Please post your monthly article reviews, projects and discussions here

-- Anonymous, October 01, 1998

Answers

!Hola! My name is Cherese Pearson. I teach Spanish at Proctor High School. I am eagerly jumping on this magazine assignment to hurry up and cross it off of my things to do. That is the "J" in me. When I first glanced at this magazine the first thing that struck me was that with all the controversial stuff in it, it very well could have been written by guests of Jerry Springer. Then I realzied probably not many of them read many articles in education. Anyways, I gave it a chance. I realize this magazine is suppose to rub on educators nerves. Don't take it too literally.

The article I read was in the June 98 issue titled "How I got my DIY Degree... at the University of Planet Earth. It is about a guy who felt "School" was essentially useless to him. He refers to a book called "How to Quit school and Get a Real a Real Life and Education." That title in itself is enough to make teachers, adminsitrators and parents blow steam. Looking objectively though, he does have some valid points. (Not all of them!!!) He talks about self education techniques like recognizing self motivation, enjoying yourself, teamwork, courage, attending conferences and admiring mentors. All good things, right? So why would someone who speaks of such positive things have such a negative attitude toward what we like to call "School?"

He mentions that he had a friend who quit school. Instead of taking music classes she played professionally, instead of taking science class she worked with a botanist at a museum greenhouse, instead of taking social studies, she worked as an organizer for Peace Action in Milwaukee. Again, all wonderful things. But why quit highschool.

So what can become of all of this? I'm sure we are all in agreement that the majority... BIG majority of students who end up wondering off self-educating themselves would most likely end up "living in a van down by the river." But what can we as educators take from this article? Do you believe other students share this idea somehow? Do you?

Think about your undergraduate degree. How did you learn to become a good teacher? Was it from the books, overheads or lectures? ... So is it not reasonable for students to argue that they too can learn more on there own outside of class?

So the ultimate question stands, What can we as educators do to make our curriculum come alive? How do we make our schools relevant to life in the real world without neglecting the fundamentals?

It would be impossible to come up with a decison that would be in univeral agreement on this topic but I bet each one of us could figure out ways our to make our own subject(s) more practical to daily life.

What do you think?

Cherese Pearson

-- Anonymous, October 23, 1998

"To Work is Human, To Slack Divine" by Hal Niedzviecki, May-June 1998, pg. 37.

The article "To Work is Human, To Slack Divine" by Hal Niedzviecki asserts that "stupid jobs are one way to avoid the brain-numbing idiocy of full-time employment". Niedzviecki concludes by stating "what they have learned from their stupid jobs will stay with them forever."

Niedzviecki is correct in his belief that the skills learned at the "stupid" jobs will remain with the individual. Although this article is directed towards critiquing younger workers in part-time positions, it hit a nerve on one basic truth. Part-time jobs that are seemingly mindless have the potential to teach valuable basic skills. No matter where you work or what your educational level, the workplace is the workplace. The vast majority of jobs have basic components or certain truths that are realized. From CEO to dishwasher, certain demands are placed on all individuals within the workforce.

I have categorized these truths in the following five statements:

1. All jobs will have people that annoy you. 2. All jobs will have policies and procedures that are unfair, unjust and stupid. 3. People will find a way to get fired  even through it may seem impossible. 4. The more you do, the more others will expect from you. 5. Always be prompt, prepared and on-time.

These truths transcend education and position title. No matter how "stupid" the job, individuals have the potential to take certain lessons from their work if they are willing. These lesson can range from a basic paycheck to an encompassing realization about the workforce in general.

-- Anonymous, November 02, 1998

Immaculate Conception by Melanie Conklin, June 1998, pg. 78. Reviewed by Heidi Mlynarczyk

This article talks about how Catholic health care systems, which include 800 hospitals and clinics, are merging with non-Catholic health care providers at an accelerated pace. According to the article this poses a problem in the area of womens health care. Given that the Catholic doctrine states that birth control is morally wrong, a merger with other health care providers close off reproductive options for women. The types of services that these hospitals refuse to perform can be; abortions, contraception, tubal ligation, vasectomies, and most forms of fertility treatments. According to the ACLU, religious viewpoints are being imposed on others who do not share the same viewpoint. It is legal for the hospitals to not only refuse to perform certain procedures but they often refuse to refer patients to other facilities. The ACLU cites statistics that state that 84% of US counties do not provide abortions services because of these conscience clauses. Pro-choice supporters are concerned that the government has not found that some of these mergers violate anti-trust laws. They also wonder how there is separation of church and state when many government agencies are signing health care contracts with religious health care systems with conscience clauses.

