Author: arash

Who gets to draw the line anyway? Science and Humanities are simply human endeavors

The worn out battles of “humanities vs sciences” have been fought a thousand times and yet, you can still pick up the scent of doubt about “true values” of humanities in the opinion pieces. I am looking at Will the Humanities Save Us?, Stanley Fish and the response by Dan Edelstein in here.

I am going to disagree with Fish when he surmises that the only answer to “what good is humanities for anyway?” is a form of humanities for the sake of humanities rationale, similar to the 19th century artistic movement, “art for art’s sake”. The idea being that such questions are so utilitarian that they only apply to sciences.  Fish posits that attempts at finding practical justifications for the existence of arts and social studies fail to point to a solid product, the way a vaccine can be an epitome for science. But of course that is not true. I can think of examples where art and journalism have changed the course of history for the better. How forces of social awakening have secured rights for individuals where it not existed before. Perhaps most dramatic of all, human beings avoided a super-scientific total annihilation in the 60s through mutual tolerance and communication.

Let us flip the question. What good has science (in its isolated concentrate form) has done for us. And why not stretch the meaning of “us” just a little bit to include human beings, animals and the planet altogether because things  start to look different at this level. We have eradicated the infectious diseases but we are still unable to convince parents to vaccinate their children (+). And all the peer-reviewed journals in the world are not enough to change a politicians mind about climate change. These doubts about liberal arts are absurd to me.  As an engineer, I can clearly see how the positivist attitude of STEM can become completely oblivious to human condition. We owe it to STEM students an education that meaningfully connects them to their community and environment.

This post was updated after publication, apologies to the readers.

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An evolutionary psychology approach to deconstructing bias

The reading I did for this week’s discussions covered many topics, of which, I liked Shankar Vendantam’s hidden brain post best. ( S.V is currently producing a podcast for NPR covering social sciences). The main point S.V raises is that bias is traceable to a cognitive process where our mind is trained to see patterns in repeated inputs it receives. So, our first reactions to meeting people who are considerably different from us is fear, suspicion and in general involuntary but  negative judgement.

I think there is more to this argument, as I will try to explain, and back up my thoughts with a few sources. What evolution has done to our minds is that it has wired it so that the tools for detecting confirmation are far more powerful than tools for logical thinking, especially if it requires going against our already re-inforced convictions ( This is the main argument here, and the examples are fascinating!). To make things worse, human beings’ cognitive apparatus is evolved to to scream danger when we find ourselves in new environments. This has been vital for our survival for many years, but is not helping us now, living in a cosmopolitan era. The solution (until our bodies find time to catch up) is to identify and resist and diffuse these misconceptions.

Between a rock and a hard place: are authenticity and control contradicting factors in a class ?

Reading Shelli Fowler’s  “The Authentic Teaching Self and Communication Skills“, I think of the complex nature of two teaching dilemmas: There is a performance element to teaching, where “acting” skills –vocal training and effective use of movement and gesture — are encouraged to help engage with students. On the other hand, “posturing” and “edu-tainment” are discouraged as distractions from the ultimate goal of a classroom:  facilitating learning. These are reasonable cautions in my opinion. We keep the form in check to let the substance flow.

Another challenging conundrum is being in control of the classroom without being controlling. To assert enough authority to shape a learning environment, weeding out distractions and making sure progress is made towards course goals. At the same time, the power relations should allow the audience to keep their individuality, their actively engaging inquisitive selves. This is to make sure the students are not treated as recording devices needing to be filled with information.

The challenge, however, is to keeping the authority in balance, without falling into the realm of hypocrisy.‌ Here is an idea: As educators, whenever we are in charge of a class, it is better to publicly acknowledge it. It is helpful to point out to the structure that gives meaning to our relations as teachers and students, the one that has placed us in a physical or digital space envisioned for learning. In other words, let us recognize the fact that we are working on a local level, hoping to reform a set of educational practices, from within the system.

The relevant metaphor here is a building. A building, through its existence, defines and enforces meaning to entities such as rooms, hallways, stairs and so on. When we talk about spaciousness, coziness, dullness or joyfulness of a place we are implicitly acknowledging the existence of a building. When I am developing my teaching philosophy and practicing new pedagogical ideas, I will strive to remember the building.

Otherwise, I  could be acting as if we are subverting the whole education system, but as the students leave for their next class, they will undoubtedly notice the disparity between their reality and mine. In simple words, it is better to play it straight, consciously acknowledge that we are motivated by our authentic selves as well as a paycheck, and that we ( the student-teacher collective) are bound, by time and contract. And finally, to keep one eye on every possible improvement and another one on the limitations inherent to structure of the system.

It’s not the Machines, it’s Us.

The question of what role should digital technologies play in pedagogy resulted in a wave of wonderful/thoughtful commentaries last week during class discussion. As the reading assignments for this week suggest, the subject is still relevant. I want to jot a few thoughts:

It seems to me that what is sounding the alarms is not the dizzying rate at which our modern relationship with information is evolving. It is the side effects that are consequential : Students — in the broadest meaning of the term, all who aspire to learn, but specifically learners of the younger generation — spend less time and effort in recognizing and utilizing human-interaction a learning tool.

For the first generation fully immersed in technology, having access to unlimited information through an electronic device, strengthens the enlightenment notion that knowledge, much like a commodity, can be acquired from an all-knowing all-powerful source. This is in contrast with a more relativistic view that knowledge is multitude, constructed often through team-work and collaboration.

 

ideas to add to this post:

Identifying Fake News, critical thinking

KidsInsight

peril due to lack of understanding of the impact of the … information on even adults. Our picture is nit clear, yet we have to start setting the rules for the children

 

 

 

GEDI – Arash's Academic Blog 2018-01-21 22:48:34

 Yes, the digital revolution that was supposed to transform our intellectual lives, through constructing a public global square for sharing ideas and facilitating dissemination of information, did actually happen. But the changes it brought about were, to say the least, underwhelming.

