Category: education

• March 19, 2011

  On the difference between falling asleep and taking a nap
• March 17, 2011

  The last career

  Head Banging It seems as though most 20- and 30-somethings I’ve run into in past months–not to mention some of the philosophical counseling clients I’ve worked with–insist on banging their heads against the wall. In quiet despair, they follow self-defeating strategies, tracing out beautiful collision courses with walls they’d already saluted with foreheads and cheekbones.…
• March 16, 2011

  Models for post-university life

  Check out my latest piece entitled “Models for Post-University Life”; just appeared in Inside Higher Ed. You can also read the original blog, “Can one lead a life of the mind in a post-patronage society?” Part 1 of 4. Update For a while, I’ve been mulling over the idea for a blog, “The Last Career,” which…
• March 15, 2011

  Don’t let kids run the school

  It seems we have thrown everything but the kitchen sink at education reform. Here is the new proposal: get rid of teachers and have student devise their own curriculum, collaborate on group projects, and monitor each other’s progress. In short, “let kids run the school.” If the proposal sounds novel and intriguing, well it’s not.…
• March 15, 2011

  On Montaigne’s moment

  Could Montaigne be the philosopher for the early 21st C.? When Montaigne wrote in the 1580s, the Wars of Religion were raging all around him in France. The Reformation had already put the “problem of the criterion” center stage: How do we know God, and for that matter how do we know anything? Pyrronian skepticism…