Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Teaching sociologically: Critical pedagogy in the age of neoliberalism

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The key point being made here is that "education could be conceptualised as the space wherein the fight for the future of society, for the ideologies, narratives and political structures that will govern our children and our children's children, is taking place." There's a sense in which this is true, and a sense in which it is to be lamented, since at its heart it is a vision of education as propaganda, whether you are on the neo-liberal side, or whether you are, as is the author, opposed to it. Now no doubt people would say that the two sides aren't equal, and that there's rather more propagandizing on one side than on the other. There's a point to this too. What to do? My only real answer is to work as hard to help people develop their own skills and capacities, and to be as independent as possible from the influence of propaganda. But humans are so easy to persuade; it might be an impossible task. Image: Wikipedia.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Nov 22, 2024 7:05 p.m.

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