|
|
Interversity Quotes"I think it's time to ask the Standardistos: Where's the test for compassion? For honesty? For curiosity? For moral commitment? Until they can answer, let's tell them to shut up." —Susan Ohanian (One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards) Interversity ProjectsEchoes of Orwell:The purpose of this webforum is to promote a lively discussion among students and faculty alike about George Orwell's 1984 and the parallels or echoes found in today's society. |
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
In a message dated 3/4/2008 11:25:28 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu writes: A good example of the collectivistic ethos: when Michael Moore interviewed Canadians, Cubans, and Europeans about health care in his "911" and "Sicko" movies and asked "Do you think the government should provide free health care for everybody?" these folks uniformly looked puzzled, as if he were asking if we should breathe air. And one Canadian said "Why would we NOT do that??!!!" Great metaphor, Pete. This is why "learner-friendliness" is somewhat more complex than the freedom to spout off and spin the truth into a parallel reality that supports high stakes. Truth be told, high stakes play into the perception of young people that grown-ups are just not accountable: why do you want us not to drink and smoke when you do ? That is also the problem when we characterize communism as being out of touch, but we continue to sell capitalism in the name of freedom and democracy without examining its exploitative underpinning and its inability to address issues of poverty and inequality caused by the every same exploitation. Colonialism once gave rise to and justified this conflict paradigm, but once the economy goes global, competition and cooperation have to be redefined. It will be impossible to have clear markers and standards for schools and classrooms without seeing how violence begets violence and how inaccountability can never produce accountability. The question needs to be reframed away from an us vs them in a global context: smarter is not smarter as defined only by test scores. It can also be defined by how a society treats its people. There are clear statistics which tell us which groups we don't treat well when we look at who drops out and who ends up in jail. Schools are not going to be able to change that institutionally when the society around us feeds the same behavior patterns and we continue to produce the same unimaginative leaders saying exactly the same things over and over. Quan Managing Partner, SpectrumKnowledge East Coast _www.spectrumknowledge.com_ (http://www.spectrumknowledge.com/) Lead Author and Consultant, Coursecrafters _www.coursecrafters.com_ (http://www.coursecrafters.com/) Evaluator , Institute for Civic Education in Viet Namw_ww.icevn.org_ (http://www.icevn.org/) State of Florida Co-Chair, AAPIS for Hillary National Co-Chair, Vietnamese Americans for Hillary _http://www.fladems.com/content/w/support_a_presidential_candidate_ (http://www.fladems.com/content/w/support_a_presidential_candidate) . 19910 Villa Lante Place Boca Raton, FL 33434 (561) 866-7028 **************It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance. (http://money.aol.com/tax?NCID=aolprf00030000000001)
Post a Message to arn-l: |
eric |