script type='text/javascript' src='http://track2.mybloglog.com/js/jsserv.php?mblID=2006083115370773'>

Monday, February 08, 2010

Blogger summarizes Moore's education talk

Writing without Paper offers a synopsis of Thomas Moore’s 6 April 2009 presentation about liberal education at Marlboro College, in the post, "Thomas Moore on liberating education" . Blogger Maureen E. Doallas writes:
"During his talk, Moore articulates his premise that education that does not help us on a human level to plumb our depth and mystery prevents us from fully developing our individuality and creativity and fails to show us how to be "in community" with one another. Like our hospitals, which have become little more than places we take our bodies to be fixed, education, Moore maintains, has bought into the "myth of modernism"; it trains or engineers us to land a job and money, how to compete for power, but yields us no space for developing the deepest parts of ourselves. According to Moore, if we want a liberal education that offers the freedom to think, to study and talk about ideas, to reflect on what's important, we must let go our hold on "modernist mythology" that technology is better than human.

This may all sound very academic and esoteric; it's not, as you'll understand if you take the time to listen to Moore's engaging presentation. Moore argues a good case for putting the soul back in our life and, in particular, for re-visioning education as a means to doing that. We need to educate about the soul, not just stuff information into our brains. Education that fails to teach us about our soul leaves us incomplete human beings, Moore says."
Last month, Barque announced the availability of the presentation video on YouTube, in the entry, "Watch video of Moore talking about education”.

Labels: , ,