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In both clinical and informal settings, psychedelics users often report they have undergone something profound and even life-altering. Yet there persists a confounding inability to articulate just what has been imparted. Informed by multidisciplinary emerging research, this book provides an account of the specifically educational aspects of psychedelics and how they can render us ready to learn. Drawing from indigenous peoples worldwide who typically revere these substances as'plant teachers'and from canonical thinkers in the western tradition such as Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Heidegger, the author proposes an original set of categories through which to understand the educational capabilities of'entheogens'(psychedelics with visionary qualities). It emerges that entheogens'real power lies not in destabilizing and decentering—'turning on and dropping out'—but as powerful aids in restoring and reenchanting our shared worlds.

Before Identity represents the first attempt to provide a comprehensive examination of the methodological ground of Japan studies. At its most basic level, the field presupposes the immediate empirical existence of an entity known as the'Japanese people'or'Japanese culture,'from which it then carves out its various objects of inquiry. Richard F. Calichman attempts to show that this presupposition is itself ineluctably bound up with modern forms of knowledge formation, thereby enlarging the scope of what is meant by modernity. In this way, he aims to bring about a heightened level of theoretical-critical vigilance in the field.Calichman explores the methodological commitments implied or expressed in the work of a range of writers and scholars—Murakami Haruki, Komori Yōichi, Harry Harootunian, Tomi Suzuki, Alan Tansman, and Dennis Washburn—and how such commitments have shaped and limited the field. If theoretical issues in Japan studies are not subjected to this sort of in-depth scrutiny, Calichman argues, then the field will continue to remain ghettoized relative to other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, which have typically been more receptive to conceptual discourse. By showing that scholarly inquiry must begin not at the level of the object but rather at the more fundamental level of methodology, Calichman aims to introduce a greater degree of theoretical rigor to the discipline of Japan studies as a whole.

Walter Benjamin's Antifascist Education is the first comprehensive analysis of educational themes across the entirety of the critical theorist's diverse writings. Starting with Benjamin's early reflections on teaching and learning, Tyson E. Lewis argues that the aesthetic and cultural forms to which Benjamin so often turned—namely, radio broadcasts, children's theatrical productions, collections, cityscapes, public cinemas, and word games—swell with educational potentialities. What emerges from Lewis's reading is a constellational curriculum composed of minor practices such as poor teaching, absentminded learning, and nondurational studying. This curriculum carries political significance, offering an antidote to past and present forms of fascist manipulation, hardness, and coldness. Walter Benjamin's Antifascist Education is a testimony to Benjamin's belief that'everyone is an educator and everyone needs to be educated and everything is education.'

This is one of the first books to explicitly address twenty-first-century education from a Confucian perspective. The contributors focus on why Confucianism is relevant to both American and Chinese education, how Confucian pedagogical principles can be applied to diverse sociocultural settings, and what the social and moral functions of a Confucianism-based education are. Prominent scholars explore a wide-range of research areas and methods, such as K–12 and college teaching; conceptual comparisons; case studies; and discourse analysis, that reflect the depth and breadth of Confucian ideas, and the divergent contexts in which Confucian principles and practices may be applied. This book not only enriches the research literature on Confucianism from an interdisciplinary perspective, but also offers fresh insights into Confucianism's continuing relevance and its compatibility with the latest research-based pedagogical practices.

Modern scholarship has struggled to come to terms with the meaning of wisdom and its significance in the field of education. This book examines the importance of pursuing wisdom in schools by turning to ancient and medieval sources for clarification concerning the nature of wisdom. Sean Steel argues that our current emphasis on the development of rigorous critical-analytic thinking skills, on assessment, and on accountability in education has negatively impacted the ability of schools to foster an environment in which both students and teachers might pursue wisdom. Although in recent times efforts have been made to incorporate the pursuit of wisdom into schools through Philosophy for Children (P4C) and contemplative education programming, such initiatives have missed their mark. Steel therefore recommends not more accountability in education for the purpose of ensuring global competitiveness, but rather the institutional promotion of periods of leisure or schole in the school day.Drawing upon his own experiences as a teacher who has tried to encourage students to search for wisdom, the author discusses some of the challenges and pitfalls of wisdom seeking. He also offers examples of various wisdom-seeking activities that might bear fruit in the classroom.

Educators are familiar with Alfred North Whitehead's three stages of education: romance, precision, and generalization. Philosophers are familiar with his metaphysical theories about the primacy of temporal processes. In Modes of Learning, George Allan brings these two sides of Whitehead's thought together for the first time in a book suitable for both those initially approaching Whitehead's metaphysics and experts alike.Allan develops a series of analogies between Whitehead's ideas about how we learn and key concepts in his later metaphysical writings, demonstrating that both how we learn and how the world changes involve a tension between open-ended exploration and systematic organization. Novel ideas free us from the blinders imposed by old habits and beliefs. Yet only when these ideas are integrated with the old ways are we able to improve our individual and collective lives—until changing circumstances call for further new ideas and fresh integrations.Using a rich variety of examples, Allan illuminates the metaphysical ideas he explores by tethering them concretely to the educational practices in which they are rooted. This shows a key but neglected feature of Whitehead's thought: his pragmatic theory of truth, with its functionalist approach to experience and its humanistic appreciation of the frailty of all human endeavors.

