The Pedagogy of Heideggerian (Un)Truth: How Can We See Stars by Day in a Deep Dark Well?

Abstract

The question of truth as it relates to the teacher's role in the classroom raises not only issues of what and how we should teach, but challenges the very purpose of teaching. Since truth itself is a major question of phenomenology, the author chose to use the works of German philosopher Martin Heidegger for his phenomenological treatment of truth with the hope that it could shed some important light on the fundamental questions of teaching and learning. Then focusing on Heidegger's complex explorations of (un)truth in clearings between brightness and darkness the author suggests that in traditional direct teaching of “truth,” teaching is reduced to a method to instruct students to gain knowledge under the shining Sun of Truth, a concept criticized by Heidegger as “brighter than one thousand suns.” The powerful philosophical, ethical, and educational question Heidegger raises for us is how to “view the stars by day” when we “descend into the dark of the depths of the well.”