DK Mentoring Online
Newsletter ·周报
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Dean Stanton Wortham:
An award-winning teacher and scholar, Stanton E. F. Wortham, Ph.D., came to the Lynch School of Education and Human Development as its inaugural Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean in 2016 from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, where he was the Judy and Howard Berkowitz Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. He was recently elected a member of the National Academy of Education.
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About the Podcast
The podcast launched on March 22. It is called "Pulled Up Short," based on German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion that regular, intentional challenges to our habitual perspectives are crucial to the development of critical thinking. It aims to create moments of being “pulled up short”—experiences of surprise and curiosity when we encounter an idea, text, or experience that challenges our ways of thinking and our deeply held assumptions about the world.
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Each episode features a different insight, with each guest asking the audience to entertain the possibility of a different worldview and re-examine our basic presuppositions. In the past season, "Pull Up Short" had discussed many topics, such as "should six-year olds get to vote", "do witches exist", and "have we lost touch with our most important sense".
Instead of choosing a specific topic and expanding on it, Dean Wortham told us that he tries to find a guest speaker first, and then decides on the topic together. When working with a particular person, Dean Wortham finds that they always have a couple of interesting ideas and they build the topics together. Each episode takes a long time to prepare: "we have a first conversation, and we get some ideas. Then, we think about it, write an outline, and give feedback. Thus, we shape the topics over time until we think it is going to be good". |
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Producing a podcast was not a whim, Dean Wortham considered and prepared for a long time. The process was not all smooth sailing either. As mentioned before, the team takes a long time to prepare for each episode, and sometimes the process of trying to turn an idea into a compelling topic does not work. Typically, after a short conversation, the guest speaker and Dean Wortham have several ideas; immediately, they know some would not work. People may have innovative ideas, but they may not really pulling anybody short. Therefore, figuring out how to take an idea and turning it into something where it would really challenge people and pull them up short is where the real work is: "turning these preliminary ideas into something that will fit with what we want". |
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When we asked Dean Wortham if he had changed some opinions through this experience, he answered "YES!!! That happens all the time. People always bring really interesting ideas, and most ideas that we talked about forced me to rethink something that I had taken for granted". For example, Professor Scott Seider from the Lynch School of Education, talked with Dean Wortham about whether we have a moral obligation to give away most of our money to save lives, as there are still people around the world who are dying of hunger.
Professor Seider gave an example, drawing on philosopher Peter Singer: if people walked by a lake and there was a child who was drowning, most people would jump in the lake and save the child even if it would ruin their expensive clothes. He was saying that this should be true of chidlren who are dying of hunger in some other part of the world as well. People could give money to help them instead of buying a new suit, and then these children could survive. The podcast episode asked: "Isn't that the same? Is that Pulling you up short"? There are many inspiring and mind-changing moments in the podcast! ( listen and subscribe!) These moments illustrate why Dean Wortham started the podcast, because it was a chance for him to share new insights. |
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Dean Wortham described how part of the rationale for the podcast is that this way of engaging with the world, of being pulled up short and trying to see the world in new ways, is intrinsically valuable. It is valuable in itself. So it's worth doing for its own sake.The team did it because it is fun and has been rewarding to engage. The team has started to prepare for the second season, which is expected to launch in the fall semester. So please subscribe now, and you can listen to past episodes and then hear the second season in a few months!!! |
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Dean Wortham has also published a new book on immigration,
Migration Narratives. It is available for free.
Use the download button at:
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DK Interview With Dean Wortham |
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