(1983). Five Questions and a Stack of Books: Remediation for a Democratic Society. Innovation Abstracts, v5 n28 Oct 7. Because students who do not read and write cannot participate effectively in a democratic society, the staff of the College Skills Program at Burlington County (New Jersey) College has designed a developmental skills program in reading and writing with a social science core. The program (Social Science 100) emphasizes reading, thinking, questioning, writing, and student attitudes. A simple formula, "five questions and a stack of books," is used as the framework for the course. Emphasis is on support systems and thought-provoking questions that best reflect five critical issues of the century: (1) spreading the American way over the rest of the world; (2) dealing with severe economic problems via socialist revolution, conservative rectification, or liberal reform; (3) policies toward fascism and communism; (4) the "liberation" of the sixties; and (5) the decline or rebirth of the late twentieth century in America. Instead of textbooks, the program uses a variety… [PDF]
(1994). A Classroom Program in Discovery of Self, Community, and Writing. Revised. In a pilot study based on a project underwritten by the United States Department of Education to add more study of international issues to writing courses, revisions in content to both a first your and an advanced composition course were tested during 1993-94. The method for the classroom procedures was also changed to enhance the greater responsibility of the students as researchers, writers, and editors. Using a sequence of expanding writing assignments and varying types of workshops, the writing course curriculum facilitates students' individual and group proficiencies in focus, description, audience awareness, and self awareness. A writing instructor at Davis & Elkins College, West Virginia, redesigned first year and advanced composition courses to have this new content imperative. The assignments ran through a variety of open-sided (as opposed to open-ended) topics. The second term first-year course focused on environmental topics. Students wrote about such topics as the… [PDF]
(2005). "Dilettantes and Over-Specialization": Diagnosing and Treating Nazism at West German Universities after World War II. History of Education Quarterly, v45 n4 p604-614 Win. After 1945, the words "anti-fascist education" appeared much less frequently in the western zones of occupied Germany than in the Soviet zone, but the concerns expressed by the phrase were shared by all occupying powers: How could education help prevent a resurgence of Nazism? For the American and British occupation authorities, and to a lesser extent, the French, the answer was to "reeducate" for democracy. The leaders of German universities in the western zones answered this question differently. Drawing on the traditional German "idea of the university," German professors stressed the inculcation of morality through "Bildung" or character formation. In practical terms, this meant very little change in curriculum, course content, or educational structure: Only a rededication to university traditions supposedly uncompromised and unaffected by Nazism could lead German higher education, and by extension Germany, away from fascism. By redefining… [Direct]
(1977). Perspectives in Italian Immigration and Ethnicity. The essays prepared for this symposium range from the scholarly and highly structured to the impressionistic and subjective. Together, they comprise a substantive exploration of Italian American life and serve as a model for research into American ethnicity. In the papers three different areas are addressed: (1) current research and issues in the new Italian American identity, (2) the state of research on Italian Americans, and (3) new directions in research on Italian Americans. The papers in the first area cover issues such as the new ethnicity, ethnicity, social class and mental health, and myths surrounding Italian Americans. The second area contains the largest number of papers. Among them are the following: (1) Italian American workers from 1880-1920, (2) fascism and Italian Americans, (3) the American political process and Italian participation, (4) familialism in the south of Italy and in the U.S., (5) the state of Italian Canadian studies, and (6) sources and current…
(1981). The University Under Mussolini: The Fascist-Catholic Struggle for Italian Youth, 1922-1943. ASHE Annual Meeting 1981 Paper. The effect of Benito Mussolini and the Fascist movement in post World War I Italy on the university is examined with focus on the Fascist-Catholic struggle for Italian youth during the time span 1922-1943. Discussed is the attempt of the Gioventie Universitaria Fascista (GUF), the official organization of the university students and the cornerstone of Fascist influence among the educational elite, to dominate educational thought and practice. The efforts of the GUF were hampered by he Federazione Universitaria Cattolica Italiana (FUCI) who kept active the influence of the Catholic Church within higher education. The presence of the FUCI and the GUF are discussed in detail, highlighting their activities and priorities such as FUCI's commitment to Catholic Action (social action) and GUF's introduction and involvement in athletic events, a Fascist innovation at the universities. The analysis provided is that although GUF membership outweighed that of FUCI, GUF was never able to absorb…
(1987). The Rhetorical Force of History in Public Argument. The rhetorical functions of history depend on the domain in which history is used, with no connotations of interpretive priority attaching to the social or the academic realm. The appropriation of history in support of social causes as radically opposed as socialism and fascism fuels the temptation to subsume history under ideology, with the result that history is "relativized" as whatever interpretation of past events supports a particular cause. History when used as a warrant in public argument is immensely authoritative, acquiring a mythic character when divorced from factual evidence. The fact that history can by used to suit almost any purpose demonstrates how interpretive latitude allowed by uncontested terms (which are not amenable to logical dissection) can instigate widespread adherence to the principles these terms embody. Quarrels among academic historians regarding interpretation indicate that historians themselves do not use history consensually. History in… [PDF]
