Universities

I wish we still called it Natural Philosophy.

I love learning. I love Universities, their dedication to proliferating knowledge, immeasurable social impact, their students, faculty and research.

• But I hate inert facts and illusions of (static) knowledge.
• I hate the ivory tower.
  
• I hate the disconnect between learning and communities
  
• Not asking the big questions, or the little ones.
• Outcome and not process-based thinking
• Problem and not solution-focused learning.
  
• People siphoned into silos of disciplines (though nothing operates wholly on its own in communities or in nature or anywhere), where who you want to be and who you are and what you think about in your spare time is undervalued and where you learn more and more about less and less and you are engendered learned helplessness.
  
• lack of dedication to bettering social good, and overemphasis on employable credit not what actually makes you a good or innovative worker, or what might make you a healthy happy person who helps make healthier and happier futures.
  
  
  

I am not saying I don't appreciate academics or the worth of post-secondary education or experts or disciplined lovelies. Quite the contrary, I am saying that the instituitonal norm is to under use, misuse and unwittingly train those who are destined to become those who will design our future. We are not utilizing the amazing human resource and not encouraging them to get creative about how to help the world or even themselves.

How about I quote Michael Angelo:
"I saw the angel in the marble so I carved until I set him free."
We need to change our learning institutions.

We live in the 'knowledge' era. The evironment of our higher learning insitutions is one of change, technology, immense challenges, privilege, opportunity and the biggest chance to collaborate and create the world we've ever had. And yet we place what can be agreed as the most important things as wholly extracurricular, or unprofessional or either too complicated or too simple to address.

Living in an era of impending doom, simply means we have the opportunity to live the most meaningful lives ever lived. Universities should help foster that meaning, and enhance those visions of the future.

I have too much to say here, but many have said more better and whom I have paraphrased poorly:



President of Bennington University: "The most important discovery we made in our focus on Public Action is that the hard choices are not between good and evil, but are between competing goods. This discovery is transforming."

And, further left (and a competing good):


"So why do you think progressive educators have been so reluctant to create alternative institutional structures to support their supposedly 'transformative' work? Hm? Is it simply a lack of imagination? Or is it just a matter of them wanting to eat the cake they've been served? These people don't want revolution - they're as afraid of change as anybody from the right wing. And they'll be satisfied with small, incremental reform, as long as they're able to keep their status as the intellectual vanguard of social justice."

Is that necessary?______________________________________________

Why is it that people often have the idea if you are dedicated to social well being you should be adverse to business and the economy?
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