In Defense of Teaching the Left to Future Educators

In Defense of Teaching the Left to Future Educators
Paul J. Ramsey, Counterpunch, July 14, 2017

A recent Pew Research Center poll suggests that a majority of conservatives believe colleges and universities “have a negative effect on the country.” The results of the poll are not particularly surprising since professors have long been criticized for their supposed liberal views, a claim recently reignited by the founding of Turning Point USA’s “Professor Watchlist.” Many current and past critiques of professors and teacher educators’ assumed political agendas have relied on syllabi and reading lists as evidence of liberal bias and indoctrination. However, these documents—usually just outlines to help students organize their semester—neither point to the ways in which leftist materials are used in the classroom, nor do they highlight the value of such texts.

We must cultivate a love of reading

Frank Furedi on the power of books, selfhood and Werther Fever.
Tim Black, books and essays editor, SPIKED, 16 Dec. 2015

A book opens the door to a new world. It allows us to reimagine our circumstances, to test our personality and our ideas. It makes us who we are, a self that continually develops and gains definition though reading.’

Frank Furedi, academic, writer and regular spiked contributor, is talking about his new book Power of Reading: From Socrates to Twitter, a fascinating, often revelatory account of the meaning and significance ascribed to reading and writing down the centuries. One thing that soon becomes clear in Power of Reading is that Furedi’s humanist love of letters has, for most of history, been the exception rather than the rule.

Who would be a teacher today?

Soul-sapping bureaucracy is putting off new recruits.
Christopher Beckett, writer and researcher, SPIKED 9 Dec. 2015

Interesting article, not only for Brits!

Tackling the reading gap

Overworked teachers and dumbed-down libraries are behind Britain's shocking literacy levels.
Joanna Williams, SPIKED, 12 Sept. 2014

Interesting article with links to some documents and reports.

Also of interest:

Kathryn Ecclestone and Dennis Hayes: The dangerous rise of therapeutic education

Kathryn Ecclestone is professor of post-compulsory education and Dennis Hayes is a visiting professor in the Westminster Institute of Education at Oxford Brookes University, England. 
The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, published by Routledge.
Spiked 2008

George Steiner im Gespräch ums Wissen

Gespräch
Eine gewisse Vorstellung vom Wissen
Juliette Cerf, Télérama, Paris; 30. Dezember 2011
In: presseurop - Das Beste aus Europas Presse in 10 Sprachen

"Literatur, Philosophie, Naturwissenschaften: Heute entwickeln sich die Hilfsmittel, mit denen wir die Welt verstehen, voneinander getrennt, wie der Intellektuelle und Humanist George Steiner bedauert. Dabei ist die Kultur das, was uns rettet, insbesondere in Europa. Auszüge."

George Steiner Wikipedia (deutsch)

George Steiner Wikipedia (englisch)

Here an interview in English with Dutch subtitles: "I summon up remembrance of things past":

Hier das auf deutsch Geführte Gespräch im Rahmen der Sendereihe "Sternstunden der Philosophie" des Schweizer Fernsehens:

Classical music ain’t just for snobs

People often complain today that we’ve lost our ability to concentrate on one thing at a time, and that in a digital, multimedia culture that promises endless choice and instant gratification, we have forgotten the virtue of patience. Indeed, social commentators have been remarking on this since the arrival of microwave dinners and the television remote control in the 1970s – which took the effort out of cooking and meant you could perpetually switch channels without ever having to watch a TV programme properly. The subsequent internet revolution, which has given us email, online shopping and social networking, has merely accelerated this phenomenon.

Demanding and ambitious, the BBC’s Symphony series recalls a time when Haydn and Mozart were pop. Patrick West, SPIKED, 30.11.2011