cjedwards.xyz

Category: Education

  • Knowing Better

    We (incorrectly) indicate to citizens that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent – Ivan Illich in Deschooling Society.

    This statement directly relates to my experiences attempting to apply evidenced based practice to human services. We are playing shell games with families in need all with justification of some greater good, “that we as professionals know better”, simply because we were enlightened enough to “listen to someone else, who knew better”. 

    Who knows the client better than they know themselves?

    This post was first made in June of 2012 – CJE

  • Win-Win in the Classroom

    Do you trust enough to think win-win?  Do you trust yourself?  How about other people?

    After having taught at a variety of colleges in two states for the past 12 years, I am often surprised by the perceptions of many students in my courses.  I get the feeling that some students believe that education and class is a competitive process with their instructors.   Simply put, us (the students) vs. them (the professor).  This seems a little perplexing to me.  

    Some assumptions I have heard from students about the student-instructor relationship:

    • The instructor is here to give me busy work 
    • The instructor wants people to drop out 
    • The instructor wants to give me a bad grade 
    • (Believe me, it goes on and on…)

    What ever happened to the idea that we are all in this together?  This journey of education could be a win-win for both the student and the professor?

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  • Past(ed) Tense

    Our helping community has changed in recent times; years of funding reductions (and mental health restructuring) have created such an unstable environment.   What I see here in VA in my work with non-profits is so much different than in NC. In NC there seems to be a constant state of stress and holding on that whatever life-line is left. 

    Life-line living certainly takes its toll on both programs and staff.   I miss conversations that were about planning and dreaming of ways to meet the needs of the community and the families we serve.  The message we seem to give families today is that we are simply holding on, they should be happy with the service we were able to provide and don’t expect much else…conversations about quality, morals, organizational development and simply saying “we will give you and your family a chance to be proud and gain success”, I just don’t know where those conversations are anymore.  

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  • My Perfect School…

    “Humanly speaking, the school, the college, society, make the difference between men…When a man stupid becomes a man inspired, when one and the same man passes out of the torpid into the perceiving state, leaves the din of trifles, the stupor of the senses, to enter into the quasi-omniscience of high thought–up and down, around, all limits disappear. No horizon shuts down. He sees things in their causes, all facts in their connection.” 

    – Ralph Waldo Emerson in Emerson on Education

    What is a school, why do we send students to school and when in school, what must be achieved?   The outcomes of each of these questions are difficult to ascertain, but my foundational belief is that schools must be inspiring.   An inspired school creates excited and energized students who spread their wings and develop the muscles of their minds.  The growth of the student can then quickly allow for personal development and expansion of their lives to experiences that were never considered before.  

    Schools must be inspirational. 

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  • My Thoughts About “I”

    Thoughts About “I”

    This semester students are required to write numerous essays and long form responses for the sociology and human services courses that I lead across multiple institutions.   A common theme with undergraduate students and their academic writing is the overuse of the term “I”.   Since most of my assignments frequently require a first person narrative the overuse of certain pronouns, especially “I” is a common challenge. 

    Repetition of any word or phrase in academic writing is distracting and creates a lack of confidence in the writer’s ability to convey the depth of their knowledge.   This is a case where too much of any good thing (or word) is generally less and not better.  The Writing Center at UNC Chapel Hill published a wonderful article titled Should I Use “I” that expands upon the potential and possible risks of using first person pronouns in general.  In addition, the Dartmouth Writing Program posted an informative piece addressing the question of What is an Academic Paper that is a must read for students. 

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