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Dissident Heart 
Wisdom Personified
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 Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:31 am Post subject:
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One of the books recommended for our next Freethinker selection is Howard Gardner's The Disciplined Mind: Beyond Facts and Standardized Tests, the K-12 Education that Every Child Deserves. In that book Gardner argues for a way to cover three subjects at depth: Mozart, The Theory of Evolution, and The Holocaust; and along the way immersing students in an experience of exploring what is true, good and beautiful. I haven't read it, but am quite familiar with Gardner's work. The challenge is to cover a few things at great depth, while still exposing students to those values and modes of thinking that will best protect and encourage the flourishing of a humane education. Thus, covering Plato to Nato is not as important as developing the skills needed to find what is good, true and beautiful in a shifting, turbulent world. A thousand miles wide and two inches deep wont last, or matter.
Last edited by Dissident Heart on Wed Nov 07, 2007 12:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 1:50 pm Post subject:
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| Students are at leisure to seek out someone else's view of "what is good, true and beautiful" if they pursue a secondary education. And that's what you're giving them when you teach a subject like Mozart -- your own perception of goodness, beauty and truth. Personally, I don't think it fair, nor terribly productive, to spend much time presenting those subjects to a captive audience, and I've been at pains above to specify that my comments were about the compulsory educational system. The best reason to teach a book like "Candide" is not that it is good or beautiful or true, but that understanding it and its context and its impact will help students understand a system that most of them will live with and interact in all their lives. |
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Dissident Heart
Wisdom Personified
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Joined: 29 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Wed Nov 07, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject:
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| Quote: |
| MA: Students are at leisure to seek out someone else's view of "what is good, true and beautiful" if they pursue a secondary education. And that's what you're giving them when you teach a subject like Mozart -- your own perception of goodness, beauty and truth. |
I think they get someone's perspective of what is good, true and beautiful no matter the subject: preliminary or secondary or senior citizen. Whatever you determine to be the system within which they have to interact will be a reflection of your notions of what is true, good and beautiful. The educational experience will involve inviting dialogue, debate, discussion and an examination of alternative and contrary perspectives: and sorting out with the students what is good, true and beautiful about each. This occurs explicitly and implicitly no matter the curriculum. You are welcome to show how this can be avoided. I don't see how it can be.
You mention the creation of a foundation for students that will serve them throughout their education experience: I think making sense of what is good, true and beautiful is a good option.
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| MA: The best reason to teach a book like "Candide" is not that it is good or beautiful or true, but that understanding it and its context and its impact will help students understand a system that most of them will live with and interact in all their lives. |
Working with students to define, decipher and determine what is good, true and beautiful about Candide is a great use of classroom time: and it is one (very valuable ) way to understand a system that most of them will live with. Not only what they will live with, but what they want from it: not simply adapt to the system, but to engage it and change it according to values they find good, true and beautiful. Asking what is good, true and beautiful about Candide (or Mozart, or the Holocaust, or Evolution) is an excellent way to sharpen those skills with which they can approach their own worlds and do the same. |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 2:11 am Post subject:
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| Dissident Heart wrote: |
| You mention the creation of a foundation for students that will serve them throughout their education experience: I think making sense of what is good, true and beautiful is a good option. |
I mentioned it in passing; it's certainly not central to my conception of what compulsory education should be. If compulsory education were only about building a framework for further education, then I'd argue that the vast majority of people should be exempted from education altogether. And if compulsory education were only about conveying what is good, true and beautiful, then I'd argue that we should abandon it altogether, since other forms of experience seem much more reliable as means of inspiring people to those ends.
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| Working with students to define, decipher and determine what is good, true and beautiful about Candide is a great use of classroom time |
Have you read "Candide"? It's basic message seems to be that people are, by nature, miserable little shits, and even those that aren't are going to get screwed by life, so your best bet is to just mind your own damn business and find something productive to do. It may be true, but it's neither good nor beautiful, and I think suggesting that it be mandatory reading for students under the age of 16 would be fairly controversial, but I'm suggesting it all the same.
