Arlo And why do philosophy? you might like this on Dewey:
http://davidhildebrand.org/articles/hildebrand_teaching.pdf David M ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arlo Bensinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 10:31 PM Subject: Re: [MD] The Trouble With Wilber > [Krimel] > You are my hero, Arlo. Such incredible patience! Over the years I > have watched you wade through this crap tirelessly. I have always had > this Pollyanna belief that people are not really stupid they just > need to have things explained better or maybe they just have not been > presented with the right information. > > [Arlo] > Well, I don't know about being patient. You should see me banging my > head against the computer sometimes. Luckily, I don't have to deal > with the deceptive and distortive rhetoric of xenophobic wing-nuts > often. In fact, only here really. > > The whole "bash the Academy" crowd, which pretty much defines > right-wing politics, uses the same rhetoric generation in and > generation out. They labeled Pirsig a "radical professor" fifty years > ago, and still use that tired phrase with each new round of nonsense. > "Dumbing down our schools" is just another old, worn-out cliche, and > every time you hear it you are justified to roll your eyes and tread > with caution. More often than not, it is used to masquerade attacks > against non-white, non-European cultural information. Its the damned > liberals and foreigners who are ruining the country, destroying the > schools, blah blah blah. > > Now, this is not to say "everything is fine". There are problems in > the current system that should be addressed. As I said, I think the > fundamental is deriving from our lack of true comprehension as to why > we are publically educating in the first place. I've spoken to many > people over the years, in and out of the Academy, and the most common > answer I get is "because its the right thing to do". Okay, but WHY? > What are our purposes? > > If our goal is an informed citizenry for voting, then we should > certainly foreground history (American and World), political theory > and economics. But why fund art, music and vocational tracks then? > Why fund "literature"? Why fund "math"? If our goal is to meet the > demands of labor, why fund (again) literature and art? Why not turn > all public education into vocational learning? Most likely, education > serves a mixed goal set. And it should. In a complex society, the > outcomes of a public education are broad; vocational as well as > informed citizenry. But how do we determine who gets what and when? > How do we integrate "what" with something meaningful? Why should > Janey find reading "Catcher in the Rye" valuable? Why should Johnny > find learning long division valuable? Because it will "get them good > jobs"? Make them "better people"? I have this conversation with my > daughter all the time. > > On a closing note, David Granger recommended a book to me a while > back that I am just now opening up and starting. "The manufactured > crisis : myths, fraud, and the attack on America's public schools" by > David Berliner. It looks like a good read. You may want to check it > out (I know we all have book lists that are impossibly long). > > moq_discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ > moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