Mediumism considers what the modernist movement in the arts could mean for us today. It examines how artists and critics, particularly in the visual arts, responded to the growth of industries of distraction since the nineteenth century by creating new kinds of artworks that stress their mediums. René V. Arcilla draws out the metaphysical and ethical implications of the work of critics Clement Greenberg, T. J. Clark, and Michael Fried from a perspective rooted in existentialism. He finds in the resulting moral orientation a way to understand the distinctive purpose of liberal education and its political resistance to consumerism. Eschewing terminology that would be familiar to only one set of specialists, the book aims to be accessible to a general audience as well as to readers interested in modernist art, cultural politics, existentialist philosophy, and the philosophical principles of liberal education.

Deweyan Inquiry brings John Dewey's theory of inquiry together with educational theory and practice. James Scott Johnston uses Dewey's late masterpiece Logic: The Theory of Inquiry as a guide and looks at inquiry in science and science education, social science and social science education, art and art education, and embodiment and physical education. He argues that inquiry is self-correcting, and that this makes Deweyan inquiry particularly useful for the always-changing educational milieu.

Imitation and Education provides an in-depth reassessment of learning by example that places imitation in a larger social context. It is the first book to bring together ancient educational thought and startling breakthroughs in the fields of cognitive science, psychology, and philosophy to reconsider how we learn from the lives of others. Bryan R. Warnick addresses how we become exemplars, analyzes how exemplars inspire imitation, and assesses the meaning and value of imitation in education and society, including how teachers can better use examples and what should be done about problems such as the imitation of media violence. Warnick constructs a provocative, cautionary, yet hopeful account of learning by example that acknowledges the power of social contexts in shaping human lives.

Written in an accessible and personal style, this innovative study of authority in education examines scenarios of authority in ways that problematize, augment, and redefine prevalent ideas of how it works. Usually seen as a thing that people have, the author suggests that authority should be understood instead as a relation that happens between people, which gets enacted in circuits where each participant has a role to play; those circuits can include teachers, students, the books they read, as well as former teachers and former students. Drawing on ideas from psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, philosophy of language, and the work of Jacques Derrida and Paulo Freire, the book offers a useful new understanding of authority in education.

Combining biography with philosophy, this book explores John Dewey's two-year trip to China (1919–1921) and its legacy for him as a teacher and a learner. Jessica Ching-Sze Wang looks at how Dewey was received in China, what he learned, and how he was changed as a result. She examines the intriguing dynamics shaping China's reactions to Dewey and Dewey's interpretations of China, and details the evolving process in which Dewey came to understand China on its own terms, rather than from Eurocentric perspectives. Tracing China's influence on Dewey, Wang considers how his visit contributed to the subsequent development of his social and political philosophy. China provided a unique vantage point for Dewey to observe international politics, which led him to reconsider the meaning of internationalism. Also, his exposure to Chinese communal culture enabled him to reject the Western preoccupation with democracy in politics and to emphasize democracy as all-encompassing culture. Finally, Wang discusses how Dewey's own observations and appraisals of Chinese society can give credence to the notion of Confucian democracy for China.

Winner of the 2008 Critics'Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies AssociationA Pulitzer Prize–winning poet who confessed the unrelenting anguish of addiction and depression, Anne Sexton (1928–1974) was also a dedicated teacher. In this book, Paula M. Salvio opens up Sexton's classroom, uncovering a teacher who willfully demonstrated that the personal could also be plural. Looking at how Sexton framed and used the personal in teaching and learning, Salvio considers the extent to which our histories—both personal and social—exert their influence on teaching. In doing so, she situates the teaching life of Anne Sexton at the center of some of the key problems and questions in feminist teaching: navigating the appropriate distance between teacher and student, the relationship between writer and poetic subject, and the relationship between emotional life and knowledge. Examining Sexton's pedagogy, with its'weird abundance'of tactics and strategies, Salvio argues that Sexton's use of the autobiographical'I'is as much a literary identity as a literal identity, one that can speak with great force to educators who recognize its vital role in the humanities classroom.

2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitleThese original essays focus on John Dewey's Democracy and Education, a book widely regarded as one of the greatest works ever written in the history of educational thought. The contributors address Dewey's still powerful argument that education is not a preparation for life, but rather constitutes a fundamental aspect of the very experience of living. The authors examine Dewey's central themes, including the dynamics of human communication, the nature of growth, the relation between democracy and education, and the importance of recognizing student agency. They link their analyses with contemporary educational concerns and problems, offering ideas about what the curriculum for children and youth should be, how to prepare teachers for the profession, what pedagogical approaches make the most sense given societal trends, and how to reconstruct the purposes of school. This first book-length study of Dewey's extraordinary text attests to the continued power in his work and to the diverse audience of educators to whom he has long appealed.

