Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning with Susan Blum
Susan D. Blum (author)
Professor of Anthropology
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow
Jean Lave
Professor Emerita
University of California, Berkeley
Rev. Hugh R. Page, Jr.
Vice President for Institutional Transformation and Advisor to the President
Professor of Theology and Africana Studies
University of Notre Dame
In her new book Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning, published by Cornell University Press, Kellogg faculty fellow Susan D. Blum presents a theory-based phenomenology of institutional education. She defines "schoolishness" as educational practices that emphasize packaged "learning," unimaginative teaching, uniformity, constant evaluation by others, arbitrary forms, predetermined time, and artificial boundaries, resulting in personal and educational alienation, dependence, and dread. Drawing on critical, progressive, and feminist pedagogy in conversation with the anthropology of learning, and building on the insights of her two previous books, Blum proposes less-schoolish ways of learning in ten dimensions, to lessen the mismatch between learning in school and learning in the wild.
Join the Kellogg Institute for a book launch conversation between the author and special guests Jean Lave and Rev. Hugh R. Page, Jr. A reception will follow.
Co-presented with the Department of Anthropology, with co-sponsorship by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Center for Educational Research and Action.
Susan D. Blum is a professor of anthropology who has written about both China and the US. Her work in recent decades has mostly focused on higher education, particularly in a trilogy of books – My Word! Plagiarism and College Culture, "I Love Learning; I Hate School": An Anthropology of College, and Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning – and an edited collection, Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead). She has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 2004.
Jean Lave is a social anthropologist who theorizes learning as changing participation in on-going changing practice. Her lifework challenges conventional theories of learning and education. She is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, who earned a doctorate in social anthropology from Harvard University. The author of many books, Lave pioneered the theories of situated learning and communities of practice with the publication of her seminal text, Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (in collaboration with her student Étienne Wenger), published by Cambridge University Press in 1991.
Hugh R. Page, Jr. is the University of Notre Dame’s vice president for institutional transformation and advisor to the president. He has been a faculty member at Notre Dame since 1992 and holds appointments in theology and Africana studies. He is the author or editor of many books, including Exploring New Paradigms in Biblical and Cognate Studies and The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of its Reflexes in Ugaritic & Biblical Literature. An Episcopal priest, Page holds a doctorate in ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation and a doctorate in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University.
