Showing How: The Act of Teaching

Here is a thoroughly original work on the meaning of teaching by one who has been widely credited with reshaping the field of religious education in the United States, and to have had a significant effect also in many other countries. Part 1 establishes a fundamental meaning for "to teach," grounding it in its most basic forms and moving from examples in the nonhuman world (what the mountain teaches the mountain climber) to communal and nonverbal forms of teaching among humans. Part 2 explores the languages of teaching and the diverse forms of speech appropriate to teaching: rhetorical forms, including storytelling and preaching; therapeutic languages; and religion's preservation of these languages in ritualized settings, including confessing and mourning. Part 3 draws out the implications of a full understanding of "to teach" for education, the school, and the teaching of morality. Showing How addresses schoolteachers, parents, counselors, ministers, administrators, and all who recognize teaching as a fundamental human act. By exposing the root meaning of teaching, the book represents a challenge to any proposals for educational reform. (From the Publisher)