Academics Anonymous

Contradictory Laws?

2008-04-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

Here in Florida two of the new laws they are working on passing seem contradictory to me. One is to teach evolutionary theory in the schools, the other is to prevent bullying.

Does anyone else see an inherent contradiction in teaching children that the Law of Nature is "survival of the fittest" and at the same time prohibiting and punishing students for bullying?

Metaphoric Storytelling

2008-04-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

"a good parable needn't be literally true to communicate a true lesson"
-p106, Make Your Own Luck

A School Joke

2008-04-12T23:12:00.000-07:00

Have you heard the one about the teacher who went to see a chiropractor? The chiropractor asked her "Hey, how's that pain in your neck?" Teacher replied "Well, she's still principal, but we're hoping she'll retire soon."

McLuhan discusses Faraday

2008-04-12T22:31:00.001-07:00

In response to the argument that children who are unschooled will miss out:

"Michael Faraday, who had little mathematics and no formal schooling beyond the primary grades, is celebrated as an experimenter who discovered the induction of electricity. He was one of the great founders of modern physics. It is generally acknowledged that Faraday's ignorance of mathematics contributed to his inspiration, that it compelled him to develop a simple, nonmathematical concept when he looked for an explanation of his electrical and magnetic phenomena. Faraday had two qualities that more than made up for his lack of education: fantastic intuition and independence and originality of mind." - Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage

Price vs Cost

2008-04-02T21:31:00.000-07:00

The price of a real education is very high.
The cost of miseducation is higher still.

Socratic Method

2008-03-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

In schools of education there is always someone pushing the Socratic Method. Let us remember how well that method served Socrates and what was the result.

Paying Attention in…

2008-03-13T12:27:00.002-07:00

The reason so many children's minds wander in class is because the things going on in their imaginations are eminently more interesting than the classroom experience.

Mistakes

2008-03-12T22:47:00.001-07:00

I've made a few bad mistakes in my practice... like this time I was explaining to this guy I thought was a parent, how I'd negotiated with this principal on the phone and how he'd been the tightest, crankiest cuss to deal with but that we'd gotten what was due. And he looks at me and goes "I remember that conversation. I still can't figure out how you convinced my secretary to put your call through when I wasn't taking calls. Cranky cuss, huh?" Oops. Anyway, that's why I've kept such strong confidentiality with my clients--so I don't get anyone other than myself into hot water.

The Virtue of Poverty?

2008-03-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that if you took all the people who thought poverty was a virtue and stuck them with the children, you'd end up with a world that is very poor indeed.

The Beauty of Tyrany

2008-03-12T17:22:00.001-07:00

Schooling that obsessively manipulates students, inflicts boredom, monopolizes their time, bothers their sense of justice, creates anxiety, or persecutes genuine openmindedness and rational thinking is a great opportunity to grow.

Curriculum as Control

2008-03-12T17:18:00.000-07:00

"Whoever determines what alternatives shall be made known to man controls what that man shall choose from." - Ralph Barton Perry

"He is [controlled] in proportion as he is denied access to any ideas, or is confined to any range of ideas short of the totality of relevant possibilities."

Curriculum confines children to Romeo and Juliet and restricts them from Troilus and Cressida, to Brave New World and from Island.

Ideology vs. Empirical Research

2008-03-12T17:17:00.001-07:00

"In the study of ideas, it is necessary to remember that insistence on hard-headed clarity issues from sentimental feeling," - A.N. Whitehead, Adventures in Ideas p.?

Grading and Quantitative Educational Research

2008-03-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

It is dangerous to quantify children, it dehumanizes and invites us to treat children as numbers--there is no moral stigma against the mistreatment of numbers.

Ritalin

2008-03-12T17:14:00.000-07:00

If Ritalin stunts growth, what else does it stunt?

Citadels of Slavery

2008-03-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

Gandhi, on page 458 of his autobiography, calls schools and colleges "citadels of slavery". He said "where a choice has to be made between liberty and learning who will not say that the former has to be preferred a thousand times to the latter?" And: "far better to remain unlettered for the sake of liberty than to go in for a literary education in the chains of slaves."

If I may add one more log to the fire: if the cost of a diploma is ignorance, then the price is too high.

Lending Out Your Children

2008-03-12T17:08:00.000-07:00

One thing I do before I lend anyone anything important, I lend them a pen and see if I get it back, you know, make sure they didn't break it and all that. I suggest you do the same when schools borrow your children.

University Boards of Trustees

2008-03-12T17:05:00.000-07:00

There is a conflict of interest for business leaders to dictate how the rest of us will be schooled, is there not? Since it is not in their interests to create people who are readily able to compete with their businesses, but rather to create people whom they can employ in their businesses.

Which isn't to say they deliberately make universities miseducative, only who could blame them if they have?

Impartial Educational Research?

2008-03-12T16:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone who gets their paycheck from the government or from a religious institution is no impartial judge of a government or religious school's purpose or function--this would include private companies whose very existence depends upon the continued existence of government contracts.

Where does that leave us?

Blogs and Learning

2008-03-12T16:42:00.001-07:00

What I like about a blog is that I can have a good one-line idea and get that idea out to other people without having to write a 200-page book that would take up so much of their time to read.

By the way, one of my other blogs is: tacenda.blogspot.com

Textbooks?

2008-03-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

"Bad commentators spoil the best of books."

- Benjamin Franklin

So much for that topic.