Since risk suffuses human life and trust helps breaks the paralysis of dealing with risk, a philosophy of education must account for the relationship between risk and trust. Keith Lehrer (in progress) has developed a philosophy that seeks to prepare students for knowing as human beings actually know things, suggesting that knowledge is a matter of…

This book develops and presents a theory of the curriculum and pedagogy for common, general education. Part 1 inquires into how people can know values and obligations and how this knowledge should affect education. In an analysis of the moral crisis, the book seeks a resolution by examining the great ethical theories of modern times. Each theory…

Although bound by tradition and physical location to elementary schooling, the primary grades are also considered the capstone experience of early childhood education. Primary grade teachers are required to bridge these two disparate worlds, constantly mediating, negotiating, translating, and compromising. This paper describes the experience of…

Teaching reasoning and judgment to children under the auspices of philosophy is an idea that has emerged recently in the modern era. It is theorized that, through practice in logic and ethics, children will begin to apply reasoning skills to their own life situations, think for themselves, and become better critical thinkers, all in a context that…

It is generally believed that great strides are being made toward increasing the level of ecological awareness among the American public. This paper points to the fact that not only is public education failing to achieve an adequate level of ecological awareness among today's youth, but that public schools may actually be contributing to the level…

This book is intended to be both a biography of an extraordinary woman and a historical account of events leading to Open Admissions within the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1970, wherein every graduate of a New York City high school was guaranteed a place within the CUNY system. The book profiles Mina Shaugnessy, who devoted her…

In this lecture, the head of the Department of Education of the University of Liverpool (England) reflects upon the previous 100 years of the Department's existence and presents a vision of the Department for the 21st century. The notion of education as a science formed the foundation for the University Department of Education's intellectual and…

The contrasting assumptions of the didactic and critical theories and approaches to teaching and learning are set out in this paper. The assumptions have to do with: (1) whether students should be taught how, rather than what, to think; (2) the relationship between knowledge and thinking; (3) what constitutes an educated, literate person; (4) how…

If critical thinking is to be seriously considered as a possible vehicle for educational reform, an exploration of relevant theories of reason is required. This paper offers an analytic framework for understanding theories of reason, presents an overview of recent work in empirical psychology that is related to root conceptions of rationality, and…

The current efforts to reform U.S. education are misguided because they place increased burdens on the schools and ignore the total learning environment. The majority of youth step out of school into an intellecutal vacuum of no feedback and no enrichment. The home, the school, and the community must be involved in a holistic way with education,…

This book takes a critical view of both the far right and far left positions concerning higher education, arguing that both sides aim to indoctrinate students in specific cultural and political dogmas and are in fact engaging in "politics by other means," whereas the purpose of genuine education should be to foster critical thinking and…

A study was done to examine changing representations of knowledge in the field of comparative and international education since the 1950s, to identify dominant paradigms and theories in use today and to suggest how these diverse constructs may be mapped at macro and micro levels of social reality as an intellectual field. The study used textual…

These Utah core standards are designed to help prepare students for the changing times that will require knowledge and skills for living and competition in the information age. Six qualities are emphasized (1) higher level thinking and process skills; (2) citizenship/character practices and principles; (3) basic U.S. values; (4) economic literacy;…

When working against fragmentation in education, coherence must not be confused with consistency. While consistency implies logical relations and the absence of contradictions, coherence allows for many kinds of connectedness, including associations of ideas and feelings, intimations of resemblance, conflicts and tensions, and imaginative leaps.…

This paper discusses the work of Emile Durkheim and his interest in developing a science of ethics that would enable the social sciences to guide social and political policy. One of his main policy interests was education, specifically the construction of moral values. Durkheim proposed a secular approach to morality and moral education. Moral…