Delving into the Heights of Experimental Education

magickal utopian pedagogy: Pedobythy (the First Emission is the Red Dirt from which Names are Made), an Introductory Draft

2008-10-22T01:46:00.000-07:00

Being a new and psychocosmological approach to teaching drawing from Feri-tradition witchcraft, Chomskyan linguistics, Valentinian Gnosticism, and the writings of Robert Anton Wilson
by et alia laughing and weeping

This is what Ardhanarimurti says to Hoor-paar-kraat in every moment.

Once upon a now, there are three lands, and they are known as the Land of Just (where there is no guru), the Land of Or (where the guru-archetype is the bimbo), and the Land of And (where the guru-archetype is the autist). These three lands all meet in one spot. It is a three-way crossroads, a trivia, anciently sacred to Hekate (goddess of the witches) and more recently sacred to Pombagira (the Divine Whore). On this trivia, on this three-way crossroads, lives a tribe of people, and they are known as mup. Within them live more people, and they are known as muppets. Within them live yet more people, and they are known as the tzaddikim shel haShem, the saints of the Name. We are the muppets; outside of us is mup and within us are the tzaddikim shel haShem, and we live on the borders of Self, Other, and All.

This is what the World-Teacher says to the Crowned and Conquering Child in every moment.

Hail, Hoor-paar-kraat! Belan soyemtsi tsaqbu menssubi salhaqtsaqe emmenzhola wi! There is a place set at the table for thy whole beloved self, which I know because it is self-evident! I honor and love thy physical self! I give thee sustenance, that thou may take it into thyself and we shall be in community!

And e feeds him.

I honor and love thy talking self, known to the Hawai’ians as uhane, the qabalists as ruach, the Egyptians as ba, the Yoruba as emi, the voudounistas as ti bon angel, and the scientists as beta! I give thee mana-mana, that thou may take it into thyself and we shall be in community!

And e asks him a question.

I honor and love thy younger self, known to the Hawai’ians as unihipili, the qabalists as nefesh, the Egyptians as ka, the Ewe as vivi, the voudounistas as n’ame, and the scientists as alpha! I give thee mana, that thou may take it into thyself and we shall be in community!

And e plays with him.

And, most especially, I honor and love thy deep self, known to the Hawai’ians as aumakua, the qabalists as neshana, the Egyptians as sahu, the Yoruba as ori, the voudounistas as gros bon ange, and the scientists as gamma, which creates the world, and which I am as well! I give thee mana-loa, that thou may take it into thyself and we shall be in community!

And e teaches him.

W Hoor-paar-kraat, I call thee by thy Greek name, Harpokrates, theos Sigai, the god of Silence. W Harpokrates, who is called also Grace, and who is called also Thought, in thee is contained the Fullness and in the Fullness is contained the World, which thou birthed from out the seed of thy foolish companion lover, the Depth, the part of thee, of all of us, which is everything, which is called also Before-the-Beginning, and which is called also Forefather. The creation of worlds, no doubt, is a process obscure, but it is said, is it not, that thy first child, w Harpokrates, w Silence, was Mind, and this child, was it not so, is it not so, resembles and equals his father. Mind (born from Thought or Silence) is not far from the Depth, creator of all, the part of us which is everything, and so Mind is called also Only-Begotten, and Father, and Beginning-of-All. Mind alone, however, is not sufficient and so thou gave him a sister, who is named Truth, and a Four was completed (Depth and Silence; Mind and Truth). From Beginning-of-All, from Mind, from thy grandchild, from the beginning and form of the whole Fullness, there came through the womb of his sister-wife Truth another pair of siblings, who were called Logy and Life, and from them came Human and Gathering (who is also known as Assembly). That primal Four had become an Eight. But where these Eight are brought together, no stillness can be found for their creation, for the World and the Fullness in which it rests and indeed the Silence which contains them both, hold many things and all these things must be created, and so, Logy and Life gave birth to ten more Aeons, and Human and Gathering to another twelve, filling out the numbers of the Fullness to a total of three (the number of divinity), and of five (the number of humanity), and of two (the number united in me), gridded and matrixed into three dimensions.

From the union of Logy and Life

Deep and Mingling
Unaging and Union
Self-Produced and Pleasure
Immovable and Mixture
Only-Begotten and Blessing

From the union of Human and Assembly

Advocate and Faith
Paternal and Hope
Maternal and Love
Everlasting and Intelligence
Democratic and Blessedness
Willed and Wisdom

This last (Wisdom) is the Aeon which sought to comprehend the Depth and it is by her that we create karma or action in this world the Depth has built for us.

This is what the Destroyer of Illusions says to Inanna’s son in every moment.

