Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-176) and index
Is teaching still possible? -- The doctrine of use: Seeds of romantic/pragmatic rhetoric -- Romantic dialectics and the principle of mediation -- Imperfect theories: The pragmatic question of experience and belief -- A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing: Whatever happened to romanticism and pragmatism? -- Changing the course of the stream: romantic/pragmatic perspectives on systems -- What difference does it make? Romantic / pragmatic rhetoric in action -- Index
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Reason to Believe is about teaching and the possibility of making positive change in education. The authors explore the way that American pragmatism and the rhetoric of North American romanticism work together to create a method for restoring hope to teachers and responsiveness to the systems they work within. What the book calls "romantic/pragmatic rhetoric" offers teachers a way to locate the roots of their beliefs and methods, to name them, and thus to act to change and challenge systems that have become in William James' phrase "tyrannical machines."