Human Restoration Project

Schoolishness w/ Dr. Susan Blum

Aug 10, 2024

Dr. Susan Blum, a Professor of Anthropology at Notre Dame and author of insightful educational books, explores the concept of 'schoolishness'—the alienation created by traditional schooling. She critiques standardized testing and advocates for authentic, joyful learning experiences that resonate with students' lives. By sharing examples from innovative educational practices, she highlights the transformative power of community engagement and self-directed education. Blum emphasizes the need to rethink educational structures for a more genuine connection to knowledge.

01:00:37

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Susan Blum

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Quick takeaways

Dr. Susan Blum critiques 'schoolishness' for alienating students and highlights the need for more authentic, engagement-driven learning practices.

The Bowman Creek project exemplifies how community-oriented education can transform student experiences, fostering real-world connections and intrinsic motivation.

Deep dives

Critique of Schoolishness

The traditional educational framework, described as 'schoolishness,' is critiqued for failing to foster genuine learning and engagement among students. This system prioritizes compliance and standardized performance, leading to alienation from meaningful education. Through an anthropological lens, the framework of schoolishness is examined to reveal how its rigid structures and uniform goals do not cater to individual learning needs or interests. The speaker argues that while some elements of schoolishness remain entrenched, they are not necessarily inevitable and can be challenged for a more humane approach to education.

Intro

2min

Rethinking Education: Embracing Authentic Learning

26min

Transformative Community Engagement Through Engineering

6min

Authentic Learning: A Shift from Traditional Education

2min

Transformative Learning Through Community Engagement

3min

Rethinking Education in a Post-Pandemic World

6min

Rethinking Education: From Tests to Curiosity

16min

My guest today is Dr. Susan Blum. Susan Blum is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author of I Love Learning; I Hate School and My Word!, as well as the editor of Ungrading.

Her new book, Schoolishness: Alienated Education, and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning is now out on Cornell University Press. It catalogs in great detail the characteristics of a “schoolish” education, that is, school as a self-contained institution with its own logic, grammar, and rules. One that, ultimately, sets students up for difficult re-entry into the rest of their lives in an unschoolish world. Susan draws upon examples of unschoolish learning from around the world and makes a powerful case for a necessary anthropological perspective that makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar.

“If we don't try, nothing will change,” she writes, “It's hard. Hell, it's probably impossible. Schoolishness is probably here to stay, but maybe not all of its elements are inevitable. Entrenched, yes. But inevitable? I don't think so.”

Editor's Note: Susan would like to add a quick correction that her current DuoLingo streak is over 1,100 not 11,000. :)

Susan Blum's Website

Works mentioned this episode:

Susan Hrach - Minding Bodies: How Physical Space, Sensation, and Movement Affect Learning

David Lancy - The Anthropology of Childhood

Edwin Hutchins - Cognition in the Wild

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