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Book Review: A Theory of Moral Education
No full textIn A Theory of Moral Education, Michael Hand homes in on a central problem of moral education and offers us a solution. Briefly put, the problem is this: There is often widespread disagreement about moral matters, even among those who have thought long and hard about them. So how is moral education possible without resorting to indoctrination? We are all aware of familiar strategies to avoid this problem, such as introducing various moral systems and conflicting beliefs without taking a stand on them, encouraging students to reach their own conclusions about moral matters, or even keeping well clear of the whole subject in the first place. Unfortunately, these options are not available to anyone who sees the need for moral education and takes it that bringing about rational assent to moral standards is among its aims. Given this starting point, the fact of reasonable disagreement makes it difficult to see how to avoid the problem of indoctrination. Hand’s solution is to argue that, while disagreement about moral matters is a salient feature of social life, there is a significant core of moral values about which there is actually little contention, and for which an adequate justification is within reach. Among them are “prohibitions on killing and causing harm, stealing and extorting, lying and cheating, and requirements to treat others fairly, keep one’s promises and help those in need” (p. 78). With well-known caveats, there is at least general assent to these prescriptions, but their rational justification is more problematic. The history of ethical theory is littered with arguments as to why such things are wrong, but the arguments are contentious—and that looks to compound the problem. Nevertheless, Hand believes that there is at least one sound argument that can be used to justify our core moral standards
Editorial Future Education: Schools and Universities
No full textWhile some may argue that universities are in a state of crisis, others claim that we are living in a post-university era; a time after universities. If there was a battle for the survival of the institution, it is over and done with. The buildings still stand. Students enrol and may (at times) attend lectures, though let’s be clear—most do not. But virtually nothing real remains. What some mistakenly take to be a university is, in actuality, an ‘uncanny’ spectral presence; ‘the nagging presence of an absence … a “spectralized amnesiac modernity with its delusional totalizing systems”’ (Maddern & Adey 2008, p. 292). It is the remains and remnants of the university.[1]Overstatement? Perhaps. We think many if not most administrators, at all levels, will likely dissent. So too will many if not most teachers and students. Trying to determine whether this is correct, or to what extent, by consulting polls and reading opinion pieces in various education journals and professional papers (e.g. Journal of Higher Education; The Campus Review; Chronicle of Higher Education) is likely to be of little help. In any case, it is the hypothesis (that universities and educational institutions generally are in a state of crisis), along with closely related ones, and concerns about what can be done in the circumstances, that have generated this special issue.This special issue highlights and illustrates that most of the contested issues regarding educational theory and practice central to how universities and schools should be, and how they should be run, are first and foremost questions of value rather than fact. They are questions regarding what we want, but more importantly what we should want, from our universities and schools; about what they should be and what students, teachers and administrators should be doing to facilitate this.[1] See Cox and Levine (2016a, b) and Boaks, Cox and Levine (forthcoming)
Competition, contest and the possibility of egalitarian university education
No full textCompetition and contest underpin academic life in many ways, not all of them constructive or valuable. In this paper I make a start on the task of distinguishing valuable academic competition from its opposite and suggest reforms of academic institutions that would diminish the prevalence of destructive competition and approach more nearly the egalitarian goal of treating all members of the academic community—especially, but not only, students—as equally valued and equally deserving of respect. To do this, I develop a distinction between two kinds of competition: tender competition and rank competition. I analyse the illusion of meritocracy in terms of them. My principal recommendation for university pedagogical practice is to eliminate grading of student work and replace grading systems with a system of demanding pass/fail assessments
Teachers and learners in a time of big data
No full textPolicy and technological transformation have coalesced to usher in massive changes to educational systems over the past two decades. Teachers’ roles, subjectivities and professional identities have been subject to sweeping changes enabled by sophisticated forms of governance. Simultaneously, students have been recast as ‘learners’; like teachers, learners have become subject to new forms of governance, through technological surveillance and datafication. This paper focuses on the intersection of the metrics driven approach to education and the political as a way to re-think the future of schooling in more explicitly philosophical terms. This exploration starts with a critical examination of constructions of teachers, learners and the digital data-driven educational culture in order to explicate the futures being generated. The trajectory of this future is explored through reference to the techno-educational models currently being developed in Silicon Valley. Drawing on Deleuze’s notion of control societies we contribute to the ongoing philosophical investigation of the datafication of education; a necessary discussion if we are to explore the future implications of schooling in a technologically saturated world. We present consideration of the past, present and future, as three ways of considering alternatives to a datafied education system. Alternative conceptualisations of the future of schooling are possible which offer ways of understanding and politicising what happens when we impose data-driven accountabilities into people’s lives
