A Study On Max Van Manen's Thoughts Of Pedagogical Thoughtfulness

Max van Manen is the major representative of phenomenological pedagogy in North America, whose scholarship stands for the top level of phenomenological pedagogy research. Pedagogical thoughtfulness is the core of Max van Manen's thoughts. This paper attempts to explore Max van Manen's pedagogical thoughtfulness both transversally and longitudinally. Longitudinally, this paper probes the development of the thoughts of pedagogical thoughtfulness; transversally, this paper compares Max van Manen's pedagogical thoughtfulness with other educationists'ideas, and pays special attention to the academic debate between Max van Manen and Fenstermacher.From these two angles, this paper investigates the forming of Max van Manen's thoughts, its major content, significance, limitation and insights. The pedagogical thoughtfulness is the achievement by using the method of real life experiences and it is his answer to the question of teacher education after careful thinking. The thoughtfulness that Max van Manen discussed is one kind of practical wisdom, a special knowledge coming from one's soul and mind and the care for children in multi-aspects. It is mainly made up of teachers'emotional knowledge, the quality of care and pedagogical understanding ability. Max van Manen believes that reflection and phenomenological writing are the major ways of developing pedagogical thoughtfulness. This paper thinks that the significance of Max van Manen's thoughts of pedagogical thoughtfulness primarily includes three aspects: showing the different understanding of"pedagogy"and"education", foretelling the possible tendency of teacher education and stressing the priority of care in teachers'qualities. In the meantime, Max van Manen's thoughts of pedagogical thoughtfulness has some flaws, including neglecting the restriction of the institutionalized education on pedagogical thoughtfulness, negating the value of educational theories and confusing the roles of teachers with those of researchers. Finally, the enlightenment of Max van Manen's thoughts of pedagogical thoughtfulness contains four aspects: studying pedagogy from the life itself, returning of teacher education into the real world of life, using personal experiences as important resources of education and placing great emphasis on the critical inherit and development of traditional thoughts of teacher ethics in our country.