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| Not only what they will live with, but what they want from it: not simply adapt to the system, but to engage it and change it according to values they find good, true and beautiful. |
Only if it's taught from a perspective that, at the outset, disagrees with the book. But if we're going to talk more about "Candide" itself, rather than talk about it as an example of what might be taught in a more socially practical curriculum, I think we'd do well to relocate discussion to a new thread in the "Additional Readings" forum, or whatever it's called these days. |
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Mr. Pessimistic
Assistant Professor
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Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 3480
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Location: NJ - www.myspace.com/mrpessimistic
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:37 am Post subject:
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| MadArchitect wrote: |
| Have you read "Candide"? It's basic message seems to be that people are, by nature, miserable little shits, and even those that aren't are going to get screwed by life, so your best bet is to just mind your own damn business and find something productive to do. It may be true, but it's neither good nor beautiful... |
I should read this book, for you just summed up my POV with that little blurb. And just what do you mean it is not beautiful or good...those are very subjective terms after all. Of course there is a generally accepted notion of what these terms mean, but I see beauty and a goodness in the meaning of Candide by what you described. But then again, I am a miserable little shit.
Mr. P.
Last edited by Mr. Pessimistic on Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Dissident Heart
Wisdom Personified
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
Posts: 1515
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:42 am Post subject:
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| MA: What I am suggesting is that we need to be teaching kids how to think about their immediate environment in ways that make them more circumspect about their actions. |
I agree. Thus my initial post that an excellent approach to teaching science in school could follow a lead provided by Omnivore's Dilemma and Deep Economy: i.e., Food from seed to soil to harvest to truck to market to plate to...you get the point. I think a curriculum like this naturally extends into many facets of the student life: providing knowledge and skills that are immediate, pertinent, fascinating, tactile, and leading into the whole of the student's life and experience. I think this last point is crucial because it shows how this knowledge and skill is interconnected across multiple domains and avenues of life: again, allowing actual experiences in the real world where life is interconnected and happening all at once all around them.
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| MA: If compulsory education were only about building a framework for further education, then I'd argue that the vast majority of people should be exempted from education altogether. |
I didn't say that, nor did I imply that was your point either. But public education should provide foundations for lifelong learning: encouraging cicitzens to be constantly and consistently learning new information and developing different skills. Again, the immediate environment is always changing: demanding new solutions for different problems thruout the lives of students and communties: public education should be a launching pad into a life of learning how to adapt, engage, and participate in this change.
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| MA: And if compulsory education were only about conveying what is good, true and beautiful, then I'd argue that we should abandon it altogether, since other forms of experience seem much more reliable as means of inspiring people to those ends. |
Are you saying that pursuing what is good, true and beautiful are not desirable goals for public education? Again, I don't think it can be avoided. If you are training for drones or geniuses: it is because you have determined something good, true and beautiful about the process and product. I think encouraging students to ask what is good, true and beautiful about the curriculum they engage is a way to explicitly participate in something that is already implicitly decided.
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| MA: Have you read "Candide"? It's basic message seems to be that people are, by nature, miserable little shits, and even those that aren't are going to get screwed by life, so your best bet is to just mind your own damn business and find something productive to do. It may be true, but it's neither good nor beautiful, and I think suggesting that it be mandatory reading for students under the age of 16 would be fairly controversial, but I'm suggesting it all the same. |
Allowing students to discover the gross injustice and ugly futility in the story is a big step towards better appreciating what is good and beautiful in life: by way of contrast in illuminates its opposite, agitating and instigating a response that says, "I don't think life is like this! Better, if it is- I want something different; and here's what I have in mind." From narrative to social vision to community planning: not a bad use of public funds, I say. I never suggested it be a mandatory read: I said there are ways that approaching it with a lens for what is good, true and beautiful would be a meaningful and wrothwhile use of classroom time. |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
Posts: 2609
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject:
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| Mr. P wrote: |
| I should read this book, for you just summed up my POV with that little blurb. |
You definitely should read it. I can hardly believe that no one has stuck a copy in your hand as yet -- it really seems right up your alley.
