. This book, which contains both a translation of the introduction to his 1826 lectures on education and five chapters by contemporary scholars on Schleiermacher and his introduction, represents an initial contribution in correcting this oversight.
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This book sees teaching and educating specifically as an ethical, interrelational, and human art and calling. It is ethical in that it must constantly ask what is better or best for sake of the one who is growing up, for both their... more
This book sees teaching and educating specifically as an ethical, interrelational, and human art and calling. It is ethical in that it must constantly ask what is better or best for sake of the one who is growing up, for both their present and their future. It is human in that such questions can only be addressed based on assumptions of human nature and the perceived destiny of humankind more broadly. It is relational, finally, in that it unfolds above all between members of the older and the younger generations, and it is in these intergenerational relations that the fruits of its ethics and the nature and future of human kind can be realized through careful, artful practice. The classic texts translated and introduced here present these perspectives in their powerful, original interpretation.
"there remains a remarkable gap between research from the English-speaking world and scholarship from the European continent, particularly from Germany. This book is one of the very first texts that intervenes in the current state of affairs by making key publications from German scholars available to an English-speaking readership. This is, in itself, is a major step forward... The focus on tact and the pedagogical relationship provides strong thematic coherence, which ensures that this book is not just a historical document but also a meaningful contribution
to contemporary discussions.” -Gert Biesta, U of Edinburgh
"there remains a remarkable gap between research from the English-speaking world and scholarship from the European continent, particularly from Germany. This book is one of the very first texts that intervenes in the current state of affairs by making key publications from German scholars available to an English-speaking readership. This is, in itself, is a major step forward... The focus on tact and the pedagogical relationship provides strong thematic coherence, which ensures that this book is not just a historical document but also a meaningful contribution
to contemporary discussions.” -Gert Biesta, U of Edinburgh
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The whole book is available at: https://punctumbooks.com/titles/manifesto-for-a-post-critical-pedagogy/ The Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy was written in September 2016 and first presented at Liverpool Hope University on 17th... more
The whole book is available at: https://punctumbooks.com/titles/manifesto-for-a-post-critical-pedagogy/
The Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy was written in September 2016 and first presented at Liverpool Hope University on 17th October 2016. At that launch event, we heard a keynote response from Tyson Lewis and further invited responses from Geert Thyssen and Olga Ververi. From the outset, having made the Manifesto available online in open access, we were encouraged by the enthusiastic response and the genuine interest shown by colleagues internationally. We therefore chose to invite further responses, to broaden the conversation, but did so specifically from early- to mid-career scholars. Hence, we also include here responses from Oren Ergas, Norm Friesen, and Stefan Ramaekers.
We provide no commentary here on the Manifesto itself, or the responses that follow it in this book, other than to say that, as a manifesto it is intended to be short and to contain no references. The responses are more academic in style but still adopt a more conversational tone than a regular text, and they vary in length. The conversation form is taken up more fully in the final chapter in which we seek to address some of the questions they raise in ways that, we hope, provide further provocation and keep the conversation open.
The Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy was written in September 2016 and first presented at Liverpool Hope University on 17th October 2016. At that launch event, we heard a keynote response from Tyson Lewis and further invited responses from Geert Thyssen and Olga Ververi. From the outset, having made the Manifesto available online in open access, we were encouraged by the enthusiastic response and the genuine interest shown by colleagues internationally. We therefore chose to invite further responses, to broaden the conversation, but did so specifically from early- to mid-career scholars. Hence, we also include here responses from Oren Ergas, Norm Friesen, and Stefan Ramaekers.
We provide no commentary here on the Manifesto itself, or the responses that follow it in this book, other than to say that, as a manifesto it is intended to be short and to contain no references. The responses are more academic in style but still adopt a more conversational tone than a regular text, and they vary in length. The conversation form is taken up more fully in the final chapter in which we seek to address some of the questions they raise in ways that, we hope, provide further provocation and keep the conversation open.
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Why are the basics of education so little changed in our era of digital technology? Does it mean that education is remarkably resilient or that it's obsolete? These questions can best be answered not by imagining an uncertain high-tech... more
Why are the basics of education so little changed in our era of digital technology? Does it mean that education is remarkably resilient or that it's obsolete? These questions can best be answered not by imagining an uncertain high-tech future, but by examining a well-documented past—a history of instruction and media that extends from Gilgamesh to Google. In this book, Norm Friesen looks to the combination and reconfiguration of oral, textual, and more recent media forms to understand the longevity of so many educational arrangements and practices.
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Introduction: The Geopolitics of Media Studies This geography of media studies is concerned with the geographical, institutional, and national co-ordinates of mediatic inquiry; but at the same time, it insists that these concerns be... more
Introduction: The Geopolitics of Media Studies
This geography of media studies is concerned with the geographical, institutional, and national co-ordinates of mediatic inquiry; but at the same time, it insists that these concerns be translated through a local/global dynamic, such that the terrain it maps is tectonic and trans-locational. Speaking of the “transatlantic,” attention is consistently directed in this volume and this introductory chapter to the “trans,” that is, on sites of dynamic interfusion of cultural vectors, while maintaining the central focus of the present volume on two specific sites of hyper-active media theorization: North America, especially Canada, and Germany. This conjunction is historically justified, as the present volume argues forcefully, even where the outcomes of media research differ radically, as in the inquiries into orality and literacy of Innis and Kittler.
This geography of media studies is concerned with the geographical, institutional, and national co-ordinates of mediatic inquiry; but at the same time, it insists that these concerns be translated through a local/global dynamic, such that the terrain it maps is tectonic and trans-locational. Speaking of the “transatlantic,” attention is consistently directed in this volume and this introductory chapter to the “trans,” that is, on sites of dynamic interfusion of cultural vectors, while maintaining the central focus of the present volume on two specific sites of hyper-active media theorization: North America, especially Canada, and Germany. This conjunction is historically justified, as the present volume argues forcefully, even where the outcomes of media research differ radically, as in the inquiries into orality and literacy of Innis and Kittler.
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Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the Internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include... more
Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the Internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include censorship and network control, privacy and surveillance, the political impact of activist blogging, peer to peer file sharing, the effects of video games on children, and many others. Media conglomerates, governments and users all contribute to shaping the forms and functions of the Internet as the limits and potentialities of the technologies are tested and extended. What is most surprising about the Internet is the proliferation of controversies and conflicts in which the creativity of ordinary users plays a central role. The title, (Re)Inventing the Internet, refers to this extraordinary flowering of agency in a society that tends to reduce its members to passive spectators. This collection presents a series of critical case studies that examine specific sites of change and contestation. These cover a range of phenomena including computer gaming cultures, online education, surveillance, and the mutual shaping of digital technologies and civic life.
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This book examines how common e-learning technologies open up compelling, if limited, experiential spaces for users, similar to the imaginary worlds opened up by works of fiction. However, these experiential worlds are markedly different... more
This book examines how common e-learning technologies open up compelling, if limited, experiential spaces for users, similar to the imaginary worlds opened up by works of fiction. However, these experiential worlds are markedly different from the real world of physical objects and embodied relations. This book shows these differences to be of central importance for teaching and learning.
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In the rapidly-changing world of the Internet and the Web, theory and research frequently struggle to catch up to technological developments and to the social and economic forms evolving with them. Re-thinking E-Learning Research responds... more
In the rapidly-changing world of the Internet and the Web, theory and research frequently struggle to catch up to technological developments and to the social and economic forms evolving with them. Re-thinking E-Learning Research responds to this challenge by introducing and illustrating a number of research frameworks and methodologies to study new e-learning technologies and practices. These methodologies include methods of narrative, content, genre and discourse analysis, of hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation, and also, of critical and historical inquiry. These frameworks and investigations stand as examples of a few possibilities taken from the rich palette of methodological opportunities that can begin to address the even richer and expanding subject-matter proper to e-learning. Almost every chapter in this book both describes and applies a particular "alternative" research method to a common or emerging e-learning technology, practice or phenomenon. Examples of these pairings of method and subject-matter include narrative research into the adaptation of blogs in a classroom setting, the discursive-psychological analysis of student conversations with artificially intelligent agents, a genre analysis of an online discussion, and a phenomenological study of online mathematics puzzles. Nearly every chapter in this book, then, offers a discussion of technologies familiar to a wide range of students, teachers and researchers in e-learning, and to methods that can readily be used in their investigation.
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Klaus Mollenhauer's Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing (1983) is internationally regarded as one of the most important German contributions to educational and curriculum theory in the 20th century. The book deals with issues... more
Klaus Mollenhauer's Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing (1983) is internationally regarded as one of the most important German contributions to educational and curriculum theory in the 20th century. The book deals with issues and challenges that are as relevant today as when the text was written. In particular, it focuses on the challenge of communicating cultural values and understandings to new generations at a time when these values and understandings have become increasingly fraught and conflicted. This text also joins contemporary educational scholarship in exploring the implications of recent philosophy and sociology (e.g. Foucault and Bourdieu) for pedagogical and curriculum theory and practice. It readily engages the reader through its use of a range of cultural and historical sources; and in so doing, it also mirrors contemporary efforts to link educational concerns to the larger cultural environment.
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This chapter begins with brief histories of the development and expansion of phenomenology, both as a philosophy and a research approach in education. It then offers an overview of recent and contemporary variations of phenomenology for... more
This chapter begins with brief histories of the development and expansion of phenomenology, both as a philosophy and a research approach in education. It then offers an overview of recent and contemporary variations of phenomenology for research in education and psychology, including a critical evaluation of their deviation from contemporary qualitative validation techniques. It concludes by describing examples of recent developments related to phenomenology and pedagogy.
Research Interests: Epistemology, Research Methodology, Philosophy of Education, Qualitative methodology, Educational Research, and 9 morePhenomenology, Edmund Husserl, Pedagogy, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Phenomenology (Research Methodology), Phenomenology of the Body (Philosophy), Pedagogia, Otto Friedrich Bollnow, and Existentialism and Phenomenology
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Research methods and research methodology are at the heart of the human endeavors that produce knowledge. Research methods and research methodology are central aspects of the distinction between folk knowledge and the disciplined way in... more
Research methods and research methodology are at the heart of the human endeavors that produce knowledge. Research methods and research methodology are central aspects of the distinction between folk knowledge and the disciplined way in which disciplinary forms of knowledge are produced. However, in the teaching of research methods and methodology, there traditionally has been an abyss between descriptions of how to do research, descriptions of research practices, and the actual lived research praxis.
