The loopy anthropologist title really got my attention when Dr. Metz posted it. I have expressed a few views in the thread, but those views are part of a larger much broader look at education. When I first joined SWJ/C a few years ago I was looking at training issues for use at a new facility. I have always been interested in how people look at academia, and especially interested in how the military looks at academia.

Dr. Mckenna in his own way is helping prove my thesis that academia has moved to far into specialization and there are issues with the silos of disciplines in the University. Small Wars Journal ran a story of mine that is part of a series the story was called "The Warrior Scholar". Where I made a passing look at the apprentice/master training model and how scholarship is very important to the military art.

This larger effort is within an interdisciplinary activity known as "The scholarship of teaching and learning" that is a growing chunk of academia. Much though of what they look at is applying metrics to education. I on the other hand have a much grander goal and likely will never see it to fruition. The two pieces of that goal that Dr. Mckenna would never understand are the meta-scholar and the meta-renaisance . On the one hand here on the Small Wars Council we go around about monthly and people are talking bad about academics. On the other hand I don't think academics truly understand why others are hostile to them especially the military.

The first part, meta-scholars, are scholars of scholars. Many members of Small Wars Council are just that, and in every discussion of Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz you prove that thesis. Though scholars in their own right some members expand beyond that role. The second part, meta-renaisance, is a pet project of mine. I have written about the failure or "The dark ages: Modern anti-intellectualism and failure of the thinking man" in trying to describe where we may be going in academia and the reasons for that.

The slides that I posted earlier are from the piece that kind of explains why Dr. Mckenna was pushing his ideology off so easily on others as if it should be accepted at face value. The disciplinary silo's and sub discipline echo chambers of thought ignore as inconsequential all outside considerations. Of course he reacts the way he does that is how he is trained and compensated. As insurgent scholars entering academia each member of the military represents a risk of reaching the credentialed heights of scholarly aptitude, but people outside their community or discipline can still be rejected by the academic effete.

The latest piece is about the construction of academic learning models and curriculum. The blog article is "Education paradigm: How you get there may not be where you are going", and is fairly lengthy. It comes from a lecture I give to my freshmen, and juniors (ju co transfers). As a topic it doesn't fit exactly into SWC/J territory, and as a journal paper it has been refused a few times. The article does reflect insurgent scholarship bent on ending the dark ages of scholarship we are currently engaging in and helping to create a meta-renaisance. There are a few other articles in the group I haven't put up yet. I just wanted to explain that there are people that are looking at what Dr. Mckenna is up to, and the why he is doing it, and not everybody in academia agrees.

thanks