Today I am excited to welcome Dr. Susan Blum to the show. Susan is a professor of anthropology at Notre Dame University and the author of one of my favorite reads of the last couple of years, a book titled “I Love to Learn; I Hate School: An Anthropology of College.” And, she’s also the author of the blog “Learning vs. Schooling” which should give you another indication of why her work intrigues me, so I’m really looking forward to this conversation.
Some of the more challenging topics we discuss are:
- Why schooling as we know it prevents learning
- Why she sees that as “a crisis preceding a radical transformation” in education
- Why we should get rid of grades
- And why we should aim to make college strange instead of familiar to students
Show Notes:
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
Hacking Assessment by Starr Sackstein
The End of College by Kevin Carey
Thank you for sharing your vision, your insights and others` about what learning really is.
I love to listen to these podcasts. They help me to remain in a state of hope and feel as like-minded friends.
It´s so sad, so sad how the situation of education is so bad and painful around the world, because it is indeed a worldwide outlook.
We are killing the true spirit of teaching and learning but what is worse is that we, the teachers, allow this because we, too, do not look at this wonderful art as a cooperative profession but as a competition. We are not united at least in my country. We do not stand for our rights. We debate, we argue but we do not stand together and stop this madness.
That´s why we are depressed, burn out and fed up. I am. But I am alone.
Podcasts like these help me and I am grateful for that.
Namaste