Program Alumni » Stephanie Mackler

Stephanie Mackler

Stephanie Mackler is Assistant Professor of Education at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa. She teaches Foundations of Education, Methods of Secondary Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies, Senior Seminar, and she supervises student teachers.

Her scholarly work contributes to the fields of philosophy of higher education and philosophical hermeneutics. One strand of her work considers the university as an institution devoted to ideals of truth, knowledge, and learning. The other strand deals with making meaning in late modernity. As conceptions of the aforementioned ideals change, the university finds itself in what many today call a "crisis." Mackler explains this crisis as the result of a transformation from an outdated positivist approach to an emerging but incomplete hermeneutic approach to truth and education; the ability to make knowledge has far outpaced the ability to make meaning. This crisis has significant ethical implications, as possibilities for action and relating to others depend upon conceptions, or interpretative stories, of who we are, have been, and want to be. Thus, to respond to the crisis of the university, it is necessary to consider yet another crisis in which it is implicated: the crisis of meaning in late modernity.

The second strand of Mackler's work draws from hermeneutic and existentialist philosophy to consider what meaning is, why it is "lost" in this era, and how it can be recovered. She integrates these two strands of her thought to lay out an ideal of liberal education that teaches people to, in Arendt's words, 'stop and think' about - and deliberately create - meaning. In so doing, she attempts to reclaim the idea that education is deeply related to ethical acts and the search to enact visions of a full human life. To put it simply, Mackler worries about the banality of the way we think, speak, and live our lives, and she believes education - and liberal arts education in particular - can and should play a signfiicant role in teaching us to live more meaningfully. Recent publications include:"The Company We Keep: In Search of a More Genuine Partnership Between Mind and Body, Theory and Practice, Scholarship and Life," Teachers College Record. December 21, 2005 and"Ambidextrous Scholarship," Educational Theory 55, no. 4 (November, 2005).

"What drew me to the program in Philosophy and Education at Teachers College, and what kept me there happily for six years, was the exceptional level of intellectual engagement I found among students and faculty there. Too often, studies in education are lacking a certain intellectual and existential depth and sincerity that, I believe, is essential to genuine study in any field. In the Philosophy and Education program at TC, I felt that my brain was alive; my ideas were challenged, and I was surrounded by interesting, passionate, thoughtful, creative people. In particular, I loved how much the program was grounded in humanistic study. We read good books - slowly and closely - and we talked about them. It sounds simple, but sadly that is all too rare in graduate study. It was truly a liberal arts experience, as opposed to an education in a narrow specialty. Yes, I became a Philosopher of Education there, but, much more importantly, I became a genuine thinker. I got to know myself better. I got to know the world of ideas better. I was able to read primary sources carefully, slowly, and in depth and was encouraged to offer my own genuine responses to these texts."