EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 2050
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Mohdoo
United States15398 Posts
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Ryzel
United States519 Posts
1) Given that critical pedagogy is adapted as the new method of education, how do we as a society ensure that it is being conducted appropriately? How do I as a parent ensure that my child is learning things and is not, for example, with a facilitator who is just twiddling their thumbs? Not all facilitators of critical pedagogy will be equally skilled, is it fair if my child is stuck with a shitty facilitator? If the way I ensure my child is receiving the benefit of the education is by talking with my child and teasing out his/her understandings, what is stopping me from reporting the facilitator if I have a personal vendetta against them, my word against theirs? 2) What are the prerequisite academic skills required to engage in critical pedagogy? Presumably I need to read and perhaps write, understand arithmetic and so on. What happens for children that struggle with these skills? | ||
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30548 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States22696 Posts
On January 23 2020 08:01 Ryzel wrote: Here’s a couple of questions I have... 1) Given that critical pedagogy is adapted as the new method of education, how do we as a society ensure that it is being conducted appropriately? How do I as a parent ensure that my child is learning things and is not, for example, with a facilitator who is just twiddling their thumbs? Not all facilitators of critical pedagogy will be equally skilled, is it fair if my child is stuck with a shitty facilitator? If the way I ensure my child is receiving the benefit of the education is by talking with my child and teasing out his/her understandings, what is stopping me from reporting the facilitator if I have a personal vendetta against them, my word against theirs? 2) What are the prerequisite academic skills required to engage in critical pedagogy? Presumably I need to read and perhaps write, understand arithmetic and so on. What happens for children that struggle with these skills? 1) My general metric would be "is it meeting societies needs?" Those needs would be determined by a critically engaged society. I don't think those are bad questions, but I think they come from a place of "how does this fit the expectations I have of education" rather than thinking of critical pedagogy implemented in the US as something we're creating together. That is fine, but you'll find it more productive in my view to approach those questions as challenges we need to overcome together rather than questions for someone else to answer. For the rest of 1) I'd say you wouldn't be "teasing out their understanding", you'd be building a better understanding of the child's experience in the world and them yours (and your own/selves through each others descriptions). In that process it should be clear to you whether they are engaging with their peers/facilitators in the same process. 2)None really, you don't even have to know/be conscious of what it is formally to engage in it. Some form of base level of communication is needed in order to dialogue with someone else though. That might sound alarmingly foreign or confusing but to put it in terms that might be more familiar: Basically in reorganizing our society/education part of that is incorporating far more time outside of the workplace dedicated to family (like participating in their "formal" education being built in. This has manifested in mandatory paid time off for vacation and child rearing in most developed nations (other than the US). | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23821 Posts
But no I echo those sentiments. Although it is rather disillusioning that one of the few places I find interesting and largely civil discussions in the political realm is a thread on a Starcraft forum. I’m not an especially well-read man, I can usually skim bullet points and extrapolate out but in this case both for interest and engagement I think I’ll have to get reading that book GH! It sounds a more societally holistic approach than merely purely reforming the educational arena, unless I’m picking you up wrong. Which would make a lot of sense as changing education so rapidly while keeping the employment market as it is, or not making other changes and those areas wouldn’t mesh particularly well. Quite the challenge indeed, but an interesting and I’d say necessary one. The scale of said challenge is exemplified in how people talk about education. It’s learning skills for the job market and creating rounded human beings is almost seen as a bonus, and most people are fine with that seemingly, so flipping those two priorities around will prove rather tricky. | ||
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NewSunshine
United States5938 Posts