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| Of course there is a generally accepted notion of what these terms mean, but I see beauty and a goodness in the meaning of Candide by what you described. |
I think Voltaire say goodness and beauty in the character of Candide, but the rest of the book he meant to be as squalid and foul as possible.
But my point is that talking about Platonic ideals like goodness, beauty and truth probably isn't all that useful in trying to decide what should go into the minimal education to which every person in a given society must be subjected. Once we've decided that their education ought to point them towards the good, the true and the beautiful, how does that help us decide what that education entails? What artist or philosopher should we prefer as part of that curriculum? Scientists claim their view of the world is both true and beautiful, so shouldn't we teach the whole of science? How many political theories claim to be good or beautiful or true, and how do we decide which of those to include and which to leave out?
By harping on the good, the beautiful and the true, DH seems to be opening a window by which to slip his favorite subjects back into the hypothetical curriculum I've been talking about. I think that just opens us back up to the same sort of confusion and misery that arises when determining a curriculum is just a matter of every scholar declaring his own work too important to not be taught at the third grade level.
Honestly, I think more people would find beauty in life if they could really learn to appreciate Bach -- but I don't think it benefits third graders to be forced to listen to him. On the opposite side of the coin, I don't think it'll make many twelve year olds much happier or make them see much beauty in the world to read "Candide" -- but since our governmental system is founded on a doctrine of human nature that shares both certain affinities and a common history with Voltaire's work, I think it's in their best interests to read it. They don't have to appreciate any particular truth or beauty in it; they don't even have to assess whether or not it is any of the above. But "Candide" can be used as a useful tool in assessing the the social system we live in, so it is at least a candidate for inclusion in a reformed educational system.
In another society, say, that of modern day Saudi Arabia, "Candide" would be less compelling as a candidate, and something more specific to Arabic society -- "A Congress of Birds", perhaps, or since Arabian fortunes are so tied up in Western interests, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" -- would be a better fit for their educational system. All three books may be good and true and beautiful, but those things in themselves do nothing to help us decide which of the books should be part of a mandatory curriculum.
| Dissident Heart wrote: |
| Are you saying that pursuing what is good, true and beautiful are not desirable goals for public education? |
You don't have to teach the good, the true and the beautiful in order to pursue it. So while I'd probably agree that it is good and at least potentially beautiful to structure education so as to make students more capable of prospering and finding happiness in society, I don't necessarily agree that the best way to do that is teach them about what is good, true and beautiful. I'd rather leave them to find that out for themselves.
And I think there's a strong argument to the end that most people will seek those things out for themselves, so there's no particular reason to try to convince them to do so, or force a perspective on them, particularly one that is likely to differ from what they'd find on their own.
Historically speaking, it looks to me as though most compulsory attempts to teach the good, the true and the beautiful have been attempts to convince students that the lot they've been stuck with is all of the above, and that they therefore should not seek out anything better, which, after all, does not exist. Dickens' gave some very memorable illustrations of how education plays that role, particularly in "Hard Times", and I think dispensing right away with the notion that we're somehow doing students a favor by forcing them to learn about those philosophical ideals is a good starting point for doing away with education as a social straightjacket.
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| I never suggested it be a mandatory read: I said there are ways that approaching it with a lens for what is good, true and beautiful would be a meaningful and wrothwhile use of classroom time. |
So long as the state isn't forcing the kids to be in the classroom during that time, I'd agree. But again, I'm talking specifically about compulsory education in this thread. If you're not, then since we're not talking about the same subject, we can just go our separate ways. |
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Dissident Heart
Wisdom Personified
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 4:50 pm Post subject:
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| MA: But my point is that talking about Platonic ideals like goodness, beauty and truth probably isn't all that useful in trying to decide what should go into the minimal education to which every person in a given society must be subjected. |
This is not about discussing what is good, true and beautiful in the abstract: but about adressing whatever the subject may be along the lines of- what is good, true and beautiful about x ... x can be Mozart, the Holocaust, Natural Selection, what you had for dinner last night, etc. I think questions of morality and ethics, facticity and accuracy, and aesthetics and beauty are tremendously valuable frameworks with which to shape and educational system. And, I think they are unavoidable.
