 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Liberal Education
|
|
|
Subject: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 07 Feb 00 - 12:36 PM "That man, I think, has had a liberal education... whose mind is stored with knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, ... has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself." - Aldous Huxley "On a Liberal Education" I contend that the learning of songs past has great merit in education; it opens the mind to history and the unflagging hope and humor of humans no matter how hard their trials. What experience have you add with the impact of folk music on leaning? I cannot count the value to my own mind, or what's left of it, of having learned hundreds of songs over the years. A
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: catspaw49 Date: 07 Feb 00 - 12:39 PM I have a few nights when I was leaning, but not from folk music. Spaw |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 07 Feb 00 - 12:51 PM Right, 'Spaw. I lean that way myself occasionally. It's fine as long as I don't drive. That should read "learning" but maybe has already answered the question...:>) A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: catspaw49 Date: 07 Feb 00 - 01:01 PM No it didn't Amos, but what else can be expected of me! Seriously, I am always excited to do a folk school program and find some elementary teachers who emphasize traditional and "folk-like" songs. They are just too few and far between. I have several close friends in Music Education and one in particular who works with the history subjects in the 4-5-6 grade curriculum to tie songs to events and periods they are studying. Sadly, not all of the teachers USE what she does to make THEIR classes more entertaining and stimulating. Such is life.......and more's the pity. Spaw |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 07 Feb 00 - 01:12 PM Pox on small minds, mate. Anyone who has the guts to throw open the eyes and ears of ragamuffins to the beauties of our musical heritage deserves a medal in my book. But no-one reads my book anyway. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: TerriM Date: 07 Feb 00 - 01:22 PM I have found that both age and raging senilty are taking an ever greater toll on my failing memory, it's kind of reassuring to know that the one thing I appear to retain is several hundred songs..... at least I'll be able to entertain my grandchildren even if I can't remember their names. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 07 Feb 00 - 02:13 PM Well, I'm of your mind; but can you get them to listen? In this era of institutionalized Kenny and Butthead I sometimes fear we have sent our future generations (some of them, anyway) past the point of no return, rotting their minds with multimedia cynicism and market farts until they wouldn't know what to think of Barbry Ellen if she came up and bit them! The concept of drilling tarriers is pretty farfetched to those who were raised on Ninja Turtles and blue Power Rangers. All of which are so removed from plain human effort and real character that I worry how the younkers of tomorrow will survive without hearts! (I guess it is the privelege of old farts to worry about such things.) My daughter plays Debussy and Gershwin and Finnegan's Wake with equal ease and doesn't much notice the holes in her upbringing! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Sorcha Date: 07 Feb 00 - 02:32 PM I too, sometimes despair of the younglings, but have hope. There is a Book that says "Raise them up in the way you want them to go, and they will RETURN to it when they are old".....When I was small, my Dad would sing old Classic Country to me (it wasn't that old then!). In my teens, of course I had to go Rock!! just to get his goat. As I grew up, I learned that the "OLD" music seems to have more lasting value than the current "IN" fads. I am noticing the same thing with our daughter.....she was raised on folk/old time/BG, etc, and now has to have KORN. However, she does love the Celtic and will perform it on demand. We took her to Winfield last fall, and her friends all said "A bluegrass FESTIVAL?? Your're NUTS!" But, she loved it!!!! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Peter T. Date: 07 Feb 00 - 02:59 PM I am surprised by the quotation -- Huxley isn't usually so stupid. The benefit of a liberal education is to have a few, somewhat blunt tools, that you can use to criticise all "great and fundamental" truths of art, nature, politics. A. E. Housman said: " Scholarship is a small redress against the vast unreason of what is taken from us". A liberal education is a resource against the similar vast unreason masquerading as reason that engulfs us every day: the lies other people tell us, the lies we tell ourselves. My students and I live in a world of lies: I spend my time pointing this out, and struggling to lie as little as possible myself, and failing, always failing. If I could teach them that we are bound and gagged by universal mmisrepresentation then I would be getting somewhere. But I can only do it a little: I cannot even teach it to myself permanently -- I have to learn it again every day. I have to shock myself into stopping the reproduction of some half-baked great and fundamental truth I don't really know. Is it a benefit? God only knows. It is certainly hell, and wins you no friends. But the works of art are a comfort: that other flawed people produced in the midst of all this some meaning and beauty fleetingly captured