Re: depth and breadth: The Calculus

Phillip Allen White (pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu)
Tue, 18 May 1999 21:27:36 -0600 (MDT)

On Wed, 19 May 1999, Graham Nuthall wrote:

> Why would you imagine that schools can be changed independently of the
> larger social/cultural context? That you can create schools as caring,
> stimulating, freeing institutions within communiities that are the opposite?

thanks, Graham, for the situating of the question of school
change/reform etc.

i'm used to reading the point of view of the college/university
academic to eloquently of the failures of public education - referring
only to k thorugh 12.

i would be more interested to know how school reform/change is
being played out in the college & university level. after all, teachers
in the public school arena are replicating the practices they learned
through the activities of higher education -

in my experience, the very worst practices in a kindergarten
classroom are conventional practices in a college classroom.

the practice of norming is of course a college practice - i.e.,
normal schools, an earlier label for schools of education.

are we willing to focus our analytical eye on our own practices?

phillip

phillip white pwhite who-is-at carbon.cudenver.edu

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A relation of surveillance, defined and regulated,
is inscribed at the heart of the practice of teaching, not
as an additional or adjacent part, but as a mechanism that
is inherent to it and which increases its efficiency.

Michel Foucault / Discipline & Punish

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