Notes From the North Country

One question that has been percolating in my brain for a few years — and which yesterday’s blog post brought back to me — is a basic question:  What’s the difference between critical thinking and critical theory?

As I wrote yesterday, I believe that understanding critical theory is starting to seem incredibly important to understanding many of the forces at work in our culture, at least on the left.  This seems to me particularly important for those of us in education, where these same forces also seem to be at work, defining much of the forward-looking work in our field.

Continue reading “Critical . . . of What?”

Last week’s New York Times had a fascinating profile of Robin DiAngelo.  Now that her work is so ubiquitous, it’s interesting to see some reviewers and readers giving her work much closer scrutiny. When I read her book “White Fragility” last year, I had not read many books in the critical theory tradition, so I was quite taken aback by some of the claims she made and new definitions she proposed. I thought some of her ideas were extremely promising and some deeply questionable. Yet it was difficult to find much substantive discussion of it online or in the press.

But just a year later, DiAngelo is in the news so much, we’re starting to see people writing about her and discussing her work more carefully.  This NYT profile was a good example: it’s pretty balanced, and a few times the author, Daniel Bergner, probes deeper to get at some of the more latent issues.  I thought there were some really interesting things to think about — particularly for those of us who work in schools.

Continue reading “Radical Pluralism”

This winter, as I began reading more about the history of progressive education in the US, it seemed to me that some of the most interesting critics were the ones the textbook I was reading called “The Romantic Critics” (Herbert Kohl, Jonathan Kozol, et al.) because of their indebtedness to Romantic forefather Jean Jacques Rousseau.  I told myself then that I had to go back and revisit Rousseau’s seminal work on education, Emile.  When I saw this book on a list of the thirty best ed books, coming from a blogger and author whose opinion I respect, I ordered the book.

Continue reading “Emile”

This has been an incredible time for free speech debate in the United States.  Like all true free speech advocates, I love it when people air divergent views — even about the importance of free speech itself.  I say this because, deep down, I continue to feel optimistic about our ability to arrive at truth through reason and argumentation.  I really do believe in the notion that through a clash of viewpoints in the marketplace of ideas comes the closest thing we can get to truth and consensus.

Continue reading “The Criticisms of Free Speech”

The last month has seen unprecedented social activism and debate that cuts to the very core of who we are as a country.  While much of the advocacy has focused on police reform or political reform, some, inevitably, has focused on educational reform.  

In fact — a fun side note — the NBA is allowing its players to choose various social justice slogans to put on their jerseys this year.  Examples include, Black Lives Matter; Say Their Names; Vote; I Can’t Breathe; Justice; Peace; Equality; or Freedom.

One of the choices is “Education Reform.” 

Continue reading “Reform”

“Learning is the constant and time is the variable,” is a central tenet of Proficiency Based Learning (PBL).

Unfortunately this time of COVID-19 school dismissal is magnifying an unpleasant reality.  In the modern school system, given the exigencies of a complex system, under the existing school calendar, and under the reality of the traditional teacher contract, time is most decidedly not a variable.

Continue reading “The Problem of PBL During the Time of COVID”