Today, as part of the orientation for my summer tutoring job, I was shown this video. I think it has some interesting ideas, and certainly some underlying implications for education--teaching, learning, and curriculum (for both secondary and higher education). I thought I'd post it to see what you all think. After all, I think we all are deeply invested in thinking about education (individual and institutional) from many different angles.
Here's the video:
Friday, June 25, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Dream School...
Michael Drout has posted an interesting vision of his pedagogical dream over at his blog. I think this post presents an intersection of many interests on this blog: academics, pedagogy, educational systems/institutions, and the medieval (to name a few of the first things that strike me). There is certainly a lot to unpack in his post, and I'm hoping for some of your collective input on the idea. What are the aspects of cultural wealth and liabilities (to use Martin's terms--which are always, forevermore, with me) inherent in this type of project? Could such ideals be presented in other types of educational curricula (e.g. public high schools, other sites of education in our society)?
My first reactions to Drout's vision is favororable: after all, I will be looking for a teaching/research/academic job of my own in about 4 years, and this type of opportunity would be great. My own desires to see opportunities like the one Drout proposes is especially fueled by increasingly public discussions of the role(s) of humanities in educational institutions, and the anxieties surrounding jobs in these areas (for a few examples of the emerging dialog, see articles here [esp. this one!], here, here, here, and here). Also, I'm largely a proponent of presenting students with the complexities of higher level academics at the high school level; in large part, I think my senior-year English teacher did this (esp. with mythology and medieval literature), and I continue to carry those influences on my life. I see a lot of Jane Roland Martin's own ideas coming out here, in terms of cultural wealth and liabilities, and I think this opens up a lot of theoretical space for thinking about the ways in which society presents information and education. Drout's ideas do well to bring out the ways in which society may need to reshape such (re)presentations. For example, is one of our cultural liabilities the ways in which we conceptualize academics as the "White Tower" of the University or Academy? With a school like Drout has envisioned, could one of our inherent cultural wealths be the opportunity to push some students toward new intellectual avenues?
Essentially, I'm hoping that these intersecting ideas will help spark a new form of dialog--touching on many of the issues brought out before, but also pointing toward other issues to frame how academics and society intersect.
My first reactions to Drout's vision is favororable: after all, I will be looking for a teaching/research/academic job of my own in about 4 years, and this type of opportunity would be great. My own desires to see opportunities like the one Drout proposes is especially fueled by increasingly public discussions of the role(s) of humanities in educational institutions, and the anxieties surrounding jobs in these areas (for a few examples of the emerging dialog, see articles here [esp. this one!], here, here, here, and here). Also, I'm largely a proponent of presenting students with the complexities of higher level academics at the high school level; in large part, I think my senior-year English teacher did this (esp. with mythology and medieval literature), and I continue to carry those influences on my life. I see a lot of Jane Roland Martin's own ideas coming out here, in terms of cultural wealth and liabilities, and I think this opens up a lot of theoretical space for thinking about the ways in which society presents information and education. Drout's ideas do well to bring out the ways in which society may need to reshape such (re)presentations. For example, is one of our cultural liabilities the ways in which we conceptualize academics as the "White Tower" of the University or Academy? With a school like Drout has envisioned, could one of our inherent cultural wealths be the opportunity to push some students toward new intellectual avenues?
Essentially, I'm hoping that these intersecting ideas will help spark a new form of dialog--touching on many of the issues brought out before, but also pointing toward other issues to frame how academics and society intersect.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The long view of the long ships
Robert Ferguson's recently published omnibus history of the viking era [The Vikings, A History. published by Viking, appropriately enough] gets two thumbs up. If I were to teach my dream course on Northern European Life and Literature (a combo of Monks, Monsters, and Manuscripts and Swords, Sails, and Serpents), this would be one of the base texts for the course (I should dream up that syllabus and post it for feedback). The scope of the book is broad--chronologically, geographically, and topically. The general flow of the narrative starts before the 'insular big-bang' of Lindesfarne in 793, but works its way forward ending with the gradual incorporation of Sweden into European (Roman) Christendom in the 12th century. The chapters move from theater to theater--generally concerned more with the Vikings abroad than at home, but as Ferguson makes clear, the story is easier to tell when there are multiple sorts of sources, literary as well as archaeological. (Though the details of the narrative thread is lost in the North, the light is better on Watling Street, etc.)
Ferguson's strength as an author is his deep familiarity with the literary sources as well as with the archaeological record, successive historical treatments, and contemporary or near contemporary chronicles and annals. He makes measured and meaningful use of the truer sources (the poetry) to illuminate other sources. From a teaching perspective, the great virtues of the text are three-fold. First, Ferguson tells a coherent tale that helps the reader keep the big picture in view as the successive threads unfold and intertwine. Second, he let's the loose ends show so that readers can see where conjecture replaces relative certainty. He acknowledges differences of opinion among experts, generally without grinding anyone's particular axe. Third, he models a respect for the various types of sources, giving (in my interpretation) some pride of place to the work of the poets.
