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SGI News: Global activities for peace, education and culture

Visions for Education

[©Boston Research Center]

On April 10, the Boston Research Center (BRC) hosted an international symposium titled "Four Enduring Philosophies of Education and the Challenges Facing Teachers Today" during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), the foremost international organization for advancing educational research.

This year's gathering, which attracted researchers from 48 countries, was held in San Francisco. The AERA symposium offered a preview of BRC's forthcoming book, Ideas and Action: Enduring Visions of the Philosophy and Practice of Education (working title), which brings together the ideas and legacies of 10 of the 20th century's key thinkers on education, and is being edited by David Hansen of Teachers College, Columbia University.

The symposium attracted almost 100 educators interested in the work of four of the philosophers to be featured in the volume: Maria Montessori, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, Rabindranath Tagore and John Dewey. The relevance of each philosopher's educational thought to teachers today was explored through presentations by scholars of educational philosophy who are also contributors to the forthcoming book: Jacqueline Cossentino (University of Maryland), Andrew Gebert (Waseda University), Kathleen O'Connell (University of Toronto) and David Hansen.

The theme of the panel mirrored the theme of the book--how the moral vision and critical thinking of courageous educators responding to challenging times created philosophies and practices with enduring impact. As a focal point for the panel, each presenter explored the respective educator's attitude toward knowledge and emphasized the ways in which the child's innate knowledge was viewed as foundational to learning.

Ann Diller of the University of New Hampshire then shared her insights as discussant, noting in particular the relevance today of Makiguchi's approach of encouraging children's ability to critically analyze the world and society.

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