Learning in the Key of Life.

In the article "Learning in the Key of Life" by John Spayde, the in-the streets education is brought up. Spayde puts aside the tunnel vision education we learn in school and favors the education that we learn in everyday life. "A truly good education may be on the best we can make of school, salon, reading, online exploration, walking the streets, hiking in the woods, museums, poetry classes at the Y, and friendship." (p.64) This is something I would like to call streets smarts. Some people are really good at sticking with the curriculum and reading the books and receiving the A's. Others learn more outside the classroom with street smarts. Things learned outside the classroom learned from life. I agree with Spayde that in-the-streets education. Most of the stuff that we learn from life and experience is going to be remembered more than stuff you learned in the classroom.
Now don't get me wrong, school education is very important. School education is power its money and is "the beginning of the engagement between ideas and reality." Spayde would label this as fast knowledge. Where there is a fast knowledge there is a slow knowledge, "slow knowledge is the aim of resilience, harmony, and the preservation of long-standing patterns that give our lives aesthetic, spiritual, and social meaning." (p.67) Now its not that easy to just sit down and decide to learn slow knowledge. Especially in this day and age when everything is 24/7 and everyone seems to be competing against one another. Spayde proposes the idea of a four day work week. (p.68) That would be nice but would probably jack up our economy. In my opinion I believe that everyone should learn the way they love to learn. If learning fast knowledge makes you happy and you like doing it then go ahead and learn it. Its about finding a way that is most suitable to your personality and going for it.

Football is a suckers game

This article turned out to be really interesting. I am a huge football fan but was surprised to see exactly what big college football programs had come to. They are "grossly over funded, overproduced commerical ventures wholly disconnected from the major and even peripheral purposes of a university." (p. 124) College football programs are beginning to less and less represent the students which is what their supposed to represent. Most decent seats are resevered for alumni or businesses who have made financial contributions to the program. Which leaves the high rise seats for students and the public. I have been trying for a long time to get ahold of some tickets to a USC or UCLA game but it just doesn't happen.
Not only is it tough to get tickets to a Div I football game, but it is even tougher for teams to move up to Div I. In the article Michael Sokolove follows an emerging football program at the University of South Florida which is trying to become a contender with other big name
Div I schools. The first level of competition is financial. " The saying you need to spend money to make money" leads to quite a bit of spending. Which can lead to lots of money losing. There are way more losers than their are winners in College football, teams that spend millions in there hopeless mission to the top. (p.128) Not only will a successful football program bring in money for U.S.F. but it is the easiest way to build an athletic program that is well known. (p. 128) Football brings more spirit, more visibility and more community engagement. (p.129) It can also help out kids who have no chance of getting into a university by there grades alone. Big time football programs give out 85 scholarships to guys, including walk-ons. That's a possible 85 guys that could not have afforded to attend a University and now get a chance to get a higher education. Of course there number one priority is probably football and maybe they study and get good grades just because they have to, but think about where these guys would be if they didn't get a scholarship. Some probably to community colleges, others maybe not to college at all.
In this article I tend to disagree with Michael Sokolove as football being all bad. Granted the salaries of the coaches are outrageous and the football programs money is ridiculous. But this world is obsessed with entertainment, and if that's how much its going to cost to entertain then its only going to grow.

Colombus = no bueno

Overall I found this article quite interesting. One of the things that stuck out to me the most was the example of the New Jersey teacher who went out of her way to teach the kids how "bad" Columbus was. Which stood out to me because when I was taught about Columbus we had a
"Columbus Party" and we sang catchy songs about him, and yes I still remember those songs. I also was suprised about the fill in the blank test given to fourth graders with the words holocaust, subjugante, annihilate and propaganda. (p.267) Now I agree that Columbus shouldn't be taught as some American hero, but teaching kids using the words holocaste, and annihilate is going a little too far. That is when it seems that the teacher is forcing their opinion upon the class. " We should not, or course, retreat into th eold myths, should not hide from the students that Columbs and other European explorers were often brutal." We should awknowlege the person for their accomplishments but also reveal their bad character as well. Its like talking about Barry Bonds, he made record breaking home runs but when talking about this you always will bring up the steroids.
At the same time while being critical to historical people we should be critical of our own country as well. But to the extent where we study our faults so that we can learn from them. That being said we shouldn't dwell on our mistakes and look at them negatively. I found it interesting that "the standards for U.S. history neglect to mention George Washington being our first president, or James Madison being the father of the constitution," (269) " "But they do include the Ku Klux Kan 17 times, McCarthyism 19 times, and the Great Depression 25 times." (269) They do fail to mention Alex bell, the Wright Brothers, Thomas Edison, or Neil Armstong and hold scince and technology in low regard. Science played a huge part in history it changed our way of thinking and our lifestyles and still continues to do it today. "Whatever the motive, to overlook American accomplishments in scince and technology is to omit some of our most dazzling acheivements." (269)

Agonistic What?!

I felt that this essay was a little too long and a bit boring. But there were some good points on how to successfully argue a point by looking at both sides of a debate. It is about moving away from the narrow view of debate in which we " can develop more varied and more constructive ways of expressing opposition and negotiating disagreement." (250)
" We don't have to make others wrong to prove that we're right." When we read we should read everything as a beleiving game. " Read as if you beleived, and see where it takes you, then go back and ask whether you want to accept or reject elements in the argument." (248)
While talking about debating and arguing I felt that Tannen was being a bit stereotypical towards women. She makes it seem that women are very timid and unargumentative. "Among the potential liabilities is the risk that women students may be less likely to take part in classroom discussions that are framed as arguements between opposing sides." (239)
In my experience this is not true. In most of my debates in my clasess women speak up just as much if not more then the men.

What is a Liberal Education?

In the article, "What is a Liberal Education" by Donald Kagan, he goes on to give his definition of what a liberal education is. I actually enjoyed reading this article because he made a lot of key points and points of views in which I never really thought about. I actually enjoyed reading the first part of the article more than the second part of the article, I like reading about history im weird like that.
Kagan compares our way of education to that of in the 18th century. Not so much to prepare a person for a career but to "produce a well-rounded man who would feel comforatble and be accepted in the best circles of society and goet on in the world." I somewhat agree with this, a lot of people feel pressured to go to college not for a better job, but for the social acceptance of having a college degree. I feel that sometimes people who don' t have a college education are looked down upon by people who do have one.
Kagan also goes on to point out that in our society there is no "single body of knowlege" "that could readily serve as the basis for serious discussion of important questions and might, thereby, yield wisdom, there would be a far greater success than there is today." I disagree with Kagan. The single body of knowledge was being taught to us for almost twelve years. Kindergarden through high school everybody was taught mostly the same thing. Now that we are in college I think we should have the freedom to study whatever we please. I do support GE classes and think they are a great idea, but they should not all be the same. It would be boring if we were forced to take the same history classes, same english clasess, it would be just like high school again. We all have interests in a variety of subjects and we should have the freedom to choose to study whichever one we please, this is freedom is what makes our university such a great place.

i hope i did this right

I hope I did this right.....