in sweet songs, poems, paintings, theories, cheers one up, I don't know why. To have created a free line -- "I didn't know I loved her till they started to lower her down" -- out of the hard necessity of things maybe calls us to our own potential for freedom in a world not of our making or choosing. And "to respect others as himself". What dullness. I hope I have more compassion for my fellow human beings than to only respect them as I do myself. Poor bastards if that was all I could muster for them yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Metchosin Date: 07 Feb 00 - 03:27 PM Peter T., I always thought that "respect" meant, amongst other incantations, to hold in regard or to honour with a touch of awe thrown in for good measure. If I am able to regard myself and my fellow man in that context, I would consider that quite humbling and certainly not dull. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 07 Feb 00 - 04:57 PM Out of manners, you may be moved to discount the awe and respect in which others hold you and your shining talent, Peter; but I assure you (for whatit may be worth) that their admiration is wholly earned, and urge you therefore to admire yourself for the good you do in the world. If someone has taught you to disrespect yourself, I would go buy a pound of salt. The battle against lies in the world is never ending, especially since mass marketing technologies have entered the lists like so many Panzer tanks. I say, and hope you will echo, "Thank the universe that Peter T is in it and fighting on the side of the angels" (or whatever those funny looking shiny things are). A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: katlaughing Date: 07 Feb 00 - 05:23 PM Well said, Amos, although in Peter's case it may be more on the side of "bell and dorcha">:-) Peter,I have to confess I was at a complete loss when I read your posting; it didn't sound like you. I think I read the quote to mean something totally differently. While we may hold others in greater respect than ourselves, I do believe self-respect is also of great importance, in fact I am not sure one is capable of respecting anyone else without first respecting oneself. Nor, if any kind of success is possible without same. On the matter of music and self-respect, I do believe one can hold a great more esteem for oneself through their knowledge and sharing of music, although I also think a lot of it has to do with motive. kat |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Chet W. Date: 07 Feb 00 - 06:33 PM I try and try to teach my students that real respect comes when people can count on you to do the right thing, even when that thing is the most difficult of the options. "Respect" these days is used all to often as a synonym for "fear". I'm not sure what was meant above; Is it trying to equate Liberal as in Liberal Arts to Liberal as in politics? This seems like a fine discussion. Chet |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Gary T Date: 07 Feb 00 - 07:22 PM A liberal education (including the liberal arts) was originally that afforded to a free man, as opposed to a slave. Liberal and liberty (liberation, etc.) come from the same root word in Latin. I believe this meaning stretches back a ways into antiquity--in other words, it predates the U.S., not to mention slavery in the U.S. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Lucius Date: 07 Feb 00 - 08:58 PM Liberal Education? It isn't the liberals that need educating. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 07 Feb 00 - 09:11 PM Well, some liberals could learn a thing or two about fiscal management, and a lot of conservatives could learn a thing or three about being human. I don't think there's anyone out there who doesn't need to improve one skill or another. At least I surely haven't met him yet, unless it was that weird geek watched me shave this morning...nah ... he needed exercise. :>) A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Benjamin Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:48 AM In my senior english class, my teacher made us all read a letter and an essay on Liberal Arts eduction. The letter said something like "we need men and women trained in the sciences, not trained in holding a cultured conversation about art. Can a liberal education be defended now?" Then the essay was a LONG responce defending it. I have also had this talk with a good friend of mine who works at the shelter with me who graduated from Whitman, a liberal arts college. The point of a liberal arts education, as apposed to a vocational program, is to become a well rounded thinker. Peter, your remark sounds uneducated to me! As for liberals-conservatives; Maybe we should realize, that all though someone thinks differently, conservatives ARE human too! Granted there are those who I really don't like (no names needed). I don't consider it mature (not that anyone said this) to say "I have a thing I could improve, but I'm better than him/her." As Sly Stone said, "We got to live together!" |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: thosp Date: 08 Feb 00 - 03:41 AM Peter T --please correct me if i'm wrong -- part of your message seems to me to be --- not only is the one eyed man not king -but perhaps it's better to close the eye? peace (Y) thosp |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Chet W. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 08:55 AM The older I get and the more I look at politics, the less the labels seem to mean anything. A graphic example a few years ago was when the president of U.Penn (I forget his name) was passing university guidelines for limiting speech after some students were offended by something. Turned out he was the leader of a free speech organization that demonstrated at Berkeley back in the 60's, the one that Gov. Reagan had to squash with riot police. Labels now tend to obscure rather than illuminate. I don't think there has been a "conservative" or a "liberal" that had much to do with the historic meanings of these words in a while. Notice when republican candidates make speeches, they always invoke comparisons of themselves with Harry Truman, FDR, or Woodrow Wilson, all Democrats. And the ones purporting to be liberal democrats seem only to be interested in fairly meaningless short-term social reforms, like giving someone a cookie instead of teaching them to take care of themselves. As far as education goes, why does there have to be a split between liberal arts (thanks for the definition above) and vocational. Cannot welders love and appreciate poetry and music. I was at a cookout a while back at the home of one of my teacher colleagues. Her husband's friends who came were mostly bikers, and the two groups did not mix much. But as I went back and forth, I found that the teachers were mostly talking about mortgages and television programs while the bikers were discussing literature (James Joyce, Aldous Huxley). Nothing should be weird about that. If a person is well educated by the time they are thirty, it is almost always true that most of what they know that is important to them, they learned on their own after they got out of school. School should really be about how to get your mind working in a variety of ways, not about cramming a lifetime's worth of knowledge into a few years. I think everybody needs some of the liberal arts and some of the work-with-your-hands experience. Each makes the other better. Chet |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 09:04 AM Robert Heinlein, through his character Lazrus Long, asserted somewhere that a man (person) should be able to design a house, program a computer, deliver a baby, and write a sonnet (I am probably not quoting accurately but the point is clear). There is no reason for one person not to be able to do any and all of those things, as well as analyze a business case, tune a Volvo, work up a balance sheet, write poetry and play a musical instrument or two. I have always admired his presentation of characters even ifhe was a bit fixated on sexual sensations :>). Cutting whole chunks of human experience out of your life ("I don't do cars") is a sorry mistake IMHO. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: katlaughing Date: 08 Feb 00 - 09:28 AM Well put, Chet. You've heard me mention my dad before. Performs on a variety of instruments, sings, he and his dad spent whole mornings on the ranch conversing in quoted poetry, etc. A very learned and mostly self-taught welder who can still hold his own in a literary discussion etc., in fact has an incredible access, in his almost 83 yr. old brain, to so much "liberal arts" info it is sometimes astonishing. He was raisd until he was about 10, with both sets of grandparents and a mother and father who spent every evening, with him included, sitting around the kitchen table, eating popcorn and reading the classics by oil lamp. Everyone of his five children received an outstanding liberal arts education and four of us even learned the practical applications of it, too, even though one of us, me, is a high school dropout, while the others all have college degrees. This is a great duscussion! katlaughing |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 09:49 AM Kat, Your description gives me pause. At our home, that time of day is spent cruising the Internet on personal computers, too much of the time. The difference, it is clear,between the Internet and a good bookshelf for the family is that you can govern the quality of the bookshelf, while the Internet is a swamp with what I think of as LCD tripe, meaning lowest common denominator. Huge volume of culturally vapid, substance free and semantically numbing noise. Maybe we should go back to the bookshelf model. There are some things that technology just hasn't figured out yet, among them how to emulate the kitchen table by oil-lamp with a fine book in hand. A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Peter T. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 10:05 AM Well, I didn't mean to stir this up, nor get flattered. The point I was making, not very clearly obviously, was that Huxley's remarks were tired Victorian cliches. As Chet says, the point of an education is not to fill you full of great piles of fact and truth, but to develop a critical mind. I don't suppose Socrates knew many facts, and he knew that he knew no great truths -- well, only one, which was that he knew nothing. Concerning respect, I recall Jesus saying something about loving others as oneself. Much more provocative. Harder too. yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Ringer Date: 08 Feb 00 - 10:14 AM My dictionary contrasts a liberal education with education leading to technical or professional qualifications. Presumably it (LE) includes the subjects that my father-in-law (an ignoramus if ever there was one) considers to be non-useful: eg History, Music, Latin. As for me, I believe (though I agree wholeheartedly with Chet above that most of what an educated man has learned has been learned after