Education Commons^™

"There Was A Child Went Forth": College, Receptivity, And Understanding, Erica Stonestreet

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This was the CSB and SJU Convocation Address for 2023-24 academic year.

Can Summer Philosophy Programs Help Close The Achievement Gap?, Bailie Peterson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

While summer break presents educational and recreational opportunities for some students, students from depressed socioeconomic groups may face significant obstacles in the summer, including learning loss. In general, these students also lack access to a wide range of intrinsic and instrumental benefits attached to the study of philosophy. While there are currently existing philosophy programs, this contribution highlights the connections between summer experiences and the overall achievement gap, while identifying specific practices shown to yield successful summer programs. Philosophy provides an impressive set of benefits, including academic skills and opportunities for personal growth and development. Incorporating best practices while focusing …

A New Vision Of Liberal Education: The Good Of The Unexamined Life, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Alistair Miller’s book, A New Vision of Liberal Education, is a dilation of his doctoral thesis, but it is enormously ambitious in aim: “My specific aim in this book is to explore whether aspects of the two traditions [of Enlightenment and Aristotelian ethics] might be synthesised in the concrete form of a liberal-humanist education” (NVLE, 11). Indeed, the arc of Miller’s argument ranges from these contrasting traditions of moral philosophy, through alternate versions of liberal education, to a proposal for curricular content. The book is well researched and proceeds dialectically, as Miller sifts through scholarship on liberal education, moral education, …

Teaching Students About Finding Their Religious Justice Roots, Dean Johnson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Teaching About The Politics Of Religion And Social Change, Dean Johnson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Liberal Education (An Overview), Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Book Summary: Education is a field sometimes beset by theories-of-the-day and with easy panaceas that overpromise the degree to which they can alleviate pressing educational problems. The two-volume Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy introduces readers to theories that have stood the test of time and those that have provided the historical foundation for the best of contemporary educational theory and practice. Drawing together a team of international scholars, this invaluable reference examines the global landscape of all the key theories and the theorists behind them and presents them in the context needed to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In …

Books And Our Human Stories, Paul H. Benson

Philosophy Faculty Publications

An essay on the impact of the works in the Imprints and Impressions: Milestones in Human Progress, an exhibition of rare books from the collection of Stuart Rose. Exhibition was held Sept. 29-Nov. 9, 2014, at the University of Dayton.

Statement On Massive Open Online Courses (Moocs), Felmon Davis, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Statement prepared by Felmon Davis and D. E. Wittkower in consultation with the American Philosophical Association’s committee on philosophy and computers.

A Cognitive Approach To Teaching Strategies, Emily Esch

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Our knowledge of how the mind works is growing rapidly. One area of particular interest to philosophy teachers is research on reasoning and decision making processes. I explore one model of human cognition that offers new ways of thinking about how to teach philosophical skills. The bulk of the paper is dedicated to exposition of the model and the evidence that supports it; at the end of the paper, I suggest ways these findings might be incorporated into the classroom.

Mobile Knowledge, Karma Points, And Digital Peers: The Tacit Epistemology And Linguistic Representation Of Moocs, Lisa Portmess

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Media representations of massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as those offered by Coursera, edX and Udacity reflect tension and ambiguity in their bold promise of democratized education and global knowledge sharing. An approach to MOOCs that emphasizes the tacit epistemology of such representations suggests a richer account of the ambiguities of MOOCs, the unsettled linguistic and visual representations that reflect the strange lifeworld of global online courses and the pressing need for promising innovation that seeks to serve the restless global desire for knowledge. This perspective piece critically appraises the linguistic laboratory of thought such representation reveals and its …

Liberal Education And Moral Education, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Mark Van Doren, the noted literary scholar, once remarked, "The college is meaningless without a curriculum, but it is more so when it has one that is meaningless." Many current critics of undergraduate curricula in America assent to the crucial need for programmatic renewal in our colleges and universities. They bemoan the cookie-cutter sameness in far too many of them. The oddity is that U.S. colleges have long touted their "diversity" while largely holding fast to rather traditional pathways. This illuminating volume goes beyond formulaic nuts-and-bolts recipes for constructing curriculum: it seeks to interpret and analyze the contemporary landscape of …

Reading On The Edge Of Oblivion: Virgil And Virule In Coetzee's Age Of Iron, Gary Shapiro

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Not long ago I taught a yearlong course on reading and writing for the last time. Last, because I have just retired from the university that sponsored the course and also because faculty, in their usual condition of mixed motives, aspirations, and agendas, have decided to discontinue it. I write then elegiacally, in memory of about twenty years of teaching a varying assemblage of so-called great books of literature, philosophy, religion, and even (occasionally) science, sprinkled with more-contemporary works (Toni Morrison, Orhan Pahmuk, Adrienne Rich, and others), drawn from all continents (we may have missed Australia) and written any time …

Friends, Foes, And Nel Noddings On Liberal Education, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The author analyzes the debate over liberal education, focusing on critic Nel Noddings, who advocates alternative education. The author cites Noddings' article "Conversation as Moral Education," where Noddings identifies traditional education as studying the canon of Great Books, and another article in which Noddings discusses the theory of curricula.

