Camden’s Blog

At first I thought I would comment on these readings separately but on looking more closely I can see their connection to one another.  Briefly, I want to comment on the Pedagogy of the Absurd, specifically with regard to NCLB and it’s now two years post article.  It is so easy to follow the progression of events through NCLB and the public education’s response to it as laid out by this article.  I am pretty much a “conspiracy theorist” at all times – must be that left-wing liberalism in me but I really do not believe that things do not “just happen.”   Whether or not it is conscious or not, forces that enact this type of change require motive.  So we should have asked ourselves at the time: What else could be the motive of companies to involve themselves so deeply into any public policy if it is not profit?  Isn’t it the very definition of special interest group? And why do we allow anyone but educators to make these decision in the first place?  Do we allow morticians to make decisions for surgeons?  Do we allow real estate agents to decide lending practices?  If they stand to gain from the failure of an enterprise, they should have no imput to the outcome.  This is a no-brainer, yet the voices of reason now must wait for this absurdity to self-emplode while the damage is being done to our students and to our many would be fantastic teachers who threw their hands up and crawled up out of the rabbit hole from Wonderland. 

Despite my tendencies toward left-wing tendencies and am not in favor of the Us vs. Them mentality that divides our making true progress in this country.  Perhaps it’s because I have conservative relatives that I know are good people and care about their fellow men and women.  So, I really didn’t like the format of this chapter in TTCTW – Traditionalists vs. Progressives.  If we seek to look at the discord in education, I believe it does little good to make it into a two-party system.  Zeba Palomino writes about mathematics in this chapter in much the same way as I look at education: it’s not a right or wrong answer.  It’s connected to a foundation, and dependent on philosophy, communication, art, science, langauge, and more.  We need to be careful not to quiet the voices of anyone.   In the discussion of reading, there is an attempt to “balance” the two perspectives for the good of instruction and it seems as if the subject lends itself to a conciliatory approach.  In Lipton and Oakes discussion on Social Studies, again they return to the two-party discussion and while I do tend to agree mostly with their bias toward progressive education but they tend to muddle their description of traditionalists with conservative politics, and sometimes overgeneralize to the point of presenting an opinion as fact.  “They suggest that emphasiss on the process of doing social science and constructive teaching methods has altered what history instruction is supposed to accomplish.  Many object to the term “social studies” because it conveys neglect of the traditional disciplines.”  I think the authors could have made statements like this more valid with some sources – they assign a lot of negative views to this group without supporting their arguement.  In the long run, it sets up a divisive atmosphere that interfers with the progess and future of  change in instruction and learning with multi-perspective.  It weakens the argument if you fail to responsibilty present perspective when you discuss the importance of perspective. 

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