On January 23 2020 22:00 Wombat_NI wrote: Phew, the thread has ceased become a back-slapping love in, huzzah! But no I echo those sentiments. Although it is rather disillusioning that one of the few places I find interesting and largely civil discussions in the political realm is a thread on a Starcraft forum. I’m not an especially well-read man, I can usually skim bullet points and extrapolate out but in this case both for interest and engagement I think I’ll have to get reading that book GH! It sounds a more societally holistic approach than merely purely reforming the educational arena, unless I’m picking you up wrong. Which would make a lot of sense as changing education so rapidly while keeping the employment market as it is, or not making other changes and those areas wouldn’t mesh particularly well. Quite the challenge indeed, but an interesting and I’d say necessary one. The scale of said challenge is exemplified in how people talk about education. It’s learning skills for the job market and creating rounded human beings is almost seen as a bonus, and most people are fine with that seemingly, so flipping those two priorities around will prove rather tricky. Education feels similar to business in a sense, for me. When I feel like a company or store actually gives half a shit about its customers, I can tell, and they always get more of my business in the end. For me, I believe that actually trying to do something well brings people in on a recurring basis. Sadly most don't share this opinion. Similarly, if you take on an education that's focused on making you a rounded, more actualized person, the ability to determine what you want to do with your life, and build those skills, follows pretty naturally from that. It's a much more fundamental and versatile set of personal tools. The capitalism machine we have now looks for the easiest way to profit in the short term, and completely ignores ways to invest in itself and get a huge long-term return. And then it results in a way too large number of people who can't form critical thoughts or engage in any meaningful level of honesty, and nothing gets better. Working as intended under the current rules, though. | ||
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Ryzel
United States519 Posts
On January 23 2020 09:33 GreenHorizons wrote: 1) My general metric would be "is it meeting societies needs?" Those needs would be determined by a critically engaged society. I don't think those are bad questions, but I think they come from a place of "how does this fit the expectations I have of education" rather than thinking of critical pedagogy implemented in the US as something we're creating together. That is fine, but you'll find it more productive in my view to approach those questions as challenges we need to overcome together rather than questions for someone else to answer. For the rest of 1) I'd say you wouldn't be "teasing out their understanding", you'd be building a better understanding of the child's experience in the world and them yours (and your own/selves through each others descriptions). In that process it should be clear to you whether they are engaging with their peers/facilitators in the same process. 2)None really, you don't even have to know/be conscious of what it is formally to engage in it. Some form of base level of communication is needed in order to dialogue with someone else though. That might sound alarmingly foreign or confusing but to put it in terms that might be more familiar: Basically in reorganizing our society/education part of that is incorporating far more time outside of the workplace dedicated to family (like participating in their "formal" education being built in. This has manifested in mandatory paid time off for vacation and child rearing in most developed nations (other than the US). I guess I’m just trying to figure out the level of societal/systemic change necessary to implement such an education system. It’s quite daunting to think about what needs to be done and trying to break it down into concrete policy decisions seems best. Here’s some of my rambling thoughts... - We need a model that can be tested and demonstrated to the country that says “yes, this works, see for yourself.” A sample “class” that is documented from beginning to end to see the quality of change in each student’s life, as well as the family and perhaps community. If this is done repeatedly around the country, it could prove to be the impetus for the electorate to make mainstreaming it possible. - The metric of “meeting society’s needs” will have to come from us initially, since society will need to be dragged kicking and screaming to become critically engaged. How are we defining this? Will some sort of critical thinking test be provided? Do we ask each student individually if they felt the education was worth it? Do we track their progress in life for several years and determine if they’ve met some minimum level of success or happiness? Also, once society joins in, we need some mechanism to ensure each member of society has a say in this metric. - Going back to the first point, I think it would be productive as a thought exercise to plan a typical day, week, month, and/or “school year” for a student in said class. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23821 Posts
