I listened to Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain, which is a memoir that traces his path from globe-trotting youth to Columbia University all-star student to Trappist monk. It seemed kind of short–am I the only one who mistrusts audiobooks that claim to be unabridged? I don’t know if monasteries and classrooms could be more different, […]
Is there any place more indoctrinating than a school? Is there any site of greater resistance than a school? These questions emerge as I read Robert Mcfarlane’s Underland and listen to talks from Robin Wall Kimmerer. McFarland mentions Kimmerer, an indigenous scientist of botany, as a person developing a grammar that can flatten the hierarchy […]
Jim Garrison is a philosopher of education that teaches at Virginia Tech. In his book Dewey and Eros, he has a great chapter that describes how he uses Play-Doh to introduce John Dewey’s philosophy. I modified this activity for my Foundations of Education course because it sounded accessible, fun, and out of the ordinary. It’s […]
In 1985, Neil Postman wrote a book titled Amusing Ourselves to Death, which used a well-known idea from Marshall McLuhan’s media theories, “the medium is the message,” to critique television. The central idea was that TV affected us more through its form than its content. True to the Hiedeggerian roots of McLuhan’s work, Postman expounded […]
State representative Rick Staples, with the TN commissioner of education, Penny Schwinn, held an “informal town hall meeting” at the Knoxville Arboretum and Botanical Garden at the end of August (8/28/19). I went because it was called a town hall meeting, but the only people there seemed to be other politicians, the Knox County Board […]
I’ve been listening to Ed Abbey’s Desert Solitaire. Hearing his descriptions of the desert remind me of the not insignificant amount of time I’ve spent in southeast Utah: Moab, Castle Valley, Arches, Glen Canyon. The best dream I ever had was set in the desert. I was flying around the rust and orange colored sandstone […]
David Hall, a family counselor who specializes in narrative therapy, spoke at Carson-Newman Friday, Feb. 15. He works with youths and spoke on many topics, but the technology-saturated water that youth are swimming in was a major focus throughout the 6-hour interactive presentation. He highlighted some of the simple everyday differences the generations have lived: […]
