Michael A. Peters - Philosopher of Education

Michael A. Peters, philosopher of education, brings a critical voice to the field of educational theory. Peters, whose own training was in the analytic philosophical tradition, became disenchanted with it and took up perspectives that include continental approaches (i.e. Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Foucault, Derrida, Heiddger) as well as a strong post-colonial awareness of indigenous rights, wisdom and voice.
Recently, Taylor & Francis Online have made five essays from the him available for free. The articles by Peters explore "aspects of Wittgenstein's thought." They can be accessed here. Anyone interested in the philosophy of education would do well to become acquainted with Peter's wide ranging works. His insights on neoliberalism are particularly salient.

Napolitano: Online Education Isn't Silver Bullett

The year is 2080. Janice Neapolitan, head of the Free University of California, speaking at the Public Politick Institute, delivered biting criticism of California Governor Brownie's claims that face-to-face instruction is the "silver bullet" for education.

Neapolitan argued that not everyone can learn with other people. Classroom situations, which require human-to-human interaction, could be places of bullying at worst and stress at best. Instructor actions, though usually not intentional, are known to show favoritism to some students and are prejudiced against others. Neapolitan mentioned heart rending cases of children who raised their hand, only to not have been called on, because the instructor preferred some other child. "Research shows that children with excessive pimples, or obese children, usually aren't selected as class presidents. With the computer, everyone can be a star!" Neapolitan spoke at length of the beauty of the computer, which has helped humanity overcome bias. Governor Brownie refused to comment. For more info on this, click here.

Liberal Arts Under Fire - University of Maine Test Case

The situation at University of Southern Maine raises a number of interesting questions: first, is there a trend in higher education to cut the liberal arts and social sciences (see: "Study finds that liberal arts are disappearing' - here)? Secondly, will the public allow departments to be axed (professors lay offs)? Will academics and students lock arms in solidarity to defend a vision of higher education that appears to be under attack? Is higher education, mimicking the corporate neoliberal paradigm / corporate-work culture in America, sacrificing the workers (teachers / staff) while top administrator pay increases (click here to view college president salaries)?  

On March 15, 2014 the Portland Press Herald reported that: "The University of Southern Maine should cut four majors and lay off as many as 50 faculty and staff to help close a $14 million budget gap in 2014-15, USM President Theodora Kalikow said Friday...On Friday, Kalikow proposed eliminating the American and New England Studies, Geosciences and Recreation and Leisure Studies majors at the Portland and Gorham campuses, and the Arts and Humanities major at the Lewiston-Auburn College, which is part of USM." here

In commenting on USM's cuts, Paul Krugman suggested that the university "seems eager to downsize liberal arts and social sciences for reasons that go beyond money." here

Bob Caswell, a university spokesman, said that while the bulk of the recent layoffs are in the liberal arts college, the administration believes arts and humanities are still at the core of any education.

"I understand where the faculty are coming from," he said, "but in terms of claims we are trying to gut the arts and humanities -- I know it feels that way -- but it just isn't the case." here

However, Susan Feiner, economics professor at USM, says that administrators' claims that they were forced to hand out mass layoffs are suspect. The University of Maine system received an AA- bond rating from Standard & Poor, which she describes as the "the fourth highest rating possible," in an article in The Portland Press Herald.  Furthermore, over the past six years, the University of Maine system has increased unrestricted net assets by $100 million, and in 2013 the total reserves of the system reached $283 million, Feiner points out." here

During the past few days "students, faculty, and staff protested by taking over part of a university building last Friday. A few days—and sit-ins and walk-outs—later, their continued mobilization against the "national corporate war on public education" appears to be resonating with students and university workers across the country...Over 100 students and faculty responded Friday by staging an occupation of the law building that houses the Provost's office—lining the hallway that faculty were forced to walk through to receive their layoff letters." here and here

"Meanwhile, faculty firings have taken place across the seven universities in the Maine system, with 520 faculty and staff positions cut since 2007 and plans to lay-off 165 faculty and staff this year, according to Inside Higher Ed."1 here

If the situation at USM isn't just an issue limited to Maine, then perhaps it's time that we had a national discussion about the purpose of higher education along with an international debate about merits/dangers of neoliberalism.

NASA funded study: Industrial Civilization Headed for Irreversible Collapse

Does anyone actually believe that we are educating today's children and young adults for the world that they will inherit?

