Education’s Role in Democracy: The Power of Pluralism

My task in Beyond Liberal Democracy in Schools (2008) was to develop a relational, pluralistic social political theory that moves beyond liberal democracy. I find Dewey is a key source to help us find our way out of liberal democracy’s assumptions and show us how to move on. He (1949/1960) offers us the possibilities of moving beyond individualism, with his theory of social transaction and he (1938/1955) shows us how to move beyond rationalism in his arguments for truths as warranted assertions. A transactional description of selves-in-relation-with-others describes us as becoming individuals out of our social settings. At the same time that we are becoming individuals within a social setting, we are continually affecting that social setting. Individuals are not aggregates with separate boundaries that have no relation to one another. In fact, the ‘self’ is fictive, and contingent. Our ‘selves’ are multifarious and fractured, due to repressive forces imposed upon us by others as well as supportive forces offered to us by others. Others bind us and help us become free at the same time. The democratic theory I develop is a radical democratic theory that represents feminist and multicultural concerns. This theory is radical because of my efforts to present an anti-racist theory that critiques basic foundational-level assumptions embedded within both individualism and collectivism. The theory moves beyond modernism and critical theory as it seeks to address postmodern concerns of power and exclusionary practice without appealing to grand narratives such as Reason, the Scientific Method, or Dialogue. I follow Dewey’s social transactional lead and describe our world as one that is pluralistic, relational, and in process as we continually contribute to the on-going constructing of knowing. I argue, in agreement with Dewey (1916/1996), that a democracy is a mode of associated living, not just a view of political democracy, and that it needs to be struggled for on all fronts, with all our social institutions, including: political, economic, educational, scientific, artistic, religious, and familial. This comprehensive view of democracy is consistent with the transactional relational assumption I describe, for it recognizes that social institutions are no more autonomous and separate from each other than individuals are separate from each other. For this essay, I explore education’s role in helping us understand how connected we all are to each other, moving us closer to living in a world we may someday call a democracy

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Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change by Maxine Greene

How does imagination help us as inquirers? Assuming the value of imagination for inquiry, what should teachers and schools do to help encourage and further develop students\u27 imaginative abilities? These are two questions I have been considering lately, and I have found two excellent sources to help me. I want to share them with you, the reader, first on an individual basis (as they are each worthy of their own review), then together to highlight their common bonds. Mary Catherine Bateson uses Peripheral Visions as an opportunity to reflect on her life and some of the key experiences she had that helped her learn to meet uncertainty through responsible improvision and to develop a habit of reflection. Maxine Greene also writes Releasing the Imagination as a series of essays reflecting on art that she has experienced through the years, especially literary art, which helped her learn to be wide-awake, open, and attending to the world around her

Editorial Comments

This issue of International Education begins with a focus on a particular preschool in P.R. China, and then turns its attention to school reform policy in Finland and professional development of teachers in the U.S., as well as support for special education teachers in Jordan

Editorial Comments

Editorial comments

Teaching Spirituality as Ontology in Public Schools. A Response to Democratic Foundations of Spiritual Responsive Pedagogy

In “Democratic Foundations of Spiritually Responsive Pedagogy,” Lingley worried that talk of spirituality is taboo in U.S. public school classrooms. Lingley pointed out that the dominant narrative demands silence on the topic. She wanted to make the case for spiritually responsive pedagogy as vital to an inclusive democracy. I begin this responsive essay by describing Lingley’s argument, and then I strengthen her argument through my work on relational ontologies. When we equate spirituality with ontology, we realize it is impossible to avoid teaching spirituality in our schools, for we begin passing on to our children our fishing nets to help sustain them within our families and communities as soon as they are born (one could even argue prior to birth). That passing on of basic categories of Being, through our various ways of describing our/their world, begins in the home and continues in our schools. I am in agreement with Lingley’s aim, and I find her work an exciting contribution to discussions on democracy and spirituality

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Befriending (White) women faculty in higher education

In this essay Thayer-Bacon explores the issue of a chilly climate in higher education that is generated by some women, in particular White women, and the destructive behavior they bring to higher education that damages their programs, as well as their working relationships with colleagues and students. The author seeks to find ways to befriend women in higher education, her sisters of color as well as her White sisters. Thayer-Bacon's focus here is on White women. Her approach is to use stories from the field to illustrate problems that are analyzed, using a narrative style of philosophical argument. Key words: white women faculty, higher education, horizontal violence, women of color, befriending girls and women, Susan Laird, Jane Roland Martin, and Paulo Freire Introduction As a little girl, I started first grade when I was 5 ½ years old, two weeks after my peers' first day of school, as my parents were on leave when school started. I remember my first grade teacher well, Mrs. Rogers, as I was terrified of her. Mrs. Rogers gave me some ditto sheets to do when I arrived in her class, without giving me any explanation of what I was supposed to do. Since I could not read, I could not read the instructions. I stared and stared at that paper, hoping to make sense of the pictures when a little boy sitting cate-corner behind me offered to help. He told me what to do and I followed his directions, completed the assignment, and turned in the work. I had it returned to me that same day with red lines through what was wrong, and figured out from the corrections what I was supposed to have done, which was not what my new-found friend had directed me to do. I was mortified! That day probably marks the beginning of my mistrust of teaching assistance from that little boy, although it certainly didn't cause me to lose interest in him as a friend. As I think back on this scenario today, I remember that there were several little girls sitting around me, three, I believe, and not one of them offered to help. Even if my male neighbor's assistance turned out to be less than helpful, at least he tuned in to my distress and tried to help

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead