tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69417552481955956262024-03-19T05:10:54.983-07:00anth co hqthe written excess of Anthony P. GulstonAPGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-81845605940440689992014-04-28T09:40:00.000-07:002014-05-11T10:58:34.514-07:00mediums<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZysWQfW3A4vPOqiMdh-cZrxWVN4wAKEgyS-HXWHXYNG-mKaUTv4h6V78ESmAQi3mCH_3pnemkHbwInBxCvRVxk-isZKoAn8nn5eSi3rq62siuS8k8PvYVM-xQnc-NdQIyV4nxLWLTyXX/s1600/multiple-media.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFZysWQfW3A4vPOqiMdh-cZrxWVN4wAKEgyS-HXWHXYNG-mKaUTv4h6V78ESmAQi3mCH_3pnemkHbwInBxCvRVxk-isZKoAn8nn5eSi3rq62siuS8k8PvYVM-xQnc-NdQIyV4nxLWLTyXX/s1600/multiple-media.jpg" height="174" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Socrates:
We must not get the habit of anticipating and suspecting</span><span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> the
meaning of one another's words</span></i></div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">--Plato's <i>Gorgias</i></span></div>
</blockquote>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Mediums.
It's not a word. Unless you're talking about multiple </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">energy
workers of course.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">But
despite it being used by some really smart people in some </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">really
intricate contexts and arguments, it still doesn't exist. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">The
word to describe a medium in the plural, is media.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Why
shy away from the word media when trying to describe the </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">plurality
of media (or mediums, if you insist)? It is because the </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">cultural
connotation of media has polluted its dennotation. </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">'Media'
now commonly refers to mass media. 'The Media' is almost </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">always
a reference to mass media, newspapers, television, and film </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">as
if their interests were related.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">It
is funny that 'media' has become a medium. It is no longer what </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">it
is, but something else. So much so that it is necessary to </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">abandon
the word for the sake of clarity. If you try to talk about </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">the
various conduits we have for communication as media, it gets </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">muddied,
confusion arises about whether the reference was to all </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">of
the vast ways we have of communicating, or just the massively </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">commodified
ones.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">New
media, social media, mass media, corporate media, multimedia, </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">mixed
media are all starting to bring us back to media instead of </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">mediums.
Since media is a rather broad concept, it has been </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">prefixed
and qualified often. So often that referring to media </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">alone
is ambiguous and could mean any of these things if not </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">properly
refined. But what it really means is mediums, the plural </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">of
a medium.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Medium
is no simple word to pluralise though. It has many </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">different
facets and origins. The usage of the word medium to </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">describe
a communications catalyst, when systems of mass </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">communication
were being developed, was an off-shoot of the usage </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">as
a middle or in between. And thus started to describe a separate </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">entity,
not just a middle, but a specific kind of middle that </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">referred
to communications technologies. And so as these </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">technologies
multiplied, so did the new version of medium, </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">solidifying
its identity as distinctly different from the midway </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">or
intermediate in general.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">So
now we have this word media, that refers to multiple tools of </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">communication.
