General Studies (GNST) 500A - Lecture 01
Heritage II: Integration
Fall 2008/Winter 2009
MWF 13:00 - 13:50

 

Instructor:	R. Glasberg
Office Location:	SS 328
Office Phone:	220-7124
E-Mail:	rglasber@ucalgary.ca
Web Page:	N/A
Office Hours:	By appointment

Additional Information

Dr. Glasberg will be on leave during the second term. Owing to the tribal nature of the course, student working groups will continue their activities to some extent on their own, but you will have a number of supports. A student, Kat Lord has been hired as discussion facilitator. A highly experienced graduate assistant, Rebecca Carruthers Den Hoed, will grade submissions. The Associate Dean, Dr. Doug Brent, will take over as Instructor of Record and will have ultimate authority over the course. He will stay in the background but will always be on call if need be at 403-220-5458, dabrent@ucalgary.ca.

This course promises to be an exciting and innovative adventure in independent learning and personal inquiry.

Course Description

The course is an interdisciplinary engagement with the ideas, cultural themes and basic assumptions of Western Civilization from the early 19th Century to the present day. The following are just examples of what will be explored: the meaning of freedom and how it may best be achieved; the nature of growth in spiritual and material contexts; the nature and functioning of the 'system' (military-industrial-communications-education-entertainment complex); the changing nature of cultural objectives and the conflicts engendered thereby; the dynamics of discourse in a world of new communicative possibilities.

Although students may do the work in a relatively traditional way, the course is organized 'tribally', where that means students set their own assignments, mark weightings, and due dates. Presentations of work done for the class and intense discussion are balanced with the instructor's input. In short, the class is what students chose to make it, and in that sense the aforementioned themes of freedom, growth, and discourse dynamics are actually lived out rather than just discussed in an abstract manner.

Objectives of the Course

(1) To synthesize from a variety of disciplinary contexts the most fundamental meanings inherent in the current trajectory of Western (and to a certain extent, World) Civilization;

(2) To critique the dysfunctional qualities of Western Civilization and to come up with viable alternatives;

(3) to satisfy one's deepest curiosity and realize one's greatest talents in the context of the course;

(4) to generate an authentic community of learning by the sharing of one's greatest gifts with other members of the class.

Textbooks and Readings:

Lawrence S. Cunningham and John J. Reich, Culture and Values: A Survey of the Humanities, Vol. II, 6th Edition. Belmont, Calif.: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.

Edgar E. Knoebel, ed. Classics of Western Thought, Vol. III, The Modern World, 4th Edition. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988.

Donald S. Gochberg, ed. Classics of Western Thought, Vol. IV, The Twentieth Century. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980.

R. Glasberg, ed. GNST 500 L01, Heritage II: Integration of Readings, Fall 2008 & Winter 2009. The University of Calgary

Assignments and Evaluation

Because the class will be constructed ‘tribally', assignments will be created by students along with due dates and mark break-downs. However, because the instructor will be absent during the second term, the final project/mark brief is non-negotiable and will be marked by a competent instructor. The mark brief part along with method of organizing assignments will be explained below (after the schedule of readings).

First Term Submissions/Presentations: 35%

Second Term Projects/Presentations: 40%

Final Project/Mark Brief (Apr. 17) 25%

100%

It is the student's responsibility to keep a copy of each submitted assignment.
Note: Please hand in your essays directly to your tutor or instructor if possible. If it is not possible to do so, a daytime drop box is available in SS110; a date stamp is provided for your use. A night drop box is also available for after-hours submission. Assignments will be removed the following morning, stamped with the previous day's date, and placed in the instructor's mailbox.

Registrar-scheduled Final Examination: NO

Please note: If your class is held in the evening, the Registrar's Office will make every attempt to schedule the final exam during the evening; however, there is NO guarantee that the exam will NOT be scheduled during the day.

Policy for Late Assignments

Assignments submitted after the deadline may be penalized with the loss of a grade (e.g.: A- to B+) for each day late.

