Education v Thinking
by
Matt Giwer (c) 1995 <4/19>

      There is no rational person who can hold that the purpose of schooling is to teach a person to think. Were that the case then at some point there would be an end to the time when failure at repetition is a cause for a lower grade than a new thought. Anyone out there ever had a class where repeating an old idea merited an F? Of course not. Repetition is an A.
      Was it all that hard? No. To get a good grade in school, to collect enough good grades to get into college, repeat, do not think. Were thinking the purpose of education then the repetition of well known thought would be treated the same as plagiarism and a cause for being failed.
      Yet our system which we correctly call education is not teaching people to think. Education should only be to teach what has been said before and if nothing better can be said, fine. But if there is something different to be said then we do not get new ideas by penalizing people who do not regurgitate the old ideas.
      Of course the excuse is that the young ones need to be trained in the wisdom of the masters. Fine with me. If the wisdom of the masters is to great let us teach them the wisdom of those who considered Shakespeare's plays worthless. Let someone say that on an essay and an F is guaranteed. Yet should that student cite (from a graduate level requirement) those who agreed with his position, he might get a D.
      I am reminded of my own experience in English Literature. Now I have never considered Charles Dickens to be any but the most boring writer I have ever come across but he was on the agenda. This man is bad in the same manner that soap operas and serials are bad, it is strung out. OK, forgetting that there is one chapter in some novel, David Copperfield I think, that describes a play that is totally and completely out of context with all the rest of it.
      The assignment was a thousand or so words on that chapter. Here I was, a physics major and interested in the challenge. I found this chapter was published in December and thus written in November and I concluded it was out of place the man wanted a Christmas holiday so he wrote a filler. Fillers are very common now and certainly were then.
      Of course when I turned that in, it was an F. Why? I can guess but I still have no idea. The Prof looked me in the eye and said, "you don't believe that do you." To which I responded, "yes." At that point we at least mutually agreed we could not understand each other and I passed the course and never looked back on English Lit as a major even though I was one of eleven selected from an 1000+ Freshman class with the potential.
      But what was the selection criteria for the "honor" of this course? It was a one quarter course of creative writing. Even at the college level there is selection for creativity and then a requirement to regurgitate. What is the point of this?
      This is the attitude of education in this country. It is not teaching thinking. Certainly knowing what has gone before of interest, certainly of value, but in no way a requirement to thinking.
      Is my experience any different from anyone else? What were the un-selected taught? In fact the same thing but only half as fast.
      I am reminded of another educational exercise I was part of. It included a speed reading course. It was presented as "teaching you how to read faster." That was nonsense. It was only showing people they could read faster than they were taught in school and giving some hints on how to realize that more quickly.
      What a surprise! We were not taught to read in school! Even I am impressed with that revelation.
      But this other school was oriented towards results and performance by any means whatsoever rather than towards tradition. How strange the difference.
      So who is teaching thinking? Who is rewarding children for thinking rather than penalizing them for thinking? Who is rewarding a different answer than the one in the book?
      Right, children have to learn what is already known, certainly that is true. But if repeating what is known is what is rewarded then there is no progress. Nothing new can ever be learned.
      Literature and Shakespeare is perhaps the best example although Mozart or Beethoven and music is equally acceptable as an example. Were the "greats" to never deviate from prior "greats" we would never have any new greats, there would be no change ever.
      Clearly the Pavlovian reward in education results in salivation for what is known. Do you want to make the Honor Roll? The Dean's List? Get a high grade. How do you get a high grade? Regurgitate what is known.