An indictment of the ideology of modernity, which has resulted in our leading incoherent and fragmented lives, Oliver and Gershman's book explores the profound paradigmatic differences that exist among the world's people and describes a rich theory of knowing and being, commonly called “process philosophy.” The promise of process philosophy is in its potential to allow us to participate more fully in the flow of all of time and nature. But what does it mean for a teacher and student in the learning situation to have a process point of view? The authors also discuss many of the various implications in regard to language, space, power relationships, and time as they place process philosophy in the educational context.

This collection of original essays pays tribute to the man by exploring topics that have interested him through a long and productive career. Plato's mathematical imagery, his theory of perception, the role of engineering techne in the origin of Greek science, time and free will in Kant, Whitehead as teacher of teachers, mapping friendships, Kierkegaard and the necessity of forgery. These and other topics are given fresh treatments meant to stimulate further philosophical thinking in the spirit of Brumbaugh himself.

Rebirth of Value takes as its starting-point the emerging scientific view of the universe as a free, unpredictable, self-ordering evolutionary process in which our own cultural history plays a leading part. It outlines some of the startling implications of this view for contemporary art, literature, theater, ecological ethics, human studies, religion, and education.Turner goes beyond the current fashions of postmodern eclecticism, deconstructive critique, and self-consciousness about genre and ideology. Instead, he seeks out the creative and positive forces in contemporary culture that underlie the surface features, and identifies potent new themes and ideas that drive the trends. Among these are the recovery of a pan-cultural human nature; beauty as a real evolutionary tendency; the efficacy and reality of values in general; the reunion of the arts, sciences, and technology; a new science including the theory of non-linear and self-organizing systems, top-down as well as bottom-up causality, and a broader conception of causality in general.Other themes and ideas discussed are a new environmental ethic in which humans can play a constructive and leading part in the evolution of nature; a conception of history as driven by values; cybernetic technology as a spiritual development; a new religious consciousness including a rich syncretism and a renewal of ritual; eternity as a more intense form of time; and the essential unity, coherence, and fertility of knowledge.Frederick Turner is Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas.

This book summarizes and critiques theories of social and cultural reproduction as they relate to sociology of education.This book summarizes the body of knowledge about sociology of education and cultural studies as it informs educational research and critical pedagogy. It synthesizes the most relevant work in social and cultural reproduction published in the last three decades in English, French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese. The authors document and critique the theoretical discussion in developments in both advanced societies and peripheral ones, and link macro-sociological issues with social psychological ones. The book introduces theories of the state to underscore a political sociology of education, and highlights an agenda for theory building, research, and practice in sociology of education.Raymond Allen Morrow is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta, Canada. Carlos Alberto Torres is Professor and Assistant Dean for Student Affairs with the Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Presents a critical, Neo-Marxist philosophy of education.Moacir Gadotti is Associate Professor of Education at the University of Sao Paulo, and Director of the Paulo Freire Institute. He is Regional Director of the International Community Education Association (ICEA) in Latin America, and a member of the steering committee of the World University Service (WUS). Gadotti has written many books including Reading Paulo Freire: His Life and Work also published by SUNY Press.

This book was written as Paulo Freire himself would have done it, using a method of learning through victories and defeats in the same way one learns in life. The author follows a chronological line in which life and work are naturally mixed. In many cases, he lets Paulo Freire's work speak for itself.Maocir Gadotti is one of the closest collaborators of Paulo Freire. He has worked together with him for almost 20 years. Recently, he was Chief of Cabinet when Paulo Freire was Secretary of Education of the city of Sao Paulo. At present, he is Professor of Education at the University of Sao Paulo and Director of the Paulo Freire Institute.

This book rediscovers a traditional mode of knowledge that remains viable today. Contrasted to the academic and cultural fads often based on the scientific methodology of the Cartesian legacy, or any number of trendy experiments in education, Poetic Knowledge returns to the freshness and importance of first knowledge, a knowledge of the senses and the passions.'Poetic knowledge'is not the knowledge of poetry, nor is it even knowledge in the sense that we often think of today, that is, the mastery of scientific, technological, or business information. Rather, it is an intuitive, obscure, mysterious way of knowing reality, not always able to account for itself, but absolutely essential if one is ever to advance properly to the higher degrees of certainty. From Socrates to the Middle Ages, and even into the twentieth century, the case for poetic knowledge is revealed with the care of philosophical archeology. Taylor demonstrates the effectiveness of the poetic mode of education through his own observations as a teacher, and two experimental'poetic'schools in the twentieth century.

This book provides a fresh critique of John Dewey and the progressive tradition and warns against the superficial renaissance of Deweyan philosophy present in many of today's modern liberal educational reform movements. Challenging the four pillars of Dewey's pragmatism — science, nature, democracy, experience — Paringer argues for a critical or radical education praxis that more sensitively comes to grips with the difficulties of the nuclearized, postmodern world.William Andrew Paringer teaches Philosophy and Educational Theory at the CUNY College of Staten Island and at Montclair State College.