Workshop 12
From Studyplace
| Teachers College • Columbia University Class Meetings, Thursdays, 3:00-4:40
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Hi all - we haven't been in touch for awhile, so i thought i'd paste some class notes/questions from the two sessions before the break to reconnect with the thread of our work thus far. Please feel free to edit and/or add to any of it - obviously these reflect my unique experience of class and the things I was listening closest to, and I'd be interested to know how others think these topics etc. either do or don't represent what they felt had been going on. Eric Strome 17:52, 29 November 2006 (EST)
11.9.06 Notes
What might be the educational equivalent of Sen’s utilitarian critique? Can learning be maximized systematically?Methodological similarity: Teaching basics/NCLB for measuring educational attainment = pure income analysis for measuring development; both are equally poor measures of meaningful progress
- 11.15.06 corollary – per capita income (for Sen) and NCLB’s “proficiency for all”/”hqt” as poor standards of assessment
What correlated features of the educational landscape exhibit the types of correlation that Sen claims exist between the types of development freedoms that should be maximized? Parental participation? Local political control?
- 11.15.06 What are other items in the above group, and could this be an alternate way to arrive at categories of educational justice/injustice
How to operationalize the qualitative measures of progress? Can public policy be made from qualitative interviews as research?
Why is accountability/political economy the dominant discourse of educational reform? How does this focus limit possibilities?
How does education as a public space differ from other public spaces (transportation/parks)? By virtue of its mandatory attendance?
Who/what/where is source of the control over education (as understood broader than schooling?)
What is the source of freedoms of children? (Precisely in their freedom not to have to make momentous decisions while still unprepared?)
To what degree do the real developmental choices get made not by adults but by the child/youth in a concrete way? What are the capabilities understood as freedoms for a one-year-old? Standing up? How to understand the “capability problematic” of children at various stages of their development without resorting to simplistic behaviorism?
If the basic freedom to control one’s life should be the same between child and adult, how to understand the different requirements for certain capabilities at different stages?
What are the educational needs/basic requirements that could ground a statement of the basic categories of educational freedoms that should be expanded?
11.16.06 Notes
The difficulty in setting a standard in NCLB relates to a similar difficulty in setting standards for justice and measuring its distribution or acting to redistribute
Is the federal role not in setting standards, but in oversight as to whether the locally set standards are being achieved?
Equal Ed Opportunity as input; Mechanical/extrinsic equality can be the same, but organic/intrinsic equality might not be – is this a fundamental problem with measuring by inputs?
Does measuring inputs mean measuring basics/equity (rather than excellence)?
1957 National Defense Education Act – inputs were viewed as promoting excellence. This first wave of federal money was justified not on social justice, but national defense etc. – to overcome historical center/right political ideas that feds shouldn’t be in local education.
Progression from America 2000 (voluntary and not linked to Title I), Goals 2000 (voluntary and tenuously linked to Title I), NCLB (mandatory and explicitly linked to Title I).
Why are people obsessed with the analogy between science & education – is it the hope that it makes perfect sense? Aren't launching rockets and educating children different in kind?
At this point, what is our view of how things ought to be?
Is tailoring educational opportunity to needs more promising than it is dangerous? Is freedoms a better way of speaking (are Sen’s freedoms needs?)
How does our culture assume that college is the area in which one explores more humanistic development? What of those who don’t go? – doesn’t our political system require the type of intelligent participation that can only be achieved via a humanistic development, and isn’t this a good argument for including those subjects/experiences in educative arrangements?
How has college become “compulsory”?
Should we be looking at de-schooling movements?
Is the use of freedoms as a standard is good in terms of motivating people to act?
What kinds of extrinsic goods emerge from pursuing (either individually or socially) long-term education over the life course?
Hey folks! I hope everyone had a great break. With all of the issues coming up these days…I just HAVE to mention the recent police shooting in Queens. In case you haven’t heard about the police shooting over the weekend. Here are a few links about the incident:
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=64587&search_result=1&stid=10 http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=10&aid=64604
We know that issues of justice come up in many aspects of society. How do we begin to talk about issues of social justice in school settings? How do we address issues of police brutality in school settings? Since when (or why) is it acceptable/justifiable to murder, brutalize, and/or harass innocent people (typically people of color) based on suspicion? How do we raise young people to believe that the police are supposed to “protect and serve” knowing that cases like this continually come up. How do we teach ALL that America is, in all its contradictions, to our youth? I think we touched on this earlier in the course. I’d like to know what people think now, considering all that has happened in the past few days.
Bianca
- Unfortunately I think the answer to "since when?" is since always. As to why, I think (privileged/white) people assume that "something must have happened to warrant police action" so that a faith in the legitimacy of the status quo can comfortably be maintained - no matter the particulars of the case. The question of how to raise youth to believe that police protect rather than threaten is a good one. I think it is an excellent example of something that cannot be taught in schools - if one's life has events such as these, such experiences directly contradict the mythology of a just status quo often portrayed by American civics curricula. This is the kind of experience that is so much more powerfully educative than schooling - this groom's family and community knows something about police that will not ever be altered by a lecture on the function of police in society.
- The complexities of the relationships involved in such events preclude tidy solutions, but perhaps an idea that could approach how powerfully educative the events are is something like police ride-alongs. This is not a new idea, however. But I can't see anything that could ameliorate the cultural enmity between urban youth and police other than experiences which force one to walk in another's shoes. I think an insurmountable problem is that we'll never see the urban youth ride-along program for off-duty cops.
- Eric Strome 12:00, 30 November 2006 (EST)
