Sunday 10 January 2016

Derrida on education (totally unreadable as usual) (UKPSF K2 V4)

While I was reading about multiple choice questions on Wikipedia, I found that the philosopher Derrida was opposed to multiple choice questions. So I did make the effort to try and read a discussion of his work on education. One quote from the linked paper is;


For nothing can be taught or learned other than what is believed to be known and understood.
OK, that is either very profound or just gibberish. Things go downhill very quickly in the paper, as the quote below shows:
Derrida characterizes the conventional or classical act of teaching and learning to be the pragmatic reproduction of the “metaphysics of presence” as cultivated from the premises of the interchangeable chain-linking of its orienting function at the fabulaic center of the syntagm of the Western mythos of “pure origins,” uncorrupted beginnings. 
Perhaps I should have struggled to understand the rest of the article, but really I don't see anything useful for teaching of anything. Of course, I didn't believe I was going to get anything out of the essay, so in that case, why did I try to read it. The PGCAP community who control education in higher education, love this kind of writing.