The Purpose of the Study:

The purpose of this study is to explore how teachers’ autobiographical essays employing three major forms of askēsis (memory, meditation, and method) can help teachers further develop their Bildung. My research question is: In what ways do teachers’ autobiographical essays employing Foucault’s askēsis help teachers learn and develop their Bildung? In this paper, using teachers’ autobiographical writings, I explore the role of Foucault’s askēsis, which is a philosophical exercise to develop oneself, in developing one’s Bildung.

Why Bildung:

The German term, Bildung, elaborated in both philosophy and literature, is an important concept in the human sciences that has a variety of obscure meanings, including “formation, cultivation, and education” (Davey, 2006, p. 37). Bildung became a buzzword again in Germany during the 1990s (Bellmann, 2014), and has become a part of integral curriculum theory in the United States as well (see, for example, Pinar, 2011).

Originated from the 18^th century idealism, Bildung played a central role in the work of Goethe, Schiller, and Humboldt, who identified Bildung as the primary goal of humanity. Embedded in the notion of Bildung is the idea that passive maturation through an innate talent is not good enough for human development; rather, every individual can develop him/herself through education and cultivation (Wahlström, 2010). Individuals can gradually develop their own potential through interaction with their cultural, social, geographical environment (Kontje, 1993, Good & Garrison, 2007). Hence, Bildung designates a human way of developing or cultivating one’s capacity or oneself (Gadamer, 1975/2006), which is seen as occurring both inside and outside of educational institutions (Friesen, 2014). Bildung shapes one’s identity, making meaning of one’s own person (Mortensen, 2002). It refers to an action that a person creates her ‘self’ that is held to be valuable (Schneider, 2010).

As a teacher educator, then, I wonder how I can help pre-service and in-service teachers work on their Bildung as professional teachers (Author, 2013).This proposal documents such wonderings 

Theoretical Framework: Foucault's askēsis:

I use Foucault’s askēsis as a theoretical framework in that autobiographical writing is used as a philosophical exercise. For Foucault, philosophy is the art of living, a “manual or guide to everyday life” (McGushin, 2007, p. xi). The practice of philosophy, according to Foucault, is not a form of accumulating knowledge but a kind of exercise—an askēsis. Foucault’s askēsis means an “exercise of oneself in the activity of thought” (p. xii) or a philosophical exercise to develop oneself. The goal of this exercise is to transform oneself by the activity of thinking. Hence, askēsis results in a subtle self-transformation in which “one finds that one is looking down on oneself from above” (p. xiii). Through askēsis, one develops a broadened and elevated vision (looking down from above) and a wiser, mature attitude.

Foucault (2005) suggests that there are three major forms of askēsis we have known and practiced in the West: memory, meditation, and method. I call them three ME’s.

The first form is memory, which refers to “what gives access to the truth, to truth known in the form of recognition” (p. 460). In this form, we constantly seek truth through our recollections where we return to our “homeland” (p. 460) and our own being. The second form is meditation in which we carry out the test of what we think.  Here meditation implies an activity, a work upon the self that brings about change (Geerinck, Masschelein, & Simons, 2010, p. 389). Finally, the third form, method, is a form that makes it possible to fix what we believe as truth, providing an alternative that will advance the field of knowledge and truth.

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