(no subject)
I've survived (well, enjoyed, really) the first week of my course, but I feel like dropping down and sleeping all weekend now. I could do with a big hug right now, to be honest. Lush bubblebath will have to do? Meh. I had a pint of bitter in the uni bar and now feel dreadful, physically and emotionally.
The course. It's much more intensive than the course I started before (I've moved from Sussex to Brighton). We're being asked to think about the purpose of education and our personal philosophies of teaching. Which is interesting, but it's hard. It comes back to the old feeling of standing at the edge of a whirlpool. Finding level footing on such high-level stuff is...interesting.
Personally, I think education is about offering choices, enabling people to live good lives, and creating better (my definition of better roughly equates to more equal) societies, but a backseat part of my brain is aware that my values come from my own cultural experiences, and I'm aware that I've got no right and justification to force my values on anyone. I guess I'm quite radical. Injustice makes me angry, as does hypocrisy. I would not describe kids born into poverty as the lowest common denominator in society. I think kids are kids are people. I'm lucky to have grown up in quite a multicultural place (Chicago), and have been educated in both the US and the UK, so I'm coming into this with an already open mind. As to what's fair, I think that has to be decided by society...and that it is very, very hard to get right.
The course. It's much more intensive than the course I started before (I've moved from Sussex to Brighton). We're being asked to think about the purpose of education and our personal philosophies of teaching. Which is interesting, but it's hard. It comes back to the old feeling of standing at the edge of a whirlpool. Finding level footing on such high-level stuff is...interesting.
Personally, I think education is about offering choices, enabling people to live good lives, and creating better (my definition of better roughly equates to more equal) societies, but a backseat part of my brain is aware that my values come from my own cultural experiences, and I'm aware that I've got no right and justification to force my values on anyone. I guess I'm quite radical. Injustice makes me angry, as does hypocrisy. I would not describe kids born into poverty as the lowest common denominator in society. I think kids are kids are people. I'm lucky to have grown up in quite a multicultural place (Chicago), and have been educated in both the US and the UK, so I'm coming into this with an already open mind. As to what's fair, I think that has to be decided by society...and that it is very, very hard to get right.