He is a very fascinating fellow, indeed, from the what I heard in that essay of his.
You're very intrigued with education, aren't you, Jeff? I know you read a lot of interesting books - certainly a lot more than I do.
The thoughts that have come to mind in these few weeks of the term at the university are that the mostly female-dominated field of children's education is seeking to teach children two things: How to be aesthetes, and the concepts and skills they'll need as they go on into their next years of academia. In one of my classes, the instructor is modeling classroom exercises for us - and yesterday she was showing us a way to teach kids what nouns are. It's a wonderful orchestration which she laid out there - with the kids each given pictures that they need to stick under categories on the whiteboard. This gives the kids a chance to talk a little bit about their own ideas, and it gives the teacher a chance to address various kinds of ideas that he or she wants to - which have to do with the various laminated pictures that she chose for the project. Our professor suggested that in some cases, we might take five days to cover all the different kinds of nouns. In my opinion, it's cheating children to spend so many days of class time focusing on such simple concepts.
The other day I was observing a middle school class - and the kids were developing power point presentations to present to the class. It's a good thing to do - and it certainly has value... but again, the kids are spending many days developing skills which are only useful for the next few years that they're going to be in school.
Where are the real world experiences that they need to be introduced to? Where are the entrepreneurial skills they need to be learning? Where are the lessons that they need to have about living in a quid pro quo world so that they learn how to take advantage of the resources which are out there in the world, which they can use to build beautiful things for themselves and their communities?
I like the oral Arthur E Morgan essay that I found when I was looking for what you may have listened to. These are all wonderful values he espouses as an individual. And judging from the list of things that you mention, it appears that he did a lot of work to try to put those values into practice. Of course, one person cannot do everything. Those of us who come along later need to set our hand to the plow, as well.
Recently, I've been very intrigued with the difference in the way that people discuss things in the mass media of various countries. My favorite is Australia.
The values that Morgan espouses in his essay for "This I believe" really have not come to fruition in the Usa. They are, however, present in Australia, it seems to me. My best appraisal of why there is more honest intellectual curiousity and discussion in Australia is that it's because of their very firm censorship policies. There simply isn't a place there for silly people to make national discussions about important issues into a form of vaudeville. I certainly don't believe in censorship, being a person who thrives on looking at all the information out there, and thinking critically about it. Perhaps there are other ways to achieve the same effect.
Is this the segment you listened to?
Npr's historical "this I believe" segment
He is a very fascinating fellow, indeed, from the what I heard in that essay of his.
You're very intrigued with education, aren't you, Jeff? I know you read a lot of interesting books - certainly a lot more than I do.
The thoughts that have come to mind in these few weeks of the term at the university are that the mostly female-dominated field of children's education is seeking to teach children two things: How to be aesthetes, and the concepts and skills they'll need as they go on into their next years of academia. In one of my classes, the instructor is modeling classroom exercises for us - and yesterday she was showing us a way to teach kids what nouns are. It's a wonderful orchestration which she laid out there - with the kids each given pictures that they need to stick under categories on the whiteboard. This gives the kids a chance to talk a little bit about their own ideas, and it gives the teacher a chance to address various kinds of ideas that he or she wants to - which have to do with the various laminated pictures that she chose for the project. Our professor suggested that in some cases, we might take five days to cover all the different kinds of nouns. In my opinion, it's cheating children to spend so many days of class time focusing on such simple concepts.
The other day I was observing a middle school class - and the kids were developing power point presentations to present to the class. It's a good thing to do - and it certainly has value... but again, the kids are spending many days developing skills which are only useful for the next few years that they're going to be in school.
Where are the real world experiences that they need to be introduced to? Where are the entrepreneurial skills they need to be learning? Where are the lessons that they need to have about living in a quid pro quo world so that they learn how to take advantage of the resources which are out there in the world, which they can use to build beautiful things for themselves and their communities?
I like the oral Arthur E Morgan essay that I found when I was looking for what you may have listened to. These are all wonderful values he espouses as an individual. And judging from the list of things that you mention, it appears that he did a lot of work to try to put those values into practice. Of course, one person cannot do everything. Those of us who come along later need to set our hand to the plow, as well.
Recently, I've been very intrigued with the difference in the way that people discuss things in the mass media of various countries. My favorite is Australia.
Here's a long list of audio podcasts from a public broadcaster in Australia - Radio Australia.
The values that Morgan espouses in his essay for "This I believe" really have not come to fruition in the Usa. They are, however, present in Australia, it seems to me. My best appraisal of why there is more honest intellectual curiousity and discussion in Australia is that it's because of their very firm censorship policies. There simply isn't a place there for silly people to make national discussions about important issues into a form of vaudeville. I certainly don't believe in censorship, being a person who thrives on looking at all the information out there, and thinking critically about it. Perhaps there are other ways to achieve the same effect.
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