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Abstract As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work,... more
Abstract As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Michael A. Peters, Christopher Winch, Paul Smeyers and Nicholas Burbules, and others have engaged extensively with the implications of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy for education. One challenge they face is Wittgenstein’s use of the word ‘training.’ It appears throughout his discussions of language learning and in his periodic references to education. This is made all the more problematic by realizing that the German term Wittgenstein uses consistently is Abrichtung, which refers to animal dressage or obedience training, which is currently used in sadomasochistic practice, and which also connotes also the breaking of an animal’s will. I argue that this little-recognized fact has broad significance for many important Wittgenstinian insights into education. I conclude by considering how an unflinching recognition of the implications of Wittgenstein’s word choice might cast him as a pessimistic or tragic philosopher of education and upbringing—following German-language traditions—rather than as thinker more compatible with progressive Anglo-American perspectives.
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Research Interests: Pedagogy and Curriculum
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfilment as ‘satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment’. Not only has the idea of fulfilment underpinned... more
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfilment as ‘satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment’. Not only has the idea of fulfilment underpinned ‘approximately twenty centuries of philosophy’ as Lefebvre notes, it plays an indispensable role in both popular and scholarly accounts of education and upbringing. Experiences of education, of upbringing and of ‘life lessons’, however, are so often not about the fulfilment of oneself, about the discovery and actualisation of one's full potential. Such experiences instead involve moments of sometimes irreparable failure and loss—a matter that has not received a great deal of attention in educational research and theory. After briefly examining the way that fulfilment is favourably framed both in humanistic psychology and in neo-humanist Bildungstheorie, this paper considers some of the exceptions to the nearly ubiquitous identification of education ...
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Images can improve learning and performance. However, research suggests that many online educators and instructional designers lack the knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively create and use images when designing online courses... more
Images can improve learning and performance. However, research suggests that many online educators and instructional designers lack the knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively create and use images when designing online courses and instructional materials. Given this problem, we conducted a qualitative content analysis of images used within 20 different college courses to better understand how images are used in online courses. After creating a new image categorization, we coded 232 images. Results found that while only 27% of images in online courses were educational, other types of images can still serve important roles in online courses. The results were used to create a new framework for image use in online learning. We conclude the paper with recommendations that can help online educators and instructional designers select images for the online courses they design and teach.
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Rezension von: Alex Aßmann: Klaus Mollenhauer. Vordenker der 68er – Begründer der emanzipatorischen Pädagogik. Paderborn: Schöningh 2015 (342 S.; ISBN 978-3-506-78105-5; 39,90 EUR).
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In this study, a grounded theory approach was used to investigate the process college and university instructors undergo to design and develop online courses. Fourteen instructors who created online courses for four-year colleges and... more
In this study, a grounded theory approach was used to investigate the process college and university instructors undergo to design and develop online courses. Fourteen instructors who created online courses for four-year colleges and universities were interviewed about their experience designing and developing online courses. Results showed that participants begin the process with objectives and/or with existing course outlines, typically taken from online and face-to-face courses. Next, the instructors structure the course and chunk content. The instructors interviewed rarely use formal instructional design principles, but their design tasks show a striking similarity to those formalized in the ADDIE model. Student feedback (evaluation) motivated the instructors in their development efforts after initial course delivery. The study discusses practical implications and suggests opportunities for future research.
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From educational gaming through portable e-readers to cell phones, media are interpenetrating educational spaces and activities. Accordingly, understanding media in environmental or ecological terms has become increasingly important for... more
From educational gaming through portable e-readers to cell phones, media are interpenetrating educational spaces and activities. Accordingly, understanding media in environmental or ecological terms has become increasingly important for education internationally. In North America, for example, the centenary of McLuhan’s birth has focused attention on approaches to media – whether oral, textual, electronic or digital– as a kind of environment in which education takes place. In parts of Europe, the so-called mediatic turn – following on the linguistic and iconic turns – has similarly emphasized the role of media as a condition for the possibility of educational activities and programs. With a few exceptions1 the papers in this special issue were first presented at the conference «Educational Media Ecologies: International Perspectives» which took place at the University of Paderborn, Germany, on March 27–28, 2012.2 The event was an interdisciplinary and transatlantic endeavor to bring...
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Research methods and research methodology are at the heart of the human endeavors that produce knowledge. Research methods and research methodology are central aspects of the distinction between folk knowledge and the disciplined way in... more
Research methods and research methodology are at the heart of the human endeavors that produce knowledge. Research methods and research methodology are central aspects of the distinction between folk knowledge and the disciplined way in which disciplinary forms of knowledge are produced. However, in the teaching of research methods and methodology, there traditionally has been an abyss between descriptions of how to do research, descriptions of research practices, and the actual lived research praxis.
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As the means through which specialized and general knowledge and practice is reproduced in a society, education, and the university, are indelibly shaped by media. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to re-think Kittler's... more
As the means through which specialized and general knowledge and practice is reproduced in a society, education, and the university, are indelibly shaped by media. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to re-think Kittler's (2004) history of the university as a media system by emphasizing how media shape pedagogy. Kittler points to a variety of moments within the history of the university: Its initial formation alongside manuscript culture; the advent of the printing press; university reform corresponding with liberalism and ...
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Abstract: This book examines how common e-learning technologies open up compelling, if limited, experiential spaces for users, similar to the imaginary worlds opened up by works of fiction. However, these experiential worlds are markedly... more
Abstract: This book examines how common e-learning technologies open up compelling, if limited, experiential spaces for users, similar to the imaginary worlds opened up by works of fiction. However, these experiential worlds are markedly different from the" real" world of physical objects and embodied relations. This book shows these differences to be of central importance for teaching and learning.
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What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam‐Webster defines it simply as “the art, science, or profession of teaching.” In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined — with its apparent implicit meanings ranging... more
What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam‐Webster defines it simply as “the art, science, or profession of teaching.” In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined — with its apparent implicit meanings ranging anywhere from a specific “model for teaching” (e.g., behaviorist or progressivist instruction) to a broadly political philosophy of education in general (most famously, a “pedagogy of the oppressed”). In this paper, Norm Friesen and Hanno Su follow the Continental pedagogical tradition in giving pedagogy a general but explicit definition. They do so by looking at how pedagogy arises both in everyday life and in school as unavoidably ethical activity undertaken primarily for the sake of the young person or child. Such activities, the authors maintain, are structured not so much by processes, methods, and outcomes, but by irresolvable oppositions and the tensions between them. They illustrate this inductively through a series of images and examples —...
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The Community of Inquiry framework, originally developed to describe learning activity in threaded online discussion forms, has had a relatively long and illustrious history – particularly as far as timelines for e-learning and digital... more
The Community of Inquiry framework, originally developed to describe learning activity in threaded online discussion forms, has had a relatively long and illustrious history – particularly as far as timelines for e-learning and digital media are concerned. This framework has its origin in a series of articles authored by Garrison, Anderson, Rourke and others around the turn of the century. These researchers understood ‘educational communit[ies] of inquiry’ as being ‘group[s] of individuals who collaboratively engage in purposeful critical discourse and reflection to construct personal meaning and confirm mutual understanding’ (Garrison, 2011, p. 15). These same researchers believed that deep and meaningful learning occurs in such a community through the balanced interaction of three communicative elements or forms of ‘presence’: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence. The model is also based on a cyclical process of experiential inquiry, which begins with a trigge...
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This paper argues that research into the pedagogical value and potential of new technologies is limited by the implicit philosophical perspectives on technology that such research adopts. These perspectives either imbue technologies with... more
This paper argues that research into the pedagogical value and potential of new technologies is limited by the implicit philosophical perspectives on technology that such research adopts. These perspectives either imbue technologies with inalienable qualities (essentialism) or posit technology as a neutral means for realizing goals defined by their users (instrumentalism). Such approaches reflect the reigning common sense around the relation of technology and social practice, but they have also been resoundingly critiqued from within the philosophy, history and sociology of technology. It is our argument that the development of more nuanced philosophical perspectives on technology derived from contemporary technology studies can provide fruitful new directions for online education research. After briefly outlining how essentialist and instrumentalist perspectives operate in such research, we overview the key contributions developed in technology studies, suggesting how the latter mi...
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What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam-Webster defines it simply as "the art, science, or profession of teaching." In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined-with its apparent implicit meanings ranging... more
What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam-Webster defines it simply as "the art, science, or profession of teaching." In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined-with its apparent implicit meanings ranging anywhere from a specific "model for teaching" (e.g., behaviorist or progressivist instruction) to a broadly political philosophy of education in general (most famously, a "pedagogy of the oppressed"). In this paper, Norm Friesen and Hanno Su follow the Continental pedagogical tradition in giving pedagogy a general but explicit definition. They do so by looking at how pedagogy arises both in everyday life and in school as unavoidably ethical activity undertaken primarily for the sake of the young person or child. Such activities, the authors maintain, are structured not so much by processes, methods, and outcomes, but by irresolvable oppositions and the tensions between them. They illustrate this inductively through a series of images and examples-moving gradually from ones involving parenting and early childhood to ones from elementary and secondary schooling. In this way, Friesen and Su show that pedagogy is not so much one or more ideologically focused or evidence-based instructional or psychological approaches to be mastered by a professional or teaching specialist. It is instead an independent but ethically informed practical perspective-one that can (and has) been extended to form a distinctively pedagogical theory and discipline. As such, it is something that is not only a part of our everyday life and culture, but arguably of all human cultures.
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Proliferating media forms, from tablets to Twitter, are changing communicative practice, delimiting new experiential horizons, and thus providing phenomenological research with novel variations on the experience of self and other.... more
Proliferating media forms, from tablets to Twitter, are changing communicative practice, delimiting new experiential horizons, and thus providing phenomenological research with novel variations on the experience of self and other. Videoconferencing via Skype or FaceTime offers prominent examples of these changing forms. Despite the use of these communication technologies in both educational contexts and everyday life, educational videoconferencing has been described in the research literature as “a hidden mode of delivery, employing invisible pedagogical techniques.” In this study I address this situation of simultaneous familiarity, invisibility and uncertainty by focusing particularly on the lived experience of space, the body and eye contact in videoconferencing contexts. This study suggests that the disruption of spatial coherence and power of gaze and mutual gaze are all but unavoidable features of this experience. It concludes by emphasizing the importance forms or expression...
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Phenomenology is the study of experience as it is concretely lived, a study that works to develop general structures or interpretations from this concrete particularity. Pedagogy, on the other hand, can be delineated through the... more
Phenomenology is the study of experience as it is concretely lived, a study that works to develop general structures or interpretations from this concrete particularity. Pedagogy, on the other hand, can be delineated through the “pedagogical difference” that separates the experience of the educator from the experience of those being educated. Phenomenology and pedagogy converge not just in their interest in particular experiences on either side of this divide; both imply a position or an “attitude” from which everyday pedagogical experience can be understood.