A number of studies "have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years." here

KPMG Study: "By 2030, significant changes in global production and consumption, along with the cumulative effects of climate change, are expected to create further stress on already limited global resources. Stress on the supply of these resources directly impacts the ability of governments to deliver on their core policy pillars of economic prosperity, security, social cohesion and environmental sustainability."

The UK Government Office of Science warns that:

It is predicted that by 2030 the world will need to produce 50 per cent more food and energy, together with 30 per cent more available fresh water, whilst mitigating and adapting to climate change. This threatens to create a ‘perfect storm’ of global events.

The Guardian reports that:

"A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution." 

2050 WORLD FOOD INSECURITY

"The world’s population is expected to hit 9 billion people by 2050, which, coupled with the higher caloric intake of increasingly wealthy people, is likely to drastically increase food demand over the coming decades."  UN Warns World Must Produce 60% More Food by 2050 to Avoid Mass Unrest

See UN Report here

2050 Framework is dedicated to re-conceptualizing education based on the realities that youth will face by mid-century.

The Future of Adjunct Teaching

Lawrence S. Wittner, in his article "Inequality on Campus," informs us that:

Some of the nation’s poorest people work at higher educational institutions, and many of them are members of the faculty...These underpaid educators are adjunct faculty, who now comprise an estimated 74 percent of America’s college teachers. Despite advanced degrees, scholarly research experience, and teaching credentials, they are employed at an average of $2,700 per course. Even when they manage to cobble together enough courses to constitute a full-time teaching load, that usually adds up to roughly $20,000 per year -- an income that leaves many of them and their families officially classified as living in poverty. Some apply for and receive food stamps. 

The problem with working as an adjunct is not only the low remuneration.  Adjunct instructors are usually dehumanized (e.g. photos not included on departmental websites), disrespected by full-time faculty (e.g. given a syllabus and textbooks to use, or invited to workshops where "adjuncts can be good teachers too" themes abound), and subjected to a campus culture where they have absolutely no voice and are often seen as a cost saving embarrassment.

What can be done? First, it's imperative that full-time faculty recognize adjunct instructors as stakeholders and include them in departmental decisions concerning course offerings. Secondly, campuses should recognize excellent instruction among adjuncts in the same way that excellence is recognized among full-time faculty. Third, perhaps it's time that universities pry open the coffers and ensure that adjunct instructors do not end up living a life of poverty. How can this be done, other than paying a higher per class fee?

Adjunct instructors could be encouraged to apply for program coordinator and director positions, running programs that link students to internship opportunities, etc. They could work closely with the grants office to pursue and manage foundation, State and Federal grant funded programs. They could lead the institution's efforts to broaden its outreach beyond its immediate campus borders (e.g. organizing and taking students into impoverished inner city school to provide remedial tutoring, big brother/big sister activities, SAT test prep, etc.).

It should be remembered that not all adjuncts are lifers who were passed by and unable to secure full-time positions, as the prejudice often goes. Many young faculty on the to "promising" careers start out as adjuncts; and many individuals work as professionals in other fields, bringing real-world knowledge,  skills and connections that full-time faculty simply don't have. But even those who are full-time adjuncts, working at several institutions at a time, could serve an interesting purpose. As they come to know the inner workings of different institutions and departments, they could serve the purpose of "cross-pollinators," carrying knowledge of best practices from one institution to another, if only they were valued.

Finally, with MOOCs set to put adjuncts out of business, it's time that the academy rethink its use of individuals who have gone through the pipeline from Freshman to terminal degree, lest that pipeline itself become imperiled.

   

William James, Herbert Spencer and the Dilemma of Peeing Dogs

Brussels, Belgium

Newport Beach, California

William James once wrote, regarding Herbert Spencer's theory that the human brain is like clay, and that it is impressed and absorbs the influences around it, that: 

"a race of dogs bred for generations, say in the Vatican, would have characters of visual shape, sculptured in marble, presented to their eyes, in every variety of form and combination," and the result of generations of dogs bred and raised in an environment rich in art, would make them "dissociate and discriminate before long the finest shades of these particular characters. In a word, they would infallibly become, if time were given, accomplished connoisseurs of sculpture."

But James argues, based on his own observations of his dog, that this probably won't happen. Instead, our Vatican bred dogs would remain interested - connoisseurs - of who peed on which statue.

Perhaps as educators we can sympathize with those, hypothetical trainers in the Vatican who have spent their lives hoping their dogs would come to appreciate the fine art around them, only to watch them raise their legs or run exuberantly to the next statue to check out who among them had left their mark. This is not to say that we all haven't observed several students have an "ah ha!" moment. And most educators will tell you that that moment is what they wait for as teachers.