But it also has come to mean mass media. So in </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">order
to subvert the common usage and return to where a medium </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">diverted
from simply a middle, smart people speaking to a general </span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">audience
will say mediums, and I will cringe.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Socrates:
When the division of our task is concluded, let us find the point at
which we digressed, and return into the old path</span> </i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">--Plato's <i>Republic</i></span></div>
</blockquote>
APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-82214263693957876502013-11-11T14:15:00.000-08:002014-01-04T21:07:07.971-08:00Mark Hansen, Math In Action!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/txaWxI1gVsAK3XavUxY__vCRUDIF7fYCHx3_M3XskBKKrnW87IR8YexdzmhLf5Wi1w=s1600" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/txaWxI1gVsAK3XavUxY__vCRUDIF7fYCHx3_M3XskBKKrnW87IR8YexdzmhLf5Wi1w=s1600" height="320" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"In merely terrestrial terms, programming the environment means, first of all, a kind of console for globalthermostats to pattern all sensory life in a way conducive to comfort and happiness. Till now, only the artist has been permitted the opportunity to do this in the most puny fashion. The mass media, so called, have offered new material for the artist, but understanding has been lacking. The computer abolishes the human past by making it entirely present. It makes natural and necessary a dialogue amoung cultures which is as intimate as private speech, yet dispensing entirely with speech."</i></div>
-McLuhan, War and Peace in the Global Village, 1967<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Professor Mark Hansen (Duke) <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Byvt9A0ucW-uWERYSFR1M2lFRFU/edit?usp=sharing" target="_blank">talked</a> to Trent last </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Thursday. He was setup by his many admirers in the room as a sort </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of "new media" guru. But he was not some blissed out prophet, </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
telling us how it is or what we should be doing or what we're all </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
missing, but instead he just proved a very small truth in very </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
great detail.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Fekete described this small truth as "updating </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
McLuhan" and described it as the "ongoing technogenesis of the </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
human-being." But Hansen, himself paraphrasing Johnny Bored-dough, </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
put it best as: mathematics is "the structure of media that we can </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
master without understanding it."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
By no means is this a new phenomenon or limited to </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
mathematics. When I spoke with John Muir about this, he quickly </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
pointed out that people drive their cars with a minimal </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
understanding of what to do if it breaks down. It becomes obvious </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
with digital media though because we have artists and digital </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
content providers at he top of the game but with no real knowledge </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of how the ones and zeros that actually create their content work. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And since the time of McLuhan, the goal of a medium has been to </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
conceal how it works. Pay no attention to the man behind the </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
machine. Jesse Brown in his first edition of CanadaLand tells the </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
story of how he was told that no one wants to listen to a show </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
about how the business of media works.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now Hansen does think this is problematic, but not for any </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
of the whiny social reasons we hear from old dogs forced to learn </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
new tricks. No, his principle example is stock traders trading on </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
futures and how it has lead to several collapses in the underlying </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
structures of a capitalist economy. Traders stopped needing to do </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the actual math involved, and instead did the math on a preset </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
data sheet via their computers. It was a process of </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
objectification, turning social conditions into numbers on a data </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
table. This becomes a problem because the future is not so easily </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
predicted and social conditions are not actually numbers. When </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
traders reach the end of their formula, they haven't actually </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
predicted the future and acted upon it n the present but fulfilled </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
a problematic framework. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For Hansen, the underlying Platonic assumption is that </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
math is a static realm of forms, untouched and unchanging. Instead </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
he studies Whitehead, who wants to make math a process. Math as a </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
contextual creature that is effected by history and personal </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
experience of it. So the formula of the past you have used to </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
predict the future is not the same formula required once you reach </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
that future.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The problem with not knowing the code when you post your </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
selfies on the facebath or recreate Indiana Jones on the LudeTube </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
is not a problem at all. This has been going on for ages, before </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the infinite space of digital media. The problem occurs when you </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
are making actions in the present that assume you know what the </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
future is going to be, on the authority of an unchanging </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
mathematical formula. There is a scene in <i>Capitalism, A Love Story </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
where Michael Moore seeks out a simple answer to: What are </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Futures? And finds many traders blowing him off and one that </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
spends a great deal of time with multiple formulas that in the </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
end, explain nothing. McLuhan describes this as speech becoming </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
obsolete, as in the systems that run a global capitalist economy </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
cannot be translated into natural language, whereas something like </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
the internet has being translated into natural language as its end </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
product.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Technology is our best friend. We grew up together and </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
share a great deal of memories and thoughts. But it is folly and </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
plunder to suggest that we need to know everything about them in </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
order to be friends. Unless we are going to dream inside of their </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
subconscious (Inception) of course.... </div>
APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-83945446627394924592012-10-29T06:17:00.000-07:002012-11-15T15:05:47.648-08:00a note on pedagogy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgklF6T55FTDIZ6mku-Ea90PX_l20mjWGvEMjHAJJPQPkGmle-e-4ILXRhWQ-uSLu0T_Hz-kWfK24aCWNafuAJZlHje21puYM-0Y_L3z5rbQCuTKaWCbq33leBW6INkXcNzsr0WEeaxKL6R/s1600/APG_kanoa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgklF6T55FTDIZ6mku-Ea90PX_l20mjWGvEMjHAJJPQPkGmle-e-4ILXRhWQ-uSLu0T_Hz-kWfK24aCWNafuAJZlHje21puYM-0Y_L3z5rbQCuTKaWCbq33leBW6INkXcNzsr0WEeaxKL6R/s320/APG_kanoa.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
<i>*this is the extended version of an article I wrote for Arthur Issue 0 and is based on my experiences during a feild course called Living and Learning on the Land</i><br />
<br />
<i>
</i>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Pedagogy
is the way we learn and the way we teach. Depending on your high
school experience, you may have a fixed or rigid way of understanding
this concept. Like, there are only so many ways people learn and
there is a right way to teach and be taught.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> According
to “The Strategic Learner”, a style guide by Sheila Collett
published by The Academic Skills Centre, there are three kinds of
learner: auditory, visual and kinesthetic.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">The
audiocentric, ear driven learner takes oral instruction better than
written instruction and usually needs visual aids vocally explained
to them. They are great story tellers and prefer Trent Radio over
Arthur.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Those
who were given an eye for an ear want instructions written down.