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| MA: DH seems to be opening a window by which to slip his favorite subjects back into the hypothetical curriculum I've been talking about. I think that just opens us back up to the same sort of confusion and misery that arises when determining a curriculum is just a matter of every scholar declaring his own work too important to not be taught at the third grade level. |
I think I've made it clear that what is important is working with students to develop their skills at determining what is good, true and beautiful: not implementing my own conclusions about these three...although as a citizen I certainly have as much right as anyone else to offer my opinion about the process. Why you seem to think your position is somehow free of imposing values or pet subjects is difficult to understand. Education is not a value-free zone and the imposition of material is inescapable: are you arguing that your approach is free of this?
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| MA: They don't have to appreciate any particular truth or beauty in it; they don't even have to assess whether or not it is any of the above. But "Candide" can be used as a useful tool in assessing the the social system we live in, so it is at least a candidate for inclusion in a reformed educational system. |
Beyond the glaring omission in your post that pursuing the good, true and beautiful has had at least as much role in shaping our method of governance and building communities as can be captured in Candide...what is the good in assessing the social system we live in? What is true about these assessments, or false? Why bother with these assessments...maybe to increase the beauty around them, or minimize the ugliness? Assess away, but to what end and for what purpose...I think understanding the social system we live in is crucial: but so is deciding what is wrong with it, how it should be changed, what values should we follow and what kind of social system is worthy of our efforts and sacrifices? I think these are the kinds of questions that should be examined in public education and I think utilizing a rubric for what is good, true and beautiful can support this. |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
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| Posted: Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:45 pm Post subject:
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| Dissident Heart wrote: |
| This is not about discussing what is good, true and beautiful in the abstract: but about adressing whatever the subject may be along the lines of- what is good, true and beautiful about x ... x can be Mozart, the Holocaust, Natural Selection, what you had for dinner last night, etc. |
Am I understanding you to say that, no matter what topic is studied, the approach to that topic ought to be defined by a consideration of good, beauty and truth (which, from no on, I'm going to abbreviate GB&T because typing them out every two sentences is starting to make me hate the very words themselves)?
If so, then again, raising those topics in no way helps us to determine what ought to go into a compulsory curriculum, which is the topic that I've been discussing since my very first reply in this thread. It strikes me that you aren't talking about that at all, though, so it would seem tha our exchange was doomed from the very beginning. Talk about whatever you want to talk about, of course, but at least do me the favor of letting me know when you're starting a new topic, so I don't waste my time trying to reconcile one topic to another.
Beyond that, I'm highly skeptical of it as a method. How long is this supposed to go on? Most states require children to attend school until they're at least 15, so if they start when they're about 4 or 5, that translates into 10 years of talking about every subject in terms of GB&T. I can't imagine a program more likely to make students hate the topics GB&T that just that. Moreover, I'm not sure you need that much time to teach a student how to look at things in terms of GB&T. A month is probably overkill. And thirdly, as a methodology, it stands a good chance of standing in the way of the very thing that I'm arguing for, that is, presenting the topics in such a way that their practical importance to the individuals is uppermost. What's important is that a child know how to use mathematics, and spending any significant amount of time trying to cajole students into thinking about how it's GB&T doesn't seem particularly well-calculated to make them proficient with it. To reprise an earlier theme, the Pythagorean theorem is probably true, certainly beautiful, and may be good, but an appreciation of those things won't necessarily help me use it, or even make it worth learning.
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| Why you seem to think your position is somehow free of imposing values or pet subjects is difficult to understand. |
It's probably difficult to understand because I haven't assumed that it's free from the imposition of certain values. I'm very upfront about those values, in fact. And if you don't agree with those values, then obviously you're not going to agree with the conclusions I draw. It's disingenuous to try to argue against them as though we shared a basic starting point, when it's clear to me that we don't. And, in fact, what I've been arguing ever since you logged your two cents is that I don't see much value in the starting point you've suggested. You've reiterated that you think it is, after all, valid and valuable, and that it is, at any rate, unavoidable (as though to make up for the possibility that it is, oops! neither valid nor valuable), but you haven't said anything that would cut to the heart of the matter and demonstrate to me that your starting point is to be preferred.
