Directions

Directions: Journal of Educational Studies Pacific Curriculum Network
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Emotional problems of children

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Periodicals

Title: Heart and mind : the liminality of the learner in relation to education in the new millennium

Author: Mel, Michael A.
Subject:  Emotional problems of children|Periodicals
 Learning, Psychology of|Papua New Guinea
 Educational anthropology|Papua New Guinea
 Cognition
Volume: Directions: Journal of Educational Studies vol.24, no.1, 2002
Collation: p. 38-46 ;

Abstract: Classrooms in Papua New Guinea (PNG) have supported the view that since all human beings have a head (intelligence) each person should be able, with precision, (logically) to acquire knowledge. Logic has been equated with intelligence. Areas of knowledge that were built on logic have been given significance in the curriculum, while those that seemingly have little to do with logic have been pushed aside. The enterprise of education – processes of knowledge acquisition and creation – needs to move beyond the confines of logic as being equivalent to intelligence. To claim that all logic is intelligence is at best illogical and at worst irrational. There is a need to recognise that the human condition does not learn and live on logic alone. Emotions, or matters of the heart, have long been seen as the enemy of logic, or effective thinking. The two – logic and emotions – have been separated as entities. In my paper I propose that there is a need for a major shift away and beyond this mind set. If education in PNG and around the world is about integral human development and is based on knowledge from within our own cultures as much as from without, then the need to go beyond logic and sensibilities as separate entities or domains of knowledge is paramount.

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