higher education

In the opening chapter of his edited volume The Pedagogy of Compassion at the Heart of Higher Education, Paul Gibbs succinctly locates this collection of essays and the topic itself within the current environment of higher education in a way that will be familiar to many: “Given that the consumer model seems to resonate with the context of the majority of higher education institutions, what place do the virtues of humanity and spirituality have in a product-driven consumer service business model of higher education?” (9). It’s a question often asked, and it is one this volume addresses from a wide variety of angles and perspectives. The answer, from adding the sum of the essays here, is that humanity, spirituality, and other qualities of compassion can be observed, practiced, and cultivated in most if not all places within higher education. The variety of topics and perspectives in this volume provide detailed descriptions, arguments, and inspiration for just how such a pedagogy has been prevalent in the history of higher education, and how it can be integrated more into higher education today.

Gibbs is mindful to be as expansive as possible in the perspectives he includes, and the book does include authors from the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong, and Europe, with voices ranging from senior academics to students. This range demonstrates Gibbs’s point that the book “is neither overtly spiritual nor secular or agnostic” (11).

For instance, Richard White’s entry traces compassion through Western and Eastern philosophy, and in doing so provides practical ideas to create a compassionate classroom. Kathryn Waddington focuses on “self-compassion, which involves self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness” (66). Self-compassion, Waddington shows, can influence a change in behavior and understanding at individual, group, and organizational levels.

Gibbs is conscious of the structure and organization of this essay collection, and the essays flow well in conversation with each other. This element of the book makes for a very engaging read, and one that further encourages the links between multiple perspectives on compassion in higher education. Following the chapter on self-compassion, Irena Papadopoulos writes on intellectual compassion as a way of cultivating world citizenship, connecting the concepts of interconnectedness of social reality as stemming from twentieth-century philosophers Martin Buber and Emmanuel Levinas. From there, the discussion flows to the relation of compassion within the liberal arts, within Buddhism and Islam, and the transformative power of compassion within South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement. There is also a series of essays focusing on compassion in an institutional way.

In The Pedagogy of Compassion at the Heart of Higher Education, Gibbs collects diverse ideas about compassion in higher education. This volume can serve as a guide, for individuals and institutions alike, for an engaging historical and topical conversation on the wide-ranging ways to integrate ideas of spirituality and humanity into realms that have increasingly come to seem consumerist.

This groundbreaking text does not approach teaching and learning from the do’s and don’ts (the mechanics and tools of pedagogy) but instead offers a comparative cross-national investigation of the goals and purposes of education in Singapore, China, Chile, Mexico, India, and the United States. What has each country set as its goals and purposes for the twenty-first century context of close global interactions and rapid information and communication technologies? And how does each assess tangible outcomes? An overarching inter-country similarity is that the goals of pedagogy result from both changes in each country’s contemporary particularity and in their evolving definitions of the global.

For instance, in the twenty-first century, each country faces fast and fluid developments signified by the necessity of learning to learn, of competency of certification, and of online learning. How should teaching and learning respond? Should a nation or civilization choose the route of achieving adaptability to evolving goals? Or should a country center on the technical challenges related to a school’s function? Succinctly, goals mean who should learn what.

These goals are not neutral or objective. Various stakeholders in society are vying for the appropriate ways of teaching and learning. Governments seek pedagogical goals that produce patriotic citizens; businesses want ideal employees; faith communities desire moral human beings; graduate schools look for highly educated applicants; not-for-profits hope for volunteer-minded people; and parents seek teaching and learning so their children can achieve meaningful employment or, in some case, simply employment.

Drawing on a sophisticated and comprehensive study from the National Research Council (NRC), this book frames each of the six countries within three broad pedagogical rubrics – cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal competencies – that are learned by both teachers and students. Each generic rubric contains relevant subsections. Specifically, cognitive competencies include cognitive processes and strategies, knowledge, and creativity; intrapersonal competencies include intellectual openness, work ethic/conscientiousness, and positive core self-evaluation; and interpersonal competencies include teamwork and collaboration along with leadership development. How does each country implement in practical concretes this NRC framework?

The co-editors chose the NRC study because, in their research, it represents the most all-encompassing and science-based study of twenty-first century skills when compared to the other major studies in the world. The NRC readily admits that many aims within its teaching and learning investigations are not novel. But what is new (and is fundamentally different from all prior historical contexts) is that these sought-after competencies no longer belong to the elites of the world (including the United States). All countries now de jure or at least subscribe to a democratization of pedagogical goals for a diversity of citizens. Indeed, a vibrant twenty-first century country requires universal goals for each citizen.

After an elaborate and nuanced review of the six countries, the book offers a concluding chapter with the following recommendation. Each nation necessitates a systems theory to integrate all aspects of a country’s goals, methods, practices, and assessment mechanisms to achieve the established competencies. The best system will be one that connects fluid, adaptable, logical, and coherent relationships among curricula, school organization and management, various teaching and learning approaches (such as independent study, didactic pedagogy, outdoor education, and project-based learning), effective communication mechanisms, and emotional buy-in from society’s stakeholders.

I highly recommend this book for any civic-minded people, especially those wanting to achieve professional development for teachers and to prepare students for new ways of learning now.

