Brilliant Yet Shadowed Seminar Series – Event 2
The Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) Theory and Philosophy Network is pleased to present the second event in this seminar series that attempts to shine a light on educational thinkers who are otherwise overlooked.
The event takes place at 1PM UK time on Friday 20 March, and will be online. To join, please use the following link:
Hatano’s Adaptive Expertise: An Overlooked Educational Insight
Dr Jonathan Firth, Strathclyde Institute of Education
The concept of adaptive expertise, developed by Giyoo Hatano, contrasts with routine expertise which is more often the result of educational practice. Routine experts perform procedures efficiently in familiar contexts, whereas adaptive experts flexibly apply and modify their knowledge to address novel problems, making it more relevant to real-world situations and to creativity. This work suggests a move away from educational instruction that focuses on repetition and efficiency and towards variation and conceptual understanding (Hatano & Oura, 2003). Hatano also contributed to theories of learning, building on but diverging from Piaget’s work for example in recognising that expert thinking can happen among children. This short session outlines the key ideas, their context, and their implications.
References
Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1994). Young children’s naive theory of biology. Cognition, 50(1–3), 171–188.
Hatano, G., & Oura, Y. (2003). Commentary: Reconceptualizing school learning using insight from expertise research. Educational Researcher, 32(8), 26–29.
Dr Jonathan Firth is a principal teaching fellow at the University of Strathclyde, and previously worked as a secondary school teacher. His research interests include the psychology of cognition and metacognition, study skills, learning theories, and the cognitive basis of creativity. He has written several education support books, including ‘Psychology in the Classroom’ (with Marc Smith), ‘How to Learn’, and ‘What Teachers Need to Know About Memory’. Jonathan also sends a free weekly newsletter on memory and metacognition which can be found at firth.substack.com.
Henriette Herz: Influential Salonnière
Louis Waterman Quist, University of Tromso/Karlsruhe University of Education
Henriette Julie Herz (1764-1847) was a Jewish woman at the centre of Romanticism – the period in which pedagogy established itself as an autonomous discipline – whose Berlin salon was the site of social gatherings that would go on to shape the course of educational thinking. Herz’s talents were numerous: she was intelligent and studious, particularly as a linguist (she learned over 10 languages); she was full of social charm and wit that she used to keep company with many of the leading thinkers of the time; and she had a goddess-like demeanour with captivating looks that continually aroused suspicions amongst Berlin’s gossip- hungry society
(Bilski & Braun, 2005). Collectively, these talents made Herz the perfect salonnière, and Herz’s salon was attended by many leading thinkers associated with Romanticism, such as Friedrich, August and Dorothea Schlegel, Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt and Friedrich Schleiermacher. But whilst significant attention has been drawn to the male protagonists in the history of ideas, Herz’s role – and indeed other salonnières such as Rahel Varnhagen and Madame de Tecin – is less well-known5. This short piece instead places Henriette Herz at the centre of the story as one of the leading conductors of Romanticism, a symphony of fragmented harmonisation and dissonance brought about by collaborative thinking, convivial discussion and dynamic productivity across all artistic forms that has had a large legacy on how we humans understand ourselves and our relations, particularly regarding educational theory.
Louis Waterman Quist is a doctoral candidate in Education Studies. His PhD research explores the concepts of education and nature through what he terms “Romantic Pedagogy”, with a focus on the work of F.D.E. Schleiermacher. Louis is affiliated with Karlsruhe University of Education, Germany for his PhD, but he lives in Tromsø and works at UiT The Arctic University of Norway as an Advisor. More broadly, Louis is interested in hermeneutic and philosophical approaches to education studies, particularly those which are inter-/transcultural. He is a member of the ExET and New Northern Pedagogies international research networks, as well as the Philosophy of Education and ICRED research groups at UiT, Tromsø.
Janusz Korczak: To Live a Philosophy of Education
Walker Ballard, The Ohio State University
The name Janusz Korczak rarely makes a list of ‘visionary educational thinkers of the twentieth century.’ Among his roles as a pediatrician, orphanage director, and revolutionary pedagogue, Korczak is most well-known, in Poland anyway, as a renowned author of children’s literature. Despite insightful writings in educational philosophy, his corpus has been largely ignored by educational theorists, barring a handful of contemporary scholars. Living in Warsaw in 1939, Korczak’s story and philosophy intertwine with the darkest moments in human history. Despite being offered multiple opportunities to escape the Warsaw ghetto, he refused to abandon his pupils, ultimately facing their same fate at Treblinka. What he left behind was not only written educational theory, but a profoundly lived philosophy of education. He forwards the simplistic notion that children have the right to be children. Amidst a modern educational landscape that prioritizes future-oriented action, Korczak’s present-mindedness proves to beparticularly provocative. In urging us to view children as more than underdeveloped adults, he prompts us to consider the ways in which, “…it is precisely children who are the princes ofemotion, poets and thinkers.”[1] The essence of his philosophy is grounded in a radical conception of educational relationships based in trust, forgiveness, and respect for the student. While similar ideas are often attributed to more mainstream progressive thinkers, Korczak provides a heroic example of philosophy-in-action. His legacy serves as an inspiration for those committed to humanistic relationship-focused teaching and a haunting reminder of the importance of those relationships in our darkest times.
[1] Korczak, Janusz. “A Child’s Right to Respect.” In How to Love a Child and Other Selected Works, edited by Anna Maria Czernow, translated by Sean Gasper Bye, Vol. 1. Vallentine Mitchell, 2018, p. 329.
Walker Ballard is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Studies at The Ohio State University, where his work sits at the intersection of educational philosophy, ethics, and democratic education. His research examines educator identity and democratic practice with particular attention to how teachers understand and enact ethical commitments in everyday school life. Drawing on critical theory and international/comparative perspectives, his work explores how democratic ideals are lived and sustained within educational institutions. Ballard holds a B.M. in Music Education and a B.A. in German Language and Literature from Appalachian State University, as well as a M.A. in Educational Studies from The Ohio State University. He has taught undergraduate courses in philosophy, history, and sociology of education at Ohio State.