Banking concept of Education

In Paolo Friere's "Banking Concept of Education", he says that education is suffering from "narration sickness". Friere lists the the number one result of narration sickness is the memorization of things vesus fully absorbing them into your knowledge. I found this part very interesting because in my currins class we are learning how to avoid teaching this way. In order to have your students fully learn and understand something you have to engage them by relating the lesson to them. This goes againsit the list of how a teacher and student should interact on page 75 of "The Banking Concept of Education." The list includes; "the teacher knows everything and the student knows nothing." This is a terrible concept and wont let the student learn a thing. Students feel comfortable learning when they know the teacher is learning as well.

Bartholomae's idea of "routine" writing in "Inventing the University"

After reading "Inventing the University" by David Bartholomae for the second time, I was drawn more heavily to the students actual essays. The first time I read the "The Clay Model" I didn't find it as "routine" or "play written" as Bartholomae had suggested. I did however change my mind after breaking it down sentance by sentance. The writer of the "Clay Model" shows that they are aware of the audience and include the discourses "jargon". Even though they have included this jargon, it is included so brief that you could even miss it's presence. This is done because the writer knows they dont have the knowledge. You can tell his knowledge of the subject is breif because he only includes quick text-book conclustions and moves on to this "taught" role of being a fellow researcher. The point in the clay essay that defines the discourse to be just a "routine" is when the author addresses his audience as he's teaching a lesson or talking down to some one. The reason bartholomae includes for this change of tone towards his audience is because it's easier to offer advice than to give academic conclusions. I have found myself plenty of times in my writing playing the counselor instead of giving a well thought out answer. This has struck me as interesting to see how Bartholomae views "routine" essays.

The academic writers stand against "On Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt

First, I'd like to start by saying that after reading "On Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt I was annoyed by the confusion in his writing. Frankfurt notes that "we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, and what functions it serves." I found it hilarious that he could publish a book explaining the definiton of bullshit when he clearly states at the beginning of the book that his definiton is merely a guess. Honestly, his book "On bullshit" is.....BULLSHIT.

As you can imagine I was excited to start reading "A Kind Word for Bullshit: The problem of Academic Writing by Philip Eubanks and John D. Schaeffer" which, explained all the problems and falses in Frankfurts "On Bullshit". The first thing I liked about the "A kind Word for Bullshit" was that it was organized and easier to read. These academic wrtiters (taking their writing extremely serious) were enraged by the phrase academic bullshit. The hard work and research that goes into many scholars work was being called untruthful.

Next, I liked that Edubanks and Schaeffer described bullshit as a game or type of gameship. For example, I remember selling a variety of things throughout elementary and middle school. The item that sticks out to me most was selling market day foods to families in my neighborhood. While trying to sell these I exaggerated the tastes of these items and also making a point that they were worth the money. And on the other side, I was forced to be prepared to answer questions the customer had, to show my knowledge and commitment to the Market Day sales. (In reality I could care less about Market Day, but really just wanted the cool prizes you could win, for selling the most stuff). This is an example of bullshitting, but it is also a "game" or "gameship" people play.

The article describes a well thought reason for why academic bullshit is said to be so popular. It is put into excellent terms when said, "professional rewards come from academic reputation , and academic reputation comes from publicaiton." For a writers book to be published it but be exaggerate the influence and meaning in what they wrote, and this is commonly mistaken for bullshit. So there you have it, when you are writing in a professional manner there is bound to be some form of bullshit.