Sunday, August 21, 2011

Stuck at an airport

So I'm stuck at Pittsburgh airport after having been diverted from JFK because of a hurricane of all things! It's amazing how many people whip out their electronic devices and get busy with some thing or another. Literacy is everywhere! People are looking up the weather, calling hotels and rental car companies. One woman (a famous one I won't name) is posting to her blog. I posted to Tics and Tantrums. Now I'm writing here. I see books, laptops, cell phones, smart phones, ipads, newspapers, and tons of mindless fashion or celebrity news magazines. Lots of reading going on. Not sure why there is so much drama around the losses brought on by electronic texts. Sometimes they save the day.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Book description

So here's the description of the new book, Enough is enough: Starting over in American education, that I am submitting to a publisher who's interested (after I sleep on it). You have until tomorrow to offer suggestions:)

Abstract:
Tinkering with the current educational system from within for the past two hundred years has not provided a just and equitable education for all children. We need to start over. Moreover, if schools do not respond to profound sociocultural changes that have occurred in human interaction and meaning making in the 21st century, they are in danger of becoming more irrelevant than they are already. This book will articulate theoretical, curricular, pedagogical and assessment principles to start over in American education from preschool to higher education in order to adequately respond to these changes.
 
Description:
This book argues that schools are in what Bruns (2008) calls casual collapse because they have not responded to the profound changes in knowing and being that have occurred globally in the 21st century. If we do not respond with profound change in schools, they are in danger of becoming even more irrelevant to our children and youth than they are already. Working within the system as it is will not work to prevent this collapse. We need to start over with different ontological and epistemological foundations. We need to assume equality rather than inequality (Ranciere, 1991). We need to understand what it means when everybody comes (Shirky, 2010) and when everybody counts.

Drawing from several theoretical frameworks, I will argue that the purpose of schooling should be to facilitate human learning, meaning making, and knowledge production for the common good as determined by local communities. The book will describe principles of curriculum, instruction, and assessment that will frame a plan of action to start over.