(A family friend was a J-School prof in the 60s, 70s, and 80s and emphasized international reporting – believed that without local, community papers ‘democracy’ could not exist. He’d have pointed out on this thread that European nations tend to be more ethnically homogenous, which makes journalism simpler than it is in the U.S. The corporate ownership of papers in the 1980s under Reagan/Bush nearly killed him, and he predicted the kind of lethal nastiness we’ve seen the past ten years. Today, he wouldn’t obtain a university faculty position because he loved teaching and getting students started with internships, but he’d lack the research background for a tenured post at a J-School. He was a news Jedi.)

“Pedagogy of Hope” duly noted in my ‘to do’ list; will look for it at your recommendation.
Reading is revolutionary; and now, with neuroscientists better able to research its effects, the conversation should become even more interesting.

So many people now in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s who had trouble learning to read were not diagnosed for learning disabilities; the tests, interventions, and research simply didn’t exist. (Let’s hope better research, teaching, and focus on cognitive development can spare us many more GWBush’s, who I strongly suspect relies on ‘intuition’ because he’s unable to sort through the amount of reading his job requires. But he’s not alone in those limitations. )

FWIW, I’ve done a bit of work with adults who have had learning (reading and language) disabilities, and have made some great progress with them by having them read the sports pages (they liked the baseball and box scores), weather, stock market lists… then got them branching out to simple narratives about sports players, then on to other news articles. It’s information they can use in conversation, and not to overwhelming for them. It’s a good thing to see them catch on and enjoy it, but the OpEds are too ‘abstract’ for them in my experience.

Look forward to reading Freire.

Still smiling over Minnesotachuck’s report of inkwells in his schooldays. Lovely.

————
FWIW, I mentioned “Elroy” from Aberdeen… yikes. I meant ‘Elway”. I’m not always spot-on with names (yikes!).

In response to skdadl @ 8

Can’t wait to catch up on this full thread later, but this struck me:

One difference between Dewey and Lippmann is that Dewey obviously shared the Enlightenment belief that all citizens, taught to read, given a chance to think about history and to remain well informed, would be strongly committed to those principles and pretty well capable of defending and administering them without forever handing them over to elites.

Dewey was a teacher and educator. He’d seen people grow and change. That was not Lippmann’s forte, nor was it Lippmann’s experience. (My background on Lippmann is based on reading Ronald Steele’s excellent bio of him back in the early 80s when it was first published. IIRC, Lippmann’s education emphasized classics and he led a very privileged life.)

It struck me in reading this that Dewey’s modern heir is Paolo Freire, the Brazilian educator who taught semi-literate working class people how to read by having them read their local newspapers. I especially recommend Freire’s book, Pedagogy of Hope, in this regard. Sounds completely “Deweyan” in this context. And he was doing it without the aid of the Internet.

More Dewey and Freire, please.

Bob in HI

Concerning open records requests at the state level, laws and behaviors of the states vary in the treatment and classification of requesters. The necessity of going through a private company’s log-in to gain full electronic access to state statutes, as some states have established, makes it harder to keep up with such matters.

American media circulating that the Arab Summit in Damascus was a failure [all Arab summits are failures, this is a well known fact] while the reality is that the U.S. plot to prevent the summit has failed, here is the details of the American conspiracy:

According to assafir newspaper American embassies in Arab countries distributed notes to the Arab leaders asking them to take “firm position” from the Arab Summit in Damascus, this information revealed by a delegation from one the Arab North-African countries [Libya], in one case in one of the Arab countries an American army commander [navy admiral] escorted the American ambassador to deliver the note, the notes assign the ambassadors to follow up the implementation of its content.

PS: Does anyone know why FDL’s implementation of the WordPress comment system indents as a quote only the first paragraph of multi-paragraph quotes? To make it look right I have to enter the open quote and close quote by hand for each additional paragraph.

Within the letter I did share a personal conversation I had over 25 years ago with a Dean of a top rated journalism school in this country. At the time, I had received a full-ride scholarship to go to the journalism school of my choice. The opportunity to meet personally with Dean’s and/or Chairs of top journalism schools was quite overwhelming and left a lifetime of impressions. However, my questions regarding the role of the Fourth Estate and the effort to achieve “balance” in carrying out the functions of the Fourth Estate threw me. I was suddenly faced with Lippman-like perceptions of media’s role and I was “Dewey” minded.

As I learned what $$ backed the various journalism schools I was hoping to consider, my heart sank. I realized the incredible battle ahead to try and “shine light” in dark corners through writing.

The point I am trying to make through sharing my personal experience is this: to make print journalism true, balanced and accessible to citizens, the journalism schools have a need to be honest about the elite $$ funding them and start rethinking “how” journalism and journalism management education is done.

I could go on about your post EW. A wonderful, thoughtful query.

Kids were still writing with chalk on chalkboards at desks with inkwells.

Hell, in grade school in the 40s in small town southern Minnesota I remember writing with chalk on slate black boards and learning to write with pens dipped in ink wells!

If it’s any help at all, I often remind myself that Jane Austen — who(m?) I regard as one of the finest writers in the English language — never went to university and certainly didn’t have a graduate degree. She was observant, smart, witty, and willing to learn.
There are people with advanced degrees who lack those qualities.

Hope this makes sense to you.