"Protagoras (speaking for the Sophists) and Socrates agreed that the
regimen constructing the educated subject consisted of knowledge and the
care for self. However; the Sophists and Socrates deployed radically
different technologies to mean "care and knowledge". The Sophistic regimen
called for didactic techniques in which virtue was teachable by an
expert....
In contrast, the Socratic regimen of paideia assumed tha knowledge and
virtue - were part of a persons nature. This assumption supports the
Socratic dialougue and the assumption of the undifferentiated "whole" of
human nature. That is, virtue was actively cultivated by the educated
subject, but not taught to.."
In Foucault's Challenge (1998)
What is Impossible to Think? A Genealogy of the Educated Subject
Lynn Fendler
I don't know, I see many connections with Modern education. Is knowledge
merely cultvated or shall we say unfolded or put on a trajectory or can it
be taught. Plato resonates developmentalism, constructivism, teacher
centered classrooms, equity, learner centeredness and a host of other
modern concepts.
While I would no way disagree with the similarities for schools and prisons
in modern education, there are also differences. Modernity has replaced
god, nature or whatever with development, evolution and other deterministic
concepts. It has turned the radical idea that anyone can be educated into
similar input-output technologies. I don't think the ideas of modern
schooling are new we have just dirtied them quite a bit. It is also today
so easy to forget the things modernism has given us. The beginning of this
century was not a pretty place, kids were put on orphan trains and shipped
north, workers in inhumane environments, children were put in harsh
environments and forced to work long ours. Modernism has its evils, yes,
but it also has its good side.
Education while yes being very much about stopping socialist movements in
this country was also about equity and giving all people a similar right to
an education. One of the biggest, which I see as somewhat good,
differences with modernism was the "ideal in progress" that all peoples
get an education. The saying someone told me once seems appropriate,
"don't throw the bady out with the bathwater".
NATE
----- Original Message -----
From: John St. Julien <stjulien who-is-at UDel.Edu>
To: <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
Sent: Monday, May 31, 1999 3:32 PM
Subject: RE: 20th century capitalism?
>
> A suggestion:
>
> Modern schooling arose with modernity, methinks. Without the state and
the
> idea that knowledge (that which enables competent action) is grounded in
a
> geometric rationality the school as we know it would be not be
possible-and
> such institutions did not exist before those organizing principles became
> dominant. (Yes, there were always teachers but I am doubtful about
> assimilating Plato's academy to our own-much less the Mesopatamians.)
>
> Capitalism, Socialism, Syndicalism, Communism, Merchantilism, all
modernist
> economic models. They are allied with modern armies, the bureau, prisons,
> and schools.
>
> My concern is that we not misidentify the culprit, (by blaming capitalism
> 20th or otherwise) but that in rejecting the questionable cause we not
> reject all difference and hence all possibility of change. It has not
> always been thus. And thus it need not always be so.
>
> There were not always and in all places remarkable similarities between
the
> punishment of 'crime' and the practices of schooling.
>
> No doubt picking nits, John St. Julien
>
>
>
> >Good point, Mike. For me, the more precise notions/phenomena connected
with
> >mainstream schooling are alienation and totalitarism which are not
unique to
> >capitalism. Probably, they are something to do with city-based
> >civilizations.
> >
> >For some people, like me, capitalism offers much less alienation and
> >totalitarism than some other regimes. Thanks for reminding our
immigrant
> >status :-) Speaking in the math language, the direction of immigration
> >indicates the gradient of the world misery.
> >
> >What do you think?
> >
> >Eugene
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
> >> Sent: Sunday, May 30, 1999 8:46 PM
> >> To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu
> >> Subject: 20th century capitalism?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Eugene et al et al et al--
> >>
> >> Why do you link contemporary forms of schooling to capitalism? So far
> >> as I can tell from my amateur studies of schooling in Mesopatamia,
> >> and Egypt circa 2000BC, the forms and contents of education woudl be
> >> highly approved of by 1999 U.S. Congressional committees. I am being
> >> serious. What is new here? And what does it have to do with
capitalism?
> >> Eugene? Matvey? You have been real "lucky" to live under the paradise
of
> >> Soviet socialsm.
> >> Chto zdes novovo?
> >> (Vots gnu kheer?)
> >> mike
> >>
>
>
>