ERIC Number: EJ1461899
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1598-1037
EISSN: EISSN-1876-407X
Available Date: 2024-01-03
A Pedagogy of Emptiness: A Daoist Perspective
Asia Pacific Education Review, v26 n1 p133-143 2025
In a time of intellectual and emotional overload in education, this paper offers room for breathing through a pedagogy of emptiness from a Daoist perspective. It begins by introducing the concept of Daoist emptiness through three intertwining features--generative, transcendent, and inclusive--important for rethinking pedagogy. It then moves to four significant pedagogical implications: emptiness as opening pedagogical possibilities, pedagogical relationships in an empty space, self-transformation and self-transcendence in teaching and learning, and a playful pedagogy beyond dualism. First, emptiness opens pedagogical possibilities by clearing the ground and leaving space in the esthetic imagination. Second, pedagogical relationships in an empty space can be enacted through teaching without (or beyond) words, dwelling in time, suspending judgment, and creating space by cultivating the educator's inner emptiness. Third, an empty space of relationality provides a generative condition for the possibility of personhood re/formation and self-transformation. Fourth, a playful pedagogy in a creative flow from emptiness breathes improvisational lightness to unsettle dualism, dissolve rigidity, and give birth to students' new understandings, awareness, and relationships.
Descriptors: Teaching Methods, Educational Philosophy, Learning Processes, Religion, Educational Change, Transformative Learning, Creative Activities, Metacognition, Interpersonal Relationship, Aesthetic Education
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Department of Educational Studies, Richmond, Canada; 2Oklahoma State University, Curriculum Studies at the School of Teaching, Learning, and Educational Sciences, Stillwater, USA