Internet Communication and Old People: Canto al Balì (TVL)

I was invited to a television debate, TVL - Canto al Balì, about communication, internet etc. Pistoia Province (Tuscany) seems to be one of the best equipped in Italy. Now that internet highways can reach even little towns in the Appennini Mountains, how old people living there will take benefit from such a revolution? Are they able to use PC? Internet? What is the philosophy of such a social-communicative policy? Secondly, can a internet highway substitute the real street, the real participation to civic life?

Young Americans in Florence

A journalist of Corriere della Sera reconstructed the business of organized pubs tour in Florence. The main point of the article, if I got it right, was not alcohol consumption, but the systematic business developed around American students in Florence (around 8.000 students per year is a big business). The article raised a huge debate in town. Directors of American colleges reacted to such a depiction of American students. Local authorities said they will monitor the situation. Believe me, the debate is huge. I will not enter into this debate. I will, in the future, try to write a book about the cultural experience of American Youngsters Abroad. In the meantime, I would like to share with you some passages upon youth, written by giants. I believe Newton was right: “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants”. And before him John of Salisbury, in Metalogicon, wrote: “Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, but because we are carried high and raised up by their giant size”. The astounding thing is that commentators (journalists or whoever has the power to speak in the public opinion), never stand on the shoulders of giants. Do they think “I am a Giant”? Is it a matter of narcissism? Or — a simple thought is starting to run in my head — is it just because they are not aware, they did not read the giants? Who knows…

Jung, C.G. (1933) The stages of life, in Modern Man in Search of a Soul. New York: Harvest.

“The biblical fall of man presents the dawn of consciousness as a curse. And as a matter of fact it is in this light that we first look upon every problem that forces us to greater consciousness and separates us even further from the paradise of unconscious childhood. Every one of us gladly turns away from his problems; if possible they must not be mentioned, or better still, their existence is denied. We wish to make our lives simple, certain and smooth — and for that reason problems are tabu. We choose to have certainties and no doubts — results and no experiments — without even seeing that certainties can arise only through doubt, and results through experiment. The artful denial of a problem will not produce conviction; on the contrary, a wider and higher consciousness is called for to give us the certainty and clarity we need” (96-97).

“Whoever protects himself against what is new and strange and thereby regresses to the past, falls into the same neurotic condition as the man who identifies himself with the new and runs away from the past” (102).

“Whoever carries over into the afternoon the law of the morning must pay for so doing with damage to his soul just as surely as growing youth who tries to salvage his childish egoism must pay for this mistake with social failure” (109).

Joseph Conrad (1917) The Shadow Line: A Confession. New York: Doubleday (incipit, first 6 lines of the book).

“Only the young have such moments. I don’t mean the very young. No. The very young have, properly speaking, have no moments. It is the privilege of early youth to live in advance of its days in all the beautiful continuity of hope which knows no pauses and no introspection. One closes behind the little gate of mere boyishness — and enters an enchanted garden. Its very shades glow with promise. Every turn of the path has its seduction. And it isn’t because it is an undiscovered country. One knows well enough that all mankind had streamed that way. It is the charm of universal experience from which one expects an uncommon or personal sensation — a bit of one’s own. One goes on recognizing the landmarks of the predecessors, excited, amused, taking the hard luck and the good luck together — the kicks and the halfpence, as the saying is — the picturesque common lot that holds so many possibilities for the deserving or perhaps for the lucky. Yes. One goes on. And the time, too, goes on — till one perceives ahead a shadow-line warning one that the region of early youth, too, must be left behind".

If you want to understand better (everything needs to be interpreted, and it takes time!), you shall read the books. These are just cut flowers:“Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants” (John W. Gardner).

Giovani e Politica

Social & Economic Development, Spring 2010

Great Class!

The Hero of Our Time!

What gives meaning to the work of a professor are students. Each year a new class starts and each student that I meet enriches my life. It’s always a wonderful journey of knowledge. And some students surprise me for their thoughtful and visionary capacity to understand the social world. Let’s thank Chris for this precious gift to the world of knowledge: he discovered The Hero of Our Time! Sympathy, humor, irony and smiles are vital features for teaching and learning!

Follow up: “The iPhone Mom: Applications for Educating, Distracting, and Multitasking”

I am not even going to comment this. The picture is already enough. If you cannot catch the evident and disturbing symbolic implications of the image, here is a quote for you: “Now I’m not ashamed to admit that I have apps on my iPhone for the sole purpose of keeping my five year old distracted while I navigate Costco. But on the other hand, I also have apps that have helped him learn how to read. My ten year old has used apps to gain a better grasp on her multiplication skills and my seven year old has become a better speller through word games”. If you need more read this blog. If you need more… I really do not know how to help you.

