Reviving Social Hope and Pragmatism in Troubled Times.

Review of: Pragmatism and Social Hope: Deepening Democracy in Global Contexts. Judith M. Green. New York, Columbia University Press, 2008. Pp. x 1 292. Hbk. $34.50, d24.00. This article commends Judith Green for reviving pragmatism as a persuasive basis for deepening democracy in her latest book Pragmatism and Social Hope. It highlights her criticisms of neopragmatist Richard Rorty and describes the useful directives she provides for developing a unifying and mobilizing hopeful vision for the future. Finally, it spells out the educational implications resulting from Green’s inspiring call to participatory democracy

Think Happy Thoughts : Peter Pan as a Tragic Hero

Using Aristotle\u27s definition of the tragic hero, this work will explore J.M. Barrie\u27s novel, Peter and Wendy, and how Peter is a tragic figure. In this paper I argue that Peter Pan is not only a tragic hero whose human frailty— in Peter’s case, his fear of growing old— causes him to make the terrible mistake of rejecting his own development of humanity and the opportunity for redemption through maternal love, but that Barrie uses Peter to emphasize that, contrary to the Romantic conception of childhood, children need the guidance of parents in order to live a fulfilling life

Dual Environmentalism: Demand Response Mechanisms in Wholesale and Retail Energy Markets

This note argues that a dual jurisdictional approach to demand response programming is better suited to mitigate environmental harms than an “either-or” regulatory model. Through an exploration of FERC’s authority over wholesale demand response, state authority over retail-level demand response, and implications for electricity and capacity markets arising out of the Court’s decision in FERC v. EPSA, this note will offer effective legal mechanisms for mitigating environmental costs, while fostering environmental benefits. The next section of this note analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of state and federal regulatory approaches to demand response in isolation. Based on this assessment, this note suggests the policy mechanisms most conducive to environmentally-conscious electric energy regulation. This note concludes with a model regulatory scheme that utilizes demand response to mitigate global climate change and advance environmental sustainability

Every Other Day

There is a problem on our campus—a problem of sexual assault and its perpetuation due to unnecessary silence. Current compulsory education on the topic through AlcoholEdu and First-Year Orientation are often turned into jokes because of course everyone knows not to rape and not to put yourself in a dangerous situation. The concept doesn’t seem real until a Campus Safety Alert reports that one of our students has been sexually assaulted. But even then, we get those so infrequently that it couldn’t be that much of an issue, right? [excerpt

The Demands of Liberal Education. [Review]

Oxford-trained liberal theorist and practicing teacher, Meira Levinson, offers a well-articulated argument for her vision of the ideal liberal education in The Demands of Liberal Education. Particularly helpful for those of us who struggle to convey the aims of liberal education to our children and students, she provides an eloquent explanation as she describes her ideal school and the steps necessary for its realization: The aim of liberal education is to teach children the skills, habits, knowledge, and dispositions for them to be thoughtful, mature, self-assured individuals who map their path in the world with care and confidence, take responsibility for their actions, fulfill their duties as citizens, question themselves and others when appropriate, listen to and learn from others, and ultimately lead their lives with dignity, integrity, and self-respect—i.e. to be autonomous in the fullest sense of the word (1999, p. 164). As her words paint a portrait of an educated individual, we can see that it is colored by autonomy, a central tenet throughout her work

See no evil, hear no evil, stop no evil: How do we uncover and combat the loss of educational opportunity for American poor?

In my position paper, I will urge Americans to fulfill the promise of equal educational opportunity and to avoid further entrenchment of the cycle of poverty. Some residents of largely homogeneous New Hampshire tend to be less knowledgeable about issues of racial resegregation, because racial difference is rarely seen and cries of racial inequality are not heard. Additionally some view social class struggles as a problem of remote northern NH or of particular dilapidated cities in the south. My paper will combat these shortsighted views by foregrounding the pervasive lack of educational opportunity for local poor. This will initiate conversation between students and faculty who must be prepared to live in increasingly stratified areas. This paper will also alert citizens to the punitive effects of tax-funded laws, like No Child Left Behind, which are closing down failing schools in poor areas, further abandoning poor children. Finally, it will point toward collective ways in which these problems can be overcome and will highlight relevant coursework as a starting point for concerned students

U-Pick – Are Agritourism Workers Exempt From the Wage and Hour Protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act?

Pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA” or “the Act”), employer must pay workers at least the minimum wage and overtime pay for all hours worked in excess of forty hours in a standard workweek, unless the worker fits within one of the law’s exemptions. The FLSA contains a complete exemption for agricultural workers from the overtime pay provision and a partial exemption from the minimum wage provision. The exemptions from the minimum wage and overtime pay are not the only exemptions in the FLSA for agriculture, but they are the focus of this Article and are referred to herein as “FLSA’s agricultural exemptions.” Although the complete exemption has been modified in the years since the passage of the FLSA, farm workers still do not enjoy the full wage and hour protections of the FLSA

Fifty Years of Equality?

Fifty years after the Brown decision monumentally drew issues of equality to the fore, equality continues to occupy the theorizing of educational philosophers, the practice of teachers, and the decisions of judges. Within the past year, questions regarding race and schooling, including the intention to eliminate racial inequality, were raised once again in Grutter v Bollinger, the case of a disgruntled white law school applicant who suspected that she was denied admission based upon the criteria of race. In this article, I will trace the history of equality as a concept, a working goal, and an educational right over the past fifty years in PES’s house journal, Educational Theory. This benchmark journal offers a unique opportunity to better understand equality as debated within a specific context of scholars and also exposes the attempts and inadequacies of this journal to fully address the issue. Within the journal, however, I extend my concern with equality to include issues of class and gender, suggestive of the multiple and changing ways in which the topic has been engaged over the years. I recognize, however, that the dynamics unique to each category vary and that none should be entirely collapsed into the other. The Congressional equality reports of the 1960s, the women’s movement of the 1970s, and affirmative action movements within more recent decades, have provoked changes in the philosophical understanding of equality. It has been recast in terms of numerical distribution, equal educational opportunity, inclusiveness of difference, equality of resources, and equality of educational outcomes, just to name a few. I aim to elucidate these changes here in hopes of conveying the significance of the Brown decision, the complexity of the concept, and the pressing task of eradicating problematic inequalities that linger within our schools

The National Research Council Recommendations: Education as Intervention?

The National Research Council’s (NRC) recent report, Scientific Research in Education, issues an important call for increased scientific rigor within educational research. There is more at stake in the question of how to achieve good, scientific educational research than just science and how it can best be done in a community of educational researchers, however. The meaning and aims of education itself are at issue. I set out here to delineate the implicit conception of education underlying the NRC report, namely education as intervention. I will show how the committee conceives education as an instrumental intervention for solving social problems and achieving specific predetermined goals. Importantly, this understanding of education allows certain approaches to scientific research to rise to the top as most trustworthy and valuable. Specific methodological approaches to studying education, particularly causal analysis by random experiment, logically follow as recommendations for examining education as intervention. Suggesting that educationists may not agree on this premise, I draw attention to one recently emphasized alternative, the postmodern notion of education as bildung. I will show how education as bildung is incompatible with NRC proposals for scientifically studying education. This alternative and the lack of consensus on the best conception of education calls into doubt the generalizability and legitimacy of NRC supported research