This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction 1. Heidegger's Phenomenology 2. Heidegger on Teaching/Learning 3. Authenticity and the Phenomenon of Teaching Conclusion Notes References.

In conversation, in the lecture hall, in the Dharma centre and in the public teaching, Buddhists and students of Buddhism worry about authenticity. Is the doctrine defended in a particular text or is a particular textual interpretation authentic? Is a particular teacher authentic? Is a particular practice authentic? Is a phenomenon under examination in a scholarly research project authentically Buddhist? If the doctrine, teacher, practice or phenomenon is not authentically Buddhist, we worry that it is a (...) fraud, that our scholarship, teaching or religious life is vacuous, or at least that it is not really Buddhist studies or Buddhist practice. It is hard for me to remember a conversation of any length with a Western or Tibetan colleague, or with a serious advanced student in which the term “authenticity” or a cognate did not arise, and in which that term did not function as a term of approbation. (shrink)

Authenticity, Reception and Media Reality This article deals with the reception of media reality, which is meant to be an alternative mode of consciousness, and with the phenomenon of authenticity and its understanding within media reality. It is also pointed out the distortion in the reception of media reality. As an unifying concept for media education and for the treatment of reception defects it is mentioned media anthropology - an interdisciplinary, respectively trans-disciplinary science, which can provide more (...) consistent re-analyzing of the relationship between man and media as tools for improving his skills. From the methodological point of view the method of epistemological anarchism, Paul Feyerabend's "anything goes" is explained as an epistemological translation tool for developing reviewing competences and reception skills as a whole. We propose to deal the distortion of media reception in different therapeutic ways: from sensory deprivation, through media substitution, organic reception, to transcendence of the observer and imitation of media - meta-creation. In the sense of organic, systemic reception we in fact propose to "copy" the communication strategy of media system in order to extend or set appropriate "epistemic" competences. In the related illustration of this mechanism, the theory of A. Weinstock is applied for setting a research indifference point in the middle of a fictive reception continuum of polarities sympathy and antipathy with media. This paper represents a part of activities, which summarize author's dissertation thesis Reception instruction in the media reality, where there are presented not only analyses and attempted typology of reception instructions, but also case studies with specific proposals for teaching and researching within areas of media ethics and media education. (shrink)

This paper arises out of the transition from a PhD thesis on Heidegger's phenomenology to my attempts to come to terms with 'becoming a teacher'. The paper will provide a phenomenological interpretation of being a teacher in relation to the question of an 'authentic' interpretation of teaching/learning and the possibility of an authentic interpretative praxis. I will argue that being a teacher is a phenomenon of human existence which can be interpreted as a possible way of being with (...) authentic and inauthentic potentialities. This way of being is intrinsically linked to that of learning; of becoming human or becoming the authentic possibilities of being-human. As such, the problem of being a teacher is primarily an ethical question (or a question of ɛτηοσ—dwelling); of who we are as humans and of how being a teacher engages with the in-formation of the becoming of students as authentic human beings. This then leads to the problem of how a phenomenological interpretation of education can be applied or lived; of authenticity in teaching/learning and the possibilities of authentic learning environments (educational dwelling). (shrink)

It is known that modern philosophy understands death as a denial of the reality of life and, on the contrary, the establishment of non-being. Death fixes the existence of specific manifestations of life on Earth. For a long time, the explanation of the phenomenon of human death was dominated by a religious point of view, which presented death not as an end but as a prerequisite for the further transformation of life. In the future, we present the very Christian-theological (...) vision of the problem. (shrink)

Zen master Dōgen 道元, the founder of the Sōtō sect in medieval Japan, is often referred to as the leading classical philosopher in Japanese history and one of the foremost exponents of Mahayana Buddhist thought. His essays, sermons and poems on numerous Buddhist topics included in his main text, the Shōbōgenzō 正法眼蔵, reflect an approach to religious experience based on a more philosophical analysis of topics such as time and temporality, impermanence and momentariness, the universality of Buddha-nature and naturalism, and (...) the role of language and emotions in the experience of enlightenment, as well as practical matters such as ethics and the precepts or meditation and daily activity, than is generally found in the writings of most thinkers in the Japanese Zen school. The single main element in Dōgen’s unique approach to Buddhist theory and practice is his emphasis on the multiple meanings of “impermanence” in personal experience and as the basis for Buddhist metaphysics. In particular, he emphasizes the radical impermanence of each and every phenomenon and the need to attain spiritual realization by acknowledging and identifying, rather than resisting or denying, the ephemeral nature of reality. The notion of impermanence or the transiency of all aspects of human and natural existence has always been a fundamental feature of the Buddhist teaching since the sermons of the Buddha dealing with the doctrines of anātman and anitya regarding the insubstantial, selfless nature of things. However, Dōgen repeatedly cautions against any subtle tendency to view ultimate reality––nirvāṇa or the universal “Buddha-nature” ––as an eternal realm separable from, or independent of, impermanence. Instead, he stresses that a full, unimpeded, and perpetually renewed experience of impermanence and of the unity of “being-time” is the touchstone and framework of every aspect of Buddhist meditative training and spiritual realization. Other key doctrines related to this are the “spontaneous here-and-now manifestation of Zen enlightenment”, the “eternal moment of meditation”, the “immediacy of awakening”, and “impermanence-Buddha-nature”. In addition to looking at Dōgen’s poetic writings on aesthetic experience, later writings on karma and supernaturalism will be briefly examined for their contributions to his philosophical discussions of mystical awareness and the issues of commitment and responsibility involved in authentic religious practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Layers of Seeing and Seeing through Layers: The Work of Art in the Age of Digital ImageryLouisa Wood Ruby (bio)Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the (...) time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership.—Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, 1936In consulting on or creating a Web site designed to use works of art for teaching purposes, it is extremely important to be aware of the differences between seeing an artwork “in the flesh” and in reproduction. Museum educators are highly aware of this disparity and are therefore eager to have students visit museums to experience authentic works of art instead of seeing them only in books, slides, or on Web sites. Already in 1936, Walter Benjamin called attention to the drawbacks of reproductions; his words resonate all the more in our age of digital image overload. Easy access to images is, of course, desirable, and the advanced technologies we now have can even aid our understanding of a work of art. Nonetheless, the physical experience of standing in front of a work of art can never be replicated by seeing it on a flat screen or a piece of paper. In this article I will examine the advantages, disadvantages, differences, and similarities between looking at a Web-based image of a Rembrandt painting, a photograph of a Rembrandt painting, and actually standing in front of one of his original works. I will also discuss the more advanced technologies for examining paintings and how they can help us “see” further into a work of art and increase our understanding of it. [End Page 51]When standing in front of a painting, you are seeing a three-dimensional object with a history of its own. Its nicks, the dings in its frame, its true colors and texture, its exact size, the quality of the brushstrokes, and the amount of paint are all visible to the careful observer, who stands in a long line of viewers over the centuries who have appreciated the artist’s achievement. When approached from different angles, a painting in real space can even seem to vary in the mood it conveys or the impression it gives. A striking demonstration of this phenomenon occurred during a recent visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when Rika Burnham, a museum educator, divided our Rembrandt Project group in half and asked us to look at Rembrandt’s 1660 Self-Portrait from different angles and describe the sitter’s mood. When we compared notes, our impressions of the painting were so different that an outside listener would have thought we were looking at two completely different paintings. We then switched angles, and our respective impressions changed dramatically. Effects of light (shadows, highlights, color) and interpretations of elements in the painting, such as the hand or the hat, had been affected by the angle from which we had approached the work, and these minor adjustments had significantly altered the way we “read” the painting.This kind of experience is of course not possible when looking at a photograph of a work of art. A photograph can be very useful and can usually tell you much about a painting, but, unfortunately, the photograph itself is an object that was taken at a specific time and place, under specific circumstances that might or might not be ideal for capturing the essence of what it is trying to reproduce. Because the angle from which a photograph is taken remains static, it only allows us to experience the painting from one direction, under the given set of lighting conditions. Other problems abound. Two color reproductions of a given painting will more than likely offer wildly different color tonalities because photographs and reproductions in many publications imperfectly correct for color. Lighting of the painting may... (shrink)

