278 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2024
    1. Ausführlicher Bericht über die neue Studie zum Zustand des Amazonas-Regenwalds. Bis 2050 drohen 10-47% einen Kipppunkt zu erreichen, jenseits dessen sie ihre jetzigen Funktionen für Kohlenstoff- und Wasser Zyklen verloren. Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit 5 Treibern für Wasser-Stress. Um den Regenwald sicher zu erhalten, ist der Verzicht auf jede weitere Entwaldung und das Einhalten der 1,5°-Grenze nötig. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/14/amazon-rainforest-could-reach-tipping-point-by-2050-scientists-warn

    1. Summary - At the heart of the debate, - which is a major driver for the political polarization in politics around the globe, - especially in the United States between - liberals and - conservatives - is structural inequality inherited by colonialism centuries earlier - and how to deal with it today.

    2. Critical race theory emerged out of postmodernist thought, which tends to be skeptical of the idea of universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and liberalism—tenets that conservatives tend to hold dear.

      for - Critical race theory - key insight

      key insight - The following passage gets to the heart of the matter: - (see below)

      All these different ideas grow out of longstanding, tenacious intellectual debates.

      Critical race theory emerged out of postmodernist thought, - which tends to be skeptical of the idea of - universal values, - objective knowledge, - individual merit, - Enlightenment rationalism, and - liberalism - tenets that conservatives tend to hold dear.

  2. Dec 2023
      • for: climate crisis - voting for global political green candidates, podcast - Planet Critical, interview - Planet Critical - James Schneider - communications officer - Progressive International, green democratic revolution, climate crisis - elite control off mainstream media

      • podcast: Planet Critical

      • host: Rachel Donald
      • title: Overthrowing the Ruling Class: The Green Democratic Revolution

      • summary

        • This is a very insightful interview with James Schneider, communications officer of Progressive International on the scales of political change required to advert our existential Poly / meta / meaning crisis.
        • James sees 3 levels of crisis
          • ordinary crisis emerging from a broken system
          • larger wicked problems that cannot be solved in isolation
          • the biggest umbrella crisis that covers all others - the last remaining decades of the fossil fuel system,
            • due to peak oil but accelerated by
            • climate crisis
        • There has to be a paradigm shift on governance, as the ruling elites are driving humanity off the cliff edge
        • This is not incremental change but a paradigm shift in governance
        • To do that, we have to adopt an anti-regime perspective, that is not reinforcing the current infective administrative state, otherwise, as COVID taught us, we will end up driving the masses to adopt hard right politicians
        • In order to establish the policies that are aligned to the science, the people and politicians have to be aligned.
        • Voting in candidates who champion policies aligned to science is a leverage point.
        • That can only be done if the citizenry is educated enough to vote for such politicians
        • So there are two parallel tasks to be done:
          • mass education program to educate citizens
          • mass program to encourage candidates aligned to climate science to run for political office
  3. Nov 2023
    1. Der Critical Raw Materials Actt wird von Industrie-Lobbies benutzt, um Einschränkungen beim Zugang zu Rohmaterialien abzubauen, und zwar auch dann, wenn es nicht um die Energieversorgung geht. IT-, Rüstungs- und Raumfahrtindustrie versuchen von der Krisensituation bei den neuen Energien zu profitieren. Die Libéation berichtet über einen neuen Report von Lobbying-Warchdogs. Die Liste der kritischen Rohmaterialien wurde bereits von 15 auf 34 Stoffe erweitert. https://www.liberation.fr/international/europe/ue-le-critical-raw-materials-act-un-open-bar-pour-lindustrie-miniere-20231112_HZUR6376QJCZVBM5IGIUR6V2QE/

    1. Die englische Regierung hat in der letzten Oktoberwoche 27 Lizenzen zur Öl- und Gasförderung in der Nordsee vergeben. George Monbiot konfrontiert diese Entscheidung mit aktuellen Erkenntnissen zum sechsten Massenaussterben und dem drohenden Zusammenbruch lebensunterstützender Systeme des Planeten https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/31/flickering-earth-systems-warning-act-now-rishi-sunak-north-sea

  4. Oct 2023
    1. reply to Our Journey, Day 84 by Dan Allosso at https://danallosso.substack.com/p/our-journey-day-84

      There's already a movement afoot calling for schools who are dramatically cutting their humanities departments to quit calling what they're offering a liberal education. This popped up on Monday and has a long list of cuts: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/23/liberal-education-name-only-opinion I was surprised that Bemidji wasn't listed, but then again there may be several dozens which have made announcements, but which aren't widely known yet. The problem may be much larger and broader than anyone is acknowledging.

      Cutting down dozens of faculties into either "schools" or even into some sort of catch all called "Humanities" may be even more marginalizing to the enterprise.

      Apparently, the Morlocks seem to think that the Eloi will be easier to manage if there isn't any critical thinking?

    1. A good college, ifit does nothing else, ought to produce competent syntopicalreaders.

      Adler and Van Doren's minimal bar of a college education is that it produce competent syntopical readers.

  5. Sep 2023
    1. What a critical social theory really needs to address is why hunger, poverty, and other forms of human suffering persist despite the technological and scientific potential to mitigate them or to eliminate them altogether.

      Adorno and Horkheimer's main critique of 1930-1960 Western Society

  6. Aug 2023
    1. Given all of the reasons not to engage with social media — the privacy issues, the slippery-slope addiction aspect of it, its role in spreading incivility — do we want to try to put the genie back in the bottle? Can we? Does social media definitely have a future?

      social media is here to stay... personally, I try not to engage as often but I do find my self checking facebook in the morning before I leave the house for work. All I can say is that I can try to limit myself and realize why am I using social media for? is it for networking, for friends and family or other things.

    2. “Before, only media companies had reach, so it was harder for false information to spread. It could happen, but it was slow. Now anyone can share anything, and because people tend to believe what they see, false information can spread just as, if not more easily, than the truth.

      sadly, this is the scary part of life because you have young minds who don't really know the difference.

    3. The idea of social media as just a way to reconnect with high school friends se

      Yes, this is a nice feature but I wonder how are they going to continue to be relevant with the younger generations. My sister is 14 years younger then me and she said that facebook is for old people.

    4. One prominent commentator about the negative impact of social media is Jaron Lanier, whose fervent opposition makes itself apparent in the plainspoken title of his 2018 book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. He cites loss of free will

      This came to mind, last week a co-worker and I were talking about giving up some of our privacy. The question was posed, why do you think apple pods or alex's are very afforable... it's a small cost to allow the majority of people to use their services at a big cost to us.

    5. Facebook has its critics, says Wharton marketing professor Pinar Yildirim, and they are mainly concerned about two things: mishandling consumer data and poorly managing access to it by third-party providers; and the level of disinformation spreading on Facebook

      I think the critics don't outweigh the other users concerns. Also, these concerns came after the fact and I'm sure most users are too deep in social media it feels impossible to leave facebook. I personally am involved in a few facebook groups that keep me bound to this social media outlet.

    6. As quickly as social media has insinuated itself into politics, the workplace, home life, and elsewhere, it continues to evolve at lightning speed, making it tricky to predict which way it will morph next.

      Social media is far more fierce then we thought several years ago. Social media has made it apart of my job in the marketing department. There was a time when login on facebook was a big NO-NO at work, now it's a requirement for me.

    1. However, I strongly recommend trying out Zettelkasten on actual note-cards, even if you end up implementing it on a computer. There’s something good about the note-card version that I don’t fully understand.

      Another advising to use the analog method for learning even if one is going to switch to a digital zettelkasten.

      He uses the word "good" here while others may have potentially used the word "magic", but writing in a space that values critical thinking, he would have been taken to task for having done so. In any case he's not able to put his finger on the inherent value of analog over digital.

    2. However, I honestly didn’t think Zettelkasten sounded like a good idea before I tried it. It only took me about 30 minutes of working with the cards to decide that it was really good.

      I've seen people describing how many cards they think they need before the method is useful, but this is the first time I've seen someone use a timeframe to describe useful effects.

    1. The slip box needs a number of years in order to reach critical mass. Until then, it functions as a mere container from which we can retrieve what we put in. This changes with its growth in size and complexity.

      Niklas Luhmann indicates that it may take a number of years to reach critical mass. This may be different for everyone based on the number of ideas they place into it and the amount of work they do in creating connections.

      Ward Cunningham, the creator of the wiki, has indicated that he thinks it takes roughly 500 pages in a wiki for the value to begin emerging.†

      How many notes and what level of links/complexity is a good minimal threshold for one to be able to see interesting and useful results?


      † Quote in FedWiki session on 2021-12-29

  7. Jul 2023
  8. Jun 2023
    1. We should strive to pass on thetraditions of human thinking while teaching new generations how to engagecritically with those traditions.
    1. Unlike many developed countries, the United States lacks a national curriculum or teacher-training standards. Local policies change constantly, as governors, school boards, mayors and superintendents flow in and out of jobs.

      Many developed countries have national curricula and specific teacher-training standards, but the United States does not. Instead decisions on curricular and standards are created and enforced at the state and local levels, often by politically elected figures including governors, mayors, superintendents, and school boards.

      This leaves early education in the United States open to a much greater sway of political influence. This can be seen in examples of Texas attempting to legislate the display the ten commandments in school classrooms in 2023, reading science being neglected in the adoption of Culkins' Units of Study curriculum, and other footballs like the supposed suppression of critical race theory in right leaning states.

  9. May 2023
    1. Why is demographic math so difficult? One recent meta-study suggests that when people are asked to make an estimation they are uncertain about, such as the size of a population, they tend to rescale their perceptions in a rational manner. When a person’s lived experience suggests an extreme value — such as a small proportion of people who are Jewish or a large proportion of people who are Christian — they often assume, reasonably, that their experiences are biased. In response, they adjust their prior estimate of a group’s size accordingly by shifting it closer to what they perceive to be the mean group size (that is, 50%). This can facilitate misestimation in surveys, such as ours, which don’t require people to make tradeoffs by constraining the sum of group proportions within a certain category to 100%. This reasoning process — referred to as uncertainty-based rescaling — leads people to systematically overestimate the size of small values and underestimate the size of large values. It also explains why estimates of populations closer to 0% (e.g., LGBT people, Muslims, and Native Americans) and populations closer to 100% (e.g., adults with a high school degree or who own a car) are less accurate than estimates of populations that are closer to 50%, such as the percentage of American adults who are married or have a child.

      Or. perhaps, it's just rampant civic ignorance. I think there's a significant portion of the population who just don't care to be informed about the demographics of their own countries.

  10. Apr 2023
    1. In his essay Of the Conduct of the Understanding, Locke frowned upon those

      ‘who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, whether parents, neighbours, ministers...for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of thinking and examining for themselves’ (p. 169).

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  11. Mar 2023
    1. In the fall of 2015, she assigned students to write chapter introductions and translate some texts into modern English.

      Perhaps of interest here, would not be a specific OER text, but an OER zettelkasten or card index that indexes a variety of potential public domain or open resources, articles, pieces, primary documents, or other short readings which could then be aggregated and tagged to allow for a teacher or student to create their own personalized OER text for a particular area of work.

      If done well, a professor might then pick and choose from a wide variety of resources to build their own reader to highlight or supplement the material they're teaching. This could allow a wider variety of thinking and interlinking of ideas. With such a regiment, teachers are less likely to become bored with their material and might help to actively create new ideas and research lines as they teach.

      Students could then be tasked with and guided to creating a level of cohesiveness to their readings as they progress rather than being served up a pre-prepared meal with a layer of preconceived notions and frameworks imposed upon the text by a single voice.

      This could encourage students to develop their own voices as well as to look at materials more critically as they proceed rather than being spoon fed calcified ideas.

    1. Consider how rhetorical analysis applies to alt-right political arguments. Alt-right arguments fail miserably under rhetorical analysis. Rhetorical analysis is a tool of academia. Therefore academia is inimical to the alt-right. Therefore, the alt-right will seek to weaken and impune academia. And this is in fact what they do.

  12. Feb 2023
    1. he research skills that Eco teaches areperhaps even more relevant today. Eco’s system demandscritical thinking, resourcefulness, creativity, attention todetail, and academic pride and humility; these are preciselythe skills that aid students overwhelmed by the ever-grow-ing demands made on their time and resources, and confusedby the seemingly endless torrents of information availableto them.

      In addition to "critical thinking, resourcefulness, creativity, attention to detail, and academic pride and humility", the ability to use a note card-based research system like Umberto Eco's is the key to overcoming information overload.

  13. Dec 2022
    1. Given all that madness, the need for critical thinking is obvious. But so is the need for critical ignorance — the skill, tuned over time, of knowing what not to spend your attention currency on. It’s great to be able to find the needle in the haystack — but it’s also important to limit the time spent in hay triage along the way.
  14. Nov 2022
    1. Whenever I read about the various ideas, I feel like I do not necessarily belong. Thinking about my practice, I never quite feel that it is deliberate enough.

      https://readwriterespond.com/2022/11/commonplace-book-a-verb-or-a-noun/

      Sometimes the root question is "what to I want to do this for?" Having an underlying reason can be hugely motivating.

