[MD] Barfuersserkirche (The Role of the Academy)

[gav]

very nice arlo,
you seem to be unfailingly fair-minded, and a very
decent writer too.

arlo wrote:
> Are we fooling ourselves into thinking The Academy
> is anything more than a 
> hammer of conformity, smashing us into pegs to meet
> the contemporary labor 
> activity required by society? Is it, as Dewey
> suggested, from engagement in 
> The Academy that we learn to value harmony, elegance
> and beauty as those 
> are culturally defined? (Is there a distinction
> between these two 
> statements, or do they say the same thing??). What
> would be the Ideal 
> version of The Academy? Or, in the Ideal, would The
> Academy vanish?

yep this is the question. 
as you pointed out, education is geared to the mode of
production of the times; as is the media, health,
everything etc.
 marx *was* onto something. and this is all social
level hegemony...how do we turn it around: ie the
intellectual guiding the social?

well at one level it is as simple as how good your
teacher is. unfortunately teaching is not valued
enough and what's worse, becoming a teacher means
putting yourself through such a boring stupid ordeal
that its likely the good ones will drop out or forget
why they wanted to become teachers in the first place!

also a good teacher who wants to teach their *own* way
is likely to find themselves up against an immovable
object in bureaucratic inflexibility. the result: too
bloody hard.

i have probably mentioned this before but just in
case:
i think i am onto a hybrid solution: my friend and i
are now running the university of queensland
philosophy club. it is an offical club with some
funding and it has as members students from philosophy
degrees, arts, humanities, sciences etc. also it has
some who are not at uni at all.

it is a social affair; without pretension or
formality. it is very dynamic. it's fun.
 what is discussed, and how, is within the control of
the members. this is the intellectual guiding the
social. over time this club should help positively
influence the nature of education - form and content -
in more orthodox arenas. let us hope anyway.

 another related point:
a friend of mine who was a student and lecturer at UQ
many moons ago led a team for student council back in
1968. the team won.

 their platform was to abolish both the student
council and the university senate (effectively the
board of directors). in their stead the uni would be
run by student-teacher councils federated at the
faculty level. intellectual guiding the social.
participative democracy.

the state government stepped in (headed by the
likeable fascist joh bjelke-petersen who reigned in
queensland for nearly 30 years) and annulled the
election. says it all really: the giant bites back.

this model still looks very promising to me.
interested to hear some thoughts.
gav.





		
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