Teaching The Tradition

The Catholic intellectual tradition is broad, and covers a wide array of academic disciplines. In their book, John Piderit, Melanie Morey, and their contributors take a disciplinary approach to the Catholic intellectual tradition. Each chapter focuses on one academic discipline or major that is taught at the undergraduate level in most colleges or universities, including English literature, political theory, psychology, business economics, and law.

This volume presents a mix of translations of classical and modern papers from the German Didaktik tradition, newly prepared essays by German scholars and practitioners writing from within the tradition, and interpretive essays by U.S. scholars. It brings this tradition, which virtually dominated German curricular thought and teacher education until the 1960s when American curriculum theory entered Germany--and which is now experiencing a renaissance--to the English-speaking world, where it has been essentially unknown. The intent is to capture in one volume the core (at least) of the tradition of Didaktik and to communicate its potential relevance to English-language curricularists and teacher educators. It introduces a theoretical tradition which, although very different in almost every respect from those we know, offers a set of approaches that suggest ways of thinking about problems of reflection on curricular and teaching praxis (the core focus of the tradition) which the editors believe are accessible to North American readers--with appropriate "translation." These ways of thinking and related praxis are very relevant to notions such as reflective teaching and the discourse on teachers as professionals. By raising the possibility that the "new" tradition of Didaktik can be highly suggestive for thinking through issues related to a number of central ideas within contemporary discourse--and for exploring the implications of these ideas for both teacher education and for a curriculum theory appropriate to these new contexts for theorizing, this book opens up a gold mine of theoretical and practical possibilities.

This text offers a supplement to any foreign language methods class. It describes and analyzes the centuries old struggle between the two approaches to teaching a second language: grammar accuracy versus whole language/communication.

Our world is growing increasingly complex and confused—a unique and urgent context that calls for a grounded and fresh approach to Christian higher education. Christian higher education involves a distinctive way of thinking about teaching, learning, scholarship, curriculum, student life, administration, and governance that is rooted in the historic Christian faith. In this volume, twenty-nine experts from a variety of fields, including theology, the humanities, science, mathematics, social science, philosophy, the arts, and professional programs, explore how the foundational beliefs of Christianity influence higher education and its disciplines. Aimed at equipping the next generation to better engage the shifting cultural context, this book calls students, professors, trustees, administrators, and church leaders to a renewed commitment to the distinctive work of Christian higher education—for the good of the society, the good of the church, and the glory of God.

The strict traditions of piano teaching have remained entrenched for generations. The dominant influence of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), the first composer-pedagogue of the instrument, brought about an explosion of autocratic instruction and bizarre teaching systems, exemplified in the mind-numbing drills of Hanon's "The Virtuoso Pianist." These practices--considered absurd or abusive by many--persist today at all levels of piano education. This book critically examines two centuries of teaching methods and encourages instructors to do away with traditions that disconnect mental and creative skills.

This is a study of the church's formulation of its teaching ministry in periods preceding our own, particularly in the Reformation era. The author finds that the office of "doctor" or teacher, like the offices of pastor, elder, and deacon, was postulated by Calvin as an integral part of the "public ministry." In a preliminary historical review Dr. Henderson surveys the conditions obtaining in northern Europe during the Renaissance as a background to understanding the situation that Calvin found in Geneva. He then studies the doctoral office as it existed in sixteenth-century Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, and Scotland, through which Continental Calvinism was transmitted to the British Isles. In turning to the English Puritan understanding of the doctoral office, Dr. Henderson examines the Tudor university ''reform," Martin Bucer's ideas regarding the reformation of all English education, the experiences of the Marian exiles in the practice of the Reformed church life, and the attempts under Elizabeth and James I to presbyterize the Church of England. The study reaches its climax with the account of the debates of the Westminster Assembly between the thirteenth and the twenty-first of November, 1643, wherein it developed that there were three British groups holding different views of the doctoral office: the Presbyterian Puritans, the Church of Scotland commissioners, and the Independents. Finally, Dr. Henderson deals with the understanding of the doctoral ministry after the time of Westminster, particularly with the developments that occurred in the Church of Scotland, in American Presbyterianism, and in American Congregationalism. He believes that a continuing discussion of this office is a prerequisite to understanding the church's ministry as a whole. The book represents the only piece of original research ever done on the subject.