Bird Droppings December 19, 2024

Determining what to learn

“Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know — and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know — even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction — than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and Swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.” Isaac Asimov

I am always amazed as I listen to students say I am passing; I have a seventy percent, and that’s good enough. I thought about this as I looked at scores from End of Course Tests and looked to see how some of my students faired. I sometimes wondered if students really learn anything from day one till the last day of the semester or if they regurgitate data and information to pass the tests. My son commented years ago that he took SATs several times; the more he took math classes, the better his scores in math went. Conversely, one semester, he did not have an advanced English class, and he dropped a few points in the verbal section. Even for a good student, is school simply a memorization forum?

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.” Basho

“True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.” E. S. Bouton

I found that learning became easier when I began looking for answers. When answers were given to me in a mandatory way, such as going to school, I learned less. Even in college, for many years, learning was considered mandatory. I have observed many students and what they learn. If they want to learn a topic, they read about it, look up information about it, and have the desire to learn.

“The real difficulty, the difficulty which has baffled the sages of all times, is rather this: how can we make our teaching so potent in the motional life of man that its influence should withstand the pressure of the elemental psychic forces in the individual?” Albert Einstein 

For some time, I would use this quote at the end of my morning Droppings and have it on my wall at school as a reminder. I have also used it in numerous presentations in graduate school along the way. How can we make our teaching so potent? How do we get the information we teach to be what students want to learn? How do we get the desire to learn back in students?

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time. Still, the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity” Calvin Coolidge.

“Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think back a few days to the concept of a democratic school where students pick and choose topics for discussion and learning each week, which is the mainstay of educator and philosopher John Dewey’s thinking. It would be difficult to plan for a standardized test that we covered; for example (in Georgia, we had the Quality Core Curriculum, and now most subjects are converted to Professional Curriculum Standards) item number 123, the classification of segmented worms. Somewhere, someone determined in Biology that that item was crucial. It may be a history item about George Washington’s false teeth made from wood or why Ben Franklin used a silk cord for his kite. However, it was one person’s opinion of what was important, and then a committee decided it was needed on the test. I always wonder if they consulted students at any point to determine what was important.

“Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.” St. Francis of Assisi

“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.” Sophocles

How would we know what we need to know, and how would teachers know what we need to know to teach us? Using standardized tests provides the vehicle to measure, but then we teach that particular test or do not teach it. What then happens at that point? Are students no longer learning? If I know what students need to know before I start the class, then I will gear the class to understand that piece before the test. So, in effect, we teach the test. We teach what someone has deemed necessary for a student in that grade and time, and that may or may not be what that teacher or student wants to learn and or teach. That then brings back to the students who tend to learn best when it is something that they want to know, and realistically, teachers teach far better, teaching something they want to teach. It is quite a paradox.

It would be a sad world if parents were told they had to teach their kids so and so today and tomorrow. It would be this and that. Now that I think about it, maybe that is not so bad. Except that someone somewhere will be saying this is what children will be taught and when. That system just closed in Russia a few years back, I think. So, if our goal is to train social animations to fill the factories, as Karl Marx once indicated, the goal of education is now about the same as it was then, and this is how we do it. Somehow, we need to bring back creativity, imagination, wonder, choice, caring, real learning and thought.

“If you wish to know the road up the mountain, ask the man who goes back and forth on it.” Zenrim

In the past few days, I have talked with several old buddies who have been avid backpackers and hikers during their time. We were thinking back to the good old days when we would load up my old VW van and head to the mountains with only our supply of food or lack thereof to determine how many days we would stay out on the Appalachian Trail. We were joking about breaking in new boots. I said I learned from experience with a brand-new pair going off to the woods, blisters and blisters on blisters, and a few days later, I learned about moleskin as well. I learned the way up the mountain from those who went before me, and I now, when I hike, carry my moleskin and well-worn broken-in boots. Please keep all in harm’s way on your mind and in your heart. I saw the movie Avatar and was intrigued by the similarities to Native American thought and how all of them were interconnected, although perhaps a bit more graphically for those who would not understand. Somewhere in my readings, a graphic drawn by a Lakota Sioux holy man was very similar in its interconnections to the world of the Navii in Avatar. All is sacred, and each interaction impacts the next, and all of what we do is a flow from where we have been—an interesting concept, so please remember to always give thanks to namaste. 

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

bird