blogging about .edu stuff
Archive for critical theory
December 5, 2006 at 5:04 pm · Filed under Teaching with Technology, critical theory, education, educational technology, multiculturalism
Second Life and Pedagogy of the Oppressed seem to be two very different worlds at the moment for me. The people, the themes, the points of departure are incongruent and I don’t think they have to be. I don’t think I’m missing the point when I argue that liberating educational practices might be achieved with the aid of emerging technologies in ways that may not have been conceived of before. Participatory culture, the ways in which social technologies enable us to express, share, create and use artifacts and ideas, is one of those ideas that seems new, but in fact is an old notion recast to convey what is happening in our connected world.
October 23, 2006 at 8:45 pm · Filed under critical theory, ways of knowing
Freedom and the Control of Men first appeared in American Scholar, in 1955/56.
In it he wrote, “It should be possible to produce behavior according to plan simply by arranging the proper conditions.”
If this is true, and I believe it is, why does Skinner get a bad wrap in educational cirlces and in the community at large?
Is it residual notions of our lives being taken over by machines? Foucault also pointed out how social and environmental conditions control our lives, the decisions we make. Prisons keep everyone in order; in Skinner’s terms it is the threat of punishment that determines our behavior.
For Skinner, democracy is jeopardized to the extent that we refuse to acknowledge that our behaviors are controlled by the world around us; our preoccupation with choice and free-will as consumers of goods and knowledge is just one example. Why don’t we get down to business, fess up to the facts and really take control, he tells us?
He’s got a point. When he asks us to agree that health is better than sickness, wisdom is better than ignorance, love is better than hate and productive energy is better than laziness he’s also asking us to be scientific in our approach. He’s asking us to agree with one notion of health, wisdom, love and productive energy. I’m not sure if it’s the scientific approach or the objectivist approach which works the least for me and countless other people.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. (A. M. Sheridan-Smith trans). Harmondsworth: Penguin.
July 7, 2006 at 11:01 am · Filed under critical theory
I wonder if critical theory, at its simplest, means asking why? All the time. There must be more to it, because endlessly why-ing, particularly with a philosopher, can get you into mental quagmires. Poverty doesnt’ exist, racism is only a point of view. I wonder how paradigms shift?