      Are you collecting examples of things for students? (seeing examples can be incredibly powerful, especially for defining spaces) for yourself? Are you using them for exploring a particular space? To clarify your thinking/thought process? To think more critically? To write an article, blog, or book? To make videos or other content?

      Your own website is a version of many of these things in itself. You read, you collect, you write, you interlink ideas and expand on them. You're doing it much more naturally than you think.


      I find that having an idea of the broader space, what various practices look like, and use cases for them provides me a lot more flexibility for what may work or not work for my particular use case. I can then pick and choose for what suits me best, knowing that I don't have to spend as much time and effort experimenting to invent a system from scratch but can evolve something pre-existing to suit my current needs best.

      It's like learning to cook. There are thousands of methods (not even counting cuisine specific portions) for cooking a variety of meals. Knowing what these are and their outcomes can be incredibly helpful for creatively coming up with new meals. By analogy students are often only learning to heat water to boil an egg, but with some additional techniques they can bake complicated French pâtissier. Often if you know a handful of cooking methods you can go much further and farther using combinations of techniques and ingredients.

      What I'm looking for in the reading, note taking, and creation space is a baseline version of Peter Hertzmann's 50 Ways to Cook a Carrot combined with Michael Ruhlman's Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking. Generally cooking is seen as an overly complex and difficult topic, something that is emphasized on most aspirational cooking shows. But cooking schools break the material down into small pieces which makes the processes much easier and more broadly applicable. Once you've got these building blocks mastered, you can be much more creative with what you can create.

      How can we combine these small building blocks of reading and note taking practices for students in the 4th - 8th grades so that they can begin to leverage them in high school and certainly by college? Is there a way to frame them within teaching rhetoric and critical thinking to improve not only learning outcomes, but to improve lifelong learning and thinking?

    1. social historian G. M. Trevelyan (1978) put theissue some time ago, ‘Education...has produced a vast population able to readbut unable to distinguish what is worth reading.’
  15. Oct 2022
    1. "Say what one may of historical philos-ophy," he wrote in 1926, "history is a matter of facts; and theestablishment of facts, desiccated as they may be, is the chief func-tion of the genuine historian."

      Review of John B. Black, The Art of History; A Study of Four Great His- torians of the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1926), New York Herald Tribune Books, December 12, 1926, p. 12.

    1. Leopold von Ranke (German: [fɔn ˈʁaŋkə]; 21 December 1795 – 23 May 1886) was a German historian and a founder of modern source-based history.[3][4] According to Caroline Hoefferle, "Ranke was probably the most important historian to shape [the] historical profession as it emerged in Europe and the United States in the late 19th century".[5] He was able to implement the seminar teaching method in his classroom and focused on archival research and the analysis of historical documents. Building on the methods of the Göttingen School of History,[6] he was the first to establish a historical seminar. Ranke set the standards for much of later historical writing, introducing such ideas as reliance on primary sources (empiricism), an emphasis on narrative history and especially international politics (Außenpolitik). Ranke also had a great influence on Western historiography. He was ennobled in 1865, with the addition of a "von" to his name.
  16. Sep 2022
    1. In combination with SCA, CERICoffers freedom from the transmission model of learning, where theprofessor lectures and the students regurgitate. SCA can help buildlearning communities that increase students’ agency and power inconstructing knowledge, realizing something closer to a constructivistlearning ideal. Thus, SCA generates a unique opportunity to makeclassrooms more equitable by subverting the historicallymarginalizing higher education practices centered on the professor.

      Here's some justification for the prior statement on equity, but it comes after instead of before. (see: https://hypothes.is/a/SHEFJjM6Ee2Gru-y0d_1lg)

      While there is some foundation to the claim given, it would need more support. The sage on the stage may be becoming outmoded with other potential models, but removing it altogether does remove some pieces which may help to support neurodiverse learners who work better via oral transmission rather than using literate modes (eg. dyslexia).

      Who is to say that it's "just" sage on the stage lecturing and regurgitation? Why couldn't these same analytical practices be aimed at lectures, interviews, or other oral modes of presentation which will occur during thesis research? (Think anthropology and sociology research which may have much more significant oral aspects.)

      Certainly some of these methods can create new levels of agency on the part of the learner/researcher. Has anyone designed experiments to measure this sort of agency growth?

    2. Critical reading methods, such asCERIC, make hidden expectations of doctoral programs explicit.

      Are some of the critical reading methods they're framing here similar to or some of the type found at Project Zero (https://pz.harvard.edu/thinking-routines)?

    3. the Toulmin model isprominent for teaching evidence-based argumentation in manydisciplines (Osborne et al., 2004). The Toulmin model centers on thefactual basis for an argument, resulting claims, and counter-claims.

      The Tolumin model is an evidence based method of teaching argumentation.

    4. Another strategy improves criticalthinking skills using “think like a scientist” methods, such as theCREATE method that focuses on a learning sequence, Consider,Read, Elucidate hypotheses, Analyze and interpret data, Think of thenext Experiment (Gottesman & Hoskins, 2013; Hoskins et al., 2007;Kararo & McCartney, 2019)

      CREATE - Consider - Read - Elucidate hypotheses - Analyze and interpret data - Think of the next - Experiment

    5. One strategy researched inundergraduate education focuses on teaching undergraduatestudents how to navigate and understand primary literature: theEvaluating Scientific Research Literature (ESRL) method (Letchfordet al., 2017; Lie et al., 2016)

      Evaluating Scientific Research Literature (ESRL) is a method for teaching students how to navigate and understand primary literature. (typically undergraduates)

  17. Aug 2022
    1. A studentshould learn not to be alarmed by conflicting evidence, con-troversial views, and the mass of detailed information. H eshould rather seek to learn how to deal with them.
    1. Kahne and Bowyer (2017) exposed thousands of young people in California tosome true messages and some false ones, similar to the memes they may see on social media
  18. Jul 2022
    1. You have three options:Continue fighting fires with hordes of firefighters (in this analogy, fact-checkers).Focus on the arsonists (the people spreading the misinformation) by alerting the town they're the ones starting the fire (banning or labeling them).Clear the kindling and dry brush (teach people to spot lies, think critically, and ask questions).Right now, we do a lot of #1. We do a little bit of #2. We do almost none of #3, which is probably the most important and the most difficult. I’d propose three strategies for addressing misinformation by teaching people to ask questions and spot lies. 
  19. Jun 2022
    1. Get a copy of Critical Digital Pedagogy: A Collection

      I can't help but wonder at the direct link here to Amazon with an affiliate link. I won't fault them completely for it, but for a site that is so critical of the ills of educational technology, and care for their students and community, the exposure to surveillance capitalism expressed here seems to go beyond their own pale. I would have expected more care here.

