The Unexamined Education

Shaun interviews a former student, Sam, who is a public school teacher and coach. Epic.

Wait...what??? Is it over? Is this really happening? Am I free from listening to this anymore? Jonathan don't respond...please don't!!! 

BUT...wait a minute...do I only exist to critique this show? If Jonathan does not respond, will my existence end? Jonathan! My continued pattern of existence relies solely on you!

Please be merciful in your decision.

"Jonathan" and Shaun interview John, a new teacher in a crisis situation. As is so often with new teachers under the influence of The Unexamined Education, John struggles mightily with how things could be and rather than turning off his humanity and assuming the children are soulless so that he can get on with delivering essential curriculum, John wants to think about human things. 

Oh, you young fool! Change now, while you still can! Don't nurture the human side of education! All that will do is make you realize how inhumane the system is!

It's been so long since I listened to this and now that I cannot remember what these two guys were talking about. They have some idea that they'll get better engagement by restructuring the podcast, but it has only left me with an empty mind.

The Critic

Jon delivers a monologue in an attempt to ease Shaun's feeling of isolation, but ultimately questions the humanity of Shaun's existence. 

This is a discussion on the analogue between AI learning and student learning. I wonder if Jon abandoned Shaun. That drama is way more interesting than the monologue.

Jon has to work out some issues he has had throughout his life involving math trauma. Perhaps his whole motivation in becoming who he became is wrapped up into the crisis of math he experienced as a youth. Not to fear, Dr. Rushton makes a special guest appearance to help him through it. The episode is an interesting psychological study.

Shaun has little to say and mainly fills the air with fillers. I miss the days when Jon was the host. You could almost cut Shaun out of these productions, which is probably why he has the...

χαλεπα τα καλα

Well, the audio is bad on this one; plus, you have to listen to these two jokers. If you don't make it to the end, Shaun basically gives up on the idea of control as a concept, and Jon labels plagiarism as "curation" and claims that his excellent writing skills stem directly from his academic dishonesty.

Sorry about the audio ;(

Amplify SHAUN!

Jon and Shaun jump on the crypto train to try to promote their podcast…not even sure what this episode is about…something like a central authority in education could be problematic. Jon basically defends teachers helping their students cheat on standardized tests in order to protect the kids from the all-knowing central authority. And Shaun just says, “right,” “right,” and “yes!” So educational fraud is okay now? “Right!”

Dead silence.

Okay, so not much to say here. Surely, these guys are wrong.

Well, this starts with a strange pseudo-apology that was amusing for any who oppose this podcast. Then Jon proposes an allegory (actually Shaun does all the heavy lifting, but he credits Jon), and the two talk about the allegory as though talking through this imaginative comparison will solve all problems in education. One of them, probably Shaun, cannot stop bumping his microphone table, which is a tad distracting, but at least it gives us something else to listen for because insights ain't coming, my friends. 

This guy is way too friendly with Jon and Shaun. He could clearly outpace him, but he's holding back. Enjoy moments of the two getting their just deserts, and imagine what Matt could have done to them had he not shown them so much respect.

Well, what did you expect on a Christmas episode? Of course, Jon and Shaun go after one of the more trusted critiques of our modern age - screen time and whether or not we should limit screen time for young people. These contrarians do their typical back and forth where they suppose in-depth discussion can undermine the assumptions upon which all of our educational values have been created. Merry Christmas! I imagine Jon and Shaun got their kids some new screens. Maybe 2022 will be better.

Jon and Shaun ponder the phenomenon of devious licks. One cannot really say that they got anywhere with it, but they thought hard about it.

Shaun recounts a school discipline situation through hearsay, and the two analyze the validity of the school's response even though they have no real connection to the incident. 

Well it’s confession time for Jon. This damned podcast contains a couple of damning confessions by who I thought was the more sensible and erudite of the two personalities. Shaun, as is his wont, praises himself with a couple of elementary school anecdotes which serve as shameless self-promotion of what a sweet, kind, and creative child he was. Jon apparently took those stories as confession time for his malfeasances  of yesteryear, which are abundant. Not only did these stories serve as condemning evidence of Jon, they revealed the sadistic nature of Shaun, who couldn’t stop laughing about Jon’s...

