[MD] Barfuesserkirche (ZMM & Dewey)

[ARLO J BENSINGER JR]

Platt and All,

Before you launch into yet another cheerleading session for the USofA, or get
mired into another absurd reductionist political debate about the Lone Hero
Individual raging a Holy War against the Evil Collective Hordes, can I please
ask you to begin a new thread (maybe "Woo Hoo for Atomistic Individualism", or
"We're the USA and You're Not") and not destroy this thread, which so far has
been a useful and interesting discussion of Dewey, Pirsig and educational
philosophy?

If you have specific ideas about the Danish "folkehøjskole", or the schools
David Granger mentions in his address on "deep democracy", or those involved in
these initiatives, from Dewey to Jane Addams to Myles Horton, or even comments
on "what Dewey famously called 'the eclipse of the public,' whereby the
atomistic individualism of the private market economy fosters 'conditions which
halt the social and humane ideals that demand the utilization of government as
the genuine instrumentality of an inclusive and fraternally associated public'"
(Granger), we can discuss them here, of course.

Consider a few of the basic questions. What is the role of the Academy? What is
the role/purpose of education? How should our schools be structured? What
should be taught? Is "No Child Left Behind" a horrible monolithic failure of
authoritarian government to impose "what" we should learn? Or is it a brilliant
strategy for ensuring all our children develop similar skills and values? Is
there anything we can learn from the examples presented (Hull House, Highlander
or the Danish Folk Schools)? Or is the Fordist mode of production that has
infiltrated education a good thing?