But let's take up the problem and turn it towards pedagogy. If Spencer is right, then simply dropping students in an environment rich in culture, art, history, etc. should form the mind. But James tells us that there is fundamentally something more that is going on here. For James it is an underlying "interest" of the mind towards its object, not the object, that fosters the connoisseur. So, how do we inspire that "interest" in our students? And what stands behind the interest? Where does the interest come from? For James "mind" involves the relation of the "inner" to the "outer. Mind "contains all sort of laws - those of infancy, of wit, of taste, decorum, beauty, morals and so forth, as well as perception of fact."

I think we need to move away from a simple behaviorist model that we can change "mind" by rigging the learning environment in a certain fashion. Instead, a holistic education, that incorporates aesthetic judgments, and asks students to grapple with moral issues (historical as well as contemporary), and to contemplate metaphysics (the meaning of life and our place in the universe), and an education system that extends outwards into the community and incorporates parents, neighborhoods, etc. is the only chance we have to foster an "ah ha" moment for our students and help some to "lower the leg."  

   

Obama, Teaching Art History and Monuments Men

Monuments Man George Stout (second from right) and others remove Michelangelo's Madonna and Child from the salt mine in Altaussee, Austria on July 10, 1945 [here]

If you have seen the film, then you may have had the same experience I did. The film was framed by Frank Stokes, played by George Clooney, trying to explain the importance of saving art to Harry Truman and a couple other Senior White House folks. Truman struggles with the idea that art is worth risking someone's life to save. For him, it has no "real" tangible value. Now, this is the man who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan. He's definitely not squeamish when it comes to sacrificing life for some purpose. The problem is that he can't wrap his mind around any value art might have.

Recently Obama followed in Truman's missteps when -

"At an event at a GE plant in Wisconsin Thursday, President Obama reiterated his support for the manufacturing industry, saying that Americans could probably make more in that line of work “than they might than [with] an art history degree."   [here]  [see Obama's apology here]

I am of the opinion that art should be appreciated for art's sake. But art also has social currency. Art is a means to opposing oppression [see the Smithsonian's exhibit on art and the Civil Right's Movement here - or South African resistance to Apartheid here and here - or Iraqi artists' responses to war here]. Artists are at the front lines of taking on dictators and drawing attention to inequalities. The Taliban's attack on the ancient Buddhas of Bumiyan [here] speaks to the continuing importance of art in the geo-political realm. Street artist around the world [Peru] [Egypt] [Palestine] show us that art is part of our common human need to challenge the world we find ourselves in. As educators, this is exactly what we should encourage our students to do.

Alas, given our nation's turn away from the arts and humanities and towards STEM, one can only wonder if the next generation will find even less value in art than the current one. Would anyone step up to save a work of art from destruction or to defend an artists' performative right as a human right? Will anyone take to the streets, paint in hand, to confront the oppressor? And will they have the tools to understand, or even care, what artists around the world are expressing?

Public School Failure and the Poverty Connection

"If you're a child born into a poor household, you're more likely to exhibit psychological symptoms than if you were born to a non-poor household - symptoms that are a direct result of being born poor.

Thought it would be interesting to juxtapose two articles:

This is Your Brain on Poverty: What Science Tells Us About Poverty and The Myth Behind Public School Failure

The latter article provides a a nice summary of the strategy to place the blame for "failing" schools on public education and offer privatization as the heavenly manna. Nice quote from Chris Hedges:

The federal government spends some $600 billion a year on education—“and the corporations want it. That’s what’s happening."

This is Your Brain on Poverty speaks to the research behind understanding the effects of poverty on brain development. In the article two researchers posit the bandwidth metaphor as a way of understanding the effects of poverty.

The human brain has a finite amount of bandwidth. If one is forced to spend that worrying about poverty, it will necessarily have less capacity to spend on other tasks. 

Now - let's take a look at a third article by William Galston,* entitled "Is there a Crises?" Galston puts forward that there are actually two public school systems in America, one is suburban and relatively well-funded and the other is urban/rural, and relatively underfunded. Galston reaches an interesting conclusion:

When anyone speaks of the distinction between the suburbs and the cities in America, and the distinction between suburban school districts and urban school districts, one is speaking to a significant extent about race and ethnicity and class. If we do not close the gap between the two systems of public education in America, the system that could and should be better, but which is not failing its students, on the one hand, and the system that is failing its students on the other, then we will be condemning our society to the perpetuation of the distinctions and the inequalities across lines of race, ethnicity, and class that we've been struggling to overcome in recent generations.