The only drawback to the book is probably inevitable: in covering so much, there is little time to tarry with anyone's favorites. (How can we hear so little of Egil Skallagrimson?) No unreasonable or unacceptable gaps appear, however. The one possibly controversial aspect of the interpretation implied in the work is the framing: for Ferguson, the grand sweep of the story is defined by the gradual cultural and religious transition from a separate and independent Nordic community to a post-heathen, at least nominally Christian set of societies, each integrated into larger European society. His parting view of Odin from Snorri's biography of Olaf Trygvasson--as an old man trying to smuggle horse steaks onto the King's table--is a poetic touch. Some might question the choice of making the religious shift the central organizing principle--but I think it works.
Read on--and don't forget to write!
Ferguson's strength as an author is his deep familiarity with the literary sources as well as with the archaeological record, successive historical treatments, and contemporary or near contemporary chronicles and annals. He makes measured and meaningful use of the truer sources (the poetry) to illuminate other sources. From a teaching perspective, the great virtues of the text are three-fold. First, Ferguson tells a coherent tale that helps the reader keep the big picture in view as the successive threads unfold and intertwine. Second, he let's the loose ends show so that readers can see where conjecture replaces relative certainty. He acknowledges differences of opinion among experts, generally without grinding anyone's particular axe. Third, he models a respect for the various types of sources, giving (in my interpretation) some pride of place to the work of the poets.
The only drawback to the book is probably inevitable: in covering so much, there is little time to tarry with anyone's favorites. (How can we hear so little of Egil Skallagrimson?) No unreasonable or unacceptable gaps appear, however. The one possibly controversial aspect of the interpretation implied in the work is the framing: for Ferguson, the grand sweep of the story is defined by the gradual cultural and religious transition from a separate and independent Nordic community to a post-heathen, at least nominally Christian set of societies, each integrated into larger European society. His parting view of Odin from Snorri's biography of Olaf Trygvasson--as an old man trying to smuggle horse steaks onto the King's table--is a poetic touch. Some might question the choice of making the religious shift the central organizing principle--but I think it works.
Read on--and don't forget to write!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Norse Gods get an upgrade
Too Human is the title of an upcoming game in which the player will be taking on the role of Baldur, one of the Aesir. However, these gods are not all they are told to be in the mythology. Instead of being actual supernatural creatures, they are cybernetically enhanced humans. Baldur [son of Odin] is seen as being insufficiently advanced, and is thusly labeled "too human."
Wikipedia informs me in its article:
In Too Human, the Norse gods are cybernetically enhanced humans. Baldur, son of Odin, is one of these gods and it is his duty to protect the human race from an onslaught of an advancing machine presence determined to eradicate all human life.
The story chronicles the ongoing struggle between cybernetic Norse gods, the invading machine presence and mortal men, it features many Norse gods and characters from Norse mythology including Thor, Loki, Odin, Heimdall, Freyja, and Mimir. Yggdrasil: the tree of life acts as a gateway to an alternate world known as Cyberspace that is accessed through the advanced technology of the gods.The human gods are using cybernetic implants to supplement their own abilities, thus becoming more machine like. Conversely, the advancing machine army is harvesting human blood and limbs in an attempt to become more human.
Until the game is released, later this month, there will be little more for me to say about it. Also, I do not have a 360, the creator's platform of choice, and will have to wait to steal...er...borrow my brother's in order to have a chance to play. The game is being released in trilogy format, further slowing my understanding of it's use of the actual mythology. What I ask here is this:
By bastardizing mythology with technology and turning it into a video game, are we exploiting our cultural pasts for sheer entertainment, or are we, perhaps, utilizing a modern medium to bring our culture's elder foundations to a new generation? Or is it both?
In conclusion, I leave you this, because it was the only non-mature trailer I could find that was of decent quality.
And I thought it was funny.
Wikipedia informs me in its article:
In Too Human, the Norse gods are cybernetically enhanced humans. Baldur, son of Odin, is one of these gods and it is his duty to protect the human race from an onslaught of an advancing machine presence determined to eradicate all human life.
The story chronicles the ongoing struggle between cybernetic Norse gods, the invading machine presence and mortal men, it features many Norse gods and characters from Norse mythology including Thor, Loki, Odin, Heimdall, Freyja, and Mimir. Yggdrasil: the tree of life acts as a gateway to an alternate world known as Cyberspace that is accessed through the advanced technology of the gods.The human gods are using cybernetic implants to supplement their own abilities, thus becoming more machine like. Conversely, the advancing machine army is harvesting human blood and limbs in an attempt to become more human.
