Saturday, February 22, 2014

Public Pedagogy

Fascinating Valerie. There is so much information packed in these sites. I'm just starting to dig into vblog and yet I have so much reading to do. I was listening to Henry Giroux this morning. He is an outspoken public intellectual. In this conversation with Bill Moyers he suggests possibilities for artists and creative folks to counter the consumerist, zombie thinking so prevalent in our society today. I'm struggling with how many people are spinning their own pedagogical programs outside of school. These resources can be viewed inside public school. That's positive but how is that deep, critical questioning has to come in the form of Youtube clips and blogs rather than in our daily conversations and teaching practices within school? There isn't enough time to dig in deeply within the school day. I know you challenge time constraints and curricular limitations in your classroom. I am just really amazed that curriculum is popping up beyond the school so profusely as we are rapidly defunding public education. Are we heading for a Youtube classroom? How do we keep intellectualism alive in public education? What use is critical thinking, the buzz word of the day, if we don't have time to read challenging scholarly texts in school? Are artists taking on the challenge of pedagogy outside the classroom as a way to fill in the gap of what is not allowed to exist in schools?

I have to spend some time reading all the sites you list. These are rich resources. Thank you so much for sharing them!

2 comments:

  1. Are we heading for a Youtube classroom?
    What a good question! You took this to a whole new level. Yes, as a society we seem to be moving away from deep discussion. So artists and others resort to going to the people (such as through you tube) to try to start a conversation. But this isn't going to be very useful if we don't carry it on in a more meaningful way.
    I am going to think a lot about what you said. As much as I am excited about the ease of access we encounter on the web, a you tube society terrifies me.

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  2. Right. What I'm trying to understand is the dichotomous relationship between public pedagogy (outside of school teaching) vs. in-school pedagogy. Out of the classroom pedagogy or public pedagogy is seen as more relevant, emergent, progressive. What kind of space can be created for these two to merge and co-exist? How can public education stay funded and relevant? Is youtube the next text book? How are we preparing out students for this media literacy? How do you decode the new text book?

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