As much as teachers would like to argue to the contrary, the university is a business, an educational business to be specific. Universities, colleges, technical schools and the like are in the business of selling learning. They sell this product to those who see the need for education beyond the formative years, whether that be training in a trade or preparation for an occupation such as medicine, psychology, or religious service. Institutions of higher learning have been in existence for around a millennium, and have served as a tent pole artifact for institutional culture – universities have either set the bar of cultural progression or have fallen behind, sputtering to keep pace with the practitioners outside their hallowed walls who are establishing new trends and raising the bar set by the university.

We seem to be in a contextual epoch that is squarely set between each of these extremes. There is still a hushed reverence that comes from finding a peer who attended Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, or Emory. Many in the academic community clamor to hear special lectures from Continental colleagues who have attended or are employed by Oxford, the University of Paris, or the University of Amsterdam. In some pockets, simply having a college or graduate degree can still mean higher pay, positional advancement, or advanced social standing.

In the United States, we seem to be living in a time of both saturation and scarcity. Higher learning institutions are continually creating new and engaging programs to prepare interested individuals for securing employment in an ever-evolving, technologically-driven, globally-emerging marketplace. And yet the number of students seems to be shrinking as many weigh the cost of attending college or find that their career choice may not even require a college degree.

Responsiveness to the changes taking place in society and academic preparation for those changes is of concern for leaders at universities, colleges, and trade schools. On one hand, the administration crunches numbers and devises business strategies to ensure that the institution remains open. On the other hand, faculty craft courses and develop programs to ensure that teaching is what keeps the institution open. This is the discussion that editors Leisyte and Wilkesmann present before the reader. Assembling over twenty scholars from across the globe, this volume demonstrates that the New Public Management model can be used to successfully organize institutions of higher learning. In providing specific examples from Germany, China, the UK, and the Netherlands, as well as individual authors speaking out of their own experiences, this volume shows how academic managers can integrate business-based operational models with rubric-based educational models to promote academic integrity and marketplace relatability. Change will continue to be the one true constant of the educational universe, and this volume provides a good map for the road ahead.

Twelve articles clustered in four sections under this ambitious title evince a desire to promise revolutionary changes that have been associated with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs: term-based courses available to the mass free of charge via online media). The authors are truthful to this vision, offering vast ranges of topics including distance learning, open learning, innovations, academic administration, business management, and educational technologies. The book includes a detailed table of contents that provides a concise synopsis, and each chapter concludes with an extensive list of references and other resources.

Section 3 offers two articles with case studies. The first features a MOOC that deals with the problem of bullying in schools. It reflects on the use of test cases and finds that timely feedback is critical. The second examines LMOOCs (language MOOCs) that facilitate foreign language acquisition with the aid of mobile platforms. In LMOOCs, mobile devices function not only as a portal to the course site but also as a gateway to real-world language environments. The final section, which contains one chapter, outlines a planned course on mechatronics in a hybrid format, combining the benefits of the face to face approach and a MOOC.

The major strength of the book is that it provides guidelines for the implementation of MOOCs in practical terms, away from the clichéd terms (such as “revolution,” “hype,” or “innovation”) that are often associated with them. While the MOOCs revolution is rumored to be coming to an end, the authors assign to the movement a role that could still be made to higher education. To this end, the book calls for pedagogical refinements as well as a clear analysis of the financial viability of MOOCs.

Parenthetically, most of the authors assembled in this volume hail from social and geographical locations with European hues. It leaves one to wonder whether claims in this book would have been different if it also included North American or other global contexts, where the movement of MOOCs was born and is still growing.

Two root words for education, educare and educere respectively express the complementary principles, to train or mold, and to lead out from. Of the two root words, Karen Gross’s book exemplifies educere, to lead out from, since her basic premise is to meet “students where they are and asks – demands – that institutions do vastly more to understand and respond to the students now enrolled in our educational system” (15). More than a student-centered learning approach to education, Gross suggests that the educational system as a whole should assist students in developing lasticity, a term she uses to describe the quality necessary to enable breakaway students not only to complete their degrees, but also to succeed as adults in the working environment.

Gross prefers the term “breakaway learners” rather than “at-risk learners” because it  describes more accurately that these students are breaking away from the societal, economic, and familial circumstances that often have hindered their progress in the educational system. She notes that these students have developed the capacity, often overlooked, for lasticity. She defines lasticity as a set of conditions that enables individuals to flourish in education and life. Lasticity is built upon a two-part equation of six qualities (the six Ts) and five building blocks. While she does explain the six Ts (trust, transparency, tranquility, teachers and teaching, tolerance, and temperance), Gross focuses mostly upon the five building blocks of elasticity, plasticity, pivoting right, reciprocity, and belief in self. Within her chapters, she provides clear examples of each of these five building blocks, noting that the first three are centered on the students themselves, whereas the last two require engagement between students and institution. For example, her chapter “Pivoting Right,” while centering on the individual, does describe four ways educators can foster making wise decisions.

While Gross addresses developing lasticity in higher education, she also notes that the educational system as a whole, from early childhood to college, requires a re-examination of its purpose and goals. As such, Gross recognizes the challenge of changing the educational pipeline and landscape that would enable the development of lasticity. She identifies both macro and micro challenges that need to be surmounted. Further, she addresses the hurdle of money and provides suggestions as to how to assist students better, even to the recommendation of changing the FAFSA form itself to make it more accessible to all parents and students.

Even though her text focuses on changing the educational pipeline, some of her examples can be used now by educators and within institutions. Developing trust, enabling student voices, and encouraging belief in self can be done in many of the ways she suggests as well as through understanding better those whom we help learn along the journey of life. In essence, Gross would probably agree that the process begins with changing the focus of education from educare to educere.