      Surely there are other platforms that this volume is available from?

    1. https://hybridpedagogy.org/ethical-online-learning/

      An interesting perspective on ethical and supportive online learning. More questions and explorations than answers, but then framing is a majority of the battle.

      I'm generally in agreement with much of the discussion here.

      This was a fabulous piece for "thinking against". Thanks Sean Michael Morris, and Lora Taub.

      I definitely got far more out of it by reading and annotating than I ever would in its original keynote presentation version.

    1. Critical Ed Tech Scholars Alliance (CETSA), a grassroots group of educators working in higher ed

      Where exactly is this group? They don't seem to have an online presence.

    1. a reassociation transformation can reduce the number of opera-tions along the critical path in a computation, resulting in better performance bybetter utilizing the multiple functional units and their pipelining capabilities.

      reassociation 具体的做法是什么?

  20. May 2022
    1. Published criticisms of this excellent book bear the hallmarks of a style of racism that is extraordinarily difficult to counter, because so few people have the intellectual training to understand the difference between evidence-based accounts of Indigenous Australia and popular mythologies that misrepresent the facts. These criticisms are entirely unreasonable.

      This sounds a bit like Australian political culture is facing the same sort of issues that are being see in the United States with respect to ideas like critical race theory. Groups are protesting parts of history and culture that they don't understand instead spending some time learning about them.

  21. Feb 2022
    1. Glenn Youngkin, the newly elected governor of Virginia, created a tip line that parents can use to report teachers whose classes cover “inherently divisive concepts, including critical race theory.”

      Critical thinking can provoke people into "divisive" considerations. Such a tip line makes it pretty easy to disrupt any attempt to 'teach kids to think [critically]'

      Just one or two such efforts aren't too worrisome, but this might portend a broad change in the mission of education, from humanistic flourishing to the production of a compliant populace.

    1. Agarwal, A., Rochwerg, B., Lamontagne, F., Siemieniuk, R. A., Agoritsas, T., Askie, L., Lytvyn, L., Leo, Y.-S., Macdonald, H., Zeng, L., Amin, W., Barragan, F. A., Bausch, F. J., Burhan, E., Calfee, C. S., Cecconi, M., Chanda, D., Dat, V. Q., Sutter, A. D., … Vandvik, P. O. (2020). A living WHO guideline on drugs for covid-19. BMJ, 370, m3379. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m3379

  22. Jan 2022
    1. Stock, S. J., Carruthers, J., Calvert, C., Denny, C., Donaghy, J., Goulding, A., Hopcroft, L. E. M., Hopkins, L., McLaughlin, T., Pan, J., Shi, T., Taylor, B., Agrawal, U., Auyeung, B., Katikireddi, S. V., McCowan, C., Murray, J., Simpson, C. R., Robertson, C., … Wood, R. (2022). SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination rates in pregnant women in Scotland. Nature Medicine, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-021-01666-2

  23. Dec 2021
  24. Nov 2021
    1. Karnofsky suggests that the cost/benefit ratio of how we typically think of reading may not be as simple as we intuitively expect i.e. we think that 'more time' = 'more understanding'.

      If you're simply reading to inform yourself about a topic, it may be worth reading a couple of book reviews, and listening to an interview or two, rather than invest the significant amount of time necessary to really engage with the book.

      A few hours of skimming and reviews/interviews may get you to 25% understanding and retention, which in many cases may be more than enough for your needs of being basically informed on the topic. Compared to the 50 - 100 hours necessary for a deep, analytical engagement with the text, that would only get you to 50% understanding and retention.

      That being said, if your goal is to develop expertise, both Karnofsky and Adler ('How to read a book') suggest that you need a deep engagement with multiple texts.

    1. The original critical race theorists argued for the use of a new lens to interpret the past and the present. You can dispute whether or not that lens is useful, or whether you want to look through it at all

      This is an important thing to say about critical race theory when the far conservative right is using it as a cudgel and boogeyman for all of society's problems.

  25. Oct 2021
  26. Sep 2021
    1. Critical pedagogy, among other things, borrows its ‘critical lens’ from the critical theory. It views society as divided and hierarchical (i.e. based on power relations); and education as a tool used by dominant groups to legitimise the iniquitous arrangement. By enabling the oppressed to look at the oppressor’s ideologies critically, it believes, education can assist them in ridding themselves of their ‘false consciousness’ – an important step, as we will see later, in their struggle for liberation. As is apparent, contrary to traditional claims of the ‘neutrality’ of education, “critical pedagogy views all education theory as intimately linked to ideologies shaped by power, politics, history and culture.” (Darder 1991, p. 77) And the primary function of the critical pedagogue is thus “to empower the powerless and transform those conditions which perpetuate human injustice and inequity.” (McLaren, 1988) – a concern that it shares with critical theory.8

      Critical Pedagogy (CP):

      • Sees society as divided into a hierarchy based on power relations.
      • Education is used as a tool by the dominant to uphold the hierarchy.
      • Education can also be used by the oppressed to rid themselves of false consciousness.
      • CP does not think any education is neutral. All education is shaped by power, politics, history, and culture.
      • CP can empower the powerless to change the power structures.
  27. Aug 2021
    1. The Attack on "Critical Race Theory": What's Going on?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P35YrabkpGk

      Lately, a lot of people have been very upset about “critical race theory.” Back in September 2020, the former president directed federal agencies to cut funding for training programs that refer to “white privilege” or “critical race theory, declaring such programs “un-American propaganda” and “a sickness that cannot be allowed to continue.” In the last few months, at least eight states have passed legislation banning the teaching of CRT in schools and some 20 more have similar bills in the pipeline or plans to introduce them. What’s going on?

      Join us for a conversation that situates the current battle about “critical race theory” in the context of a much longer war over the relationship between our racial present and racial past, and the role of culture, institutions, laws, policies and “systems” in shaping both. As members of families and communities, as adults in the lives of the children who will have to live with the consequences of these struggles, how do we understand what's at stake and how we can usefully weigh in?