Almost a quarter-century after the Carnegie report, Scholarship Reconsidered, the scholarship of teaching remains a contested idea, celebrated by some and critiqued by others. This new book is particularly relevant now however as it explores the notion of the scholarship of teaching through the lens of authenticity, a complex, intriguing and particularly striking and distinctively helpful notion which has caught the attention of several authors in adult and higher education. However, those writing about authenticity do not (...) always make explicit what it is that they mean by this notion, nor are they clear about the philosophical foundations underpinning it. In developing the notion of the scholarship of teaching as an 'authentic practice', the author draws on several complementary philosophical ideas to explore the nature of this practice, why it is imperative for universities to engage in it, what meaningful engagement wold look like and the conditions under which it might qualify as 'authentic'. Core constructs employed include practice virtue communicative action 'being', 'power', critical reflection and transformationThe scholarship of teaching is described as a practice sustained through critical reflection and critical self-reflection. Being a scholar of teaching is viewed as an ongoing transformative learning process, a process of becoming authentic, the latter ultimately aimed at both helping students to become authentic and creating a better world in which to teach, learn and live. Although explored as a practice in its own right, the scholarship of teaching is seen to be strengthened by being situated within a wider integrated notion of academic practice. The book combines the author's previous research on authenticity with earlier work on the meaning of the scholarship of teaching, offering a provocative, fresh and timely perspective on the scholarship of teaching and professional learning in our times but also providing guidance on how to create a better world in which to learn, teach and live. (shrink)

In this paper, Katja Castillo approaches the phenomenon of teaching through an analysis of Emmanuel Levinas's unedited conference notes titled “Les nourritures,” “Les enseignements,” and “L'écrit et l'oral.” Levinas's thinking prior to the publication of his major works provides an entry point to his philosophy. In this light Castillo interprets his conference notes as laying the groundwork for the argument he develops later in Totality and Infinity. Drawing on the notes, she describes the phenomenon of teaching (...) as a place to bracket subjective freedom in order to let the other call it into question. The phenomenon of teaching serves as a way to describe the relationship between the same and the other. It is, according to Levinas, a unique interplay between interiority and exteriority, where subjective freedom is intertwined with responsibility to the other, with having to answer to the other. He describes the structure of teaching as characterized by six parts: by being given a past, by reflection, by penetration of freedom, by critical spirit, by transcendence of teaching, and as true symbolism. Following the discussion of Levinas's early writings, Castillo returns to his first major work, Totality and Infinity published in 1961, with the intention of examining the evolution of his phenomenological attitude over time. This approach reveals that Levinas's engagement in formulating a philosophy of education was more robust than previous research has indicated. (shrink)

A guide to help educators navigate the often-stressful landscape of contemporary higher education through the pursuit of mindfulness and presence.

This article describes two heuristic strategies for problem solving: the use of false assumption strategy and the use of double false assumption strategy. Both of these strategies have their roots deep in history. In this article, we define these two strategies and illustrate their use in a problem developed by Frances Pellos. The article provides an overview of occurrences of these two strategies in various mathematical and educational texts. The texts show clearly that both of these strategies played a significant (...) role in mathematics education in the past. We present some examples from concrete historical documents, which we use later for the preparation of a teaching experiment. We also present the conclusions of an experiment conducted on three lower secondary schools in the Czech Republic, the goal of which was to test the applicability of the use of false assumption strategy as a propaedeutic to solving word problems using equations. (shrink)

Essays on a wide range of areas and topics in Asian studies for scholars looking to incorporate Asia into their worldview and teaching. Contributors give contemporary presence to Asian studies through a variety of themes and topics in this multidisciplined and interdisciplinary volume. In an era of globalization, scholars trained in Western traditions increasingly see the need to add materials and perspectives that have been lacking in the past. Accessibly written and void of jargon, this work provides an adaptable (...) entrée to Asia for the integration of topics into courses in the humanities, social sciences, cultural studies, and global studies. Guiding principles, developed at the East-West Center, include noting uncommon differences, the interplay among Asian societies and traditions, the erosion of authenticity and cultural tradition as an Asian phenomenon as well as a Western one, and the possibilities Asian concepts offer for conceiving culture outside Asian contexts. The work ranges from South to Southeast to East Asia. Essays deal with art, aesthetics, popular culture, religion, geopolitical realities, geography, history, and contemporary times. “This volume truly lies at the intersection of scholarship and teaching. Each essay has the potential to help rethink approaches to scholarly issues, and there is a great deal of material for classroom discussion and examples. The book’s breadth—covering India, China, Korea, the Sea of Malay, Bhutan, and other locations—is impressive.” — Robert André LaFleur, Beloit College. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The purpose is to justify the validity of interpreting Descartes’ teachings as an enquiry into the search for forms and means of improving human nature, which implies a focus on the way he understands the openness of knowledge and education. The problem is considered from the perspective of representatives of university communities (teachers and librarians), historically included in the communication structure and system of the institution, including through the creation, management, use, preservation and dissemination of knowledge. _Theoretical basis._ One (...) of the tenets of Descartes’ teachings is his desire to improve the human being. For our consideration, it is fundamentally important that Descartes uses "knowledge" not only in a narrow sense – as natural scientific knowledge, but also in a broader sense. In the context of the theme of the study, the most important case is when the thinker recalls the knowledge that every person experiences without referring to philosophy. It is this knowledge that, for Descartes, is key in resolving the central problem of his ethics – how can human nature be perfected? For our consideration of Descartes’ key points, it is fair to focus on the manifestation of the phenomenon of altruism in Descartes’ philosophy and on the representative fact of his inner openness – his willingness to engage in dialogue. He appreciates and encourages his interlocutors to turn to books, which are a form of representation of the vivid personalities of their authors. _Originality._ For the first time in the research literature, the thesis of René Descartes as one of the forerunners of the open knowledge system is substantiated. The arguments are given for the validity of Descartes’ interpretation of the demand of his own epoch for the search of effective forms of human improvement. _Conclusions._ The idea of justification of Descartes’ philosophical legacy as a predictor of open knowledge became possible under the condition of paying attention to the anthropological turn he made and finding substantive analogues of openness, including open education. Drawing on Christianity as the basis for altruism, Descartes demonstrates a caring attitude towards the achievements of previous generations on the path of personal self-development. His attention is rightly drawn to education and books as representations of vibrant personalities. Their authentic and productive assimilation is possible only under the condition of a caring attitude towards the public good, which involves the intellectual volunteering of teachers and librarians. It is about self-realization through altruistic self-improvement, i.e. intellectual charity, which is especially evident today during martial law in Ukraine and is voluntary, conscious and free work for the benefit of others. (shrink)