This chapter begins with brief histories of the development and expansion of phenomenology, both as a philosophy and a research approach in education. It then offers an overview of recent and contemporary variations of phenomenology for research in education and psychology, including a critical evaluation of their deviation from contemporary qualitative validation techniques. It concludes by describing examples of recent developments related to phenomenology and pedagogy.
This chapter begins with brief histories of the development and expansion of phenomenology, both as a philosophy and a research approach in education. It then offers an overview of recent and contemporary variations of phenomenology for research in education and psychology, including a critical evaluation of their deviation from contemporary qualitative validation techniques. It concludes by describing examples of recent developments related to phenomenology and pedagogy.
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For centuries, pedagogy has neither been primarily concerned with school and curricula, nor with the techniques and politics of teaching. The meaning of pedagogy (or "pedagogics"), in other words, is broader than formal... more
For centuries, pedagogy has neither been primarily concerned with school and curricula, nor with the techniques and politics of teaching. The meaning of pedagogy (or "pedagogics"), in other words, is broader than formal education, constructivist or instructivist pedagogies or even a pedagogy of the oppressed. Pedagogy instead begins by acknowledging the influence that is exercised by one person or group (i.e. the educator) on another (i.e. the educand), and the fact that this influence exists in special relation to the world
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That education is a field constituted by oppositions, paradoxes and tensions has its origin in Socrates' maieutic. It extends through the Scholastic disputatio to today's graduate oral defenses. This chapter begins by... more
That education is a field constituted by oppositions, paradoxes and tensions has its origin in Socrates' maieutic. It extends through the Scholastic disputatio to today's graduate oral defenses. This chapter begins by describing ways of thinking of educational theory and practice in terms of opposites, paradoxes and the tensions between them, looking at both traditional and contemporary sources. Through reference to a video clip, this chapter then turns to a similarly and broadly aporetic understanding of the lived or experienced body as articulated in the phenomenological tradition, based largely on Merleau-Ponty's account in The Visible and the Invisible. In this way, it highlights and explores exploration of the striking isomorphism of the embodied and the pedagogical-both as fields and processes.
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The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfillment as “satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment.” Not only has the idea of fulfillment... more
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfillment as “satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment.” Not only has the idea of fulfillment underpinned “approximately twenty centuries of philosophy” as Lefebvre notes, it plays an indispensable role in both popular and scholarly accounts of education and upbringing. Experiences of education, of upbringing and of “life lessons,” however, are so often not about the fulfillment of one’s self, about the discovery and actualization of one’s full potential. Such experiences instead involve moments of failure and loss—a matter that has not received a great deal of attention in educational research and theory. After briefly examining the way that fulfillment is favorably framed both in humanistic psychology and in neo-humanist Bildungstheorie, this chapter provides an overview of the pedagogical theory of O.F. Bollnow, who saw moments of uncertainty, disorientation and above all crisis as indispensable in educational experience. In this way, this chapter shows that instead of being the pursuit of self-fulfillment, education is unavoidably a matter of difficulty, disruption and also failure. It reshapes us, and this reshaping can be seen as being as much about formation as it is about deformation.
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The language used to frame and discuss educational issues, both in scholarly publication and in everyday talk, shapes broader possibilities for theory and practice. It both enables and limits ways of defining and addressing pedagogical... more
The language used to frame and discuss educational issues, both in scholarly publication and in everyday talk, shapes broader possibilities for theory and practice. It both enables and limits ways of defining and addressing pedagogical concerns, from general policy to the minutiae of practice. For example, to speak of education as ‘a process of living and not [as] a preparation for future living’ (Dewey 1897: 7) has rather different implications than conceiving of it as a form of ‘human control’ exercised through ‘fundamental laws of change’ (Thorndike 1912: 95, 97). Over the past century or more, the language associated with educational scholarship has changed considerably. In this chapter I present an overview of some of these changes, focusing on the field of educational psychology, beginning with the work of Dewey and Mead on the one hand, and Thorndike on the other. I conclude with an examination of the vocabulary of the ‘Learning Sciences’ and of other contemporary contributions that bring with them rather different possibilities for theory and practice.
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Given the appearance and reappearance of notions of transaction, interaction, and comrnunication across his writings, John Dewey can be said to be an irnportant and early contributor to discourses on 'traffic,' both as... more
Given the appearance and reappearance of notions of transaction, interaction, and comrnunication across his writings, John Dewey can be said to be an irnportant and early contributor to discourses on 'traffic,' both as event and medium. His wide-ranging and gradually-evolving thought offers an opportunity to see how various issues can be configured in terrns of dynarnic flow and circulation, including the development of technical media that were profoundly reshaping nearly all aspects of everyday reality in Dewey's time. This chapter traces the trajectory of 'traffic' in Dewey's thought, linking it to developments in 'media theory,' both before and after Dewey, and particularly as it is related to education.
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In response to the increasingly quotidian, even banal character of surveillant practices in postindustrial societies, this chapter explores the possibility of a theoretical and methodological re-alignment in surveillance studies. This... more
In response to the increasingly quotidian, even banal character of surveillant practices in postindustrial societies, this chapter explores the possibility of a theoretical and methodological re-alignment in surveillance studies. This realignment entails a move from broadly Foucauldian, macro-level, structural or poststructural analyses, to the existential–phenomenological study of subjective consciousness and experience. This piece illustrates such an experiential study by taking part of Sartre's famous description of “the look,” and ...
Recent years have seen the rise of Internet technologies which facilitate activities that are, above all, social and participatory, allowing children and adults to create and share their own content, and to communicate in a wide range of... more
Recent years have seen the rise of Internet technologies which facilitate activities that are, above all, social and participatory, allowing children and adults to create and share their own content, and to communicate in a wide range of forums. Correspondingly, there has been great popular and expert interest in the potential of Web 2.0 communication technologies for education. The discursive ‘spaces' enabled by Web 2.0 differ from conventional face-to-face and online educational environments in that communication largely occurs in the written form, and is informal and abbreviated. To understand the potential of these new ‘conversational’ communicative practices and technologies for formal education calls for a new research approach: one that focuses on learning through text-based, informal communication. Such a research approach has been proposed by discursive psychology, a social psychological paradigm that emerged in the 1990s which combines the insights of phenomenology, et...
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January 6, 2009 THREE Mediatic Turn-1 The Mediatic Turn: Exploring Concepts for Media Pedagogy Norm Friesen and Theo Hug I don't know who discovered water but it certainly wasn't a fish.—Marshall McLuhani Introduction The roots... more
January 6, 2009 THREE Mediatic Turn-1 The Mediatic Turn: Exploring Concepts for Media Pedagogy Norm Friesen and Theo Hug I don't know who discovered water but it certainly wasn't a fish.—Marshall McLuhani Introduction The roots of terms such as 'mediatization,''medialization,'and 'mediality'can be traced back through much of the history of Western thought. This goes as far back as Aristotle's consideration of various media of expression in the context of his Poetics; the question appears again (among other places) in Augustine's ...
Continental anthropology: the “study (-ology) of the human (anthro-);” it is an understanding of what it means to be human, or what the human or humanity is or could be. Generally communicated only implicitly, such theories underpin our... more
Continental anthropology: the “study (-ology) of the human (anthro-);” it is an understanding of what it means to be human, or what the human or humanity is or could be. Generally communicated only implicitly, such theories underpin our understandings of education (and many other subjects) and that which directs and legitimizes it (or them). To understand education and how it is configured and justified, it is necessary to make these understandings overt and explicit. The table provided in this resource shows some of the most common understandings of “the human” in both education and other fields.
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Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, schools found in Zoom and other (typically business-oriented) video-conferencing systems a workable if incomplete substitute for conventional classroom instruction and interaction. Teachers and students sat... more
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, schools found in Zoom and other (typically business-oriented) video-conferencing systems a workable if incomplete substitute for conventional classroom instruction and interaction. Teachers and students sat in front of individual devices, screens, and cameras, and – using various online systems and services – engaged in a range of practices only broadly comparable to in-person teaching and study. How did educational practice adapt to this “virtual” setting? How do virtuality and reality interrelate pedagogically as counterparts? This paper addresses these questions by examining the online appearance of two acts or gestures that are said to constitute the “basic form” of education: pointing and showing (Zeigen). It focuses specifically on the way these gestures are realised through computer interfaces and “pointing devices”. Through reference to publicly available video recordings of teaching under pandemic conditions, virtuality is shown to appear not as the opposite of reality (however defined), but in part as an extension and amplification of indexical action and communication. Pointing is shown to be multiply-layered and -indexed, but as predominantly occurring as a “demonstrative” showing to would bring into presence to the student what is otherwise absent. At the same time – and despite the fact that the computer has been portrayed specifically as a pointing machine – it is the limitation of pointing operations, rather than their power.
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"Philosophy,” according to Wittgensten, “is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." Ubiquitous reference to "learning" and the related use of technological and other metaphors have arguably bewitched... more
"Philosophy,” according to Wittgensten, “is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." Ubiquitous reference to "learning" and the related use of technological and other metaphors have arguably bewitched the field of education. To speak of "learning" in this context is often to confuse process and product, enacting what is known as the "metonymic fallacy." Take, for example, Vygotsky''s "more knowledgeable other" whose role is effectively sidelined when speaking of "constructivist learning." When adjectives like "networked," "blended" or "personalized" are used to modify the term "learning," moreover, they give rise to the conclusion that the learning process, which can neither be reliably caused nor directly observed, is readily subject to control and instrumentalization. Using the phrase "networked learning" and its varied definitions as its example, this paper concludes that terminology of this kind does not so much name the lived experience of learning as distract from it.
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At a time when education is becoming ever more standardized and technocratic, there is renewed international interest in the interpersonal, even intimate phenomenon of pedagogical tact. Some even speak of a "renaissance." But what... more
At a time when education is becoming ever more standardized and technocratic, there is renewed international interest in the interpersonal, even intimate phenomenon of pedagogical tact. Some even speak of a "renaissance." But what exactly is pedagogical tact? Like tact in general, pedagogical tact is “a ready and delicate sense of what is fitting and proper in dealing with others” (OED). In pedagogy, these “others” are typically children, youth, or students.
This introduction begins by revisiting the origin of the notion of pedagogical tact and the beginnings of the pedagogical tradition with which it is associated. Then, it traces some of the ways that pedagogical tact has more recently been interpreted and configured. Significantly, concern with tact and pedagogical tact is closely tied with social and political change and upheaval. These concepts emerge around the time of the French and American revolutions, and they are preserved—without being significantly changed or developed—for over 100 years. Only by the 20th century, specifically in the wake of the two World Wars, are tact and pedagogical tact both substantially renewed and revised—a renewal necessitated by further changes in the social order. The final phase in the story of pedagogical tact is its contemporary renaissance, marked by significant publications in French, German, and English.