      Hosts: Melissa Giraud & Andrew Grant-Thomas

      Guests: Shee Covarrubias, Kerry-Ann Escayg,

      Some core ideas of critical race theory:

      • racial realism
        • racism is normal
      • interest convergence
        • racial equity only occurs when white self interest is being considered (Brown v. Board of Education as an example to portray US in a better light with respect to the Cold War)
      • Whiteness as property
        • Cheryl Harris' work
        • White people have privilege in the law
        • myth of meritocracy
      • Intersectionality

      People would rather be spoon fed rather than do the work themselves. Sadly this is being encouraged in the media.

      Short summary of CRT: How laws have been written to institutionalize racism.

      Culturally Responsive Teaching (also has the initials CRT).

      KAE tries to use an anti-racist critical pedagogy in her teaching.

      SC: Story about a book Something Happened in Our Town (book).

      • Law enforcement got upset and the school district
      • Response video of threat, intimidation, emotional blackmail by local sheriff's department.
      • Intent versus impact - the superintendent may not have had a bad intent when providing an apology, but the impact was painful

      It's not really a battle about or against CRT, it's an attempt to further whitewash American history. (synopsis of SC)

      What are you afraid of?

  28. Jul 2021
    1. Unlike orthodox Marxism, critical theory is concerned with language and identity more than with material conditions.

      critical theory versus Marxism

    2. Critical theory upends the universal values of the Enlightenment: objectivity, rationality, science, equality, freedom of the individual. These liberal values are an ideology by which one dominant group subjugates another. All relations are power relations, everything is political, and claims of reason and truth are social constructs that maintain those in power.

      Critical theory versus Englightenment

    1. A quick overview of the basics and general history of critical race theory.

    2. Crenshaw and her classmates asked 12 scholars of color to come to campus and lead discussions about Bell’s book Race, Racism, and American Law. With that, critical race theory began in earnest.
    3. The late Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell is credited as the father of critical race theory. He began conceptualizing the idea in the 1970s as a way to understand how race and American law interact, and developed a course on the subject.
    1. Tracy noted Leslie was not conducting her reflection in a vacuum; rather, Leslie wrote to Tracy.

      Interesting observation. Connects to the earlier comment about vulnerability and trust but I'm really interested in how reflections change when they are addressed to someone.

  29. Jun 2021
    1. When you hear someone say something, stop and ask yourself "Is that true?" Don't say it out loud. I'm not suggesting that you impose on everyone who talks to you the burden of proving what they say, but rather that you take upon yourself the burden of evaluating what they say.
  30. May 2021
  31. Apr 2021
    1. The four C’s of 21st Century skills are: Critical thinking Creativity Collaboration Communication

      Convenient to have these four share an initial. (My perception is that a tendency to emphasize this type of parallelism has been strengthening over the years. At least, I don't recall this practice being common in French when I grew up.)

  32. Mar 2021
    1. Finally, any approach to evidence-based man-agement should ensure that the practices suit theindustry and functional context. For example,professionals in a biotechnology company would beexpected to follow and use industry-appropriateevidence-based practices that are likely to bemore rigorous and extensive than those adopted bya fashion-clothing company. Such practices includeencouraging or even requiring their employees todo the following four things (seePfeffer & Sutton,2006): (1) demand evidence for statements thatseem implausible; (2) examine the logic or cause-and-effect reasoning between the evidence andthe statement; (3) as needed, encourage experi-mentation to test the confidence of data and val-idity of statements; and (4) continually repeat andbuild on the first three activities to create anevidence-based learning culture that stifles theproduction and spread of bullshit.
    2. Furthermore, to help encourage and value evi-dence over opinion, managers should be carefulwhom they consult. While they should seek sub-stantive debate about statements and supportingevidence, they should only involve well-informedand value-adding experts. Social media andcrowdsourcing initiatives regularly remind us thatthe wisdom of the crowd is not as judicious as wethink.
    3. Colleagues throughout the organization, andespecially those in administrative and leadershiproles, should also practice it so that evidence canguide key decisions. This is also true in the areas ofmarketing and sales, which thrive on the creationand circulation of bullshit.

      Bill Hicks would have approved of this.

    4. Research byPennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler,and Fugelsang (2015)suggests that an organiza-tion’s capacity to produce and accept workplacebullshit decreases with the prevalence of andvalue placed on critical thinking in that organiza-tion. They outline how individuals have differentsensitivities to bullshit: Those who have the abilityto stop and think analytically about the substanceof statements are less receptive to bullshit, whilethose with lower cognitive skills and less insightare more receptive.

      This is why workplaces must encourage and maintain critical thinking.

    5. What people think and state depends on how theythink. Thus, it is far more dangerous to assumepeople know what they are talking about than it isto assume they do not
  33. Feb 2021
    1. some bullshittersbullshit because they are naı ̈ve, biased, or sloppyin their handling of statements. They do notrealize they are crafting or spreading bullshit.There is a primary need therefore to be alert tothe possibility of bullshit. While accepting itsubiquity, one must avoid becoming so accustomedto bullshit as to be indifferent to its presence. Inother words, it is necessary to develop a healthycynicism about the possibility of bullshit.

      I wouldn't phrase it this way. Instead, I consider intellectual thought a healthy way to go.

      Existentialists have gone about this by considering every choice in life as reborn; by being conscious of what we do, we shape not only our own consequence but also that of others.

      In other words: behave like you're experiencing everything for the first time, except with wisdom.

  34. Jan 2021
    1. Introduce students to the “explode to explain” strategy. When students “explode to explain,” they closely read a key sentence or two in a source, annotate, and practice explaining what they are thinking and learning.

      This is a specific strategy to include in an active reading session.

  35. Nov 2020
  36. Oct 2020
    1. The data indicate that teachers in this study place tremendous value on research skills, with most reporting assigning a research paper to their students in the 2011-2012 academic year and spending class time teaching various research skills to their students. These lessons are aimed at addressing deficits they see in today’s students. Most notable among these is the inability to judge the quality of information, a skill the vast majority of teachers deem “essential” for their students’ future success.