And Reading through one of this week’s readings (Tim Hitchcock’s 2014 blog post), I sense a great deal of optimism in the passionate calls of the academic for better use of web technologies and social media. Being in 2017, it is obvious to me that the transformation has not taken place. The “American scholar” is still struggling to find its broader audience while the masses vehemently reject “taking life advice from Elites.”

While I am being deliberately cynical here to make a point , It is only fair to point out some of the positive changes: MOOCs have indeed democratized access to some levels of higher education. Open text-books are finding their place, although their growth is disproportional in STEM fields and the open-access frameworks allows free of charge access to academic research.

Nonetheless, our diminishing attention spans and the changes in our information consumption habits (from text to audio to visual content) is in direct contrast with blogging. It is also true that I prefer long-form content over fast-food style provocation-delivery services of tweeter. A successful contrasting example that comes to my mind is Vlogging. It is a form of content making that allows engagement with all sensory abilities. (some examples: + , + , +). And many video sharing platforms such as Youtube support discussion groups. It is still an open question where comprehensive, meaningful and constructive conversation can taking place online.

Diversity and Artistic Expression

 

I want to end this year’s blogging with an upbeat post. We have been learning about the diversity and inclusion in academia. In class, and throughout the semester our tools were studies, research, and  what in general we consider a positivist approach to these issues. What we have been oblivion to, in my opinion, is the powerful potential of artistic expression as an advocate of social justice, equality and inclusion.

In this sense, art does not only benefits the Audience  it also has a profound impact on the Artist itself –  through expression and empathy. The diverse and numerous mediums of art have to potential to attract a much wider range of audience than academcis. When all other languages fail to convey, art speaks the loudest!

This fact has been recognized by the artistic community. The prominent photography community, Magnum foundation vocally advocates it:

Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Social Justice Program expands diversity and creativity in the field of documentary photography through capacity-building and critical explorations of photography and social change.

In the following, I want to share with you just a small example of the artists I can think of, all working in different areas, that are advocating social justice and diversity in their are. The list is by no means exhaustive ?

 

A USFDA for data sciences?

The discussion in class about the AI robot granted Saudi citizenship was interesting and thought-provoking. The general census was that given the rapid technological advance of artificial intelligence, we gave to be self-aware of a number of cultural side effects it might bring with it, the most terrifying of them: racist robots.  I want to wight in on this. The racist robots are not coming, they are already here.

Take for example this investigation about the racial bias in the algorithm used to assess criminal risk assessment of first time offenders used by department of justice. Or the program used to assign prisons to convicts. The bias against race and gender in image recognition algorithms are extensively documented.

Obviously, this is not a programming issue. The bias in the data that is used to train these algorithms re-creates the implicit (and sometimes explicit) discriminatory bias in our society. The engineering field needs to take action, not against racist algorithms ( because they are not the problem but the symptom), but rather, the scientific community needs to reflect and expand the very young “ethical computing” field.  Instead of gathering and storing massive amount of raw data, blindly applying machine learning algorithms to every task that used be a human’s job, we need to invest more in thinking about how imperfect traits of our social life find their way into the digital realm and culminate in creation of ethically  un-sanctioned automatons. We need to think about equal-representation in computer science.

 

UNHCR report on refugee education is alarming

UNHCR’s reports that refugee children are about five times more likely to be out of school than the global average. About 50 per cent of refugee children attend primary school, compared with the global average at 90 per cent. At higher levels of education the gap is larger:  Only 22 per cent of refugee adolescents have access to secondary school whereas the global average is 84 per cent. Finally At university level, less than one per cent of refugees attend college, compared to 34 per cent at global level.  Watch the infographic video below :

 

I was reminded of the disparity in refugee children’s education in class today, when there was discussion about how refugees ( adult and children) are facing a steep learning curve, having to deal with learning a new language, adjusting with the host environment while studying or working. As an international student arriving in the US for the first time 4 years ago, I remember the stress I felt every day going through simple routines, even small matters such as ordering a coffee at Starbucks seemed extremely complex. For refugee families, the situation is, undoubtedly, far more wearying: Having been forced to flee war zones or prosecution or other in-human conditions and living in a transitory state, I think it is upon us to help provide the kind of long term relief that allows them enough space and time to rebuild their life around them new community. In our town, a good way to support the education of refugee families is through Blacksburg Refugee Partnership (BRP). Among many other things BRP volunteers provide tutoring in ESL and schoolwork. You can also help families in their resettling, if you are multi-lingual you can help with translation!  otherwise, you can volunteer to help with transportation to health care centers or schools, job search and training, or just helping them  get into the know-how of everyday life. Remember : these small daily tasks are much more taxing on people unfamiliar with them.

2 Questions regarding Higher Ed and Refugees

Here is a quick thought on the questions posted for this weeks discussion  :

1) What do institutions of higher education currently do for people seeking refuge (refugees, asylum seekers, people fleeing forced migration, etc.)?

 

The most important factor is that university admissions are not based on citizenship status. In graduate school, this is in site of the fact that some of the funding opportunities requires citizenship.

2) What do you think institutions of higher education should do for people seeking refuge ? 

I’m jotting down ideas for specific to our contemporary situation:

  • Purging databases that might compromise refugees in a legal challenge given the volatility of the decisions in current administration.
  • Diversifying funding sources  from federal funding to mitigate the pressure points of a federal government hostile to inclusion.  States (VA itself or others), philanthropists and global partnerships are examples of funding sources.
  • Provide legal services to refugees, as has been done on other occasions (+)