Diligent note takers that prefer Arthur over Trent Radio make visual
aids to help them in their never ending quest to get the entire
lecture down on paper. These learner hawks can tell what you are
saying by observing the way in which you say it (body language).</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">The
kinestete must be involved and doing. So many coffee breaks make it
so they prefer to stand while working. Space is the place, they need
to know their environment in order to feel comfortable working as a
part of it. Hand talkers and touchers, they enjoy using their hands
and have a reputation for being high energy and in need of
relaxation.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> Some
advice from “The Strategic Learner”:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Ears,
tape record lectures, talk to everyone about everything all the time,
use stories and rhymes to remember and study out loud.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Eyes,
visualize information, look at the lecturer's face, write everything
down all the time, and use visual aids and colour whenever you can.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Body,
take loads of breaks (I recommend starting to smoke), do something
with the information you are given (experiments, building models,
explaining it to others), read on a bike or balance board, and
double read (skim fast then go for detail).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> This
is a very linear pedagogical model. We are all eyes, ears and bodies,
so will therefore have a combination of these habits. One problem
with the more classical psycho-educational models of pedagogy is that
it sometimes forgets that people are people and not just observable
patterns of behaviour. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Form
relationships with your fellow students and your professors. It feels
good and you learn more. Form relationships between concepts too,
most of everything comes from similar places and is just formulated
differently for a specific purpose. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">And
sometimes it is important to take some time with yourself to be alone
with the information you have received. We go to school in a forest,
take advantage of that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> On
that same note, remember that we learn in communities and keeping
those communities vibrant and healthy is of the utmost of importance.
So when you are striving for the true, the real and the right,
remember that these things have nothing to do with proving someone
wrong. Give your fellow teachers and students some space to make
mistakes, to indulge in their own perspective and to feel safe doing
these things. When you feel like someone has said something that is
wrong, or offends you, try to ask a question. By asking a question
you are extending you're own understanding of what they are saying
and why they said it. Develop yourself, don't put others down.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;">Asking
questions in the face of frustration also sets an example of how we
can treat eachother in academia, not treating the academy as a
battleground over terms, but a place where we can form positive
epistemic communities that improve all of our understandings
surrounding an issue, instead of producing anxiety and stress.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> In
trying to build shared conceptual structures we often forget that
everybody has their own experience of them and learns about them in
different ways and come at them from different angles. Attune
yourself to your own thoughts and build your own understanding of
these concepts. Thinking occurs in your mind alone and when we
communicate, we are sharing, so be respectful of other students and
teachers offerings, because they are a gift. </span>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, monospace;"> Dominance
via intellectual supremacy is a pitfall that we all must be weary of
in our quest to seek out epistemic contributions that fit our own
experience of the world. We all face the temptation to think of
others as wrong or incorrect instead of letting them speak their
piece. You do not need to wholly take in everything a fellow student
is saying and it is not your responsibility to formulate their
thoughts for them. Speak with them, not for them or on top of them.
