e-stranged, e-stranged, and e-stranged

From: Bill Barowy (wbarowy@attbi.com)
Date: Wed Dec 11 2002 - 05:26:28 PST


On Wednesday 11 December 2002 05:41 am, Bruce Robinson wrote to all of us:
> Am I the only one to note the irony that the discussion of paper on
> 'Estranged Learning' was delayed as a result of that paper's status as a
> commodity (i.e. the ownership of the copyrights)?

It is no more of an irony than that of the past and nearly compleat
inattention paid to the economic side of learning and teaching by those who
theorize it, or that of the paper's missing essential reference to the UMass
economists who wrote about highly related issues over 25 years ago. Facing
and understanding the economic complexity of learning (and teaching,
theorizing, experimenting) in capitalist society is one of the things from
which institutionalized education, writ large, protects us. Eschewing this
complexity is one of the ways through which capitalist society protects and
propagates itself. Educators have no choice. They (we) develop within the
system that reproduces itself, and learn to make a living within it. After
all, one must make a living and to do that, one becomes a cog in the
reproduction machinery. It takes a couple of economists outside of the
machine, or a couple of theorists comfortably secure after a long career, to
lift the hood on the apparatus and look inside. Can the latter see
themselves in it? Perhaps not. In the machine tool and product are
inseparably intertwined. Working in education -- learning, teaching,
theorizing, experimenting -- is not unlike learning to fly. To do otherwise
is to talk like an idiot -- signifying nothing.

"There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in
learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy



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