This introduction begins by revisiting the origin of the notion of pedagogical tact and the beginnings of the pedagogical tradition with which it is associated. Then, it traces some of the ways that pedagogical tact has more recently been interpreted and configured. Significantly, concern with tact and pedagogical tact is closely tied with social and political change and upheaval. These concepts emerge around the time of the French and American revolutions, and they are preserved—without being significantly changed or developed—for over 100 years. Only by the 20th century, specifically in the wake of the two World Wars, are tact and pedagogical tact both substantially renewed and revised—a renewal necessitated by further changes in the social order. The final phase in the story of pedagogical tact is its contemporary renaissance, marked by significant publications in French, German, and English.
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Philosophical terms and assumptions are often handled in confusing ways in introducing qualitative research. This document attempts to provide some clarity. The terms and concepts covered here include axiology, scientific method, method,... more
Philosophical terms and assumptions are often handled in confusing ways in introducing qualitative research. This document attempts to provide some clarity. The terms and concepts covered here include axiology, scientific method, method, positivism, paradigm, determinism, post-positivism, relativism, subjectivism, bias, objectivity, position(ality), generalizability, reflexivity, conceptual/theoretical frameworks, social constructivism, human sciences, interpretation, and hypothesis formulation.
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Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, schools found in Zoom and other (typically business-oriented) video-conferencing a workable if incomplete substitute for conventional classroom instruction and interaction. Teachers and students sat in... more
Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, schools found in Zoom and other (typically business-oriented) video-conferencing a workable if incomplete substitute for conventional classroom instruction and interaction. Teachers and students sat in front of individual devices, screens, and cameras, and-using various online systems and services-engaged in a range of practices only broadly comparable to in-person teaching and study. How did educational practice adapt to this relatively new "virtual" setting? This paper addresses this question by examining the online appearance of two acts or gestures that are said to constitute the "basic form" of education: pointing and showing (Zeigen), focusing on the way these are realized through computer interfaces or "pointing devices." Through reference to video recordings of teaching under pandemic conditions, pointing is shown to occur in multiply-layered and-indexed "proceedings:" frequently as a "demonstrative" showing to bring what is absent into presence. In the context of the mediation of computer and video technologies, the pedagogical character of these proceedings is simultaneously undermined and reinforced.
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"This book on the myth of Frankenstein... brings us face to face with what we might consider the inner core of the educational adventure... the face-to-face encounter with "someone" who is in a primary relationship of inevitable... more
"This book on the myth of Frankenstein... brings us face to face with what we might consider the inner core of the educational adventure... the face-to-face encounter with "someone" who is in a primary relationship of inevitable dependence on me, someone "who owes me everything" and for whom I want to make "something" but whose freedom always evades my will. For we all want, more or less, to "make something of someone" after having "made someone of something." But, like Dr. Frankenstein, we do not always understand very well how "something" and "someone" are not quite the same and we often ignore that this confusion condemns us, in spite of all the good will that we can muster, to failure, conflict, suffering and, sometimes, even misfortune."
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Philosophical terms and assumptions are often handled in confusing ways in introducing qualitative research. This document attempts to provide some clarity. The terms and concepts covered here include: axiology, scientific method, method,... more
Philosophical terms and assumptions are often handled in confusing ways in introducing qualitative research. This document attempts to provide some clarity. The terms and concepts covered here include: axiology, scientific method, method, natural science, positivism, paradigm, determinism, post-positivism, relativism, subjectivism, bias, objectivity, position(ality), generalizability, reflexivity, conceptual/ theoretical frameworks, human sciences, interpretation, hypothesis formulation...
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One area that is almost certain to be of some concern in the coming wave of COVID-related research and publication is the question of home versus school as “learning environments” for children and youth—as specifiable sets of conditions... more
One area that is almost certain to be of some concern in the coming wave of COVID-related research and publication is the question of home versus school as “learning environments” for children and youth—as specifiable sets of conditions for facilitating and shaping the ongoing learning process. “Learning,” in turn, is conventionally understood as a neurological and cognitive process that occurs all the time, with institutional learning environments cultivating more formal and regulated learning, but hardly erasing its original, “natural” characteristics (e.g. Bransford et al, 2010, pp. 210, 219). Home and school, however, are much more than just different cognitive environments; they represent heterogeneous, even mutually exclusive social and cultural systems, spheres or worlds (e.g., Friesen, 2011, pp. 51-63). Each is characterized by its own roles, relations, habits, and experiences. Given that this article appears in a philosophical forum, it takes as its focus an original philosophical treatment of the question of the domestic and scholastic spheres. This is G.W.F. Hegel’s previously untranslated remarks from an 1811 Graduation Address to a school in Nuremburg (as well as some of Hegel’s observations in his 1820 Outlines of the Philosophy of Right). Besides introducing a “new” Hegel text to English-language readers, this overview that follows also sheds light on a particular way of contrasting school and family life.
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Before he was a professor in Heidelberg and Germany, Hegel oversaw a high school in Nuremburg from 1808 to 1816. In this brilliant and insightful "graduation speech," Hegel describes the "peculiar sphere of the school" as one that is... more
Before he was a professor in Heidelberg and Germany, Hegel oversaw a high school in Nuremburg from 1808 to 1816. In this brilliant and insightful "graduation speech," Hegel describes the "peculiar sphere of the school" as one that is separate both from the particularity and the emotional bonds of the family, and from the generality of the world and the social contract. At the same time, like Hannah Arendt, Hegel sees the school as mediating between these two spheres:
"The school is the middle sphere which leads the human being from the family circle into the world, from the natural relationship of feeling and inclination into the element of matter. In school, the child's activity begins to take on a serious and essential meaning, so that it is no longer subject to arbitrariness and chance, to the desire and inclination of the moment; he learns to determine his actions according to a purpose and according to rules; he ceases to be considered for the sake of his immediate person and begins to be considered according to what he achieves and to earn merit."
This represents and early contribution to "theory of the school," a topic of ongoing philosophical interest in both France (e.g. Kambouchner) and Germany (Klafki).
"The school is the middle sphere which leads the human being from the family circle into the world, from the natural relationship of feeling and inclination into the element of matter. In school, the child's activity begins to take on a serious and essential meaning, so that it is no longer subject to arbitrariness and chance, to the desire and inclination of the moment; he learns to determine his actions according to a purpose and according to rules; he ceases to be considered for the sake of his immediate person and begins to be considered according to what he achieves and to earn merit."
This represents and early contribution to "theory of the school," a topic of ongoing philosophical interest in both France (e.g. Kambouchner) and Germany (Klafki).
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This article provides an overview of the theoretical and practical domain constituted by Continental Pedagogy, emphasizing key aspects of its history and theory. It is structured through the relations of the "didactic" or "pedagogical... more
This article provides an overview of the theoretical and practical domain constituted by Continental Pedagogy, emphasizing key aspects of its history and theory. It is structured through the relations of the "didactic" or "pedagogical triangle" that joins educator, educand (the one being educated) and the world (narrowly: content or curriculum). The article concludes by highlighting how Continental Pedagogy represents ways of knowing and acting that are themselves irreducibly educative or pedagogical, and by reconsidering its relation to Curriculum Studies.
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When I undertake pedagogical theorizing, pedagogical practice must become a problem for me. It is an object, perhaps the first object, which the pedagogical theorist should recognize. Pedagogy as a science (Wissenschaft) is, after all,... more
When I undertake pedagogical theorizing, pedagogical practice must become a problem for me. It is an object, perhaps the first object, which the pedagogical theorist should recognize. Pedagogy as a science (Wissenschaft) is, after all, theory, the scientific investigation of the fact of pedagogical activity; it is at least that, too.
If one thinks in this attitude about the relation between action and theory, one ends up with an indispensably important and fundamental task for all pedagogical research and scholarship, one for which I would like to adopt the name "descriptive pedagogy"... I consider it necessary, in the present time, with the strongly practical-reformist tendencies directed to education as a task, to refer to a pure pedagogical theory that serves disinterested knowledge as far as possible.
If one thinks in this attitude about the relation between action and theory, one ends up with an indispensably important and fundamental task for all pedagogical research and scholarship, one for which I would like to adopt the name "descriptive pedagogy"... I consider it necessary, in the present time, with the strongly practical-reformist tendencies directed to education as a task, to refer to a pure pedagogical theory that serves disinterested knowledge as far as possible.
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Phenomenology is the study of experience as it is concretely lived, a study that works to draw general structures or interpretations from this concrete particularity. Pedagogy is delineated first through the “pedagogical difference”... more
Phenomenology is the study of experience as it is concretely lived, a study that works to draw general structures or interpretations from this concrete particularity. Pedagogy is delineated first through the “pedagogical difference” between educator and (those being) educated. It has traditionally been understood in terms of the influence of the older generation on the younger and has also been recast (for example) as the educator’s holistic focus on the one being educated. Phenomenology and pedagogy converge not just in their interest in particular experiences of this influence and focus; both imply a position or an “attitude” from which everyday involvements with others, especially with the young, can be understood.
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Schleiermacher is of the conviction—however unusual it sounds today—that education is not a matter primarily for logical analysis, normative judgement or even for empirical investigation. Education, in other words, is adequately addressed... more
Schleiermacher is of the conviction—however unusual it sounds today—that education is not a matter primarily for logical analysis, normative judgement or even for empirical investigation. Education, in other words, is adequately addressed neither through normativizing critical analysis, nor through empirical investigation and assessment—arguably the two dominant discourses in educational research today. Education for Schleiermacher is a practical activity that relates to theory as a way of making dialectical interconnections. Schleiermacher’s is a dialectic only in the broadest sense of the term, for example, “any systematic reasoning… that juxtaposes opposed or contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict” (Merriam Webster). This chapter explores Schleiermacher’s dialectic as a central characteristic of his thought and writing—particularly as it is manifest in his famous introductory lecture from 1826 Outlines of the Art of Education.
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That education is a field constituted by oppositions, paradoxes and tensions has its origin in Socrates' maieutic. It extends through the Scholastic disputatio to today's graduate oral defenses. This chapter begins by describing ways of... more
That education is a field constituted by oppositions, paradoxes and tensions has its origin in Socrates' maieutic. It extends through the Scholastic disputatio to today's graduate oral defenses. This chapter begins by describing ways of thinking of educational theory and practice in terms of opposites, paradoxes and the tensions between them, looking at both traditional and contemporary sources. Through reference to a video clip, this chapter then turns to a similarly and broadly aporetic understanding of the lived or experienced body as articulated in the phenomenological tradition, based largely on Merleau-Ponty's account in The Visible and the Invisible. In this way, it highlights and explores exploration of the striking isomorphism of the embodied and the pedagogical-both as fields and processes.
