[be]ing in a human world is what is important... NOT NOT NOT mindless, vacuous consumption

This info-graphic speaks volumes about how we and others find ourselves in what can largely be called Western Society. It now may appear that the world is waking up with a massive hangover from a debt fueled mad capitalist binge that has damaged the lives of so many and enriched the very few. I am amazed at the parallels that can be drawn with Huxley and to some extent Orwell. They are so stark that Brave New World and 1984 should be on the reading list for all students as a wake up call, a prod to awaken and develop the critical minds of our students. No kids things just don't stay the same! Yes change is violent and frightening! And no violence is not, not an answer to violence... Intellect, Human compassion and a deep understanding of what it means to be a human [be]ing in a human world is what is important... NOT NOT NOT mindless, vacuous consumption.

source: http://visualnews.columnfivemedia.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/orwell-huxley-world.png

Share

Tweet

Android, is it robotic pedagogy or is the pedagogy robotic?

Is this the future face of teaching?

           « The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it. »
            Nietzsche


Perhaps this is a fully physical realization of Drill and Practice. No matter how good the simulation is teaching remains a human practice. Education is for humans by humans as it is at its core a human and social practice. The idea of robotic teachers is the ultimate end game of what is increasingly an irrelevant modernist view of education. Robotics is a tool. Learning how to build, interface and engage with these tools are important but this is a large step away from cybernetic anthropomorphism

 It seems to be a rather consistent obsession of Korean and Japanese robotic engineers that a teacher can be simulated by a robot. Recently I heard professor Hiroshi Ishiguro on the ABC program Night Air, 13 March discuss these ideas and use the term post-human. I'm not a protein based chauvinist anti silicon and hater of robots but... To envision a world that is post human is to have a vision where our 'being' is no longer present. It is all to easy to forget the beauty that humans can create and experience, a beauty that is human not post-human. The rare thing that is birth, life and death and the fact that we are conscious of these processes is part of 'being-in-the-world'

“Dasein exists. Furthermore, Dasein is an entity which in each case I myself am. Mineness belongs to any existent Dasein, and belongs to it as the condition which makes authenticity and inauthenticity possible.” Heidegger

http://bit.ly/gUMpLr

Share

Tweet