Some subscribers to TeamLearning might be interested in a recent post
"Re: Castles in the Sky #2," [Hake (2009)]. The abstract reads:
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ABSTRACT: H.G. Callaway, in his Dewey-L post "Castles in the Sky"
referred to an article reporting that Alan Greenspan had defended his
record as Fed Chairman and stated that "speculative excess" is
inevitable in long periods of prosperity. Callaway then suggested
that "the answer to excessive speculation is empiricism and the
introduction of a more scientific attitude. Surely, the attitude of
the scientific thinker, the orientation to facts, experiment and
attempts at falsification is important in our attempts to control the
excesses of philosophical speculation and the related tendency
toward, let us say, 'castles in the sky'." But philosophers are not
the only ones who build "castles in the sky." The sky castle building
of traditional economists such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence
Summers, who seem to regard the economic system as divorced from the
ecosystem, has been roundly criticized by ecological economists such
as Herman Daly. Mihai Sarbu, in response to Callaway, opined that "
'castles in the sky' could be a timely conversation topic, given the
seriousness of the current environmental challenges and the upcoming
meeting in Copenhagen: how can John Dewey's theory of inquiry be
applied to educating for ecological responsibility?" I think
education in Dewey's inquiry mode plus e.g., Daly & Townsend's
"Valuing The Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics," and Tim Jackson's
"Prosperity without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet" might help.
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What's all this got to do with Team-Based Learning?
A. In my opinion, team-based learning might be relatively effective
in awakening the boatload to oblivion (see the signature quote).
To access the complete 19 kB post please click on
<http://tinyurl.com/yjtasfm>.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands.
<[log in to unmask]>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/>
<http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/>
REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2009. "Re: Castles in the Sky #2," online on the OPEN!
AERA-L archives at <http://tinyurl.com/yjtasfm>. Post of 28 Nov
2009 11:42:22-0800 to AERA-L, Dewey-L, Net-Gold, Phys-L, and
PhysLrnR. The abstract only is being sent to several discussion
lists.
"The global society, and particularly the US, is like a small
boatload of people about to enter a long stretch of white water and
rapids. For the foreseeable future we will be totally preoccupied
with immediate problems and far too distracted to develop and
implement a rational long term plan. Eventually, after climate
change, fossil fuel depletion, and several other manifestations of
the growth limits have produced some new sort of semi stable state,
with a MUCH lower population and material standard of living, our
species will hopefully be able to start identifying, choosing, and
pursuing its longer term options. I do not expect to be alive when
that time comes."
Dennis Meadows, private communication of 17 November 2009 to R.R.
Hake, quoted by
permission.
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