John wrote, > I do agree. I am just concerned that those who dislike > discussion of > outcomes are increasingly finding themselves preaching to a > like-minded > choir instead of persuading those who, at the end of the > day, wind up paying > the piper. > Whenever I meet someone who takes the effort to argue against outcomes based education I am happy and a tad bit surprised as those who take that position are threatened with extinction. No offense, John, but arguing /for/ OBE is common and simple. Wisdom is not a commodity to be traded like sugar or automobiles. -tor > On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 6:14 AM, Torgeir Fjeld <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>wrote: > > > Robert Paul wrote: > > > > John McCreery: > > > > Democratizing the > humanities > > > and, in effect, adopting the > > > > McDonald's slogan, > "We do it > > > all for you" has predictably > > > > destroyed the luxury > cachet > > > the humanities once enjoyed. And > > > > claiming to teach > critical > > > thinking in big lecture classes with > > > > shrinking reading > and writing > > > assignments isn't going to rebuild > > > > the brand. > > > > > > > The recent, usually ideological, fascination > with > > > 'outcomes,' in higher > > > education, has as a subtext, the question, > 'What's the good > > > of it?' > > > where the good of it is parsed in terms of what > graduates > > > of which > > > schools and departments can achieve as 'useful' > members of > > > an > > > industrialized society. In this setting, the > humanities > > > don't stand a > > > chance; and if someone were to argue that > studying the > > > humanities > > > (any of them) could clearly be shown to have such > a > > > purpose, the very > > > idea of studying them would be lost. > > > > As Bourdieu would have it, conceiving of education > largely or solely in > > terms of outcomes is to confuse the opus operatum -- > the finished product -- > > with the modus operandi -- the way in which the > production is organized. > > Outcomes based education is measurable and > quantifiable while schooling that > > emphasizes process over product stands at a > disadvantage in the current > > educational nexus. The (somewhat queer) idea that the > product of education > > is or should be mass manufactured clones prepared to > fulfill a set of tasks > > necessary to reproduce an increasingly crisis stricken > economic system is > > wrong but sadly dominant -- i.e. ideological. > > > > -tor > > Longstreet Institute of Higher Learning ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html