On January 24 2020 00:15 Ryzel wrote: I guess I’m just trying to figure out the level of societal/systemic change necessary to implement such an education system. It’s quite daunting to think about what needs to be done and trying to break it down into concrete policy decisions seems best. Here’s some of my rambling thoughts... - We need a model that can be tested and demonstrated to the country that says “yes, this works, see for yourself.” A sample “class” that is documented from beginning to end to see the quality of change in each student’s life, as well as the family and perhaps community. If this is done repeatedly around the country, it could prove to be the impetus for the electorate to make mainstreaming it possible. - The metric of “meeting society’s needs” will have to come from us initially, since society will need to be dragged kicking and screaming to become critically engaged. How are we defining this? Will some sort of critical thinking test be provided? Do we ask each student individually if they felt the education was worth it? Do we track their progress in life for several years and determine if they’ve met some minimum level of success or happiness? Also, once society joins in, we need some mechanism to ensure each member of society has a say in this metric. - Going back to the first point, I think it would be productive as a thought exercise to plan a typical day, week, month, and/or “school year” for a student in said class. All worthwhile areas to explore for sure. On the other hand we could survey people for satisfaction with education/happiness now and get rather negative responses there too, especially at a tertiary level. There is a broad camp A who went to university/college for career advancement and may as well not have bothered and are saddled with debt and a bunch of years spent in full-time education. For camp B, who are more intrinsically motivated in their learning, the commercialisation of the system where you’re a customer and not a student was rather disillusioning. Even when I was at college (very much a camp B) humanities subjects had less teaching time, less class time and less ways to explore the subject properly than other areas, while we’re still paying the same fees. A situation which has got considerably worse (my child’s mother is an academic at my alma mater, same faculty). While I’d agree with the necessity of critiquing radical overhauls, at the same time we should apply a similarly critical eye to what we have now. At the very least overhaul the university system because it’s broken and unfit for purpose in its current form and I’m extremely skeptical on how the money flows. Not the same everywhere but fees have been rising hugely, in the same rough era where quickly reproducing information is both instantaneous and extremely cheap. At the same time all the material you need to learn many subjects is out there on the internet, for free. But yet you can’t earn a degree by sitting exams, you have to attend an institution for years. I have to question why they’re gatekeepers in that sense too. Bit of a tangent but anyway moving on. As per an educational system built around critical thinking, I’m pretty skeptical as to how many people actually have those faculties and what we would hypothetically do to service their need to learn, feel valued and have a useful skillset. I think people grossly overestimate the abilities a large chunk of people actually have. I myself did based on my background and peer group until relatively recently when volunteering with people who weren’t that bright. My chief teaching method is analogies, usually. Then I found myself in scenarios where it wasn’t people just not understanding the comparison being made by my analogies and how they applied, but didn’t comprehend analogies full stop. Not in a pessimistic or sense in devaluing said individuals, just something I’ve observed anecdotally. I’m sure you could get more people looking critically at the world in a fundamental way than currently do, I’m just not sure it would be some huge shift no matter what educational system you were using. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland23821 Posts
On January 23 2020 22:47 NewSunshine wrote: Education feels similar to business in a sense, for me. When I feel like a company or store actually gives half a shit about its customers, I can tell, and they always get more of my business in the end. For me, I believe that actually trying to do something well brings people in on a recurring basis. Sadly most don't share this opinion. Similarly, if you take on an education that's focused on making you a rounded, more actualized person, the ability to determine what you want to do with your life, and build those skills, follows pretty naturally from that. It's a much more fundamental and versatile set of personal tools. The capitalism machine we have now looks for the easiest way to profit in the short term, and completely ignores ways to invest in itself and get a huge long-term return. And then it results in a way too large number of people who can't form critical thoughts or engage in any meaningful level of honesty, and nothing gets better. Working as intended under the current rules, though. I’d agree there. Even if we’re to accept the premise that education is a preparation school for employment, which I don’t think should be the sole purpose, putting out versatile and rounded humans is still beneficial. The job market doesn’t stay static and changes are occurring at a great pace these days, so having people come out the other end who are more adaptable. Still, as you say a lot have a short-term goal-oriented approach to such things and only see problems when they occur rather than accounting for them ahead of time. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22696 Posts