Mind-Mapping Inside And Outside Of The Classroom, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Evolution And The Second Law Of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating To Non-Technicians, Alexander Schreiber, Steven Gimbel

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Given the degree of disbelief in the theory of evolution by the wider public, scientists need to develop a collection of clear explanations and metaphors that demonstrate the working of the theory and the flaws in antievolutionist arguments. This paper presents tools of this sort for countering the anti-evolutionist claim that evolutionary mechanisms are inconsistent with the second law of thermodynamics. Images are provided to replace the traditional misunderstanding of the law, i.e., “everything always gets more disordered over time,” with a more clear sense of the way in which entropy tends to increase allowing a thermally isolated system access …

Adam Smith And The Stages Of Moral Development, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The writer explores Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, where Smith presents a rich and provocative account of morality. The writer offers an explication of Smith's moral psychology as a stage theory of moral development, with the intention of generating critical points on both mattes of detail and larger implications.

The Roots And Fallouts Of Haile Selassie's Educational Policy, Messay Kebede

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper attempts to assess the impacts of Haile Selassie’s educational policy on Ethiopia’s educated elite. It also inquires into the reasons the policy was adopted in the first place. The negative role that the Ethiopian educated elite has played during, and since, the overthrow of Haile Selassie’s regime provides the context of the inquiry. Admittedly, the continuous political crises and economic stagnation of Ethiopia since the 1974 Revolution point to the leading role played by Ethiopian educated elite. The paper raises the question of knowing whether the adoption of an education system that completely relied on Western teaching staff …

Feminism And The Art Of Interpretation: Or, Reading The First Wave To Think About The Second And Third Waves, Marilyn Fischer

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Cory, my daughter, accuses me of having no thoughts of my own. I was talking with Jeremy [“Cory, what do you call him? partner? significant other? boyfriend?” “Mom, I just call him Jeremy.” Alright, then.]. Jeremy asked why I was an almost pacifist. Without even breathing, I launched into Addams’s arguments for pacifism, fully attributed to her, of course. That’s when Cory accused me of having no thoughts of my own. So, if I have no thoughts of my own, inhabiting Addams’s thoughts is not a bad substitute.

Remembering how Addams viewed much of her work as interpreting American institutions …

The Promise Of A Liberal Arts Education, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

It's an age-old concern. Just what is a liberal arts education supposed to be? It's far more than practical skills, argues Provost Dan DeNicola. Judging by the success of Gettysburg alums who majored in one field and now work in another, learning to think clearly and critically is key to the liberal arts.

The Emergence Of The New American College, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

The story of the "New American College" is about the development of a new kind of institution embodying a set of ideals which may resonate across all of higher education. It begins, however, with the humble matter of institutional taxonomy. How we classify our schools and colleges may seem an unexciting issue, but our classification systems reveal our assumptions, our expectations, and ultimately our values. Recall that a conceptual revolution, a breakthrough, is often presaged by an accumulation of classification problems, an accretion of anomalies, a proliferation of misfits. [excerpt]

The Education Of The Emotions, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Human emotion is, to some, an embarrassment. They regard our emotional aspect as not fully human; like some grotesque offspring, it should be hidden away in our psychic cellar or gotten rid of altogether. Our emotions (or "passions" or "affections") are powerful, but they may be kept at bay by our fair child, reason. The enmity seems natural; reason represents the orderly, the proper, the Apollonian; emotion is the disruptive, the capricious, the Dionysian. The accomplishments of cool reason may be consumed in the heat of passion. To give vent to emotion is thus to turn irrational and to reveal …

Biography And The Curriculum, Daniel R. Denicola

Philosophy Faculty Publications

In recent years many critics have written of the pervasive dehumanization and possible rehumanization of education. Plighting their troth to the autonomy and integrity of the human person, these commentators scour the educational landscape in search of policies and practices that depersonalize. They have often attacked teaching methods and the social and institutional situation in which teaching is undertaken; a few errant knights have even assailed the enterprise of teaching itself. Less often has curriculum content been questioned, and when it has been, the critics were usually concerned about "irrelevance." There is, however, another way in which the curriculum is …