Re: Campaign Against Public Schools

nate (schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu)
Wed, 19 May 1999 12:17:05 -0500

----- Original Message -----
From: Diane HODGES <dchodges who-is-at interchange.ubc.ca>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 1999 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: Campaign Against Public Schools

Education is always moral, ideological etc. there is no reason that being
honest about it should be dangerous. Glancing through my Friere, Teachers
as Cultural Workers, he discusses the absurdness of a politician running on
a platform which is not ideological or political, but rather
administrative. He goes on to state the obvious how the administrative is
nothing but ideological and political. He also mentions which gets closer
to Diane's point that voting is not electing someone to public office, but
rather selecting one to carry out your dreams, and under no circumstances
should you vote for one who is against your dreams.

"If my utopia, my dream, for which I fight side by side with so many
others, is the antogonistic opposite of the reationary candidate's dream, I
cannnot vote for him or her".

This is in many ways what this thread comes down to public education,
modernism, or its antagonist being inconsistant with so many dreams.
Public schooling has not met up to its moral obligations or again maybe it
has. This is the central question for me, does choice and other reactionary
approaches to reform of public education honor my dreams, ideology, morals
etc. The answer for me is a solid no. While I don't know if public
education itself is totally consistant with my dreams, it does have certain
assumptions, ideologies, morals which can serve as a foundation for my
dream. So, in that sense there needs to be a level of pragmatism in which
multiple dreams can co-exist in a dynamic sort of way. The private sector,
now my ideology, as in the aliens in Independence Day, do not allow such
radical ideas as co-exsistance to occur.

Ideologically yours,

Nate

> nate and all -
>
> i will probably burst into flames for suggesting this -
>
> but Cornell Hamm (1989) has written a book on phil of educ which
> is introductory;
> looks at the flaws of Paul Hirts's enlightenmmnt model and revises
> for a critical education;
> Hamm argues an education is a moral responsibility, and any education
> that cannot account for its moral choices is not education.
>
> knowledge, here, is moral knowledge,
based on basic kantian premises
> on the primacy of human life as a generalizable rule;
>
> it is traditionlist philosophy; but open to the task of taking a stance
> that is responsible and dangerous.
>
> anyone know this work? why do i feel so warm suddenly?
> (hoo! hot! hot!) (oooh NOT! NOT!)
>
> diane
>
> """"""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""
> When she walks,
> the revolution's coming.
> In her hips, there's revolution.
> When she talks, I hear revolution.
> In her kiss, I taste the revolution.
> (poem by Kathleen Hanna: Riot Grrl)
> ******************************************
> diane celia hodges
> university of british columbia
> faculty of graduate studies,
> centre for the study of curriculum and instruction,
> vancouver, british columbia, canada
>
> email: dchodges who-is-at interchnage.ubc.ca
>
>