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That education is a field constituted by oppositions, paradoxes and tensions has its origin in Socrates' maieutic. It extends through the Scholastic disputatio to today's graduate oral defenses. This chapter begins by describing ways of... more
That education is a field constituted by oppositions, paradoxes and tensions has its origin in Socrates' maieutic. It extends through the Scholastic disputatio to today's graduate oral defenses. This chapter begins by describing ways of thinking of educational theory and practice in terms of opposites, paradoxes and the tensions between them, looking at both traditional and contemporary sources. Through reference to a video clip, this chapter then turns to a similarly and broadly aporetic understanding of the lived or experienced body as articulated in the phenomenological tradition, based largely on Merleau-Ponty's account in The Visible and the Invisible. In this way, it highlights and explores exploration of the striking isomorphism of the embodied and the pedagogical-both as fields and processes.
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Using Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as an example, this paper introduces Wilhlem Dilthey’s (1833–1911) hermeneutics and pedagogical theory. Dilthey saw biographies (and autobiographies like Angelou’s) as nothing less than... more
Using Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as an example, this paper introduces Wilhlem Dilthey’s (1833–1911) hermeneutics and pedagogical theory. Dilthey saw biographies (and autobiographies like Angelou’s) as nothing less than “the highest and most instructive form of the understanding of life.” This, then, serves as the starting point for his hermeneutics or theory of understanding, which distinguishes humanistic understanding from scientific explanation, and sees any one moment or word as having meaning only in relation to a whole—the whole of a sentence or text, or the whole of one’s life. It is also the starting point of his pedagogy, whose ultimate “duty” is “to develop the child as a person who carries their own purpose within themselves.” In introducing Dilthey’s hermeneutic pedagogy, this paper draws principally from his The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences (1927/2002), a text that has been long neglected in hermeneutic and phenomenological studies of education.
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The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfillment as “satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment.” Not only has the idea of fulfillment underpinned... more
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfillment as “satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment.” Not only has the idea of fulfillment underpinned “approximately twenty centuries of philosophy” as Lefebvre notes, it plays an indispensable role in both popular and scholarly accounts of education and upbringing. Experiences of education, of upbringing and of “life lessons,” however, are so often not about the fulfillment of one’s self, about the discovery and actualization of one’s full potential. Such experiences instead involve moments of failure and loss—a matter that has not received a great deal of attention in educational research and theory. After briefly examining the way that fulfillment is favorably framed both in humanistic psychology and in neo-humanist Bildungstheorie, this chapter provides an overview of the pedagogical theory of O.F. Bollnow, who saw moments of uncertainty, disorientation and above all crisis as indispensable in educational experience. In this way, this chapter shows that instead of being the pursuit of self-fulfillment, education is unavoidably a matter of difficulty, disruption and also failure. It reshapes us, and this reshaping can be seen as being as much about formation as it is about deformation.
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That something goes wrong in education, that the educator does not achieve a desired goal, that their relationship with the child becomes a struggle in which they are ultimately defeated—or even that they finally fail with the entire... more
That something goes wrong in education, that the educator does not achieve a desired goal, that their relationship with the child becomes a struggle in which they are ultimately defeated—or even that they finally fail with the entire enterprise: these are all things which are all too familiar from experience. It’s the painful dark side of the teaching profession, one that teachers don’t like to dwell on. So it’s not surprising that these things are rarely dealt with in pedagogical theory. Failures are generally regarded as accidents, as events which happen to humans as imperfect beings, and as incidents that could have been avoided with a better and more efficient educational programs. No one has yet considered the possibility that failure has a far deeper meaning, one that it is actually founded in the essence, in the dignity of education. In reality, risk belongs to the innermost essence of education as long as it is way of dealing with those who are free and also fundamentally unpredictable in their freedom.
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Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is widely regarded not only as the founder of modern hermeneutics and of liberal Protestant theology, but also as the co-founder of the first modern research university in Berlin (with... more
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is widely regarded not only as the founder of modern hermeneutics and of liberal Protestant theology, but also as the co-founder of the first modern research university in Berlin (with Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose name the university subsequentially adopted). However, he is also known—together with J.F. Herbart (Chapter 2)—as the founder of pedagogy as a modern academic discipline. Schleiermacher is said to have founded the discipline of “Pedagogy” “on the basis of the dialectics and ethics that underlie his thought.” By “working through oscillation,” he is further said to have developed this discipline through a “structural analysis, a philosophy of culture and history, and a consideration and comprehension of the concrete-individual situation." The selections provided here exemplify how Schleiermacher does this to arrive at remarkable insights regarding education as an inter-generational enterprise that is manifest in remarkably concrete ways in our everyday lives.
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Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is widely regarded not only as the founder of modern hermeneutics and of liberal Protestant theology, but also as the co-founder of the first modern research university in Berlin (with... more
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is widely regarded not only as the founder of modern hermeneutics and of liberal Protestant theology, but also as the co-founder of the first modern research university in Berlin (with Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose name the university subsequentially adopted). However, he is also known—together with J.F. Herbart (Chapter 2)—as the founder of pedagogy as a modern academic discipline. Schleiermacher is said to have founded the discipline of “Pedagogy” “on the basis of the dialectics and ethics that underlie his thought” (emphasis added). By “working through oscillation,” he is further said to have developed this discipline through a “structural analysis, a philosophy of culture and history, and a consideration and comprehension of the concrete-individual situation. The selections provided here exemplify how Schleiermacher does this to arrive at remarkable insights regarding education as an inter-generational enterprise that is manifest in remarkably concrete ways in our everyday lives.
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This chapter examines what has been called "the technological imaginary" as it exists specifically in education. It shows how primal and ideal scenarios, metaphors and images have been reproduced and repeated over centuries when it comes... more
This chapter examines what has been called "the technological imaginary" as it exists specifically in education. It shows how primal and ideal scenarios, metaphors and images have been reproduced and repeated over centuries when it comes to education and its various technologies. It also illustrates how these images and scenarios can be said to have turned into "myths"-ultimately inseparable from utopian visions of a wholly enlightened world-and have regulated a great deal of activity in the area of educational innovation, giving it a kind of repetitive continuity that educational innovators generally see themselves as leaving behind. In particular, I focus on one prototypical image or scenario for learning that underlies many of the most ambitious visions in the educational, technological imaginary over the past 60 years or more: That of the one-to-one educational or tutorial dialogue between a wise or capable tutor on the one hand and an engaged child or learner on the other. In addition to showing how this image of dialogue has both enabled and constrained visions and possibilities for educational and technological innovation, I conclude by arguing that these visions are ultimately unrealizable-and that their realization would mean the end of education, rather than its utopian apotheosis.
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The discipline of teacher education has long been controversial. Some complain about its inadequate academic status and believe it urgently needs reform. Others, however, find that teacher training has already become too theoretical,... more
The discipline of teacher education has long been controversial. Some complain about its inadequate academic status and believe it urgently needs reform. Others, however, find that teacher training has already become too theoretical, alienating teachers from their practical responsibilities. This issue can only be solved by first understanding what it means to be a discipline, and by speaking of pedagogy not in terms of sociology or psychology, but as a specifically educational discipline.
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The discipline of teacher education has long been controversial. Some complain about its inadequate academic status and believe it urgently needs reform. Others, however, find that teacher training has already become too theoretical,... more
The discipline of teacher education has long been controversial. Some complain about its inadequate academic status and believe it urgently needs reform. Others, however, find that teacher training has already become too theoretical, alienating teachers from their practical responsibilities. This issue can only be solved by first understanding what it means to be a discipline, and by speaking of pedagogy not in terms of sociology or psychology, but as a specifically educational discipline.
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A differentiated notion of “content” has been missing from American educational and curricular discourse for decades, if not for a century or more. This goes at least as far back as the rise of behaviorism in the teens of the last century... more
A differentiated notion of “content” has been missing from American educational and curricular discourse for decades, if not for a century or more. This goes at least as far back as the rise of behaviorism in the teens of the last century (e.g. Thorndike, 1912), and is consistent through the development of systems approaches mid-century. It remains in evidence today in contemporary theories of both learning and curriculum. Doyle and Westbury’s observation from 1993 remains as true today as it was almost 30 years ago: “None of the many traditional American educational approaches have paid serious attention to the ‘school subject’ or ‘instructional content.’” In the face of this decades-long neglect of content in American educational approaches, this paper begins by characterizing how both “learning theory” and “curriculum theory” are configured in its absence. It then discusses a few contemporary exceptions to this rule—approaches to education that have content at their center. Building on but also seeking to correct this work, the paper then describes curricular content as material that is inherently pedagogical—i.e. that has intrinsic, distinctly pedagogical or didactical qualities—and that also presents multiple interconnections with both student and teacher. This paper then concludes by suggesting a broader theory of knowledge that might be commensurate with this understanding.
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Human Science Pedagogy is “a strange case,” as Jürgen Oelkers has recently noted: In the Anglophone world, it highlights pedagogically- and experientially-familiar themes such as the pedagogical relation and pedagogical tact, but it... more
Human Science Pedagogy is “a strange case,” as Jürgen Oelkers has recently noted: In the Anglophone world, it highlights pedagogically- and experientially-familiar themes such as the pedagogical relation and pedagogical tact, but it places them in a rather unfamiliar theoretical and historical context. For Germans, particularly in more “general” or philosophical areas of educational scholarship, it can be said to combine historical dominance with contemporary disavowal. Taking this strange case as its frame, this paper introduces Human Science Pedagogy to English-language readers, providing a cursory overview of its history, while highlighting the relevance of its themes and methods in both English- and German-speaking scholarship today. In so doing, it seeks to shed light on the current “strange” contemporary circumstances of Human Science Pedagogy in Germany today, and shows its ongoing influence is still widely evident but simultaneously, widely ignored. This paper concludes with an appeal to readers from both sides of the Atlantic to new or renewed consideration of this pedagogy as a significant and influential source for educational thinking that deserves recognition as such in both German and English.
