Thanks for this Yujun! I really appreciate your nuanced reflections about this issue. As Kristine noted on her blog, whether or not the computer is a distraction or a learning amplifier depends so much on the context: https://kdc14.wordpress.com/2015/10/31/neglectful-mom-vs-concerned-friend/

I really like how you acknowledge and appreciate how gloriously essential networked scholarship has become, which puts a completely different spin on our complaints about how and why our students (and ourselves) are distracted by “technology.” Thanks for this!

LikeLike

I really appreciate how you frame this in terms of an organic proclivity for distraction and a suite of combined operations strategies for finding that sweet spot of productivity and happiness. Lots to think about here, and great suggestions. Thanks!

Thank you for your comment, George. For me, Freire is less about the “breakthough” and more about transformation. He enjoined his followers not to “import” his ideas but to reinvent them. He realized that context (the existing state of affairs) was essential, contingent, and historical. My hunch (and hope) is that in the coming years the “banking model” will fall to the wayside. I do agree that students should be the subjects of their education — even, or rather especially, if experimentation is involved.

I’ll just add that its gratifying to know that conservation biology has benefited from diversity and recognized that fact — it’s especially important given the challenges facing the world in this area and how interconnected they are. It sounds like this is a case where the unique characteristics of the field facilitated a shift that’s been much harder to negotiate in places like Engineering.

Oh wow. I was fired up and ready to go after reading Fran’s post, but Yesim’s comment brings up (even) more than I can squeeze into a good comment here. We will talk. And we will also address this question from Fran: can we separate education from indoctrination, regardless of which end of the political spectrum indoctrination comes from? The short answer is YES. The more important answer is “we must.”

LikeLike

Oh wow. I was fired up and ready to go after reading Fran’s post, but Yesim’s comment brings up (even) more than I can squeeze into a good comment here. We will talk. And we will also address this question from Fran: can we separate education from indoctrination, regardless of which end of the political spectrum indoctrination comes from? The short answer is YES. The more important answer is “we must.”

LikeLike

I really like how you linked the case of Dr. Coward’s struggle to stay at Berkeley, where is an incredibly popular and successful teacher — to Freire’s pedagogy. But rather than seeing students as oppressed by teachers, Freire used literacy to raise consciousness among people who are oppressed in a more general structural way. Becoming literate provided a potential exit from poverty, but more importantly, knowing how to read empowered people to discover and learn about the world around them. In so doing, they became aware of inequities, power, and (most importantly) limits of oppression that previously had seemed “natural” and enduring.

Thank you so much for posting this, Najla! This is important contemporary context for all of us, and the quotes you provide from the Brazilian press situate (and indict) the anti-Freire movement very capably. About halfway through this 2013 discussion of Pedagogy of the Oppressed at Harvard (with Noam Chomsky, Bruno della Cheisa and Howard Gardner), there’s a pretty thorough explanation of how and why Freire’s ideas remained largely unknown in the US, and why the Neoliberal order will remain hostile to his teachings globally – even in his home country. (https://youtu.be/-SOw55BU7yg)

LikeLike

Thank you so much for posting this, Najla! This is important contemporary context for all of us, and the quotes you provide from the Brazilian press situate (and indict) the anti-Freire movement very capably. About halfway through this 2013 discussion of Pedagogy of the Oppressed at Harvard (with Noam Chomsky, Bruno della Cheisa and Howard Gardner), there’s a pretty thorough explanation of how and why Freire’s ideas remained largely unknown in the US, and why the Neoliberal order will remain hostile to his teachings globally – even in his home country. (https://youtu.be/-SOw55BU7yg)

LikeLike