      AP and National Writing Project teachers emphasize the importance of students' learning research skills, and discuss how they do so. They are most concerned with students learning to judge the quality of information found, but also in coaching students through the process, and dealing with online use restrictions at many schools. Aimed at Middle/ High School students. 8/10

  37. Sep 2020
    1. These lenses include interpretive frameworks such as structuralism and formalism, and deconstruction; identity- related approaches such as feminism and critical race studies; globally oriented approaches such as postco-lonialism; and many more.

      les code studies s'inscrivent d’emblée dans une pluralité d’approches – pour Marino, elles ne sont pas exhaustives – d’où leur pertinence dans des analyses intersectionnelles – elles informent les autres disciplines comme elles se nourrissent d’elles

    2. o read code critically is to explore the significance of the specific symbolic structures of the code and their effects over time if and when they are executed

      la dimension performative (code exécuté) est fondamentale dans l’étude du code, qu’on ne peut simplement étudier de manière statique: il faut le lancer, le jouer, l’exécuter.

    3. that “state” is the other key dimension to critical code studies

      état

      state ou «état», une facette propre aux code studies

      dans un ouvrage traditionnel, cette question de l’état ne se pose pas (on lit plus ou moins linéairement un texte de bout en bout)

    4. Critical Code Studies Working Groups (CCSWGs)
  38. Aug 2020
    1. Why am I believing this? Why am I behaving this way? Have I thought it through or am I simply taking a short cut, following the party line, or justifying the effort I put in to join the group?

      These are great questions to ask oneself.

    1. What is Critical Literacy?

      critical

      • expressing or involving an analysis of the merits and faults of a work of literature, music, or art.

      literacy

      • the ability to read and write
      • competence or knowledge in a specified area

      The education of individuals and groups in a way that lets them gain competence and knowledge in a specified field or area, while simultaneously being able to express or analyze the merits and faults of the current and previous works.

    1. The relationship between this diversity and the invasion of antibiotic resistance was investigated using a dilution-to-extinction approach coupled with high-capacity quantitative PCR

      It seems likely that both diversity and invasion of antibiotic resistance is regulated by initial microbial density/abundance.

      Relavant paper for - initial abundance and pervasiveness of antibiotic resistance is offered by this paper:Alexander, PNAS 2020 (Stochastic bacterial population dynamics restrict the establishment of antibiotic resistance from single cells)

      It is not clear from the fig5 but seems like the paper only tested for microbial abundance at the measurement timepoint as a confounding variable, and not initial abundance.

  39. Jul 2020
    1. The word “pedagogy,” as we use it, defines the work of education at the intersection of theory and practice — the act of teaching that derives from reflection and which inspires reflection again. Pedagogy is both where “critical” and “digital” terminate, and also the whole terrain of teaching.

      I agree with this. Creating divisions on how pedagogy relates to one age group over another takes away from the key developments around education and pedagogy, and creates a slightly more disconnected, disjointed field for education. Good education and educational practices are just that - the subject or age specificity can distract from otherwise good practices and theories that can and often do transcend the disciplines.

    1. What is it for?Mainly to make us think. But also raising awareness, exposing assumptions, provoking action, sparking debate, even entertaining in an intellectual sort of way, like literature or film.
  40. Jun 2020
  41. May 2020
  42. Apr 2020
    1. Wynants, L., Van Calster, B., Bonten, M. M. J., Collins, G. S., Debray, T. P. A., De Vos, M., Haller, M. C., Heinze, G., Moons, K. G. M., Riley, R. D., Schuit, E., Smits, L. J. M., Snell, K. I. E., Steyerberg, E. W., Wallisch, C., & van Smeden, M. (2020). Prediction models for diagnosis and prognosis of covid-19 infection: Systematic review and critical appraisal. BMJ, m1328. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m1328

    1. There are good preprints and bad preprints, just like there are with journal articles. Overall, do not be afraid to be scooped or plagiarized! Preprints also actually protect against scooping [21,22]. Preprints establish the priority of discovery as a formally published item. Therefore, a preprint acts as proof of provenance for research ideas, data, code, models, and results—all outputs and discoveries.
      • Salah satu alasan untuk tidak mengunggah preprint adalah takut idenya dicuri,

      • Ini adalah faktor budaya yang lain. Ketakutan yang tidak beralasan. Justru dengan mengunggah preprint, peneliti dapat mengklaim ide lebih awal.

      • Preprint ada yang bagus dan ada yang buruk, peninjauan akan ada di tangan pembaca. Ini adalah hambatan budaya berikutnya, ketika mayoritas pembaca ingin melimpahkan tanggungjawab untuk memverifikasi, memeriksa, dan menjamin kualitas suatu makalah kepada para peninjau.

      • Pengalihan tanggungjawab ini sulit dilakukan ketika dokumen PR sendiri tertutup, dan tidak lepas dari bias.

      • Selain itu, dosen akan menyalahi prinsip yang disebarluaskan kepada para mahasiswa, untuk membaca secara kritis.

    1. Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment's intermission. The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying man. “Did you ask me for my name?” “Assuredly I did.” “One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” “Is that all?” “One Hundred and Five, North Tower.”

      Maybe the shoemaker had forgotten his name from prison?

  43. Jan 2020
  44. Dec 2019
    1. to view more on internet neutrality and other topics with a critical view, especially with corporations, who often market themselves as being “woke” to land more profits
    1. you are allowed to comment on a specific point, giving you the chance to be more critical on a specific point instead of being critical on the overall of the reading.
  45. Nov 2019
    1. 11,000 students from 321 sites across the UnitedStates

      The national center for education statistics shows for fall 2016, approximately 76,238,500 students enrolled in the US. Can we say that the voice of 11000 is enough to generalize? Maybe there are some other issues in the field of education that can no reflect in this study.

  46. Aug 2019
    1. Its aim is producing students who can think critically, be considerate of others, take risks, think dangerously and imagine a future that extends and deepens what it means to be an engaged citizen capable of living in a substantive democracy.

      What does Giroux's "be considerate of others" look and feel like in practice? How is it related to the problematic calls for civility?

  47. Jul 2019
  48. educatorinnovator.org educatorinnovator.org
    1. I, Pseudocoder

      This made me chuckle--both because I am living in a pseudocoding space myself, so I identify with the self-deprecating humor, and because of the riff on "I, Robot"

    1. for lack of a better term

      I'm not really satisfied using the term "critical theory" either, given that it could include works that aren't really "PoMo" (eg, Marxism or historical materialism). I'd use "post-structuralism", but I don't think that many folks know what it means and it's not totally accurate either. So I decided to just leave it as "critical theory" as in the original rant.

    1. A Randomized Controlled Tria

      This is randomized controlled trial and it is the correct type of intervention research design for this question

    2. The current trial aims at evaluating the efficacyof a stand-alone, unguided, Internet-based mindfulnesstreatment program for anxiety

      The purpose of the trial was to study the effectiveness of a stand-alone, unguided, internet-based mindfulness treatment programme for anxiety

    3. The fundingbody was not involved in the study design, in thecollection, analysis and interpretation of data, in thewriting of the report, or in the decision to submit thearticle for publication.

