Historical Foundations of Education — fifth meeting Another long class. Three hours, no break. I think that this approach will actually become normal very soon. If it does, I suspect I’ll become somewhat infamous, but infamy has its rewards and I will not feel bad about rigor. As comfortable as the class has always been, I was beginning to feel too comfortable. So I decided to up the ante, so to speak. I was concerned that our reading of history... Read more

My latest essay — The Tyranny of Practice — is available at Contending Modernities. In it I  try to hammer at the insipid, ideological assumption embedded in a saying I hear a lot: “theory into practice.” As you should already be able to tell, I not a big fan. In other news: I may soon have something exciting to share about another writing venture. Stay tuned! Read more

Foundations of Educational Thought — fourth meeting Class began with the prompt for the next writing assignment, along with several remarks about how one might approach this prompt and the ones to follow. The final paper is a descriptive assignment using a long biography or autobiography. The purpose is to try and find the foundations of educational thought within a life, an act of self-disclosure, not only in the literature or in “theory.”  We then moved to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s... Read more

Historical Foundations of Education — fourth meeting I lectured for three hours straight. Sure, there were questions, a comment or four, and I showed two short YouTube clips, but the class was a full three hours, non-stop. Once again, this class keeps exceeding my expectations. Not so much in terms of their own work, which varies in quality thusfar, but of myself and my teaching stamina. Like a good coach: they seem to push me a bit further than I... Read more

This upcoming Sunday, I’ll be returning to Minnesota to play at the Gather4Good community service event in Albertville, MN (at Central Park), sponsored by Catholic United Financial, with Albertville native, Shawn Kolles on drums. We’ll play covers and standards, originals, and childrens music. If you’re nearby, come out for a great, FREE event. You can pre-register here. Read more