This article explores the significance of sustainability and several ways in which education for sustainable development can be considered. It presents several issues related to the theories of sustainability and ESD, which are generated based on a firm concept of anthropocentrism. ESD has been used for developing a scientific understanding of the world and is expected to effectively address the environmental damage facing humans. However, this is a narrow view of sustainability, through which learners do not gain an authentic understanding (...) of nature. If the phenomenon of ecological interdependence is true, a non-anthropocentric stance of sustainability is the actual representation required for ESD teaching. Ecological wisdom in Buddhist philosophy indicates that natural sustainability corresponds to human living in harmony with the natural environment, an insight derived particularly from the Buddhist concept of the no-self. Instead of denying the existence of ‘I’, the no-self is the loss of self-preoccupation. This notion highlights the non-dual relation between the self and this world. If I am I and nature is nature, then human sustainability differs from natural sustainability. Only when I am nature and nature is I can natural sustainability translate into human sustainability. This state presents actual sustainability for humans. Regarding ESD, it can be achieved by coming to nature, and learning to see nature in ourselves. As nature does, it comes to all beings, manifesting itself in all beings. (shrink)

The purpose of the study is to develop and describe the author's model of teaching foreign language listening using authentic video content. As a result, the author presents a six-stage model, which includes content-goal-setting, two activity-technological, two control-evaluative and revising-target stages, concretized through the system of communicative tasks. The novelty of the study lies in the identification of the linguo-methodological potential of authentic video content for teaching foreign language listening and modeling this process on the basis of the (...) corresponding principles – main and specific. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Deborah Bradley, “Oh that Magic Feeling! Multicultural Human Subjectivity, Community, and Fascism’s Footprints”Marja HeimonenDeborah Bradley has written a most interesting paper that is concerned with anti-racism pedagogy and significant musical moments. Her study has a moral and an ethical dimension; the style of writing is fresh and honest, and she is deeply involved in her important theme. In addition, she is able to explore both sides of (...) the same coin: how music education may support not only anti-racism but also fascism.The approach might be characterized as socially and politically oriented philosophical research. I think that it is most important to shed light on philosophical and theoretical concepts and make them clearer through practical examples, and this is how Bradley explores her research subject. The theories and concepts she uses, such as the concept “multicultural human subjectivity,” are clarified not only by theoretical exploration but also through the personal experiences of human beings particularly interviews of choir members.A more coherent structure, and a focus on a theme, might have helped the writer to go deeper in her research subject, but in that case, the paper would have very probably lost its mission for music educators: the promotion of anti-racism as part of critical pedagogy, not only theoretically but also in practice. Moreover, the structure of the paper and its philosophical argumentation might have been clearer if the writer had focused just on the first theme in her paper: the positive effects of music education, especially a world choir music curriculum, argued to promote both self-understanding (connected with identity) and tolerance between different kinds of human beings. But, the writer also decided to explain [End Page 85] the darker side of the same phenomenon, music and music education used for questionable instrumental purposes and ideologies; for promoting fascism, for instance.I think that this turning point is indeed fascinating and it sheds light on the multiple functions of music education in our societies. Music and education in Nazi Germany is taken as an example, but it is not only the specific historical circumstances, the Third Reich, that demonstrates these problems: “freedom” and “democracy” can be interpreted in various ways, and creating “better people” may refer to different kinds of educational aims also in our multicultural world of today. What should music educators do? Should music education be separated from all kinds of social aspects related to moral and ethical education?Bradley raises questions rather than gives answers, which is as valuable as aiming at finding one right answer (that may not exist). Of course, music’s autonomy could be one basis for music education: the aim of music educators could be to teach children to analyze musical structures and to understand musical works cognitively. A Kantian view of pure art, aesthetic experience, morality and beauty, or excellence as the aim of artistic activity might also be taken as an aim in music education. Following these views, the choir director should rather train the choir members to sing purely in rhythm than to concentrate on authentic emotions, promoting their growing into morally conscious and ethically responsible human beings. Philosophically, the debate between an aesthetic approach and a more pragmatic (praxial) one might be found behind the questions addressed in this paper,1 although Bradley rather refers to the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno’s ideas on music education.Adorno, who lived in the shadow of Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Russia, is a multidimensional sociologist, musician, composer, musicologist, and philosopher, whose works have been interpreted in various ways: actually, he not only defends music’s autonomy, but simultaneously argues that the ideal of music’s self-containment is just an illusory projection (of a bourgeois subject). In other words, his dialectical method aims at keeping opposing views together, and his ideas—rooted in critical social theory—have become a source for new critical musicology.2 Adorno was not a music educator or a pedagogue in instrumental or vocal music, and his view of teaching contemporary music for children could, in my view, be regarded almost as questionable as the German views he criticized as fascist: the aim to educate amateur musicians... (shrink)

