tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post8323042431799580230..comments2024-01-28T09:52:30.550-08:00Comments on Arash's World: Teaching and the Difference between Being Educated and Having an EducationArash Farzanehhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12000344680925876563noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-62435722846396383002013-12-29T09:44:57.312-08:002013-12-29T09:44:57.312-08:00You've inspired me to write my first blog post...You've inspired me to write my first blog post since September on Wayfarer's Notes. But the words are D. H. Lawrence's, not mine.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-58778701140187575052013-12-28T23:59:46.312-08:002013-12-28T23:59:46.312-08:00The example I gave was the opposite of preparing s...The example I gave was the opposite of preparing students for certain jobs and careers. It was the basic education of an elite class. Specialization would come later.<br /><br />"The fact that money can buy you better education is another issue that I think is equally lamentable."<br /><br />So what is money for, one wonders. What better use can it be put to?<br /><br />I think the implication of your "lamentable" is inequality and unfairness.<br /><br />I shall respond with several arguments. <br /><br />1) Elite implies "for the few". It also implies something highly prized. In America, you have for example the Juilliard School of Music.<br /><br />2) Elite schools have always given scholarships, whereby those without money are able to attain a place. Instead of money, effort and sacrifice is exchanged.<br /><br />I don't think we are at loggerheads. I think it's more a matter of precision in defining one's target, and perhaps some literary control in the images one summons in defence of one's case.<br /><br />Your reference to Pink Floyd's "The Wall" indicates that you may be using images from popular culture to support your case, rather than factual examples, preferably based on personal experience. <br /><br />Progressive thinking, in any sphere, is in constant danger of thinking that all old-fashioned practices, from almost any tradition, are lamentable. That Karl Marx, and Hegel before him, have a lot to answer for. They thought history was something to plunder selectively for their own arguments, accusing all our ancestors of crassness and cruelty. <br /><br />Tradition, much like blind evolution, has a way of establishing a certain fitness for purpose. Before sweeping it away as obsolete, one must understand it sympathetically and see exactly what needs to be changed to meet changed circumstances.<br /><br />This is not achieved by setting up ludicrous caricatures and inviting one's reader to deride them, especially if one's examples were imaginary in the first place.<br /><br />"... education at times feels like dead meat, and I think it needs to be spruced up and made living flesh." but I shall look at the posts you mention, and give you a fair reading.Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-84020981770076524812013-12-22T16:24:55.188-08:002013-12-22T16:24:55.188-08:00Great to hear from you, dear Vincent! My post is h...Great to hear from you, dear Vincent! My post is here is about a major shift in education that was long due to happen. The example you give of schools and universities (supposedly) preparing students for certain jobs and careers is exactly what I am talking about. <br /><br />It is not about educating students but simply about having an education so that they can have a job. The fact that money can buy you better education is another issue that I think is equally lamentable.<br /><br />Currently, especially at post-secondary education, they are looking not only at one's grades but also at the student's personality and personal achievements, i.e. a fuller and more vibrant profile. I applaud that.<br /><br />As to the headmaster or teacher with the cane, it was used mainly as a symbol. It has very little to do with my own German education, which I would not call strict but stern and quite fruitful in its own ways. The image is partly of the 19th century grammar-translation method in which students recited classics in different languages but could not effectively speak or communicate in that given language as well as the image of the abusive authoritarian teacher of Pink Floyd's "The Wall."<br /><br />In other words, education at times feels like dead meat, and I think it needs to be spruced up and made living flesh. One of the main problems is again its delivery in form of dry lecture that seems to have little or no relevance with one's life. Studies have shown that students forget most of it anyhow, whereas interactive methods of teaching, see my post on the "Harkness Table" or on "framed spontaneity" are much more interesting and effective. <br /><br />Today's academia is slowly beginning to see its value, but still not enough. All in all, this has been less a cry from personal experience but about a philosophical framework for the future. Arash Farzanehhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12000344680925876563noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1367161100956691682.post-70983560440988251492013-12-22T00:28:00.082-08:002013-12-22T00:28:00.082-08:00“The extreme form of such a type of learning is th...“The extreme form of such a type of learning is the imposing headmaster at his pulpit threatening with sticks and other forms of punishment. Students then are to memorize the works of famous learned people, and in this way they would be able to reproduce and demonstrate anytime and anywhere the information they have received.”<br /><br />Reading the above, I wonder what kind of real-life instance you have in mind. My own education was at an English preparatory school, where the preparation is for public school, and where “public” actually means “private”. I didn’t go on to public school but to a fee-paying grammar school, and thence to university. The teaching was least adequate at the latter. <br /><br />At any rate it was a traditional English form of education, aimed at the “sons of gentlemen”. It had the specific aim, I think, of producing officers in the Armed Forces, clergymen, senior civil servants and colonial administrators, and other professionals. Sport, civilized behaviour and leadership were the qualities most fostered. Academically, boys were encouraged to shine, but it was understood that not all could be in the top rank. The Classics—Latin and Greek—were still taught. Discipline was kept by the senior boys mostly. The cane was seldom used for punishment, but it had the benefit of being decisive, memorable and short-lived.<br /><br />I’m not an ambassador for this kind of education, which in any case has changed out of recognition: and the school I went to was a unique hybrid and not at all outstanding. But I think I can speak for the system and correct the implication that students were to “memorize the works of famous learned people” in order to show off their education. <br /><br />One might well acquire a love of literature, and at that young age absorb plenty of Shakespeare, the Bible, Tennyson, Milton, perhaps something from Latin authors. The more expensive the education, the more you are expected to have something to show for it, if only the elegance of manners and high-class accent. Such education wasn’t egalitarian, but based on the concept of an élite. It allowed boys (or girls, for there were and are such schools for girls, such as Wycombe Abbey, a top-ranking one in my town) to find their own niche and if it were to become learned, then they would be able to make a start in an academic career.<br /><br />My main point in this is to say I don’t recognize the picture you paint of a wrong kind of education. Do you have personal knowledge of it, dear Arash?<br />Vincenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18297306807695767580noreply@blogger.com