I am quite concerned with the direction the education system here in America is headed, and took parts of two articles that I really enjoyed, put parts of them together, and stated what I think is wrong with our system from a student's perspective. I think we used to have the greatest system in the world, back in the day where we didn't care whether or not we were #1 in standardized tests. I've been in school for the last eighteen or nineteen years, I've had plenty of time in the system recently. Don't get me wrong, learning is awesome. But, I no longer always equate school with learning.
The two articles are "Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome" by Thomas G. Plummer, and "The Love of Learning" by David McCullough. Hope you enjoy the read.
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| Thomas G Plummer |
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| David McCullough |
The Numbers Game: A
Lesson on Learning
Cody L. MacCabe
English 201
Ms. Thompson
Mar 04, 2013
The Numbers Game: A
Lesson on Learning
You are defined by a
number. A single number. Or a single letter. And if your number is not a 4.0,
you’re no good. If your letter is not an A, we don’t want you.
This is the value of today’s students in America; the numbers that represent them. Young human beings
are reduced down to a number, slapped on a piece of paper, or mechanically
entered into some cybersphere. This is the message that is being sent to students across America. However, there are key principles taught by
David McCullough in his address “Love of Learning,” and Thomas G. Plummer’s
“Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome” that have given me new insight
into addressing the errors in our educational system that so many today are
lamenting, yet are misdiagnosing, and treating with snake oil. These two men
have been on both the learner and the teacher side of life, and I believe have
correctly identified critical elements to true learning. And as they possess
such experience, it begs the question: how does our country’s current approach
to education align with these men’s ideas about learning? May I be so bold as
to propose that it does not. These men provide the two key pieces to education
that our country is currently lacking, and while both use rational thinking to
arrive at their conclusions, Plummer argues that individuals stunt their
learning and growth when they depend on others to do the thinking, while
McCullough focuses on the distinction between learning, and the accumulation of
information.
Summary
In the first article, “Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome,” Thomas G. Plummer (1990/2013), a professor of Germanic and Slavic
languages, laments a widespread lack of individual’s ability to think for their
own self, labeling the condition “Ophelia Syndrome.” The symptoms of this
mental malady, he argues, include a dependency on others to tell you what and
how to think, and the consequences can be severe to the point that an adult
“chooses to be a baby,” someone who doesn’t know their opinion, and wouldn’t
tell an authority figure even if they did (p. 438). He suggests that in today’s
universities there comes a point in every field where a teacher can no longer
tell a student what to think. And if students have never been taught to think
for themselves, it will severely limit their ability to learn and grow. The
students must learn to shoulder the role of thinking through the next steps on
their own. He concludes by encouraging self-motivated action, and stepping
outside of the scholastic boundaries that are so prevalent in today’s society,
again acknowledging the difficulties that accompany shaking off Ophelia
Syndrome.
The second, an address
by David McCullough, Yale University graduate, contemporary American historian
and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, makes clear not only the
importance of an education in today’s world, but in his essay “The Love of Learning” (2008/2013), discusses what actual learning is, and the importance of
making a love of learning central to our lives. He begins by first clarifying
the widely misunderstood notion that information accumulation and learning are
the same thing, suggesting that a person may have all manner of information and
data, yet still miss the truth. McCullough then goes on to tell us from what
source learning can be acquired (books and teachers,) and through what purpose
learning can be attained (concentrated work.) In essence, he prescribes a love
of learning to become someone who never stops learning.
Rhetorical
Analysis
Plummer takes on a
logical approach to addressing students as he tackles the issue of dependency
in learning. He is easily able to explain how this “Ophelia syndrome” is in
fact a serious problem, showing how the inability of individuals to take the
learning process into their own hands naturally grants someone else the license
to dictate what and how they think. It defies logic to think that dependence on
another will somehow allow one to reach their fullest potential. To Plummer’s audience,
who were taking great pains to educate themselves, the idea that they are
responsible to stand on their own intellectual feet is something that will go
over well with them. McCullough takes a similar rational approach to a
connected topic, the love of learning.
David McCullough makes
an effective appeal pointing out the notable differences between information
and learning. He argues that if they were indeed one and the same, one would
merely need to memorize the World Almanac to be educated. To his graduating
audience, explaining to them that the information gathered in recent years and
the processes that they went through in order to obtain that information are quite
different would likely be quite simple. He points out that learning requires
more than just entering information into the head. As learning is a lifelong
process, not only coming to love learning, but learning to reason for yourself
will be an invaluable asset no matter your age.
Idea Analysis
Both of these men show
great wisdom as they talk about the importance of learning, and they both are able
to convey the importance of motivating yourself to learn. They effectively
encourage their audience to take learning into their own hands, to reach new
intellectual heights as they motivate themselves to learn. But they differ
slightly in the messages they are trying to convey. McCullough speaks of what
learning is, and how to develop a love of learning. He explains learning, and
shares his experience with learning to show how he came to that conclusion.