Today’s world is one of quick civilization changes, influencing the development of human thought and the understanding of many basic values. Particularly the last decades have posed a concrete question about freedom and its limitations. The value of freedom is still today being reborn and restructured, once suspicious as a source of sin, now a challenge and a responsible task for the human. Similar questions have also arisen as to the ideas of human dignity and mutual respect, as inherent parts (...) of the human condition.The contemporary world, despite being a new era in human history, does not, in fact, differ much from the Europe of the Middle Ages—divided and united by Christianity, paradoxical in that we strive to build solidarity and closeness and at the same time feel lost and helpless against the evil of the world. With that knowledge we may avoid unnecessary tragedies, learning from St. Francis times, where there was everything in that world—wars, fears, diseases on the one hand, asceticism and self-denial on the other—but no joy. A question may arise whether the voice of St. Francis would still be heard and listened to today. Whether his example would teach love, ecumenism and evangelical joy.The word «ecumenism» is and has been widely used, but often without any deeper reflection on its rich history and variety of meanings. Against the divisions and hatred of contemporary world, the idea of ecumenism increases its importance, becoming one of the main areas of Christian concern. Vatican II brought about a new era of ecumenical thinking, not only defining the theological basis for dialogue, but most importantly, showing its value and encouraging active participation of the faithful. Such participation requires, however, a man’s inner change–which cannot occur without appropriate formation and everyday practice of ecumenism. That presupposes respect for the other, pursuance of mutual trust, openness to widely understood cooperation and elimination of prejudice and fears. Such formation and change must encompass everyone without any difference, laymen and clergy, the faithful and the searching, so that the actions show true concern for the human as such. In that sense, ecumenism is an “inner conversion” (as says A. Skowronek), a new attitude towards the other—religion, human, culture.Against the above mentioned background, one can say that St. Francis exceeded whole centuries of ecumenical dialogue. However, to analyze his phenomenon, one must concentrate on the historical picture, leaving aside any strictly legendarymythological images.St. Francis’s popularity seems to be—almost irrationally—growing with the passage of time, despite not offering anything new or revealing. As a matter of fact, St. Francis reappears in all centuries, teaching the Christian message and teaching to love. His humanism is realized in kindness, solidarity, authentic respect and pure love of God and the human. The human is central in St. Francis’s thinking—great, beautiful and dramatic, full of dignity, and full of the conflict of his inborn goodness and threatening evil. The key to understanding him is only love, assuring freedom and spiritual richness. Yet St. Francis claims: Love is not loved. Re-reading the Gospel anew is a way to meet that Love, and oneself.The human always needed love. Love is inextricably connected with goodness and hence a positive relation towards the other. Those qualities, together with respect, acceptance and search for the truth, are also fundamental to ecumenism. Love appears to be the answer. St. Francis loved not only God, not only the human, but he loved and praised the beauty of all of God’s creation, his love being “the most literal realization of the message contained in the Gospel” (K. Starczewska). But as the first step to love and respect is for the human to respect his own dignity in himself. In that way, he shall also discovers his right to freedom and the truth about himself.The conclusion is the following: Undoubtedly, the character of St. Francis is a universal one. He spoke of his love of God—and human—in concrete deeds of love, never in abstract concepts. Tradition and legend have partly made St. Francis to a cheerful, carefree troubadour of love; however, he knew well the modern world, with its disagreements, hatred and half-truths. A simple tool in God’s hand, he made others overcome the prejudice in them and shake hands in reconciliation, practicing good deeds. Whether that still happens today, and the world adopts St. Francis’s humanistic attitude, depends also on us. (shrink)

The article aims to shed light on teaching the Arabic language in non¬-Arab countries, especially since the Arabic language it is the main gateway to learning the Qur’an and its sciences, the current reading also aspires of the Arabic language and the reality if its teaching methods to non Arabic speakers, and the obstacles the prevent the educational process from being achieved. The article also shows the role of reading in teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers, (...) reading is on one of transferring knowledge, and reading enriches perceptions and expands knowledge and information, The current reading aspires to know the different types of reading, as each has characteristics that differ from the others, Therefore, knowing the types of reading and methods of teaching them contributes to the status of teaching Arabic as a foreign language, and constitutes a means to understand and communicate it correctly and soundly.The work was divided into axes. In the first axis, the research will reveal the status of the Arabic language, whether for its speakers or for non-native speakers，It gained this status from being the language of the Qur’an, In addition to the fact that it contributes to the throne of languages by speaking them and using them to understand religious, economic, cultural and commercial matters.The second axis will focus on the meaning of teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers, and teaching it by transmitting it to them by helping another individual to communicate with it and learn it as a second language.Then, the reality of Arabic language teaching curricula and the problems they face were discussed. Especially with the presence of a large number of these curricula, with their different plan, method, and time duration, the teacher here finds himself faced with confusion in choosing the appropriate curriculum for the group - non-Arabic speakers - he is entrusted with teaching, and which suits their abilities and intellectual inclinations.The article also shows that there are good curricula that have been highly successful in delivering and transferring the academic content to the learner. This is due to its respect for a set of pedagogical rules and controls and the hierarchy of the curriculum. The clearer the curriculum is and built on specific foundations and elements, the more effective and profitable it is.There is no doubt that it is not possible to download and teach any educational curriculum without a teacher who has several scientific methods and skills. That is, he must have a set of skills and be armed with a variety of methods in teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers. Something that contributes to the success of the educational process.A good professor is one who diversifies his methods while teaching non-Arabic speaking students. Therefore, the article aims to pay attention to the teacher and train him according to certain basics, including the cultural basis of the country in which he will study, and the cognitive and professional basis. The research also recommended the need to hold training courses and workshops to train teachers of the Arabic language to non-native speakers.The research has confirmed that reading has an important and fundamental role in teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers, and that this skill contributes to providing the learner with a large linguistic resource, as well as benefiting from the depths of Arabic books, and also helps in improving the level of pronunciation and communication with a good master of the Arabic language.The article also explains that teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers suffers from several obstacles and obstacles that prevent achieving the goal of the educational learning process, including reading weakness among learners, especially at the level of pronunciation, in addition to inversion, substitution, and lack of distinction between similar sounds in pronunciation.The current reading shows that despite these problems and obstacles; However, the experiences related to teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers are moving in the right direction.The article relied on the descriptive and analytical approach. To describe and analyze the phenomenon of teaching the Arabic language to non-native speakers, with the need to point out that the proposed reading is not final and does not claim to have the final say or possess the “truth”, as long as it is one among other possible readings. (shrink)

How should we teach controversial issues? And which issues should we teach as controversies? In this paper, I argue that educators should heed what I call a ‘psychological condition’ in their practical efforts to address these questions. In defending this claim, I engage with the various decision criteria that have been advanced in the controversial issues literature: the epistemic criterion, behavioral criterion, political criterion and politically authentic criterion. My argument is that the supporters of these various criteria have focused too (...) closely on the socio-political and epistemic qualities of controversial issues in deriving their controversial issues pedagogies and have thereby overlooked the necessary subjective conditions for teaching controversial issues. If our pedagogical efforts to cultivate students’ reason by means of controversial issues are to be successful, then we must understand controversy as fundamentally a psychological phenomenon consisting in an intellectual tension in the minds of students. In the final pages, I conclude by recommending several forms of directive teaching that promise to be instrumental for creating such intellectual tension. (shrink)

