podcast, democratic schools, rule-making is empowering

[David McDivitt]

I've been listening to a neat podcast series "The Psych Files". The guy 
is an actor, singer, and college professor who's taught psychology for 
over thirty years. He says he's doing the podcasts to give interested 
people exposure to psychology, without the formality of a course. The 
podcasts begin with vocabulary, go on to major premises, historical 
people, statistics, empiricism, falsifiability, models, methods, 
therapy, and many other subjects. He puts critical thinking in the 
forefront for the most part, though is a humanist and a moral slant is 
occasionally evident. Being sixty years old he performed in a stage 
production "The Full Monty" where they stood naked at the end. Have no 
desire to see it, but in one of the podcasts he interviewed other actors 
and recorded their comments about being nude on stage. Whatever. I 
wanted to listen to each podcast as I make my way through.

The one I heard today was interesting. He did not seem to be in full 
agreement with the guest, Dr. Geist, who was explaining the concept of 
democratic schools. This is where the students vote on all the rules and 
even the curriculum, with the teacher having a single vote. Dr. Geist 
said students get so carried away with the democracy bit they often form 
more rules than a school would have otherwise, and this is "empowering". 
I sent an email asking why individualism and a good sense of self 
necessarily leads to increased rule-making. I would be interested in 
what others think of the podcast. The first URL is part one. The second 
URL is part two, and the quote I found humorous is in part two.

http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2009/01/episode-84-how-to-make-learning-fun-again-part-1-piaget/
http://www.thepsychfiles.com/2009/01/episode-85-how-to-make-learning-fun-again-constructivism-and-democratic-schools-part-2/

There's a link on each page to download the podcast.

He's had several podcasts about education and is big on that. Each 
podcast has been interesting and informational, whether or not I agree 
with what's presented.

-- 
yes, I dare to be subjective!