In Education and Human Values: Reconciling Talent with an Ethics of Care, Michael Slote looks to care ethics to provide an answer to previously neglected questions, arguing that if we can teach people to be more caring and open-minded, we can take some of the edge off of the disappointment and resentment that occur when people are led to believe they are less talented or less intelligent than others. Through his demonstration of the inadequacies of an educational system devoted to maintaining a classroom atmosphere of blind democracy and absolute equality, Slote's work constitutes an answer to important questions his predecessors were unable to recognize or simply failed to address.
These lectures on education were given well after the founding of several Waldorf schools in Europe, and thus Steiner was able to draw on the practical experience of this form of education in action.
This book combines perspectives from psychology, spiritual education and digital teaching pedagogies in a transnational framework to discuss the Education in Human Values Program (EHV) for child development, with a focus on silent sitting, mindfulness, meditation and story-telling as tools in the classroom. Through positive guidance in the early stages of child development using EHV tools, teachers will be better equipped to handle disciplinary issues in primary and secondary schools. These practices are also useful for the higher education community, as teachers and educators from tertiary institutions may adopt these practices in their teaching and become reflective practitioners. Topics such as teacher morale and school climate and its impact on children are discussed in relation to building resilience, reflective capacities, and inner strength (shared values) using an intrinsic and transformational approach. The discussions also include perspectives from the neurosciences. With contributions from teachers and educators from the US, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong and Mauritius, this edited volume addresses the challenges, strengths and weaknesses associated with daily teaching practices in primary and secondary schools and higher education institutions. The content is relevant to policymakers and researchers in child development studies, with a particular focus on the impact of silent sitting, mindful practices, and meditation on children’s self-regulation and resilience. The authors collectively espouse that silent sitting techniques can help a child to grow and discover their hidden potential, thus enhancing their social, emotional, spiritual and physical capacities.
Why children should be taught coding not as a technical skill but as a new literacy—a way to express themselves and engage with the world. Today, schools are introducing STEM education and robotics to children in ever-lower grades. In Beyond Coding, Marina Umaschi Bers lays out a pedagogical roadmap for teaching code that encompasses the cultivation of character along with technical knowledge and skills. Presenting code as a universal language, she shows how children discover new ways of thinking, relating, and behaving through creative coding activities. Today’s children will undoubtedly have the technical knowledge to change the world. But cultivating strength of character, socioeconomic maturity, and a moral compass alongside that knowledge, says Bers, is crucial. Bers, a leading proponent of teaching computational thinking and coding as early as preschool and kindergarten, presents examples of children and teachers using the Scratch Jr. and Kibo robotics platforms to make explicit some of the positive values implicit in the process of learning computer science. If we are to do right by our children, our approach to coding must incorporate the elements of a moral education: the use of narrative to explore identity and values, the development of logical thinking to think critically and solve technical and ethical problems, and experiences in the community to enable personal relationships. Through learning the language of programming, says Bers, it is possible for diverse cultural and religious groups to find points of connection, put assumptions and stereotypes behind them, and work together toward a common goal.
