On May 6, 2015, at 7:57 AM, Louis Eugene Schmier <[email protected]> wrote:
> You know, sometimes I hate Isaac Newton, or, at least, his devotees who > advocated that everything is a machine and is governed by intelligible, > universal, and immutable laws. I say this because the scholarship of > teaching and learning has turned the classroom in a Newtonian pedagogically > and technologically mechanical system. I usually ignore Louis far-too-long and not-particularly-enlightening ruminations on his life as a “real” teacher. But this particular claim misses the mark by such an enormous distance that I feel I have to comment. Whether some overly-excited science “boosters” like to speculate that “everything” is governed by mechanical laws is not really the point. The point is that there is far too great tendency among far too many people to presume, on the contrary, that everything that is the slightest bit complicated (which is pretty much everything) is somehow “mystical” or “divine” or otherwise beyond human comprehension. The mechanist program says only, “Let’s see which of these phenomena we can explain in a mechanist fashion. For any phenomenon we can model in that way, there is no longer a need to regard it as being ‘mystical.' For those things that we cannot model mechanically at present, the question of how it works remains open.” Thus, the famous line from Laplace, when asked by Napoleon about the absence of God in his model of the cosmos: “I have no need of that hypothesis.” Now, to be sure, there are lots of people saying lots of stupid things about education these days, and offering (for sale, note) various contraptions that purport to “solve” the “problem.” The issue here, however, has far more to do with P. T. Barnum than it does with Isaac Newton (viz., “There’s a sucker born every minute.”). Or worse yet, the politicians who over-ride the wisdom of actual educators to impose these devices on the classroom (if even a classroom remains) are having their campaigns financed by the very people who are hoping to make a buck by replacing real teachers with their devices. That is the problem. Not Netwon and not mechanism. In short, Louis, you have been badly diverted from the real issue, which is exactly their intent. Regards, Chris ….. Christopher D Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo ………………………………... --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=44565 or send a blank email to leave-44565-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
