Toward Talk of The Transformative & Creative Inside Industrial Education

Dear Dialecticians, American Literati, Transromantics,

Colleagues Across the Curriculum: Toward Talk of the

Transformative & Creative inside Industrial Education.

Some Method to My Madness.

You might wonder why I sign my name with X’s & O’s

or how come I keep saying “for the sake of argument”

—or in manners of speaking (so to say, so to speak) or

refer to you as Dialecticians and American Literati and

Transromatnics, or spam you pretty heavily beyond

the borders of class —urging any to punch reply-to-all

if you want to sustain some argument—put IT in play

(and of course I assume you know what IT is, and it

don’t have to be spelled out), and how come I sit on

my butt quiet as a mouse in class when anyone knows

and expects talk-to-go-on&on and guided discussion and

“Well, what do YOU think, Mikey?, &

“Do you agree with Mikey, Sally?”

and other ways we hope to provoke Talk-In-Class and

why I don’t grade or correct but respond best I can—

dogmatically of course and somewhat with seeming

arrogance always hoping anyone will take issue if not

offense and we can get into IT: arguing, of course—

or what’s a college for?

All forms of DISCLAIMER (above), meant to endear

you somewhat, reduce the High Seriousness & profound

weight of Alma Matrix Accredited Institutionalized

Education.

Look: this is PLAY (ludic)—just fooling around here.

A mind is a wonderful thing to waste. Need we argue?

Trying to jolly you into playing my game, I admit it.

Unpostponed Joy.

Life of Mind minding mindfully..

This is not to knock, disparage or diminish the

surrounding environ-mental rigor and discipline:

information acquisition, I’ll work-for-credit &

deadline clarity. consistency, instrumental practical

application: certainly the dominant paradigm from

almost Day 1 of any one’s industrialized education.

The GIVEN. The culture, the convention of tuition-

driven, course- structured learning. Whatever the

subject matter, who doesn’t know how to Take A Course

by the time they graduate—and then on to grad school.

Same deal: Course Uber Alles. (“Whatja get?

Howja do?)

No: my love, desire, mission impossible, obsession,

compulsion is to SUPPLEMENT the Given. Separate

out, polarize, and provide an ANTI-THESIS to the

norm, standard, habit, habitat—hoping the VALUES

of the norm (thesis) won’t swamp if not obliterate the

VALUES of the supplement (anti-thesis)

INCOMMENSURATE

Imagine if rigor and accuracy and correctness were used

to measure slack, loose fooling around, trial & error

& room for play.

That would be incommensurate.

And vice-versa: if I walked into Frank Kalinowski’s or

Dean Kahl’s classes and said: “Well—I’m giving this

low marks: I see no signs of foolish & whimsical play

going on here, loose analogies, extending metaphors,

snuffling up hidden assumptions: you guys don’t know

how to waste time”

That would be incommensurate

Or if you guys criticized me for not being demanding,

more explicit in what I expected, insistent on dates and

data, attendance,—not so happily confusing damnit,

filling class time with information expected on the

final exam, quizzes to regulate reading for crying out

loud, red ink on papers telling what’s good and not so

much. Grammar of course: flagging split infinitives

and dangling elements. Covering Ground.

Addressing the TEXTS. Explaining.

Interpreting

All that would make good sense from the standpoint of

Bradshavian values of norm and standard—assessing in

terms of Your Regular Course, but incommensurate to the

antithesis: using values of one realm to rationalize, reduce

and assess another realm. Pity. We do it all the time.

Generally unawares. . .

One important aspect of Kuhn's paradigms is that

the paradigms are incommensurable, which means

that two paradigms cannot be reconciled with each

other because they cannot be subjected to the same

measure or common standard of comparison. That is,

no meaningful comparison between them is possible

without fundamental modifications in the concepts

which are part of the paradigms being compared.

Wikipedagogy

Territorial Pissing.

I do what I can (all those DISCLAIMERS above)

to mark OFF what I’m attempting, from them other guys.

Thesis and Antithesis:

X) normal sanitary rational & logical getRdone agenda

................................ and my

Z) abnormal un-sanitary irrational and illogical ludic play

Consider each in the terms of their radically different values

so as to notconflate, collapse, or confuse Thesis and Anti-Thesis

unknowingly but judge each (standard / aberration)

in its own terms:

Kalinowskean on the one hand, say.

.

Scovillean on the other:

INCOMMENSURATE

You can improve my terms and images.

We can argue. (Or what’s a college for?)

xxxooo, Sam.