Helena Meyer-Knapp’s Presentation

The second presentation of the day was Helena Meyer-Knapp’s. Helena posited that the PE we talk about as “western” is actually U.S. PE, which is very different from PE in Britain or France, albeit that cutting edge educators there would agree that relationality is central. She talked about our 85% society, which is that as long as 85% of the population is doing well, society disregards the 15% who are forsaken. She suggests we are headed for, and must not become, a 70% society, willing to forsake 30% of the people in our midst.

She spoke of a radical libertarianism that is helping to feed a disengaged approach in which people do their own thing but do not join with others to act for common good. She spoke also about the necessity of teaching judgment and cited an exercise in which her learners talked about and arrived at some clear judgments about the place of religion in their school (Evergreen). Helena also spoke to the importance of cultivating the practice of thinking about complex ideas over and over again. She mentioned the book Field Work in Familiar Places, the author of which I do not remember just now, but will add later.