tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834674142259414016.post8299778702273676742..comments2023-03-30T22:10:13.435-04:00Comments on Browning Points: VindicationNickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00913025263562071489noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7834674142259414016.post-75074912315855402942011-01-27T09:28:05.629-05:002011-01-27T09:28:05.629-05:00good points here Nick. The decrease in state/feder...good points here Nick. The decrease in state/federal funding could be to blame for the increased commoditization of students...<br /><br />other things that come to mind include the recent NYT study that found that studying for a test is actually more effective than studying material http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html<br /><br />Also-- I liked your comment about returning to trade-school focus and allowing students to "train" instead of just study. Training seems more practical and pragmatic, and the tough recession economy seems to inspire a return to the pragmatic point of view that was once prevalent in certain professions such as journalism . However, the history of journalism education shows that one of the biggest battles was to convince people that journalism wasn't a trade, but a profession, and so the training aspects slowly lost ground to a more well-rounded liberal education, and this theme of "professionalization" is actually one of the biggest hurdles to returning to a more pragmatic educational approach. Keep up the good bloggin dude...and I'll leave you with a nice quote from Mr. Dewey from my thesis about the transformation of the J-School:<br /><br />In November of 1894, while at the newly opened University of Chicago, the great educational reformer John Dewey wrote a letter to his first wife Alice Chipman where he describes all of the essential elements in his philosophy of the school:<br /><br />"There is an image of a school growing up in my mind all the time; a school where some actual & literal constructive activity shall be the centre & source of the whole thing, & from which the work should be always growing out in two directions – one the social bearings of that constructive industry, the other the contact with nature which supplies it with its materials." <br /><br />~BrinkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com