This article discusses Nietzsche's response in The Birth of Tragedy to what he calls the wisdom of Silenus, that “the very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is to die soon.” I begin by analyzing the view that Silenus expresses a proto-Schopenhauerian truth about the world as “Will.” I then review Bernard Reginster's interpretation of the wisdom of Silenus as an early (...) form of Nietzschean nihilism. As an alternative to these readings, I argue that, for Nietzsche, Silenus's wisdom addresses a crucial, existential dimension of ancient Greek tragic culture. I conclude by pointing out that, in BT, Nietzsche locates nihilism not in the wisdom of Silenus, but in the advent of Socratism. (shrink)

Hedwig Dohm is a radical German feminist whose work critically engages Nietzsche's writings. In this article, I develop and draw out the implications of a Dohmian critique of Nietzschean nihilism by looking closely at Dohm's novella Become Who You Are!. In this novella, Dohm provides an extended case study of two distinct types of Nietzschean nihilism common to women living in Germany in the late nineteenth century. And Dohm's writings illuminate a double standard in Nietzsche's theory of nihilism: Overcoming nihilism (...) is going to require greater effort for a woman than it will for a man. Dohm emphasizes the challenges that women face in overcoming nihilism. Women must first throw off the shackles of oppressive systems of social norms and institutions in order to reveal a new or different way of interpreting themselves and their world. (shrink)

Upshot: The OPC responses aptly identified numerous factors teachers encounter that can impede changes in pedagogical practice in the classroom. Although some of these factors are external, beyond a teacher’s control, I discuss one internal factor - a teacher’s attitudes and beliefs about their role and the learners they support - that was raised in the responses.

Context: In 2015, we are surrounded by tools and technologies for creating and making, thinking and learning. But classroom “learning” is often focused on learning about the tool/technology itself, rather than learning with or through the technology. Problem: A constructionist theory of learning offers useful ways for thinking about how technology can be included in the service of learning in K-12 classrooms. To support constructionism in the classroom, we need to focus on supporting teachers, who necessarily serve as the agents (...) of classroom-level innovations. This article explores a central question: How can we support teachers to engage with constructionism as a way to think beyond a technocentric view in the classroom? Method: I approach this work from the perspective of a designer, using the process of supporting teachers working with the Scratch programming language in K-12 classrooms as a central example. I draw on reflections from six years of the ScratchEd project, which includes interviews with 30 teachers, and observations from teacher professional development events and an online community of educators. Results: I describe five sets of tensions that I encountered while designing the ScratchEd model of professional development: tensions between tool and learning, direction and discovery, individual and group, expert and novice, and actual and aspirational. I describe how these tensions are negotiated within the elements of the PD model (an online community, participatory meetups, and an online workshop. Implications: The tensions I describe are not specific to Scratch, and can serve as a more general model for PD designers to scrutinize and critique. Constructivist content: This work contributes to ongoing conversations and questions about how to support constructivist/constructionist approaches in classrooms. (shrink)

The Notch proteins play a vital role in cell fate decisions in both invertebrate and vertebrate development. Careful analysis of this role has led to a model of signalling downstream of these receptors, via the CSL (CBF1, Suppressor of Hairless, Lag-1) family of transcription factors. There have been suggestions, however, that Notch can signal through other pathways. In the current paper, Ramain et al.1 provide compelling evidence for Notch signalling through a CSL-independent pathway and they demonstrate that the cytoplasmic protein, (...) Deltex, is required for this signal. In addition, they show that Wnt signalling may regulate this Deltex-dependent signal. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Designing Constructionist E-Books: New Mediations for Creative Mathematical Thinking?” by Chronis Kynigos. Upshot: Chronis Kynigos’s article invites us to explore how to make familiar objects for learning — namely, books — more constructionist. In my response, I ask questions about the affordances and potential limitations of books as central objects, particularly about the role of the learner in relation to the objects.

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.