Who Owns the Schools?

Ohio continues the debate over authority in education. It is interesting that in the article linked below, it states clearly that Teacher's Unions are suing Charter schools as being unconstitutional, while working for public educational organizations that could be argued to be unconstitutional. The article hits it squarely that the main issue is that of ownership or control. Charter schools are the rage because parents want control over their child's education. Novel idea. When we give up an individual right to the government, it is almost impossible to get it back. Big divide in charter arguments Public school advocates and academy supporters in total disagreement before Ohio Supreme Court By Dennis J. Willard and Doug Oplinger Beacon Journal staff writers http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/13290343.htm

Poetic Knowledge Chapter One

Poetic Knowledge, Chapter 1: The Validity of Poetic Knowledge See previous post on the Introduction to this book for bibliographic info Reading notes by Steve Elliott when he read the work in 2005-06

• Notes in Normal Font are things that came to mind as I read the text, often thoughts or questions.
• Notes in Bold are quotations I wish to use sometime.
• Notes in italics are things from outside the actual text but that help explain how I understood the text or seemed to comment on the text.

Chapter 1

• His use of Gradgrind from Hard Times was superb. See pages 6-7. Very useful material for teacher training.
• By the twentieth century, the idea of objective reality – and man’s various responses to it – has been eclipsed, for the most part, by subjectivism and a less certain, more lonely and mechanistic model of the human being and the universe.
• Poetic experience indicates an encounter with reality that is nonanalytical, something that is perceived as beautiful, awful (awefull), spontaneous, mysterious. It is true that poetic experience has that same surprise of metaphor found in poetry, but also found in common experience, when the mind, through the senses and emotions, sees in delight, or even in terror, the significance of what is really there.
• His quote of Karl Stern, fr. Pp. 8-9: Simple self-observation shows that there exist two modes of knowing. One might be called “externalization,” in which the knowable is experience as ob-ject, a Gegen-stand, something which stands opposed to me; the other might be called “internalization,” a form of knowledge by sympathy, a “feeing with,” – a union with the knowable.”
• Poetic experience and knowledge is essentially passive, and listening is above all the gateway, along with looking, to the poetic mode. It was this quote that got me to contemplating at some length the role of play in the process of learning. So much of the base of what a school builds on is what is produced mainly in the context of childhood play prior to the formal school experience.
• Our process of teaching must not destroy but rather maintain the youthful delight in the skills of learning. The problem…with…the “drill and kill” method of language arts programs is not that they fail to give skills to decode words and write correct sentences but that they destroy the delight of learning in the process…
• We lost this mode of wonder and delight sometime back when learning moved from being about being to being about production.

• …poetic learning…the child is left alone, undistracted by methods and systems, so that the senses and emotions come naturally into play when beginning read to, where wonder and delight gradually lead the child’s imagination and memory toward the imitative act of reading … the same approach can be used for the child learning to write, that is, by first simply listening to stories. Poetic experience and knowledge is essentially passive, and listening is above all the gateway, along with looking, to the poetic mode.

An Introduction to James Taylors' Poetic Knowledge

Poetic Knowledge The Recovery of Education James S. Taylor SUNY Press, 1998 I have been reading through this work with great delight and thought it might spark discussion or someone else to read this commendable work if I put some of my thoughts and his thoughts out on the blog and saw where it went. You will find me posting these thoughts by chapter units, starting with these thoughts from his Introduction. Table of Contents: Acknowledgements, vii Introduction, p. 1 Chapter 1: The Validity of Poetic Knowledge, p. 5 Chapter 2: The Philosophical Foundations of Poetic Knowledge, p. 11 Chapter 3: Connatural, Intentional, and Intuitive Knowledge, p. 59 Chapter 4: Descartes and the Cartesian Legacy, p. 87 Chapter 5: Voices for Poetic Knowledge after Descartes, p. 121 Chapter 6: Poetic Knowledge and the Integrated Humanities Program, p. 145 Chapter 7: The Future of the Poetic Mode of Knowledge in Education, p. 167 Notes, p. 185 Selected Bibliography, p. 197 Index, p. 203 Reading notes by Steve Elliott when he read the work in 2005-06

• Notes in Normal Font are things that came to mind as I read the text, often thoughts or questions.
• Notes in Bold are quotations I wish to use sometime.
• Notes in italics are things from outside the actual text but that help explain how I understood the text or seemed to comment on the text.