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This chapter examines what has been called " the technological imaginary " as it exists specifically in education. It shows how primal and ideal scenarios, metaphors and images have been reproduced and repeated over centuries when it... more
This chapter examines what has been called " the technological imaginary " as it exists specifically in education. It shows how primal and ideal scenarios, metaphors and images have been reproduced and repeated over centuries when it comes to education and its various technologies. It also illustrates how these images and scenarios can be said to have turned into " myths " —ultimately inseparable from utopian visions of a wholly enlightened world—and have regulated a great deal of activity in the area of educational innovation, giving it a kind of repetitive continuity that educational innovators generally see themselves as leaving behind. In particular, I focus on one prototypical image or scenario for learning that underlies many of the most ambitious visions in the educational, technological imaginary over the past 60 years or more: That of the one‐to‐one educational or tutorial dialogue between a wise or capable tutor on the one hand and an engaged child or learner on the other. In addition to showing how this image of dialogue has both enabled and constrained visions and possibilities for educational and technological innovation, I conclude by arguing that these visions are ultimately unrealizable—and that their realization would mean the end of education, rather than its utopian apotheosis.
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This chapter examines what has been called " the technological imaginary " as it exists specifically in education. It shows how primal and ideal scenarios, metaphors and images have been reproduced and repeated over centuries when it... more
This chapter examines what has been called " the technological imaginary " as it exists specifically in education. It shows how primal and ideal scenarios, metaphors and images have been reproduced and repeated over centuries when it comes to education and its various technologies. It also illustrates how these images and scenarios can be said to have turned into " myths " —ultimately inseparable from utopian visions of a wholly enlightened world—and have regulated a great deal of activity in the area of educational innovation, giving it a kind of repetitive continuity that educational innovators generally see themselves as leaving behind. In particular, I focus on one prototypical image or scenario for learning that underlies many of the most ambitious visions in the educational, technological imaginary over the past 60 years or more: That of the one‐to‐one educational or tutorial dialogue between a wise or capable tutor on the one hand and an engaged child or learner on the other. In addition to showing how this image of dialogue has both enabled and constrained visions and possibilities for educational and technological innovation, I conclude by arguing that these visions are ultimately unrealizable—and that their realization would mean the end of education, rather than its utopian apotheosis.
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Generally speaking, we North Americans formally understand knowledge according to call a natural scientific, empiricist epistemology. While this epistemology works well for quantitative research, to explain what occurs, it is not... more
Generally speaking, we North Americans formally understand knowledge according to call a natural scientific, empiricist epistemology. While this epistemology works well for quantitative research, to explain what occurs, it is not particularly well suited to most qualitative research—particularly phenomenology and narrative research. And it is not the only way we know about our world. The second way we know is via hermeneutic understanding. But we generally ignore the fact that we think, feel and act in this way. This two-page article explains this for students in quantitative research and others unfamiliar with notions like the "lifeworld" or the "hermeneutic circle."
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The story of the mutual influence of Germany and America in the field of education is one of much complexity, mutual estrangement and (mis)understanding. It is nonetheless structured by two clear turning points. From the colonial era... more
The story of the mutual influence of Germany and America in the field of education is one of much complexity, mutual estrangement and (mis)understanding. It is nonetheless structured by two clear turning points. From the colonial era through to 1914, it is the story of German influence on American education. The first turning point is the American entry into WW I, when Germany and its cultural and academic contributions were all but banned in the US. This is followed by a period of relative mutual indifference, extending from the interwar years until after WW II. The 1960s then marked the second turning point, during which American influence on German education started from a trickle to become a veritable flood. These turning points provide the implicit structure of Jürgen Overhoff and Anna Overbeck’s informative and at times, surprising edited collection, New Perspectives on German-American Educational History: Topics, Trends, Fields of Research (2017).
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The story of the mutual influence of Germany and America in the field of education is one of much complexity, mutual estrangement and (mis)understanding. It is nonetheless structured by two clear turning points. From the colonial era... more
The story of the mutual influence of Germany and America in the field of education is one of much complexity, mutual estrangement and (mis)understanding. It is nonetheless structured by two clear turning points. From the colonial era through to 1914, it is the story of German influence on American education. The first turning point is the American entry into WW I, when Germany and its cultural and academic contributions were all but banned in the US. This is followed by a period of relative mutual indifference, extending from the interwar years until after WW II. The 1960s then marked the second turning point, during which American influence on German education started from a trickle to become a veritable flood. These turning points provide the implicit structure of Jürgen Overhoff and Anna Overbeck’s informative and at times, surprising edited collection, New Perspectives on German-American Educational History: Topics, Trends, Fields of Research (2017).
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As a culturally dominant means of organizing and disseminating knowledge, the book is dead. This is not so much an apocalyptic provocation as a recognition of ongoing cultural and technological developments in an era and under a... more
As a culturally dominant means of organizing and disseminating knowledge, the book is dead. This is not so much an apocalyptic provocation as a recognition of ongoing cultural and technological developments in an era and under a presidency that have been labelled “post-literate.” It is also an invitation to closely examine what the book and its culture actually is, or rather, was. To accept this invitation is to take a socio-historical perspective on the book and on reading, and to see both as much more than a set of physical affordances and cognitive operations. Instead, as media theorist Friedrich Kittler has put it, it is to recognize that the book has served as nothing less than the “concrete form” of “the Western episteme” (Kittler, 2015, p. 38). The book’s physical nature, the means of its production, and the habits and practices of its use and circulation, in other words, together constitute a paradigm for learning, knowing and for knowledge itself. The gradual and ongoing dissolution of this paradigm is one of the defining characteristics of our digital culture, and its significance for education, while not widely discussed, is enormous. This paper examines some of the varying meanings of the book and its culture, and considers what their gradual passing means for education.
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In 2016, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would be joining the National Science Foundation and Gates Foundations in spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the development of technologies for “personalized... more
In 2016, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would be joining the National Science Foundation and Gates Foundations in spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the development of technologies for “personalized learning.” These technologies promise to provide learners or users with interactive content that is tailored with precision to their preferences and previous behaviors—much like Facebook’s newsfeed does. And also like Facebook, they accomplish this by using “big data” and “analytics,” recordings of clicking, scrolling and typing of many thousands of users. However, analytics experts, sociologists of technology and most recently, former Facebook and Google executives understand these techniques as ultimately representing a sophisticated and highly effective form of Skinnerian operant conditioning—one that customizes schedules of reinforcement precisely to users’ or learners’ behavioral patterns. First explaining how this “new behaviorism” is instantiated in personalized learning design and technology, this paper then argues that such an approach is antithetical to the most basic priorities and purposes of education: Namely, to cultivate in students a sense of ownership in their own learning, and responsibility for their own behavior and its effects on others.
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In 2016, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would be joining the National Science Foundation and Gates Foundations in spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the development of technologies for “personalized... more
In 2016, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he would be joining the National Science Foundation and Gates Foundations in spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the development of technologies for “personalized learning.” These technologies promise to provide learners or users with interactive content that is tailored with precision to their preferences and previous behaviors—much like Facebook’s newsfeed does. And also like Facebook, they accomplish this by using “big data” and “analytics,” recordings of clicking, scrolling and typing of many thousands of users. However, analytics experts, sociologists of technology and most recently, former Facebook and Google executives understand these techniques as ultimately representing a sophisticated and highly effective form of Skinnerian operant conditioning—one that customizes schedules of reinforcement precisely to users’ or learners’ behavioral patterns. First explaining how this “new behaviorism” is instantiated in personalized learning design and technology, this paper then argues that such an approach is antithetical to the most basic priorities and purposes of education: Namely, to cultivate in students a sense of ownership in their own learning, and responsibility for their own behavior and its effects on others.
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In this paper, I provide a short but broad history of the textbook as a multimedia pedagogical and cultural form. In doing so, I pay particular attention to the interrelationship of oral and textual media and cultures, and to their... more
In this paper, I provide a short but broad history of the textbook as a multimedia pedagogical and cultural form. In doing so, I pay particular attention to the interrelationship of oral and textual media and cultures, and to their connection with the textbook itself. I highlight the often surprising ways that the oral and textual have been reconfigured over the history of this pedagogical form. I also situate the textbook in the context of changing instructional methods and practices, and demonstrate that instructional forms and practices have neither changed along with new technologies nor gradually evolved from a primitive orality to sophisticated literacy. Instead, I show that instructional practices as well as textbook media change much more in synchrony with larger cultural and epistemological developments and milieus—such as those identified by Michel Foucault, Friedrich Kittler and other historians of media and culture
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In a field increasingly dominated by managerial terminology and constructs of the psychological and neurological sciences, this paper presents education as an explicitly human " science " —as integral to human projects such as individual... more
In a field increasingly dominated by managerial terminology and constructs of the psychological and neurological sciences, this paper presents education as an explicitly human " science " —as integral to human projects such as individual and collective self-definition as well as cultural reproduction and transformation. This paper undertakes the initial steps toward this human way of thinking about education by introducing the educational work
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Teachers around the world are now commonly subject to standards defining their role and activity in terms of the effective application of the most efficient teaching methods, in terms of optimizing inputs and outputs, means and ends. How... more
Teachers around the world are now commonly subject to standards defining their role and activity in terms of the effective application of the most efficient teaching methods, in terms of optimizing inputs and outputs, means and ends. How can novice teachers sustain themselves—and be sustained—under these conditions? Is it possible to hold on to the conviction and inspiration that originally led them to become teachers? This article responds to these questions by exploring the relational phenomenon of pedagogical tact. It examines manifestations of tact through an example of one teacher working with a class of black boys at a middle school in inner-city Detroit. It studies the actions and interactions of teacher and student(s) in relation to a grammar lesson on the construction and analysis of “complex sentences.” This paper does so in order to address the conflict between the moral and interpersonal grounding of teacher engagement on the one hand, and technocratic impersonal lessons, outputs and pedagogies on the other. We present tact and the pedagogical triangle, in other words, as means by which teacher candidates might navigate between the means-ends thinking embodied in standardized teaching and testing on the one hand, and the dangers of unsustainable demoralization on the other.
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Everything changed on November 9, 2016. It is much easier to see what was rejected in the election of Donald Trump than what will take its place. However, many dangers have been clear and present for some time. Here's a short " to do "... more
Everything changed on November 9, 2016. It is much easier to see what was rejected in the election of Donald Trump than what will take its place. However, many dangers have been clear and present for some time. Here's a short " to do " list that admittedly would benefit from further development.
