Vol. 4, No. 2 (2008): 39–71.
Abstract
To have an open mind is more important than learning; and we can have an open mind, not by cramming it full of information, but by being aware of our own thoughts and feelings, by carefully observing ourselves and the influences about us, by listening to others, by watching the rich and the poor, the powerful and the lowly. Wisdom does not come through fear and oppression, but through the observation and understanding of everyday incidents in human relationship.
Author’s bio
Michael E. Jones is due to receive his Ph.D from Indiana University in the Fall 2008. His major is Education Policy—International Comparative Education with a minor in Intercultural Communications. He was awarded a one-year Fulbright-Hays Overseas Dissertation Research scholarship to study Home-schooling and Alternative Education as a social movement in Thailand. His dissertation is a qualitative study that has made use of historical accounts associated with data from extensive interviews and case studies. His study inquires whether alternative education represents an historical spiritual tradition of resistance to reform hegemony and whether it has had an impact on the current state’s reform efforts. It also investigates whether there are some historical patterns associated with the manner in which Thailand has dealt with the forces of globalization and whether the collective action by informal movements of Thai people also has the same predictable pattern of response to the global. Part of his research will be published in a forthcoming textbook Power, Voice, and the Public Good: Schooling and Education in Global Societies (London: Routledge, 2008). He has lived and worked in the Southeast Asia region for more than 11 years and currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana.
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