Introduction

• I first got a copy of Poetic Knowledge and began leaf reading it after visiting Westminster Academy in Memphis in December of 2003. They had already had James Taylor come and conduct some training with them so they were very jazzed on the book.
• I met James Taylor for the first time in the Summer of 2004 at the Circe Conference in Memphis.
• The notion of philosophical archeology that Taylor describes (p. 1) as the efforts of his work were quite appealing to me. I wish to know the roots of Western contemplation of education and he seemed to be going there.
• The ordinary setting for a medieval village or farm, the furnishings within, the roads and brides, are preserved in southern France as a quant sights for tourists; museums, built nearly exactly like mausoleums, now house art and artifacts never meant for such dead displays or for priceless values. They are simply the tools, clothing, tables, chairs, sculpture, and paintings that naturally emerged from a culture that, in spite of its relative hardships, found itself, whole, integrated, and spiritually free enough to celebrate the ordinary as wonderful, as seen, for example, in the sturdy yet delicate beauty of the wood and metal tools of the kitchen and the barn from rural medieval England; or, from thirteenth-century France, the statue of the smiling Virgin holding the smiling Christ child. To show this another way: a Teflon Spatula is useful, at least, for a Teflon pan; but a wooden ladle, of curved and smooth wood, is not only useful but beautiful. The first is scientific, in the modern sense, reduced to its most base utilitarian level, not to mention the strange materials wrought from laboratories; while the second tool is crafted from the poetic mode of life.
• Poetic knowledge is a kind of natural, everyman’s metaphysics of common experience. It is a way of restoring the definition of reality to mean knowledge of the seen and unseen.

A Teacher's Version of "Hoosiers"

Great Story for teachers and lovers of great stories Tuesday, June 07, 2005 The Hoosier Schoolmaster Edward Eggleston Grosset & Dunlap, 1871, 281 pages Reviewed by Steve Elliott, June 6, 2005 Here is a treasure of fiction that encompasses some great human themes. The footnotes and careful use of colloquial dialect seem to intimate that the author was seeking to preserve the Hoosier cultural experience. But I enjoyed it for the use of the old schoolmaster setting, its characters, and a nice tight plot. The pages contain the experiences of a new schoolmaster to “Flat Creek” district of Indiana in about the 1850’s. The author gives you some great pictures and stories to draw you in, but then slowly weaves his plot around several colorful characters. It seems from the intro to my third edition that it was rather well known and a good seller in its day. First let me deal with some things that I did not like. I found the illustrations to be of no use or help in the understanding or meaning of the text. The copy I obtained was old, 1899, so I had to treat it with a lot of care. The footnotes, almost entirely given to explaining the origin of strange dialectical words like, “peart” for pert, or why the word “pail” did not seem to exist in 1850 Indiana, did nothing for me except break up my reading. I would have done more with the central bad guy, Dr. Small, to give him some blackness or at least emotional repulsion. Even at the end of the story, I still did not know him enough to hate him, but rather was baffled by some of his evil actions as the motive seemed lacking. But all that aside, this was a great story. The schoolmaster, Hartsook, was believable and easily empathized with. The bulldog illustration will stay with me for some time. At moments there was something just shy of a Dickensian flavor to some of the scenes, especially the debtor’s prison. Little Shockey was simply a delight and in my opinion used by the author to give the whole a certain spiritual slant without too much preaching. That of course leads into the interesting plot use of preaching in the story. I would guess Eggleston was enamored with Whitman, Thoureau, et. al. and probably was not the biggest fan of organized religion, but I think this works to make this a stronger story. In the end, it sets up a beautiful messianic vision at the court of law, with truth and justice winning out of hypocrisy, and that all through the establishment of law rather than its acquiescence. Lovers of American fiction, especially the Twain sort of mystery/comedy will enjoy this text. It has to hit my list of books about teaching simply for the bulldog illustration and the wonderful turning of the tables on the boy trying to dunk his teacher.

Making It Up As We Go Along

Parental Rights Decision Called 'Cause for Great Alarm' By Jeff Johnson CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer November 07, 2005 Big Brother becomes Big Daddy. Schools won't allow parents the right to opt their child out of sex ed courses. Case is upheld in favor of the schools in court. Full article: http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200511/NAT20051107a.html

Big Gummit Gonna Do It

I like a lot of what Diane Ravitch puts out. Here is good reasoning hooked to some bad premises. You may have to register with NY Times before you can read it. Every State Left Behind By DIANE RAVITCH Published: November 7, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/opinion/07ravitch.html

Should We Let Go of the Apron So Early?

No, I don't always fall down prostrate in front of pseudo-science's attempt to codify the art of teaching, but some of this made sense. Long hours help academically, but impair social development By Helen GaoUNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER November 1, 2005 http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/education/20051101-9999-1n1earlyed.html