Thursday, June 27, 2013

A Rephrased Question

We have seen an open forum where participants have been asked to identify what the single primary goal of education should be. The question paraphrased could be stated as: what end should have precedence in the wide variety of (typical or atypical) school goals? To say that the responses to this query were unfocused is an ... understatement. Responses included:

-hierarchical lists of generic school 'goals', common to those the ministry and teachers' union also call for
-a 'hot-topic' review of the history of school, qua John Gatto parroting
-nihilistic, blunt and contradictory claims from the school of no hope
-some cut/thrust and riposte style 'debate', which ultimately led nowhere
- the decidedly status quo argument from need, courtesy of Doug
- direct from the ministry quotations
- citations of education journals along with some of Nancy's indomitable research checking
- a distributary regarding solfege singing

Why do the 27 responses to a straight forward question wander in, out, and around the actual question? Why are the few responses that do attempt to answer the question unlike one another? Why are some responses more of the hydra-like lists of multiple goals ?  (more...)

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