On January 24 2020 00:15 Ryzel wrote: I guess I’m just trying to figure out the level of societal/systemic change necessary to implement such an education system. It’s quite daunting to think about what needs to be done and trying to break it down into concrete policy decisions seems best. Here’s some of my rambling thoughts... - We need a model that can be tested and demonstrated to the country that says “yes, this works, see for yourself.” A sample “class” that is documented from beginning to end to see the quality of change in each student’s life, as well as the family and perhaps community. If this is done repeatedly around the country, it could prove to be the impetus for the electorate to make mainstreaming it possible. - The metric of “meeting society’s needs” will have to come from us initially, since society will need to be dragged kicking and screaming to become critically engaged. How are we defining this? Will some sort of critical thinking test be provided? Do we ask each student individually if they felt the education was worth it? Do we track their progress in life for several years and determine if they’ve met some minimum level of success or happiness? Also, once society joins in, we need some mechanism to ensure each member of society has a say in this metric. - Going back to the first point, I think it would be productive as a thought exercise to plan a typical day, week, month, and/or “school year” for a student in said class. Typically the change/level is referred to as "revolutionary". -It has been used in Brazil and elsewhere for a long time but then faces folks like Bolsonaro who campaigned on essentially burning his books and systematically eliminating his ideas from the country. I'm not really in the "convince people it is better" world though. I focus my energy and time on people that immediately see why it is a superior pedagogy. That may be something you're more attuned with. -For me a primary one would be "do people understand the nature of the threat climate collapse poses and are they engaged in a plan that adequately takes that into consideration." "Are we making progress to a more equitable society" would be another big one. I think interacting with the world exposes whether someone has been critically engaged pretty quickly so the "testing" would just be paying attention to their educational process. -Brazil did that in the 60's, it worked extremely well, the US backed a coup to remove the government that supported it, Freire was exiled and was ironically hired by Harvard for a bit. There's a lot more to the story, but that it is superior to our current system strikes me as self-evident as the earth being round and those that don't see it in the vein of flat-earthers. IMO The majority of people will accept it as truth with minimal evidence "see the curve of the horizon?", "I'm convinced". But there's a subset of people that there's nothing you can say or demonstrate to change their minds. I'm not interested in wasting time and energy on the "flat-earthers" in this metaphor. EDIT: Wombat/Sunshine offered some ideas/perspective and I encourage others to as well. I'm not the Critical Pedagogy God designing it by dictate nor am I the type that worships the text itself. For me critical pedagogy is a 'living' thing where stagnation preludes death so whatever I thought it was a week ago won't be exactly what I think it is next week if we're doing it right. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15398 Posts
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Broetchenholer
Germany1849 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States22696 Posts
On January 24 2020 02:33 Broetchenholer wrote: The thing with education is, that it is always very subjective. I had the luxury of having teachers in ethical ond societal classes that preferred open questions, involving the students and letting them discuss. More than half of my classmates hated them. Because they were not easy to get good grades with. Every new initiative in pedagogy needs to account for the fact, that good teachers are rare and bad teachers will have no idea how to mediate such a class room. Not getting graded probably would have helped. Grades (as they exist in the educational system) are a ridiculous construct in the first place imo. If you got an A in US history and I flunked what does that tell us about our comprehension of US history? The larger point of planning for resistance is fair though. EDIT: I should mention I never struggled with school work (difficulty wise, never had the motivation for homework) but the first time I experienced critical pedagogy (of the intentional variety) I wanted to rip my professors throat out for refusing to answer my questions and it took a good 6 months for that to pass. EDIT 2: It is not easy to break away from the banking model because it is a lot more comfortable/comforting. There's a truth and you either know it or you don't. "The Civil war started on _____ It was fought over ______" there is a right answer. Sometimes they even do you the 'favor' of literally limiting your choices to pre-selected options. There's no room for dispute or discussion on the accuracy or completeness of the available "right" answers. | ||
