Ana--
Ah!! What a brave new world!
Alan Lukes has visited us to tell about his work in Singapore where
all the children are above average and exemplary time on task is
bursting through the ceiling. And not even TIMSS has the TIMerity to
doubt the agility of those fresh young minds, 40% of whom (which)
complete higher education.
There are, of course, some little beasties stalkng the straights. The
successful children of the most successful have this distressing habit
of getting the very best opportunities for education in the decadent
enclaves of (former) Imperialist powers to the northeast and
easter-even, and,,,,,,, yee gads and remaining cofishes,..... do not
come home again!!
And to the north, a long-slumbering giant is awakening, filling the
shipping lanes with traffic, driving up the cost of oil, steel, and
load of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, its modern armies
transforming themselves into a force that can make idiographic
mincmeat of the alphabetic innumerates from the East -- or is that
West?
Locally, the academic quarter ends tomorrow, only the drip drip drip
of term papers and multiple choice exams, heavy with the winter rains,
waiting to fall into their computer files.
And in my local garden, the children and their older peers, ever
conscious of the danger of unsupervised hours have produced the seond
of their triaennial (is that 3 times a year?)
film fesitvals and art shows. A good time was had by all. Me too.
mike
On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 22:04:23 -0500, Ana Marjanovic-Shane
<ana@zmajcenter.org> wrote:
> NLT
>
> New literacy technologies
> So successful
> So successful
> Never fail
> Never fail
>
> They shift value of labor
> From experience and strength
> To speed and plasticity…
>
> Unnoticed, non compulsory
> Unconstricted, unprovoked.
>
> Before you know you know
> You know you know it all.
>
> New literacy symbologies
> So successful
> So successful
> Tell the tale
> Tell the tale
>
> They shift the gears by the button
> They zip the thoughts -
> and the hair
> They break the mold
> To eternal elasticity…
>
> Uncanny, unconventional
> Unstoppable, unsuspected.
>
> In one word: Unique…
>
> 3/10/2005 (Today)
>
>
> Jay Lemke wrote:
>
> {... snip...}
>
> Present Time: 2005
>
> Future narrative [option 1]: New literacy technologies (computers,
> networks) shift value of labor from experience and strength to speed and
> plasticity ... young outcompete adults for jobs ... child labor laws amended
> ... compulsory schooling amended ... dichotomy between learning and labor
> blurred ... youngest citizens 12 - 21 gain full legal and civil rights ...
> education takes place in flexible mixed model combining online and
> face-to-face communities, individual study, internships ... no universal
> curriculum, common elements determined by widest usefulness of knowledges
> ... no general credentials, selection decisions made based on individual
> portfolios of achievements ... aptitude measures and psychometric testing
> outlawed ... most secondary schools converted to community centers ....
> long pause ... last classroom preserved in the Virtual Museum of American
> History.
>
> Year: 2160 [or slightly later depending on the number of morons elected to
> high office in the US; developments proceed more rapidly in the EU and Asia]
>
> JAY.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> At 03:40 AM 3/7/2005, you wrote:
>
> ...just to follow-up on Jay's and Nate's provocative statements, and the
> ensuing
> conversations, the question, it seems to me, can be more concerned with our
> own experience,
> that if we were to deconstruct education based on our own experiences,
> which
> is the
> basis of most postmodern deconstruction, and we were to find it wanting...
> what then?
> If not state-sanctioned curriculum/schooling... then what?
> (the impulsive reaction, no doubt, is that "it was good enough for me, so
> why not
> for young folk following in.. my...footsteps?" The road to ruin... and so
> on. ... )
>
> There is, indeed, a need for the basics of reading/writing (and here I'll
> impose a wee idiosyncrasy, that
> writing ought to be both typing and script, hand-writing, legibility with
> pen/cil and so on) - and
> arithmetic... and then what? If we truly critique what is worth knowing,
> what is worth teaching?
>
> It seems to me this is the heart of the question... not just what are
> schools for, but
> what is really worth knowing? A critical education is not an impossible
> curriculum, and given the
> ambiguity of popular culture, a critical experience with "knowledge" would
> be valuable, ... and yet,
> if not in "schools" then where? How?
>
> For example, a history of one's nation-state is critical because we live
> within distinct
> nation-states, and yet, each nation has an anxious history of violence and
> persecution that is
> always disguised in realms of patriotism...so, what do we do? Really. How
> do
> we teach a history
> that is honest, when documented history is contradictory to
> state-sanctioned
> history? And
> is critical history possible when a nation-state is paying for an
> "education?"
>
> Content questions are useful, as they can lead to context. And while it is
> useful to understand
> how people/children learn, it is also useful to consider how what people
> learn is framed by forces
> much larger than the 'how'...
>
> I reviewed a Canadian book years ago that proposed a radical approach to
> education, one that
> involved apprenticing to kinds of professions and not just book-learning...
> the idea was kind of cool,
> really, that rather than classrooms one organized kinds of work-study
> programs. Not just learning a
> trade, but learning how one works in the world, how one's craft makes sense
> in the world and the community,
> and so on... stuff like that is possibly global, not just Western.
> I don't know. Really, though, these are excellent questions.
>
> Me thoughts.
> Cheers,
> Diane
>
>
> Diane Hodges
>
> La Maison Bramble House
> 19 Valois Bay Avenue
> Pointe Claire, QC H9R 4B4
> Canada
>
> Tel: (514) 630-6363
> Fax: (514) 344-2994
> www.bramblehouse.net
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <willthereallsvpleasespeakup who-is-at nateweb.info>
> To: "Xmca" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 10:03 PM
> Subject: Re: Nate's interesting question
>
>
> > Mike Cole wrote:
> >
> > >So I take it that what you are arguing is that one of the positive
> > >benefits of compulsory
> > >education is that it reduces child labor, increases social capital,
> > >and provides future workers with skills that will be important for
> > >labor in the years to come? This will be somehow real labor, not
> > >slavery.
> > >
> > >
> > In my most optimistic moments I would say schooling is a developmentally
> > leading activity. That optimism leaves soon after early childhood.
> >
> > I am not sure I would say education increases social capital and at best
> > it only narrows the playing field. I am also not saying anything about
> > worker skills. I am not even sure what these skills would be. My
> > concerns lie mostly in the ethical position of certain predetermined
> > ends if schooling is "deconstructed". If we have any grasp of history
> > and / or current affairs we have to acknowledge certain undesireable
> > activities coming to front.
> >
> > So Mike, if we get rid of schooling in middle and late childhood, what
> > should they do in their spare time. Sadly, the unsuprvised hours of
> > 3-5:00 give me little to be optimistic about. Maybe Wal-Mart offers a
> > solution since they are already violating child labor laws left and
> right.
> >
> > If not schooling - then what?
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor
> University of Michigan
> School of Education
> 610 East University
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>
> Tel. 734-763-9276
> Email. JayLemke@UMich.edu
> Website. www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Apr 01 2005 - 01:00:05 PST