This paper seeks to revisit the concept of "pedagogy of discomfort" through the combined lenses of Lauren Berlant's work on "inconvenience" and recent theorization of "affective infrastructure" to clarify how an infrastructural understanding of "discomfort-as-inconvenience" might provide deeper insights…

In this article the authors explore the phenomenon of 'selective amnesia' as it relates to education. We define this as a politically engineered loss of collective memory, both curricular and pedagogic, which has adversely affected what teachers and teacher-educators do. Through an intergenerational dialogue between four secondary English…

Those working toward equitable K-12 computing education in the United States have always had their work cut out for them: understanding how best to teach, developing robust curricula, designing novel tools, building teacher capacity, and supporting systemic change in schools to bring equitable computing education to young people. Collectively,…

This article presents a memorable method to introduce new students to the concept of political needs. Using an adaptation of Abraham Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" to one of "Hierarchy of Political Needs" the instructor presents how needs for "physiological survival," safety, belonging, "recognition," and…

This essay explores a conceptual view of imagination and its capacity for educational transformation by acknowledging its ineffable, aesthetic, and social qualities. A critical perspective is applied by drawing upon what Giroux (2013) calls the politics of disimagination. Imagination is then put to the pedagogical task of confronting the…

In this article, F. Tony Carusi considers the politics of instrumentalism performed between educational policy and research that figures the teacher as the primary means to raise student achievement. By reducing teachers to a means toward an end, policy and research work together to collapse what teachers are into what teachers are for, and in…

Teaching students to think about white settlers' and racialized non-black people's complicity in settler colonial violence can still be an instance of settler-centric pedagogy underlined by the trope of the 'dying Indian'. Through reflecting on my teaching of a well-circulated article by a racialized scholar, I discuss how, despite my intentions,…

This article, which is developed from a keynote given to the Humanists UK RE conference on 28 November 2020 draws attention to the interest groups that operate in and around the world of professional religious education (RE) in England. It argues that reform of RE could still fail. Two factors could spell its end. First is the "politics of…

This theoretical perspective sets out a theoretical foundation for the use of classical character archetypes in character development methodologies. It covers four reimagined classical archetypes: "citizen" ("polites"), one who plays socially responsible roles, "egoist" ("idiôtes"), one who plays prudent and…

This lesson plan will illustrate how Taiwan can be used as a case study in an undergraduate human geography, population geography, or demography course. Incorporating Taiwan within the curriculum can equip students with a deep understanding of demographic concepts, specifically as it relates to the demographic trends in Taiwan. Through in-depth…

The optical lantern projector was first introduced as a teaching aid into schools all over the world at the turn of the twentieth century. Because slides were expensive, special slide lending services played an important role in supplying schools with images they could project. Existing studies on the use of this new medium in education have…

This article draws attention to shifting educational discourses on the two texts of the 1840 treaty: te Tiriti o Waitangi and the Treaty of Waitangi. Policy and resource conversations in education reveal subtle strategic shifts in use of an invented idea of "treaty principles"--from standing in for and attempting to reconcile the two…

This paper puts in conversation Martin Heidegger's concept of "Stimmung" (mood or attunement) with Raymond Williams' notion of 'structures of feeling' to theorize 'mood work' in peace education. It is argued that the perspective of mood provides new insights in peace education that might be harder to grasp through the lens of affect or…

The human relation to things in the world is at stake in the so-called post-humanist era where the distinction between human and non-human is blurred, as indicated in a term like 'the nano-self'. How should we understand the nature of our relation to things in this era? Or how can we describe an "educationally" meaningful relation we as…

By deepening students' discussion skills, schools can play a key role in bridging communication divides in our society. As the nation has become increasingly politically polarized, how can educators teach constructive dialogue in the classroom? The authors--education experts and researchers--offer seven strategies for helping students engage in…