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Appeals to transformative education are so ubiquitous that if an educational advertisement claimed to only offer instruction, consumers might worry they were being shortchanged. However, the meaning of transformative education is often superficially understood, shifting between various conceptions, each bearing distinct ethical complications. The result is an educational concept that provides unreliable guidance to educators – that is, those charged with transforming the lives of students. This article contends that Douglas Yacek’s recent book The Transformative Classroom offers a compelling and ethically defensible theory of transformative education-as-aspiration. However, Yacek’s account does not adequately define the sociality of the transformative classroom and risks reducing a diverse group of students to a paradigm of individual transformation. I seek to strengthen Yacek’s account by examining the kind of recognition that ought to occur between students who are diverse in terms of their stages of aspiration and aspirational projects. I call the property of this recognition “aspirational standing,” and explain how acknowledging it can advance our understanding of an aspirational community in the classroom and at school.

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This analysis will argue that university educators have an ethical obligation to advocate for admission policies that are not exclusively competitive in nature – what will be referred to later as levelling and remedy approaches. This argument will be detailed in four stages. First, it will use an anecdote and an appeal to virtue to argue that educators in universities should feel an ethical obligation to level the playing field of competitive admissions. Second, it will draw on the work of a Chris Martin and Ben Kotzee to provide a philosophical framework for my argument. Third, it will discuss examples from Scotland, Ontario, and British Columbia to consider the ways in which the status quo fails to meet our ethical commitments as educators. Fourth, and finally, it will posit the virtue-ethical argument that university educators should live out their commitment to being virtuous and philosophy of education by supporting admission policies that are not exclusively competitive.

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Reconceptualizing the notion of creativity is imperative for addressing today’s multilayered social, ecological, and educational crises. This paper draws upon the Daoist philosophy of creativity, which connects rather than separates, to elaborate on the creative relational dynamics of a Daoist pedagogy. First, Western conceptions of creativity are briefly discussed to situate Daoist creativity relative to other scholarship. This discussion is followed by exploring three important aspects of Daoist creativity through interconnectedness: the self-creative process of the cosmos, the co-creativity of human creativity in spontaneity, and the virtuous pursuit of creative harmony. Conceptualizing Daoist creativity in these three aspects lays the foundation for the formulations of contemporary Daoist pedagogical dynamics. First, relational ontology underlies non-dualistic knowing and creative learning, which is infused with meditative sensitivity and incorporates aesthetic modes of thinking and associative thinking across boundaries. Second, creative personhood through integrating opposites and becoming attuned to the creative energy of life requires the personal cultivation of both the instructor and students while transforming teacher–student relationships. Third, a Daoist pedagogy of harmonizing creative tensions is envisioned through making connections across difference, diversifying texts, enacting pedagogical attunement, and harmonizing different modes of knowing and being.

EN :

This research paper considers the place of the European lifelong-learning philosophical concept of Bildung (self-formation) and how Socratic questioning activities might be used to facilitate its development. Originating with the great philosophical thinkers of the German Renaissance, it is a concept that is again attracting attention because of its focus on developing the “whole” person and its potential for developing phronesis “practical wisdom.” The primary source of research data is a podcast in which a diverse group of BAME (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic) learners discuss COVID-19 vaccinations from their own cultural perspectives through a Socratic dialogue. During this process, Bildung was developed by participants recognizing mutual concerns during this process, and Gadamer’s (1960/1989) hermeneutic dialectical concept known as the “Fusion of Horizons” was played out. The dialogue identifies “trust” as an essential moral value and one that is needed in any just and stable society. This research suggests an alternative educational paradigm should be realised that lends itself better to developing Bildung and phronesis. The implications of this for teacher training are discussed and why it is important to develop “phronetic” educators. Reference is made to what this might look like in reality by highlighting the use of Socratic questioning in Danish folk high schools and how they have made the philosophical concept of Bildung central to their mission.