In this commentary, we respond to Derek Ruez and Daniel Cockayne's article 'Feeling Otherwise: Ambivalent Affects and the Politics of Critique in Geography'. We do so by picking up ambivalence—or more precisely, ambivalence about ambivalence—as a tool with which Ruez and Cockayne leave us. We find this tool somewhat difficult to grasp, but we understand this as part of its design. Ambivalence undoes the subject's mastery. In doing so, we find that an airing of ambivalence gives other kinds of entangled, indeterminate, and unknowing relations room to breathe.
La constante preocupación de nuestro gobierno y Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, de convertir a Cuba en el país más culto del mundo, la preocupación por una formación integral de las futuras generaciones, está estrechamente relacionada con los profesores, quienes son los encargados de hacer realidad lo anteriormente planteado. Para ello es necesario que se tenga maestría pedagógica, por lo que es objetivo de la investigación demostrar la importancia que tiene para el profesor el dominio del conocimiento sobre maestría pedagógica, para la buena marcha del proceso docente educativo. Es por ello que para la realización de este trabajo realizamos una revisión bibliográfica acerca de algunas consideraciones o aspectos de gran importancia para alcanzar la maestría pedagógica que debemos conocer y poner en práctica. Palabras clave: EDUCACIÓN MÉDICA/métodos, ENSEÑANZA/métodos, DOCENTES, COMUNICACIÓN, EVALUACIÓN EDUCACIONAL/métodos. ABSTRACT The constant concern of our government and Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz to make Cuba the most cultivated country all over the World, and the interest in the comprehensive formation of the new generations being closely related to professors who are in charge of attaining the above-mentioned goals motivated this study; thus it is necessary to develop pedagogical mastery. The aim is to demostrate how important the development of skills and knowledge in pedagogical mastery is for the good practice of teaching-educative process. To carry out this work a literature revision about some considerations or aspects of great importance in achieving pedagogical mastery was performed. Key words: MEDICAL EDUCATION/méthods, TEACHING/methods, PROFESSORS, COMMUNICATION, EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION/methods
The topic of power has not featured strongly in debates about organizational learning, a point that is illustrated in a discussion of influential studies of teamworking. Despite the insights that such studies have provided into the nature of expertise and collaboration they have tended not to explore the relevance of issues of hierarchy, politics and institutionalized power relations. The paper addresses the problem by exploring the links between power, expertise and organizational learning. Power is analysed both as the medium for, and the product of, collective activity. The approach emphasizes how skills and imaginations are intertwined with social, technical and institutional structures. While studies of teamworking have concentrated on situations where imaginations and structures are tightly linked, unexpected developments may occur when these relations are loosened. Such situations occur when the needs of the moment overshadow normal routines and relationships and there is no single overview or centre of control. It is suggested that organizational learning can be conceptualized as the movement between familiar and emergent activities and between established and emergent social relations. Events in a two-year action research project are used to illustrate the approach and explore episodes of decentred collaboration.
In UNTHINKING MASTERY Julietta Singh demonstrates how pervasive the concept of mastery has been to modern politics, even to anti-colonial thought, which rejects forms of political domination and subjection. Anti-colonial discourse, Singh argues, has sought to recuperate the humanity of the colonized in ways that remain bound to masterful formulations of subjectivity. Drawing on postcolonial theory, queer theory, new materialism, and animal studies, Singh analyzes critiques of mastery across anti-colonial discourse to explore how modern formulations of decolonization that were explicitly pitched against colonial mastery continuously rehearse "other" forms of mastery in order to exceed it. Singh's goal isn't to discipline important figures from anti-colonial politics or the contemporary intellectual left, but rather to take seriously the messiness of our political strategies in the hope of deriving un-masterful styles of being.