If you want it spelled out for you so that you'll have some solid surface against which to hurl an objection, you could sum up my premise along these lines: We take it pretty much for granted that participating in a society confers certain benefits on the citizen, be they derived from division of labor, material wealth, cultural inheritence or sheer companionship. If a person didn't derive some benefit, they would pretty quickly abandon that society for a better one or none at all, we might suppose. But along with the benefits, participation in any given society comes with certain costs -- in the form, for sake of argument, of obligations, demands, limitations, competition, etc. Those costs can be, depending on your place in that society, crushing, even if they never reach the pitch required to make a person reject society altogether. To that end, I take the foremost justification for a compulsory education to be its propensity for equipping citizens to deal with the costs of participation in a society.
To my mind, it's the place of culture to provide an "education" in GB&T, an that's part of what makes living in any human society so appealing: the culture it affords. An educational system is merely an adjunct to that relationship, ultimately unnecessary to acculturation since culture is disseminated by other means. It may make possible more elaborate forms of culture -- literacy makes possible the literary arts -- but culture itself can, and does, survive without a formal, mandatory education.
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| Beyond the glaring omission in your post that pursuing the good, true and beautiful has had at least as much role in shaping our method of governance and building communities as can be captured in Candide...what is the good in assessing the social system we live in? |
As for my "glaring omission," I think it can be better answered by suggesting that Plato is a strong candidate for admission into a practical curriculum. Teaching students the actual historical origins and dissimenation of the doctrine is a more practical means of making them capable of applying it to the question of how it shaped our social situation than is making it a part of the methodology of teaching any subject.
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| I think these are the kinds of questions that should be examined in public education and I think utilizing a rubric for what is good, true and beautiful can support this. |
I think that those are the sort of questions that it would be dangerous to entrust to institutions, particularly institutions that are imposed and administered (or, at the very least, monitored) by the very social structure in question. The university foundation of the "cultural revolutions" of the 1960s were, in retrospect, an obvious liability, and the fact that the same generation -- many of the same individuals, in fact -- would transform themselves into the worst abusers during the 1970s and 80s ought to suggest that problems with that sort of liberal education, not just for conservatives opposed to change but to anyone who is genuinely interested in seriously altering the social milieu. Public education will, in all probability, transform your sacred questions into idols in service of the very status quo you seek to oppose. And for seeking the complicity of public education, you will have deserved that betrayal. |
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Dissident Heart
Wisdom Personified
Bronze Contributor
Joined: 29 Aug 2003
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| Posted: Fri Nov 09, 2007 12:46 am Post subject:
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| MA: Am I understanding you to say that, no matter what topic is studied, the approach to that topic ought to be defined by a consideration of good, beauty and truth |
Yes, and moreso: the subject is determined within these coordinates already. I am arguing that Public Education should bring the students into an already existing decision: allowing and encouraging them to explicitly engage what is implicitly established. No matter what is taught: it is there, in the classroom, because a teacher, administration, school board, liegislative branch have determined what is TG and B for educating its citizens.
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| MA: If so, then again, raising those topics in no way helps us to determine what ought to go into a compulsory curriculum, which is the topic that I've been discussing since my very first reply in this thread. |
Actually it does. It helps us clarify by what values do we include or exclude subject matter. It doesn't determine what will be chosen, but it illuminates the values we utilize in making those decisions.
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| MA: Beyond that, I'm highly skeptical of it as a method. |
I haven't begun to discuss method, beyond bringing the student into the already existing world of developing the skills for evaluating what is put in and what is left out. There are developmental limitations to any method, and what I would do for 1st graders I wouldn't do with Sophomores: but all of them would be challenged to see what is G, T and B about their subject matter: and then encouraged to participate in its development. As far as teaching methods, I endorse Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences as a very valuable window into the complex and diverse world of learning styles and cognitive abilities. Lessons should provide as many portals for entry to match the diversity of students within the classroom. What ties it all together, giving it a purpose and goal, keeping it linked to the needs of students and society: is the G,T and B trifecta.