_Purpose._ This paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of a human being within the Confucian tradition as well as its interpretations from intercultural perspective. _Theoretical basis._ One of the ways to understand the deepest level of the intercultural dialogue is to reveal the interpretations of a human being in philosophical traditions, since they refer to the formation of personality and identity within a given culture including interpersonal, intergroup, and intercultural relations. Humanism based on the unity of Human and Heaven (...) runs like a red thread through the philosophical teachings of Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming defining the ideas of human nature, his/her duties, his/her place and roles in society that shaped the Chinese mentality. _Originality._ Quite often, Chinese concepts (for example, human dignity beyond the ideas of democracy and mass political participation, guanxi, mianzi) are incomprehensible to the representatives of the Western civilization, which leads to the challenges in intercultural communication. The interpretation of these ideas in the context of Confucianism allows to understand them from the perspective of Others and expand the set of patterns of cultural perception. This ultimately leads to the awareness that there are many social, political, cultural realities, which we perceive through the lens of our own concepts and attitudes. The participants of an intercultural dialogue realize that each of them has a unique experience, own way of posing a problem and resolving it, and no one is better or worse. _Conclusions._ Confucian philosophy shaped the worldview of Chinese people, defined values, goals, meanings, attitudes, communication models, which affected all spheres of Chinese life and culture. The study of the philosophical heritage of the great Chinese civilization enhances the cultural competence of the intercultural communicators and expands the field of dialogue to the level of global communication. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of authenticity and its relevance in education, from a philosophical perspective. Under the heading of educational authenticity, I critique Fred Newmann’s views on authentic pedagogy and intellectual work. I argue against the notion that authentic engagement is usefully analyzed in terms of a relationship between school work and: “real” work. I also seek to clarify the increasingly problematic concept of constructivism, arguing that there are two distinct constructivist theses, only one of which deserves (...) serious attention. I explain that the correspondence view of authenticity pays insufficient attention to the reality that the presence of “real world” connections does not guarantee that teaching and learning will be truly authentic. As a bridge to a philosophically acceptable understanding of authenticity, I reflect on John Dewey, who famously strove to base his views on education on the experience of the child, while rejecting that such experience requires validation from the “real” world. And Jean Jacques Rousseau offers several clues as to how the search for an authentic self might proceed beyond the Romanticist vision of an inner essence. These include the idea of the self as constructed inter-subjectively, which I capture by the term “one among others” and which, in turn, reveals persons as dialogically engaged in working out who they are and what they stand for. There is a clear affinity here with the imperative proposed by Newmann. I embrace the idea that the cultivation of dialogue should be a key priority in classrooms, because dialogue drives each individual to seek meaning in the context of seeing her/himself as one among others. I highlight the role of the classroom community of inquiry as an environment which has the dual function of cultivating disciplined inquiry and facilitating the kind of personal development that can, most properly, be termed “authentic”. (shrink)

Student authentication and authorship checking systems are intended to help teachers address cheating and plagiarism. This study set out to investigate higher education teachers’ perceptions of the prevalence and types of cheating in their courses with a focus on the possible changes that might come about as a result of an increased use of e-assessment, ways of addressing cheating, and how the use of student authentication and authorship checking systems might impact on assessment practice. This study was carried out within (...) the context of the project TeSLA (an Adaptive Trust-based e-assessment System for Learning) which is developing a system intended for integration within an institution’s Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) offering a variety of instruments to assure student authentication and authorship checking. Data was collected at two universities that were trialling the TeSLA system, one in Turkey, where the main modes of teaching are face-to-face teaching and distance education, and one in Bulgaria, where the main modes of teaching are face-to-face teaching and blended learning. The study used questionnaires and interviews, building on existing TeSLA project evaluation activities and extending these to explore the specific areas we wished to examine in more depth.In three of the four contexts cheating was seen by teachers as a serious and growing problem, the exception was the distance education context where the teachers believed that the existing procedures were effective in controlling cheating. Most teachers in all four contexts expected cheating to become a greater problem with increased use of e-assessment. Student authentication was not seen as a major problem in any of the contexts, as this was felt to be well controlled through face-to-face proctored assessments, though the problem of assuring effective authentication was seen by many teachers as a barrier to increased use of e-assessment. Authorship checking was seen as a major issue in all contexts, as copying and pasting from the web, ghost writing and plagiarism were all reported as widely prevalent, and authorship checking was seen as becoming even more important with increased use of e-assessment. Teachers identified a third category of cheating behaviours, which was the accessing of information from other students, from written materials, and from the internet during assessments.Teachers identified a number of approaches to addressing the problem of cheating: education, technology, assessment design, sanctions, policy, and surveillance. Whilst technology was not seen as the most important approach to prevention, student authentication and authorship checking systems were seen as relevant in terms of reducing reliance on face-to-face proctored examinations, and in improving the quality of assessment through supporting the employment of a wider range of assessment methods. The development of authorship checking based on computational linguistic approaches was an area of particular interest. Student authentication and authorship checking systems were not seen as being able to address the third category of cheating behaviours that the study identified. (shrink)

The information‐transference account of teaching takes it to be a process in which information is transferred from one person's mind to another's. Augustine argues that this is impossible, since in order to understand something the person who understands must come to see why it is so, and that is an internal episode of awareness that isn't caused by an outside source. Augustine's insight here is contrasted with the contemporary view, following Wittgenstein, that learning is a matter of conformity to (...) rules (public norms). The case is made that teaching and learning pose philosophical problems that contemporary theories don't address, and a brief examination of Searle's Chinese Room example suggests that its plausibility derives from Augustine's insight that mere rule‐following behavior isn't enough to explain the phenomenon of understanding at the heart of knowledge. A reconstruction of Augustine's epistemological claims, divorced from his discredited views in the philosophy of language, is also provided. (shrink)

Quite honestly, it is not easy to see what all the fuss is about. Sir Julian Huxley was clearly impressed. “A landmark in modern thought which we cannot afford to pass by” wrote John Stewart Collis in the Sunday Times, and the following week Arnold Toynbee in the Observer wrote: “This is a great book. If it is eclipsed by anything, it is by the spirit of the author, which shines through it”. The French reaction to the original text was (...) at least equally enthusiastic. André Rousseaux in Figaro Littéraire says: “Not since the 12th. Century has there been such a satisfying exposition of the perfect understanding between the material world and that of Christ Incarnate”. One wonders how much of the enthusiasm is due to the fact that Father Teilhard was not allowed to publish his philosophical thought in his own lifetime. The facts of his life are well known. Born in 1881, he joined the Jesuits in 1899 and was ordained. in 1912. Prehistory, geology, palaeontology, anthropology, were his chief intellectual interests, and he took his doctorate in the Sorbonne in 1922. He became professor of geology in the Institut Catholique in Paris and in 1923 went with Pére Licent S.J. to China on a palaeontological mission. The detail is given by Sir Julian in the introduction, in the course of which he pays Père Teilhard many felicitous tributes, notably that he was “a dedicated Christian priest.” On his return to France, Sir Julian tells us, “some of the ideas which he had expressed in his lectures about original sin and its relation to evolution, were regarded as unorthodox by his religious superiors, and he was forbidden to continue teaching.” He spent the next twenty years mostly in China with occasional scientific visits to India, Burma, Java, Abyssinia and the United States. The work under review was all but finished in Peking in 1938-1940. (shrink)

