Many things stick out to me from the readings. The idea that stuck out to me the most is this one of active learning. Active not merely limited to engaging the students in the subject, but relating the subject to the world. There was a point that one of the speakers made when he said “I wasn’t interested in being good but rather interested in being good for something” (102). Teaching should be relevant to the world that we live in, regardless of the subject, and its applications in the world should be known. This goes beyond the idea of what jobs you can get with this degree. It goes into a deeper question of how does your job affect the world and how can you change it. It is from this viewpoint that I understand the author and his conviction that there is no neutrality. If you truly want to make a difference, then you can’t merely detach yourself, your job and the world we live in. The author limited this scope to only include teachers and leaders. I believe that this really can be applied to everyone in a sense.
Every person, whether it’s a dishwasher or the President of the United States, is connected in a sense to the system. If these lower parts of the system were to put their actions in retrospect to the world, then they could make a substantial change. Now the author may disagree with me and say that “you can’t win the hearts of men”(103) but I believe that in order to make true lasting change, that’s what must be done. The author brings up Marx when he talks about structural change, but if you were to go deeper into Marx you would see that he advocated more than structural stability. He wanted a perfect communal society, where the state disappears and reaches for the same communal goods. Now how could you possibly bring up this type of philosophy and say that you’re against winning of the hearts?
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