Writing Skills Statement

Faculty policy directs that all written assignments (including, although to a lesser extent, written exam responses) will be assessed at least partly on writing skills. For details see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/info. Writing skills include not only surface correctness (grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc) but also general clarity and organization. Research papers must be properly documented.

If you need help with your writing, you may use the Writing Centre. Visit the website for more details: www.efwr.ucalgary.ca

Grading System

The following grading system is used in the Faculty of Communication and Culture:

(Revised, effective September 2008)

 

	Grading Scale
A+	96-100
A	90-95.99
A -	85-89.99
B+	80-84.99
B	75-79.99
B-	70-74.99
C+	65-69.99
C	60-64.99
C-	55-59.99
D+	53-54.99
D	50-52.99
F	0-49

 

Where a grade on a particular assignment is expressed as a letter grade, it will normally be converted to a number using the midpoint of the scale.  That is, A- would be converted to 87.5 for calculation purposes.  F will be converted to zero.

Plagiarism

Using any source whatsoever without clearly documenting it is a serious academic offense. Consequences include failure on the assignment, failure in the course and possibly suspension or expulsion from the university.

You must document not only direct quotations but also paraphrases and ideas where they appear in your text. A reference list at the end is insufficient by itself. Readers must be able to tell exactly where your words and ideas end and other people's words and ideas begin. This includes assignments submitted in non-traditional formats such as Web pages or visual media, and material taken from such sources.

Please consult your instructor or the Writing Centre (SS 106, efwr.ucalgary.ca) if you have any questions regarding how to document sources.

Students with Disabilities

If you are a student with a disability who may require academic accommodation, it is your responsibility to register with the Disability Resource Centre (220-8237) and discuss your needs with your instructor no later than fourteen (14) days after the start of the course.

Students' Union

For details about the current Students' Union contacts for the Faculty of Communication and Culture see www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/su

"SAFEWALK" Program -- 220-5333

Campus Security will escort individuals day or night -- call 220-5333 for assistance. Use any campus phone, emergency phone or the yellow phone located at most parking lot booths.

Ethics

Whenever you perform research with human participants (i.e. surveys, interviews, observation) as part of your university studies, you are responsible for following university research ethics guidelines. Your instructor must review and approve of your research plans and supervise your research. For more information about your research ethics responsibilities, see

The Faculty of Communication and Culture Research Ethics site: http://www.comcul.ucalgary.ca/ethics

or the University of Calgary Research Ethics site: http://www.ucalgary.ca/research/compliance/ethics/info/undergrad/

The Tribal Approach To Learning

(i) Key Principles:

The ‘tribal' approach to learning is not easy because most students are used to being told what to do and when to do it. They are not used to setting their own assignments, due dates, and ultimately deciding on what mark they deserve. Also unusual is the idea of each student contributing to the learning of the class and getting credit for that contribution. In short, freedom can be a shock in an educational setting just as much as it can be a shock in other areas of life. Moreover, just as freedom can be misused in one's life in general, it can also be misused in the context of a tribal class. For example, some will procrastinate and not produce any work at all. Others will try to take advantage of the situation and parasitically seek to live off the work of others or give themselves a grade, which they know that they have not earned. By the same token, one can also take advantage of a non-tribal system and turn it into a game by cheating or by jumping through the hoops in such a way that nothing has been learned.

So what does it mean to learn in an authentic way? It means to grow by way of some intellectual encounter with material one is seeking to understand; but because growth is highly personal, learning needs to be according to the needs and capacities of specific individuals. Tribal education, then, is nothing less than an attempt to ‘individualize' one's learning and free it from the hierarchical structures with which we are all too familiar. It is hierarchy that by its very nature undermines the individualistic component of learning by making it submit to the requirements of power.