This chapter explains how case studies can be used successfully in distance education to provide an authentic, interactive way to teach ethical behavior through critical analysis and decision-making while addressing ethical standards and theories. The creation and choice of case studies are key for optimum learning, and can reflect both the instructor’s and students’ knowledge base. The process for using this approach is explained, and examples are provided. As a result of such practice, students support each other as they come (...) to a deeper, co-constructed understanding of ethical behavior, and they make more links between coursework and professional lives. The instructor reviews the students’ work to determine the degree of understanding and internalization of ethical concepts/applications, and to identify areas that need further instruction. (shrink)

Drawing on her 35-year plus experience in the classroom, Lisa Lee has transformed her extensive and authentic teaching experience into a contagious passion and energy with a specialization in Gifted and Talented programs and a focus on the students who don't always fit in a box. The Heart of Teaching is a book about her experience as a teacher, and the students she both taught and learned from, and the lessons she garnered as someone who always taught from (...) the heart. (shrink)

The fundamental ontology of the phenomenon of education remains an insufficiently developed scientific problem. However, it serves as the foundation for the science of education, enabling it to transcend its purely applied and quotidian nature and finally attain the genuine status of a science. Fundamental ontology provides the support and substantiation for the concepts developed by science for its own purposes. This is precisely what characterizes science as science. Previously, I developed a part of the fundamental ontology of education, (...) which I termed the instituting ontology. It includes such basic structural forms as ontological essence and relation to truth, primary constituents (universals), and non-Kuhnian paradigms, which comprise three dimensions: justificatory, universal, and paradigmatic. In the present work, the subject of my research is the anthropo-positing ontology of the phenomenon of education, in which two dimensions are distinguished: the existential-transcendental and the human-world dimensions. This article briefly examines the first dimension, which characterizes the educational movement of humans toward their essence, designated as the path to oneself. The starting point is the question of choosing authentic methods of scientific-cognitive activity for various groups of students. It is demonstrated how an individual’s problem-cognitive program illuminates the path to oneself in the sense of seeking and constructing the human foundation. Explanations are provided for the essence of the concepts “problem-cognitive program” and “non-Kuhnian paradigms,” which are necessary for understanding the presented ontological conception. The article outlines the fundamental categories of the existential-transcendental dimension of the phenomenon of education, which are defined as self-knowledge, self-expression, the spiritual, and the moral. In the category of self-knowledge, the opposition between individualization and individuation is presented, while in the category of self-expression, the opposition between reproductive and productive cognition is explored. The category of the spiritual characterizes the essence of the sphere of the spiritual in the individual and the sphere of the spiritual in the nation. It is shown that the spiritual represents the constitutive principle of personality, but not of the human being as such. The highest essential principle of the human being as such is the moral, which plays a unifying role in the quaternary of the existential-transcendental dimension of the fundamental ontology of education. (shrink)

For more than two thousand years, Confucius has been an inseparable part of China's history. Yet despite this fame,Confucius the man has been elusive. Now, in The Authentic Confucius , Annping Chin has worked through the most reliable Chinese texts in her quest to sort out what is really known about Confucius from the reconstructions and the guesswork that muddled his memory. Chin skillfully illuminates the political and social climate in which Confucius lived. She explains how Confucius made the transition (...) from court advisor to wanderer, and how he reluctantly became a professional teacher as he refined his judgment of human character and composed his vision of a moral political order. The result is an absorbing and original book that shows how Confucius lived and thought: his habits and inclinations, his relation to the people of the time, his work as a teacher and as a counselor, his worries about the world and the generations to come. In this book, Chin brings the historical Confucius within our reach, so that he can lead us into his idea of the moral and to his teachings on family and politics, culture and learning. The Authentic Confucius is a masterful account of the life and intellectual development of a thinker whose presence remains a powerful force today. (shrink)

This paper shall make an attempt to critically reflect on the conceptualization of emotions in the Indian Philosophical systems. To bring out the insight, the paper is divided into three main sections. The first section of the paper entitled ‘The Body-Emotions-Mind Complex and the Question of Self: Understanding the Dualistic Tradition’ will make an analysis of emotions and the mind-body complex vis-à-vis the question of self or consciousness in Indian Philosophy with special reference to the study of Advaita Vedānta and (...) the philosophical position of Upaniṣadic teachings. It will also incorporate the Nyāya account of emotions in the Indian philosophical system. The second section of the paper is entitled as ‘Triguṇa and the Emotional Experience: A Perspective in Sāṃkhya Philosophy’. It will reflect on the systematic presentation of Sāṃkhya philosophical system on account of its relation between the two ontological realities — puruṣa and prakṛti. It is this prakṛti which is constituted of the three guṇas — sattva, rajas and tamas; and therefore is the embodied self having its association with emotions. The third section of the paper entitled ‘Understanding Religious Emotions: Towards a Positive Representation of Emotions in Indian Philosophy’ will make an attempt to critically reflect on the necessary shift required in conceptualizing emotions in the Indian Philosophical systems. That is to say, from a negative connotation of emotions to a more significant positive account of emotions in human-spiritual life. This necessary shift will be directed towards the understanding of Religious Emotions — faith and devotion which can serve as a guiding principle to justify the soteriological approach of Indian Philosophy, i.e. towards pure consciousness. Thereby the paper shall explore the consideration of the relevance of emotions in the Indian Philosophical System. (shrink)

This article is based on the presupposition that postmodern philosophy has been largely influenced by Nietzsche's writings. The author raises the question of how Nietzsche and postmodern philosophy are interpreted in the contemporary philosophical discourse in Lithuania. The conclusion drawn is that many philosophy critics in Lithuania are interested in Nietzsche's philosophy (Mickevižius, Sodeika, Šerpytytè, Sverdiolas, Baranova) and in the problems of postmodern philosophy (Keršytè, Rubavižius, Žukauskaité, Serpytytè, Šverdiolas, Baranova, Norkus). The article also raises a second crucial question: beyond the (...) critics, are there any truly authentic postmodern thinkers in Lithuania? This article's main hypotheses is that Arvydas Šliogeris' philosophy is the best and perhaps the only example of original Lithuanian postmodern thought; it is based on, and interconnected with, the deeply inherited roots of existential thought in Lithuanian philosophical culture. The arguments for these hypotheses are as follows: first, Šliogeris is the first philosopher in Lithuania who has tried to reason in an interdisciplinary manner, e. g. trying to overcome the modernistic distinction between philosophy and the arts (especially literature, poetry, and the visual arts); secondly, Šliogeris's philosophizing is indispensable to his writings— his texts are examples of an experience of writing as thinking and thinking as writing; thirdly, following Deleuze's presupposition that the philosopher is a creator, one can see this creative aspect in Šliogeris's approach. His texts show how it is possible to synthesize insights from philosophy and poetry. (shrink)