* Winner of the 2018 RECASP Essay Prize * According to Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler (2009), capital is not an economic quantity, but a mode of power. Their fundamental thesis could be summarized as follows: capital is power quantified in monetary terms. But what do we do when we quantify? What is the nature of money in a capitalist society? Indeed, what is power? In the following, we try to develop a concept of power as the ability of persons to create particular formations against resistance. The kinds of formations persons can think of depend on the society they live in, which can be identified by what Cornelius Castoriadis called its social imaginary significations (SIS). The core SIS of capitalism is rational mastery operating with computational rationality. Computational rationality in turn rests on a particular understanding of how signification works: it works through operational symbolism, as theorized by Sybille Krämer in analyzing the philosophy of Leibniz. When the concept of the SIS of modern rationality was developed in the 1950s and 1960s, bureaucracy was seen as the main organizational mode of rational mastery. We argue that there are two modes of rational mastery, capitalization and bureaucratization, that interact with each other in capitalist society. The paper concludes with deliberations on the future of rational mastery and possible ways out. --- FRONT PICTURE: International Space Station Expedition 26 Crew (24 Dec 2010), Montreal at Night. Astronaut photograph ISS026-E-12474 (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/48471/montreal-at-night). Image courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center (https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/) --- BIO: The author studied physics and informatics, along with a lot of philosophy, but is also interested in many other subjects. He came across Bichler and Nitzan's Capital as Power in the first decade of the twenty-first century when he was politically active in various ways. He rediscovered Castoriadis through one of Bichler and Nitzans's works. Since then, he has tried to understand what Bichler and Nitzan actually mean by power. As there is no concrete answer to this question, he has been trying to develop one by (con)fusing concepts developed by Castoriadis and other thinkers with some of his own.
The article analyzes the historical origin and relevance of the subject of pedagogical mastery for today, the views of Eastern thinkers on the pedagogical mastery of teachers, and also examines the genesis of the humanistic tradition in pedagogy, which goes back to ancient times. This problem was traced back by scientists from Central Asia such as Ibn Sinа (Avicenna), Abu Nasr al-Farabi, Ahmad al-Farghani, Elbek, Avloni. Studying and understanding the historical development of the cultural and pedagogical tradition helps to understand the problems of modernity more deeply. The understanding of the unifying essence of culture in pedagogical activity was greatly helped by familiarity with historical and cultural traditions that consider the human personality as the highest value, the development of such a person as a goal, and democratic pedagogical culture as a means of the real existence of the individual. Having studied the way of the humanistic approach to teaching and upbringing at various stages of the development of pedagogical thought in Central Asia, it can be noted that in the conditions of transition to a post-industrial society, the tasks of individual development of each student are naturally and inevitably put to the fore.
In Unthinking Mastery Julietta Singh challenges a core, fraught dimension of geopolitical, cultural, and scholarly endeavor: the drive toward mastery over the self and others. Drawing on postcolonial theory, queer theory, new materialism, and animal studies, Singh traces how pervasive the concept of mastery has been to modern politics and anticolonial movements. She juxtaposes destructive uses of mastery, such as the colonial domination of bodies, against more laudable forms, such as intellectual and linguistic mastery, to underscore how the concept—regardless of its use—is rooted in histories of violence and the wielding of power. For anticolonial thinkers like Fanon and Gandhi, forms of bodily mastery were considered to be the key to a decolonial future. Yet as Singh demonstrates, their advocacy for mastery unintentionally reinforced colonial logics. In readings of postcolonial literature by J. M. Coetzee, Mahasweta Devi, Indra Sinha, and Jamaica Kincaid, Singh suggests that only by moving beyond the compulsive desire to become masterful human subjects can we disentangle ourselves from the legacies of violence and fantasies of invulnerability that lead us to hurt other humans, animals, and the environment. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1285/thumbnail.jpg
Traditional structural engineering pedagogy has consisted of students preparing for class by reading a textbook, followed by a professor giving a lecture, followed by students doing individual homework. Students received feedback in terms of a grade from the professor, and, ideally, the student filed the graded work and possibly reviewed it again before an exam. Following the exam, the professor moved to the next topic and essentially ended any further contact time with the material, resulting in students quickly dumping a good percentage of what was learned. To make matters worse, most faculty would agree that undergraduate students often skip the reading prior to class, and studies have shown that almost half of all students do not pay attention to material presented during a lecture. Thus, it is critical for engineering educators to improve the stagnant method of traditional teaching and learning. Small mistakes in the engineering profession can lead to death or millions of dollars in repair. For the fall 2018 semester, in the Design of Steel and Wood Structures at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Civil Engineering students participated in a cooperative learning technique aimed at improving student learning. These same students tried a different version of this technique in Structural Analysis the prior semester.