FDN 3800
FOUNDATIONS OF AMERICAN EDUCATION
SPRING 2008
Professor Michael Dale Section 107 10:00 - 10:50 MWF
316 B Edwin Duncan
Telephone: Office: 262-3121
Office Hours: MW 8:30-9:30 and 11:00-11:30
Email: TR 9:00-10:00 and 2:00-3:00
By appointment at other times
REQUIRED BOOKS AND READINGS:
Jonathan Kozol, Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope
Richard Powers, Operation Wandering Soul
May Sarton, The Small Room
Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America
Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces
Derrick Jensen, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing and Revolution
Dan Liston, “Love and Despair in Teaching” (electronic reserve)
Gina Berriault, “Who Is It Can Tell Me Who I Am?” (electronic reserve)
Kathleen Hill, “The Anointed” (electronic reserve)
Wonder is not precisely knowing,
And not precisely knowing not,
A beautiful but bleak condition,
He has not lived who has not felt.
Emily Dickinson
And if the soul were to ask, How much further?
You must answer: on the other side of the river,
Not this one, the one just beyond.
Alejandra Pizarnik
[T]he motto of philosophers, poets and critics is rightly not “I will lead you unto all knowledge,” but “I will show you a mystery.” Such a mystery is not subject to rigged, methodical solution. If it is mechanically approachable, it comes in Oliver Sack’s words, “into the sphere of ‘problems,’ but not of ‘mysteries.’ It is amenable less to the demands of severe rationality than to the kind of laborious worship called reflection. It is described to perfection by Mariane Moore:
“A reverence for mystery is not a vague invertebrate thing. The realm of the spirit is the
only realm in which experience is able to corroborate the fact that the real can also be
the actual.”
Eva Brann, The World of Imagination: Sum and Substance
We become what we love. Our destiny is in our desires, yet what we seek to possess soon comes to posses us in thought, feeling, and action. That is why the ancient Greeks made education of eros, or passionate desire, the supreme aim of education. I believe that education of eros should be the supreme aim of teacher education, whether it be preservice, in-service, or, most importantly, the wisdom that arises from reflecting on the daily activities of classroom teaching. Good teachers passionately desire the good for their students. Teaching success depends on our wisdom about the ways of love.
Jim Garrison, Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching
It is the capacity to love, that is to see, that the liberation of the soul from fantasy consists. The freedom which is a proper human goal is the freedom from fantasy, that is the realism of compassion.
In intellectual disciplines and in the enjoyment of art and nature we discover value in our ability to forget self, to be realistic, to perceive justly. We use our imagination not to escape the world but to join it, and this exhilarates us because of the distance between our ordinary dulled consciousness and an apprehension of the real.
Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good
Inability to love is the central problem, because that inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is the terror of being touched. And if you can’t be touched, you can’t be changed. And if you can’t be changed, you can’t be alive.
James Baldwin
CENTRAL QUESTIONS
In this class we will examine and explore a number of questions and mysteries: How should one live? What is most important for us to know? What is most worth our deepest and fullest attention, as having most bearing not only on what we are and do, but also on what we might become? What should education be for? How should we see the children, adolescents, and teachers whose lives come together in this place we call ‘school’? What characterizes a caring relationship? What does it mean to claim that teachers should care for students? How should we think about the kind of education and the kinds of relationships that occur in schools and in society? What characterizes a just society? How should we understand the emotional lives of children, adolescents and adults both in schools and in their lives outside of schools? How should we understand the relationship between reason and emotion, the “head and the heart”? What are the relationships among “love,” “desire,” “imagination,” and teaching and learning?
