One of the reasons that keeps me homeschooling is the opportunity for my children to not be confined to the text and workbook culture that is the bane of traditional schools. This does not mean that I think that this practice should be abandoned, we in fact do use them at home, but it should not be the core resource of learning.

At the same time that it benefits mainly those who are more inclined to words, it also deprives others who think in pictures or music or the physical movements of their body; their other senses. It also confines thought to literal interpretations when it could instead be more richly experienced in other forms.

In his book, "Cognition and Curriculum Reconsidered", Eisner calls for schools to provide that varied experience in learning by using different forms of representations in recognition of the different ways in which students think and express themselves. This in turn follows that students should also be given the opportunity to be evaluated beyond pen and paper tests.

I believe that this is a culture that has been held on to for a long time by homeschoolers and something that we should cherish and nourish always. while this is much a lost cause in most schools, on a positive note, I am glad that the current educational system does allow for direct school admissions based on non-academic areas.

However, I do still see the emphasis on academic evaluations as although these students may come in on their strengths in non-academic areas, their learning experiene is still mainly in the traditional vein and in the end, they are still being evaluated on standardised examinations.

Eisner's point in his book is for learning to be made more accessible to people of various learning styles, if I may say so, that history for example is not merely a liturgy of words and dates but something alive like the languages and rituals that continue to exist today and the architecture of historical sites that we continue to be in awe of.

Imagine... touching the hearts and mind of students who find reading repulsive and abhors Mathematics by watching the battles of ancient history through movies and listening to stories of ancient mathematicians. I remember being excited about buoyancy through the story of Archimedes in a Physics lesson I did with my eldest child and reading a story of how Pythagoras came up with his famous formula, even if it was made up.

In a sense, I identify with such students, although I do love reading, I found the sciences and mathematics dry and dead in school and turned off learning very early in my learning journey. Although I love the arts, I found them reduced to examinable bites too and instead read a lot on things I was interested in and had nothing to do with school.

In reading writers like Eisner though, I try to not romanticise the ideals that they bring forth for the rhetoric can get to your most innermost crises and cloud your vision that you fail to see the woods for the trees. I agree that more should be done for alternative mediums for learning and evaluation though but need to find out more how this can be done on a massive basis i.e. in schools.

Eisner did suggest the Waldorf schools as a great example the form of education that he visualised. I see a few areas of further exploration: "alternative admission requirements in local schools", "specialised schools- are they creating wider opportunities or strengthening the disciplinary divide", "cognition and representation in the classroom" and "the social class and cultural capital divide- how it can be minimised through a cognitively sensitive curriculum".

I have finished my first reading of Eisner and will be looking at some of the references that he used in the book like Dewey's "Art as Experience" plus Epstein and Singer's research papers as soon as I finish "Human Cognition", a very interesting read, by Bransford.

A Life Unexamined

If a life unexamined is not worth living, then I would like to be a child who has no conscious need to reflect on life but finds joy in the here and now for knowing how painful life's meanings under the surface can be I would rather not reflect on most of what life is. However, that would make mine a life not worth living. Either way, then I can find no avoidance of pain in life. In a recent academic study, which I have forgotten to note by whom, it was discovered than an emotional situation that is not dealt with continues to linger in dementia patients who are, of course unable to deal with their feelings. You might not want to deal with certain issues in your life, but like a ghost from the past, it will continue to linger in your shadows. So, the next time you sit on that sofa, watching your favourite show and you feel that there is something amiss, don't go on that way everyday. Examine your life...

Thoughts on Machiavelli

My husband came home from Idaho on Monday with my Strausses- " Thoughts on Machiavelli" and " Persecution and Writing". I haven't had the chance to read much though and was picking up on the chapter I was reading before I got cut off because of the limited preview on Google books which was on Machiavelli's teachings in "Thoughts on Machiavelli".

I am very intrigued by the thoughts on how religion played such a major role in his writings, or rather why it shouldn't play a major role in life in his case. It is probably because as a Muslim minority in a country where my people used to hold the reins of power and were the majority it really touches me especially when you grow up with the licensed bigotry and sense of haplessness that your community is always reminded of.

Anyway, I'm toying with the idea of writing my mini research project on cognition and curriculum. I have been informed that my grades will not be good enough to write a dissertation due to the higher requirements of my department. Oh well...life goes on.
Although I do get a feeling the my coordinator views writing a dissertation a Herculean task for everyone included and should not be encouraged.

I'm gonna bury myself in Machiavelli now and am looking forward to Dr. Wong's class on Socrates and Confucius next term, maybe now after understanding somewhat how Modernity afflicts us, I can now learn how it afflicts us in its form here.