If an epistemic clash occurs (it will), then speak to what you know
in the context of your own experience, and resist the temptation to
speak to what you know in the context of how others are wrong or
misinformed. If you feel someone is misinformed or wrong, that's
their business, you cannot think for them, only give them something
to think about.</span></div>
APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-23263717044621106662012-08-14T13:40:00.003-07:002012-08-14T13:40:53.999-07:00The Character of Criticism<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be critical, and whether criticism is a virtue, with varying degree's of implementation or whether it's a practise, which has more of a fixed character. I want to know whether being critical is part of someone's character, or has a character of it's own.<br />These meanderings are by no means a proper paper yet, but maybe a continuation of my research in Testimonial Injustice.<br /> A bit of background first. I go to a school where even the geography department's course syllabi's have the phrase "critical thinking" in them. It is one of our school's most marketable features, students' ability to question what they are being told. But I find that many of the most awkward conversations I've had inside and out of the classroom have been with self-righteous students, claiming that their dismissive attitude is merely "being critical." Criticism becomes the veil for (usually masculine) hyper-aggression and shows of intellectual power. Insults and criticism should not be difficult to decipher from one another. <br /> Indeed, being critical is a sign of respect but only when done respectfully and with a degree of care. Careless criticism is sloppy criticism. If reckless abandon leads to the "critical" party to attack an argument in vague terms, or attack an inferior interpretation of the argument, then no progress can be made. And there in lies the goal of criticism, progress, helping, aid. When you're being critical of a project, you re contributing to it. So what kind of contribution are you making? Many crucial contributions are made in poor spirit, but is the poor spirit really necessary? Do you really need to be out to get someone or something to be critical of it?<br /> This has lead me to wonder whether criticism has to be this thing wherein there is a harsh overtone of righteousness, like somehow just by being critical you're doing the right thing or behaving in a respectful manner. Or can we have some humility when criticising? If criticism is a virtue, then thoughtlessness is its lack and being over-critical is its excess. But "being over-critical" is not the same thing as bullying with criticism. Over-critical to me means being critical where criticism has no place, like when someone is joking. What I am talking about is not about the logical components of what makes good criticism, but what are the emotional components of launching said criticism.<br /> Just something to keep in mind when launching your next criticism. That an assault on someone's ideas is a serious thing and should be handled with care if we are going to create thriving, healthy epistemic communities instead of anxiety filled intellectual battlefields.APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-27451566990938432802012-07-25T08:35:00.000-07:002012-07-25T08:35:39.882-07:00re: Open Letter to Comrades at Trent University by Zach Ruiter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
It is difficult for me to call you comrade. You lack a revolutionary spirit. Che said, "the true revolutionary is guided by feelings of love" in <i>Man and Socialism in Cuba</i>. I do not feel the love, Zach. I feel like I have witnessed the tantrum of a little boy who is not getting his way and wants to take credit for other peoples' work.<br /> Why is the student strike your cause? You constantly berate the student staff of Arthur for being students first, and journalists second. You do not care about the work of the student or its fruits. You once said to me: 'why should I read Hegel when I can read Zizek's commentary of Hegel?' Does that sound like a studious spirit? Spot read some Zizek, cut some red felt, adopt some Marxist buzz words and all in a sudden you're a student revolutionary...<br /> If you were any kind of a student then you would know about academic charity, the principle that takes thesis' (and people) on their best reading, because it does not benefit anyone to assume the worst of people and their ideas. You would know about academic honesty (which is journalistic honesty too, by the way) which has writers take the context of a quote into full consideration when placing it into a new context, gathering one's own evidence (or properly citing someone else's) and not misrepresenting the intended meaning of a statement. It takes intellectual courage to stand up for what is clearly right and do it the right way, but intellectual courage is found next to intellectual cowardliness and intellectual rashness. Intellectual rashness has good people lashing out at good people over matters of the mind or having ends justify means. There is no need to fear the students of Trent University, Zach, they are supposedly your comrades.<br /> Students have well founded skills of pratical reasoning; weighing evidence, evaluating arguments, analyzing rhetoric, and hearing the noise. Our poetic blathering here is quite noisey, Zach. A groundwork is not 'theorizing' an Ontario student strike or romanticizing the Quebecois strike. It is about taking the practical steps needed, doing the paperwork to make sure things are legitimated, making connections with other students, getting the word out about actualizing the potential exemplified by our fellow students. This is real life, not hack and slash journalism, the evidence and work come first; the story is shaped by the events, the events are not shaped by the story. By formulating your own story and just filling in testimony where you need to to prove your own point, you are adopting the strategies of oppressors and Sophists.<br /> It all seems so frusterating that Arthur is doing nothing about a student strike, right? Well, guess again. Why get frusterated when you can contribute to the groundwork that is already going on? Why get frusterated that no one is contacting you when you are a fully able communicator? And I'm not talking about writing some angry emails to people you see as rivals, but helping out your fellow student-journalists in a positive, constructive manner. Attune yourself to the needs of others and help facilitate the political climate on campus. If you are not a student, then be a proper ally.<br /> When we take our schools back and free tuition, I hope you take the opportunity to go back to school. Maybe you would have time to read some Hegel.APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-27978089207758817712012-07-02T18:36:00.002-07:002012-07-02T18:47:15.148-07:00Public-spiritedness and the autonomy of self determination in public education: Why University Should Be Free<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
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<i>“If
life were a thing that money could buy, </i>
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<i> the