My conclusion: If we are serious about providing equitable opportunities for all youth in the public sphere (this is not to say that people of wealth can't go to private schools, only that the public sphere should be equitable) then we need to:
* Provide all schools with the same resources
* Tackle poverty in America as a starting point through (a) raising the minimum wage to a living wage; (b) ensuring that all people have affordable health care; (c) providing free childcare to all working parents; (d) providing job training opportunities and expanding subsidized apprenticeships and adult education.


* Professor and director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs

See Also

 "Historic Use of the Term Failing School"

"Is American Culture to Blame for Failing Schools"

The School to Prison Pipeline

Zero tolerance? School to prison pipeline? The threat, and fear, of youth violence? 

The White House finally stepped in. In Rethinking School Discipline, Dept. of Education puts forward:

"Racial discrimination in school discipline is a real problem today, and not just an issue from 40 to 50 years ago....Our Guiding Principles document highlights the need for locally-developed approaches to promote positive school climates and equitable discipline practices. Yet at the same time, we think those locally-tailored approaches should be grounded in research and promising practices--instead of being based on indiscriminate zero tolerance policies, or, at the other extreme, ad-hoc approaches to discipline...

Schools should remove students from the classroom as a last resort, and only for appropriately serious infractions, like endangering the safety of other students, teachers, or themselves.

Unfortunately today, suspensions and expulsions are not primarily used as a last resort for serious infractions.

In recent years, secondary schools have suspended or expelled an estimated two million students a year. That is a staggering amount of lost learning time--and lost opportunity to provide support.

Making matters worse, exclusionary discipline is applied disproportionately to children of color and students with disabilities."

Let's explore the situation a little further. Chris McGreal of the UK Guardian recently described the situation as follows:

  "Each day, hundreds of schoolchildren appear before courts in Texas charged with offences such as swearing, misbehaving on the school bus or getting in to a punch-up in the playground. Children have been arrested for possessing cigarettes, wearing "inappropriate" clothes and being late for school." The US Schools with their own Police

Is punishment, or law enforcement, the answer? Let's play a thought game. Let us say that if stricter punishment is the answer, than more punishment should have better results. Here's a list of what schools could consider:

• Shackling all misbehaving students
• Hard labor (breaking rocks) in the school yard
• Flogging
• Waterboarding

If incarceration and corporal punishment isn't the answer, than perhaps society could turn to psychiatry and try designer behavior modification therapies, such as:

• "Prescription" drugs such as Ritlin
• Electroshock therapy
• Brain surgery of the  hypothalamus.

If these approaches don't seem promising, than perhaps we need to think rethink school discipline.  Henry Giroux points out:

The United States is one of the few countries in the world that puts children in supermax prisons, tries them as adults, incarcerates them for exceptionally long periods of time, defines them as super predators, pepper sprays them for engaging in peaceful protests and in an echo of the discourse of the war on terror describes them as "teenage time bombs."(21) Young people have become the enemy of choice, elevated to the status as an all-pervasive threat to dominant authority. Instead of nurturing such children, we now taser them, sequester them to dangerous prisons and demonize them in order to divert our attention from real social problems, while at the same time engaging a public purification through the ritual of imposing harsh disciplinary practices on them.The Suicidal State and the War on Youth

And in his paper entitled War on Youth, Henry Giroux argues:

As is evident in the recent killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, poor minority youth are not just excluded from "the American dream," but have become utterly redundant and disposable, waste products of a society that no longer considers them of any value. Such youth, already facing forms of racial and class-based exclusion, now experience a kind of social death as they are pushed out of schools, denied job-training opportunities, subjected to rigorous modes of surveillance and criminal sanctions and viewed less as chronically disadvantaged than as flawed consumers and civic felons. Some such as Trayvon Martin and Rekia Boyd experience something more ominous - death by homicide.No longer tracked into either high- or low-achievement classes, many of these youth are now pushed right out of school into the juvenile criminal justice system.(18)Under such circumstances, matters of survival and disposability become central to how we think about and imagine not just politics, but the everyday existence of poor white, immigrant and minority youth. Too many young people are not completing high school, but are, instead, bearing the brunt of a system that leaves them uneducated and jobless and, ultimately, offers them one of the few options available for people who no longer have available roles to play as producers or consumers - either poverty or prison. When the material foundations of agency and security disappear, hope becomes hopeless and young people are reduced to the status of waste products to be tossed out or hidden away in the global human waste industry.  The Suicidal State and the War on Youth

