"The Tryanny of Common Sense"

The tyranny of common sense
  (Can we dis-enthrall ourselves?) 

Re: Sir Ken Robinson Changing Academic Paradigms

I like the Education Paradigm video - another one
that I'll have to show in class. Much different from
the discussion in our division meeting - punishing
plagiarizers and whatnot.  I agree with the guy, and
I may be a casualty of the system that he describes -
I don't feel like I have (m)any original ideas/solutions -
maybe there was a time when I did..or maybe not.
Anyhow, I agree.  We're in the same boat, unfortunately
it seems to be sinking.        Colleague South of Jensen

Dear Colleague South of Jensen

I don't have any ideas either, except talk.

We COULD be talking about IT--us, faculty,
collegians, busy bodies in the groves of
academe where all it was was talk talking;
and if you remember: a Socratic dialogue
usually ended not with a bang but a whimper:
a proper demoralization. A-poria--generating
a kind of tabula rasa just right for the beginnings
of new ideas.  ("innovation.").

The possibility of emergent values and properties
rising up out of sustainable converse action.

That's my only idea. Local food for thought.

Something there is that loves a wall: that  blocks
and prevents this kind of discourse across our
curriculum..

Ali comments on catchers in the rye.
Casey responds with a brief note on how high the rye.
Laura ( I called her Elizabeth on the hall the other day, sorry)
wonders if IT's the economy.

That's how IT starts. What sustains IT, I don't know.
Margo might.

Robinson's thoughts on changing the  Educational
Paradigm video is encouraging and despairing at
the same time. A kind of  truth under the gnosis--yet
bouncing off  the beast like rice off a rhino.

Ray Anderson, our Green hero of Industry & much
touted graduation speaker of a couple years ago,
said similar stuff:  Our universities... continue to
teach and operate in the system that is destroying
the biosphere. Adherence to the old mind-set,
the old curricula, obsolete pedagogy, and
shortsighted planning are producing graduates
who are trained to perpetuate the destruction
of the biosphere

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obTNwPJvOI8&feature=player_embedded
So you want to be a Humanities Professor?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded#
Changing Education Paradigms

Dear Colleagues,

A Professional Issue as important as the prevention
of lead poisoning and the creation of Rubrics for
Evaluating Student Righting, I bet you 5 dollars..

I know I sent these two links yesterday, and I've got
the credibility of The Boy Who Cried WOLF  & so
not a whole lot of leverage to encourage you to watch
these 2 short-ish videos on "higher education"  

Besides, I know we're all busy catcher's in the rye, doing our
best to keep the children from falling over the edge.and don't
have time for collegial argument and e-talk amongst ourselves. 

(It's a mission impossible
me: missionary every day
launching  filament after filament.
out of myself, ever marveling
every tirelessly speeding them
ceaselessly musing, venturing
throwing--seeking the spheres
to connect them till the bridge I
need will be formed, till the ductile
anchor hold, till the gossamer
thread I fling catch somewhere,
o my soul & Song of Myself.)

Nevertheless--if enough of us read and reacted to
these two links we might have some converse-action
equal in intensity to Jon Stewart's efforts to restore
sanity this weekend, Obama's efforts to restore the
yes-we-can enthusiasm of 2008, the force of
indignation that blows the traditional college off
it's hinges .

It's possible.

(PS: watching these links later in the day  when the whole
school is culling Youtube is a challenge of synchronicity:
an incoherence between sound and image--the lecture and
the animation.)    . 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9LelXa3U_I&feature=related

Another lecture by Sir Ken Robinson:
"Bring on the Learning Revolution" 16 minutes.

xxxooo, Sam