Multiple lenses

We discussed different educational philosophical thoughts of different philosophers in class. All of them were questioning and answering “what is education” through certain lenses. Socrates/Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Dewey have their lenses, so do those existentialists, phenomenologists, and postmodernists, etc. Mostly because of the certain lens they took, flaws in their theory become very obvious when we critique through another lens.

Then, question comes to me that what is the lens or lenses that we take today when we talk about, question, or try to define education? We know that we must have certain lens, because we couldn’t “see” the answers to our questions with “naked eyes” (no lens, totally unbiased). If we could find the answers with “naked eyes”, then probably the universal-forever-answers could be located. Unfortunately, that will never happen. This might be a way to explain that why we do the same things and ask the same questions again and again and again, because human beings keep changing lenses during the process of growth, every time we change the lenses, we should “repeat” some actions, but these new actions have totally different means.

Then, my question goes on like this: if we know what is our lens today, and we are sure that it will result in certain defects in our theory, then when we know that the results of our inquiry should have certain disadvantages because of inevitable defect in the premise, do we still have the courage to go on? Is it possible that we could see things through multiple lenses (if “naked eyes” are totally impossible)? How can we do that? I admit and used to strongly agree with that people are deeply influenced by their environment and the times they live, but it is true that there are certain philosophers in history whose thoughts (or more precisely a portion of their thoughts) could transcend the limitation of their time. So now I believe that if we are aware of the limitation that our lenses give us, we take it as a serious problem, and we have a strong desire to break the limitation, then maybe we could make it to yield a better outcome of our inquiry, at least we could on some degree break the spatial limitation, if we couldn’t break the temporal limitation of this digital era.

I personally believe there is something deeply rooted in my mind always leading me to break certain limitation given by my lens, especially spatially. However, I want to see things through multiple lenses for better outcome, but maybe the meaning of inquiry is lying in the process. I probably shouldn’t struggle with how to achieve a more unbiased lens; rather, I should learn to live with the beauty of all the confusing questions according to Palmer’s suggestion.

P. S.
I try to be clear and concentrate on the theme of this post, but I am not sure whether I did it using a language I am not good at. Also, I am often distracted by some of other seems irrelevant questions that keep occurring when I want to concentrate on one theme, what presents to me when I finished the writing is always different from what I thought it should be. I should "comb" my thoughts again and again, and it takes time, but eventually my "thought of hair" still looks crazy. I am writing another post about some other questions occurred to me when I was writing the passages above.

What is engineering wordle from first day

Here it is (go to www.wordle.net to make your own): option 1 and option 2

r:)

Philosophy in The Chronicle

As I was reading this week's Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly publication dedicated to "the news" in higher education, I noticed a significant section of the paper devoted to "The Defining Idea of the Next Decade". The Chronicle asked a handful of scholars to answer the question: "What will be the defining idea of the coming decade and why?" The answers, in the form of short essays, were printed one after another.

One essay was from Parker Palmer, whom we read last week, discussing the need to reinvigorate the "tensions of democracy" - which he calls humility and chutzpah. In essence, it is the tension between listening with an open mind and heart, and knowing and speaking one's own truth.

Another essay, by Daniel Cohen, talked about the debate between the individual and the collective - another "tension" if you will, and that this debate will be had again, stemming from the way we value the voice of the collective (via social media) versus the way we value the voice of the expert.

A third essay, by Linda Kerber, writes about the continued need for equity for women. I was interested in this essay because of the way she approached the topic - a way that we discussed in class today - asking the question, presenting her argument, and being explicit about the consequences of that arguement.

In all, there were 19 essays presented, and I could see threads of our discussions today and those of last week in each of them.

Thoughts on chapters 3, 4:philosophical questions about education?

What are questions about education that each philosophical perspective/school might ask?  (Final group work of today's class.  We will come back to this on Sept 9.)

Analytical

• What PRECISELY is learning?
• Does teaching imply learning?

Existentialism

• don't define me!!!
• what is the nature of choice?
• what is the role of the learner?

Phenomenology

• what is an experience in which you were "educated" or were taught or were a learner?
• what is an "education of caring"?

Critical theory

• who has power in/over education?
• what is priveleged knowledge?

Post-modernism

• should/must knowledge be political?

Snack schedule

Thanks to folks who are willing to bring snack for class!  If you're able and willing to accomodate them, we have some vegetarian people and some people who don't do well with some salads in our class.

Sept 2: open
Sept 9: Angela
Sept 16: Xingyu
Sept 23: open
Sept 30: open

Oct 7: Dan
Oct 14: Ruthie
Oct 21: open
Oct 28: open

Nov 4: open
Nov 11: open
Nov 18: Tatiana
Nov 25: Thanksgiving - no class

Dec 2: Mariana
Dec 9: open
YouTube extravaganza: Robin and Alice

If you're willing to help out with one of these open dates, feel free to edit this post or add your date (and name ;-) ) to the comments of this post.  Thanks!

Recipes from class: Zucchini spice cake

Several of you asked for the recipe for the zucchini spice cake we had at break today.  I'm happy to share it here -- and feel free to share recipes for things you contribute for snack here in the future so we can all learn some new cooking tools!

Zucchini Spice Cake
from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts, p. 136
Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc, New York, 1997

Serves 16
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Baking time: 40-45 minutes
Cooling time: 10 minutes
Equipment: 10-inch bundt pan, electric mixer

Ingredients:
1/2 c butter
1 1/2 c packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 c unbleached white pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 c grated zucchini
1 c toasted chopped nuts (such as almonds, pecans, or walnuts, or a mixture)
1/2 currants or rasins
sprinkling of confectioners' sugar

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.  
2. Generously butter or oil a bundt pan (I use a loaf pan).
3. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light.  Beat in the eggs and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. 
5. Fold the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture.  Fold in the vanilla, zucchini, nuts, and raisins.
6. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes until the cake is golden and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then invert the cake onto a plate -- tap the bottom of the pan to release the cake, if needed.
7. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Blogging primer

Thanks for a good first day of class, all!  If you have never blogged before, here is a starting place to figure out how to navigate Blogger.

You'll note that, when you sign in to your Google account and head to make a "new post" there are two views -- you can type in a WYSIWYG editor (= "What you see is what you get") or you can type in the HTML editor.

If you decide to type your post in a word processor on your computer first, best copy and paste the text into the HTML editor, and then click over to the "Compose" (WYSIWYG) editor to format it.

Put your questions about blogging here!