So, where do we stand? How do we address the school to prison pipeline? I would argue that the White House's position is rather naive. The school to prison pipeline can't just be turned off by recommending that kids go to the principal's office. Instead, we need to deconstruct the entire structure. We need to think about both the aesthetics of the school to prison pipeline (the prison like conditions in schools, e.g., windowless classrooms, no time for play, regimentation, and the actual treatment of some students as prison track and others as college bound) as well as the new private prison industry that has grown into a lobbying machine, pushing society into ever harsher punishments in order to profit from incarceration. 

For more on this topic:

Robin Young of Here and Now
Obama Administration Discourages "Zero-Tolerance" School Policy

Teaching STEM with a view towards Social Justice

The growing obsession with STEM has pushed the arts and humanities out of the room. But are we only teaching STEM to prepare kids for the workplace? And if so, and STEM is now the dominant focus, then what does this say about education? What about the bigger picture, the need to prepare kids to take responsibility for self, and work with others to form a better, more just, society?

Perhaps it's time we picked up another lens by which to view STEM. Perhaps we should teach STEM subjects from the point of view of social justice? For example, a recent research shows that Latinos and Blacks living in poverty are more exposed to household carcinogens than individuals not living in poverty (read more).  We know that children in the inner cities are exposed to higher amounts of lead (here), and that this likely has an effect on brain development (here), and perhaps even increases in violent behavior (here).

So,  what does this mean for the classroom? I'd suggest having civics teachers and scientists co-teach. Let's have kids investigate their home and neighborhood environments. Let's have them discover what they're exposed to. Let's use STEM to energize youth to stand up against the greed and idiocy that has been destroying lives for decades.

See also:

Neuroscience for Kids - here
Public Health and Social Justice - here

The School - PTSD - Violence Connection

A growing body of research shows that Americans with traumatic injuries develop PTSD at rates comparable to veterans of war. Just like veterans, civilians can suffer flashbacks, nightmares, paranoia, and social withdrawal.**

When we think of schools that are "failing" or "succeeding" society often places the blame on teachers and administrators. However, our national discourse around the topic needs to factor in the neighborhoods in which schools are located. Many children are immigrants and arrive from war torn regions.* Other children are exposed to the daily violence that takes place in America.**

* Report from Child Soldiers International - here

** The PTSD Crises that's Being Ignored - "Researchers in Atlanta interviewed more than 8,000 inner-city residents and found that about two-thirds said they had been violently attacked and that half knew someone who had been murdered. At least 1 in 3 of those interviewed experienced symptoms consistent with PTSD at some point in their lives..." Read more

The Push to Make College more Equitable

“Unfortunately, today only 30 percent of low-income students enroll in college right after high school and, far worse, by their mid-20s only 9 percent earn a bachelor’s degree … There is this huge cohort of talent that we’re not tapping.” 
Recently the White House is attempting to increase access to upper-level education for lower-income students - (read the White House's report here). Universities and foundations responded with commitments to open academia's ivory gates (here). 
The problem is that a nice soft cozy chat by the president and a cheerful response from the sector does little to address the issue. Universities and colleges are places of class segregation in America, just as public schools begin segregating children at an early age. The solution isn't more ice cream floats and milk shakes. Instead, how about - 

• near free university and college for all students (as in Germany)
• guaranteed grants to students to pay for college (rather than loans and debt)

We could ask (non-GI) students to pay for their tertiary education by committing up to two years of public service. This would mean a beefed up Americorp or Peace corp. And no one could buy their way out of the public service. Public service could include working in inner cities, building infrastructure, serving in K-12 "poor performing" schools, etc.  

STEM and the Sacred

"Sacred plum trees from Dazaifu Tenmangu, a shrine in Fukuoka Prefecture that honors the god of learning, will be donated to a high school in the city of Fukushima in an initiative to boost the morale of students who have struggled through the March 2011 disasters." here

This is remarkable and touching story. Could a gift of trees boost the morale of American (read non-Native) students? Although several species of trees are protected, such as Redwoods, they are hardly sacred. American culture simply struggles to view trees, earth and river as having any intrinsic value.