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Gorgonoth
United States468 Posts
On January 24 2020 02:25 Mohdoo wrote: So are we at a point now where Buttigieg and Warren are running for VP? Right now it looks like Biden and Bernie are the only ones polling remotely well enough. What states are Buttigieg and Warren capable of winning? Unsurprisingly, it looks like this is starting to crystallize leading up to Iowa. Iowa represents a pretty even four way split based on polling. It's the likeliest state for Warren or Buttigeg to win.(With the exception of Massachusetts which Warren is pretty heavily favored in but isn't until later) Something I think we've somewhat lost sight of is how "winning" states matters little because of proportional delegate allocation. I don't think anyone will drop out until after New Hampshire. | ||
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Lmui
Canada6208 Posts
On January 24 2020 02:25 Mohdoo wrote: So are we at a point now where Buttigieg and Warren are running for VP? Right now it looks like Biden and Bernie are the only ones polling remotely well enough. What states are Buttigieg and Warren capable of winning? Unsurprisingly, it looks like this is starting to crystallize leading up to Iowa. I think so. Biden or Sanders could take this, but I think Warren holds the balance of power. If Warren throws her support behind Bernie (Likeliest case as they're closest aligned policy-wise) that will probably tip it in favour of Sanders. It could go the other way too, but I see that as unlikely (sanders VPing Warren). At this point, I think we're resigned to an election in November to see if the world gets 4 more years of Trump. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-voters-increasingly-back-the-gops-move-to-block-impeachment-witnesses/ It looks like the impeachment isn't going anywhere. No new evidence allowed, no new witnesses (decision hasn't been made on this yet, but it's a 99.9999% chance that they let some "moderate" republicans vote for witnesses, and deny anyways) | ||
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Ryzel
United States519 Posts
On January 24 2020 02:39 GreenHorizons wrote: Not getting graded probably would have helped. Grades (as they exist in the educational system) are a ridiculous construct in the first place imo. If you got an A in US history and I flunked what does that tell us about our comprehension of US history? The larger point of planning for resistance is fair though. EDIT: I should mention I never struggled with school work (difficulty wise, never had the motivation for homework) but the first time I experienced critical pedagogy (of the intentional variety) I wanted to rip my professors throat out for refusing to answer my questions and it took a good 6 months for that to pass. EDIT 2: It is not easy to break away from the banking model because it is a lot more comfortable/comforting. There's a truth and you either know it or you don't. "The Civil war started on _____ It was fought over ______" there is a right answer. Sometimes they even do you the 'favor' of literally limiting your choices to pre-selected options. There's no room for dispute or discussion on the accuracy or completeness of the available "right" answers. Can you speak more of this experience? That would be a great place to start. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22696 Posts
On January 24 2020 03:08 Gorgonoth wrote: Iowa represents a pretty even four way split based on polling. It's the likeliest state for Warren or Buttigeg to win.(With the exception of Massachusetts which Warren is pretty heavily favored in but isn't until later) Something I think we've somewhat lost sight of is how "winning" states matters little because of proportional delegate allocation. I don't think anyone will drop out until after New Hampshire. I wouldn't put much faith in that polling. It's a bit different but the 15% threshold for delegates and the caucus system acts as a sort of electoral college at the state level in that you could have 15% support statewide and fail to meet the threshold in specific caucuses and fail to send delegates up the chain. Basically that means that numbers around 15% support in polls could result in wildly different results in delegates. The better number to look at is how many and where candidates can turn their supporters out and Bernie's rural support and vast volunteer network means he could pretty easily turn out 100,000 supporters that will likely overwhelm whichever candidates aren't seen as the "not-Bernie" preference of that particular caucus. So he and 1 other candidate are likely to send delegates from nearly every caucus. A more traditional reason to ignore the polls is that they have no clue what the electorate will look like and rarely clearly detail the electorate they are forecasting and why they chose that model for 2020. This is exaggerated by Iowa implementing a new system for their caucus so the participation is even more unpredictable. I think NH will be blowout so it'll be Biden, Bernie, Bloomberg for super Tuesday (Biden will probably win in SC) and a battle between establishment support, grassroots support, and personal wealth. On January 24 2020 03:28 Ryzel wrote: Can you speak more of this experience? That would be a great place to start. Honestly it was sorta traumatic lol. I suppose I wouldn't mind but I'm not sure how topical it would be to the thread specifically (at least as it is currently envisioned). That's just to say I don't want to go on at length about a personal story for the benefit of the two of us exclusively if it doesn't interest anyone else. | ||
Xxio
Canada5565 Posts
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/479540-trump-administration-releases-rule-to-restrict-birth-tourism | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15398 Posts
On January 24 2020 03:13 Lmui wrote: I think so. Biden or Sanders could take this, but I think Warren holds the balance of power. If Warren throws her support behind Bernie (Likeliest case as they're closest aligned policy-wise) that will probably tip it in favour of Sanders. It could go the other way too, but I see that as unlikely (sanders VPing Warren). At this point, I think we're resigned to an election in November to see if the world gets 4 more years of Trump. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-voters-increasingly-back-the-gops-move-to-block-impeachment-witnesses/ It looks like the impeachment isn't going anywhere. No new evidence allowed, no new witnesses (decision hasn't been made on this yet, but it's a 99.9999% chance that they let some "moderate" republicans vote for witnesses, and deny anyways) Warren basically has 2 plays, IMO: 1. When she drops, she endorses Bernie and keeps her title as a progressive, potentially ends up as VP, but probably not. She remains a senator and needs to push for president as a senator. 2. When she drops, she endorses Biden, pretty much 100% guaranteeing she will be his running mate, bets on Biden winning and gaining experience as the first female VP. From there, she basically becomes a much younger version of Biden, becoming the early 2000s Clinton who everyone assumed would be president someday. The downside here is that she would have a ton of repairing of her image to do. She would essentially be dead to all progressives if she endorsed Biden over Bernie. It would be an incredibly transparent power grab, sacrificing her purity as a progressive for power. But, if she manages to get a bunch of progressive stuff done as VP, enough years going by might be plenty for her to gain her label as a progressive back. But what if Biden doesn't win? She's basically toast forever. No progressive would touch her with a 20 foot pole. And if Biden does win, can she really deliver a bunch of progressive stuff? Endorsing Bernie is a much safer bet in my eyes. If she endorsed Biden and Biden still lost to Bernie, her career is essentially capped right where it is. She would never be president no matter what. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21362 Posts
On January 24 2020 03:41 Mohdoo wrote: I can't help but feel that Warren endorsing Biden is much more likely then Bernie, especially after her bungled reaction to CNN's smear campaign in the run up to and during the debate.Warren basically has 2 plays, IMO: 1. When she drops, she endorses Bernie and keeps her title as a progressive, potentially ends up as VP, but probably not. She remains a senator and needs to push for president as a senator. 2. When she drops, she endorses Biden, pretty much 100% guaranteeing she will be his running mate, bets on Biden winning and gaining experience as the first female VP. From there, she basically becomes a much younger version of Biden, becoming the early 2000s Clinton who everyone assumed would be president someday. The downside here is that she would have a ton of repairing of her image to do. She would essentially be dead to all progressives if she endorsed Biden over Bernie. It would be an incredibly transparent power grab, sacrificing her purity as a progressive for power. But, if she manages to get a bunch of progressive stuff done as VP, enough years going by might be plenty for her to gain her label as a progressive back. But what if Biden doesn't win? She's basically toast forever. No progressive would touch her with a 20 foot pole. And if Biden does win, can she really deliver a bunch of progressive stuff? Endorsing Bernie is a much safer bet in my eyes. If she endorsed Biden and Biden still lost to Bernie, her career is essentially capped right where it is. She would never be president no matter what. | ||
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