Today we have the rare case of Shaun making the more sensible point, which is to preserve the tradition of summer break. Of course, his reasons are weak as he apparently just wants to selfishly relive the glory of his summer camp days. But at least Shaun had a summer life. Jon apparently did nothing but watch television in his summer youth. Now, I suppose he wants to retroactively punish himself for his sedentary wastefulness and rid us of summer. Jon, we are not proxies for you in your war against yourself, sir. 

As often it goes w...

Shaun discovers a new philosophy, one that surely millions before him have posited, but now Shaun has discovered it, so it I guess it matters. Jon certainly thinks it matters. What is the "philosophy?" you ask. Well, see the title? That's it. Shaun goes down the path of exploring what the situation of the world is, and posits that the reality of the world is that young people owe nothing to older people. Empirically, this is dubious as the actual existence of the young generation depends upon an older generation generating them. However, Shaun seems to be exploring this...

Jon preaches about the problems that arise from teachers not explaining what they’re doing to the students. Shaun agrees, straining his mind to understand Jon’s mysterious concept: mystification. This episode didn’t offend so much as it bored. It is Jon, Shaun, and yawn. 

"There's nothing wrong with experimenting on children."

What else needs to be said? This is an actual quote from the episode. The best part of the episode is at the end when we get a glimpse of how these two have failed as teachers in the past. Please, bring on more episodes like that!

So apparently these guys have just given up on post production. The Mozart that once elevated this discourse just a tad, is gone and the whole program suffers for that omission. Moreover, it seems they have gotten too lazy to edit out fillers and stutters. They must have spent hours previously trying to trick all of us into thinking they were well spoken...and I guess it kind of worked, but the jig is up now. The true quality of these two comes through in episode 15.

Jon and Shaun believe that schools should be designed around the...

This episode may have the listener thinking, "these guys are just contrarians." After all, who in his right mind, would question the value of catching a young person in the act of cheating. Is that not the supreme moment of authority? Well, Jon and Shaun will question that. Specifically, they even call out a much relied upon program used for catching students who plagiarize, but let's be sympathetic here for they are not simple contrarians and in regards to Turnitin.com, they know not what they do.

First, let's just get something out of the way here...

"After a long hiatus, Jon and Shaun finally return. Why were they gone so long? I assume it's because they burned out. Apparently not...maybe they were working on great improvements in the production. Well, let's give it a listen:

"Okay, so quality has not improved. Jon and Shaun do not even give us that little bit of Mozart at the start and finish to make us feel a little classy for listening to their production. Of course, I always saw right through that ridiculous juxtaposition of Mozart with Jon and Shaun, but now that I don't...

Jon and Shaun take pot shots at the great tradition of pep rallies in schools. These fun-hating teachers go on and on about how difficult it is to stand amongst other people standing. Their complete lack of confidence in managing excited teenagers is amusing, and what's more amusing is that they seem to suggest that we reconsider the entirety of the educational system because they don't fit in.

Same old Jon and Shaun!

Jon starts the episode by pointing out that Shaun keeps in touch with his former students but that he does not keep in touch with any. Shaun explains how social media works. Thanks Shaun. Jon confesses that he does not keep up with anybody really at all, and never has. Now, Jon has some regret because of this, so Shaun and Jon start a campaign to get Jon to gather up some friends from yesteryear. Okay, so five minutes in, and I'm wondering why or why am I listening to these guys?

The topic of the episode...

Once again, our crew of two try their hands at a movie review. Sticking with the 80s, they watched Dead Poets Society. There's not much to say here except that Jon and Shaun miss the entire point of the movie! Clearly, the Dionysian influence brought into Welton disrupted the established and successful Apollonian regime. This is an ancient struggle - the Apollonian brings upon its own disruption by attempting to harness the energies of Dionysian. Of course, in this movie Keating is Dionysus and Nolan represents Apollo.

