On her book “I Love Learning; I Hate School”: An Anthropology of College
Cover Interview of September 04, 2017
Lastly
This book—the inception, research, writing, conversations,
reception—has completely changed the way I think about my profession. I had
become disillusioned and cynical, mostly about students. Now I’m more
disillusioned with the entire conventional model of higher education (and other
levels as well). But I’m hopeful too; there are great ideas about how to work
with the inherent curiosity and need for meaningful engagement that just about
everybody has. I’m not focused on merit, or sorting, or intelligence. I focus
on, fixate on, obsess about meeting each student where they are. That is my
responsibility. Just as in traditional societies everybody has to learn to
weave or cook, so in ours everybody has a right to expect to be aided in their
learning.
If I could have a wish, it would be that students, parents,
the public, administrators, and faculty would focus on how to get students to
plunge into meaningful learning when it matters to them, and to work with them
to define their goals and then help them realize them.
If you want the full picture of what I envision, read the appendix
where I compare education to permaculture, the approach to working with the
environment to minimize waste, to produce in accord with natural tendencies,
and to create a livable planet with livable lives, where we maximize harmony
and efficiency without trying to overcome nature. Humans are by nature
learners; surely, we can work with that in our schools if only we try.
[M]odern art still commonly refers to a rather narrow range of meaning and scope. It basically focuses on developments in Paris (Impressionism etc.) in the nineteenth century, and to selected Euro-American movements in the twentieth century (Cubism, Abstract Expressionism etc). But if we understand modernity as a socially transformative condition that was in force across much of the world from the nineteenth century on, how are we to understand artistic practices that were associated with these momentous changes?Iftikhar Dadi, Interview of March 26, 2012
The two world wars of the twentieth century were a product of the dislocations brought about of modernization in an environment where great power competition and the drive for hegemony were conducted primarily by violent means. Now that this era has passed in Europe and is receding in much of the Pacific rim, and hegemony achieved by force is no longer considered a legitimate ambition, the security requirements and fears of great powers should decline.Richard Ned Lebow, Interview of October 4, 2010
Lastly
This book—the inception, research, writing, conversations, reception—has completely changed the way I think about my profession. I had become disillusioned and cynical, mostly about students. Now I’m more disillusioned with the entire conventional model of higher education (and other levels as well). But I’m hopeful too; there are great ideas about how to work with the inherent curiosity and need for meaningful engagement that just about everybody has. I’m not focused on merit, or sorting, or intelligence. I focus on, fixate on, obsess about meeting each student where they are. That is my responsibility. Just as in traditional societies everybody has to learn to weave or cook, so in ours everybody has a right to expect to be aided in their learning.
If I could have a wish, it would be that students, parents, the public, administrators, and faculty would focus on how to get students to plunge into meaningful learning when it matters to them, and to work with them to define their goals and then help them realize them.
If you want the full picture of what I envision, read the appendix where I compare education to permaculture, the approach to working with the environment to minimize waste, to produce in accord with natural tendencies, and to create a livable planet with livable lives, where we maximize harmony and efficiency without trying to overcome nature. Humans are by nature learners; surely, we can work with that in our schools if only we try.