My own thoughts on this article vary. First, being a non-Catholic I find their religious doctrine hard to understand and oppressive for women in particular. It disturbs me that most of the Catholic ideals hold women at a reproductive disadvantage. Each woman should have the same opportunity to make her own choices and it should not be up to someone else unfamiliar with her life. Secondly, I have worked in the corporate offices of a Catholic heath care system. I personally am not aware of this particular Catholic health care system operating in this way. I am certain that hospitals within this system do provide some reproductive options. My third thought is that as a woman this is something that I should be concerned about. It alarms me that this type of covert coercion is taking place. I do not believe in the idea of people making an across the board judgment about how others should live by limiting their access to choices. Even though some of these things may not be my choice I would not deny them to someone else. I hope we are not reverting back to the time when Margaret Sanger had to flee from authorities to escape being arrested for giving women the information to make their own reproductive choices.

As I spoke to others about this article, the majority of people I discussed it with agreed that the Catholic church is limiting our choices. Their doctrine is being forced upon us by the control of hospital policy throughout the country. It is not as if we have the power to choose. This power has been taken from us and the decisions made for us.

What do you think?

-- Anonymous, November 03, 1998

As I completed the article entitled "Learning in the Key of Life," I found myself reflecting upon my previous education requirements and experiences. Prior to my official release from the Education Program at Cornell College, I was required to student teach. Naturally, all education majors or "teachers to be" must embark upon this right of passage. The Professor that ovserved my teaching technique during this chaotic time period insisted that his students read the "Socratic Method of Teaching." I must say, I was a little surprised that philosophy was entering into a Social Studies curriculum. This excerpt examined the methods Socrates used when teaching his pupils. His methods encompassed the belief that all students inherently know information but must be questioned correctly in order to cognitively understand and learn new material. The Socratic method pertains to questioning a student with material designed for he/she to obtain an answer from their personal knowledge. Subsequently, this article addressed the fact that Socrates, "met and challenged his adult 'pupils' in the street, at dinner parties, after festivals, not at some Athenian Princeton" (Spayde, 47). Socrates did not teach exclusively at a college setting, but rather, he embodied the ancient Greek ideology that education, "came largely from firsthand experience, in the marketplace, in the Assembly, in the theater, and in the religious celebration; through what the Greek youth saw and heard" (Spayde, 47). In essence, daily living allows for education and constant learning. However, learning should include experiences that increase our knowledge about the world and ourselves. Throughout this article the concept of education and how we learn in today's society was analyzed. The author examined the concept that society is learning at a rapid pace and becomming involved with "fast knowledge" which ignores "all the richness and meaning slow knowledge adds to our lives. Indeed, slow knowledge is what's needed to save the planet from ecological disaster and other threats posed by technological, millennial society" (Spayde, 47). I find myself asking, are we learning to create new ideas or learning disconnected facts? I agree with the statement that learning and reading should be done "as long as we read what we read with love" (Spayde, 48). Education is a life long endeavor that is all around us in our schools, communities, daily routines, etc.

-- Anonymous, November 03, 1998

As I completed the article entitled "Learning in the Key of Life," I found myself reflecting upon my previous education requirements and experiences. Prior to my official release from the Education Program at Cornell College, I was required to student teach. Naturally, all education majors or "teachers to be" must embark upon this right of passage. The Professor that observed my teaching technique during this chaotic time period insisted that his students read the "Socratic Method of Teaching." I must say, I was a little surprised that philosophy was entering into a Social Studies curriculum. This excerpt examined the methods Socrates used when teaching his pupils. His methods encompassed the belief that all students inherently know information but must be questioned correctly in order to cognitively understand and learn new material. The Socratic method pertains to questioning a student with material designed for he/she to obtain an answer from their personal knowledge. Subsequently, this article addressed the fact that Socrates, "met and challenged his adult 'pupils' in the street, at dinner parties, after festivals, not at some Athenian Princeton" (Spayde, 47). Socrates did not teach exclusively at a college setting, but rather, he embodied the ancient Greek ideology that education, "came largely from firsthand experience, in the marketplace, in the Assembly, in the theater, and in the religious celebration; through what the Greek youth saw and heard" (Spayde, 47). In essence, daily living allows for education and constant learning. However, learning should include experiences that increase our knowledge about the world and ourselves. Throughout this article the concept of education and how we learn in today's society was analyzed. The author examined the idea that society is learning at a rapid pace and becomming involved with "fast knowledge" which ignores "all the richness and meaning slow knowledge adds to our lives. Indeed, slow knowledge is what's needed to save the planet from ecological disaster and other threats posed by technological, millennial society" (Spayde, 47). I find myself asking, are we learning to create new ideas or learning disconnected facts? I agree with the statement that learning and reading should be done "as long as we read what we read with love" (Spayde, 48). Education is a life long endeavor that is all around us in our schools, communities, daily routines, etc. Fortunately, I encountered an article that aroused my memories pertaining to education and learning. The concepts of "slow learning" and digesting information from your everyday surroundings is an intricate component to my education philosophy. I have to ask myself, would I feel this way and agree with the concepts in this article if I had not taken the time to read and ponder the Socratic Method and other philosophers? I must remember to thank some very important teachers that have impacted my life....

