teaching biases vis critical judgment... Re: [at-l] Slackpacking and Bob with Warren

[sloetoe@yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- rick boudrie <rickboudrie@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >For goodness sake, hiking the trail is a personal adventure
> and Bob should be able to define it in his own terms.
> 
> I couldn't agree more.
> 
> By the same token, had Bob spent his training with some other
> well known Trail personality, would he have arrived at the
same
> definition of terms as he does now?
> 
> I like Jim's solution regarding getting more perspectives. 

### These are not questions of hiking, but of pedagogy. Warren
is teaching his biases, to which some object. But biases distill
life experience, and thus educate in ways quite as important,
and arguable *more* important, than an unbiased relating of
facts. Show me an unbiased teacher, and I'll show you a search
engine.

### This is not to say that critical judgment does not also play
an active and important role, but to say that the best educator,
IMO, teaches everything they find important to know -- biases
and all -- and rewards the use of critical judgment.

### I have a dream that I might live long enough to see words
like "bias" return from the dark and negative lands to which
they've been banished by our contemporary society. Granted, I
may have to live a long time.

Sloetoe

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