mutual school

25 Aug 2005

I refuse to use the term “mutual skual”, but Shawn Wilbur at Libertarian Labyrinth has decided to embrace the fact that he’s a “teacher without a classroom” and initiate some local educational initiatives:

And i’ve been dusting off the notes for a short course on Midwest Radicalism (New Harmony to Lawsonomy, more or less) that i’ve promised to teach in some informal setting this fall. Currently, i’m a teacher without a classroom, doing a lot of very informal educational work in front of coffee shops, on streetcorners, on the back steps at 3am with a half-rack of Natty Light, etc. And, honestly, that stuff is often as good as what goes on in university classrooms, but that’s not saying all that much. So. . .

I did some solitary brainstorming yesterday, over a nice Grounds for Thought dark roast, and then ran what i came up with past as many of the usual sympathetic suspects as i could find on short notice. The response was positive, so here’s something like a proposal:

This MUTUAL SKUAL (yeah, forgive me, ok?) will present short courses (1-5 weekly meetings of 2-3 hourse each) on a variety of topics. Instructor/facilitators will be encouraged to make an argument, be specific, even or especially where it generates controversy.

Kevin Carson has this to add:

Aha! Actual learning through dialectic, as opposed to imparting the conventional wisdom under a pose of “objectivity.” When you get this project well underway, Shawn, how about starting a cable news network?

I have to admit this sounds pretty awesome. Anyone interested in throwing something like this together here?