Reading Plato: Between Tragedy and Comedy in Cratylus

This article is a discussion on the Platonic concept of dialogue as comedy. Plato’s Cratylus: The Comedy of Language (Ewegen, 2014) was used as the central source for this article, which can provide the basis for positions on this issue in Latin America such as those exposed by Professor Buarque (2011) in our region and more generally by Gregorio Lury et al. (2018) in Ibero-America. In addition to the aforementioned work, a comparison with Plato’s writing was made using a hermeneutic methodology based on Plato’s writings and his multiples references to laughter throughout his work, in addition to Gadamer’s clear interpretations of the work as a whole. This manuscript aims to accurately establish the existence of a Platonic commitment that is much closer to tragedy than comedy as a genre of interpretation. Thus, although there are sections entirely devoted to laughter in which Plato’s humor can be appreciated, it cannot be the key to interpreting Plato’s work, at least from the perspective of Ewegen’s approach, which must be understood as an educational project, that is, a social transformation project.

Development of creative thinking in the process of project activity in the conditions of digital transformation of technological education

The article considers the peculiarity of the development of student’s creative thinking in educational project activities in the learning process in the context of the digital technologies use in technological education. The main basic principles of the development of the subject area “Technology” as the most important element of mastering the competencies and skills of the XXI century are analyzed, taking into account the need to use modern digital technologies in the process of project activity, as a fundamental direction of mastering new knowledge in an intensively developing world. Based on the analysis of research by domestic and foreign scientists, it is shown that educational project activities contribute to the development of creative thinking when conditions are met that is close to the real design process. Some possible options for the implementation of educational project activities in modern conditions of digital transformation of technological education are described. The measures to solve the problems of modern technological education, contributing to the qualitative organization of the educational process, which relate to both the creation of pedagogical conditions and the corresponding material and technical base, are noted.

COVID-19: Threat or ally in the teaching-learning process in phytopathology?

<p>Preventive confinement against COVID-19 changed the teaching-learning process of the Phytopathology course at the Faculty of Agronomy of the UCR. Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) were integrated into a program called ‘Phytopathology 2020, at the distance but together’. Each student received at her home a box of materials, including culture media and a paper microscope, that allowed her to set up and carry out different phytopathological techniques. The result obtained exceeded expectations and previous results in 16 years of teaching experience. The integration of the family into the educational project was surprising, fostering values of mutual commitment in education and prevention of COVID-19.</p>

Kto się boi współczesności albo smutny dokument epoki

The article presents an educational project inspired by Antoni Słonimski’s poem Document of the Era (Dokument epoki). Preserving and showing the picture of the present – as Słonimski did – is perceived here as a record of the contemporary world. At the same time it is the act of creative selection and configuration of elements that make up the world’s identity and image. Such a synthesis and assembly of pictures become a form of evaluation of the present, a testimony of the anxiety about the directions of its evolution and an expression of distance from what is dangerous and bad. In this project the accent falls on the interpretation of Słonimski’s poem (and other cultural texts) as well as creative activities which use various codes and materials of artistic message. Aside from the doing s presented, but still closely connected, appears a reflection on the current Core Curriculum. This departmental dokument is also treated as a very important, yet not very glorious, testimony of the era.

The Mission of Teaching: to the 100th Anniversary of R.B. Nurtazina

The article analyzes the role and significance of R.B. Nurtazina in the development of modern Kazakhstani linguodidactics. The reason for writing the article was the First International Pedagogical Readings School - Teacher - Innovations in the Modern World, held at Pavlodar Pedagogical University from March 1 to March 9, 2021. The co-organizers were Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (RK, Almaty), L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University (RK, Nur-Sultan), Peoples Friendship University of Russia (RF, Moscow), Kazakhstan Association of Teachers of the Russian Language and Literature (KAZPRYAL), Kazakhstan Public Association Graduates of Russian Universities, Academy of Childrens Books ALTAIR and a team of scientific educational project Epoch and Personality.

Selbst-Bildungen. The Tradition of Comedy and the Emancipation of German Jews in Carl Sternheim’s The Snob

The article explores the connection between enlightenment and comedy, as well as its importance for German Jewry. Following Hegel, whose thoughts on ancient drama as well as modern society have shaped the German discourse on comedy until today, this article demonstrates that questions of self-formation, emancipation, and historical self-location are central to comedy. In Carl Sternheim’s comedy The Snob, the idea of self-formation resonates with the historic concept of “civic improvement” through “Bildung”: Jewish emancipation in Germany stood at the end of an educational project that outlasted Jews’ achieving legal equality. The Snob is a comedy about Jewish acculturation and bourgeoisification and embodies Marx’s understanding of comedy as ambivalent: on the one hand, comedy helps people to part cheerfully from their past that was characterized by inequality, but, on the other, it indicates that a world-historic fact like Jewish emancipation may be prone to repeat itself as a farce. Sternheim’s comedy develops a poetic that embraces ambivalence, but also opens the genre of comedy to the question of therapy and healing. It depicts the struggle between autonomy and social formation – the dialectics of German “Bildung.”

Critical literacy and social agency

Upon the understanding of Applied Linguistics as an indisciplinary field of inquiry that aims to create intelligibility regarding language-centered social problems (MOITA LOPES, 2006), this article introduces a pedagogical instrument, a Critical Multiliteracies Thematic Project, as a means to develop learners’ critical social agency. The nature of this educational project derives from the pedagogy of critical sociointeractional literacy (TILIO, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2015), whose understanding of language teaching permeates notions of citizenship that defy hegemonic discourses by prompting the analysis of themes and language, and the adoption of a constant critical stance. As the pedagogical project in focus situates its practices through alternative Brazilian female voices, students of an extension English course are led to respond to the multiple discourses on gender-imbricated matters that dwells their social horizons (VOLÓCHINOV, 2017 [1929]). Hence, by investigating the dialogue established between the project and a student, this article intends to contribute to the production of knowledge on social life. In order to do so, we selected a task that integrates the project and a multimodal digital text produced by a student in response to the project. We close off the article by framing the relevance of ethically committed language education in promoting learners’ transforming practices.