It’s getting personal: The ethical and educational implications of personalised learning technology
No full textPersonalised learning systems—systems that predict learning needs to tailor education to the unique learning needs of individual students—are gaining rapid popularity. Praise for educational technology is often focused on how technology will benefit school systems, but there is a lack of understanding of how it will affect the student and the learning process. By uncovering what the meaning of ‘personal’ is in educational philosophy and as embodied in the technology, we illustrate that these two understandings are different regarding the autonomy of the student. Personalised learning technology, therefore, bears the risk of failing to achieve its educational ideal of what personalisation should be. We also illustrate how personalised learning technology effects student autonomy by requiring the intensive tracking of the learning process, exposing them to privacy and data protection risks. We do not claim that education does not need technology, but we want to illustrate the importance of values as drivers of innovation
The evolution of learning: Post-pedagogical lessons for the future university
No full textThis article offers a post-pedagogical image of universities. We explore two main purposes of university education: creating an educated public and preparing learners for their future careers. This exploration draws on philosophers Barnett, MacIntyre and Nussbaum. We then utilise a series of reports from The Foundation for Young Australians to offer insights into the changing nature of society, technology, and worklife. The evolution of models or theories of learning sets the scene for the framework for how to structure the future university—a post-pedagogical learning institution in which educators are learning specialists, learners are engaged in meaningful and critical thinking, learning and acting
Education as the practice of freedom, from past to future: Student movements and the corporate university
No full textAs contemporary universities become increasingly deregulated and neoliberalised structures, how is grassroots student political organising to adapt? What role could student organisers, working in coalition with academics, unions and communities, play in shaping the Future University? We argue that student organising has an even more crucial place in the site of the neoliberal university, working against both the corporatisation of the contemporary university, as well as rising neoliberal conditions in the broader communities within which tertiary education is embedded. These conditions, without doubt, have the potential to stultify student movements by burdening students with ever-increasing debt, and packaging degrees as a commodity with a market-determined value. However, we argue, the neoliberalisation of education also engenders an opportunity for students in shaping the Future University, through grassroots advocacy for staff working conditions, and for critical pedagogies that enable the integration of transformative social justice movements with academic theory. For us, the Future University is a space that nourishes critical and creative thinking, and produces students that are able to integrate theory with radical praxis. However, for this to be realised, the ideological function of the university, in justifying and naturalising hegemonic power structures, and the very meaning of public education, must be exposed and critiqued from the ground up
Book Review: Ginnie & Pinney
No full textGinnie & Pinney ‘Think Smart’ materials (G&P) have been written for children aged three to eight, ‘to encourage deep thinking and lively discussion between each other, their parents and teachers’ and hence we understand why they have already captured the attention of Philosophy for Schools (P4C) practitioners. Matthew Lipman enshrined our aim as helping ‘children become more thoughtful, more reflective, more considerate and more reasonable individuals’ (Lipman 1980, p. 15) Let us see why you too will find them a valuable addition to your Early Years resources
Personal Information, Identification Information, and Identity Knowledge
No full textThis commentary responds to the primary article by Åste Corbridge in this volume entitled ‘Responding to Doxing in Australia: Towards a Right to Informational Self-Determination?’. It discusses the way that concepts of ‘personal information’ and ‘identification information’ from the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) correspond with the seven crucial types of identity knowledge identified by Gary T Marx and argues that these statutory definitions should be expanded to offer better protection to victims of doxing in Australia
A conversation with children about children …
No full textIn this paper, I present an experience of philosophical dialogue with small children in a public school in Bari, Italy in the context of the Philosophia Ludens for Children project (University of Bari). I present the experience, including the transcripts of six conversations with several groups of children, and then draw some inferences concerning the importance of the relationship between Universities and schools; the philosophical strength of both children’s commitment and philosophical ideas and their positive understanding of childhood