A place to discuss atheism as it applies in education and the classroom.
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Started by Ruth Anthony-Gardner. Last reply by Bertold Brautigan Mar 24, 2016. 1 Reply 0 Likes
Started by Shy_Metamorphosis Jul 27, 2014. 0 Replies 0 Likes
Started by Tori Parker. Last reply by Napoleon Bonaparte May 15, 2014. 2 Replies 0 Likes
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Thanks for posting that, Ruth. Excellent article.
Henry A. Giroux's powerful article, Manufactured Illiteracy and Miseducation: A Long Process of Decline... articulates the central role of education in today's world of rising authoritarianism and civic implosion. Here are a few tidbits:
What forces have allowed education, if not reason itself, to be undermined as crucial public and political resources, capable of producing the formative culture and critical citizens that could have prevented such a catastrophe from happening in an alleged democracy? We get a glimpse of this failure of education, public values and civic literacy in the willingness and success of the Trump administration to empty language of any meaning, a practice that constitutes a flight from historical memory, ethics, justice and social responsibility.
What we are witnessing is not simply a political project but also a reworking of the very meaning of education as both a crucial institution and a democratizing and empowering cultural force.
Truth is now viewed as a liability and ignorance a virtue. Under the reign of this normalized architecture of alleged common sense, literacy is regarded with disdain, words are reduced to data and science is confused with pseudo-science. All traces of critical thought appear only at the margins of the culture as ignorance becomes the primary organizing principle of American society. [emphasis mine]
I am a High School science teacher in deep South Texas. So many of the science teachers I work with are anti-science, anti-evolution zealots. If you complain, it gets you in trouble. I don't get it.
I have to teach Bible Lit this semester :(
http://schoolofdoubt.com/2013/08/17/the-atheist-academic-ix-my-firs...
The Transforming Education Paradox
"When change is needed most it is often so far removed from the general public's ability to conceptualize the change that an incipient outcry occurs. Think Copernicus and the heliocentric theory. Think democracy. And think back to when school was first mandated. The masses all said, "No way. Ain't gonna happen."
"What do you think? What would a school in the cloud look like?"
~ Sugata Mitra, Build a School in the Cloud
http://schoolofdoubt.com/2013/06/15/the-atheist-academic-ii-in-whic... -- Hey guys! My name is Tori and I'm a teacher and an author. I write a weekly blog on schoolofdoubt.com about teaching and atheism. I'd love it if you'd check it out :)
This is too funny for words.
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