“Does Anybody Really Know What Time, er Truth Is?”
Part of the context in which learning takes place is the culture to which the students belong. From our culture, students derive a number of fundamental misunderstandings about historical truth.
Probably the most common misconception among my students is that there is in fact some agreed-upon set of historical “facts” that constitute objective history. This stems from the way history is taught in most public schools, and from the limited exposure most students have to history books, as opposed to school texts. Very few students understand that historical scholarship consists mainly of reviewing surviving documents and artifacts in an attempt to write a (hopefully) more accurate, but still inconclusive version of the past. No doubt they’d be disappointed, if they only knew!
A second misconception has to do with the purposes of history. Virtually no one remembers what Herodotus and Thucydides, who wrote the first attempts at historical research, set out to [...]
Original post by urbansocrates
Making the Old New Again, or “Wooden Leg” — Educational Research and Reform as Games People Play
I wrote this for a graduate course in education I’m taking. It didn’t get a very good grade!
“Did my father strike my gentleman for chiding of his fool?” –Goneril in King Lear
Frederick Taylor, that wizard among the kings of industry, said that his method was nothing new; he just thought to measure carefully what others had overlooked: the motions of the workers attending industrial machines. A couple of educationists, Barr and Tagg, acknowledge that the underlying elements of their “new paradigm” of undergraduate education are nothing new (see this site for their “new paradigm”). The reason for this is simple enough, for “the Instruction Paradigm is our theory-in-use, yet the espoused theories of most educators more closely resemble components of the Learning Paradigm.” Which is to say that most teachers say they do one thing while doing another. Because of the limited responsibility that educators take for their part [...]
Original post by urbansocrates
A Peak at the Future
The topic of running out of oil never really left my radar screen since listening to Edgar Winter’s White Trash and Tower of Power address the issue somewhat lopsidedly. Now comes Harper’s Magazine to renew my interest, so I google “peak oil” and find…well a lot commentary. Much more than I expected, in fact, from both sides of the issue. I thought everyone was still arguing about global warming now that Gore put out his film; WRONG AGAIN!
Now unless you’re a geologist, you can’t really have an informed opinion on this, and even if you ARE a geologist, you’ve got some pretty questionable data to work with. That may keep some geologist not in the employ of Exxon, et alia from saying much, but it doesn’t keep the sides down, and their arguments amount to this:Peak Oiler: We’re running out of oil, on which our civilization depends, and when it [...]
Original post by urbansocrates
The NCLB Act in Worcester, or Caradonio as Lord Roundheels
This is from a paper I wrote recently for a class I’m taking. Thus the prose is a little, well, heavy-handed. It suffers from a controlling metaphor the way a Jewish (or Irish, or Polish…) teenager suffers from a controlling mother. Partly it’s a response to the article from http://www.educationnext.org cited below. Partly it’s just an examination of what happens when a noble profession is reduced to the level of harlotry.
My professor asked that we examine the goals of the school district where we work. This discusses last year’s goals; this year’s are in the works. Also, I’m unemployed now, but I live in Worcester, and have worked eight years in Worcester Public Schools, so…
The superintendent of schools of the city of Worcester has published a set of four strategic goals, each with many subsidiary objectives. The goals are general, but the objectives are detailed. They show little trace [...]
Original post by urbansocrates
Uncle Billy’s to play LocoBazooka with Alice In Chains!!!
Uncle Billy’s Smokehouse has been asked to join the 2006 LocoBazooka! Festival with Alice In Chains, Buckcherry plus a ton of others including Powerman 5000 and more!Uncle Billy’s Smokehouse is sellin…
Original post by Robert Newton