Plummer, on the other hand, focuses his remarks on the dangers of becoming
reliant on another to learn in your place. He argues that true learning takes
place when a student steps outside the shadow of the teacher. The two aren’t
unrelated however, as the effect of developing an eagerness to learn will be an
understanding of the necessity to rely on yourself for learning.
Synthesis
While
I agree that what these men have to say about the learning processes of
individuals and the potential barriers to learning is fantastic, I would argue
that their ideas can be extrapolated on a wider scale, applying also to how
societal symptoms brought on by our bureaucratic zeal to “educate” individuals can disrupt learning. As evidence for this, I simply ask if our system today
focuses on helping students to learn to love. Or, does it simply focus on
getting students to pass the next test or quiz, which allows us to yet again
assess their “knowledge” with a number? A student with a passion to learn will
never be exceeded by a brilliant student that is lazy, and a country founded on
creative and independent thinking doesn’t need to worry about falling behind those that play
the numbers game. I believe a short history lesson allows us perspective into
the damaging effects that dependency on some higher-up coupled by a lackluster
desire to learn can create.
At
the conclusion of WWII, Admiral Sadatoshi Tomioka of the Imperial Japanese Navy
directly, and I believe correctly, blamed the Japanese loss of the war on their
educational system, stating that they had been teaching their students figures
and facts at the expense of individual thinking. In short, Japan was infected
with Ophelia Syndrome at a national level. Almost everyone had to rely on
someone else higher up to tell them how to think, what to think, and how to act
on that knowledge. An individual love of learning, combined with the ability to
think as an individual didn’t exist in the Japanese system. Learning was simply
a cultural expectation, and perfectly emulating the teacher was considered to
be the epitome of learning. It is a weakness that cost them the war, as well as
continues to inhibit their growth in modern times. Now, let’s see what is
happening in America today. We want a number attached to every single piece of
information students “learn,” ‘cause by golly, if it’s not a number it’s not
data, and if it’s not data we don’t want it ‘cause how in the heck are we going
to know if our students are smarter than other countries students if we can’t
compare numbers! We want it known that we have the best students and educators in the world, according to our definition of "best" is! We demand action, preferably throwing money at standardized testing, ‘cause said action will get something done (we’re sure), and we want higher numbers than
anyone else, and we want it now! So sit down, shut yer yap, and pass your test,
dang it!!
Needless to say, I decided long ago that I would not let a number tell me what I did or didn’t learn in a class. I fear that we in America are following this same path of focusing on facts and figures and expecting students to simply regurgitate what they are taught.
Needless to say, I decided long ago that I would not let a number tell me what I did or didn’t learn in a class. I fear that we in America are following this same path of focusing on facts and figures and expecting students to simply regurgitate what they are taught.
Rather than encourage
learning, this drives students to not only become extremely dependent on
teachers for the acquisition of information, but it creates absolutely zero
desire for students to learn. Drop-out rates among high school students substantially
increased
since the passage of the law known as NCLB. McCullough talks of the importance
of learning to love learning, not learning to cram every bit of our brain full
of information. Politicians that haven’t been in a classroom since their
last re-election campaign dream up and pronounce lofty standards that students
and teachers must reach fail to realize the havoc they are wreaking on the
creativity and individual thinking that made this country great. Ramming more
math, more reading, more science down the throats of students nationwide will
suffocate students scholastically, as well as stifle any desire to participate
in what they have been taught is “learning.” I believe Bill Watterson adequately describes this in the following Calvin
and Hobbes
cartoon:
As the only experience that Calvin has had with
learning was in school with Miss Wormwood making him learn, he initially failed
to realize that learning was not strictly limited to school. However, when he found
a passion for a subject, he took the reins to control his own learning
experience. This, along with the powerful points made by McCullough and Plummer
have helped me to now better understand that by assisting students to come to
love learning, they will propel themselves to new intellectual heights, instead
of atrophying academically in a system that teaches dependency on teachers,
letters, and numbers.
Conclusion
The greatest impact that
a teacher can have on his or her students is to instill in the student a desire to go out and learn on their own. T.S. Eliot, a
world-renown publisher and literary critic once asked, “Where is the wisdom we
have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
America is currently engaged in an experiment to raise the greatest generation
of test-takers this world has ever seen. And we’re suffering for it. We have become
obsessed with numbers as a society, which has driven students to dislike
learning, and to become increasingly dependent on teachers to boot. Reducing
our bureaucratic emphasis on numbers and information, and instead allow our
teachers to help students build a foundation for additional knowledge will
increase a student’s desire to learn. Learning is more than accumulating
relayed information. My flash drive can do that. And when my flash drive and I
perform the same function, one of us becomes unnecessary.
References
McCullough, D.
(2008/2013). The love of learning. In R. Seamons (Ed.) The way of wisdom (pp. 333-336). Rexburg,
ID: BYU–Idaho. Retrieved from http://ilearn.byui.edu
Plummer, T. G.
(1990/2013). Diagnosing and treating the Ophelia syndrome. In R. Seamons (Ed.) The
way of wisdom
(pp. 438-447). Rexburg, ID: BYU–Idaho. Retrieved from http://ilearn.byui.edu
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