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In this article, I simultaneously counter and augment Biesta’s claims concerning the "learnification" of education by introducing a rather different “discourse of learning,” one which has as its principle focus the lived experience of... more
In this article, I simultaneously counter and augment Biesta’s claims concerning the "learnification" of education by introducing a rather different “discourse of learning,” one which has as its principle focus the lived experience of learning. Although it does not address the importance of what is learned, who teaches it and why it is learned, it does offer insights into learning and study that are notably different from the dominant discourse of learning. In this context, learning appears not as an ongoing process that is to be facilitated, but an experience of difficulty and uncertainty that can neither be ameliorated nor optimized. It is an experience that, as one scholar puts it, is situated at the threshold between “no longer” and “not yet.” It emerges, as G.H. Mead has said, when one “world of unquestioned validity… has lost that validity and there is nothing left but the subjectivity out of which a new world may arise” (1900, p. 12). It is “not a path from shadows to the light,” but rather occurs in a fractured and indeterminate “twilight landscape” (Meyer-Drawe 2012, p. 15). In this paper, I reconstruct aspects of this interpretive, experiential account of learning, particularly as it has developed through the work of German phenomenologists in education—beginning with the work of Günther Buck (1925-1983), continuing with Käte Meyer-Drawe (1949-), and including the philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels (1934-). I conclude with an overview and evaluation of a very recent contribution to this discourse by Evi Agostini, Learning between Discovery and Invention: Towards Creative Genesis in the Culmination of Experience (in German: Lernen im Spannungsfeld von Finden und Erfinden: Zur schöpferischen Genese von Sinn im Vollzug der Erfahrung, 2016).
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As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Christopher Winch (1998), Michael A. Peters... more
As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Christopher Winch (1998), Michael A. Peters (1999), Nicholas Burbules (2010), and others (e.g. Aparece 2005) have engaged extensively with the implications of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind and language for education. One challenge that that they face is Wittgenstein’s use of the word “training” throughout his discussions of language learning and in his periodic references to education. This is made all the more problematic by realizing that the term Wittgenstein actually used was Abrichtung, which refers exclusively to animal dressage or obedience training, connoting also the breaking of an animal’s will. This little-recognized fact has broad implications for many important Wittgenstinian insights into education, extending from literacies as language games to teaching as ostensive definition. This paper sheds light on these implications as well as on those more broadly relevant to Wittgenstein’s life and thought.
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In addition to being an educational reformer and philosopher nonpareil, John Dewey also theorized media and communication. The inimitable Marshall McLuhan once characterized Dewey as “surf-boarding along on the new electronic wave [that]... more
In addition to being an educational reformer and philosopher nonpareil, John Dewey also theorized media and communication. The inimitable Marshall McLuhan once characterized Dewey as “surf-boarding along on the new electronic wave [that] …has now rolled right over this age.” Dewey himself repeatedly emphasized that “the radio, the railway, telephone, telegraph” had rendered “social life …almost completely changed.” This paper undertakes a historical reconstruction of Dewey’s theory of communication and media avant la lettre, particularly as it relates to education, scholarship and democracy. It then considers his later privileging of “communicative” aesthetics and the “winged words” of oral communication. It concludes that despite its periodic imprecision and ambivalence, Dewey’s “theory” of media and communication in education remains both current and compelling.
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I must admit that I have some difficulties in writing an dispassionate and unbiased review of the recently translated Mollenhauer book Vergessene Zusamenghange, because in my view it is one of the most important studies in philosophy of... more
I must admit that I have some difficulties in writing an dispassionate and unbiased review of the recently translated Mollenhauer book Vergessene Zusamenghange, because in my view it is one of the most important studies in philosophy of education written in the 20th century. As such I would say it is a shame that the English speaking part of academia had to wait until this century to be able read it in translation (especially because it has been translated in many other languages - in Dutch, Japanese, and Norwegian to name a few). My interest in this book, as well as my admiration for it, derives from Mollenhauer’s uncompromising attempt to deal with the most fundamental issues of education - or better: of upbringing. This is how Norm Friesen has dealt with the challenge of translating a central notion in Mollenhauer’s work, i.e. the German word Bildung. He prefers upbringing to education, because when using the latter one runs the risk of narrowing down the meaning of the term Bildung to the domain of formal education, instruction, or transfer of knowledge, when it originally has a larger, phenomenological, cultural, and existential reach.
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Like tact in general, pedagogical tact is “a ready and delicate sense of what is fitting and proper in dealing with others” (OED), with the added proviso that these “others” are children, youth, or students. More broadly, and in keeping... more
Like tact in general, pedagogical tact is “a ready and delicate sense of what is fitting and proper in dealing with others” (OED), with the added proviso that these “others” are children, youth, or students. More broadly, and in keeping with its origin in the Latin tangere, touch, tact refers to “a keen faculty of perception or discrimination likened to the sense of touch” (OED). Pedagogy is understood in this context above all as a way of being with children and the young, one oriented to their maturation and eventual independence. In this context, pedagogical tact refers to attuned ways of being, acting, and speaking that are most appropriate for the child or student. Pedagogical tact was introduced to educational discourse by J.F. Herbart (1776-1841) in a lecture to student teachers in 1802. It has been discussed, adapted and redefined ever since--with the last few years representing a veritable renaissance in interest. This presentation introduces pedagogical tact by retracing this history.
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Franz Kafka opens his intimate “Letter to his Father” by admitting that he simply cannot come to terms with his own upbringing and Bildung –“because the magnitude of the matter goes far beyond the scope of memory and understanding.” This... more
Franz Kafka opens his intimate “Letter to his Father” by admitting that he simply cannot come to terms with his own upbringing and Bildung –“because the magnitude of the matter goes far beyond the scope of memory and understanding.” This admission is used, perhaps paradoxically, to introduce and frame an educational “undertaking of remembrance” attempted by German educationist Klaus Mollenhauer in his book Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing. Here, Mollenhauer also asserts that “further[ing] the cause of memory” is no less than the “purpose of education” itself, adding that he is referring not only to individual biographical recollection, but also to “collective memory – our common cultural heritage whose core themes education attempts to tease out.”
In this presentation, Dr. Norm Friesen (Boise State University) discusses a number of core themes that emerge from this effort for Mollenhauer. These include Mollenhauer’s understanding of Bildung as a biographical and experiential “way of the self” that is marked by a particular “pathlessness.” Referencing Wittgenstein in ways unconventional for education, Mollenhauer shows how this path or pathlessness is characterized not so much by success and triumph as by loss and renunciation. These themes also include the recovery of a concrete, even indexical language for education, rather than one abstract and generalizing. Finally, Dr. Friesen will suggest with Mollenhauer that the broader task of remembrance, and thus of education itself, is as much one of difficulty and paradox as it is one of recuperation and clarification.
In this presentation, Dr. Norm Friesen (Boise State University) discusses a number of core themes that emerge from this effort for Mollenhauer. These include Mollenhauer’s understanding of Bildung as a biographical and experiential “way of the self” that is marked by a particular “pathlessness.” Referencing Wittgenstein in ways unconventional for education, Mollenhauer shows how this path or pathlessness is characterized not so much by success and triumph as by loss and renunciation. These themes also include the recovery of a concrete, even indexical language for education, rather than one abstract and generalizing. Finally, Dr. Friesen will suggest with Mollenhauer that the broader task of remembrance, and thus of education itself, is as much one of difficulty and paradox as it is one of recuperation and clarification.
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The text of my presentation for the 2020 DGfE and elsewhere: Pedagogical tact has been a topic of significant international interest in educational discourse since it was introduced by J.F. Herbart in 1802—specifically as a “quick... more
The text of my presentation for the 2020 DGfE and elsewhere:
Pedagogical tact has been a topic of significant international interest in educational discourse since it was introduced by J.F. Herbart in 1802—specifically as a “quick judgment and decision” able to address “the true requirements of the individual case.” This paper begins by tracing the conceptual roots of pedagogical tact back to Kant’s description of “logical tact” from 1789. Then, through reference to Merleau-Ponty and his German student Bernhard Waldenfels, it explores manifestations of tact in terms of body’s own doublings and aporias. These include its simultaneity as Leib and Körper, its status as a “visible seer,” as “hearing and heard, touching and touched, moving and moved.” Significantly since the time of Friedrich Schleiermacher—and going back further to Kant—pedagogical practice itself has similarly been seen as structured through a series of antimonies and paradoxes, including those of present and future, support and constraint (Unterstüzung und Gegenwirkung), as well as freedom and restraint (Freiheit und Zwang). By reflecting on an example of pedagogical engagement from a short video clip, this paper develops the conclusion that the double nature of the body can play an important role in negotiating these pedagogical antimonies and paradoxes.
Pedagogical tact has been a topic of significant international interest in educational discourse since it was introduced by J.F. Herbart in 1802—specifically as a “quick judgment and decision” able to address “the true requirements of the individual case.” This paper begins by tracing the conceptual roots of pedagogical tact back to Kant’s description of “logical tact” from 1789. Then, through reference to Merleau-Ponty and his German student Bernhard Waldenfels, it explores manifestations of tact in terms of body’s own doublings and aporias. These include its simultaneity as Leib and Körper, its status as a “visible seer,” as “hearing and heard, touching and touched, moving and moved.” Significantly since the time of Friedrich Schleiermacher—and going back further to Kant—pedagogical practice itself has similarly been seen as structured through a series of antimonies and paradoxes, including those of present and future, support and constraint (Unterstüzung und Gegenwirkung), as well as freedom and restraint (Freiheit und Zwang). By reflecting on an example of pedagogical engagement from a short video clip, this paper develops the conclusion that the double nature of the body can play an important role in negotiating these pedagogical antimonies and paradoxes.
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In this presentation, I discuss the asymmetry inherent in our relationship to children. I do this not to argue for equilibrium and balance in this relation but try to understand this asymmetry is particularly evident specifically in... more
In this presentation, I discuss the asymmetry inherent in our relationship to children. I do this not to argue for equilibrium and balance in this relation but try to understand this asymmetry is particularly evident specifically in pedagogical engagement. The pedagogical relation is given its canonical description in a text from 1933 by Herman Nohl, who drew inspiration from Friedrich Schleiermacher. This text describes this relation as first of all taken on by the adult for the sake of the child; it is informed by what is best for the child both now and in the future. This relation demands a tactfulness that can be protective of both educator and educand (i.e. child or young person). However, it comes without the expectation that it is to be reciprocated. Finally, it is marked by an asymmetrical pathos, Nohl says that this consists in the child’s loyalty to the adult, and the adult’s love for the child, and is oriented to the child’s present reality and future possibility.
I extend Nohl’s account by turning to a contemporary discussion of the child as alien. The alterity and heterogeneity of this alienness that children confront us with, I argue, is not characterized by the broad symmetry of the self and other (perhaps familiar from Levinas). Instead, it constituted through an act of exclusion and disappearance that is intrinsically involved in what Husserl calls our “sphere of ownness.” Our relation to this alien is thus not characterized by a logic or language that both share. Instead, it is manifest through pathos that is lived in an immanent indexical field of experience. It is here where we are addressed by the child, and it is here where we respond to that in the child which withdraws when we would try to assimilate it to our own selves and understandings.
