|||

caring about education

I care about education. I care about the people involved – students, teachers and administrators – and their thinking, curiosity and commitment. I care that places of learning might exist so that human beings can test and challenge the way we see and experience the world; so that we might not make any assumptions about phenomena or evidence or opinions. I also care — indeed it makes me angry – that higher education is being denatured and dismantled:

Nowadays, it would seem that we are witnessing the strange death of the liberal university. Various commentators have noted how British universities, though still not-for-profit charities, are being hastily fashioned after private companies and the consequent narrowing of higher education’s raison d’être. The idea of the University as a place of civic education and critical enquiry has been put to a premature death by a raft of neo-capitalist political rationalities that promote inter alia divisive competition, false economies and philistine instrumentality. Academics are bound by ever multiplying forms of spurious measurement, misleading quantification and performance management. Students, in turn, are treated more like consumers than they are citizens, increasingly defrauded with a candyfloss world of university branding and marketing gimmickry. Grant capture, consultancy, citations, impact, quality assurance, unique selling points, student surveys and league tables, have become the new deities that all shall worship.

– Michael Bailey opendemocracy.net/michael-bailey/strange-death-of-liberal-university

Up next administrative purpose It’s old news I know but Higher Education is wobbling. Marina Warner’s article – Learning My Lesson – is a taut summary of the situation in the UK just one shortcut
Latest posts the end of nature thinking like a consumer eliminate the friction Look and Look Again astray awkwardly sign on the door ask nature ecosytemic practice research self portrait as time the comfort/chaos circle things will have to change ladder of inference physical connection berry on minimalism stimming the body isn’t a thing postcards no country your morals eating irritating in others awakened transfiguration bits of unsolicited advice stockdale paradox hands that don’t want anything singing and dancing losing oneself given a price on remembering everything Godin on ideas