Moral education and self-knowledge in the Saga of Gisli: siðfræði og sjálfsþekking í Gísla sögu Súrssonar

• Main Author: Sigurðardóttir, Þóra Björg
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2024
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/tuuom/article/view/3921

The article discusses teaching of the Icelandic Saga of Gisli from a moral approach. On the one hand, attention is directed towards the importance of moral imagination to put oneself in the shoes of characters and relate to their situations, and on the other hand, towards moral concepts and vocabulary to shed light on the virtues and vices of characters. It is also considered whether this can help young people understand literary texts and, at the same time, help them gain an opportunity to understand themselves better. The research question sought to be answered is: 1. How does an Icelandic saga help teenagers understand their own morality? To answer this question, the results of a research project on the Saga of Laxdæla, which took place in 2016–2019 in collaboration with Icelandic teachers in three primary schools in Iceland, are consulted. In particular, the interviews with teachers and their experiences of teaching Icelandic sagas and parallel teaching materials on virtue ethics. Based on the experience of a previous project on the Saga of Laxdæla, a new set of teaching materials was prepared for the Saga of Gisli. These materials incorporated findings from recent research on children's language development and concept teaching, intending to increase the time spent on vocabulary before it was used to analyse the story. The materials were then tested in literature teaching with teenagers. I also draw on my own teaching as an Icelandic and philosophy teacher at upper elementary school for the past decade, the testing of teaching materials and teaching approaches with my students and my experience through Waldorf pedagogy of teaching through creative work as well as the importance of moral imagination in literature teaching. However, the theoretical foundations of this article are theories about the self and moral concepts/virtue ethics. The self is a centuries-old philosophical subject still under debate. In the philosophy of education, the moral emphasis and potential of students to develop their selves have ...