Abstract

This collection of stories and reflections on values education by the eminent Ukrainian educator Vasyl Sukhomlynsky was compiled by his daughter, Professor Olha Sukhomlynska and published in 2016. It has now been translated and published in English. In her introduction, Sukhomlynska argues that her father's stories could be used within the framework of Philosophy for Children to stimulate thought about ethical, epistemological and ontological issues. The interest in and attention to the moral dimension of education in this newly translated compilation is not so much new as an endorsement of Sukhomlynsky’s overall legacy as one of the most remarkable artisans of a view about teaching and learning to be gleaned from at least far back as Pythagoras, Socrates and Aristotle, namely, that all education is inherently moral education. Sukhomlynsky was a master storyteller, alert to the pedagogical potential of stories to entice, challenge and occasionally confront, to instil the imaginative cognition essential to moral development and, indeed, to holistic education in general. Hence, the stories and vignettes in the book can serve to stimulate an array of philosophical considerations appropriate to school-aged learning. They may also serve to provoke reflection by adults. The translation is both readable and engrossing.