school) that a Liberal Education, both at school and also at the University of Life, is a Good Thing. I have been a little surprised, as I have browsed this forum in the relatively short time that I've been here, at the large number of contributors who, although having immersed themselves in the culture of yesteryear (presumably: what else would they be doing at a Folk Music site?), seem to be carrying round such a lot of late-Twentieth-Century baggage (I, of course, have total objectivity and am not at all contaminated by the spirit of the age *BG*). Thus I am much more in tune with Peter T who holds himself in such low regard than with Kat; her idea that one cannot respect someone else without first respecting oneself strikes me as preposterous. Those with a large degree of self-respect are generally, in my eyes, indistinguishable from the self-important. And then there's all this PC, New Age, Neo-Buddhist claptrap, too... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Peg Date: 08 Feb 00 - 10:17 AM hmmm. I like Heinlein, too...I think that picture of the desirable human in terms of basic capabilities is rather idealized...not just because so many of us these days are unable to do basic survival type stuff like manually change the TV channels :)!! but also because not everyone has the same sorts of mental and emotional strengths or creative talents... that said, i have found many musicians are good at a good many creative things (like writing, drawing, other types of performing, cooking, etc.) but not necessarily good at computer stuff, domestic organization, etc. Likewise many computer-heads I know are also good at many things, but some of them could not cook spaghetti with Paul Prudhomme next to them in the kitchen...much less carry a tune... I would amend that wonderful list to say that the well-rounded and capable individual should be able to: write a decent sonnet (if not a brilliant one); change a tire; deliver a baby in a clean, interior environment (as opposed to, say, a parking lot); make an omelette; build a lean-to; find food in the forest; administer first aid; keep cool-headed in a civic emergency; grow vegetables; type a business letter; balance a checkbook; hang wallpaper; create a Hallowe'en costume; sew a button; make a good Bloody Mary; lead a round of "Auld Lang Syne"; ask for directions in a foreign language; remove gum from a child's hair; find water in the desert; and, last but not least, make love in the most tender, passionate, gratifying way possible for one's partner of the moment... |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 10:50 AM I really like the one about the gum in the hair, and the other one, Peg! :>) A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: katlaughing Date: 08 Feb 00 - 11:13 AM Bald Eagle,re' respect for oneself, I just said I wasn't sure, I didn't say it was written in stone! Also, I would like to clarify that I do not consider myself new age, neo-Buddhist or PC. We had a HUGE discussion on PC a while back and some of us came to the conclusion that it is a term which has been usurped and lost its original meaning and is better replaced with ethically conscious, which, judging by the regular world response to an op/ed piece I did on it, rang true with a lot of people. As for the so-called new age, yes there are tripping people who jump on the *bandwagon*, but they, after all, are just groping for some sort of spiritual guidance or enlightenment and who are we to judge. It is my belief, that 1) the new age is ot new at all because of historical evidence (some of which I have in the form of 100 year old and older boks and magazines) and, because 2) it is a populist offshoot or *skimming* of metaphysics, which is ancient. Neo-Buddhism? Do we sneer and call someone who has recently become a Christian a "new-Christian"? Is there soemthing wrong with someone deciding to adopt an ancient spiritual path because it rings true in their heart? Are they somehow less than a *true* Buddhist if they are not from a traditionally Budhhist society? Amos, I've filled bookshelves, too, grew up wiht the same love of and examples that my dad did, BUT, don't knock the old PC. I have gone to wesbites with incredible texts I probably would never have had access to otherwise, including an site at a small Catholic college in Texas which has complete records of saints and matyrs, including actual transcripts of their trials, with their very words recorded for anyone to read. I have taken a 3D tour of the Sistine Chapel, gone to New Zealand and listened to native birds while watching them. The best thing of all is that I have been able to visit with people from all around the world, something that I know would've been impossible without this medium. I agree that we can direct the content of the bookshelf more easily, but I also believe we still lead by example. Maybe that is a little idealist, but, even though my dad doesn't have a computer, I know he thinks the Internet is amaxing and one of the best things to come along. Everything in moderation, though. I do not believe children need their own PC with surf capabilities and I do strongly believe families need to read together and time needs to be set aside, with no tv, no PC, just books and the quiet time in which to read them. katlaughing (with a lower case "k, please, as there is another "Kat" on here) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 11:26 AM Maybe there is a thread drift in the culture between a liberal education (meaning widely based and open to themany facets of culture and commmunication, but with critical skills as a sine qua non) and Liberal education (meaning teaching others to unthinkingly accept the bleeding heart view of the world). As small k AT says, moderation in all things. There is surely a correlation between the personal sense one has of one's self, and the way in which others are perceived, but it may depend on what your definition is of the act of respecting another. You can, for silly example, mope around denigrating yourself and saying "I could never do what those really great _______ do; I'll never be as good as ________." but Idon't think that's the definiton k-AT had in mind of granting respect. