When I was a kid, I couldn’t wait to be an adult. Not just because of the unlimited ice cream and the fact that I could stay up as late as I wanted, but because of all the rational, mature, well-informed adult conversations I presumed I’d be having. You can imagine my disappointment. In my article, Why Can’t Kids Think Anymore, I wrote about the growing focus on rote memorisation in schools. Kids are so busy memorising whatever they need to say to pass their tests, they have less and less opportunity to understand why they’re saying it.
Kids not being taught how to think is nothing new. When I was in college in the Reagan '80s I never forgot a Doonesbury Sunday cartoon in which a college professor was trying to get his students to think about political issues and challenge him.
Back then, students were mostly interested in getting good grades so they could get a good, high-paying job. They weren't much interested in critical thought. I was, and since I was going into telecommunications and journallism, I very much enjoyed debating professors and students. I came home my first year and became a giant arrogant, self-impressed pain in the ass to my mother with my new-found skills :)
But at least I was taught to think, which I realized I hadn't been in high school. Or maybe I was but I didn't pay enough attention.
Love that cartoon! But even the comment beneath it points out that it's more relevant today the it was in 1985. Not because children were all fountains of independent thought back then, I'm sure, but because the price of wrong-think wasn't so devastating.
The joke in the cartoon is that the teacher *wanted* the kids to think for themselves. I think that's far less the case today. And even if the individual teachers do, the school boards don't.
There are things best memorized and things we look up in reference books or now look up on the internet. I have no need to memorize unit conversion formulas when I have the Convert Pad app on my phone, but those formulas are test questions for high school students. Time could be better spent understanding the why and how than memorizing what when it is easy to look up.
If you use something all the time you memorize it without trying.
Yep, memorisation definitely isn't the enemy. The issue is when it becomes the only way people are able to interact with information. They just swallow the talking points of "the right side of history ™" whole, and don't allow themselves, or even know how, to think critically about them.
I'm a tutor of English and math who is (I feel) vainly trying to get my students to think for themselves, and express their own views, based on their OWN research, not merely regurgitating what they have been "taught". I could not agree more with your opening sentence - me, too! I keenly looked forward to the day when as an adult, I could have great conversations with people about my deep interests and passions. I get to have a lot of them on Medium.com with other article writers, and with a group of very special friends whom I met through our common interest in science fiction writing and media, over 30 years ago. Students don't read enough outside the classroom to develop their own critical thinking and points of view. This needs to be remedied.
"Students don't read enough outside the classroom to develop their own critical thinking and points of view. This needs to be remedied."
If you could make one policy change that you think would have the biggest impact, what would it be? Imagine you have a great enough degree of omnipotence that you could enforce it.😄
"The education system's focus on constant testing is relatively modern." Absolutely true. Ask any teacher who was an educator before 'no child left behind' and after. It has been a nightmare for teachers and students. Unfortunately there are quite the cliques amongst teachers in many schools (not unlike the misery of highschool) where so called educators are more concerned with their own interests and tenure than supporting real and valid education.
Regarding a more historical perspective, my mother (born 1923) knew nothing but memorization (and physical discipline) in school. They were required to memorize everything: long poems, essays, math, etc. For myself (born 1959), although I loved to learn and was fortunate to go to some very progressive public schools in California, by the time I finished college (in North Carolina...a whole nuther world) I was so exhausted indeed all I could do was memorize and spit it out to make the grade.
Each student gets an hour once a week with a reading tutor. They can read anything during that hour and discuss it with the tutor. Even if they are "good" readers this will help expand their base and introduce them to the value of reading for its own sake.
These sessions could have a financial sponsor to offset the cost and avoid sticking the school board with it.
Now I know that any policy that "compels" reading is going to make this activity seem like "punishment" and students who are not interested in reading will avoid it. So it will be hard to do.
Kids not being taught how to think is nothing new. When I was in college in the Reagan '80s I never forgot a Doonesbury Sunday cartoon in which a college professor was trying to get his students to think about political issues and challenge him.
https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1985/01/27/
Back then, students were mostly interested in getting good grades so they could get a good, high-paying job. They weren't much interested in critical thought. I was, and since I was going into telecommunications and journallism, I very much enjoyed debating professors and students. I came home my first year and became a giant arrogant, self-impressed pain in the ass to my mother with my new-found skills :)
But at least I was taught to think, which I realized I hadn't been in high school. Or maybe I was but I didn't pay enough attention.
Love that cartoon! But even the comment beneath it points out that it's more relevant today the it was in 1985. Not because children were all fountains of independent thought back then, I'm sure, but because the price of wrong-think wasn't so devastating.
The joke in the cartoon is that the teacher *wanted* the kids to think for themselves. I think that's far less the case today. And even if the individual teachers do, the school boards don't.
There are things best memorized and things we look up in reference books or now look up on the internet. I have no need to memorize unit conversion formulas when I have the Convert Pad app on my phone, but those formulas are test questions for high school students. Time could be better spent understanding the why and how than memorizing what when it is easy to look up.
If you use something all the time you memorize it without trying.
Yep, memorisation definitely isn't the enemy. The issue is when it becomes the only way people are able to interact with information. They just swallow the talking points of "the right side of history ™" whole, and don't allow themselves, or even know how, to think critically about them.
I'm a tutor of English and math who is (I feel) vainly trying to get my students to think for themselves, and express their own views, based on their OWN research, not merely regurgitating what they have been "taught". I could not agree more with your opening sentence - me, too! I keenly looked forward to the day when as an adult, I could have great conversations with people about my deep interests and passions. I get to have a lot of them on Medium.com with other article writers, and with a group of very special friends whom I met through our common interest in science fiction writing and media, over 30 years ago. Students don't read enough outside the classroom to develop their own critical thinking and points of view. This needs to be remedied.
"Students don't read enough outside the classroom to develop their own critical thinking and points of view. This needs to be remedied."
If you could make one policy change that you think would have the biggest impact, what would it be? Imagine you have a great enough degree of omnipotence that you could enforce it.😄
"The education system's focus on constant testing is relatively modern." Absolutely true. Ask any teacher who was an educator before 'no child left behind' and after. It has been a nightmare for teachers and students. Unfortunately there are quite the cliques amongst teachers in many schools (not unlike the misery of highschool) where so called educators are more concerned with their own interests and tenure than supporting real and valid education.
Regarding a more historical perspective, my mother (born 1923) knew nothing but memorization (and physical discipline) in school. They were required to memorize everything: long poems, essays, math, etc. For myself (born 1959), although I loved to learn and was fortunate to go to some very progressive public schools in California, by the time I finished college (in North Carolina...a whole nuther world) I was so exhausted indeed all I could do was memorize and spit it out to make the grade.
Each student gets an hour once a week with a reading tutor. They can read anything during that hour and discuss it with the tutor. Even if they are "good" readers this will help expand their base and introduce them to the value of reading for its own sake.
These sessions could have a financial sponsor to offset the cost and avoid sticking the school board with it.
Now I know that any policy that "compels" reading is going to make this activity seem like "punishment" and students who are not interested in reading will avoid it. So it will be hard to do.