Re: Ideology of painless learning and teaching in

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
Mon, 22 Apr 1996 15:42:10 -0400

Economy of pain -- Eugene's point, as I understand it, to
make our philosophies of education available for discussion and
critique and revision. Everyone seems to agree there are degrees of
pain as well as qualitatively different kinds of pain -- We all
probably agree that physical violence is unacceptable in educational
practice. We all probably agree that the student only learns by way
of willing acceptance of whatever struggle learning entails. But the
question is still open, whether we should allow the student to opt out
of sociocultural practices........

>I gather that I'm the minority voice on this issue... I find
>attempting to articulate a minority position to be rather
>painful. Does this mean there is something wrong with our
>discussion process? Or is this to some extent inevitable whenever
>there is an open interchange of ideas? Is there a better way
>to frame our goals for learning than to say that it should be
>free of pain and free of restriction/coercion? (And we have all
>sorts of ways of silencing--or "coercing" into silence--those we
>disagree with...) Again, I'm not advocating pain and coercion;
>I'm just wondering at imagining that learning/growth/change/
>participation in a community of Others could be entirely free of
>these things.
>
> Robin
>
>
>

Judy Diamondstone
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08903

diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu
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