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Philosophers of education are largely unaware of Dewey's concept of transactionalism, yet it is implicit in much of his philosophy, educational or otherwise from the late 1890s onwards. Written by scholars from Belgium, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the USA, this book shows how transactionalism can offer an entirely new way of understanding teaching and learning, the individual and sociocultural dimension of education, and educational research. The contributors show how the concept helps us to see beyond an array of false dualisms, such as mind versus body, self versus society, and organism versus environment, as well as an equally vast array of binaries, such as inside-outside, presence-absence, and male-female. They introduce the key critical ideas that transactionalism represents including emergence; living in a world without a within; the temporally and extensionally distributed nature of meaning, mind, and self. The use and elaboration of transactionalism is grounded in philosophical inquires and in empirical analyses of practices in formal and informal settings including values education, early childhood education, biology education, museum education, coding and computer science, Oceanographic and Atmospheric study, policy reform, play, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this article, we investigate ‘no touch policies’ as a practical teacher concern that includes the body as a location, a source and a means in educational activity. We argue that to understand issues regarding physical touch within school practice we must conceive it as deeply associated with specific teaching techniques. Thus, the didactical challenge is not found in argumentations about the pro and cons of physical touch, but through analysis of how teachers handle student interaction and teaching intentions. We consider teaching as a caring profession. Caring, as a practical teacher concern, requires wisdom regarding the right time to use bodily touch and to refrain from such use. This wisdom involves the ability to discern people’s needs, desires, interests and purposes in particular situations and act appropriately. From a body pedagogical perspective we approach intergenerational touch not only as a discursive and power-related question but as an essential tension in the intersection of the; ambiguity attendant to any intentional act such as teaching, the conflict between the ethics of care and the ethics of justice, and finally, the paradox of caring. We draw on interviews with PE-teachers in Swedish primary, secondary and upper-secondary schools and analyses of a collection of techniques of bodily touch that are established and practiced with specific pedagogical purposes. The results shows PE teacher’s competence in handling different functions of intergenerational touch in relation to three different techniques of bodily touch; (1) Security touch, which is characterized by intentions to handle the fragile; (2) Denoting touch, which is characterized by intentions to handle learning content and (3) Relational touch, which is characterized by caring intentions. Each of these is of importance for the teachers in carrying out their call to teach and each of these relies on professional assessments whether or not it meets its intended purpose. KEYWORDS:Caring

C'est un dialogue passionné, ayant pour notes de fond la philosophie pragmatique de John Dewey, qui s'inspire de l'humanisme bouddhique. Trouver un terrain commun et développer le bien-être dans un monde qui se globalise rapidement renforcent les potentiels illimités de l'individu et de la société.

Recently, there has been increasing pedagogical interest in the qualities and characteristics of movement. This article examines these qualities and characteristics in terms of John Dewey's distinction between abstract, linguistic significant meanings and concrete, embodied imminent meanings. Imminent meanings are comprised of intuitive qualities, feelings, selective attention, and habits. We examine each of these in turn in hopes of better understanding the learning of "body techniques" while illuminating some important aspects of body pedagogics.

Ethics concerns right relationship with others and the world around us. I want to suggest that sympathy as found in all primates is the primordial origin of human ethics. Darwinian continuity establishes an inti-mate relationship between humans and other animals: Human nature is a part of nature as a whole. Recognizing this relationship is a worthy educational ideal; it helps curb excessive anthropocentrism by putting us in our proper place.

Against the background of the Deweyan tradition of Democracy and Education, we discuss problems of complexity and reductionism in education and educational philosophy. First, we investigate some of Dewey's own criticisms of reductionist tendencies in the educational traditions, theories, and practices of his time. Secondly, we explore some important cases of reductionism in the educational debates of our own day and argue that a similar criticism in behalf of democracy and education is appropriate and can easily be based on Deweyan terms. Thirdly, we draw some more general conclusions about complexity and reductionism as challenges for democracy and education. Among other things, we argue that powerful social tendencies of capitalist competition and social Darwinism support reductionisms in education and put the democratic project at risk. The tensional relation between democracy and capitalism constitutes a major challenge for educational philosophy in our own time as much as in Dewey's.

Our paper addresses the emergence and evolution of values in educational settings. It builds upon and extends earlier work on companion meanings to develop a theory of the creative use of companion values and meanings in education. The recognition of companion values in educational practices highlight epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic transactions that occur in ways we characterize as 'other than modern.' Introducing the idea of educative moments allows us to identify situations where value spheres interpenetrate and interrogate each other in the meaning-making of students and teachers. These moments occur when students suddenly experience companion meanings and values such that teacher and student must deliberate together rather than the teacher dictating some dominating epistemological, ethical, or aesthetic value. This way, it is possible to accommodate critical and creative reflection in education where new values can emerge or evolve. We illustrate the theory by empirical examples from classroom conversations.

Educators frequently fret over how to bridge the gap between theory and practice. In an important sense, it is a false problem. Theory is simply the thoughtful, reflective phase of good practice. We will approach Dewey’s philosophy as one of continuous creation and re-creation or even more precisely, social co-creation, that requires making meaning, knowledge, and value together. We will look at each one of these three in some detail along with the ways they transact with one another. Fundamentally, we can only distinguish them for some purposes, but never fully separate them. Everywhere we look, we will see we cannot entirely pull theory and practice apart. There-fore, the paper will conclude that if we unify theory with practice, we may use the same paradigm for the intelligent production of meaning, knowing, and valuing, thereby obviating the functional independencies among them.

We are attracted by our heart's desires. In love we passionately desire to possess the good, or at least what we perceive to be the good. But what we seek soon comes to possess us in thought, feeling, and action. It becomes who we are, the content of our character. In this paper I want to talk about education and Eros. I want to talk about Eros as a creative poetic force that makes new meanings and makes us who we are. I desire to reopen a conversation about what it means to educate for wisdom, that is, to teach the passions to desire the good.