The Gleam of Light Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson [Hardcover]

In the name of efficiency, the practice of education has come to be dominated by neoliberal ideology and
procedures of standardization and quantification. Such attempts to make all aspects of practice transparent and subject to systematic accounting lack sensitivity to the invisible and the silent, to something in the human
condition that cannot readily be expressed in an either-or form. Seeking alternatives to such trends, Saito reads
Deweys idea of progressive education through the lens of Emersonian moral perfectionism (to borrow a term coined by Stanley Cavell). She elucidates a spiritual and aesthetic dimension to Deweys notion of growth, one considerably richer than what Dewey alone presents in his typically scientific terminology.

Saito has written an important book with a remarkable educational implication: We should educate every individual to grow by recognizing their unique gleam of light in self-transcendent relation with others different from ourselves while recognizing the Over-Soul sustains us all.[A] spirited inquiry . . .. . . Exemplifies a vision of education as cooperative inquiry in which heterogenous voices resound yet experiential authority in its full force operates.A provocative book that will be of value to all who care about Emerson, Dewey, and what they have to say about education.Naoko Saito (Author)
Naoko Saito is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Kyoto. She is the author of The Gleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson.

Stanley Cavell (Foreword By)
Stanley Cavell is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Harvard University. His recent publications includeA Pitch of Philosophy: Autobiographical Exercises;Philosophical Passages: Wittgenstein, Emerson, Austin, and Derrida;Cities of Words: Pedagogical Letters on a Register of the Moral Life and Emersons Transcendental Etudes.

Saito's elegantly written book l³: