Week 11:  Prisoners & Poor People:  Useless Education in  A Lesson Before Dying  & To Sir With Love and the excerpt from The Autobiography of Malcolm X

1)  Using specific textual examples from both Gaines and Malcolm X’s texts, answer the question:  What do these texts suggest about the relationship between writing, freedom, and manhood?

2)  In all three of the texts, but perhaps most explicitly in A Lesson Before Dying  and in To Sir With Love (where there are actual “teachers”) there is a sense that the teacher’s job is useless.  There’s no particular knowledge set, degree, or clear material gain from these lessons (they won’t necessarily change the fate).  Using specific quotes from all three texts, what then might be the purpose of education if not degree, material gain, or to change outcome of one’s life?

Week 9:  Black Shack Alley

1) Using specific examples from the text, answer the following question: in what ways does Jose’s description of his experience with school and education contradict or challenge Rousseau’s ideas on education?

2)  Much of our readings have emphasized the notion of the singular and independent subject–of an education that centers on and is all about  making an individual man.  While Zobel’s autobiographical depiction of his childhood education certainly centers around a singular protagonist (i.e. the first person narrative of young Jose), it also navigates through a cast of many other compelling characters. Using specific passages from the text answer the following question: what is the relationship between the individual and the community in Zobel’s rendering of education?

Week  8: Ben Franklin and Tom Sawyer

1) Think about the following terms:  Method, Habit, Temperance, Order, Moral, and Perfection.   Pick two of the these terms.  Compare and contrast how these terms are used in the selections from Ben Franklin and Mark Twain that we read for this week.  Posit a claim about what these two popular texts (The Autobiography of Ben Franklin and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer)  together say about American ideas of education and/or schooling.

2) At the end of the chapter, Franklin asserts “I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, makes the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.”

This idea is quite different from Descartes to establish is Method as the fable of one man, which may or may not be useful to others.  How is the differences  between Franklin and Descartes here reflected in the differences in their theories and the way they relay their theories?

 

Week 7:  Frederick Douglass and Kant

1.  In both The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass narrates similar aspects of his life in slavery.  Yet the former text published 1845 in and the latter published in 1855 narrate the same events very differently.  Pick one instance that both narrations discuss, compare and contrast the way Douglass relates this moment in the two different text  Based on this compare and contrast, what do you think is the effect of the changes from the first narrative? Why might Douglass make these particular changes to the way he tells his story?
2. In what ways do Douglass’s narratives challenge  the ideas put forth in the 1784 essay “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” by Immanuel Kant?

Week 6:  “The American Scholar”  by Ralph Waldo Emerson

1. What is (are) the relationship(s) between the book and school for Emerson and how do those relationships compare to the way books and school have been discussed in Descartes, Rousseau, and Locke?
2. Compare and contrast the monstrous in “The American Scholar” and the monstrous in Frankenstein.   What does such a juxtaposition suggest about what early 19th century artist/philosophers thought about 1) what constitutes the monstrous and 2) what constitutes the ideal man or MAN?

Week 5:  No questions … still reading Frankenstein

Week 4: Mary Shelly’s  Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus

1. Using relevant (and correctly cited) quotes both from the the theory text and the novel, explain how Frankenstein illustrates and /or revises aspects of Emile?

2. Compare the strengths and pitfalls of Frankenstein’s education to the strengths and pitfalls of the monster’s education.  Reflecting on these observations, make a claim about what the novel wants to say/do about education.  (Imagine that the narrative is also a theory text along side the writings of Rousseau and Locke; what theory is it putting forth)?

Week  3:   Rousseau & Emile

1) Trace the word and idea of “nature” throughout the excerpts from Emile  you read.  Think about what nature is and how nature works in Rousseau’s writing.  Then answer the question: how does Rousseau’s “book of the nature” (13)  compare to Descartes “book of the world” and Locke’s “experience”?

2)What is the relationship between isolation and individualism in Emile?

 

Week 2: Descartes and Locke  (Tradition,  Thought, Human Understanding, and Self Making)

1) Compare and contrast the relationship between Descartes’s view of what he calls the “book of the world” and Locke’s view of experience.   In particular you might consider how the two philosophers might speak to each other about the notions of “innate ideas”?; “certainty”? “sensible things”? and/or building understanding from scratch?

2) Present a maxim or idea that society generally holds to be true and universal; it should be a maxim so thoroughly ubiquitous that even  (if not especially) an elementary student would know how to articulate it.  Taking on the voice and ideas of either Locke or Descartes, analyze this maxim to its essential components and conclude what is certain and what is not certain about this maxim.

Week 1:  Bach,  Buccaneer Scholar :

1) Why does Bach dismiss the teacher’s comment that his speech was “dangerous”?  Read: the following article about rapper/artist Kanye West [http://www.mtv.com/news/1517484/college-dropout-kanye-tells-high-school-students-not-to-follow-in-his-footsteps/]:  Compare Bach’s response to West’s response.  In particular consider the fact that both are successful dropouts; even though their responses to school seem diametrically opposed, do you see any overlaps?

2) Look up the word “buccaneer” on Wikipedia; read the whole entry and any links that seem compelling to you.   With this understanding of the definition and history of the word “buccaneer,” what do you make of Bach’s idea of a “Buccaneer Scholar”?  What are the benefits of such a formulation?  What are the limits?