Suchergebnisse

Individualists like to think of themselves as atoms, their trajectories causally dependent on collisions with other similar entities but their essence resolutely independent and autonomous. They are whole and entire in themselves: they are not elements or adjuncts of some greater whole. Collectivists take an opposite view. Their oddities and accidents may be individual and independent, their movements and machinations largely self-determined, but in their essence they are necessarily bound to others – for all are adjuncts and elements of a larger whole.In this essay I discuss one version of the collectivist philosophy, a version which has (I suspect) been as popular and as widely supported as any philosophy of human nature. In Section I, the constituent ideas are expounded, largely by way of citation from Alexander Pope. In Section II, the anthropological aspect of Pope's philosophy is subjected to scrutiny; and in Section III, the axiological side of the theory is examined.

In this practitioner perspective, we explore the concept of student agency through the implementation of a student government association in a laboratory middle school. Interviews with a social studies teacher and her students offer perspectives of the impact of student voice and choice for student experiences. We describe three major lessons learned through this implementation process: students learn to have healthy conflict and cooperative skills; students learn the appropriate processes to enact change in a democratic society; and students learn to conduct service for their peers, school, and community.