Neill Korobov, John Roberts, Hans Skott-Myhre, Eric Dodson, Lisa Osbeck, and John Kim, not to mention the many fellow graduate students that helped me sort through novel ideas at various bars in Carrollton, Georgia. While at UWG, I received more than an education: I learned how to take responsibility for my own learning. This supplied the freedom and flexibility to challenge the academic disciplines that I had found so compelling. This book has been a way for me to organize my thoughts about philosophy, education, and science, as they changed throughout my education. By reading this book, my hope is that college students can feel a bit of the freedom in inquiry and learning that I was fortunate enough to experience first-hand.
Since most of these chapters came together while I was a graduate student, many of them have parts that have been presented at various conferences (which subsequently helped to shape the focus and significance of my arguments). I would like to acknowledge my debt to these conferences.
Chapter 3 came from a paper titled “The heuristic method revisited: The lasting impression of Cézanne’s Doubt,” presented at the International Human Science Research Conference in Montreal, Quebec, June 25–29 (2012).
Chapter 7 came from a paper titled “Schooling as an Ideological State Apparatus,” presented at the Southeast Philosophy of Education Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, February 21–22 (2014).
Chapter 8 came from a paper titled “The effects of student-centered learning on problem-solving abilities: A neurobiological consideration,” presented at the Southeast Philosophy of Education Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida, February 1–2 (2013).
I would like to thank Jamie Barker and Gary Senecal for contributing the Foreword and Afterword, respectively, and again thank Jamie for his help with revisions. Finally, I would like to thank Jeff Young, and the editorial staff at BrownWalker Press, for helping get this project into its final form.
Foreword
Patrick Whitehead’s text comes to us at a critical juncture in our nation’s history and culture. We, as people of the United States, reside in one of the most divisive times in decades, yet we attempt to simplify, not necessarily our own existence, but the existence of others to better cope with our humanness. The assumptions we make, but more importantly, those assumptions made for us, reinforce and codify our understanding of a world that becomes increasingly complex with each passing moment. At any time, we are making decisions based on certain facts, yet those facts, although sometimes proven, do not allow for a more manifest reality. As I write this, however, I can almost hear Patrick telling me to reign it in because I am getting too abstract, and given the stylistic choices made in this book, allow me to do just that.
I live in southwest Georgia. This has been called part of the Bible Belt by many and has also been said to be part of the Black Belt by people like W. E. B. Dubois, as he discussed Albany in two of the chapters in The Souls of Black Folk. It is a very impoverished area of the nation, and it is also one that is very warm nearly all year. Albany was once a robust, vibrant city, but the loss of industry, due largely to outsourcing, has left the city in crippling poverty. The city is also a little over 70 percent African American and 54 percent female. Thus, by my being a “white” male, I am a double minority in the city. That is a strange statement to make and perhaps to read.
Like every person, I am marked by the color of my skin. When I walk into certain stores or restaurants, clerks may be less likely to follow me around to make sure I’m not stealing, or the hostess may be quicker to sit me at the restaurant. I don’t choose this privilege; it was given to me by the result of history. I did not always notice that I had this privilege. The privilege is magnified, I have found, when I wear a suit. When donning this dress, I take on the full uniform of the powerful white, upper (middle) class, male. This, however, is just costume. I am hardly upper or upper middle class. But I can pass if I wear the right attire. This is no different than decades ago when an African American, who had a very light complexion, tried to pass as “white.” I use “white” in quotes because to be “white” is something that can be, and has been, argued over. It is without question that “whites” have had many advantages in this country for a very long time, and as such, if one could pass as white, it would be a very beneficial advantage. For example, we know that the people of Ireland have a very light complexion, but they were not considered “white” by the British. They were seen as inferiors in every way. When the Irish came to the United States, they suddenly found that they were not only Irish in heritage but also “white.” The discrimination against the Irish, Jewish, Polish, Italian, and other “non-white” immigrants is well documented. However, they still had privilege over African Americans and Asian Americans in the first few centuries of this nation’s history. But when did they become white?
Equally complicated is the idea of what it means to be “black.” Due to rapes during slavery, many people who claim to be “black” have some European ancestry in their heritage. Moreover, someone who has one “black” parent and one “white” parent can easily claim to be black; however, the same person has a more difficult time claiming to be white. Why is that? Do we consider Barack Obama, Halle Berry, or Mariah Carey to be white? Historically, race was determined by the mother, mainly because we always knew who the mother was but not always the father. Unfortunately, we didn’t always have Maury Povich to tell us who was not the father. What if the same child who was born of two different races then had a child with a white person. Would the child be white? Well, not historically:
From 1790–1810, the Census Bureau designated the following populations as different races: 1) free whites, 2) all other free persons except Indians not taxed, 3). Slaves. From 1820–1840 it was: 1) free whites, 2) unnaturalized foreigners (foreigners who were not U.S. citizens), 3) free colored, 4) slaves. In 1850–1860: 1) whites, 2) blacks, 3) mulattos (half white, half black), 4) mulatto slaves, 5) black slaves. From 1870–1920: 1) whites, 2) blacks, 3) mulattos, 4) quadroons (one quarter black), 5) octoroons (one-eighth black), 6) Chinese, 7) Japanese, 8) Indians. (Tyson 372)
Therefore, per the last example from 1870–1920, if one of your great grandparents was “black” and everyone the rest were “white,” you were not considered “white.” This may seem strange, but perhaps even stranger is the “one drop rule” that existed in the South, which stated that if you had just one drop of African blood in your body, you were “black.” That seems a bit extreme, but it did exist.
This one drop rule seems very interesting to me. We have a hard time in this nation deciding when one is “black” and when one is “white,” but these are just two of many different races that are categorized in the United States. If filling out a form identifying race, a person from India would check “Asian,” and a person from the Middle East would check “white.” Yes, really. I checked. These categories seem strange, mainly because they are strange. So, if I had an African American relative who was in my family and was my great, great, great grandmother, what would that make me? No serious, I want to know because I do. I check the box as “white” because that is what I knew growing up. I definitely don’t look African American, and I have never had my “whiteness” questioned. But am I really “white”? Who is the ultimate authority?
This is just my supposed race. What about my sex. Well, I was born male. Not every person is born in this binary. In fact, sometimes parents and physicians must make a choice when a baby is born and has a non-definitive sex. Furthermore, sexuality is another element of who I am. I consider myself heterosexual. Not everyone does. Not everyone is born as heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual or asexual, and the list goes on. For the most part, our sexualities do not mark us as our race or sex might.
To complicate things, which is something I love to do, I should probably bring my wife into the mix. As a “white(ish),” heterosexual male, who