The film establishes the reputation and the success of the...

Jon and Shaun tell us that they are going to reflect on the interview with Dev Ojha. Shaun, as always, starts things off by thinking more highly of himself than is warranted. Shaun places himself in the center of the conversation by issuing a public apology. Within his apology, he asks for forgiveness...centralizing himself as the sacrificial teacher necessary for all student successes. He apparently even takes Dev's critiques as honor! Jon doesn't help anything by pointing out that he doesn't want to talk about Shaun's "plight" and then proceeds to talk about Shaun's "plight" for five minutes...

Well, these guys finally start to make sense. Clearly they recognize the problem with forcing a student through Shaun's English class, and they both seem to support this former student, Dev, who chose to pursue other studies rather than attend Shaun's class.

The course of the discussion reveals that Shaun mainly put the effort of teaching on other students as he deferred answering direct questions from Jon indicating that he could not remember specifics about class but only remembered that a lot of other students were involved. Wow! What a teacher! He remembered that he had students...

Jon and Shaun tease the audience with their imminent disagreement about unschooling. Jon takes an unschooling posture. Shaun defends the schools...but only if a person have sufficient privilege. Jon then realizes that Shaun is only going to defend privileged access to schools, but he was hankering for an argument against a standard public school defender. Realizing that Shaun was not going to take the stance, Jon had to shift his position to present the counter argument to his own argument. This all happens in the first few minutes of discussion. Shaun will remain oblivious to the fact that...

Shaun makes it almost seven whole minutes without entirely dismissing the premise of the discussion. Jon forces him into another 50 minutes of conversation anyway. Jon gives an anecdote that he claims is not proof, but after delivering his anecdote, both Jon and Shaun treat the anecdote as universal truths. Shaun is suspiciously vague about whether or not he can count.

Jon points out that the reason why we don't see mental education as analogous to physical education is because mental education is the pathway to egalitarianism. This is a welcome point, one of the few. More analogies...

Wow! These guys are going after Jaime Escalante now…not the actual person, but the character portrayed by Edward James Olmos in the great movie, Stand and Deliver. Of course, both of them used to like the movie but now find themselves critical of their former judgments due to their tendency to overthink absolutely everything. 

After a few minutes of chuckling about the cringe factor of the 80s, the two then analyze the movie as though it were a real classroom situation from the 80s. Some insights come from this exercise though all of the insights can be...

In this episode, we didn't just learn about teaching; we learned about life...well, sort of.

Shaun realizes that he once was a clown. He seems to believe that he is no longer one. Jon fancied himself a hero and clearly has given up on that self image. The two discuss other personas and think about student responses to those personas. They analyze popular teaching styles in a way that is less than flattering, as though some styles are more about inflating teacher egos than educating students. They are pretty hard on themselves, too. These guys are...

These two tormented souls try to mount a proper case for society emphasizing certain essential schooling, but within minutes of the start of the show, they refer to society at large as tyrannical and spend the rest of the episode mounting the weakest defense imaginable for literacy, numeracy, and citizenship. Despite this failure, the listener finds himself strangely sympathetic to these two teachers' plights, and the episode becomes less about what Jon and Shaun are saying and more about living through some of their pain as teachers who care about young persons. Shaun continually tries to save the purpose...

Shaun asks Jon why he chose to study English in college and explains how he came to deeply appreciate his own choice to study "English." They both then point out how they ruined that study of literature for students by teaching literature. Jon shares why he performed so poorly in math classes in high school before pointing out that he could manage the subject when he had time to approach it on his own terms. A hopeful herpetologist student from early in Shaun's career carries the conversation further since Shaun could then blame someone else besides himself for ruining...

Jon and Shaun tell the story of what their lives were like as students and how they got into teaching, and why both of them left teaching only to return some years later with a more mature eye on the profession. Jon and Shaun have been discussing the nature of education for years and would like to share their insights with a wider audience.

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / CC BY-SA