Critical Questions in Education Symposium Salt Lake City, October 3—4, 2016 Submission deadline extended -- July 25, 2016

Critical Questions in Education Symposium

Salt Lake City, October 3—4, 2016   

Submission deadline extended -- July 25, 2016

Our CQiE Symposium theme question hits at the stress and strain plaguing many in education:  Pressure for perfection:  What is it doing to teachers, students, school communities, and teacher education?  We’ll gather in Salt Lake City to hear presentations related to this question—see some suggested topics below.  And we’re offering an Open topic category for those who would like to join us, but present on a different topic.

Here are just a few ways you might choose to address the theme question:

ü  How “measuring perfection” affects teacher, student, and school administrator morale—and life in teacher education programs, too.

ü  What gets left out of our vision of teaching when “perfection” gets defined by achieving specified and measurable standards?  Is this manner of perfection subverting students’ joy of learning and crimping their current and future understanding of themselves as learners?

ü  How did we get here, or who’s to blame for this?  Researchers who conceived teaching and learning as a science?  Our search for “best practices” in our desire to improve education?  Have economic interests been driving this?

ü  Is the search for measurable perfection accompanied by a kind of moral blindness that overlooks social, ethnic, racial or economic differences?  Or, conversely, is a moral imperative to push for perfection exactly what we need in education? 

ü  Books that explore “perfection” (such as Anna Qunindlen’s “Being Perfect” or Phil Jackson’s “What is Education?”)

ü  Is there a way to keep and even encourage our drive for perfection, but articulate a broader vision of perfection that is more enriched and dignified?

ü  Other related topics???

Or, remember:  Offer a presentation on a topic of your choice in our “Sidebar Room.”  That is, come enjoy conversations on our Symposium topic while also sharing (presenting) on an issue you are passionate about.  All topics welcome.

The Symposium is designed to “get to the bottom” of a given educational issue or question—with intentions, then, to publish.   The Symposium will be held at the beautiful Little America Hotel http://saltlake.littleamerica.com/  The cost is $265 (and $150 for graduate students).  Christopher Clark (Michigan State University, emeritus) is co-chair of this Symposium.  Please see the attachment for more details about this event.  

  

We hope you will submit a proposal to our Symposium.  Please share this email with friends and colleagues—and with any list-serves which might accept it.  If you have any questions about the Academy for Educational Studies or the Symposium, please email or call me at the number listed below.  And please check out the Academy for Educational Studies, the sponsoring group:  http://academyforeducationalstudies.org/ 

Sincerely,

Steven P. Jones, Director

Academy for Educational Studies

417-836-5982