-- Anonymous, November 03, 1998

"Ocean Solitare" by Bill McKibben, May-June 98, pages 60-65 & 102-105. REVIEWED by Glenn Tracey. The approach taken by the author in delivering this information about the use and abuse of the global ocean resources is almost a defense of the peoples who have made a vast and seemingly endless supply of codfish virtually disappear. Of course by pointing the finger at the improved technology and business challenges from the "distant water fleet" he feels it is not necessary to address the exploitation of these codfish by the Canadian government and the fisherman of Newfoundland.{I'm just blowing off a little steam.} In all honesty he does try to appreciate the disappearance of a culture while dealing with a problem of serious resource depletion. The fact that the Canadian government closed there shores with a 200 mile ban on foreign fishing fleets would indicate that they were aware of the possibility that codfish numbers were being threatened. Yet this did not keep them from subsidizing the number of boatbuilders and fish processing plants in Canada that enlarged an already huge industry. The result is a collapse of a food source, possible disappearance of another species, and a destruction of the cultures that have exploited this resource. Makes you kind of wonder what could be the results of continued reliance by government on "industry experts" when dealing with natural resources. The relationship that this "fish story" has to education is obvious to any world geography instructor or GreenPeace member. We need to educate all people to the consequences of continued ECONOMIC development, which left unregulated, or in the hands of experts, can result in the loss of habitat and collapse of biological diversity. Oh yeah! Did I forget to mention that the fishing industry is now using the world grain supply, and even better, the so-called "Salmon Chow"{must not be an important part of the ocean} that is being harvested and ground up to provide the fish farms with food to dump into their tanks. That is kind of what this article is doing is making the assumption that by hard work and good management of the resources we have left we can still look forward to maintaining our oceans, which I feel is a scary assumption given the past history of resource exploitation in our society and culture.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1998

Learning Is the Key to Life This is an article for post secondary students which discusses the need for self education in order to live fulfilling and enjoyable lives. The writer, Jon Spayde, asserts that formal education could not possibly prepare us for the world in which we live. It is too shackled by traditional ideas and to do much more than what it does. Not that formal education is off the mark. It is just that much if the learning you will use to navigate the course of your life is something you can and must learn on your own. It is the desire to learn that helps make life more meaningful. To choose to learn things that matter to you and not some arbitrary list of topics that was prepared as someones best idea of what a liberal education means. Say I would like to learn to play piano. Wouldn't that add an exciting element to my life if I just went out and found a teacher and began to learn? Reading can be seen as an important part in the self-education process. Reading books that you like can give you insights about social issues in the time that your book was set. You can imagine what life was like during the civil war, World War II, the old west, or during the Roman Empire. I have found that I really enjoy studying different historical eras. No one is going to test me on it. I am doing it for my own personal edification. Spayde sees education as power. The kind of power that changes attitudes and empowers people to try different roads on their life's journey. Along the way living will become "easier and its crises will be easier to bear. Spayde distinguishes between fast knowledge and slow knowledge. Fast knowledge is very prevalent in the high tech world in which we live. It zips through the terminals of the information society. Slow knowledge is "shaped and callibrated to fit our lives and needs." Far too much of our energy and resources are spent chasing after fast knowledge but this causes an absence of richness and meaning. As adults, we have the opportunity to pursue learning that interests us. Last summer, I took classes during the UMD summer session. I found that I really enjoyed being a student again. I took classes that I wanted to take and I found them enriching and very enjoyable. As a high school teacher, I get really annoyed at the idea that teachers only work nine months of the year. The three months of summer offer us a chance to become learners again. Even if we simply take the time to read some books that we haven't had time for. A summer spent in self education is rejuvenating and it helps to prepare us to be better teachers in the year to come. The author closes by saying that falling short of your highest goals (in self education) is "OK as long as you stick to the struggle. And the joy." It is a good lesson for us all.

-- Anonymous, November 09, 1998