I doubt that power structures can disappear completely. They are there for a reason although that does not mean that they cannot be minimized. To get a better sense of this, students will start off by reading the Daniel Quinn selection in the Reading Package (RP). Then, as a group (or ‘tribe' in Quinn's sense of the term), students will decide how to pool their common resources and talents in order to learn the material. That means engaging in a serious consideration of learning, teaching, marks, group dynamics, etc. The bottom line is that marks are essential in the context of the university and the social milieu in which the university exists, just as money is essential in the wider world outside the university. The marks have to be real or authentic in the same way that money cannot be counterfeit, but it is still possible to avoid the more corrupting effects of either if one alters one's attitudes. For example, it makes a big difference in the quality of one's life if marks and money are earned co-operatively as opposed to competitively. Thus, students must decide how the course material is to be approached so that marks are legitimately earned in a structure that is no more hierarchical than it has to be to serve the ends of individualized learning.

(ii) The Evolution of the Tribal Concept: The Birth of the Sub-Tribe

Because I (R. Glasberg) will be absent during the second term, the tribal system of previous years will be modified. Yet this modification would be taking place anyway in order to deal with the key weakness of the tribal system. I am here referring to the lack of participation by a significant number of students. What has happened in the past was the preponderance of a committed group of students whose enthusiasm tended to eclipse and overshadow the potential contribution of others. To address this problem the class will be divided into 4 sub-tribes of about 12 individuals. These groups will be responsible for presentations, projects, group assignments, etc. although that does not prevent individuals from making their own personal contributions to the class.

These 4 groups will come together (constituted by lot with some choice allowed) and do presentations during the first term. In effect these groups will become learning units who will in the second terms assume a fair share of the responsibility of educating themselves and the other members of the tribe. Self-education is indeed a key theme of the course insofar as the ultimate freedom is to be able to take charge of one's own education and move away from a dependency relationship.

(iii) Some Basic Steps

In order to facilitate the process of tribal self-education, I will front-load the main ideas of the course during the first term. (See syllabus given below.) By doing that individuals and sub-tribes should be in a strong position to undertake the rest of their education in the second term.

By the end of September, after having gained some familiarity with the syllabus, the nature of the material to be covered, and, of course, the other tribe members, tentative proposals regarding second term presentations should be submitted to the instructor. As a rough guideline, 35% of your grade should be based on first term work. Each sub-tribe has 2 presentations scheduled throughout the term (see syllabus below). There is a final assignment worth 25% due on April 17, 2009 (see p. 14), and that is done individually with a mark brief explaining what you think your final mark in the course should be. The second term is wide open with respect to presentations (individual and group) although I have structured in two presentations per sub-tribe along with some potential themes. As a rough guide this term should constitute 40% of your grade.

Given the natural evolution of a tribal system, none of the above is written in stone. Better ideas may come from the group as it evolves. You will have an excellent organizing facilitator to guide you in the first, but especially the second term. The important point to remember is that you are responsible for making sure that the assignments you set for yourself and the marks you earn thereby are a legitimate representation of what you have learned. Anything else is false and will undermine the course for yourself and for everyone else.

At the end of the year I will ask each of you to submit a mark brief stating what you have learned, how much of the material you have read (compared how much you think you would have read in a more traditional system), how well you have fulfilled your own goals as outlined in your initial proposal, and what mark you think you have earned on the basis of the foregoing assessment. As instructor and in the interests of fairness, I do reserve the right to over-rule a mark that is not supported by the appropriate evidence, but I trust that will not be necessary in most cases. Learning to live freely entails learning to live honorably.

That said, the aforementioned limits of freedom are counter-balanced by amazing opportunities - these being the chance to do exciting group work, bring visitors to class, put on plays, write poetry, engage in journaling, create videos, manage discussion groups, execute paintings, etc. The sky is the limit.

To help the tribe (and sub-tribes) get started, students will introduce themselves and choose (if she or he wishes) a tribal name that represents how that person wishes to be known in the group. Introduction typically involves stating where one is from (origin, background), where one is now, and finally where one is going (goals, purposes, etc.). More importantly, some kind of name tag must be placed before the student in all classes. Learning names is vital to creating an inclusive tribe rather than a set of factions.

Finally, please be patient. It takes time and work to engender a functional learning group. The organizational facilitator (Kat Lord) and I will take a strong role at the outset and will always be there as someone who knows the material. Gradually, the tribe should unfold like a flower as participation increases in the context of a class that learns to teach itself. The point is that one is learning about freedom, not in some abstract theoretical way, but in the concrete setting of a lived experience. If Western Civilization or Global Civilization is ever to evolve toward freedom, the experience of freedom in all its complexity should be part of everyone's education.

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

 

GNST 500 L01

 

2008-2009

 

"Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible."

 

St. Francis of Assisi

 

Abbreviations: C&V,II = Culture and Values, Vol. II

CWT,III = Classics of Western Thought, Vol. III

CWT,IV = Classics of Western Thought, Vol. IV

RP = Reading Package

 

2008

Sept. 8: Introduction: Goals, Issues, Challenges

Sept. 10: Farber & Brustein; CWT,IV, 467-485

Sept. 12: Quinn and the Tribal Confederacy; RP: Quinn, Beyond Civilization

Sept. 15: Division into 4 Sub-Tribes (A,B,C,D) with 4 Tasks: Bakunin & Anarchism;

CWT,III, 390-404

Sept. 17: Outlining Course and Forum for Suggestions

 

19^th Century

 

(A) Expansive, Unbalanced, Extreme & De-internalized Externality:

Romantics (Rousseau & Poets), Goethe, Ideologists (Hegel, Burke, Mill, Marx, etc.), Darwin & Co.;

(B) Critique: Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Ibsen, Chopin, Freud Jung;

 

20^th and 21^st Centuries

 

(C) Systemic Insular Externality: Ellul, Wallerstein, Ritzer, Jensen, Mills,

Eliot, Kafka, Lenin, Mao, Hitler, Arendt, Solzhenitsyn, Huxley, Heller;

(D) Critique and Resistance: Breton, Sartre, Einstein, Bettelheim, Woolf,

DeBeavoir, O'Connor, Fanon, Ginsberg, Gleason, Huxley, Robinson,

Walsch, Wilber

 

Sept. 19: Adequate Institutions for Class: American and French Declarations; C&V,II,

243-246

 

Sept. 22: Nature as Externalist Substitute for Internal: Success or Failure? Romantic

Poetry, Rousseau & The Problem of Dependency; C&V,II, 241-242; 271-272;

295-296; 311-312; CWT,III, 260-273

 

Sept. 24: Presentations on Beauty and attempts to represent select poems through music,

image, etc.

 

Sept. 26: Feedback forum & Suggestions for Improvement

 

Sept. 29: Faust and the Futility of Externalist Striving; C&V,II, 294-295; CWT,III, 221-

259

 

Oct. 1: Sub-tribe A: Faust Presentation

 

Oct. 3: The State As Rationalized Non-alienating Externality: Hegel & Marx; C&V,II,

272-275; CWT,III, 339-349; 367-389

 

Oct. 6: Continuation

 

Oct. 8: Sub-tribe B: Presentation on Alienation

 

Oct. 10: Attempts to Revive the Spiritual: Burke & Leo XIII; CWT,III, 202-220; 405-420

 

Oct. 13 Thanksgiving - No class

 

Oct. 15: Sub-tribe B: Presentation on strengths & weaknesses of the Conservative

Strategy

 

Oct. 17: Externality as Darwinian Domination; CWT,III, 350-366

 

Oct. 20: Sub-tribe C: Presentation on Perils of Genetic Engineering (Dobzhansky and

Lorenz; CWT,IV, 261-270; 288-302)

 

Oct. 22: Critique #1: Externality as Mass Mediocrity: Nietzsche on Values; C&V,II, 327-

329; CWT,III, 443-457

 

Oct. 24: Critique #2: Externality as Mass Infantilization: Dostoevsky & Spiritual

Maturity; CWT,III,421-442

 

Oct. 27: Sub-tribe D: Presentation on Fairness of Critiques

 

Oct. 29: The ‘System' as Externalist Insularity: Ellul (CWT,IV,131-145), Ritzer (RP),

Hitler (CWT,III,597-615)

 

Oct. 31: Cultural Consciousness of the System: Eliot and Kafka; C&V,II, 413-414; 435-

436; 445-448

 

Nov. 3: Political Affirmations and Perversions of the System: Lenin (CWT,III, 577-596),

Mao (CWT,IV, 47-59), Huxley (C&V,II, 432-434; 448-453)

 

Nov. 5: Sub-tribe A: Advertising and Propaganda

 

Nov. 7: Preliminary reactions to the System: Sartre's Existentialism; C&V,II, 458-459;

CWT,III, 616-634

 

Nov. 10 Reading Day - No class

 

Nov. 12: Preliminary Reactions to The System: Breton's Surrealism; C&V,II, 421-423;

CWT,IV, 522-532

 

Nov. 14: Sub-tribe B: Exploring and Assessing Effectiveness of Foregoing Strategies

 

Nov. 17: Resistance to System: Bettelheim, Wiesel and the Concentration Camp

Challenge; CWT,IV,3-29; C&V,II, 496-498

 

Nov. 19: Engendered Resistence: Feminism from Woolf (CWT,III, 635-649) to De

Beauvoir (CWT,IV,486-405)

 

Nov. 21: Sub-tribe C: Exploring and Assessing Effectiveness of Foregoing Strategies

 

Nov. 24: De-Colonialism from Without and from Within: Fanon; CWT,IV, 506-521

 

Nov. 26: Youth Culture versus Systemic Culture: Gleason: Ginsberg, and Huxley

CWT,IV, 383-390; 563-577; 589-603

 

Nov. 28: Sub-tribe D: Exploring and Assessing Effectiveness of Foregoing Strategies

 

Dec. 1: Anti-systemic Spirituality: Walsch (RP)

 

Dec. 3: Anti-Systemic Spirituality: Robinson (CWT,IV, 422-437) and Wilber (RP)

 

Dec. 5: Summary and initial planning for second term: Meeting of the Grand Tribal

Council

 

 

2009

 

Jan. 12: Initial Meeting to Plan out Projects for Second Term:

 

The discussion here is meant to consider what being educated is all about. Is it the ability to memorize? Is it the achievement of insight? Whatever education is for this tribe, it is necessary that you set up projects with a view to achieving that goal and avail yourself of the assessment protocols in place as well as generate those that will more adequately meet your needs. These will be difficult but also invigorating discussions. Do not be afraid to be original and creative. You will also be discovering what it means to be a free group of people working toward a common goal, and it will not be easy. Within every group are those who engender tension, who are overly quiet, who are domineering, etc., but freedom means learning how to work together, in this case, learning how to learn together.

 

You do have a guide, a person who has gone through the tribal method already and has a deep love of the course and what it stands for. Kat Lord is not a dictator, but an organizing facilitator who will help the groups set goals, keep you all on track, lead general discussion, and keep the presentations on some kind of schedule. She will also be consulted by myself when I assemble the final grades.

 

Projects and presentations can include guests, debates, works of art, films, open discussion, plays, etc. Moreover, they may include a second pass over readings from the first term although it is expected that readings not covered in the first term will be highlighted. What is important to keep in mind is the goal of teaching each other about Western Civilization in the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st centuries.

 

Readings not covered in first term: Poe, Dickens, J.S. Mill, De Tocqueville, Harris, Berman, Kors, Whitman, Thoreau, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Chopin, Freud, Jung, Oosterhuis, Chauncy, Wallerstein, Hartmann, Naisbitt, Jensen, Mumford, Galbraith, C.W. Mills, Camus, Beckett, Arendt Einstein, Heisenberg, Solzhenitsyn, Heller, Irvine, O'Connor, Brooks, Plath, Commoner, Heilbroner, McLaughlin and Davidson.

 

The aforementioned readings can be organized in various ways: the first is according to the categories of (A), (B), (C), and (D) given on the Sept. 17th date above. Another is to see the texts as expressions of (i) cultural consensus, (ii) deep reality, and (iii) critical of (i) and/or attempting to mediate (ii). Whatever you choose as an organizing principle, the point is to do the readings and gain an understanding of them that others as well as yourself can assess in some way as indicative of your intellectual growth with respect to the course material.

 

While you are expected to keep coming to class, you will also be deciding the content of the classes to come. However, to keep things in focus, projects should be geared to the ‘mark brief project' discussed below in assessment strategies.

 

In order to help you, I offer the following as potential tribal, sub-tribal, and individual projects all to be presented to each other with a view to eliciting feedback and gaining an enhanced understanding of the subject:

 

(A) A short play extending Ibsen's Doll House

 

(B) Hedda Gabler analyzed by Freud or Jung

 

(C) The case for Liberalism as articulated by J.S. Mill, embodied in De Tocqueville's America, and defended by Harris and Berman

 

(D) Life and Death in the System: Wallerstein, Hartmann, Naisbitt, Mumford, Jensen, Galbraith, Mills, Heller, Huxley

 

(E) Course ‘Book' or ‘Tribal Manifesto' produced by and for all tribal members: a record of the course and the understanding you all achieved; also debates, positions of individuals, highlights of year

 

(F) Course film/video/youtube/podcast: a different kind of record including the above, but with plays, special effects, illustrations of course themes

 

(G) The New Age and the Paranormal: Assessing the Evidence including, Walsch, Wilber, and McLaughlin and Davidson

 

(H) Reform Strategies: Possibilities of Reforming and/or Transcending the System

 

(I) The ‘Cultural Consensus' Upholding the System: focus on texts that describe, reflect, explain how the values of the system are articulated so that a general level of agreement about life goals (or ends) and means is maintained; most of the course texts do not fit into this category, but into the two that follow; however, popular culture texts seeking to articulate and normalize the status quo would be worth exploring in this context; that said, some cultural consensus texts from the body of the course are as follows: Burke, Leo XIII, De Tocqueville, Heller, Oosterhuiss,

 

(J) Deep or Ultimate Reality: focus on texts that seek to articulate what may lie beyond the aforementioned cultural consensus: Wordsworth, Keats, Hegel, Thoroeau Darwin, Freud, Jung, Tolstoy, Breton, Heisenberg, Huxley, Wilber, Walsch

 

(K) Critical or mediatory texts that seek to distance themselves from the cultural consensus and/or link to deeper layers of reality: Rousseau, Mill, Marx, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Chopin, Wallerstein, Hartmann, Naisbitt, Jensen, Mumford, Galbraith, Mills, Camus, Beckett, Arendt, Bettelheim, Heller, Irvine, Woolf, De Beauvoir, Fanon, Ginsberg, Gleason

 

(L) Strategies for Self-Education in GNST 500: a reflection on your experience of how self-education worked; problems encountered, solutions offered; difficulties still to be resolved

 

Jan. 14: More discussion on direction of year

 

[The following are possibilities that can be used as a fallback position if the Tribe

is bereft of ideas.]

 

Jan. 16: Sub-tribe A on Consciousness, Internality, Authenticity in pre-systemic and Sytemic Contexts

 

Jan. 19

 

Jan. 21

 

Jan. 23

 

Jan. 26: Session on how previous presentations have worked, and how they contribute to final project

 

Jan. 28: Sub-tribe B on Valuation, Devaluation, and Meaning

 

Jan. 30

 

Feb. 2

 

Feb. 4

 

Feb. 6: Session on previous projects and contribution to final project

 

Feb. 9: Sub-tribe C on Strategies for the Colonization of Consciousness, Culturally sanctioned addictions

 

Feb. 11

 

Feb. 13

 

Feb. 15-22: Reading Week - No Classes

 

Feb. 23

 

Feb. 25: Session on previous projects and contribution to final project

 

Feb. 27: Sub-tribe D: Resistance Strategies to Colonization Attempts

 

Mar. 2

 

Mar. 4

 

Mar. 6

 

Mar. 9: Session on previous project and contribution to final project

 

Mar. 11: Sub-tribe A: Integrating the Course - Political-Ideological

 

Mar. 13

 

Mar. 16

 

Mar. 18: Session on previous projects and contribution to final one

 

Mar. 20: Sub-tribe B: Integrating the Course - Aesthetic-Cultural

 

Mar. 23

 

Mar. 25

 

Mar. 27: Session on previous projects and contribution to final one

 

Mar. 30: Sub-tribe C: Integrating the Course - Popular-Culture-Technological

 

Apr. 1:

 

Apr. 3

 

Apr. 6: Session on previous projects and contribution to final one:

 

Apr. 8: Sub-tribe D: Integrating the Course - Spiritual

 

Apr. 10: Good Friday - No Class

 

Apr. 13

 

Apr. 15:

 

Apr. 17: Feedback Forum on course: Final Project-Mark Brief Due

 

Final Project, Assessment Protocols and Strategies

 

Final Question to be answered in conjunction with mark brief:

 

"The key problem of Western Civilization in the 19^th, 20^th and 21^st Centuries has been that of consciousness. Specifically, the ways of life put forward in the dominant ideologies tended to emphasize a radical and unconscious affirmation of external or technological reality at the expense of internal or spiritual reality. As a result, the possibilities of a more authentic form of human consciousness and human liberty were undermined while critiques of ‘false', ‘deformed', or ‘hyper-externalistic' consciousness have so far proved themselves inadequate for the following reasons:

 

(i) the critiques were too weakly rooted in the internal world of authentic spirituality;

(ii) the critiques underestimated the power of the externalist ideologies and their institutional forms;

(iii) the critiques were successfully co-opted by the dominant powers as part of a strategy of colonizing consciousness;

(iv) the critiques failed to advance more relevant and compelling engagement with the realm of the internal;

(v) the critiques were themselves false (in the sense of inauthentic) representations of the internal and generated addictive and ultimately destructive substitutes for an authentic relationship with the internal world."

 

Discuss the above in a 12-page paper that brings to bear the course texts that are most relevant with respect to the quote. If possible, include your thoughts on the possibility of Western Civilization finding a way to achieve a more meaningful, more conscious, more free, and more balanced way of life.

 

Assessment:

 

Given the structure of the course this year, assessment strategies and protocols have to be refined. The key issue is the absence of an instructor in the second term. However, there will be a reserve marker to give feedback on any projects submitted during that time. The marker will also be responsible for the ‘final project-mark brief' that will be required of everyone in the class. That said, the final grade will still be decided by myself in consultation with the ‘Organizing Facilitator' (i.e., Kat Lord).

 

How then will the mark decision be made? While I will have a record of class marks derived from first term projects, from Sub-tribe presentations, and from the final assignment as graded by the appointed marker, the key consideration is the content of individual mark briefs. It is here that the student puts forward a proposed mark and justifies it on the basis of the following elements:

 

(1) how much of the course material the student has read, and how much the student estimates they would have read if the course were conducted in a more traditional way;

 

(2) how adequately the student feels she/he has met goals set at the beginning of the year (subject, of course, to appropriate revisions of these goals);

 

(3) a statement summarizing what the individual has learned about the subject and anything else that seems relevant; also to be included here may be a statement as to well the individual contributed to the life of the tribe;

 

(4) an actual grade based on the foregoing points;

 

(5) some suggestions as to how the methods adopted during the year may be improved.

 

Unless there is some obvious reason not to do so, the grade proposed in the mark brief will be accepted, but it will not be accepted blindly since I do reserve (in fairness to all tribal members) the right to override grades that are out of line with the evidence at hand. In any case, a sense of honor and honesty are expected from each member of the class.

 

The mark brief part of the final project only comes after the 12-page essay called "Final Question". That essay which will precede the mark brief should be weighted so as to account for 25% of you final mark unless your mark brief can justify counting it for more or for less.

 

Finally, in order to keep the class functioning as an integrated learning unity (ILU -- don't you just love suggestive acronyms?), individuals and/or sub-tribal groups can use as evidence of their participation responses to given presentations (critical, questioning, and constructive) - responses to which the presenter(s) has an opportunity to respond in class or via Blackboard.

 

Summary Assessment Strategy (Tentative):

 

First Term Submissions/Presentations: 35%

Second Term Projects/Presentations: 40%

Final Project/Mark Brief 25%

100%

 

 

Learning To Learn

 

This course gives a rare opportunity to learn how to learn on one's own. This does not mean there is no learning from a prof. Indeed, the first half of the course gives students a chance to gain an overview of the entire body of material. In that way they, the students, are positioned to undertake their own exploration of the course material. However, in order to engage in this kind of exercise, there has to be an understanding of what is involved in ‘self-education'. To be educated by others without knowing how to continue on one's own leaves students in a quasi-dependent position. Indeed, some might think they are not getting their ‘money's worth' unless the prof is there from beginning to end.

 

Challenging the last statement, I would suggest that a student is truly getting their ‘money's worth' if the prof has helped them to develop skills that give them access to course material without that prof's presence or direct supervision. Give a person a fish and she eats for a day. Teach a person to fish and she eats for a life-time.

 

In order to even begin one must first disabuse oneself of a corrupt learning model that infects the entire educational establishment. I am referring to the tiresome ‘cat and mouse game' that goes on between teacher and student - a game that prevents any kind of educational maturation on the student's part. The essence of the game is for the student to see what they can get away with in terms of passing the course with a minimum of effort; and if a high grade is earned in the process, this is counted as a bonus point in the game. Even if a student is mildly interested in the material, the dynamics of the game have become so second-nature that the possibilities of authentic learning are often undermined anyway. Instructors are aware of this although they rarely ask the reason why the game takes place much less attempt to find alternative forms of pedagogy. As a result a class becomes unconsciously structured to keep the worst students (or most canny ‘gamesters') in line. If learning does take place, it is usually in spite of the system.

So what can be done? The following are some guidelines to self-education:

 

I: Clarify goals:

 

In this case of this course, that means at least 3 things:

 

(A) Read the Material

(B) Demonstrate some Understanding of the Material

(C) Share, to some degree, that Understanding with the Class

 

Comment:

 

The key word in the above is ‘understanding'. Without entering into an impenetrable philosophical thicket, understanding may be considered as the ability to do something of significance with a body of knowledge. Few would consider something of significance to be memorization. Developing one's potentials, in the sense of having one's mind stretched, would be far more significant although that in and of itself is difficult to measure, and measurability is inescapable in a university setting.. Using your knowledge to solve a problem and having a knowledgeable individual examine your solution is measurable and may be taken as an indication of your understanding. As chief instructor, I have given a ‘summary' (in the sense of summing up the course) problem for all of you to work on; and if you as students (individually or in groups) can provide solutions, you may be deemed to have understood the material.

 

However, understanding is not just working on my summary problem. There are also possibilities of understanding if you (a) relate the material to your life; (b) relate the material to larger life questions (e.g., social justice, valuation, life goals, etc.); (c) integrate the course material into some holistic structure. The foregoing and any sense of understanding that you deem pertinent may be utilized as a way of approaching the material.

 

II: Means to Achieving Goals:

 

(A) When reading you must be disciplined enough to note (i) questions arising or (ii) places where your understanding has encountered some kind of barrier.

(B) Meet with your sub-tribal group to explore questions arising and barriers to understanding and see if answers can be ‘brainstormed' into existence before taking your questions to higher levels.

(C) Make sure you meet regularly.

(D) Develop a set of presentations, projects, etc., based on how you learn best, and develop a schedule whereby you can work on these systematically and ultimately share them with the whole class or tribe.

(E) Apportion work fairly and alternate the job of project co-ordinator(s) whenever feasible.

(F) Above all, be honest about any and all problems that come up. If you sweep them under the rug, they will come back to haunt you. Treat this class and course as an exercise in community development and learn from it. In the end, we all live in communities, and they can only be better if we learn to co-create them with mindfulness and integrity.

 

 

Conclusion

 

At the outset of the Guide to GNST 500, I quoted Saint Francis of Assisi. Returning to that quote, one may consider the elements in a more concrete form:

 

"Start by doing what is necessary ...": Read the course material.

 

"...then do what is possible ...": Express and share your understanding of the material by

whatever way you learn best.

 

"And suddenly you are doing the impossible." Become self-educators for whom nothing

is too challenging to understand!