      Suggests that the funding body had no role to play in the outcomes of this study

  49. Mar 2019
    1. Teaching problem solving This page is included because some of our theories indicate that problem solving should be taught specifically. This page is a bit unusual; I did not find many others like it. It is rather easy to read and also addresses the differences between novice and expert learners. rating 3/5

  50. Feb 2019
  51. Jan 2019
    1. For a review of such research, see Daniel T. Willingham, “Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach?” American Educator 31, 2 (2007): 13, http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/periodicals/Crit_Thinking.pdf.
    2. By examining information as a product of people’s contingent choices, rather than as an impartial recording of unchanging truths, the critically information-literate student develops an outlook toward information characterized by a robust sense of agency and a heightened concern for justice.

      It seems like there's still a transfer problem here, though. There seems to be an assertion that criticality will be inherently cross-domain, but I'm not clear why that should be true. Why would the critical outlook not remain domain-specific. (To say "if it does, then it isn't critical", seems like a tautology.)

    1. posthuman times, and the posthuman subjects ofknowledge constituted within them, are producing new fields of transdis-ciplinary knowledge, which I call the critical posthumanitie

      At least she laid it out front and center. If this piece is anything like the Barad essay, then we can at least walk away with this sentence.

    1. have the knowledge and skills to help navigate the hospital system, explain your diagnosis in detail, and explain potential outcomes.  We are also here to help decipher the information from doctor visits, set up meetings with care teams, and organize home care, and medications

      Using specialist in a field saves time, and ultimately saves lives.

    1. Curiosity Is as Important as Intelligence

      This one is a pretty bold statement to make, in general.

      Mike Johansson, at Rochester Institute of Technology, makes the case that curiosity is the key to enabling both Creative and Critical Thinking for better problem solving, in general.

      What are some of your ideas?

    1. I proposed three new dimensions to considerin conceptualizations of Big Data, which are intendedto nuance and temper some of the grand claims of BigData’s affordances.Key principles from critical and feminist GIS havehere been leveraged to understand the limitations andimpacts of Big Data. Further integration of principlesfrom critical information technologies research willideally seek to show how technologies shape andreproduce uneven social and political relations. Thissort of research can have practical influence on howtechnologies are leveraged, working to ameliorate thepotentially harmful implications of new technologies.More broadly, research critiquing and situating thegeographies of humanitarianism can be integrated intostudies of Big Data digital humanitarianism. Conver-sations around technologies for development andhumanitarianism overwhelmingly bring Western ide-als into non-Western contexts, without considering theimplications of this power relation. Critiquing theserelations should be central to theories of informationtechnologies, with the goal of rectifying and

      Burns' contributions:

      • Incorporate critical and feminist critiques in humanitarian-Big Data research

      • Integrate critical scholarship into the development of technical tools

      • Consider Western contexts and political/social power relations in research and practice with vulnerable individuals and communities

    2. are certainly not limited to, continued struggles aroundknowledge politics and legitimacy (Burns2014;Elwood and Leszczynski2013), shifting understand-ings of scientific knowledge production (Dalton andThatcher2014; Crampton et al.2013), and increasedneoliberalization of humanitarian aid (Adams2013;Hyndman2009; Polman2010). In other words, theseprocesses take a form specific to Big Data digitalhumanitarianism, and exploring this case sheds greaterlight on these larger-scale processes.

      overarching critique of digital humanitarian crowd work and the artifacts it produces.

    3. signifies a new epistemology insofar as it portraysevents as discrete and isolated; knowledges as mod-ifiable, categorizable, and abstractable; and locally-situated knowledges as best understood by thoseworking remotely

      Evokes complexity of creating classifications and boundary objects that can provide relational data, e.g., report of fire and report of car bombing.

    4. Not only does the convergence of BigData and humanitarianism depend on a particularsocial shaping of technologies and data, but Big Dataitself embodies particular values, social relations, andepistemologies

      This premise feels over-stated, as seems to be evidenced in the footnotes -- presumably responses to reviewer questions/critiques.

      I don't disagree with social, methodological, and ethical concerns about "Big Data" (scare quotes, intended) but DHN groups are certainly not there (nor are they likely to be) using large data sets. The overly-enthusiastic/optimistic hype about using large, unstructured data, lacking critical examination of its many downsides, seems to be motivating this paper in ways that are unfortunate. Critique of DH work is needed but this approach seems to be chasing imaginary monsters.

    5. Digital humanitarianism can be con-ceptualized as ‘‘the enacting of social and institutionalnetworks, technologies, and practices that enable large,unrestricted numbers of remote and on-the-groundindividuals to collaborate on humanitarian managementthrough digital technologies’’ (Burns2014).

      Burns' definition of digital humanitarianism.

      I'm not convinced that DHN groups actually work with Big Data (excepting QRCI's MicroMappers algorithm training project with SBTF). I'm not aware of any group collecting large amounts of data and quantitatively analyzing it.

    6. However, discussions of the relationship between BigData and digital humanitarianism tend to be cautiouslyoptimistic. Letouze ́(2012) the challenges facingdigital humanitarianism as falling into five broadcategories: (1) privacy, (2) access/sharing, (3) extract-ing meaning from qualitative text, (4) apophenia, (5)detecting anomalies.

      Citing Letouzé, Burns raises challenge of "extracting meaning from qualitative text."

      Get Letouzé paper.

    7. Theseunderstandings of spatial technologies build on les-sons from science and technology studies (STS)research that describes the processes by which dataand technologies come to assume and reify social andpower relations, worldviews, and epistemologies(Feenberg1999; Pinch and Bijker1987; Wajcman1991; Winner1985)

      Good summation of Bijker's and Winner's STS work

    8. Bor-rowing principles from critical GIS, technologies canbe seen to embody social norms and values (Schuurman2000; Sheppard2005), often reinforcing extant powerdynamics and social inequalities rather than disruptingthem.

      Definition of critical GIS.

    1. CTP is a key method for reflective design, since it offers strategies to bring unconscious values to the fore by creating technical alternatives. In our work, we extend CTP in several ways that make it particularly appropriate for HCI and critical computing.

