Scherto Gill and Garrett Thompson, eds. Ethical education. Towards an ecology of human development
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Scherto Gill and Garrett Thompson, eds. Ethical education. Towards an ecology of human development Cambridge University press: Cambridge, 2020, 200 pages. ISBN 9781-108-47740-6; £ 85 Henk ten Have 1 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This book is not about teaching ethics but about ethical education. Its main question is what educational practices might help young people to become more ethically aware and motivated? The difference is important: rather than examining how and what should be taught in ethics programs, the authors focus on the aims of education and the nature of learning in order to explore what makes education itself into an ethical activity. They argue that education should aim at the holistic human development of students, and that learning should go beyond the acquisition of knowledge. The book advocates a new approach to education that is centered on human relationships. Such approach is necessary since contemporary education does almost nothing to counter the trends towards apathy, uncaring, and indifference which characterize many societies. One reason is that education in schools is instrumentalized. It emphasizes transfer of knowledge and information, considers financial gain and employment as its primary objective, and rewards individual accomplishments. Another reason is that it often uses moralistic approaches, teaching moral values, cognitive reasoning, cultivating virtues or fostering character traits of students. The authors in this collection of essays argue that ethics is not a package of values or virtues that can be taught. Ethics is rooted in the social and emotional aspects of human relationships, and not merely a matter of principles and moral reasoning. Since ethical concerns arise in the context of relationships, a concept of relational ethics is therefore more appropriate for education. This takes seriously that ethics is a social (not individual) activity, that combines reason and emotion, and that connects persons (and not just focused on roles and functions). The book includes ten contributions from authors from diverse cultures and different countries (Belgium, China, Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, UK, and USA). It is the outcome of an international symposium organized by the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation
* Henk ten Have [email protected]
1
Center of Healthcare Ethics, Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, USA
ten Have H.
for Peace in 2017. The materials are presented in three parts. The first part explains the theory of ethics and education. The second part elaborates relevant pedagogical principles, while the third part gives examples of innovative practices in ethical education. Each part is briefly introduced as well as concluded with summarizing the main findings. In connection to bioethics education I have argued earlier that two diverging views of education can be distinguished (in Global education in bioethics, 2018). The question of what is good education requires a prior answer to the more fundamental question: why do we educate at all? Responding to this quer
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