Renee, so long as we don't fool ourselves into thinking that the problem
(of neo-liberal domination of our lives) can be solved inside the
University, I think the Universities are as good a place as anywhere to
fight these things out. In a world where knowledge is not only a commodity,
but the commodity which most characterises the dominant economies,
Universities are far from being ivory towers, or places in some way outside
of the "real" world. On the contrary.
I think what people working in them can do is to live and work according to
the kind of ethics which the Vygotsky School pioneered, and maintain those
relations not only in relation to students, but also other employees,
outsiders, the administration, our immediate bosses, the funding bodies and
so on, and be absolutely uncompromising and obstinate in adhering to a
genuine ethic of collaboration, against the politics of mutual manipulation
implicit in the customer-service mentality as well as the old-world
mentality of "teacher-knows-best".
Andy
>So that's not to say I don't think learning is possible at universities,
>only to say it is not exactly fostered by the institutional structure itself.
>
>So what are our alternatives...?
>
>(this is not a rhetorical comment, I am hoping people have some)
>
>Renee
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 10 2001 - 15:49:10 PDT