Myths and metaphors share not only an ability to call our attention to aspects of our world of which we were previously unaware, but also a propensity toward symbolic meanings and interpretations. In Existential Philosophy and the Promise of Education: Learning from Myths and Metaphors, Professor Gordon draws on some well-known myths and metaphors of various Existentialist thinkers and writers as a lens and an interpretative framework with which to explore a variety of issues in philosophy of education. His book argues that symbolic or metaphorical interpretations can offer us representations of problems in education that go beyond what we can gain when we consider them only in their literal sense. Existential Philosophy and the Promise of Education is an excellent classroom text for a variety of foundations courses, including the Philosophy of Education.

Mordechai Gordon is a Professor of Education in the School of Education at Quinnipiac University. His areas of specialization are philosophy of education, teacher education and humor. He is author of Ten Common Myths in American Education (2005) and the editor of Hannah Arendt and Education: Renewing our Common World, winner of the 2002 AESA Critics Choice Award. Dr. Gordon has published numerous articles in scholarly journals such as Educational Theory, Journal of Teacher Education, Oxford Review of Education and Journal of Aesthetic Education.

Contents: Teachers as Absurd Heroes: Camus¿ Sisyphus and the Promise of Rebellion ¿ Education as Empowerment: Exploring Dostoyevsky¿s Notion of `the Underground¿ ¿ Kafkäs The Metamorphosis and the Challenge of Relating to Strangers ¿ Negotiating Contingency: Sartre¿s Nausea and the Possibility of Losing Control in a Technological World ¿ Nietzsche on the Significance of Learning about the Past ¿ Martin Buber¿s Metaphor of `Starting from Above¿ and the Issue of Educational Authority ¿ Hannah Arendt¿s Concept of the `Banality of Evil¿: On Thoughtlessness in Education ¿ Maxine Greene, Opening Spaces, and Education for Freedom.