Is Silence Really Golden? The Role of Spiritual Voice in Folk Pedagogy and Folk Psychology

Abstract

ABSTRACT Most recently, considerable attention has been focused on the social construction of knowledge and an internalist, first‐person perspective on learning. Included in this paradigm shift is a particular ‘hybrid’ of both psychology and educational theory often referred to as ‘theory of mind’ (ToM research) or folk psychology. This article outlines models of teaching, learning, and mind in the hopes that such an advance in understanding children's minds will lead to an improved pedagogy. To address the issues of emotion and ‘spiritual voice’ that may constrain learning in the classroom and self‐development, Belenky et al.’sfive epistemological perspectives or ‘Women's Ways of Knowing’ (New York, Basic Books, 1986) are couched within the framework of Olson and Burner's [Folk Psychology and Folk Pedagogy, in: D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds) Handbook of Education and Human Development: New Models of Learning, Teaching and Schooling, pp. 9‐27 (Oxford, Blackwell)] four models of mind, teaching and learning. At issue is the dialogical relation between folk psychology and folk pedagogy and its contingency on both culture and context.