A different kind of post

I have just completed my application to the Cambridge PKP supervision course. In the course, a students works directly with a Cambridge professor on a topic of their choice; as a result, students must first submit an application enabling Cambridge to match students with appropriate tutors.

Since I suspect that someone I will soon go on a date with may read this blog post, I sought something that would introduce me to them in a positive way. I believe that this application describes me intimately: for their sake, and for yours, I post it here.

Briefly describe your proposal. 250 words.

Through interaction with a Cambridge tutor, a personal ontological perspective will be developed, codified and refined during the first two weeks of instruction. Ideally, discussion will focus on the works of Georg Simmel, Emmanuel Levinas, and Soren Kierkegaard; however, it is expected that the tutor will include their own ontological perspectives as elements of the discussion.

During the following three weeks of instruction, the student’s ontological perspective will be developed into an educational model and described in written form. In this process, a range of pedagogical practices and theories will be evaluated and selectively incorporated into the educational model, based on the degree of fit between the pedagogical practices and the ontological perspective. Where available, empirical data on pedagogical
practices will be reviewed and incorporated into the pedagogical-method evaluation process

In the final three weeks of instruction, a general model for translating ontological and phenomenological perspectives into educational systems will be developed. Specifically, a series of questions will be formulated; the pattern of questions, and their corresponding answers, will serve as a guide for developing multiple systems of education based on varied ontological foundations.

The written products of all three stages of instruction will be gathered into a paper describing a model for the development of ontologically appropriate systems of education. To guide the supervision, a tutor with expertise in educational philosophy and/or sociological theory would be preferred; however, any tutor or number of tutors comfortable with the process described would be able to provide the desired assistance.

Why do you want to pursue this independent study option and what benefit do you hope to gain from it? 250 words.

I will eventually pursue a career in education reform; specifically, I believe that the philosophical foundations of the American system of public education do violence to the moral and active nature of individuals. As a result, I wish to explore and develop educational philosophies upon which to base more acceptable systems of instruction. To develop my own educational philosophy, I intend to first explore and develop my own ontological perspective.

The independent study option attracted my attention because it provides focused opportunities to develop my ontological perspective and educational philosophy. I hope that the supervision will provide an environment which will intensely refine my ideas by testing them against the expertise and knowledge of the tutor and selected texts. This process will thereby improve the efficacy and internal consistency of the school system I eventually develop. I recognize that many other individuals do not share my ontological perspective. Thus, I hope to also develop a generally applicable model or starting point for individuals wishing to establish philosophically and culturally appropriate systems of education. After identifying my own ideas and realizing them in a school system, I wish to provide others with the same opportunity. I anticipate that assisting religious, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups in forming appropriate systems of education will form a significant portion of my future career.

Thus, I am attracted to the supervision option in order to directly pursue the intellectual and practical preparation I desire for my future work in educational reform.

Briefly describe any relevant work you have already done in the area.

In the past year, I have taken two courses on classical and contemporary sociological theory. Each course was designed to familiarize students with the general ontological perspectives of well- known theorists; the theoretical survey began with Plato and Socrates and concluded with the works of Michel Foucalt, Judith Butler, and Jurgen Habermas. Another course taken simultaneously examined the life and philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. Previously, I completed a philosophically-grounded tutorial on the sociology of international development which provided additional insight into various systems of thought. I am currently taking a course in organizational theory; my research in the course applies organizational theory to educational institutions.

During the sociology of international development course, I discovered that my ontological perspective was insufficient to account for my analysis of the theories I was studying. As a result, I began to explicitly formulate my own ontological perspective through writing. As I have explored additional philosophical and theoretical positions, I have continued to refine my ontological position.

In education, I have studied the sociology of education in four courses, including a course providing an overview of the subject, a course on the production and reproduction of social inequality through education, a tutorial on the limitations of schools as agents of social change, and a research course examining the impact of religious institutions on educational outcomes. Following the research course, I conducted a qualitative field study in South Africa on the educational consequences for students of varying degrees of religious involvement. After returning to the United States, I conducted a similar study using quantitative data and presented the findings at the 2011 Pacific Sociological Association Conference. I am currently preparing a paper detailing the findings for publication.

I am currently co-authoring a study describing the distribution and evaluating the effects of various expressions of educational philosophy in e-learning systems in Utah; the study is slated to conclude in December of this year.

Please list below any books or other sources which may be relevant to the topic.

Totality and Being – Emmanuel Levinas
Otherwise than Being – Emannuel Levinas
Twilight of the Idols – Friedrich Nietzche
Archaeology of Knowledge – Michel Foucalt
Being and Nothingness – Jean Paul Sartre
Truth and Existence – Jean Paul Sartre
Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Freire
How We Think - John Dewey
De Magistro – Saint Augustine
The Philosophy of Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas – Mary Helen Mayer
From Childhood to Adolescence – Maria Montessori
Various books of Christian scripture
Various commentaries and explanations on non-Christian scripture

As an added bonus for those of you who scrolled down:

A brief post

I apologize for the lack of posts recently; perhaps I will have more time in the near future. Indeed, I know I will: this is going to again become my travel blog in a series of weeks.

I prepared a photoessay today; I believe I may post highlights of it here. Also, my first short story is nearing completion, and will be submitted for (hopefully!) publication in the next few weeks. I will update concerning the project as time goes on.

Until then, adieu; good luck and long life to my Swedish friends, and to all of you as well.

A quick dip

As all of you who follow this blog have noticed, the vast majority of my posts tend to be long. While in Africa, the posts averaged about three pages (if I remember correctly) - other posts before and since have been even longer.

I am about to start a project combining three essays I've written over the course of the semester using the fourth one as a frame. The end result should be thirty pages or more. I admit I am a little apprehensive about this undertaking; this will be, by far, the longest piece I've ever had to write. Ten pages, on a relatively dry academic or philosophical subject, don't frighten me; thirty pages explaining my worldview to an audience is a little more intimidating.

Exciting, too, though: this is what I want to do. It's part of the journey I want to take. It's practice for the kind of creative non-fiction and creative fiction I eventually hope to produce. Maybe I'll post it in installments here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Go eat corned beef and wear Orange!

Or green. I simply forgot green last year, but was wearing orange, and so decided to support the Protestants in Northern Ireland. Either way, both parts of the island are supposed to be wonderful.
BTW: I'll be visiting there for the first time soon, and I have no idea what I should do. I may just go and explore. If any of you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

From my personal essay writing class, I was informed that one purpose of writing is for meditation: write to work through what you are otherwise unable to work through. Inexpensive self-therapy. Following that noble tradition, I begin to blog today. Why share such a meditation with the world at large? I'm not JUST meditating; I'm also trying to improve my descriptive and narrative ability. Since I am going to be writing a lot in a very short period of time in the very near future, practice now will help me to develop the ability to write quickly and well. I hope. Please post comments and critiques.

Alice in Wonderland meets the Cheshire Cat: in an oft-quoted-in-Mormon-circles exchange, Alice asks which way to go. Rather than butchering the quote, I will simply transcribe it here:

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect. “Cheshire-Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—,” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “
What sort of people live about here?” “In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Sadly, the end of the quote is often left off. Please excuse the second portion: not that I consider myself insane, but it is a bit nice to remember that we're all in this together.

Anyway, I feel this is often the way God works with us. Again, not that God is insane, but that He answers the questions we put to Him in order to help us grow. He is a little more loving than the cat (i.e. infinitely) but His responses are very often conditioned on our questions. Take now, for example: if you don't know which way you want to go, it is harder for you to get there, and you have to keep moving to get anywhere, so as long as you keep walking, you go somewhere, and God changes the path around your feet. Imagine Alice in Wonderland as a gameboy game, where the character always stays in the center of the screen, and everything else changes around him. THERE's a lesson ins subjectivity.

Anyway, I'm off to a scholarship meeting. I feel meditated. So much for practicing narrative and descriptive ability. Hope you enjoyed it too.