[1] Prior to submitting individual homework to the instructor for grade, students paired up with a peer within their class hour and checked each other's work using an instructor provided "Design Review Sheet." When a student found a mistake, or disagreed with the methodology used by their Design Review partner, the student annotated this on their sheet. The expectation was that when disagreements were discovered between students, they would discuss with each other where the error or misunderstanding existed and subsequently corrected the error prior to submission for grade. This not only required students to explain the work they completed, but it also provided additional contact time with the material. With respect to Engineering Teaching and Learning, Design Review provides the essential cooperative learning characteristic of positive interdependence because individual student learning increases as review partners improved in their Design Review. As a student incentive to complete a thorough review, the quality of review counted for 10% of each assignment. Efforts this iteration were in response to some of the student suggestions following a previous iteration.[1] This iteration, in lieu of students turning in their work in pairs to receive one grade, each student would turn in their individual work and Design Review sheet. This was done to hold all students accountable for the work they completed. In addition, the instructor provided Design Review sheet was modified for clarity and the requirement to write a memorandum summarizing the results of each Design Review was eliminated. This cooperative learning technique was used on six of seven homework assignments during the term and on seven of nine homework assignments in their pre-requisite course. Student feedback was collected from both Likert Scale questions and open-ended questions. This paper will make the case that this pedagogy benefits Engineering Teaching and Learning by: (1) getting engineering students in the practice of what engineers in practice already do (check each other's work), (2) increasing student learning of course learning objectives through repetition and through observing how others solve problems and present their work, and (3) improving the ability of future engineers to communicate their work clearly and effectively. ; Cockrell School of Engineering
According to Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan capital is not an economic quantity but a mode of power; it could be sumarized as: "Capital is power quantified in monetary terms". So, what do we do when we "quantify"? What is the nature of "money" in a capitalist society? And, indeed, what is "power" in the first place? In the following I will try to develop a concept of power as the ability of persons to create particular formations. The kind of formations persons can think of depends on the society a person lives in, which can be identified by what Cornelius Castoriadis called its social imaginary significations (SIS). The core SIS of capitalism is rational mastery operating with computational rationality. Computational rationality in turn rest on a particular understanding of how signification works: operational symbolism, as theories by Sybille Krämer (following Leibniz). When the concept of the SIS of modern rationality was developed in the 1950s and 60s, bureaucracy was seen as its main organisational mode or rational mastery. I will argue that capitalisation and bureaucratisation are the two modes of rational mastery which interact with each other. The paper concludes with deliberations on the future of rational mastery and the possibility of "ways out".
This study investigated the applicability of mastery learning in public senior school as perceived by teachers. The study used descriptive survey research type. Two hundred and thirty teachers were sampled from public senior secondary schools in Kosofe local government area of Lagos. Teachers' perception on the applicability of Mastery Learning (TPABML) was designed by the researcher to measure teachers perception, the instrument was validated with reliability index of 0.74. Data collected was analysed using mean score, percentages and independent t-test of significance. Findings showed on the whole, teachers' perception does not favour the use of blooms mastery in public senior secondary. Result also showed significant difference between teachers with post-graduate qualification and teachers with Bachelor degree, but no significant difference was found based on teachers' experience. The result also finds no significant difference on the basis of gender. The study recommends that Government should re-orientate teachers to change their views and make efforts to apply mastery learning as it has recorded positive results.
Refugee education is a challenge to the Malaysian government, with the ever rising influx of refugees into the country. Malaysia has policies in place whereby refugee children are not entitled or allowed an education in the government school system. They are encouraged to secure private education. The researcher was appointed as the external examiner for Year Six, the final year of Primary Education, whereby it was noted that a number of students had mastery of languages despite their adverse circumstances as refugee children. Eleven students from the refugee camp were randomly selected on the basis of anonymity. They were interviewed within a secure environment and this data was analysed along with the test answer scripts. The study seeks to explore plausible reasons for their language mastery despite adverse circumstances and offers insights for the findings to be applied within a local context where English is taught as a second language. Key words: refugee, education, mastery, languages