Nothing is true, and everything is permitted. Everything is true, and nothing is prohibited. Non sequitur or coincidence: do you see that spider’s web? Thirty strands stretch from the center, where the nausea-producing creature sits, and a spiral labyrinth not unlike the ones used in initiations of old (a secret: they never branched and so could not be failed, they were merely black) fills the spaces between these thirty supports. The spider is Deep Reality, that which causes our experience. We, younger, talking, are the spiraling Web Perilous. Hoor-paar-kraat! Lord of the New Aeon! Thou who art Silence, and Grace, and Thought, thou who art my charge, my student! The truest, most central part of thee (thy consort indeed!) is no thing, but an action, no noun, but a verb: no hawk nor human babe are thou, but a moving, jittering, weaving spider! Thou, who are a doing, does, and what thou does is thou!

And e slams a door in eir pupil’s face.

Look to your names, and you will know the truth of what I say! But Truth is just one of the primal Four. I stand now and affirm in the power of True, and of False, and of Meaningless, and of Indeterminate. These four magickal tools – elemental and directional – fill every “is” in this prayer, in this teaching, for that is the only way they have power (potere means to be able). My words shift; this is Operation Mindfuck (OM); this is us. Hoor-paar-kraat! I summon thee! I summon thee here, to somewhere in the vicinity of my world, that our worlds may mix and blend and we might be in community. Everything is true, and nothing is prohibited. Nothing is true, and everything is permitted. And if I’m to succeed at this job your mother has given me, Hoor-paar-kraat, of teaching you, this will be the you I’ll be teaching.

And e slams a door in eir own face.

Hoor-paar-kraat, bleakest of miracles for me! For we experience mystically, we experience the Depth, but it is meaningless! No one has taught me how to use these magickal tools to teach you; your mother’s charge seems impossible. But look! That web has become a person! Language is its bones, and its name is Perception (an exercize: make a fish, or at least its bladder, of perception and experience). The Depth beats within its chest as a black heart. This is our partner in the completed eternal conversation of the moment, in which the World talks to us using our reaction to it and responds to us in our reply (for if we are talking to the World, and we are a part of the World, are we talking to ourselves?) The quality of conversation, as I am sure you will agree, Hoor-paar-kraat, vastly increases the better you know your partner, and so I am pondering: how does heart relate to blood, and how does blood become bone, and how does it all form Perception? The answer lies, witchily enough, in transformations. Hoor-paar-kraat, who is Silence and Grace and Thought, give praise unto the priest of Deep Structure, for he it is who created Deep Structure and proved his worship thereof by rejecting it! He it is who preaches the gospel of transformation and he it is who makes colorless green ideas sleep furiously! In this, we learn how heart relates to blood, and how blood becomes bone, and how it all forms Perception!

And e slams a door in your face. Now you may enter.

et alia laughing and weeping welcomes comments, feedback, confusions, and accusations. This is a draft, with the ideas still in the womb. You are its placenta, feed it with your responses. You can reach em at werd2thenerd@yahoo.com, or check out his educational blog, magickeducator.blogspot.com

Big-Ass Writing Pedgogy Bibliography I found (some experimental, some not)

