The Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks: Critical Reflections upon Heidegger, Lao Tzu, and Dewey

100 Pages·2018·3.549 MB·English

by  Jie Yu

SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION, AND EDUCATION
The Taoist Pedagogy
of Pathmarks
Critical Reflections
upon Heidegger, Lao Tzu,
and Dewey
Jie Yu
Spirituality, Religion, and Education
Series Editors
Jing Lin
University of Maryland
College Park, MD, USA
Rebecca Oxford
Huntsville, AL, USA
Sachi Edwards
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI, USA
Edward J. Brantmeier
Penn Laird, VA, USA
This series publishes books that examine fundamental questions of life,
touching on the meaning, purpose, and mission of education from
a variety of spiritual and religious perspectives. The series provides
a forum for scholars to explore how to engage learners spiritually and
holistically. It studies how spirituality, religion, and education intertwine
with the learning of wisdom, peacebuilding, cultural and interfaith dia-
logues, and the integration of learners’ body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
Commonalities and differences among spiritual and religious traditions
are explored alongside new developments from science that bridge the
spirit and the mind. The series especially pays attention to the educa-
tional initiatives, outcomes, and programs that simultaneously engage
the cognitive, affective, and spiritual dimensions of both students and
educators. The world we live in focuses mostly on education for the
intellect, thus restricting our ability to explore and understand deeply
the nature of the cosmos and the meaning of our life. Although edu-
cation is accessible to more people than ever before in human history,
the dominant paradigm focuses solely on knowledge, skill, and material
acquisition that neglects the meaning and purpose of life. This creates
a huge void in learners and produces a huge number of people who are
unhappy, unfulfilled, restless, lost, or desperate. An education that distills
and recovers wisdom from spiritual and religious traditions can fill the
void and help cultivate citizens who have love, compassion, knowledge,
and the capacities for enlightened action. Books in the series address
these age-old pursuits of inquiry, meaning, purpose, growth, transfor-
mation, and change. To submit proposals to the series for consideration
please contact Jing Lin at [email protected].
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15331
Jie Yu
The Taoist Pedagogy
of Pathmarks
Critical Reflections upon Heidegger, Lao Tzu,
and Dewey
Jie Yu
Rollins College
Winter Park, FL, USA
Spirituality, Religion, and Education
ISBN 978-3-030-01604-3 ISBN 978-3-030-01605-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01605-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018956820
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A
cknowledgements
Over the last two decades, while living in first China and then the USA, I
have been a student, a teacher candidate, a school teacher, and a teacher
educator. All of these varied teaching and learning experiences have
inspired the Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks detailed in this book, and
there are many people I want to thank for the support and guidance they
have provided me on this journey.
First of all, I am grateful to my major advisors, William E. Doll, Jr. in
the Curriculum Theory Project at Louisiana State University, and Huang
Zhang in the Institute of Curriculum and Instruction at East China
Normal University. Doll’s methodology of experience as a Deweyan
and critique of modernism as a complexist in curriculum studies encour-
aged me to reflect upon teaching-as-telling and to think about teaching
in different ways. Zhang’s insights into contemporary Chinese educa-
tion from the intersections of Heidegger’s phenomenological works and
Confucianism cultivated my interest in bridging eastern and western phi-
losophies and pedagogies. It is not a coincidence that the mentor of my
graduate program in China, Zhang, is a Heideggerian scholar and that
of my Ph.D. program in the USA, Doll, is a Deweyan researcher. Their
influence is clear in the complex conversations among Heidegger, Lao
Tzu, and Dewey in this book.
I also want to thank the members of my Heideggerian reading and
writing group, M. Jayne Fleener, Doug Karrow, and Sharon Harvey.
The provocative conversations and collaborative research projects on
Heidegger’s works borne out of this group enriched my understanding
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
of Heidegger’s thoughts and helped me use his philosophies as a lens for
my educational research.
The last thanks are saved for my two families: my parents in China,
Youzhen Shen (申友珍) and Jinwen Yu (余金文), and my students and
colleagues at Rollins College. Both are my homes, physically and spirit-
ually, in providing a caring and supportive space for my intellectual
growth. I give special thanks to my dear friend, colleague, and editor
in the English Department at Rollins, Lucy Littler, who read and gave
critical feedback on my academic work, including the manuscript of this
book, over the past six years.
For me, this book evidences my twenty-year struggle with traditional
direct teaching, or teaching-as-telling. My pursuit of possible alterna-
tives to this pedagogy, which has been entrenched in both Chinese and
American schooling systems, has brought me to the Taoist Pedagogy
of Pathmarks in this book. I hope my exploration of the spiritual
Taoist Pedagogy can inspire more and more teachers and educational
researchers to tap into unlimited possibilities of “not yet” in teaching
and learning.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
References 6
2 A Long, Unsettling Journey into a Taoist Pedagogy
of Pathmarks 7
My History as a Teacher: From Practice to Theory and Back
Again 7
Critical Reflections on “Failures” 10
Another Unsettling Journey to a Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks 15
Complex Conversations Among Heidegger, Lao Tzu, and Dewey 16
References 20
3 “View the Stars by Day” in a Deep Dark Well 23
Untruth: Opposite of Truth or Another Profound Truth? 24
Truth, Untruth, and Pedagogy 28
(Un)truth as Light and Darkness 30
The Complex Play Between Brightness and Darkness
in Clearings 33
A Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks: “View the Stars by Day”
in a Deep Dark Well Through Clearing 35
Conclusion 38
References 40
vii
viii CONTENTS
4 Waiting for the Sun, Superman, or God?: The Tao
of Inaction as “Wait[ing] in Silent Readiness” 43
“You Are an Excellent, Aggressive Teacher” 43
Teaching-as-Telling-and-Thus-Dominating: Waiting for the
Sun, Superman, or God? 44
The Tao of Inaction as “Wait[ing] in Silent Readiness” 49
The Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks as Being-in-Relation 56
Conclusion 58
References 59
5 Respond to the “Call of the Pathway” in “Noiseless
Ringing of Stillness” 63
The “Call of the Pathway” as Waying 65
Respond to the Call in “Noiseless Ringing of Stillness” 69
Conclusion 77
References 77
6 The Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks as Releasement 81
“Can There Be a Different Way of Teaching?” 83
“What Does the Taoist Pedagogy of Pathmarks Mean to Me as
I Face My Class on Monday Morning?” 86
Teaching as “Releasement”: Spiritually Awakening the Taoist
Pedagogy of Pathmarks 88
References 91
Index 93
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 4.1 Oracle character of “teaching” (教) 45
Fig. 4.2 Waiting for Superman 48
Fig. 6.1 ( 3) * 4 ? 87
− =
ix