Why the world wags...
Dec. 5th, 2008 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pyatI need to preface my post with a note!
I realize that school systems are highly imperfect and never will be perfect for everyone. My own experience was far from ideal. They have progressively gotten better in many ways, though they sometimes take large steps back. Children in Britain, for example, are no longer indoctrinated with “the White Man’s Burden,” and children in Canada no longer learn that Riel was a traitor. Things can always get better, and always require change.
My comment is more about the philosophy or ideal of school rather than the reality. I recognize school as an unpleasant social experience for many people, including myself.
I also hope that I don't offend the person whose journal this was drawn from, by re-posting my comment here.
I’m going to pick out two quotes, here:
But in an everyday sense of the matter, you don't really need to know the chemical composition of Mercury. You don't need to know algebraic equations. You don't need to know who the governor of Michigan was in 1930...
The jobs that I want? the life skills that I need? have NOTHING to do with those, either. Why should I - why should ANY - kid have to waste time to learn skills that they'll forget upon entering adulthood?
You seem to be expressing two almost contradictory thoughts in your post. First, that schools should be institutes of learning. Second, that schools shouldn’t teach things you don’t think you’re going to need as an adult. Possibly you mean that schools should only train people according to their preference, aptitude, and eventual station?
Certainly, there is a lot of "non-essential" information presented, at least in the sense that a plumber is unlikely to ever need to recite the Gettysburg Address or know when World War II started. But, it seems to me that teaching only essentials is a lot more likely to produce a “cog,” than a process, however flawed, that tries earnestly to cram Shakespeare and Calculus and French into every brain it can reach.
The sometimes dreary rote learning of elementary school is, in a very real sense, “good for you,” in nearly the same way that gym class is good for you, even if you hate it and never intend to climb a rope or play football ever again in your life. It is, in a way, “good” for your brain in almost the same way the tiresome games of gym class were good for your body.
Every piece of information - every fact and truth - is essential to the construction of a context that allows you to understand society and the physical world. Every bit of data, every date, every fact – about how glass is made, about Bunker Hill, about quadratic equations, about the primary imports and exports of Tonga – provides you with another tiny pixel of an overall picture of the world. Aggregate knowledge of almost any kind makes it easier for you to react to new situations and comprehend new things, in the context of what has come before, and serve as an educated and informed member of society. It also equips you for self-actualization, making you better able to be the person you want to be, and do the things you like to do.
Each fact is connected to another fact, and can fire you down a line of inquiry that ends up in a place you never expected. The purpose of humanity, insofar as we have one, may be said to be a constant exploration of what is, and a constant refinement in our ability to understand it. “The purpose of man is to serve as a witness to Creation,” said a great agnostic/stoic.
There are no trivial facts, merely trivial applications of fact.
Yes, Calculus is hard. Shakespeare is hard. Chemistry is hard. French is hard.
All these things are intellectually hard in the same way that climbing a rope is physically hard and dreary. All new things are hard. Eventually, they become easy. If you run and jump and jog enough, even if it is hard at first, one day you will suddenly realize that your physical capacity has increased to the point where marvelous things can be done. Suddenly, you realize that you can climb a mountain or run a race, or even just go for a brisk hike in the woods without getting asthmatic (this last example I can personally attest to). Similarly, the mere application of mental muscle to the effort of comprehension of something which, at first blush, is dry and difficult, can lead the realization that the topic, once mastered, is not dry at all. How many high school students hate Shakespeare, or poetry, Dickens, until familiarity with the archaic language or sudden recognition of the reality below the imagery fired their imagination?
My favorite passage from T.H. White is:
“The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder in your veins, you may miss your only love. You may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust and never dream of regretting.”
(There was more after this, but it was specific to the person, and not universal)
I realize that school systems are highly imperfect and never will be perfect for everyone. My own experience was far from ideal. They have progressively gotten better in many ways, though they sometimes take large steps back. Children in Britain, for example, are no longer indoctrinated with “the White Man’s Burden,” and children in Canada no longer learn that Riel was a traitor. Things can always get better, and always require change.
My comment is more about the philosophy or ideal of school rather than the reality. I recognize school as an unpleasant social experience for many people, including myself.
I also hope that I don't offend the person whose journal this was drawn from, by re-posting my comment here.
I’m going to pick out two quotes, here:
But in an everyday sense of the matter, you don't really need to know the chemical composition of Mercury. You don't need to know algebraic equations. You don't need to know who the governor of Michigan was in 1930...
The jobs that I want? the life skills that I need? have NOTHING to do with those, either. Why should I - why should ANY - kid have to waste time to learn skills that they'll forget upon entering adulthood?
You seem to be expressing two almost contradictory thoughts in your post. First, that schools should be institutes of learning. Second, that schools shouldn’t teach things you don’t think you’re going to need as an adult. Possibly you mean that schools should only train people according to their preference, aptitude, and eventual station?
Certainly, there is a lot of "non-essential" information presented, at least in the sense that a plumber is unlikely to ever need to recite the Gettysburg Address or know when World War II started. But, it seems to me that teaching only essentials is a lot more likely to produce a “cog,” than a process, however flawed, that tries earnestly to cram Shakespeare and Calculus and French into every brain it can reach.