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Ringer Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:00 PM Sorry about the upper-Kase, kat; I'll try & remember... As to neo-Buddhist, I was referring to the philosophy (if that's not a contradiction in terms when juxtaposed with Buddhism) not to the believer (ditto), and my sneering prefix, "neo-", implied perverted rather than new (yes, I think I was sneering; that probably says more about me than Buddhism). Do I gather that you consider yourself a neo- (in the sense of new) Buddhist? I didn't know; I wasn't sneering at you. I'm afraid my mind likes propositions in its philosophy, and Buddhism seems to lack these. Who was it who said (I paraphrase from memory) "Those in the know don't say, and those who do say aren't in the know" - or was that the Tao? It's all the same opaque swirling mist to me, there seems to be nothing to hang on to. However I am pleased to report that I understood the joke in the Turing thread about the hot-dog & Buddhism. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:21 PM Well, when you are one with everything, propositions kind of melt away, wouldn't you think? You don't need to make propositions about that-which-you-are; only about that-which-you-are-looking-at. And that's as far as I am going with that, for fear of melting. :>) You wicked girl!!! ...and your little dog, too! A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: katlaughing Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:25 PM Well, that is the essence isn't it? Nothingness to hang onto.**BG** That is the great paradox my mind loves to try wrapping round. Contemplating the great impersonality of the Universe/Cosmic/Creator; humankind's all important belief in themselves as THE center of the universe, etc. The hand of one hand clapping and all of that. It's okay, Baldee-gle (couldn't resist, I promise I shall not pervert your name, again). No, I do not consider myself a new Buddhist. I am my own mix of what works for me, all of which, after many years of study, seem to have commonalities which mesh quite nicely, for me. Mostly I would say that I am a student/believer of/in metaphysics. No offense taken and I hope none given, certainly not intended. (The only reason I get concerned about upper case "K", is I don't want to offend the upper case "Kat".:-) Thanks, katlaughing |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: wysiwyg Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:30 PM I'm an educated man, to get more sense within my head I plan.... I just don't think any of our present systems releases good teachers to teach the way they would like, which is often to not teach at all but simply allow access and respect learning. Most of the teachers I have known well are, at some level, deeply disappointed that their vision and goals for becoming a teacher have so little room to fly. And I seem to spend a lot of my music-making time liberating people from the "learning" they have had that says they aren't musical, when of course THEY ARE and they were all along. It's all coming back to us now, though, now that research shows how brain and mind development are enhanced by the experience of hearing and making music, but unfortunately it's come when early childhood education is shifting to teach more and experience less, so this means music lessons for little ones who should be immersed and absorbed in music for years until they want a lesson for some reason of their own. I think I've been ranting about this in other threads lately I just can't remember now where, I think in the lap dulcimer thread if anyone wants to hear more of that rant! I say we use the power of the way we make music and attract the kids to us in after-school or Saturday programming and get our hands on the parents to help re-create a culture of music where it's already sadly lacking-- the home..... Wee Sing materials are great for this and the tape/book combos make good first-songs playalong books for budding players, as well, of all ages.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:35 PM Wal, I heerd that no mattuh which trail ya take up the mountain thuh view from ther top is allus' the same! There once was a lower case kat |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: katlaughing Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:40 PM What an honour! I've been Amos'd! LOL! Thank yew, thank yew! (Up until now, Mudders only were Spawed!) kat |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: wysiwyg Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:53 PM And then it's always the same old same old rolling downhill. Here at Mudcat we give it a highly technical, professional musicians' touch and refer to it as.... BS? There is a highly technical term in pastoral care also called BS, according to my husband.
