Bob Meyenn Lectures
The School of Education at Charles Sturt University, Albury-Wodonga campus is committed to stimulating educational discussion in the border region. It does this through the education courses it offers and the research undertaken by staff.
In 2008 the Murray School of Education launched the Bob Meyenn Annual Education Lecture. Named after the eminent educator, Bob Meyenn, former Dean of the Faculty of Education at Charles Sturt University, the annual lecture brings to the border region highly esteemed thinkers and their provocative, practical and relevant ideas.
2013 Lecture
The 2013 lecture will be presented by Jane Caro on Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at CD Blake Lecture Theatre, Albury-Wodonga Campus, Charles Sturt University commencing at 7.00pm. Light refreshments will be served at 6.00pm and also following the lecture.
Jane Caro is, amongst many accomplishments, a social commentator, writer and lecturer. She is also known for her appearances on such shows as Q and A, Weekend Sunrise and The Gruen Transfer.
Jane will take us on a personal journey through her experiences as a student and then as a parent and now as an advocate for public education. How these experiences have formed her and her views about education as a whole and public education in particular. She will also look at public education through a marketing lens and suggest ways the system can fight back.
The 2012 Lecture was presented by Professor Stephen Kemmis of the School of Education.
Abstract:
“Contemporary schooling and the struggle for education”
Education, properly speaking, has a double purpose: it aims to promote the good for each person and the good for humankind. Put another way, it aims to help people to live well in a world worth living in. Although we ordinarily think of schooling as giving people an education, schools can be non-educational or even antieducational. The elaborate machinery of schooling – increasingly specified state and national curricula, teaching methods and standards, examinations and assessments – sometimes threatens to overwhelm the educational work of schools and teachers. Teachers nevertheless strive to find the ‘sweetness’ of educational encounters as they work to meet the increasingly elaborate demands of schooling. They know the ‘sweetness’ of those moments as the tennis player knows when she has found the ‘sweet spot’ in the tennis racquet. This lecture will explore ancient and contemporary understandings of the concept of ‘praxis’ that help to articulate what the educational ‘sweet spot’ is: ideas of praxis as morally committed action, or as ‘history-making action’. To tell a story about the struggle for praxis in education, we will take a journey from Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius to Bob Meyenn.