TB 2019-07-12-1500: The Purpose of Mass Education

Around the world, we invest enormous quantities of Financial, Human, and Social Capital in education. Why?  What do we hope to get from it? How can we measure that? Whom can we trust to give us honest answers, rather than merely promote a particular agenda?

In particular, is the purpose of higher education to:

1.  Learn the hard technical skills necessary to land a job
2.  Develop the soft “human” skills necessary for a meaningful career
3. Cultivate the habits of mind necessary for a fulfilling life

And if there is more than one purpose, how do we balance or integrate them in terms of curriculum and funding?

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Truth Bowl: Beyond Polarized Debate

Truth Bowl is a structured dialogue, halfway between competitive debate and a panel discussion, designed to model and train people in “productive disagreement.” TRUTH is sometimes interpreted as the acronym “Teaching Respectful Understanding Through Hospitality.”

Two Panelists compete in front of a Jury to address a Challenge, composed of a Question and an Objective. Members of the Jury award panelists Points for clarity and thoughtfully addressing disagreements. At the end of each Round, the Jury rewards the panelist who most helped them comprehend the Challenge with the title “Domaĝanto” (Esperanto for “Question Tamer”).

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Sign Up for Truth Bowl v1.0: Thu Jan 24 10:30am

This is it!  Please let me know by Monday if you can join a team for the 1.0 Truth Bowl competition:

Thursday, Jan 24th, 10:30 AM US Pacific Time
We want to put together two teams of 2-4 people each to start discussing the cases in advance.
Feel free to invite anyone else who might be interested; we will also need a few people to act as judges.  A draft Blurb is below (feedback welcome).

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