The applicability of theories at times are occasioned by societal norms as it is a known fact that theorist are influenced by their immediate society. Hence, situation where most classes are overcrowded, one would begin to wonder if theory like Blooms mastery learning could be applicable Hence, this study investigated the applicability of mastery learning in public senior school as perceived by teachers. The study used descriptive survey research type. Two hundred and thirty teachers were sampled from public senior secondary schools in Kosofe local government area of Lagos. Teachers' perception on the applicability of Mastery Learning (TPABML) was designed by the researcher to measure teachers perception, the instrument was validated with reliability index of 0.84. Data collected was analysed using mean score, percentages and independent t-test of significance. Findings showed that mastery leaning is not practicable in public senior secondary as perceived by teachers. The study also finds significant difference between teachers with post-graduate qualification and teachers with first degree, but no significant difference was found based on teachers experience. The study recommends that teachers should change their orientation and make efforts to apply mastery learning as it has recorded positive results when used. Keywords: Blooms mastery Learning, Perception, Practicability
Este texto es una de las últimas aportaciones del pionero de la Economía Política de la Comunicación Herbert I. Schiller. El él mantiene una de sus líneas de investigación fundamentales: la extensión de la doctrina del libre flujo de la información como parte de la política exterior estadounidense. Sólo que en este caso se aplica al comercio electrónico y la era digital. En este sentido uno de lo documentos analizados en profundidad por el autor, The Framework for Global Electronic Comerce, representa la actualización de la doctrina. De esta manera el mantenimiento de la hegemonía de Estados Unidos y su supremacía electrónica global serán posibles a lo largo del siglo XXI. ; This text is one of the last contributions of pioneer of Political Economy of Communication Herbert I. Schiller. The author keeps up with one of his fundamental thesis, that is, the extension of the free flow of information doctrine as part of the US foreign policy. In this case it is applied to electronic commerce and the digital era. In this sense one of the documents analysed in depth by the author, The Framework for Electronic Commerce, represents the actualization of this doctrine. Thus the preservation of US hegemony and its global electronic mastery will be a fact along the 21st century.
This article contributes to the broadening agenda of critical globalisation(s) research by analysing one of the most fundamental ideological foundations of the current global transformation in a historical perspective: the ideology of "domination over nature" that was implemented in Europe from 1500 onwards. Humans have always shaped and altered their environment according to their needs and aspirations. However, it is the distinct ideology of mastery and domination over nature that underlines this unprecedented enterprise. An ideology in this context is understood as a codified justification for social practices, codified in concrete as well as highly abstract systems of rule. The question I seek to answer in this contribution is why Europe – a backward civilisation up to the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance – was the birthplace of the distinct ideology of mastery over nature, globalising itself through exploration, discovery, and trade to nearly every corner of the planet. Key words: ideology of mastery, human-nature relations, ecological imperialism, historical political ecology
In the early decades of the sixteenth century, Coventry experienced a severe economic crisis that, by the 1530s, was verging on the point of catastrophe. In this period the city experienced not only a glaring lack of 'substantial citizens' who functioned as the primary force behind much of the medieval urban economy, but also an increasing shortage of merchants willing to hold civic offices. While the reason behind this avoidance of office-holding was its exorbitant expense to the citizen, the effects of evading public office placed a great deal of stress on the city's social fabric. Unable to fill positions within the council, Coventry's authority structures experienced a contraction of membership, which forced a reconfiguring of the city social superstructure. Perhaps the clearest example of this reconfiguration is the merging of the Corpus Christi Guild with the Trinity Guild in 1534. More than that of many other provincial urban centres, Coventry's social hierarchy was gerontocratic in nature; among the most affluent classes in the city, age served as the principal means of compartmentalising society. The importance of age to an individual's social advancement was mirrored in the duration of his progress through the Corpus Christi and Trinity guilds — Coventry's two principal religious guilds. Indeed, the profound interconnectedness between these guilds and the civic government is witnessed by a citizen's necessary progression through the guild hierarchy to attain the highest levels of political status within the city. The significance of this basic age categorisation was manifested in a variety of ways. One consequence of this mode of social organization is the use of gerontocratic language to confer privilege on elite guildsmen. This notion of age as a distinguishing feature in both the civic and guild hierarchies also appears explicitly within the Corpus Christi Plays, both of which were newly 'translated' within a year of the merger between the city's two religious guilds. My paper focuses on the different ways in which the authority of the city's aged elite is disrupted and how this disruption is dealt with. I argue that in the Weavers' Pageant we can see a treatment, though thinly veiled in a biblical context, of the three most significant social groupings within Coventry — the craft fellowship, the household, and the civic council — as well as the specific threats that may potentially disrupt the hierarchy of authority within each grouping. This pageant further suggests a consciousness of how Coventry's aldermanic authorities manipulated the language of age in order to mystify the economic structure that underwrote these divisions. The Weavers' keen awareness of how a rhetoric stressing the authority of the elder was deployed by office holding guildsmen who practiced the wealthier crafts may help to explain not only the centrality of age within the pageant but also the different ways in which age is exploited in the various encounters between characters.
