This paper explores how thinking and values in student teachers are cultivated in the Singapore context, via a case study of a teacher educator selected based on having won excellence in teaching commendation awards. The study adopts a qualitative case study methodology (i.e., interviews with the teacher educator and her student teachers) and uses…

Fairy tales are used intensively by Turkish teachers in Turkish lessons. Elements in tales need to be examined in many respects such as their suitability for cultural transmission, psychological benefits, and harms, correct and effective use of language and so on. The opinions of the Turkish teachers in the field are very important for this…

"Bildung" is a complex educational concept that emerged in Germany in the mid eighteenth century. Especially in Germany and Scandinavia conceptions of "Bildung" became the general philosophical framework to guide both formal and informal education. "Bildung" concerns the whole range of education from setting…

More than 50 years after the "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka" decision, the democratic promises inherent in "Brown" have yet to be fulfilled (Franklin 2005) and educational quality, or lack thereof, continues to be intimately linked with social constructions of race (Baszile 2008; Ladson-Billings 2012).…

Evidence of the powerful impact teachers have on student achievement has led to an intensive focus on cultivating effective teachers, including special education teachers (SETs). Local special education administrators (LSEAs) share responsibility for cultivating effective SETs throughout their districts. However, the roles LSEAs play in this…

The reality of changing state and federal policy, as well as the process of program improvement across teacher preparation programs has prompted a line of research into the exploration of an alternative curriculum-based value-added model (VAM). Based upon a thorough review of VAMs as they have been applied to education policy and decision-making,…

In this article, we explain how mindfulness can enhance a democratic way of being, connecting practices of awareness, reflection, dialog, and action to democratic citizenship and social arrangements. We begin by sharing our understanding of democracy as a philosophy and a political system. We then provide a background for the concept of…

In this article, Nancy Barile, an urban high school teacher, questions whether "grit" can solve all students' problems. She states that when she first began teaching 20 years ago, she realized almost immediately that, as an urban school teacher, she needed to encourage grit in her students. She told "gritty" anecdotes of…

The activity described in this paper was developed in response to the experience of teaching a large lecture introduction course to freshman and sophomore undergraduates called "The Rhetorical Tradition." This course covers, roughly, the last 2500 years of rhetoric. One of the issues faced in this course is that students struggle to…

Some debate exists about the degree to which one should merge one's identities, particularly those with important normative content, with one's teaching practices. This issue becomes particularly important for those with a religious identity who purposefully merge their identity with classroom practices. This article examines the qualitative…

This article offers a perspective from early childhood care and education in Aotearoa New Zealand. It draws from the data of four recent studies to demonstrate pedagogical practices informed by Indigenous (Maori) perspectives. Maori values, such as "manaakitanga" (caring, hospitality, generosity) and "whanaungatanga"…

The idea of teacher quality is at the forefront of educational debates and research globally. A teacher for the 21st Century must be equipped with a sophisticated range of skills and capabilities, but it must go beyond knowledge, understanding and skills, to include effective dispositions, strong student/teacher relationships, communicative…

Much empirical work on schools' pedagogical adaptation to the twenty-first century focuses on use of information-commination technology (ICT) or its perceived usefulness. However, in this study the focus was broader, on educators' perspectives regarding twenty-first-century schooling -- challenges, pedagogy, the role of ICT and impediments to…

In this inaugural lecture, delivered at the University of Birmingham in January 2014, I sketch the outline of a theory of moral education. The theory is an attempt to resolve the tension between two thoughts widely entertained by teachers, policy-makers and the general public. The first thought is that morality must be learned: children must come…

The field of Philosophy and Education seems to be experiencing a renewed interest in the work of Aristotle. As recently reviewed by Curren ("Oxf Rev Educ" 36(5):543-559, 2010), most of this attention aligns with the virtue ethics movement where themes like moral development in education, and the inquiry on human flourishing as the aim of…