2008-03-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Adams, Katherine H. A History of Professional Writing Instruction in American Colleges
Adorno, Theodore. “Is Art Lighthearted?”
Adorno, Theodore. Aesthetic Theory
Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses."
Amato & Fleisher. “Reforming Creative Writing Pedagogy: History as Knowledge, Knowledge as Activism”
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: The New Mestiza = La Frontera
Barreca, Regina, and Deborah Denenholz Morse, eds. The Erotics of Instruction
Bartholomae, David, Peter Elbow, Don H. Bialostosky, Wendy Bishop, and Susan Welch. “Interchanges: Responses to Bartholomae and Elbow”
Berlin, James A. Rhetorics, Poetics, and Cultures
Berman, Jeffrey. Empathic Teaching: Education for Life
Bishop, Wendy. Released into Language: Options for Teaching Creative Writing
Bernstein, Basil (ed.). Pedagogy, Symbolic Control and Identity
---, ed. Primary Socialization, Language and Education
---. The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse
Berry, Roger W. Creative Writing: A Review of the Study at the College Level
Bishop, Wendy. "On Being in the Same Boat: A History of Creative Writing and Composition Writing in American Universities."
---. Working Words: The Process of Creative Writing.
Bishop & Starkey (eds.). Keywords in Creative Writing
Bishop & Ostrom (eds.). Colors of a Different Horse: Rethinking Creative Writing Theory and Pedagogy
Bizzaro, Patrick. Responding to Student Poems: Applications of Critical Theory
Bourdieu, Pierre. (trans. Randal Johnson). The Field of Cultural Production [Graduate]
Bly, Carol. Beyond the Writers’ Workshop: New Ways to Write Creative Nonfiction
Bly, Robert. American Poetry: Wildness and Domesticity
Bogan, Louise. Poet's Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation
Bolter, Jay David. Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing
Bourdieu, Pierre. (trans. Randal Johnson). The Field of Cultural Production [Graduate]
Bridwell-Bowles, Lillian. "Discourse and Diversity: Experimental Writing Within the Academy.”
Calvino, Italo, et al. Oulipo Laboratory: Texts from the Bibliotheque Oulipienne (Anti-Classics of Dada.)
Castells, Manuel, Ramón Flecha, Paulo Freire, Henry A. Giroux, Donaldo Macedo, and Paul Willis. Critical Education in the New Information Age
Chabon, Michael. Wonder Boys
Clifford, John, and John Schilb (eds.). Writing Theory and Critical Theory
Collom, Jack, and Sheryl Noethe. Poetry Everywhere: Teaching Poetry Writing in School and in the Community
Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary StudentsD
elbanco, Nicholas. “In Praise of Imitation”
Dewey, John. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education
Elbow, Peter. "Being a Writer vs. Being an Academic: A Conflict in Goals."
---. Writing Without Teachers
Erdrich, Louise. Bluejay’s Dance
Foster and Prevallet. Third Mind: Creative Writing through Visual Art
Freire, Paulo. Education for Critical Consciousness. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos
---. Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed
---. Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
---. On Becoming a Novelist
Goldberg, Natalie. Writng Down the Bones
Goleman, Boyatzis, McKee. Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional IntelligenceGraff, Gerald. Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education
---. Professing Literature: An Institutional History
Grainger, T. Creativity and Writing: Developing Voice and Verve in the Classroom
Gudding, Gabriel. “From Petit to Langpo: a History of Solipsism and Experience in Mainstream American Poetry since the Rise of Creative Writing”
Harrington, Joseph. “Why American Poetry is Not American Literature”
Heller, Michael. "The Uncertainty of the Poet."
Illich, Ivan. Deschooling Society
Illich, Ivan. “The Cultivation of Conspiracy”
James, William. “Notes on Automatic Writing”
James, William. Talks to Teachers
Johnson, T. R. Refiguring Prose Style: Possibilities for Writing Pedagogy
Kamler, Barbara. Relocating the Personal: A Critical Writing Pedagogy
Kecht, Maria-Regina. Pedagogy is Politics: Literary Theory and Critical Teaching
Knights and Thurgar-dawson. Active Reading: Transformative Writing in Literary Studies
Krauth and Brady (eds.). Creative Writing: Theory Beyond Practice
Lacoue-LaBarthes, Phillip. The Literary Absolute
Lambirth, Andrew. Planning Creative Literacy Lessons
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Leahy, Anna (ed.). Power and Identity in the Creative Writing Classroom
Lee, Amy. Composing Critical Pedagogies: Teaching Writing as Revision
Magee, Michael. Emancipating Pragmatism: Jazz, Emerson, and Experimental Writing
Mathews, Harry. 20 Lines a Day
Mearns, Hughes. Creative Power
Mearns, Hughes. Creative Youth
Morton and Zavarzadeh. Theory/Pedagogy/Politics: Texts for Change
Motte, Warren F. Motte, Jr (ed). Oulipo: A Primer for Potential Literature
Moxley. Joseph M. Creative Writing in America: Theory and Practice
Myers, D. G. The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing since 1880
Nagin, Carol. Because Writing Matters: Improving Student Writing in our Schools
Ngai, Sianne. Ugly Feelings
Postman, Neil, and Charles Weingartner. Teaching as a Subversive Activity
Reed, Ishmael. Writin' is Fightin'
Ritter and Vanderslice. Can it Really Be Taught?: Resisting Lore in Creative Writing Pedagogy
Sampson, Fiona. Creative Writing in Health and Social Care
Searle, Chris. None but Our Words: Critical Literacy in Classroom and Community
Sondheim, Alan. Code Writing CD
Stein, Gertrude. How to Write
Sterling, Berdan, Boulton. Writing for a Change: Boosting Literacy and Learning through Social Action
Tight, Carl. Writing and Responsibility
Tyrrell, Jenny. Power and Fantasy in Early Learning: A Connective Pedagogy
Tzara, Tristan. Seven Dada Manifestoes and Lampistries (trans., Barbara Wright)
Watkins, Evan. Work Time: English Departments and the Circulation of Cultural Value
Winterowd, W. Ross. The English Department: A Personal and Institutional History
Wonder Boys. Paramount Pictures. 30 May 2000.
Worsham, Lynn. “Pedagogic Violence and the Schooling of Emotion”
Ziegler, Isabelle. Creative Writing.

As I gathered resources for the list to your left (and for me to read) I found this

2008-03-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

Q: Growing up in the American public school system, I am sure I am not alone in the experience of films being used as substitutes for actual education; if a video was being shown in class it was a reprieve from giving lessons for the teacher, and an opportunity to tune out for the students. You've argued in the past — including a presentation at the 2000 Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference — that cinema has potential as a form of anarchist pedagogy. What is this potential, and is it in conflict with how we are generally taught to receive media images in this society, film in particular? When has this pedagogical potential been fulfilled in the past? Is it being fulfilled today?

