Alternative approaches to education: Tolstoy’s thinking on teaching and learning and its relevance for today

In this article I reflect upon the educational writings and teaching experiences of the 19th-Century Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy is known to have attached much importance to his own writing on education, even more than to the literary creations for which he is best remembered. His writings on education have much to contribute to our present-day understanding of the learning process and cover such issues as, ‘learner autonomy’, ‘motivation’, ‘relationship’ and ‘student voice’. Tolstoy’s teaching experience was with multiethnic peasant children in his schools in Yasnaya Polyana. I intend to illustrate that the themes and issues that arose from his experiences in the 1860s can still find resonance with students and teachers in the 21st century.

Troublesome Knowledge of SoTL

This study explores the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) as a form of troublesome knowledge (Perkins 1999) that continues to trouble its practitioners. Forty-eight higher education professionals from six countries described their understanding of SoTL in an online survey; ten individuals participated in follow-up interviews to consider how SoTL experiences shape, support, or hinder academic identity and knowing. We categorize our findings according to the dynamic factors—personal, relational, and contextual—identified by Lieff et al (2012); we argue that SoTL serves to illuminate and expose tensions created by competing values and that these values can lead to, or create, a troublesome space wherein promoting SoTL can be enabling and disabling.