JANUARY
M/14 Introduction
W/16 Jonathan Kozol, Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope, Introduction and Foreword to The Night Is Dark And I Am Far From Home (handout)
F/18 Ordinary Resurrections, Part One, to page 155 (R)
____
M/21 Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday
W/23
F/25 Ordinary Resurrections, Part Two and Epilogue: Easter 1999 (R)
_____
M/28
W/30
FEBRUARY
F/1 Richard Powers, Operation Wandering Soul, to page 105 (R)
____
M/4
W/6 Operation Wandering Soul, pages 106 - 214 (R)
F/8
_____
M/11 Operation Wandering Soul, pages 215 – 352 (R)
W/13
F/15
_____
M/18 May Sarton, The Small Room, Chapters 1-8 (through page 117) (R)
W/20
F/22 The Small Room, Chapters 9-18 (R)
_____
M/25
W/27 First Essay Due (tentative)
F/29
MARCH
M/3 Gina Berriault, “Who Is It Can Tell Me Who I Am?” (electronic reserve) (R)
W/5
F/7 Dan Liston, “Love and Despair in Teaching” (electronic reserve) (R)
_____
M/10 Spring Break
W/12 Spring Break
F/14 Spring Break
M/17
W/19 Richard Rodriguez, Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Preface & chapters 1-4 (R)
F/21
_____
M/24 University holiday
W/26 Brown: The Last Discovery of America, chapters 5 – 9 (R)
F/28
_____
M/31 Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces, Part I (to page 195) (R)
APRIL
W/2
F/4 Fugitive Pieces, Part II (R)
____
M/7
W/9
F/11
_____
M/14 Derrick Jensen, Walking on Water: Reading, Writing, and Revolution, to page 110 (R)
W/16
F/18 Walking on Water, pages 111 – 216 (R)
____
M/21
W/23
F/25 Kathleen Hill, “The Anointed” (electronic reserve) (R)
_____
M/28
W/30
Final Exam period: Wednesday, May 7th, 3:00 – 5:30
EXPECTATIONS AND ASSIGMENTS
1. This course requires intensive reading and conversation. While the issues and questions generated in class will not always be strictly confined by them, you are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. Class discussion is a critical component of this course. You are encouraged to react to the readings, and ample class time will be provided for exploring questions and concerns that these readings evoke. Your participation in class entails contributing to class discussions, and thoughtfully listening and responding to other people’s ideas. Regular attendance and participation in class discussions are expected.
2. Select a passage or a scene from the reading that we will be discussing and write a short (paragraph to one page) reflection and response to that passage or scene. Your reflection should end with a question concerning that passage or the reading as a whole. You should quote the passage at the top of the page, including a citation (e.g. “She has only a single treatment to bring them all back. … still heal at the first touch of fresh, outrageously naïve narrative.” Operation Wandering Soul, page 72). If the passage you select is particularly long you may use an ellipsis in the quotation as shown in the example above. If you select a scene for reflection, then very briefly paraphrase the scene and again provide a citation (e.g. the Dodgers’s baseball game that Linda, Kraft, and children attend. Operation Wandering Soul, pages 198-202) Your selected passages or scenes and your reflections will help to initiate our discussions. Reflections are due for the readings and on the days indicated on the syllabus by (R). Your first reflection is due on Friday, January 18.
3. You will write two (2) major essays. These essays will provide you with the opportunity both to demonstrate your understanding of various, sometimes conflicting perspectives and positions on certain educational issues, and to articulate your own thoughts, feelings, and arguments on these issues. These papers must reflect a consideration and an understanding of relevant readings and classroom discussions. I will be reading these essays (all your written work) for their organization, the clarity of your writing and the adequacy of the reasoning and arguments that you employ in support of positions that you take and conclusions that you reach. I also will be looking for correct grammatical constructs (e.g. complete sentences, subject/verb agreement) and spelling. You will have at least one week to ten days in which to write each essay. If you cannot meet the due date for the first essay, you must notify me before that date. The second essay will be the final exam for this course and will be due during the University scheduled exam period for this class (Wednesday, May 7th).
The final grade in this course is determined by:
1. Essay I: 25%
Essay II: 25%
2. Class participation: 25%
3. Satisfactory completion of short reflections: 25%
Electronic reserve readings can be accessed by going to:
http:// www.lesn.appstate.edu/dale
username: zappa
password: amateur