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Student Responses to the Women's Reclamation Work in the Philosophy of Education
Abstract
Reclamation work denotes the process of uncovering the lost contributions of women to the philosophy of education, analyzing their works, making them accessible to a larger audience, and (re)introducing them to the historical record and canon. Since the 1970s, scholars have been engaged in the reclamation work, thus making available to students, professors, and researchers a rich and varied perspective for tracing the evolution of educational thought. This article shares the responses of undergraduate and graduate students to discussing the reclamation work and canonical formation in their Philosophy of Education course. Two of the benefits most commonly cited by students involve learning a fuller, more accurate picture of history and ameliorating contemporary gender inequity. We assert that the traditional canon and syllabi for Philosophy of Education and Social Foundation courses could be enriched through the inclusion of works that trace the tradition of women's intellectual thought.
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Women have played an undeniable part in shaping the history of philosophy and philosophy of education for at least 1,000 years. Yet, current anthologies, encyclopedias, and textbooks in the field rarely recognize large numbers of women's works as consequential to our understanding of the development of educational topics and debates. This article, using the work of Herrad of Hohenbourg (1100s), Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1429), Christine de Pisan (c.1364-c.1430), and Mary Astell (1666-1731) traces women's early philosophical arguments concerning their own nature and the purposes of education. The author argue that having access to this tradition will help to remediate false perceptions of women's thought and serve as an empowering legacy for all teachers and students.
Catherine Macaulay (1731–1791) is best known as an English historian. She was also, however, an insightful and articulate author on the topic of the education of young people. This article presents Macaulay's views as expressed in her noteworthy work Letters on Education, printed originally in 1787 and in revised form in 1790.
In Letters, Macaulay articulated her philosophy of education, which integrated her metaphysical beliefs and her epistemological views with the pedagogy and practice they implied. Her ultimate hope from the educational process was to yield an educated person who had attained the character, morals, and knowledge that she values in citizens of both genders.
The purpose of this article is to present a brief description of Catherine Macaulay's life and work within a social and political context that will offer detailed information and analysis on specific significant educational ideas as written Letters on Education. The vision undergirding her thought that is, Macaulay's views on human nature, the educated person, and moral education well be treated first. Second, the implementation of this vision in the educational process through curriculum, discipline, school, policy, and teacher dispositions and behaviors will be. explored
When down from the moon stepped the goddess of the night, she bid Minerva/Athene come to her. "Minerva/Athene," she said, "you sprang fully formed from the head of your father. Now all the daughters of mankind think they, too, are as rootless as you. Tonight I bid you dance, join the circle round 1 that tree glistening with the clarity of wisdom. Mother Natura and Lady Philosophia, hands together, already have begun the promenade of myth and allegory. " Still in the garb of gold and white stone, Minerva/ Athene did as she was bid and danced till dawn. Then in new light, she found herself suddenly a budding flower on a tall branch, and even more swiftly a crystalline fruit, rivaling the morning sun, refracting the light. Behold, she had grown roots, difficult to discover down in the dark of history, deep in the solid knowledge of earth. And the daughters of humankind saw and reveled in their roots. This is the story of this book, a history, long and diverse, of women thinkers and their thought. It will become a legacy for all who study it, a legacy that Heloi"se, Marie de Gournay, Sor Juana Ines de Ia Cruz, and Judith Sargent Murray among many women philosophers assured by composing lists of the names of women little acknowledged century after century. While the Hannah Arendt's, Susanne K.
In mid-twelfth century, moved by military and political considerations, Frederick Barbarossa restored the ruined eighth century abbey at Mt. Ste. Odile, later known as the Hohenbourg. At his request, Rilinda, the abbess of Bergen, established eight nuns there sometime between 1147–1162, placing the women under the rule of St. Augustine.2 She was succeeded c. 1176 by the abbess Herrad. Details of Herrad’s early life are unknown, although it seems safe to assume an aristocratic family, since a woman without noble birth is unlikely to have ruled such an important abbey. The name under which she was formerly known — Herrad of Landsberg — contributed to the presumption of nobility, but any connection to that particular family is now discredited.3 Although Herrad acknowledges that she was instructed by Rilinda’s “admonitions and examples”, it is not certain that Herrad was in fact a pupil of Rilinda, nor even necessarily educated at the abbey of Hohenbourg.4
Women have been traditionally underrepresented in the scholarship of the academic disciplines. Jane Roland Martin, continuing a line of thought she initiated in a recent article (HER, August 1981), examines the exclusion of women from philosophy of education both as subjects who have written about education and as objects of educational study and thought. She traces this exclusion from a misunderstanding of the writings of Plato, Rousseau, and Pestalozzi on the education of women, and builds a comprehensive critique of the concepts of education, liberal education, and teaching which are accepted by analytic philosophers of education. Martin proposes a possible reconstruction of the field of philosophy of education to include women, and describes the benefits of such a needed undertaking.