The Paideia Proposal

The article "The Paideia Proposal", by Mortimer J. Adler, illuminated a major issue in education. As the article states there has been great gains in human rights in the last century. Universal suffrage and universal schooling are two great achievements that were reached during this period. Social gain continues to be made. Who would have imagined a Black American president 50 years ago? The author believes that education is not equal for all, but I believe the problem is worse in the United States than it is is Canada. (I am assuming that the author is American.) Public education seems to be the route that most Canadians chose, especially in Saskatchewan. In my opinion our public education system provides the same opportunities if not more than its private counterpart. In the United States the public education system is thought of as secondary. It seems that if you have money you will pay for your children to be educated in a private setting. Where does this leave those children who are socio-economically disadvantaged? This is an injustice that Adler speaks out against, and something that needs to change.

An interesting video on public versus private schools can be found using the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP0xi0vKxNE. It shows the American Democratic presidential nominees of 2008 answering whether they send their children to public or private school.

Freire Video

I watched an interesting video called "Paulo Freire and Critical Pedagogy" on YouTube. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFOhVdQt27c. There were a few statements that I found interesting. One was that, "Critical pedagogy is teachers asking why and students being allowed to freely ask the same question". Critical examination of teaching material will lead to a better understanding of the framework in which it was designed. Why are we learning this? Who is it benefiting? Another statement was, "3 0r 4 kids in one class properly taught and educated can multiply". I like the idea that if you can reach a handful of students with a message this can lead to overall social change.

Freire Reading

Reading Paulo Freire's article, "Pedagogy of the Oppressed", was informative. In an ideal world Freire's ideas of emancipation for all could be achieved. One of the main goals of education should be to create social change to better the lives of all people. It should inform the masses of injustices and create a new social order base on equality. Freire’s ideas are idealistic and sometimes lack practicality. Freire states, “But while to say the true word – which is work, which is praxis – is to transform the world, saying that word is not the privilege of some men, but the right of every man.” (pg. 125) I agree that every person in society has the right to be valued equally, but I am unsure if every person has the ability to implement social change. An interesting endorsement of this reading can be found in the following link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj4SGO4iO9M .

Meganism- Take 2

As my paper nears completion I can see that a stronger theory of Meganism has emerged. I learned a lot about what is important to me in education as I sat down and hashed out a 15 page theory. Some of the things I initially thought were of great importance did not get incorporated into my framework because of their superficial nature. There are other ideas that I had not initially thought of that became greatly important to my theory. It feels great to be almost done. Now on to the presentation...

Schwab

I found an interesting quote while reading Schwab's "The Practical: A Language for Curriculum." Schwab states, “A curriculum based on theory about individual personality, which thrusts society, its demands and its structure, far into the background or ignores them entirely, can be nothing but incomplete and doctrinaire, for the individuals in question are in fact members of a society and must meet its demands to some minimum degree since their existence and prosperity as individuals depend on the functioning of their society. In the same way a curriculum grounded only in a view of social need or social change must be equally doctrinaire and incomplete, for societies do not exist only for their own sakes but for the prosperity of their members as individuals as well.” (pg. 108) I liked his balanced view that both the individual learner and the role that they assume in society is important.

Final Paper

I am currently working on my final paper, which is the development of the theory of "Meganism". It is interesting to "hypothetically" be in charge of creating an education system. It helps define what I believe is valuable in education. In the pre-writing stages I thought that my theory of education could be summed up in approximately five pages or less. As I am writing it I am surprised to see how many topics I feel passionate about either defending or changing in education. I am six pages in and feel that I have many more ideas to develop and explore.