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| MA: as a methodology, it stands a good chance of standing in the way of the very thing that I'm arguing for, that is, presenting the topics in such a way that their practical importance to the individuals is uppermost. |
Well, I think encouraging students to ask what is good, true and beautiful about the things they encounter in school is an excellent way to determine what is practical, pertinent, and important to them and their survival. Bringing them into the discussion, asking them to participate in the evaluation process is profoundly practical: considering they will be having to evaluate the G,B and T of life until their graves...it is the process by which they set priorities, establish criteria for worth, and find meaning in their world. I think this is quite practical. If they don't learn how to do this: then who will decide for them? I think a participatory democracy requires a participatory education system: and crucial to that is engaging students to consdier the values by which they set their priorities and determine worth: or, the G,T and B of it all.
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| MA: What's important is that a child know how to use mathematics, and spending any significant amount of time trying to cajole students into thinking about how it's GB&T doesn't seem particularly well-calculated to make them proficient with it. |
Is that mathematics to build Hummers and Atomic Bombs, or Solar Panels and Farmer's Markets? I think it is especially important that students recognize the world of values when learning math and science: and realize the implications of what happens when they apply these skills to the world they live in. I am especially skeptical of any sort of "pure mathematics" where only integers and formulas exist: no, Students live in the world of people and values and their mathematics is never separate from either. Bringing G,T and B to the equation is how Students and Teachers can ask the questions: why and for what purposes will I utilize these skills of algebra, fractions, geometry, etc..?
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| MA: To my mind, it's the place of culture to provide an "education" in GB&T, an that's part of what makes living in any human society so appealing: the culture it affords. An educational system is merely an adjunct to that relationship, ultimately unnecessary to acculturation since culture is disseminated by other means. It may make possible more elaborate forms of culture -- literacy makes possible the literary arts -- but culture itself can, and does, survive without a formal, mandatory education. |
This is an interesting point Mad. I don't agree that Public Education is simply an adjunct to preparing Citizens to receive the needed values and tools of acculturation. I mean, it certainly can be what you describe it to be; and in many cases it is far less. But it doesn't have to be. And I argue that if we want a participatory democracy that equips its citizens to learn how to live together and utilize the bounties and pay the sacrifices: Public Education can be one essential venue where the members of a community teach their children how to participate and become citizens. In other words, participator democracy requires learning how to participate democratically: I think Public School is crucial for this. I don't think it merely adjunct: I think its absence will mean the absence of participatory democracy.
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| MA: Teaching students the actual historical origins and dissimenation of the doctrine is a more practical means of making them capable of applying it to the question of how it shaped our social situation than is making it a part of the methodology of teaching any subject. |
I don't agree. I think understanding the historical origins and its dissemnation is important...but the real sticking and application of the G,T and B will be in the ways Teachers and Students learn to seek it out in the immediate subject matter at hand. And not simply the subject matter; but in the ethos of the school and the interaction of the Students and Teachers and Administration as well as the Parents and surrounding Community. How the school organizes itself, mediates conflict, communicates its mission, values and celebrates its sucesses and tragedies....all of this is part of the G,T and B nexus too: actually, it is in the building of a culture within a school that, I think, develops those skills best that will translate into the culture of participatory democracy.
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| MA: I think that those are the sort of questions that it would be dangerous to entrust to institutions, particularly institutions that are imposed and administered (or, at the very least, monitored) by the very social structure in question. |
My point is that those questions are already being asked and answered, and the very existence of a curriculum, textbooks, class schedule and testing procdures reflects that. I argue that participatory democracy requires citizens able to participate in answering those questions: it is in answering those questions that guides the implementation and application of the skills learned in school. Students need to participate in that process, and not be passive receptors of the shifting members of the curriculum committee, text book publishers, school board or legislative session....no matter how practical they deem their subject matter and methodology.
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| MA: Public education will, in all probability, transform your sacred questions into idols in service of the very status quo you seek to oppose. And for seeking the complicity of public education, you will have deserved that betrayal. |
That's certainly a risk. One that your approach faces as well. |
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