rich would have it,</i></div>
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<i> and
the poor would die.”</i></div>
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-Jammy
Galloway, <i>Land of Look Behind</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> University should be a public institution because the scope of private industry is too limited to do what is in the best interest of the public. The goals of private industry and education are not congruent, graduate debt is detrimental to the economy, and a privatized post-secondary system leads to a dissatisfied public. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">The goal of a business is profit; the goal of education is multifaceted. When universities become businesses, the telos of the institution narrows and profitability must supersede education. Not to say that these two things are inherently exclusive and unable to overlap, but one cannot be contingent on the other because the two projects (profit and education) have differing means. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">This creates an academic climate where one discipline is less valued than others because their worth is set by the ultimate value, the ultimate goal, profit. Said value is determined by those people's work who is already profitable. Autonomy is crushed, control is in the hands of the few. A school is not allowed to be a school because it is really a business. When allowed to set its own values, the academy is much more of a community formed and informed by them, instead of the academic values just being a marketing ploy and people contribute for their daily bread alone. The academic values shape the school, not just provide a marketing strategy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> The goals of the institution academically and how a school differentiates itself from others has less to do with shared academic values and more to do with marketability and profitability. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">We see this at Trent University, where the profit motive dictates the academic goals of the institution, not the strengths and interests of the people doing the work of schooling (teachers and students). Profiteers wrote the 2012 Academic Plan, not educators. Educators were mere consultants. Scientists in a profit-motivated educational system do research based on the needs of people with money, not people in need and not based on their own expertise or interest. Profit motivation leads to skewed results as you are not going to say something contrary if your paycheck depends on you not doing so. The terms and conditions of your work is not in your hands. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Every value a university constructs for itself becomes subservient to its need to make money. For example, Trent is Canada’s small outstanding university and prides itself on its youth and adherence to academic tradition embodied in the college system (ical Recovery: An Academic Plan for Trent University). Yet, the colleges are slowly but surely being dismantled in favour of cost effective private residences. Trent values academic tradition, but said value becomes not value, but a marketable asset for what Trent has to value, money. By taking the profit motive away from Trent, we would see that the goals of the institution would be based on value alone and the downtown colleges would still exist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Debt forces graduates to do jobs they have no passion for or skill in doing. In his book, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, David Graeber tells the story of a Ph.D. graduate from Columbia University whose $80,000 debt load prevented her from an academic career because she could not afford it. Rather, she wound up working as an escort for Wall Street types. “Here’s someone who ought to be a professor,” Graeber explains, “doing sexual services for the guys who lent her the money.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">This is an American example and an obvious exaggeration but the point remains that this women is successful at her work but is not rewarded because her work is seen as valueless without an immediate, quantifiable payoff. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Closer to home, we can see the adverse effects of having to borrow to go to school. A graduate who has to borrow is told that their work has to have commercial expediency or it is valueless. A StatsCan survey found that “postsecondary graduates with student loans had, on average, lower assets and correspondingly lower net worth than those who did not have student loans.” “Lower net worth”: as in they have been devalued because their values were not that of commercial expediency (i.e. Getting a job instead of schooling) but valued being satisfied with their work instead. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">In another StatsCan study done by May Luong, she states that: “Little research has been directed at exploring the impact that student loans may have on individuals’ financial position after graduation." With so little consideration being taken when it comes to the effect of students massive debt loads, it is difficult to hold to idea that the privatization of post-secondary is a benefit to economic stability. It is actually much easier to say that privatization is creating an economy of dissatisfied workers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Tuition makes education an investment, not an exercise in job fulfilment. Once someone leaves the academy and enters the workforce, they are forced to take a job that pays well and forced to take a job immediately, not necessarily a job that they were their skills or expertise lay. This is a recipe for an unhappy, dissatisfied workforce and if people go unfulfilled in their work, they go unfulfilled in their lives. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">A government enshrines opportunities for its people, and by letting the punitive individualism free market economy dictate what the value of a citizen's labour is, transforming people into profit-maximizing machines, it ceases to provide opportunity and instead restricts a citizen's capacity to choose their own work. Rather, by making post-secondary public, a government can regulate and control the economy in order to allow its citizens to choose what their life's work is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> University needs to be public spirited, not driven by profit alone. The goals of its participants are multifaceted whereas the goal of private interest are limited to profit. The debt created by post-secondary education is crippling the economies ability to function on behalf of its citizens. And by allowing the few who have the monetary means to dictate, via university, what work needs to be done, we are facilitating our own dissatisfaction.</span><br />
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<u>References</u></div>
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Galloway,
Jammy. “Land of Look Behind” by Alan Greenburg. Subversive
Cinema, 1982. Film.</div>
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Graeber,
David. “Debt: The First 5,000 Years”. Melville House, 2011.