Perhaps our pedagogical system needs a turn towards the sacred? Instead of an instrumental purpose, where Americans are taught to look at a tree or river simply in terms of what one can do with it, we could, instead, focus on life's inherent sacredness. This would mean a shift in the new emphasis on STEM. Instead of preparing legions for corporations, we would prepare students to live in a new world. Science would be taught with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of all life and inherent value and wonder of all species (emphasis biodiversity, biocentrism);  Technology would focus on youth learning to find solutions to today's global ecological, food security and energy problems; Engineering would focus on green technologies; and Math would focus on learning a language in which we can discuss the underlying mystery and unity of the cosmos. This new approach to STEM would be anchored in assisting youth to appreciate the sacredness of the universe we inhabit and how to assume the role of earth friendly stewards.    

The New Interest in Vocational Education

There seems to be a new and growing interest in vocational education founded on STEM. This is certainly understandable, given the fact that so many of today's college graduates are unable to find jobs. Couple that with the media's feature articles popping up on  Yahoo and elsewhere informing us that there are jobs that pay well but don't require a degree and one can understand the resurgence (here). 

In the past, vocational education (read "shop and cooking classes") were places where schools dumped minorities, English learners, students with behavior (or attitude) problems, and those with disabilities (here). At some point society became aware that this practice was a civil rights issue. Then vocational education went out of fashion.

According to Cohen and Besharov (2002) "vocational education lost popularity in the United States due to an increased emphasis on academic skills and a belief in college for all, coupled with a perception that vocational education was becoming an educational backwater for the disadvantaged." Here 

The problem, though, with stove piping youth towards vocational education is the quality of the vocational education may not serve youth's future interests. Are they being prepared for one particular job? Or will they have the skills to adapt to a changing workplace? And what about issues such as citizenship, the search for the meaning of life, learning to examine life, and developing a refined taste in order to enjoy a lifetime of learning in the areas of the arts? Or the development of emotional intelligence, social skills, leadership, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, ethical reflection, and creative thinking? Isn't there a danger that the arts and humanities will become limited to the upper classes who can afford to "indulge" in them at places such as Harvard and Yale while the lower classes focus on plumbing and carpentry?

But let us back up a moment and look at the changing workforce. In the last few years the field of architecture and drafting went from being a sought after career to one of high unemployment. In the future, though, it will no doubt experience a resurgence through 3-D printing. Imagine an item, perhaps an antique, that you cannot buy. But you could go to a draftsman and have it drawn, and then go to the local hardware store where the drawings would be fed into a 3-D printer and made. If this transpires, droves of youth, infatuated with 3-D printing, will no doubt enroll in drafting and architecture classes. Now imagine a little further down the line. Someone invents a digital camera that photographs the item and produces a ready 3-D image that can be electronically sent to the printer. The result - lots of folks out of work.

Instead of looking at preparing individuals for one particular career, vocational education programs must incorporate other disciplinary approaches, including the humanities, to educating youth. Isn't it time we explored the connections between career, business, science, social science, the arts, and humanities (here)?

Using the Film "Elysium" in Education

The film Elysium, created by Neill Blomkamp, "takes place on both a ravaged Earth and a luxurious space habitat called Elysium. It explores political and sociological themes such as immigration, overpopulation, transhumanism, health care, exploitation, and class issues." (*)

"Elysium or the Elysian Fields (Ancient Greek: Ἠλύσιον πεδίον, Ēlýsion pedíon) is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was initially reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life." (*)

As educators, how can we use this film to explore the aforementioned issues?  Questions for discussion, research and reports might include:


* The film portrays two very different existences. Has the film made us more aware of the differences in existence between suburban gated communities and life in low-income inner city neighborhoods?


* The film portrays barren landscapes on earth, devoid of water while those on Elysium enjoy lush gardens and swimming pools. In the near future, much of the earth will experience desertification. Millions will be on the move to escape droughts. How does the film explore tensions between these two realities? What obligation, if any, do wealthier countries with water have towards areas that are experiencing drought and poverty?


* Is health care a human right? Should those with means have better health care than those without? How is this portrayed in the film?


* What rights and protections should workers have? How is this portrayed in the film?


Join the discussion at Wiser.org here

Bilingualism

"If you want to learn another language and become fluent, you may have to change the way you behave in small but sometimes significant ways, specifically how you sort things into categories and what you notice."

New research by Aneta Pavlenko examines the affects of bilingualism on us. Learn more at NPR here

Let's discuss:

How does learning another language, or growing-up bilingual, change who you are? Do we see the world differently through another language? Can we gain new perspectives? How important is it to speak more than one language in the 21st century? What about by 2050? Join the discussion at Wiser here.