November 24, 2015 - 14:23
I enjoyed the first portion of our class today, in the Quita Woodward Room, reviewing Friere's argument, digging deeply into Aayzah's questions about the (necessary?) bias of the teacher, and what it means to see your students as "the subject of the process of learning...as a creative act." (Does this preclude having a political agenda, or necessitate one?) And I enjoyed reflecting together on the operation of hegemony both in our classroom and throughout campus, especially during the recent town hall meeting; for one record, which I promised to share, see what one of my 360'ers wrote up: Discussion in TGH on Thursday.
Where things got messy, though, was when we turned to Bowers' call for us to "recover" our "ecological intelligence." Rather than function as a good summary-and-application of the key ideas of this course, about thinking-and-acting relationally and contextually, Bowers ended up confusing and disappointing us: we challenged this "really grumpy old dude" who called for activation of a cultural commons that is insistently local and historical, that thereby refuses global connections, as in the claim that "cell phones...undermine awareness of contexts, relationships, interdependencies..." (p. 46). Bowers also called for (here was the show-stopper for me!) a revitalization of "mutually supportive intergenerationally connected relationships" which "are not framed in terms of fostering more 'individual self-direction,' 'indepndence,' and 'ongoing questioning and revising'" (p. 51).
NOT framed in terms of ongoing questioning and revising?!?
Not a world I want to sign on to, or help to build...
You?