Print.</div>
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<div class="western" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Luong,
May. “The financial impact of student loans”. Statistics Canada,
2010
<<a href="http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2010101/pdf/11073-eng.pdf"><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u>http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2010101/pdf/11073-eng.pdf</u></span></span></a>>.
Web.</div>
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The
Academic Planning Committee. “Radical Recovery: An Academic Plan
for Trent (2012-2015)”. Trent University, 2012
<<a href="http://www.trentu.ca/vpacademic/documents/Trent%20Academic%20Plan%20%282012-2015%29%20-%20Jan%2018%202012.pdf"><span style="color: navy;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="zxx"><u>http://www.trentu.ca/vpacademic/documents/Trent%20Academic%20Plan%20%282012-2015%29%20-%20Jan%2018%202012.pdf</u></span></span></span></a>>.
Web.</div>
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<br /></div>APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6941755248195595626.post-51414564028904762062012-04-15T16:27:00.001-07:002012-04-15T16:28:28.925-07:00Che, Smoking, and Death<div class="content" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
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<i>“Death arrives among all that sound <br />like a shoe with no foot in it, <br />like a suit with no man in it, <br />comes and knocks, <br />using a ring with no stone in it, <br />with no finger in it, <br />comes and shouts with no mouth, <br />with no tongue,with no throat. <br />Nevertheless its steps can be heard and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.”</i></div>
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-Pablo Neruda</div>
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This morning I was lamenting the fact that I cannot
smoke because it shreds my lungs to bits, I am prone to lung infections.
Then I continued my dreary lament by telling my roommate about el Che’s
asthma and how he smoked because it kept bugs away in the jungle. He
quipped that Che was “pretty suicidal.”</div>
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I immediately corrected him. But it made me think
about what Che really thought of death. I know he’s not suicidal because
his life is always in relation to the cause he is fighting for. And
because of this his life is not even his to take.</div>
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“Until victory always” is the mantra. If taken
seriously then self preservation is a must, “for he who fights and runs
away, lives to fight another day” (RNM, <i>Heathen</i>). But again, ‘self’ is only a relation to the cause, and it is the cause that is victorious or not. </div>
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As a child, he was forced to be in bed during
the worst of his asthma attacks, but during periods of good health, he
was known to test his boundaries by hiking, swimming, climbing trees,
playing football and shooting. So we can assume that Che does not fear
death so much as to let it cripple his abilities, but he is cautious
enough to not be suicidal. Guerilla warfare is about small, tactical
strikes as to eliminate the number of deaths on the revolutionaries
side. It is a life preserving style because the guerillo is more
concerned with the lives of his comrades than the death of his enemies.</div>
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And so, I’m just as confused as I started. Che
knew smoking was bad for him and slowed him down, but it also kept him
company and kept bugs away. In his youth though, his father used to keep
a rigorous diary about the material conditions on the farm and the
correlation between Che’s attacks. In the end, there was no correlation.
So maybe after years of attempting to combat his poor health, Che lit
up a cigar and decided that the only thing that was going to keep him
free from pain, was the pursuit of pleasure.</div>
</div>APGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04206347557026506574noreply@blogger.com0