Education Commons^™

Critically Assessing Forms Of Resistance In Music Education, Brent C. Talbot, Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Education Faculty Publications

In their classrooms, music educators draw upon critical pedagogy (as described by Freire, Giroux, and hooks) for the express purpose of cultivating a climate for conscientização. Conscientização, according to Paulo Freire (2006), “refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (p. 35). This consciousness raising is a journey teachers pursue with students, together interrogating injustices in communities and the world in order to transform the conditions that inform them. Learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions often leads to multiple forms of resistance in and …

Current Perspectives On Inclusive Education In The Czech Republic, Moncia B. Langer

Student Publications

This paper examines the academic literature describing the development of inclusive education programming within the Czech Republic after the Velvet Revolution. Interviews were conducted with special education professionals, who are researching potential benefits of inclusive education. Additionally, observations from an inclusive third grade classroom give further insight into how an inclusive classroom works. Despite some resistance, the Czech Republic is moving in the direction of inclusive education across the country.

Some Things You Can Do To Support Public Education Now, Dave Powell

Education Faculty Publications

Yesterday a group of students here at Gettysburg College, where I teach, organized a Solidarity Rally. It consisted largely of teach-ins designed to start conversations, and hopefully it will the first of many events that bring people together to think more carefully about how we should respond to things going on outside of our college and town. [excerpt]

Funding The Arts And Humanities Is Worth Fighting For, Dave Powell

Education Faculty Publications

There’s an old story about Winston Churchill that is not true but is worth repeating. When approached about cutting funding for the arts so the money could go to the war effort during World War II, Churchill supposedly replied: “Then what are we fighting for?”

As far as we can tell Churchill never actually said this, but you can be forgiven for being taken by the sentiment. This apocryphal quote still makes the rounds because it suggests that even in times of war art can help us realize what it is, exactly, that’s worth defending. [excerpt]

Florida’S Leaders Wrong About Liberal Arts, Janet M. Riggs

From the Desk of President Riggs

Once again, a prominent politician from Florida has provided an excellent opportunity to talk about the value of a liberal arts education.

In 2011, Florida Gov. Rick Scott commented about not needing any more anthropology majors. Around the same time, Florida State Sen. Don Gaetz referred to psychology and political science majors as “degrees that don’t mean much.” [excerpt]

Lingering Colonialities As Blockades To Peace Education: School Violence In Trinidad, Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

Book Summary: Bringing together the voices of scholars and practitioners on challenges and possibilities of implementing peace education in diverse global sites, this book addresses key questions for students seeking to deepen their understanding of the field. The book not only highlights ground-breaking and rich qualitative studies from around the globe, but also analyses the limits and possibilities of peace education in diverse contexts of conflict and post-conflict societies. Contributing authors address how educators and learners can make meaning of international peace education efforts, how various forms of peace and violence interact in and around schools, and how the field …

“Charleston, Goddam”: An Editorial Introduction To Act 14.2, Brent C. Talbot

Sunderman Conservatory of Music Faculty Publications

In this editorial, I trace the events following the tragic and racist shootings that occurred at the A.M.E. church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. Drawing upon anti-racist scholars and musical activists, I make a case for getting political and for cultivating activism in our classrooms. I ask our field to critically reflect upon our participation in a system that advantages Whites. I suggest that one possibility to engage in dialogue around issues of race is to encourage an environment of musical creativity where—together with students—teachers study and write music that speaks to our times and addresses issues …

Outside Ourselves: Becoming Better Teachers Through Ethnographic Fieldwork, Brent C. Talbot

Sunderman Conservatory of Music Faculty Publications

"Two questions students often ask me are: “why do you travel so much?” and “why do you engage in so much research?” My answer to both is relatively simple, “to become a more informed person and teacher.” [excerpt]

Fighting A Resurgent Hyper-Positivism In Education Is Music To My Ears, Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

In this article, I argue that one of the gifts of the Age of Enlightenment, the ability to measure, to experiment, to predict—turned rancid by hyper-positivism—is re-asserting itself globally in the field of education (including music education). I see a neoliberal, neocolonial connection—in terms of the ideologies that fuel them—between some of the homogenizing, epistemologically/culturally imperialist aspects of globalization and this resurgent hyper-positivism that has been accompanied by a corporatization of education. I posit that critical education, including critical music education, is an essential component of a necessary—if rancorous—dialogue in maintaining a definition of education that is as varied and …

Unwrapping The Comfort Of Sameness With Spanish Immersion Elementary School, Christin N. Taylor

English Faculty Publications

I watched my 6-year-old hover around the periphery of the table, unable to find somewhere to sit. The cafeteria was a cacophony of little voices, Spanish and English, tumbling over each other, her classmates sitting close and waiting to be dismissed to homeroom.

I couldn’t help but notice how different Noelle looked from most of the children, with her liquid blond hair and saucerlike blue eyes. [excerpt]

The Patriarchy’S Role In Gender Inequality In The Caribbean, Erin C. O'Connor

Student Publications

While gender equality in the Caribbean is improving, with women’s growing social, economic, and political participation, literacy rates comparable to those in Europe, and greater female participation in higher education, deeply rooted inequalities are still present and are demonstrated in the types of jobs women are in and the limited number of women in decision-making positions. Sexism, racism, and classism are systemic inequalities being perpetuated in schools, through the types of education offered for individuals and the content in textbooks. Ironically, the patriarchy is coexisting within a system of matrifocal and matrilocal families, with a long tradition of female economic …

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.

Class And Categories: What Role Does Socioeconomic Status Play In Children's Lexical And Conceptual Development?, Jennifer Bloomquist

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

At one time, academic inquiries into the relationship between socioeconomic class and language acquisition were commonplace, but the past 20 years have seen a decrease in work that focuses on the intersection between class and early language learning. Recently, however, against the backdrop of the No Child Left Behind legislation in the United States (which has been criticized as a culturally biased education policy that, through highstakes testing and broad-based, uniform curricula, discounts the value of non-standard home language varieties largely spoken by working-class children), there has been renewed interest in the relationship between class, language use, and the assessment …

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 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 …