      Ways in which Senger, et al., describe how to extend CTP for HCI needs:

      • incorporate both designer/user reflection on technology use and its design

      • integrate reflection into design even when there is no specific "technical impasse" or metaphor breakdown

      • driven by critical concerns, not simply technical problems

    2. CTP synthesizes critical reflection with technology production as a way of highlighting and altering unconsciously-held assumptions that are hindering progress in a technical field.

      Definition of critical technical practice.

      This approach is grounded in AI rather than HCI

      (verbatim from the paper) "CTP consists of the following moves:

      • identifying the core metaphors of the field

      • noticing what, when working with those metaphors, remains marginalized

      • inverting the dominant metaphors to bring that margin to the center

      • embodying the alternative as a new technology

    3. goal is to push design research beyond an agenda of reinforcing values of consumer culture and to instead embody cultural critique in designed artifacts. A critical designer designs objects not to do what users want and value, but to introduce both designers and users to new ways of looking at the world and the role that designed objects can play for them in it.

      Definition of critical design.

      This approach tends to be more art-based and intentionally provocative than a practical design method to inculcate a certain sensibility into the technology design process.

    4. We define 'reflection' as referring tocritical reflection, orbringing unconscious aspects of experience to conscious awareness, thereby making them available for conscious choice. This critical reflection is crucial to both individual freedom and our quality of life in society as a whole, since without it, we unthinkingly adopt attitudes, practices, values, and identities we might not consciously espouse. Additionally, reflection is not a purely cognitive activity, but is folded into all our ways of seeing and experiencing the world.

      Definition of critical reflection

    5. Our perspective on reflection is grounded in critical theory, a Western tradition of critical reflection embodied in various intellectual strands including Marxism, feminism, racial and ethnic studies, media studies and psychoanalysis.

      Definition of critical theory

    6. ritical theory argues that our everyday values, practices, perspectives, and sense of agency and self are strongly shaped by forces and agendas of which we are normally unaware, such as the politics of race, gender, and economics. Critical reflection provides a means to gain some awareness of such forces as a first step toward possible change.

      Critical theory in practice

    7. We believe that, for those concerned about the social implications of the technologies we build, reflection itself should be a core technology design outcome for HCI. That is to say, technology design practices should support both designers and users in ongoing critical reflection about technology and its relationship to human life.

      Critical reflection can/should support designers and users.

  52. Nov 2018
    1. PEDAGOGY of the OPPRESSED

      One the foundational book of critical pedagogy.

      Rating: 7/10

  53. Oct 2018
    1. About a third of 18- to 49-year-olds (32%) correctly identified all five of the factual statements as factual, compared with two-in-ten among those ages 50 and older. A similar pattern emerges for the opinion statements. Among 18- to 49-year-olds, 44% correctly identified all five opinion statements as opinions, compared with 26% among those ages 50 and older.
    2. In a survey conducted Feb. 22 to March 4, 2018, the Center asked U.S. adults to categorize five factual statements and five opinion statements. As a previous report revealed, about a quarter of Americans overall could accurately classify all five factual statements (26%) and about a third could classify all five opinion statements (35%).
    1. Critical Instructional Design is new, and as such is grounded in the work of a very few people.

      I'm interested if the conception 'Critical Instructional Design' is truly new or mere interpolation of a native concept. As far as my understanding of critical theory, from lit crit readings and study, a theory can be molded to fit any necessary unnamed reality-from the nature of the TV War... Baudrillard's 'The Gulf War Did Not Take Place' to Freudian psychoanalysis "Neuroticisms of Computer A.I." This is an excellent article to discuss critical theory in the light of a new, online iteration of the learning space meriting further research.

    1. During the visit Angela fed Paolo Spaghetti-Os and applesauce while sitting on her lap in the living room. Over the next several years, Angela missed many of Paolo’s clinic visits.

      Todo el cuadro de salud delicado de Paolo, indica un efecto directo en su salud por las condiciones de su madre. Ademas de eso, el hecho de que no recibiera el tratamiento adecuado ya que su madre no era responsable con sus citas medicas y lo alimentaba inadecuadamente es un ejemplo de ciertos procesos tanto biológicos y como psicológicos que si no ocurren en el contexto adecuado, nunca ocurrirán pues en este caso, el daño a la salud de Paolo es irreversible.

    1. For those of us on the frontline of K-12 teaching, “education as the practice of freedom” requires forthright discussion and action regarding subjects that are messy (at least in terms of their challenge to the agreed narrative and the cultural status quo) and this messiness can potentially make people uncomfortable, confused, upset, angry, and even potentially confrontational or worse, violent. Administrators and teachers and colleagues generally do not want to embrace the concept of education as the practice of freedom if it means rocking the boat too much.
    2. Dissimilarly, in Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks urges teachers to contemplate “Education as the practice of freedom” as their point of departure for praxis. A phrase originating from the work of Paulo Freire, hooks writes that “education as the practice of freedom” will come easiest “to those of us…who believe that our work is not merely to share information, but to share in the intellectual and spiritual growth of our students. To teach in a manner that respects and cares for the souls of our students is essential if we are to provide the necessary conditions where learning can most deeply and intimately begin.” Transgressive education and disruptive thinking therefore begin with the soul, and not the prospective career opportunities, of students.
    1. not unlike that of the medical industry, where the needs of patients (clients) are met by a process-driven model.

      To what extent is the writer's analogy to the medical industry persuasive?

    2. It would allow lawyers to concentrate on higher-order tasks such as crafting legal strategies, interpreting and applying the relevant parts of the law to complex situations and perhaps most importantly, maintaining the human connection for a profession which is critically about relationships.

      What are the assumptions in the writer's argument?

    3. While machines and algorithms are indeed coming for tasks currently being performed by lawyers, these tasks tend to be labour-intensive and/or low-value and/or process driven.

      Is this the first time that such a transformation has taken place? Can you think of other historical cases where labour-intensive, low-value, or process-driven work has been automated?

    4. the final call will have to come from the human in the loop.

      Do you agree that AI is incapable of decision-making, and that a human will always have to make the final call? Why or why not? How might this vary in different fields, including the ones you are interested in pursuing?

    1. improve female representation in the senior leadership

      What are the pros and cons of focusing on representation in the leadership?

    2. If we can achieve gender balance in the most visible public offices of the land, the rest of the country will follow.

      Do you agree that the writer's proposals will be effective in achieving gender equality? Why or why not? What other ideas do you have for achieving gender equality?

    3. Most notably, the Cabinet today comprises 16 men and only three women - even though for more than 10 years, the number of women graduating from universities has outnumbered male graduates.

      Do you find the writer's evidence convincing? What are the the strengths—and limitations—of her evidence?