Laptops in class

Some professors in the U.S. are (finally) realizing what was evident since the beginning. Laptops and Wireless, for obvious reasons, are distracting students and constructing an "inappropriate" learning environment — now I am waiting for some brilliant psychologist demonstrating that multitasking reduces concentration, inhibits creativity, etc. David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown, in 2007 (a pioneer) banished laptops from his class. When he raised the idea of cutting off laptop access with his colleagues, some accused him of “being paternalistic, authoritarian or worse”. And, of course, these “masters” added: “We daydreamed and did crosswords when we were students, so how can we prohibit our students, who are adults after all, from using their time in class as they deem fit?”. Comparing a crossword to Google, Facebook, YouTube etc… How can anyone possibly make such a comparison? Furthermore, who is the genius of pedagogy who thought that students would benefit from wireless connection in class? You can read Cole’s articles in the Wahington Post, and check an interesting video showing professors frustration about laptops in class, some other reactions to the use of cell in class (usually breaking them in pieces or similar ) and another interesting experiment during April 1^st 2008 that summarize lots of things, laptops, evaluation etc.  I leave it up to the student’s sense of responsibility what to do with the laptop. I do, anyway, have a dream, a tiny but significant dream… May be one day a student — the average price for a private four-year university in the U.S. is around $28,000 (see this Report) — will tell to the colleague sitting next to him: “Could you please stop surfing the web, you are distracting me. I am not paying so much money to follow your Fakebook conversations”. Along with the freedom to surf the web — let’s put it this way — it exists also the freedom not to waste money and get a good education.

Max Weber: Science as a Vocation

Excerpts from Weber, Max (1918) Originally a speech at Munich University. Published in 1919 by Duncker & Humblodt, Munich. Eng. Trans. Science as a Vocation (Eds. H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press 1946.

Science as a Vocation

What is the meaning of science as a vocation ... Tolstoj has given the simplest answer, with the words: “Science is meaningless because it gives no answer to the only question important for us: what shall we do and how shall we live?”... Politics is out of place in the lecture-room. It does not belong there on the part of the students ... Neither does politics, however, belong in the lecture-room on the part of the docents ... 

The true teacher will beware of imposing from the platform any political position upon the student, whether it is expressed or suggested. “To let the facts speak for themselves” is the most unfair way of putting over a political position to the student... One can only demand of the teacher that he have the intellectual integrity to see that it is one thing to state facts, to determine mathematical or logical relations or the internal structure of cultural values, while it is another thing to answer questions of the value of culture and its individual contents and the question of how one should act in the cultural community and in political associations... If he asks further why he should not deal with both types of problems in the lecture-room, the answer is: because the prophet and the demagogue do not belong on the academic platform...

To the prophet and the demagogue, it is said: “Go your ways out into the streets and speak openly to the world”, that is, speak where criticism is possible. In the lecture-room we stand opposite our audience, and it has to remain silent. I deem it irresponsible to exploit the circumstance that for the sake of their career the students have to attend a teacher’s course while there is nobody present to oppose him with criticism... 

The task of the teacher is to serve the students with his knowledge and scientific experience and not to imprint upon them his personal political views. It is certainly possible that the individual teacher will not entirely succeed in eliminating his personal sympathies. He is then exposed to the sharpest criticism in the forum of his own conscience... I ask only: How should a devout Catholic, on the one hand, and a Freemason, on the other, in a course on the forms of church and state or on religious history ever be brought to evaluate these subjects alike? This is out of the question. And yet the academic teacher must desire and must demand of himself to serve the one as well as the other by his knowledge and methods... The primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize “inconvenient” facts — I mean facts that are inconvenient for their party opinions. And for every party opinion there are facts that are extremely inconvenient, for my own opinion no less than for others. I believe the teacher accomplishes more than a mere intellectual task if he compels his audience to accustom itself to the existence of such facts... 

In practice, you can take this or that position when concerned with a problem of value... If you take such and such a stand, then, according to scientific experience, you have to use such and such a means in order to carry out your conviction practically. Now, these means are perhaps such that you believe you must reject them. Then you simply must choose between the end and the inevitable means... Does the end justify the means? Or does it not? The teacher can confront you with the necessity of this choice. He cannot do more, so long as he wishes to remain a teacher and not to become a demagogue... 

The error [of youth] is that they seek in the professor something different from what stands before them. They crave a leader and not a teacher. But we are placed upon the platform solely as teachers. And these are two different things... The qualities that make a person an excellent scholar and academic teacher are not the qualities that make him a leader to give directions in practical life or, more specifically, in politics ... The professor who feels called upon to act as a counsellor of youth and enjoys their trust may prove himself a person in personal human relations with them. 

And if he feels called upon to intervene in the struggles of worldviews and party opinions, he may do so outside, in the market place, in the press, in meetings, in associations, wherever he wishes...