Resistance,Charity, and Rebirth in Roberto Rossellini's Rome,Open City

Abstract

With its use of contemporary events, location shots, and a plot that mixes comedy, tragedy, and passion play, Roberto Rossellini's 1945 film Rome, Open City founded the movement known as “Italian Neo-Realism.” The film vividly presents the Christian teaching on the relation between religion and politics. Rossellini asserts that a Christian Europe can be reconstructed only on a foundation of charity rather than hate, vengeance, or even justified punishment for Nazi crimes. It is not on the basis of tales of resistance that Italians and Europeans can be reborn, Rossellini argues, but on the basis of the Christian command to “love your enemies.” European rebirth means the installation of a moral order that makes parenthood feasible and respectable. By reflecting on Rossellini's masterpiece, I examine the triumph and the tragedy of the Christian Democratic Europe that Rome, Open City foretold and helped to found.     

Two modes of peer teaching in introductory college geography

Abstract

Two modes of using undergraduate students as peer teachers in introductory courses have been developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Peer teachers are small group leaders in a human geography course built around role playing simulations; in two physical geography courses they are tutors in a self‐paced system. A separate course provides peer teacher guidance—a course‐within‐a‐course model. Socio‐psychological, pedagogical, economic, and political implications of peer teaching are interpreted after ten years' experience with the programme.     

A Dark-Age Settlements at Maxey,Northants

SUMMARY

A dark-age settlement was discovered at Maxey during gravel-quarrying and partly excavated before destruction to reveal at least seven rectangular buildings ranging from 30 ft. to 50 ft. in length and 16 ft. to 20 ft. in width. They were all of post-hole construction but there were instances of post-holes in trenches, post-holes joined by wall-trenches, and, once, a central beam-slot. Near by were smaller ancillary structures including pits surrounded by post-holes, perhaps storage-huts. Open hearths, pits of various types and boundary-ditches were also found. The pottery was of an unusual type, but the small finds suggest that both it and the settlement are of the middle Saxon period.     

Editorial

Abstract

The growth of interest in, and use of, field and laboratory techniques in the various branches of physical geography have led to the development of a second‐year course at Southampton University. A self‐paced format has been adopted in preference to traditional lecture and practical instruction, and the development of the course, its objectives and the methods of assessment devised are reviewed in the light of the experience gained during four years of operation. A tape‐slide programme is used as the core of each of 12 units. The instruction and exercises are provided in weekly workbooks, and assessment of the course includes a seen examination paper devoted to subjects not included in detail in the course.     

Engaging Students in the Learning Process: The learning journal

This paper explores the usefulness of the learning journal as a means of actively engaging students in the learning process, based on a case study of a third-year undergraduate geography course. After briefly reviewing the literature on journal writing in different contexts, the paper outlines the approach adopted in the new geography course, in which students were given guidelines on how to write a journal that would be assessed as part of the course. Extracts from students' journals for this course are used to illustrate how they approached the task, and how they viewed the experience. It is concluded that the learning journal has good potential to increase student interest in and engagement with course material, to encourage and empower students to take more responsibility for their own learning, to be more reflective in their study, and to allow them to have a voice and provide valuable feedback to the teacher.     

Paradigms lost

Abstract

Mastery learning is usually associated with non‐traditional instruction methods. One such method, the audio‐tutorial system, has been applied to an introductory human geography course at Indiana University, Bloomington. Mastery learning procedures (self‐pacing, explicitly stated objectives, diagnostic progress tests) which are used In the course are described. The mastery learning philosophy and associated procedures can also be used in more ‘traditional’ instructional settings; some possibilities are considered.     

Arena gets the growth syndrome

Abstract

Geographical educators can make useful contributions to the process of community development by helping local communities to achieve greater understanding of their environments. One way to do this is via the concept of regional synthesis, developed by, and shared with, the local residents of a community through the medium of a course which focuses on their local regional geography. A localised geography course was offered in 1977 to out ‐of‐school adults in the Kohala area of the island of Hawaii. The specific mechanics of the course are described here, and short‐term outcomes are evaluated. The potential of this form of ‘applied geography’ is briefly discussed.     

Beginning geography: a human and technical perspective

Abstract

A first course in human geography has been designed for majors and students from the more technical fields at university. It is built around five computer exercises, none of which require any programming or computer skills. Problems and exercises are designed to enhance carry‐over skills and humane awareness.     

Cultivating the Common Good at the Margins of the Commons: An Ethnographic Portrait of Transformative Pluralism in a High-Security Prison

ABSTRACT

Arising from an ongoing research project, this article presents an approach to religious and societal pluralism through ethnography. During a course convened inside a high-security prison, with a combined group of students currently resident in the prison and students currently studying in the University of Cambridge, participants and lecturers from diverse faiths and no faith explored concepts of citizenship and the common good. Bringing Rowan Williams’s proposals for “interactive pluralism” together with the transformative pedagogical framework of the course and its resonance with liberative theologies, I describe how the course participants co-created a space in which we were able to enact a transformative approach to the societal pluralism of which our gathering was a microcosm.     

