The Eighth International Literacy & Education Research Network Conference on

SPETSES, GREECE
4-8 July 2001

Dr Lamont Lyons

Professor, Department of Foundations, Technology and Secondary Education,
Boise State University, Idaho, USA

Creating the World Anew:
How Zorba and Annie Can Change Schools and the World

Abstract

Most schools are rather lifeless, joyless places incapable of refreshing the spirits of students and teachers and making the world afresh. It need not be so. Instead of taking the lead from the standards, curriculum alignment and testing movement, let's take lessons from a child (Annie Dillard, An American Childhood) and a middle-aged man (Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis). Both saw commonplace things with wonder, as if for the first time. Both experienced joy in, and brought joy to, ordinary and extraordinary tasks and encounters and would appreciate John Dewey's warning that using the present to prepare for the future is a contradiction. Their disposition to be there - fully present in a time, in a place, suggests a rich way of being and knowing. They give us a startling contrast with ontologically and epistemologically oppressive schools and colleges of education that rob the present from students and teachers.

Bionote

Lamont Lyons is a professor of graduate educational foundations at Boise State University. He has received several awards for outstanding teaching. In pursuing their work to radically change schools, he and his students use novels, memoirs and plays to challenge their ways of knowing, doing and being.

Presentation Type
30 min. Paper

Presentation Equipment and Other Requests
Overhead projector and screen

Speaking Date/Time Restrictions

Country
USA