The first part of the paper discusses the origins and meaning of democracy relative to the development of Christian political thought through the modern period; it is important here that democracy means something different in the ancient world than it does in the modern. The second part discusses the view of democracy proposed in the formative period of modern Catholic social doctrine in especially from the pontificate of Leo XIII to the Second Vatican Council. The third part analyzes the political (...) thought of St. John Paul II which seems to be the apogee of Catholic thinking about democracy. The fourth part discusses some remaining tensions and problems related to democracy that are articulated partly also in John Paul II’s thought, but in a sharper way in the thought of Pope Benedict XVI and one quite prominent challenge to the Catholic view of democracy in the phenomenon of pluralism. One can see in this history that the Church has gradually come to appreciate democracy not simply as an acceptable form of government, one that is not intrinsically at odds with Christianity, but in a positive sense, as an opportunity for human beings to achieve a level of moral development not available in other regimes. But there remain challenges associated with democracy to government and social life consistent with the natural moral law and to Christian faith. (shrink)

Both Sartre and Kohut use the idea of conflict in a positive sense to explain how authentic relations and viable therapy are possible, although there are important differences between the two thinkers on this topic. For Kohut it will be shown that optimal frustration is conceived of as a mechanism through which the healthy child, or the well-managed patient, learns to react in a calming and loving way to internal drive demands. Concomitantly, this individual learns to cope with a world (...) that is obdurate, one that will thwart his desires. By contrast, in the authentic case the child for Sartre is taught to accept the gulf between him/herself and the adult. Positive conflict becomes something the child not only accepts but also enjoys as he/ she learns to cope enthusiastically in the face of his environment's inevitable obduracy. Sartre's sense of joy and volition will be shown to go beyond Kohut's more guarded optimism in the face of the challenge of contingency. The above ideas of both Sartre and Kohut will also be used to criticize views of therapy in which understanding and empathy on the part of the therapist are taken to be the sine qua non of the therapeutic process. (shrink)

Purpose: In the educational field a lack of focus on the process of arriving at a level of profound understanding of a phenomenon can be observed. While classical approaches in education focus on "downloading," repeating, or sometimes optimizing relatively stable chunks of knowledge (both facts and procedural knowledge), this paper proposes to shift the center of attention towards a more dynamic and constructivist perspective: learning as a process of individual and collective knowledge creation and knowledge construction. The goal of (...) this process is to profoundly understand a phenomenon in its multi-dimensionality and complexity and to reflect on the processes that have lead to this understanding. The issue we want to tackle in this paper is how this profound understanding can be brought about in a technology-enhanced learning environment. Method: Part 1 of this paper explores strategies of technology-enhanced knowledge sharing/creation in the field of higher education. Part 2 presents a successful blended learning scenario that illustrates the implementation of these learning strategies in a concrete course design. In this case study students are involved in active theory construction processes by conducting virtual experiments with a virtual organism. Part 3 elaborates on the epistemological implications of this case study. Findings: A constructivist framework for modes of knowing and modes of coming to know is developed. It is shown that -- in order to reach a profound understanding of a phenomenon -- it is essential to take into account the multi-facetted character of knowledge and to use the strategy of double-loop learning. Conclusion: This leads to an understanding of learning/teaching as a process of socio-epistemological engineering. Furthermore, the role of the teacher changes in such a constructivist setting of learning/teaching: Their primary task is to provide a "pedagogically (and technologically) augmented environment." They are responsible for creating an atmosphere of collective knowledge construction and reflection. Beyond the role of a coach and moderator the teacher has to act as a facilitator or "enabler" for the (individual and collective) processes of double-loop learning. (shrink)

The paper addresses a plea by accounting educators that ethics should be integrated into the accounting curriculum (Poje and Zaman Groff 2022). Further, accountants should teach ethics. Case learning is consistent with Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of six levels of learning. The ethics literature supports using cases to teach ethics because cases allow each student to put themselves in the position of a decision-maker. Case selection should engage the learner emotionally. Therefore, current issues are preferable. With these goals—engaging the student as (...) a learner, ensuring action learning, and meeting the learning taxonomy of Bloom, the paper provides educators with a suggested road map of case materials that can be employed in accounting courses across the program. Road maps are a means to demonstrate a holistic view of curriculum design and learning execution across specific accounting courses. (shrink)

In a time marked by the development of innovative treatments in healthcare and the need for health professionals to deal with resulting ethical dilemmas in clinical practice, this study was developed to determine the influence of the bioethics teaching on the moral competence of medical and nursing students. The authors conduct a longitudinal study using the Moral Competence Test extended version before and after attending the ethics curricular unit, in three nursing schools and three medical schools of Portugal. In (...) this questionnaire the participant is confronted with three ethical dilemmas and asked to evaluate arguments for and against the attitude of the main character. For both nursing and medical students, C-score was lower after the attendance of the ethics curricular units, with a statistically significant decrease in the total score for nursing students and a decrease not statistically significant for medical students. A multivariate analysis did not find any association between this decrease and gender, course, or age. The phenomenon of moral segmentation was observed, with better performance in the worker and judge dilemma, than in the doctor dilemma. These results highlight the need to reflect on the curricular strategies that can be implemented for health professionals to better develop moral competence and decision-making, allowing for the provision of humanized health care. (shrink)

Whilst the academic literature on leadership has identified authenticity as an important leadership attribute, few studies have examined how authentic leadership is evaluated in naturally occurring discourse. This article explores how authentic leadership was characterised and evaluated in the discourse of the British press during the 2015 Labour Party leadership election—won, against the odds, by veteran left-winger Jeremy Corbyn. Using membership categorisation analysis, we show that the media discourse about authentic leadership was both ambiguous and ambivalent. In their representation (...) of authentic leadership, we found that a discourse of ‘ethical’ leadership was played out in tension with a discourse of ‘effective’ leadership. We propose that this complex and contradictory discursive landscape is also relevant in business contexts where ‘ethical’ leaders are subjected to praise for their virtues but also criticism for their ineffectiveness. Future research could usefully study how ‘ethical’ leaders in different settings can be subject to competing evaluations when their ethical values are discursively contrasted to expectations concerning what it takes to be an ‘effective’ leader. (shrink)

