Friday, June 9, 2017

Katherine Martinko — Why we need wisdom taught in schools


This is called "liberal education." It means educating for living a good life as an individual and as a citizen in a good society. It needs to be resurrected.

TreeHugger
Why we need wisdom taught in schools
Katherine Martinko




12 comments:

Matt Franko said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dui5ek6aOw

Ryan Harris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Matt Franko said...

A bigger problem is that the academe gives up on educating STEM too quickly....

Already Too many are allowed to quickly give up on STEM and go into bullshit subjects like the article advocates for...

We end up with 99.99% morons going all around saying stupid things like "we're out of money!"

Matt Franko said...

Tom so you are saying if we had more of these types of hand holding classes and Kumbayah singing bs classes we would have better material systems outcomes?

No way...

We are way coming up short in the area of material systems.... we have plenty of non material trained people....

Matt Franko said...

"Good life" requires excellence in material systems outcomes....

You don't get that singing kumbayah....

Tom Hickey said...

STEM is chiefly about quantity and the language of STEM is math.

The humanities are about quality, as in "good" life and "good" society. They are reflections on experience with a view to understanding the human condition and unfolding human potential.

STEM is about results. A process is expected to start with measurable input and produce measurable outcomes that match objectives. The aim of STEM is chiefly development and application of technology, which can be equated with capital, growth (GDP) and prosperity (per cap. GDP).

The humanities are about process, e.g., living a good life in a good society. The humanities are about inquiry. In secular societies such as liberal republics, inquiry is on the basis of the principle of naturalism and secular humanism. The humanities are about people, society, and ecology.

Public education is combination of the study of liberal arts and humanities with STEM and professional/technical training generally, such as accounting as the language of business, and for specific career tracks, such as high school being divided into college prep and trade school. There is only so much time, so there needs to be a balance. Students are also different in interest and ability, so there also needs to different tracks. But everyone needs to be educated in living a good life in a good society, both for the opportunity to develop individual potential but also for the general welfare.

The current trend in education is to emphasize STEM and technical training over liberal arts and humanities. Together with an assumption of individualism, the result is individuals lacking in social awareness and view of quality shaped by the advertising industry and consumerism, as well as a citizenry that is lacking in basic understanding of civics.

Traditionalists also appeal to religious traditions. Generally speaking in modern liberal societies, this aspect of education is left to religious institutions that may or may not be supported by state funding, but they are generally not integrated into state education. This also needs to be taken into account.

Quantity and quality need to be integrated in a comprehensive eduction that also fits the needs of individuals in order to provide equal opportunity in life, as well as to maintain a liberal society that provides maximum personal freedom consistent with the rule of law as the result of self-determination and the rights of others in a community of persons equal before the law.

Tom Hickey said...

Tom so you are saying if we had more of these types of hand holding classes and Kumbayah singing bs classes we would have better material systems outcomes?

No way...

We are way coming up short in the area of material systems.... we have plenty of non material trained people....


Believe it or not, Matt, there is more to life than material systems.

Six said...

"We are way coming up short in the area of material systems.... we have plenty of non material trained people...."

This contradicts your oft repeated position that we are living in an era of surplus.

Tom Hickey said...

BTW, I am NOT arguing against STEM. It is a vital component of a well-functioning educational system in the contemporary world.

Literacy is taking on a new meaning. Just as the ability to read and write was the standard for literacy, now the ability to code has been added to that.

I am arguing against the lack of attention to liberal education as the sine qua non for the operation of a democratic republic comprised of free persons.

Liberal education is the foundation for development of a free society, participatory citizenship, and also for personal freedom in unfolding individual potential.

Self-determination is the standard of liberal society. Self-determination is not only a matter of choosing laws directly or choosing representatives to make laws, but also being qualified to choose wisely. Unqualified and incompetent citizens led to either incompetent government or government capture.

Penguin pop said...

Definitely. Otherwise all those coding boot camps wouldn't be popping up all over the place in the past few years. The material is much more accessible than ever before and people are getting into those IT industries to take advantage of the benefits now and try to get an education sorely lacking today through the colleges. I also agree we need a balance between STEM and the humanities. My current boss never finished high school, but understands way more about MMT concepts than your average Joe Sixpack or Mary Sue even though she has never attended college or taken any economics classes. She understands debt to a business and leverage are different than what a household says. She's had years of training and self education in the field of web development and picked a lot of it up as a teenager so she has her own way of looking at the world and supports Basic Income and other left policies, though believes the current taxation system should be replaced with a flat tax. She likely hasn't heard of MMT and I've never heard her discuss Keynes but her training has helped her see things much more technically and logically so she was able to reach many of the same conclusions and sees through the debt doomsday charlatans.

Penguin pop said...

Interestingly enough when I told her that part of the reason people have to use the US dollar as currency is because of taxation and how at the beginning, it's one of the motivations people have to use it, she didn't quite agree there but otherwise she's around 90-95% in agreement with MMT without knowing it. I bet if I told her about Warren's book and had her read it, most of it would be an "of course, isn't it obvious" reaction from her like how you were saying your accountant friend reacted to you explaining MMT to him.

Matt Franko said...

Six,

Distribution, effectiveness, efficiency are all part of material system outcomes...

We throw away like half of our food yet there are people that don't have sufficient access ... this is a technical problem ...

Egalitarian results don't come from desire alone you have to have people who are trained in the skills to execute successfully ... these people are not lawyers, artists, political scientists, etc