I extend Nohl’s account by turning to a contemporary discussion of the child as alien. The alterity and heterogeneity of this alienness that children confront us with, I argue, is not characterized by the broad symmetry of the self and other (perhaps familiar from Levinas). Instead, it constituted through an act of exclusion and disappearance that is intrinsically involved in what Husserl calls our “sphere of ownness.” Our relation to this alien is thus not characterized by a logic or language that both share. Instead, it is manifest through pathos that is lived in an immanent indexical field of experience. It is here where we are addressed by the child, and it is here where we respond to that in the child which withdraws when we would try to assimilate it to our own selves and understandings.
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Attunement is the basic way, the fundamental mode or medium of our being and being-together. In this sense attunement can be said to fundamentally atmospheric. It is a shared mood or atmosphere that determines the way that the world is... more
Attunement is the basic way, the fundamental mode or medium of our being and being-together. In this sense attunement can be said to fundamentally atmospheric. It is a shared mood or atmosphere that determines the way that the world is disclosed to us. In this context, the passage from Bollnow quoted at the outset can then be said to bring to light the specifically hermeneutic, epistemic dimension of atmosphere. If every atmosphere brings with it a shared interpretation of the world, then one needs to share or participate in this atmosphere, in order to share knowledge or learning. Only when an attunement suitable to such disclosure has been cultivated or encountered, will the sought-after knowledge “dawn” on one. It goes without saying that such a statement has significant implications for pedagogy, for teaching and for learning, and I explore these later in this paper. But I begin by discussing the elusive epistemology of the atmospheric—what we are able to know about how we know, what access we have to the atmospheric, to the mode of our being and knowing. Then, through a brief video example, I go on to discuss what can be seen to make an atmosphere specifically pedagogical.
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The event of learning is the Achilles heel of the “discourses” or “language[s] of learning” dominant in education today (Meyer-Drawe 2008; Biesta 2012). We have almost no empirical access to or control over this event. It can’t be caused... more
The event of learning is the Achilles heel of the “discourses” or “language[s] of learning” dominant in education today (Meyer-Drawe 2008; Biesta 2012). We have almost no empirical access to or control over this event. It can’t be caused or guaranteed, and its occurrence is visible (if at all) only post facto. For phenomenology, however, learning-as-experience forms a key moment in lived experience (Erlebnis). It appears as something that occurs and can be fostered through the variation of possible experience familiar to phenomenology in the form of the reduction. In describing learning-as-experience, this paper sheds new light on contemporary discourses of learning—from the intricacies of the learning sciences to the effortful learning advocated by the growth mindset.
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Content in education has long been ignored. “None of the many traditional American educational approaches have paid serious attention to the ‘school subject’ or ‘instructional content’” (Doyle & Westbury 1993). So what exactly makes... more
Content in education has long been ignored. “None of the many traditional American educational approaches have paid serious attention to the ‘school subject’ or ‘instructional content’” (Doyle & Westbury 1993).
So what exactly makes educational content educational? It’s not so much that it’s interactive, incorporates multiple media or is designed by an expert. A resource is educational insofar as it works through the art of the example. Its educational character is its exemplarity.
So what exactly makes educational content educational? It’s not so much that it’s interactive, incorporates multiple media or is designed by an expert. A resource is educational insofar as it works through the art of the example. Its educational character is its exemplarity.
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Like so much else in education, the manifold and complex differences between curriculum and Didaktik can be traced back to the figure of Comenius. For Didaktik, Comenius is seen as a founder, touchstone and patron saint. For contemporary... more
Like so much else in education, the manifold and complex differences between curriculum and Didaktik can be traced back to the figure of Comenius. For Didaktik, Comenius is seen as a founder, touchstone and patron saint. For contemporary curriculum theorists, on the other hand, Comenius is regarded as the first to reduce education to pure instrumentalism, to a means ‟to the end that is assessment,” as William Pinar says. For curriculum theorists, Comenius was the first in a long line of technocratic thinkers to render impossible the kind of complicated conversation that they see as the renewal of curriculum and education. This paper considers the title of this conference—“Curriculum and Didaktik: A Complicated Conversation”—in this light, works to further clarify the challenges that now face us: To connect two very different linguistically- and culturally-embedded traditions using the language of only one of them.
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Histories of educational theories, forms and practices have traditionally focused on canonical texts and terms, often beginning with those of Hellenic Greece. Looking at current textbook histories (e.g., Murphy, 2005; Gutek 2010), one... more
Histories of educational theories, forms and practices have traditionally focused on canonical texts and terms, often beginning with those of Hellenic Greece. Looking at current textbook histories (e.g., Murphy, 2005; Gutek 2010), one might be forgiven for thinking that educational achievements began with Plato’s Academy or Isocrates’ Paideia. However, in recent years, other scholars have highlighted the accomplishments of non-western cultures, such as those of the Ottoman Empire (Hirschler 2012) or traditional China (Lee 2000). Looking to the ancient Middle East, this paper considers the ways in which the practices and techniques that we still associate with education and schooling—particularly in its most basal forms—have been manifest in very different times and places. In so doing, it seeks to challenge established albeit largely implicit histories of education, narratives that locate the origins of educational practices and techniques in the biology of the human brain (e.g., Metzloff 2009), or in the non- or pre-literate phenomena of apprenticeship (Lave and Wenger 1991) or situated cognition (Brown, et al, 1989).
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Moral teaching has been studied in terms of a wide range of frameworks and terms, including teacher ethical reasoning, teacher authenticity as well as teacher disposition and teacher manner. For example, drawing from Aristotelian and... more
Moral teaching has been studied in terms of a wide range of frameworks and terms, including teacher ethical reasoning, teacher authenticity as well as teacher disposition and teacher manner. For example, drawing from Aristotelian and Arendtian sources (respectively), scholars have defined teacher manner as “conduct expressive of dispositions or traits” associated with “virtue” (Fenstermacher 2001, p. 639) and teacher authenticity as the unity of “teachers’ personal and professional selves” (Malm 2008, p. 373). This paper proposes the adaptation of two rather different frameworks or heuristics from the continental pedagogical tradition to a similar end: Namely to show how “pedagogical tact” (pädagogischer Takt; Muth 1962) and the “pedagogical triangle” (didaktischer Dreieck; Triangle pédagogique; Meyer 2016; Houssaye, 2015) can be used as analytical, heuristic devices to help bring aspects of moral teaching to visibility.
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Pedagogical tact has been a topic of significant international interest in educational discourse since it was initially defined by J.F. Herbart in 1802—specifically as a “quick judgment and decision” able to address “the true requirements... more
Pedagogical tact has been a topic of significant international interest in educational discourse since it was initially defined by J.F. Herbart in 1802—specifically as a “quick judgment and decision” able to address “the true requirements of the individual case” (1896, p. 20; see also Herbart’s successor Rosenkranz 1848, 1872; Blochmann 1950; Muth 1962; van Manen 1991; Juuso & Lian 2015). This paper begins by tracing the conceptual roots of pedagogical tact in Kant’s description of “logical tact” from 1789, and brings these into connection with more recent accounts, particularly those that stress importance of reserve, of holding back for the sake of the student’s independence. Through reference to Merleau-Ponty and his German student Bernhard Waldenfels, this paper then explores manifestations of this at once active and passive character of tact in terms of body’s own aporias—its simultaneity as physical and lived (Leib and Körper), as a “visible seer,” as “hearing and heard, touching and touched, moving and moved” (Merleau-Ponty 1968, p. 260; Waldenfels 2014, p. 49).
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Eugen Fink (1905-1975) earned his doctorate under Husserl and Heidegger and remained Husserl’s loyal assistant, even when the latter was abandoned by Heidegger and persecuted by the Nazis for being Jewish. Regardless, the influence of... more
Eugen Fink (1905-1975) earned his doctorate under Husserl and Heidegger and remained Husserl’s loyal assistant, even when the latter was abandoned by Heidegger and persecuted by the Nazis for being Jewish. Regardless, the influence of Heidegger is much more evident in Fink’s work than that of Husserl. Like both Husserl and Heidegger, Fink held a chair at the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg—although Fink’s was in philosophy and education. Fink saw the two disciplines as being inextricably intertwined. After the end of metaphysics, according to one commentator, Fink saw education not simply one of many possible topics for philosophizing; instead, he saw human becoming in its imminence as the concern par excellence for both philosophy and philosophical anthropology. “The way in which human beings are seen” Fink emphasizes, “predetermines the nature of education.” In this presentation, I focus on one recently-translated 1959 piece from Fink, “The Questionableness of the modern Educator,” and work to connect it to important themes in the German tradition of Bildung and Erziehung. In so doing, I deal with existential questions about the limits and possibilities of “the human,” and possibilities and dangers presented what could be regarded as "beyond” the human—new, even previously unimagined possibilities of definition and self-definition.
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We become posthuman, as Katherine Hales explains, through our awareness being “seamlessly” extended or even embodied through technology, meaning that the body of flesh and blood is only “the original prosthesis” for the mind. However, the... more
We become posthuman, as Katherine Hales explains, through our awareness being “seamlessly” extended or even embodied through technology, meaning that the body of flesh and blood is only “the original prosthesis” for the mind. However, the practice of extending our awareness through technology and its prostheses goes back hundreds if not thousands of years. Specifically textual communications, posted either online or on paper, have long been shown to bring with them a dynamic tension between sensed presence or embodied absence, between the immediacy of reaction and mediation of response. New televisual technologies of communication, on the other hand, brings with it a different set of issues, involving representations of embodiment, speech, hearing and vision, and resulting in a rather different interplay between immediacy and mediation. Together with virtual reality, audio/visual communication has been characterized as bring mediated experience into a “post-symbolic” era, delimiting horizons that include the (relative) immediacy of reciprocity and disjuncture of embodied self and other, of voice, hearing and gaze.
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The pedagogical relation, the idea of a special relationship between educator and educand, has long been a central theme in interpretive and philosophical studies of education. Broader concern with " student-teacher relations " and "... more
The pedagogical relation, the idea of a special relationship between educator and educand, has long been a central theme in interpretive and philosophical studies of education. Broader concern with " student-teacher relations " and " pedagogies of relation " is also common across educational discourses. German educationist Herman Nohl was the first to define the phrase " pedagogical relation " in 1926. Others have followed in his wake, with Max van Manen introducing the concept into English some 65 years later, and Gert Biesta drawing attention to it more recently. Despite ongoing interest, Nohl's original characterizations have yet to be translated and their subsequent development reviewed. This paper inaugurates this task, while also taking time to hesitate—to point out its problematic moments and challenges.