What is the purpose of education? How has education been adopted in our current world? Should education be used to maintain the status quo or should it be used as a tool for innovation, ingenuity and the betterment of our world? Noam Chomsky looks at what is behind our educational institutions and how technological advancement is viewed in current times.
What values do different technologies carry with them? Can a particular form of technology impact the way we think and the way we view the world? Should we be examine the role that technology plays in shaping our world? How critical should we be of new technologies? Neil Postman was working in an age when new communicative tools were changing the face of education and when entertainment-based approaches to learning were being developed. Although at times he may be highly critical of technology-based learning which is not necessarily our viewpoint (we believe technology can be a vehicle for social change when used effectively) he advocates that we should investigate and study technological impacts on society more critically, which we strongly believe!
What do students have to say about educational reform? Imperative to the debate on educational reform are the voices of students themselves and their perspectives on traditional educational systems. In her commencement speech, valedictorian Erica Goldman, very critically addresses her experiences within the confines of what she believes was a restrictive educational system.
What is educational design? How much thought should we put into education and what design features should we consider when thinking about educational reform? Jim Knight takes a creative approach to this question and imagines what a school made by Steve Jobs might look like.
What is in an idea? Where does it come from and what does it do? What is history exactly? Michel Foucault is one of the most quoted philosopher in the human sciences. His work has been highly influential in the field of education. Although, his focus is not solely educational his views have far reaching implications for educational thought. The videos below are meant to be a brief introduction to his work, so as to encourage those that read this blog to further explore his viewpoint.
PART 1/5
PART 2/5
“Everyone is aware of values and rules of action that are recommended to individuals through the intermediary of various prescriptive agencies such as the family (in one of its roles), educational institutions, churches, and so fourth. It is sometimes the case that these rules and values are plainly set forth in a coherent doctrine and an explicit teaching. But it also happens that they are transmitted in a diffuse manner, so that, far from constituting a systematic ensemble, they form a complex interplay of elements that counterbalance and correct one another, and cancel each other out on certain points, thus providing for compromises or loopholes. With these qualifications taken into account we can call this prescriptive ensemble a 'moral code'."
Michel Foucault, The Use of Pleasure, p. 25
Michel Foucault, Power & Knowledge, p. 111-112
“How is it at certain moments and in certain orders of knowledge, there are these sudden take-offs, these hastenings of evolution, these transformations which fail to correspond to the calm continuist image that is normally accredited? But the important things here is not that such changes can be rapid and extensive, or rather it is that this extent and rapidity are only the sign of something else: a modification in the rules of formation of statements which are accepted as scientifically true. Thus it is not a change of content (refutation of old errors, recovery of old truths), nor is it a change of theoretical form (renewal of a paradigm, modification of systemic ensembles). It is a question of what governs statements, and the way in which they govern each other so as to constitute a set or propositions which are scientifically acceptable, and hence capable of being verified or falsified by scientific procedures. In short, there is a problem of the regime, the politics of the scientific statement.”
Michel Foucault, Power & Knowledge, p. 112
“It’s not a matter of locating everything on one level, that of the event, but of realizing that there are actually a whole order of levels of different types of events differing in amplitude, chronological breadth, and capacity to produce effects”
Michel Foucault, Power & Knowledge, p. 114
“The history which bears and determines us has the form of a war rather than that of language: relations of power, not relations of meaning. History has no ‘meaning’, though this is not to say that it is absurd or incoherent. On the contrary, it is intelligible and should be susceptible of analysis down to the smallest detail-but this in accordance with the intelligibility of struggles, of strategies, and tactics”
Michel Foucault, Power & Knowledge, p. 114
"It seems to me that power is ‘always already there’, that one is
never ‘outside’ it, that there are no ‘margins’ for those who break with the
system to gambol in. But this does
not entail the necessity of accepting an inescapable form of domination or an
absolute privilege on the side of the law.”
Michel Foucault, Power & Knowledge, p. 141
"Domination is not
binary it is a, “multiform production of relations of domination which are
partially susceptible of integration into overall strategies.”
Michel Foucault, Power & Knowledge, p. 142
No comments:
Post a Comment