The most important line in this piece is that there is no educational action independent of some prior account of what the situation means, because it explains why scholarship that changes how we see things is not a luxury but a precondition for acting well. What would it mean for schools to value research that sharpens interpretation as highly as research that prescribes intervention?
The best "class" I ever took on education was for my masters in SJC's Great Books program. It was a preceptorial entitled "Education and Pedagogy." Here was the reading list: Plato, Meno, 80D–86C; Plato, Republic, VII; Aristotle, Politics, VII.14–VIII.7; Montaigne, “On the Education of Children”; Rousseau, Emile, III; Augustine, The Teacher (complete); Nietzsche, On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, I–II; B. T. Washington, “Democracy and Education”; W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, VI; Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, II–III; Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies...”; Postman, The End of Education, I; Dewey, Experience and Education (complete); Arendt, “The Crisis in Education”; Oakeshott, “A Place of Learning”; C. W. Eliot, “Liberty in Education”; McCosh, “The New Departure in College Education”; Hook, “A Critical Appraisal of the St. John’s Curriculum”; Brann, “Liberal Education.” Almost all are publicly available - I like the mention of modern educational scholars, but most of these readings I did not encounter in my graduate programs and all the early stuff is incredibly generative and thoughtful for the kinds of inquiry I think you are advocating. We forget at our peril that we have been grappling with the question of "What does it mean to be educated?" for centuries.
This is a gorgeous piece. Thank you for articulating so well the value in education scholarship beyond immediate, pragmatic, utilitarian recommendations.
I really like how you've written about judgement. You're giving permission for others to acknowledge that "I don't know" is valid, while also honoring that educators have tremendous agency to decide the 'so what/now what' for themselves. My work with kids feels urgent, and the (sometimes inappropriate) tendency is to respond with "so what might I do differently?"
The idea that we are a field centered on becoming is something I embrace and admire about what human geographer Doreen Massey conceptualized in her 2005 book, For Space: throwntogetherness. So many things to like about your post. As someone eager to bring scholarship and classroom teachers into closer proximity, this piece is one I’ll return to when I need grounding. I, too, wonder what it might look like if teachers viewed scholars as folks with questions and important findings rather than answers.
The most important line in this piece is that there is no educational action independent of some prior account of what the situation means, because it explains why scholarship that changes how we see things is not a luxury but a precondition for acting well. What would it mean for schools to value research that sharpens interpretation as highly as research that prescribes intervention?
The best "class" I ever took on education was for my masters in SJC's Great Books program. It was a preceptorial entitled "Education and Pedagogy." Here was the reading list: Plato, Meno, 80D–86C; Plato, Republic, VII; Aristotle, Politics, VII.14–VIII.7; Montaigne, “On the Education of Children”; Rousseau, Emile, III; Augustine, The Teacher (complete); Nietzsche, On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, I–II; B. T. Washington, “Democracy and Education”; W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, VI; Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, II–III; Weil, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies...”; Postman, The End of Education, I; Dewey, Experience and Education (complete); Arendt, “The Crisis in Education”; Oakeshott, “A Place of Learning”; C. W. Eliot, “Liberty in Education”; McCosh, “The New Departure in College Education”; Hook, “A Critical Appraisal of the St. John’s Curriculum”; Brann, “Liberal Education.” Almost all are publicly available - I like the mention of modern educational scholars, but most of these readings I did not encounter in my graduate programs and all the early stuff is incredibly generative and thoughtful for the kinds of inquiry I think you are advocating. We forget at our peril that we have been grappling with the question of "What does it mean to be educated?" for centuries.
This is a gorgeous piece. Thank you for articulating so well the value in education scholarship beyond immediate, pragmatic, utilitarian recommendations.
I really like how you've written about judgement. You're giving permission for others to acknowledge that "I don't know" is valid, while also honoring that educators have tremendous agency to decide the 'so what/now what' for themselves. My work with kids feels urgent, and the (sometimes inappropriate) tendency is to respond with "so what might I do differently?"
The idea that we are a field centered on becoming is something I embrace and admire about what human geographer Doreen Massey conceptualized in her 2005 book, For Space: throwntogetherness. So many things to like about your post. As someone eager to bring scholarship and classroom teachers into closer proximity, this piece is one I’ll return to when I need grounding. I, too, wonder what it might look like if teachers viewed scholars as folks with questions and important findings rather than answers.