(2001). World War II Memorial Learning Activities. These learning activities can help students get the most out of a visit to the Tennessee World War II Memorial, a group of ten pylons located in Nashville (Tennessee). Each pylon contains informational text about the events of World War II. The ten pylons are listed as: (1) "Pylon E-1–Terror: America Enters the War against Fascism, June 1940"; (2) "Pylon E-2–Conviction: Miracle of War Production, January 1942"; (3) "Pylon E-3: Courage: Striking Fortress Europe, June 1943"; (4) "Pylon E-4–Triumph: Liberating Europe, June 1944"; (5) "Pylon E-5–Gratitude: The Price of Victory, May 1945"; (6) "Pylon W-1–Outrage: Remember Pearl Harbor, December 1941"; (7) "Pylon W-2–Resolved: Rally to Arms, January 1942"; (8) "Pylon W-3–Valor: Turning the Tide in the Pacific, May 1942″; (9)"Pylon W-4–Fortitude: Striking the Japanese Home Islands, May 1944"; and (10) "Pylon W-5–Victory: Defeat of… [PDF]
(1980). "The Deer Hunter": Rhetoric of the Warrior. A psychological/ritual model of criticism is used to examine the movie "The Deer Hunter" as a rhetorical event in which males undergo psychological change through their war and postwar experiences. The critical model depends on understanding a Jungian interpretation of the human psyche, the form and function of initiation rituals, and the psychological changes that are linked to specific attitudes toward rituals. Using this model, the three main male characters in "The Deer Hunter" are observed as they cope with the initiation rituals of marriage, the deer hunt, the war, and the Russian roulette played within the war. The three psychological patterns that occur in the movie's characters are the regressive restoration of Steven's persona, Nick's identification with his unconscious/shadow self, and Michael's individuation ("coming to selfhood"). Although understanding "The Deer Hunter" seems to demand viewing war aesthetically, this viewpoint…
(1972). The Student Rights Issue: The Strategy for the Prevention of Genocide. Position Paper No. 2. Education for black children in the United States is still an education for slavery. Public education for the oppressed has one objective: to destroy the positive self-image of black children. The destruction of self-image is necessary to destroy motivation in black children. This makes the climate ripe for genocide. The core of the student rights issue is that students have a right to like themselves and to believe they are important. Destructive school policies, be they suspensions, corporal punishment, denial of freedom of expression, tracking, or an irrelevant curriculum all contribute to the denial of a student's confidence in his own worth. These and other practices of school systems around the country promote a disease among students and their parents which is called mindlessness. Mindlessness is a precursor to fascism and genocide. It promotes dependence on and acceptance of decision making by government officials, teachers, and schools, when, by all rights, decisions should…
(1997). Roland Barthes and Decomposing/Deterritorializing the Writing Classroom. Roland Barthes points out in his pedagogical essays that, although students have been filled with horror stories of professorial expectations, at the same time they have expectations of their own. Barthes' points should be considered as a way of examining the classroom space and common writing teaching practices and opening them up to different and differing possibilities. Students arrive in the classroom expecting to be taught "something." Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's how-to manual, "Anti-Oedipus," reverberates with Barthes' descriptions of repressive teacher-student relations and the classroom situation. The roots of fascism lie, for Deleuze and Guatteri, in philosophies and systems of thought at the base of all systems of meaning: the subject, the agent, the one who wills. The two French thinkers seek plurality, multiplicity, a collective sort of subjectivity. Such a non-agent, an anti-oedipus, would be free to follow the force of its desires, desires…
(2006). The Social Scientist as Public Intellectual: Critical Reflections in a Changing World. Rowman & Littlefield Education What is the role of the social scientist in public affairs? How have changes in the structure of the university system and the culture of academia reshaped the opportunities and constraints facing contemporary scholars? "The Social Scientist as Public Intellectual" addresses these and other questions by reviewing the ideas of seminal thinkers in Europe and the United States, and relating their conclusions to today's world. In this book, Charles Gattone examines the analyses of Max Weber, Thorstein Veblen, Karl Mannheim, Joseph Schumpeter, C. Wright Mills, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Pierre Bourdieu, tracing their perspectives through two World wars, the Cold War, and into the present. Gattone situates the ideas of these authors in historical context, showing the ways the realities of their time–fascism, totalitarianism, the rise of bureaucratic institutions, and the expansion of industrial democracy–informed their assessments regarding the place of the intellectual in the… [Direct]
(1986). The Verbally Talented: Unloved, Unwanted, and Social Dynamite. Community Review, v6 n2 p27-38 Spr. Predicts bleak employment prospects for the college educated with verbal rather than quantitative skills. Warns of political dangers for the U.S. of a large cadre of educated unemployed and underemployed. Offers examples of unemployed/overqualified intellectuals serving as the nuclei of extremist political movements in other countries. Considers alternatives. (DMM)…
(1994). Political Correctness and American Academe. Society, v32 n 1 p58-63 Nov-Dec. Argues that today's political correctness atmosphere is a throwback to attempts made by the Nazis and Stalinists to force society into conformity. Academia, it is claimed, is being forced to conform to gain control of the institution of higher education. It is predicted that this effort will fail. (GR)…
(1983). The Propaganda War. American Educator: The Professional Journal of the American Federation of Teachers, v7 n1 p13-15 Spr. Teachers must not provide a platform for any student or outside speaker to ventilate racist, anti-Semitic, or totalitarian sentiments. In the classroom, democratic values should be obvious from the outset. Toward this end, a curriculum entitled "Extremist Groups" has been developed by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. (Author/GC)…
(1984). Pedagogical Thoughts from Half a Century Ago. Phi Delta Kappan, v65 n5 p335-36 Jan. Juxtaposes a series of quotations from Hitler's "Mein Kampf" on such educational topics as the study of history as politics, the learning of history, and multilingualism. (JBM)…