The purpose of the study was to analyse the influence of artificial intelligence on modern socio-cultural processes to identify key trends and factors determining its development, to reveal positive and negative aspects of the integration of artificial intelligence into various spheres of public life, including work, education, medicine, and cultural and social relationships. A methodology has been developed that defines the stages of analysing the socio-cultural impact of artificial intelligence. The main trends determining the influence of artificial intelligence on modern (...) socio-cultural processes were identified, which included automation of labour, changes in educational and medical practices, and the impact on cultural and social relationships. This provided an understanding of how the development of artificial intelligence leads to changes in the world of work, including the automation of routine tasks, the consequences for the labour market and employment. The use of artificial intelligence has changed teaching methods and educational programmes, and influenced schoolchildren, teachers, and educational institutions. The paper provided a comprehensive description of society’s perception of the use of artificial intelligence, revealing both its positive and negative aspects. The positive aspects included increased productivity, increased innovation, and improved services, while the negative aspects covered job losses, data privacy concerns, and ethical issues. The results showed that the integration of artificial intelligence into modern socio-cultural processes has significantly influenced society. The study identified a number of issues and challenges, including potential job losses, data privacy issues, and ethical issues. (shrink)

Silos, mills, sheds, and refineries: Across most of Oklahoma’s gently rolling prairie countryside these artistically uninformed structures often provide the only vertical punctuation to a landscape otherwise made of mostly horizontal lines. One of the pleasures of teaching architecture here is to participate in the intellectual progress of students—many of whom hail from rural areas and have traveled little—as they eventually come to regard these structures with much the same admiration expressed for them some eighty years ago by Le (...) Corbusier in his rallying polemic against the arbitrariness of nineteenth-century architecture: Vers Une Architecture.1 Like Le Corbusier, many of my students would have their work .. (shrink)

Over the past decade, teaching and learning in virtual worlds has been at the forefront of many higher education institutions around the world. The DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group (VWWG) consisting of Australian and New Zealand higher education academics was formed in 2009. These educators are investigating the role that virtual worlds play in the future of education and actively changing the direction of their own teaching practice and curricula. 47 academics reporting on 28 Australian higher education institutions (...) present an overview of how they have changed directions through the effective use of virtual worlds for diverse teaching and learning activities such as business scenarios and virtual excursions, role-play simulations, experimentation and language development. The case studies offer insights into the ways in which institutions are continuing to change directions in their teaching to meet changing demands for innovative teaching, learning and research in virtual worlds. This paper highlights the ways in which the authors are using virtual worlds to create opportunities for rich, immersive and authentic activities that would be difficult or not possible to achieve through more traditional approaches. (shrink)

Teachers not only serve as caretakers for the students in their classroom but also serve as stewards for society's next generation. In this way, teachers are charged with responsibility for the present and the future of their world. Shouldering this responsibility is no less than an existential dilemma that requires not only professional solutions but also personal responsibility rooted in subjective authenticity. In the edited volume, authors will explore how the philosophy of Existentialism can help teachers, teacher educators, educational (...) researchers, and policymakers better understand the existential responsibility that teachers shoulder. The core concepts of Existential philosophy explored in this edited volume imply that a teacher's lived experience cannot be defined solely by professional knowledge or dictates. Teachers have the capacity to create subjective meaning through their own agency, and there is no guarantee that those subjective meanings will accord with professional dictates. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that professional dictates are more valid than the existential realities of individual teachers. The philosophy of Existentialism encourages individuals to reflect on the existential realities of isolation, freedom, meaninglessness, and death in an effort to propel individuals towards more authentic ways of engaging in the world. The chapters of this edited volume advance the argument that being and becoming a teacher must be understood - at least in part - from the subjective perspective of the individual and that teachers are responsible for authoring the meaning of their lives and of their work. (shrink)

Background Ethical dilemmas that arise in the clinical setting often require the collaboration of multiple disciplines to be resolved. However, medical and nursing curricula do not prioritize communication among disciplines regarding this issue. A common teaching strategy, problem-based learning, could be used to enhance communication among disciplines. Therefore, a university in southern Taiwan developed an interprofessional ethics education program based on problem-based learning strategies. This study described tutors’ experience teaching in this program. Aim To explore the phenomenon (...) of teaching and learning in interprofessional ethics education for medical and nursing students from the perspectives of tutors. Design Phenomenological qualitative research. Methods Medical and nursing students completed a 6-week interprofessional ethics education program moderated by either physician or nurse tutors. At the conclusion of the ethics education program, all 14 tutors were invited to participate in focus group interviews. Among them, six tutors (three nursing tutors and three physician tutors) participated in additional individual interviews. All of the contents from the focus group interviews and individual interviews were recorded and transcribed. Using the phenomenological approach, the phenomenon of teaching and learning in interprofessional ethics education were generated. Ethical consideration The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board. Findings Three themes emerged from the tutors' teaching perspectives, including the instructor’s motivation to teach, the use of narrative case scenarios, and the emphasis on improving interprofessional ethics communication. Discussion Problem-based learning creates an interprofessional communication platform in interprofessional ethics education. The phenomenon of value convergence between tutors and students, between different students’ professions, and between different students’ professional maturities is observed. Conclusion Problem-based learning is an effective teaching strategy for creating a communication platform for interprofessional ethics education. Ethic curriculum should emphasize motivating instructor, use narrative case scenarios, and focus on interprofessional communication. (shrink)

The New Testament documents represent a variety of perceptions about the church, showing that the early church was not unitary in practise or theology. How do we explain the diversity in the early church? Existential phenomenological hermeneutics can shine insightful light on this question by utilising Heidegger’s concept of Dasein in an interpretation model. The model used the pre-structure of Dasein and its interactive circular dynamic with the hermeneutical concepts of world and phenomena to table aspects of the hermeneutic situation (...) and the resultant Dasein types as self-understanding developed from various groups’ interpretations of Jesus. In this way, the hermeneutic dynamic explains the variety of pre- and post-Easter groups. The results show that there is no objective, standard view of Jesus and no objective set of Jesus’ teachings available; no ideal Dasein type is presented for faith communities. The kerygma of the Crucified and Risen One as God’s act of salvation is the central presupposition of the church’s Dasein. The historical nature of hermeneutics cannot be denied. Historical–critical exegesis and its circular dynamic of understanding is a legitimate and sound hermeneutic model. Unhistorical hermeneutics have definite limitations and should be deemed insufficient. There is no plain meaning of any phenomenon or text, only the text or phenomenon as it is understood. Faith communities consciously partake in the hermeneutic dynamic and recognise the influence of their pre-understandings, presuppositions and prejudices which constantly be questioned and adjusted to facilitate their authentic Dasein.Contribution: This historical hermeneutical study explains that different hermeneutical situations lead to different Dasein types as various self-understandings developed according to Jesus groups’ interpretations of Jesus varied. No ideal Dasein type for faith communities is presented. These findings resonate with HTS Theological Studies focus and scope regarding historical thought in research. (shrink)