My Greater Future

Giroux’s Anti-Positivism and Critical Race Theory in American Schooling Summary Schooling and the Culture of Positivism, by Henry A. Giroux, details his perspective that positivism (as a normative pattern of thinking) is problematic to, and the cause of, theories that there has been a “death of history,” which he criticizes for being reductive and pessimistic. He believes that neo-Marxist and phenomenological theorists have so far neglected to examine how the role of positivism affects schooling. Giroux chooses to address the topic of America’s “loss of interest” in history because he believes it is a unique example of the problem of positivism that schools connect to larger society (2011, p. 20), as well as history being the ironic, singular location of the root of the ideology. Giroux criticizes the presence of positivism in the hegemony of education for its “limited focus on objectivity, efficiency, and technique,” (2011, p. 20). Giroux traces positivism to the industrial...

This essay reflects on an observation of a German 1010 class at my university. Arriving at the classroom, Ruthie and I found that Twitchell was very popular with his students. Several minutes before class began, there was excited discussion of popular media gathered around where he sat at the front of the room. Between his students, we managed to introduce ourselves and select seats at the back. My first note was that Twitchell was only speaking English so far, but I realized we were a minute from the start of the hour. The moment class began, Twitchell switched from English to German and his students gave their rapt attention. Twitchell only spoke the target language for nearly the rest of class, even in giving instruction. Using PowerPoint slides to display grammar and spelling on the board as well as repetition of key concepts and phrases, he got his students to catch on to their roles and participate collectively. The speed by which this occurred indicated to me that this is his...

A Facebook response: The more I've engaged with enduring and complex literature, the more I've understood why a lot of mainstream books and movies are not at the same caliber as others... What I find to be the difference is that ideas can either be retread or granted new insight. Marvel movies are not consistent in providing any insight—they do occasionally, especially within their genre and for their audience, but I think the nature of their function as multi-billion dollar products collapses their potential to break new ground. Marvel uses outdated, repetitive writings tropes to convey character growth and advance plot, and when it comes to cinema, the way the movies are shot and acted is really rarely top of the game, arguably because the characters and ideas are not that compelling to begin with. They have the budget and talent to do these things, but it isn't done because it doesn't have to be to make a billion dollars. I would, however, argue that literature ca...