[WikiEN-l] Challenge: explain NPOV in a sentence.

[Phil Sandifer]

On Aug 8, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Sarah wrote:

> On 8/8/06, Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net> wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 7, 2006, at 10:40 PM, SPUI wrote:
>>
>>>> Explain NPOV in a sentence.
>>>>
>>>
>>> "Teach the controversy."
>>
>> Outstanding!
>>
> "Teach the controversy"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy is the name of a
> campaign and strategy fashioned by the [[Discovery Institute]] for
> teaching creationism in schools. Perhaps not quite the image we want
> to associate with. :-)

The Discovery Institute was actually ripping off of Gerald Graff,  
however, and the phrase is tremendously respected within humanities  
instruction. (I hear it several times each time new TA orientation  
rolls around) And the article is kind of hopelessly borked in  
focusing on the Discovery Institute over Graff.

The problem is that Graff's phrase isn't exactly what we want.  
Graff's vision of teaching the conflict (Which is the actual phrase  
as it's most often heard) is in many ways much more radical than we  
want to be. At its heart, Graff is dealing with a more  
epistemological approach, and with interpretation of facts. We are  
dealing with basic presentation of facts. Graff's view would be  
better described as teaching multiple SPOVs.

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a  
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

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