Porton: The problem, as you imply, is that most of us -- and probably not just Americans -- associate words like "pedagogy" and "education" with drudgery and boredom, with classroom monotony instead of "recess." Given what I've written about aesthetic bliss above, I believe certain exemplary films offer a vision of "recess" instead of school. This belief engendered a desire to define a tangibly playful pedagogy -- manifestly pleasurable as well as instructive. (After all, even that old Stalinist Brecht hoped for a felicitous synthesis of "pleasure and instruction.").

Unfortunately, I had to confront the fact that some postmodern critics posited a superficially similar notion of pedagogy. I eventually dismissed the postmodern infatuation with pedagogy as arid, narcissistic and, in the final analysis, a dead end. A lot of these postmodernists, besotted with Derrida and his disciples, also invoke playfulness and opposition to rigid hierarchies. But I found their methodologies pseudo-radical since, whether consciously or not, they're more interested in the cleverness of their own deconstructive sleight of hand than in genuine social change or anti-authoritarian pedagogy.

I'd have to say that my notion of anarchist pedagogy was closely tied to a belief in the efficacy of self-emancipation, a vital, actually essential, component of anti-authoritarian politics. Political and personal autonomy are of course closely intertwined. If you read accounts of great periods of revolutionary upheaval -- e.g. the Paris Commune, the Spanish Revolution -- masses of people who once felt powerless became responsible for their own liberation. Similarly, anarchist filmmakers -- Vigo comes to mind -- are involved, perhaps unwittingly, in both self-emancipation and the creation of movies that allow viewers to emancipate themselves in a fashion that might be termed, if the terminology is made flexible, "pedagogical." In a parallel vein, activist filmmakers who chronicle social ferment also help to dissolve the boundaries between teaching others and teaching themselves. It would obviously be silly to assert that children don't need help from adults in learning to read and performing basic skills. But the fundamental goal is to eventually efface artificial divisions between teacher and student. A film like Zero for Conduct, which is such a perfect synthesis of lyrical beauty and anti-authoritarian critique, might enable us to pursue such a goal. And, in a more utilitarian fashion, non-fiction films are often a spur to action; the recipient of knowledge becomes more than a passive consumer.

Non-Experimental Book Recommendation: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy

2008-03-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

I want to recommend you read the His Dark Materials trilogy, the first book of which is the Golden Compass, the inspiration for the recent movie.

First of all, the movie sucks. Don't watch it. It is nothing but a mindless adventure story that will rot your brain. The books, on the other hand, will carry on an amazing level of conversation with you. It is written at the 5th or 6th grade reading level, so the mechanics of the writing (vocabulary, sentence structures, et cetera) won't be that difficult for you. Why is a prospective teacher recommending you read it? Because of that level of conversation I mentioned.

The book not only discusses a large number of themes -- centering around coming of age and various religious/spiritual/philosophical topics -- but actually converses with you about them. What do I mean by that? I mean to say that, as opposed to the vast majority of what posses for literature nowadays (and even what passes for canonical literature, that is, the "big name" literature you've no doubt been forced to read and re-read by this point), the book's exploration of these themes occurs at a pace and in such a manner as to respond to the your personal exploration of these themes.What are these themes? As I said, they center around coming of age, including the discovery of sexuality, even in the bowdlerized (or cleansed and sanitized; the "radio version") American version, and a whole host of themes concerning religion and the soul. These latter themes include the nature of religious hierarchy (that is, whether the church as an organization is good or bad for people), what it means to have a soul, what it means to BE a soul (who talks about that?!), fate and destiny, and cosmology (or the metaphysical structure of the universe). Interestingly, both of these major themes combine in the ongoing character conflict revolving around the development of morals. In fact, this last theme serves as the hinge around which all of the other themes turn, and is essential to, quite literally, all of the other themes. Oh, and, in the meantime, he connects and explores questions of quantum physics and historical narrative, the latter bypresenting numerous alternate histories which draw you in with their elaborateness and strangeness. Fair warning, though, the alternate history of the first book is filled with slightly-different terms for things and will thus be your only possible vocabulary problem in this book.

This is not to claim the books are boring. Philip Pullman manages, throughout all of this, to weave a thrilling tale filled with high adventure, conflict, battle, epic hubris, and, of course, blood. Philip Pullman is an atheist, and that informs much of his discussion, but because he still accepts the validity of various spiritual concepts -- and because of the afore-mentioned conversational nature of his thematic exploration -- the books don't try to convince you that his way is THE way. Rather, they let you figure out the truth for yourself.

I hope that I have inspired you to at least read these books. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.