Saturday, January 26, 2008

Can you assign Meaning as school work?

I was rereading my last post and thinking about how many people experience school as one long game of trivial pursuit. Before you start to get upset with my view of public or provide schooling let's think for a moment - what is the purpose of school? I mean really? Like I'm not going to tell you.

Yes - to learn and to study - what though? To teach the cultural norms of the day, to round the sharp corners of our minds and smooth the rough places of our souls of that we al have the same approach to life.. This is why really wealthy people understand that school is an institution of politics and culture no an institution of intellect of knowledge. School has less to do with what your studying and more to do with how your studying it and what you learn from that.

Which brings me back to the whole point of my rant today. Can you teach meaning? I think so - I think that's what storytelling is all about. Meaning, self fulfillment, purpose and vision. Big words that don't really seem to fit into classrooms during these days of tests and state mandated curriculum. How do you teach meaning? More on that next week…

2 comments:

About Sean Buvala said...

I would ask..."Can you assign learning as school work?"

Brother Wolf said...

Yes - in "Dumbing us Down" John Gaihto says that learning is point of school. Not an intellectual learning - but a social education - where we learn to function in factory systems cogs in a wheel.

http://www.ericwolf.org