A Family Affair: A nineteenth century tale of one family and its business

Abstract

Between the wars in the UK there were a number of endeavours to bring together a broadly-based movement of like-minded progressive people. These were significantly influenced by H. G. Wells’s vision of an ‘Open Conspiracy’, a self-selecting elite of creative, scientific and managerial individuals dedicated to bringing about a peaceful and rational global society. This article considers the desire of individuals inspired by Wells to find like minds to associate and work with, and the formation of organisations to advance this vision, in particular the Federation of Progressive Societies and Individuals, and Cosmopolis, both founded in the early 1930s. While these bodies may not have had any immediate practical impact, it is argued that they provided a source of community and of support for individuals striving in a range of other causes to bring about a new kind of social order.     

Toward Equity: The Poor and University Students

Abstract

This is a response of the College of Commerce, University of Santo Tomas, to poverty and inequity in the Philippines. Started in 2004-2005, the entrepreneurship course is known as the Triple E program: Entrepreneurship and Ethics education toward Equity. The course unites knowing and doing through opportunities for students to know the poor more as producers and consumers. The vision is for graduates to provide affordable goods, services, and paid work especially to low-income women and out-of-school youth. As a guide, students are oriented to the Triple L model of working with grassroots women—Listening, Leadership, and Livelihood.     

Assessment Techniques for Studying the Effects of Fire on Stone Materials: A Literature Review

ABSTRACT

Fire is one of the most severe threats to stone applied in civil engineering and architecture. In most cases, its effects are irreversible and have long-lasting repercussions. In addition to aesthetic alterations, fire can also induce important mineral-chemical, physical, and mechanical changes in stone. Research concerning the effects of fire on stone materials in recent decades has been providing valuable knowledge to inform present and future conservation and restoration actions. In this literature review, the properties and techniques used for studying the effects of fire on stone materials are appraised, summarized, and compiled. A comprehensive and practical overview of those effects is also given. Open porosity and P-wave ultrasonic velocity are the physical and mechanical properties that have been studied most. Other frequently researched areas include chemical-mineralogical changes, color, density, water absorption, uniaxial compressive strength, and modulus of elasticity are also very frequently investigated.     

The green revolution game

Abstract

Teaching qualitative methods in the context of an existing research methods course presents a number of problems. Qualitative methods tend to be marginalised and constrained by traditional expectations of teachers and taught to elicit a polarised response from students. A number of factors contribute to this reaction: the paucity of library resources, a perception that qualitative methods are frivolous and challenge traditional values and the difficulty of teaching large numbers. As the course has developed, a number of innovations have been introduced to combat these reactions and they are described and evaluated in a short article by James Sidaway appended to this paper.     

ODE to a geography teacher: Sexuality and the classroom

Abstract

This paper explores some of the ways that sexuality is an issue in the course of teaching. It includes discussions of crushes between students and staff, consensual personal relationships between staff and students, sexual harassment and how to create an atmosphere in the classroom/institution that enables lesbian, gay and bisexual students and staff to ‘come out’.     

Aims and objectives in degree curriculum design

Abstract

The educational assumptions which are made in curriculum design in geography are often implicit rather than explicit. This paper brings them to light and explains those which relate to the aims and objectives of a course. It examines the notion of curriculum, the nature of aims and objectives and the kinds of aims and objectives which are appropriate to degree courses.     

Predictable Achievement Patterns for Student Journals in Introductory Earth Science Courses

Student journals encourage more frequent thinking about course topics, foster development of writing skills, provide feedback about course content and administration, and mitigate exam anxiety. Measures of academic 'ability' and other student characteristics were found to correlate with journal grades. This was unexpected. For example, grades correlated positively with exam scores and GPA, and correlations varied widely among the disciplines represented by the students. Females consistently earned higher journal grades than males. Segmentation modelling (SPSS) identified important subgroups involving gender, age, exam scores and major subject. The journal assignment is, therefore, not equally beneficial for all students.     

Liberty,Equality, Nobility: Kolnai,Tocqueville, and the Moral Foundations of Democracy

Abstract

Though few would attach the label of liberal to Dostoevsky as a thinker his life and work can be seen as motivated by a concern for human freedom. As an editor and author he advocated a course of action for his nation's intelligentsia that would transform the Russian autocracy into a liberal regime. This course of action was dictated by his insight into the necessary foundation for a liberal regime, a principle of self-abnegation that rested in turn on the conviction that human beings share in an immortal principle. This insight points to and gives content to the true goal of the liberal regime, the recognition and protection of human dignity.     

'Nothing Can Ever Be the Case of 'Us' and 'Them' Again': Exploring the politics of difference through border pedagogy and student journal writing

Linda McDowell (1994) has called for styles of teaching which put into practice arguments about the 'politics of difference', which has become an increasingly central part of human geographical research. This paper draws on a number of years' experience of teaching an undergraduate course on multicultural historical geography, in which this was attempted. Here students were encouraged to get more involved in these debates, to take them more personally, and to develop 'situated knowledges' about the UK as a multicultural society. The approach to teaching, learning and assessment which made this possible was based on the principles of 'border pedagogy' and on students writing journals throughout the course which charted the development of their understandings of the materials they encountered.