Until the game is released, later this month, there will be little more for me to say about it. Also, I do not have a 360, the creator's platform of choice, and will have to wait to steal...er...borrow my brother's in order to have a chance to play. The game is being released in trilogy format, further slowing my understanding of it's use of the actual mythology. What I ask here is this:
By bastardizing mythology with technology and turning it into a video game, are we exploiting our cultural pasts for sheer entertainment, or are we, perhaps, utilizing a modern medium to bring our culture's elder foundations to a new generation? Or is it both?
In conclusion, I leave you this, because it was the only non-mature trailer I could find that was of decent quality.
And I thought it was funny.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Recommended Call for Submissions...
Over at the blog Modern Medieval, Matthew Gabriele (a professor of Medieval/Renaissance Studies at Virginia Tech) has posted a sort of "Call for Submissions" to a project he wants to develop: a sort of "blog forum about what medieval studies and/ or medievalism has to offer a wider public." He especially has asked for voices from academics and non-academics (and non-medievalists) alike. Because of the nature of our small thought community here on this blog as well as our backgrounds, our current work, and our general interests (both collectively and individually), I think this call is especially appropriate for us all to contribute.
Take a look at the call for submissions, with Gabriele's overall proposal and aims, and consider contributing to this discussion. The initial deadline (next Friday) for thoughts, short essays, etc. may be close--and some of you have the habit of dropping off of the earth for amounts of time--but I think all of your thoughts would really help foster some great dialog, since this is something we've worked on before together both formally (such as the Education conference some of us presented at) and in our musings on this blog.
Take a look at the call for submissions, with Gabriele's overall proposal and aims, and consider contributing to this discussion. The initial deadline (next Friday) for thoughts, short essays, etc. may be close--and some of you have the habit of dropping off of the earth for amounts of time--but I think all of your thoughts would really help foster some great dialog, since this is something we've worked on before together both formally (such as the Education conference some of us presented at) and in our musings on this blog.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
No excuse for tardiness. Moving on.
Marvelous.
I have just finished reading [rereading most of it as I went] the essay on the Marvelous in Le Goff. I am still not entirely sure where he is coming from or where in the world he may be going. True, in the first circuitous definition of imagination, he picked and pulled to at least form an idea, if not a solidified concept, but in this chapter I felt as though he did actually define the marvelous quite clearly. Somewhere between the words, perhaps, slipping behind a handy h right when you turn to look, like that spook behind the pillar next to you.
The one connection I managed to maintain is that the marvelous is something natural, something old. It is not magic because magic, in the Christian sense at least, has been sourced outside the world itself to Satan [who then could be sourced to God but a bastardization of holy power and everything kind of jumbles itself around in a mental tussel with no clear winner in my head, but that is unrelated to this conversation]. It is not miraculous because that, too, has the implied source, though in God. So marvels are of nature. How does one then define nature and manage to diferentiate between when something that happened was either miraculous or marvelous?
I was interested in his dredging up of the literature and lore of the knights and lower nobility, which brought to mind Once and Future King, The Faerie Queene, and Dante [yes, in that order, though the first and second are hardly as applicable as the first and the latter two are both based in some overt form of Christianity. I did not see fit to include Phantastes, though it also was sluiced in], bringing with them the images [which Le Goff believes is also an important part of the marvelous] of a sword coming from a lady in a lake, and a tree that is bleeding.
And here is where my thoughts trailed off into bafflement...comment. Question. Answer. Something.
I have just finished reading [rereading most of it as I went] the essay on the Marvelous in Le Goff. I am still not entirely sure where he is coming from or where in the world he may be going. True, in the first circuitous definition of imagination, he picked and pulled to at least form an idea, if not a solidified concept, but in this chapter I felt as though he did actually define the marvelous quite clearly. Somewhere between the words, perhaps, slipping behind a handy h right when you turn to look, like that spook behind the pillar next to you.
The one connection I managed to maintain is that the marvelous is something natural, something old. It is not magic because magic, in the Christian sense at least, has been sourced outside the world itself to Satan [who then could be sourced to God but a bastardization of holy power and everything kind of jumbles itself around in a mental tussel with no clear winner in my head, but that is unrelated to this conversation]. It is not miraculous because that, too, has the implied source, though in God. So marvels are of nature. How does one then define nature and manage to diferentiate between when something that happened was either miraculous or marvelous?
I was interested in his dredging up of the literature and lore of the knights and lower nobility, which brought to mind Once and Future King, The Faerie Queene, and Dante [yes, in that order, though the first and second are hardly as applicable as the first and the latter two are both based in some overt form of Christianity. I did not see fit to include Phantastes, though it also was sluiced in], bringing with them the images [which Le Goff believes is also an important part of the marvelous] of a sword coming from a lady in a lake, and a tree that is bleeding.
And here is where my thoughts trailed off into bafflement...comment. Question. Answer. Something.
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