By Nature, I Am Not An Optimist,

Knowledge Is Not The Same As Morality, But We Need To Understand If We Are To Avoid Past Mistakes And Move In Productive Directions. An Important Part Of That Understanding Is Knowing Who We Are And What We Can Do... Ultimately, We Must Synthesize Our Understandings For Ourselves.

Fundamentalism Is A Kind Of Decision Not To Change Your Mind About Something...many Of Us Are Fundamentalists...because It Worked Pretty Well For Us.

The Ability To Solve Problems Or To Create Products That Are Valued Within One Or More Cultural Settings.

Any Profession Should Have Norms Around The Issue You Raise. And, In The Words Of The Great Economic Thinker Albert Hirschman, We All Owe A Measure Of Loyalty To Professional Norms. But When The Norms Seem Unhelpful Or Unproductive, One Needs To Speak Up - To Activate Voice. And In The Extreme, If The Profession And One's Colleagues Seem Estranged From A Thoughtfully Selected Course Of Action, You Need To Consider The Possibility Of Exit. Of Course, If You Knowingly Violate Norms Or Laws, You Need To Be Prepared To Face The Consequences - Or To Lead A Revolution!

I Think That Every Educator, Indeed Every Human Being, Is Concerned With What Is True And What Is Not; What Experiences To Cherish And Which Ones To Avoid; And How Best To Relate To Other Human Beings. We Differ In How Conscious We Are Of These Questions; How Reflective We Are About Our Own Stances; Whether We Are Aware Of How These Human Virtues Are Threatened By Critiques (philosophical, Cultural) And By Technologies (chiefly The Digital Media). A Good Educator Should Help Us All To Navigate Our Way In This Tangled Web Of Virtues.