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Art Thieme Date: 08 Feb 00 - 01:56 PM As Mr. Kerouac said so eloquently in Dharma Bums, "Don't step on tha aardvark" Art |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Peter T. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 02:02 PM I am a neo-Buddhist, I guess, in the sense described, and I submit that there are some quasi-propositions, which are somewhat testable (though perhaps not experimentally). these would include: - If one looks in an unprejudiced fashion at the world, there are no permanent, fixed, unaffected, points in the universe. Things come into being, and cease to come into being. Therefore, there is not nothing, nor is there a permanence that we can locate. - human beings protect themselves inappropriately from fear and anxiety, creating more fear and anxiety in the process. - All beings have a fundamental drive towards awakening, which could be described as being unsatisfied for very long with untruths; - These three propositions can be experienced in such a way as to assist the individual in his or her understanding of life. (I am simply restating the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism). There are other hypotheses, which are much more tendentious, and are certainly easy to argue with, but which are pretty straightforward: For instance, there is an ethical/natural structure to the universe which is not proposition based, but activity based: that is, the Tao is a "moral graininess" of things, and it works best when not interfered with by the narrow propositional mind. Another controversial claim would be that all beings are interconnected in a mutual web of causality, rather than affected by linear causal relations. Etc. yours, Peter T. (p.s. I only submit this to respond to the discussion, not to try and talk anyone into Buddhism). |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Benjamin Date: 08 Feb 00 - 02:15 PM Chet, that was a great post! Anyways, the point of a "Liberal Eduation" isn't to cram a life time's worth of knowledge in 4 or so years. It's true to say most of what you remember you will learn on your own. But in a Liberal Education, you learn stuff you didn't/don't care to learn on your own (or at all). The idea is to expose a student to stuff he wouldn't of cared to have been exposed to. I wasn't trashing on vocational programs. That seems to be the perfered system in Europe. A welder can be very well educated on his own. His self education is limited however to what he knows he has interest in for the most part. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Chet W. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 02:27 PM I am a Buddhist, and a Christian, and a pre-language shaman, and I am none of these. What do we need these words for anyway? I think that wearing one's religion or philosophy on a t-shirt is a sure sign of having missed the point. Give me the roses while I live, and I'll give you yours later. Consider yourselves whacked into a premature satori. Chet |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 02:44 PM WHoeee. And I thought Mudcats liked the shallows!!
The only true "nothing" there is, of course, cannot be located, because the locating game is all done with space, and space is a somethingness in itself, the "meta" of all figures in existence but still a figure, I figure. You might describe it as awarenss prior to the decision to be "x", where x is any identity from which to view existence. Oh, look what you've done, you wicked lil boy!! I'm mel..l.lting!!! :>) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: The Shambles Date: 08 Feb 00 - 02:50 PM Rough Diamond
I need to learn
You, teach me how to earn
Try to kill the flame inside
That needs to burn
I need to run
Not to walk in line
Take hold of this rough diamond
And make it shine
Not to pass some test
But to be my best
To be as good as I can be
And not step on the rest
You teach me the how
But not the why
You teach me how to crawl
When I've wings to fly
Trample all the new growth in the forest
To get some to the top of the tree
You let me wear this badge of failure
When it's you that's failing me
I may not be wise
But you may be surprised
If you could see the world
Through my eyes
Don't take, the few
Teach me too
Then you can learn from me
As I learn from you
Teach me how to grieve
How to believe
How to find a lover
And how to leave
How to share
How to care
Show me wild horizons
And take me there Roger Gall 1996. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Peter T. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 04:46 PM "You could have gone home anytime - your Ruby Slippers have racked up unlimited frequent flyer points." yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 04:49 PM Gee, Peter, you're kinda tapdancin' between the fantastic and the ridiculous here!! :>) A |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Peter T. Date: 08 Feb 00 - 04:58 PM Meanwhile you are the sober witness, comrade? yours, Peter T. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Liberal Education From: Amos Date: 08 Feb 00 - 05:04 PM LOL!! Sober is a risky word in these rare Derry airs :>). A Well, at least I'm not vaporizing anymore. Ruby slippers, indeed. |