The sometimes dreary rote learning of elementary school is, in a very real sense, “good for you,” in nearly the same way that gym class is good for you, even if you hate it and never intend to climb a rope or play football ever again in your life. It is, in a way, “good” for your brain in almost the same way the tiresome games of gym class were good for your body.
Every piece of information - every fact and truth - is essential to the construction of a context that allows you to understand society and the physical world. Every bit of data, every date, every fact – about how glass is made, about Bunker Hill, about quadratic equations, about the primary imports and exports of Tonga – provides you with another tiny pixel of an overall picture of the world. Aggregate knowledge of almost any kind makes it easier for you to react to new situations and comprehend new things, in the context of what has come before, and serve as an educated and informed member of society. It also equips you for self-actualization, making you better able to be the person you want to be, and do the things you like to do.
Each fact is connected to another fact, and can fire you down a line of inquiry that ends up in a place you never expected. The purpose of humanity, insofar as we have one, may be said to be a constant exploration of what is, and a constant refinement in our ability to understand it. “The purpose of man is to serve as a witness to Creation,” said a great agnostic/stoic.
There are no trivial facts, merely trivial applications of fact.
Yes, Calculus is hard. Shakespeare is hard. Chemistry is hard. French is hard.
All these things are intellectually hard in the same way that climbing a rope is physically hard and dreary. All new things are hard. Eventually, they become easy. If you run and jump and jog enough, even if it is hard at first, one day you will suddenly realize that your physical capacity has increased to the point where marvelous things can be done. Suddenly, you realize that you can climb a mountain or run a race, or even just go for a brisk hike in the woods without getting asthmatic (this last example I can personally attest to). Similarly, the mere application of mental muscle to the effort of comprehension of something which, at first blush, is dry and difficult, can lead the realization that the topic, once mastered, is not dry at all. How many high school students hate Shakespeare, or poetry, Dickens, until familiarity with the archaic language or sudden recognition of the reality below the imagery fired their imagination?
My favorite passage from T.H. White is:
“The best thing for being sad is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder in your veins, you may miss your only love. You may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust and never dream of regretting.”
(There was more after this, but it was specific to the person, and not universal)
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no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 03:23 am (UTC)I had a very good public high school. I paid attention. Having been out in the wide world nine or ten years now, it still shocks me occasionally what other fully-functional adults do not know or can't piece together.
Having had, and paid attention to, a well-rounded high school education, I can piece a very great deal together. Ask
This is from a high school education.
An acquaintance of mine from the UK is really into US politics. Unfortunately he's also really rabidly liberal, and subscribes to as many right-wing-fringe fundamentalist action group newsletters as he can, which tends to keep him that way. He also has no idea of our political history, so he seemed for a while to think that we all believed like his newsletters and were bound to keep chasing Republican ideology until it killed us. I've had to take him aside and school him more than once on how we're really not all a bunch of red-meat right-wingers, and that the presidency and congressional majorities seldom stay aligned for long (this was pre-2006 midterms, naturally). Lacking the history he needed for context, he couldn't reasonably interpret current events. I suffered no such lack, because I had a well-rounded high school education.
I've forgotten far and away the bulk of my chemistry education, but I tend to hang with a smart crowd still. When lost in some discussion on the internets of, say, some new polymer that's used in the bushings on the Mars rovers, I still at least have enough of a leg up to know where to go hunting on Wikipedia if I really want to find out more.
In short, almost without exception, though I complained at the time, almost everything I studied in high school has come back to help me out again at some point later in life. There was nothing wasted in my education. What's more, I find that the more I continue to learn as I grow older, the easier and easier a process that is. I have more places the farther I go where I can attach new knowledge to things I already know.
To take this a bit further, especially in places like engineering, there are so many, many different inter-disciplinary ties that if you don't have a reasonable footing in practically everything, you are eventually bound to run up against a hard spot you won't be able to get through in the vocation (or hobby!) you eventually choose. To say that time is wasted in studying things you don't feel at the time you'll need later is a serious, serious fallacy.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-06 05:00 am (UTC)i've skimmed most of this so my apologies if this seems to be a non sequitorious brain fart of some sort.
my niece (who is 15 years my junior) was a governor general's bronze medallion award winner coming out of highschool with near straight "A"s. i'm often shocked about how much this woman doesn't know about certain things and what conclusions she can't draw from reasonable evidence.
however, i'm also amazed at what she can do. while she can't seem to retain information about her immediate environment it seems, she can sit and talk hight maths and quantum physics with my brother, all of which for the most part goes over my head.
she and i both graduated university (we're the only folks in my immediate family that have) with the same degree. i personally think she wasted her talent, all for the want of keeping her scholarships.
and i still feel, other than my skill at typing, that i learned more from my own curiosity and going after knowledge in my own way, than i ever garnered in either highschool or university. (okay, i take that back a bit, i did learn how to learn and research and ask questions). and i think that's the main difference with my niece and i. she was educationally isolated with little real world experience because she was always studying and didn't have much if any of a social life.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-07 12:29 pm (UTC)This is why World of Darkness RPGs have separate scores for Intelligence and Wits (says the Intelligence 4, Wits 1 player).