November, 2004
I got this cartoon from Steve Hoffelt out in Colorado. A finer friend, man, teacher, patriot, and scholar isn't.
The cartoon shows a logical fault. It also reveals much of what's wrong with education.
1. Buddy is doing his business on the chair. Man berates him. "Just what the Hey are doing DOING?!"
2. Man takes Buddy outside. Buddy is eager to learn. What, he doesn't know. "The tree, Buddy. Use the tree!"
3. Man shows Buddy what "Use the tree" means.
4. Buddy goes back in the house and does EXACTLY what he was taught. He's using the tree--which means, Do your biz on two legs.
Buddy's behavior is perfectly consistent with Man's communication. Standing on two legs is ONE interpretation of the meaning of "Use the tree."
Man's communication was ambiguous. He presumed that Buddy would "get it" that "Use the tree" means do your business on the tree. But why should Man presume that? After all, Buddy is "the learner" here. You can't expect him to know what the words mean BEFORE you teach him. The point is to TEACH him what the words mean.
Man also misteaches disadvantaged preschoolers. He holds up a pencil (which they've never seen) and says, "This is a pencil."
Well, WHAT does "pencil" refer to? What does it mean?
Yellow thing.
Thing with a point.
Thing in my hand.
Thing that is horizontal.
Thing with an eraser on the end.
Thing you poke with.
Thing that you pick up.
And dozens more possibilities.
None of these interpretations of "This is a pencil" is wrong LOGICALLY. The problem is that the teacher failed to design instruction so that only ONE interpretation (the one that is right in this culture and that is consistent with the knowledge system we call English) is LOGICALLY POSSIBLE.
But this requires that the teacher uses logic to determine how to COMMUNICATE so only one (correct) interpretation is possible, and so students "get" (see, grasp, induce, make that interpretation) easily and quickly.
In other words, teaching is first to last a LOGICAL game.
It's all about communicating in a logically faultless fashion--as if instruction (say, in math, from rote counting in kindergarten to calculus in high school) were an extended logical argument. And the teacher's job us to arrange episodes of instruction (on this task and that later task), so that every step (every bit of knowledge learned) from counting to calculus is perfectly clear, and so the ongoing argument (the knowledge system being revealed) is also perfectly clear.
Plato and Aristotle spent most of their lives figuring that out and writing it all down for us. They defined the educated person as one who had been led out of the cave of illusions and, using reason, now saw things are they are--not individual things only, but the general and eternal categories and laws of which things and their changes and inter-relationships are examples.
Every person could be a philosopher AND a stonemason.
But this is almost NEVER how it's seen in ed schools. How many teachers, or even ed perfessers, could tell you the logical operations involved in getting a concept--how, for example, a student's "learning mechanism" figures out what "democracy" means when students are shown examples? Would you say one in a million?
Courses on "Ed Psych" (where the logic of instruction could be taught) are invariably an assortment of trivial one-liners from edusaints (Piaget, Vygotsky, Alfie Kohn) that support progressive ed or that harp endlessly on creating a "warm" environment.
This and similar courses (The History of Education), stipulate for ed students that this field is NOT about logic, or precision, or intellectual virtues (finding and upholding truth, resisting the call of appealing bunk). Its about fluff. 99 and 44/100 percent fluff.
The result is that teachers leave ed school with no idea how human beings "get" knowledge from examples--which is the ONLY thing a teacher can show. Therefore, they cannot possibly design instruction so that anyone gets knowledge quickly (or at all).
A commenter on Joanne Jacobs's site (joannejacobs.com) said that what is sold by ed schools is pretty much what the public must want. And I think he's right. No, let's not waffle. He's DEAD right. [And I thank him for the wake up call.]
Does the public care if our kids are REALLY educated? Does the public even know what that could mean?
Do we need people who are educated--who, for example, get every bit of the argument called "mathematics"?
Have we organized our lives so that we are functionaries who require only a small part of any knowledge system in order to do our bit?
Are too many now so ignorant that they think NOT thinking is a fine condition? "We have arrived! We know abolutely nothing!"
That's why I like talking to the guys who cut down trees (after hurricanes) or repair the refrigerator. They are technically proficient.
Do our machines perform the logical operations of induction and deduction for us?
If so, how will we turn out?
What have we lost?
Ironically, if that's the word I want, computers and the internet may make a
serious education, in the classical sense, possible. An hour or so
finding and arranging materials from 50 sites on ancient
Thanks for reading.