Peter W. Cookson Jr. addressed various paradigmatic changes needed in his article about school reform, by asking the question, “What Would Socrates Say?” He stated, “We are on the threshold of a worldwide revolution in learning. (Cookson par. 18). While ignoring obstacles, chief of which would be profit motive of the corporations in control, Cookson outlined a utopian vision of the world as a better place with ‘full immersion learning experiences.’ (par. 28). One could almost catch the contagion of his enthusiasm while reading about the classroom learning experiences of middle school students challenged to define and thereby learn “What is Justice” and larger issues such as providing clean water sources to the world.
Cookson clearly envisions a future of cooperation and collaboration between not only Teacher and Student but this spirit of unity transcends the classroom and extends out into the world at large. To me this view is (pardon me for saying so) naïve and overly trusting. Ask any 5 year old what Facebook is for and you’ll likely hear the answer, “It helps me make friends.” Children simply cannot be expected to understand that Facebook monetizes the friendships of its membership. Privacy is not a constitutional right. According to Steven Reisler, practicing attorney and Chair of the Seattle Chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild, the United States Supreme Court just last year ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that Corporations (being people) could not be limited in the amount of money they spent for political advertising (US Supreme Court 558US50). The FCC ruled against Comcast on a recent Net Neutrality issue and afterward Verizon Wireless positioned itself, stating that their subscribers should be allowed to trust them and there was no need for governmental control of access or content of what we call the World Wide Web. Virgin Media CEO says, “Net Neutrality is a load of bollocks”.
Cookson states that proponents of his concept believe “we can Google, blog, Skype and Twitter our way to enlightenment.” (par. 4). We are told, “Socrates used to challenge the status quo.” It is Cookson’s thought that Socrates "would embrace the new learning era." (par. 34). But could he? Even a philosopher and educator as great as Socrates could have difficulty in the modern day as we face the advent of our dawning age.
WELCOME
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversation Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! I encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! I encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
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