I found many of the arguments in the article, “Education as Life Itself: Freedom, Integration, and Beyond” convincing.  But, I found myself wondering if the idea that “education is not preparation for life; education is life itself” is entirely realistic.  As Brie has mentioned before, scholastic testing poses a threat to emergent teaching.  Somewhat along the same lines, I was thinking about the concept of a curriculum in schools.  Teachers and professors are required to teach certain things in a given year or course, and A must be taught before B.  The idea behind a set curriculum is that students will learn a certain set of facts so that they can excel on standardized tests and then move on to the next level.  I certainly support

Jeff Oristaglio is a neuroscientist at Drexel University with whom I share an interest in better understanding the brain and its relation to human experience generally.  The continuing conversation here is excerpted from an ongoing email exchange between Jeff and me, and made available to encourage further thinking about possible future directions for productive research on the neurobiology of depression.  Others interested are invited to add their thoughts in the on-line forum below. 

PG - 11 June 2009

Meeting announcement: "To think more about what depression is."

Jeff - 11 June 2009

Works by Emily Lovejoy

I thought that the draft of the article "Education as Life Itself," co-written by Paul Grobstein and Alice Lesnick, was a surprisingly easy read for such a dense--and what seems to me to virtually have endless facets of view--concept.  I really enjoyed reading the concepts presented in the paper: they were clear and thorough.  They do stress the importance of biology in one section, and there I found myself wanting more information regarding scientific evidence encouraging this movement of education as life itself.  I would've loved to read a few more concrete, biological examples in order to expand my viewpoint on the subject.

There was recently an article published in BBC News about the controversy over using Ritalin to increase brain functioning.  A bioethics professor comments on how he feels that the drug should be available to any "healthy" individual.  Comments?

The article is copied below (from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8106957.stm)

Ritalin backed as brain-booster

The Ability to Create

The Importance of Website Creation in Emergent Education

In emergent education, it is often helpful to use websites as a means of distributing information from teacher to student and from student to teacher. Below are two articles and subsequent discussion questions analyzing the benefits and consequences, as well as other questions, stemming from the ability to create websites.

Education as Life Itself: Freedom, Integration and Beyond

Paul Grobstein, Alice Lesnick

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This paper is still in draft form; these are my critiques.  I find it easier to separate the paper into sections and critique by section, then offer a broad critique.

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1. Introduction