Mirrors of the Mind

Book excerpt: Mirrors of the Mind uses East Asian epistemology and cultural concepts as new conceptual tools to address fundamental questions that educators encounter. The book invites readers to critically reflect on commonly held assumptions about learning, cognition, motivation, development, and other essential areas of educational psychology and learning sciences and, with East Asian epistemology as an underlying theme, examines what it takes to improve educational practices. The book first introduces key issues and controversies in learning sciences, then discusses how to advance our understanding of learning and educational practices through a cross-cultural lens. This book challenges readers to critically examine their own assumptions, and to move beyond the limitations of the Western ways of thinking that have predominantly permeated the field. It will help readers develop new and mindful ways of thinking for improving educational practices. Designed to accompany or replace traditional textbooks in educational psychology, educational foundations, cognition and learning, human development, and other related fields, this book will be useful to educators and anyone seeking new, non-traditional ways of approaching learning and educational practices.