Apologies for not being able to keep up with the stream of activity on
XMCA. I really wanted to contribute something from the "Adult Ed
trenches" to furry of activity on the state of education. Adult
Education is a very strange domain where traditional norms and practices
do not apply. What is valued is arguable worthless from an intellectual
viewpoint; yet millions of dollars and ten of thousands of hours are sunk
into this fuzzy unknown called "continuing education."
Kim Cooney subject and sincere effort to follow up on it set off red
flags in my head. It reminds me of a slogan from a 40s era cartoon:
"Duck is brainfood." We look back at such efforts to improve cognitive
performance and laugh, but what will future generations think of our own
efforts?
In adult education there is a great lie: "Work Smarter." It is part of a
cultural disposition determined to "out-think" its way out of the social
and cultural problems we presently face. Problem #1 these days is the
lack of time we seem to have to do anything: from doing our jobs
correctly, to living meaningful and fulfilling personal lives.
Critical social theory is especially frowned upon in this context,
because it says the system is broke and no amount of tweaking will make
it work properly. Since we don't even have the time to do the tweaking,
we certainly don't want hear that we need to start over. Yet, the
analogy with construction certainly applies. No facelift can repair a
faulty foundation and more often than not: there is never enough time to
do it right, but always enough time to do it over.
I personally would prefer to put miles between myself and statements like
"making kids smarter." For smarter carries with it no small amount of
elitism and inequality. Quite bluntly, we don't want to make kids
smarter - we want every child to develop the unique talents that she/he
possesses and we want the world to appreciate that child for the
uniqueness he/she brings.
Of course that brings us nicely back to Adult Education where such a
program would go broke inside 6 months. And yet, a revolution is not one
event, but millions of small ones. Even in my adult classes, I spend my
time squashing assumptions about individual differences and petty
arguments about grades. Let us all work toward that revolution, and
hopefully the need to "make kids smarter" will fade away as gracefully as
"Duck is Brainfood."
Peace, Edouard.
============================================
Edouard Lagache, PhD
Webmaster - Lecturer
Information Technologies
U.C. San Diego, Division of Extended Studies
Voice: (619) 622-5758, FAX: (619) 622-5742
email: elagache who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
:...................................................................:
: Pay attention to how you listen: for to those have, more will be :
: given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to :
: have will be taken away. :
: Luke 8.18 :
. - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - . . . - - - .