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Philosophy of Education Twitter Seminar 3 Weeks 5&6:
Shulamith Firestone, (1971) ‘Down With Childhood’, in The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution.
Shulamith Firestone, (1971) ‘Down With Childhood’, in The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution.
I’ve set up a structure for discussion below. Please try to follow it, to make the discussion easier to stay on top of for everyone. Please try to use the hashtag #edseminar3 in your first tweet replies to each section, so that that everything is a bit more easily navigable.
Respond to as many or few of the provocations as you care to. Try to refer to the reading as much as possible in your responses. Let threads develop around individuals comments. I’ll add some of my own thoughts throughout the next two weeks as well.
Over these two weeks we will be reading Shulamith Firestone, (1971) ‘Down With Childhood’, pages 72-104 in The Dialectic of Sex
Please reply with your general responses to the reading here.
Please draw connections to contemporary educational practice here.
Please draw connections to other educators or philosophers here.
Please think through the political implications and/or context here.
Answer the question, to what extent is ‘LAY OFF’ a useful and/or workable principle for parents and educators?
Answer the question, how far do you agree with or find helpful Firestone’s critique of childhood?
Answer the question, is the repression of children, as Firestone describes it, a necessary evil? If so, to what extent is it justifiable?
Answer the question, is the myth of childhood as useful as it is problematic?
Tell us about your favourite parts of the reading here.
Post your favourite quotes from the reading here. (these can then be discussed)
I’ll start:
‘though enlightened educators have devised whole systems of inherently interesting disciplined activities to lure and bribe the child into an acceptance of school, these can never fully succeed, for a school that existed solely to serve the curiosity of children...
‘though enlightened educators have devised whole systems of inherently interesting disciplined activities to lure and bribe the child into an acceptance of school, these can never fully succeed, for a school that existed solely to serve the curiosity of children...
...on their own terms and by their own direction would be a contradiction in terms— as we have seen, the modern school in its structural definition exists to implement repression.’ (99-100)
