A good set of questions. The problem we have is that school has been socially defined as a place where students are taught the right answers to all essential questions. (We can go into the history of that notion some other time.) We cannot readily pretend to teach all of the right answers and at the same time teach critical thinking or multiple sides of any question. Worse than that, the most important questions don't even have right answers. That's supposed to be what politics is for, deciding what to do when we have no other way to decide.
Every child, while learning language, culture, physics, what to eat and what not, and so on, also has to come to grips with the essential questions. What is this? Is it real? (Ghosts, races, countries, money, syle, the Higgs boson,...) What is true? Should we believe each other, or anybody else in particular or in general? Why or why not? What is important? What should I do even if I don't want to? The two-dollar words for these questions are ontology, epistemology, and ethics. Children, who have no idea of such words, are remarkably good at absorbing, or sometimes choosing among, the answers to such questions given by family, friends, the culture, schools, and so on. Some children come up with their own answers to some of them. Right now the US is fighting the third round of a centuries-long battle over many of these questions, the ones that relate to slavery and racism. Round one was the Civil War/War of Northern Agression, and round two was the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Demographic changes and geverational changes have been steadily moving in the Progressive direction since then on race, women's rights, gay rights, the Cuban embargo, and other issues of identity, plus other related issues such as "Darwinism". The problem with evolution is that it says that we are all descended from presumably black Africans. Statistics show steady progress on most social issues, so that they will go away by 2025 as national and statewide issues, even in Mississippi and Alabama. Nevertheless they will remain important in some local elections. Once the desire to prevent social programs for minorities and women goes away, the desire to strangle the government and never allow tax increases for anything will also largely dry up. At that point we will be able to discuss education policy without these unacknowledged issues poisoning our discourse. Then we can tackle the real problems, such as corporate power and global warming. But we can do much better than we have been by making an end run around political-social control of textbooks. Free digital learning materials cannot be blocked by "Starve the Beast" policies, nor by political control of curricula. When we can use computers to teach deeper understanding at earlier ages, we will create enough space around tests to have time to do other things On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 20:43, Phil Bartle <[email protected]> wrote: > Rant for this weekend is about controversial subjects > See: http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Philbartle#Phil.27s_Rants > Cheers, > Phil > If the coach does the pushups, > The athlete will not get stronger > Community Empowerment: > www.scn.org/cmp/ > WikiEducator > http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Philbartle > Join our discusssion forum > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Community_Strengthening > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] -- Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation. The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination. http://www.earthtreasury.org/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
