In The Tact of Teaching bestselling author Max van Manen offers teachers at every stage an original and inspiring interpretation of the notion of pedagogy, one that searches for its roots in the experience of in loco parentis. Using dozens of anecdotes and scenes taken directly from life in classrooms, including many from the often-neglected domain of high school, The Tact of Teaching explicates the meaning of pedagogical moments, the conditions of pedagogy, the relation between pedagogy and politics, the nature of pedagogical experience, and the practical forms of pedagogical understanding. The author: -Presents experiential analysis of the relation between pedagogical reflection and action-Explores how pedagogical tact manifests itself, what tact accomplishes, and how tact does what it does-Speaks of hope and humane practice in an era of schooling often given over to mindless technocracy or fashionable despair

Pedagogical Tact describes how teacher-student relations possess an improvisational and ethical character. The daily realities of educators, parents, and childcare specialists are pedagogically conditioned by sensitive insights, active thoughtfulness, and the creative ability to act caringly and appropriately in the immediacy of the moment. Internationally known educator Max van Manen shows through recognizable examples and evocative stories how good teaching is driven by the phenomenology of pedagogy. His book-refocuses educators and others away from an emphasis on instrumental skills and technocratic programs toward the need for pedagogical tact;-describes how pedagogical actions have latent effects that will influence children throughout their lives;-shows how our actions with young people have pedagogically ethical and moral significance;-gives educators back their original vocational motivation and inspiration.

This book draws from and analyzes teachers’ and students’ stories of great classes in order to promote teachers’ development of pedagogical tact and to encourage flow states for students. Taken together, these theoretical lenses—pedagogical tact and flow—provide a valuable framework for understanding and motivating classroom engagement. As the authors suggest, tactful teachers are more likely to see their students in flow than teachers who struggle with basic classroom routines and practices. Grounded in narrative research, and written for pre-service teachers, the book offers strategies for replicating these first-hand accounts of peak classroom teaching and learning.

This thought-provoking book offers an original perspective on the meaning and practice of teaching as a reflective activity. Max van Manen defines pedagogical thoughtfulness as the way that educators grow, change, and deepen themselves as a result of reflecting on living with children. He shows how the processes of teaching require tact --an interpretive intelligence, a practical moral intuitiveness, a sensitivity and openness toward the child's subjectivity, and an improvisational resoluteness in dealing with children. All teachers -- current and future -- who are concerned about the "caring" aspects of their work will be inspired by this text.

In The Tact of Teaching bestselling author Max van Manen offers teachers at every stage an original and inspiring interpretation of the notion of pedagogy, one that searches for its roots in the experience of in loco parentis. Using dozens of anecdotes and scenes taken directly from life in classrooms, including many from the often-neglected domain of high school, The Tact of Teaching explicates the meaning of pedagogical moments, the conditions of pedagogy, the relation between pedagogy and politics, the nature of pedagogical experience, and the practical forms of pedagogical understanding. The author: -Presents experiential analysis of the relation between pedagogical reflection and action -Explores how pedagogical tact manifests itself, what tact accomplishes, and how tact does what it does -Speaks of hope and humane practice in an era of schooling often given over to mindless technocracy or fashionable despair

Argues for the educational value of discontinuous experiences such as doubt and struggle, based on fresh readings of John Dewey and J. F. Herbart.

For 25 years, Maxine Greene has been the philosopher-in-residence at the innovative Lincoln Center Institute, where her work forms the foundation of the Institute's aesthetic education practice. Each summer she addresses teachers from across the country, representing all grade levels, through LCI's intensive professional development sessions. Variations on a Blue Guitar contains a selection of these never-before-published lectures touching on the topics of aesthetic education, imagination and transformation, educational renewal and reform, excellence, standards, and cultural diversity, powerful ideas for today's educators.