Next!

As I write this blogpost, I am exhausted. My primary thought was to just get the post over with: answer the question, get the grade. Then, I can move on to doing other homework. This situation is applicable in schools across the board, regardless of public or private, because it has to do with the mindset schools are creating. We define ourselves as grades and scores, and in the process limit our learning to learning for grades and scores. We stop caring about knowledge and education, and instead focus on what gets us the grade, what gets us the score, and what gets us into college.
 
We have become so reliant on a system of numbers because we know of no, or are unwilling to create an, other system to test what we know. A huge issue with teaching for tests is the fact that they end up measuring not how smart a person is but, “how much smartness someone has” (Postman 183). In order to be “smart”, a student must be able to use concepts in different situations, a skill that is often lost in the need to pass basic tests. In classes like math and chemistry, when pressed for time, I will simply memorize a process for solving something instead of understanding the concept, because I need the good grade. 

Further, in this test-based society, we end up decreasing diversity in schools because we are unwilling to hear stories, and other ways of doing things. In public schools, the use of “Common Core” learning, promotes one way of doing something and one curriculum. This strict curriculum is unable to charter to the needs of different schools in different areas. Teachers will use textbooks and have students copy notes. Students can only ask a few questions because teachers are focused on getting through all the material, as well as catering to the majority of students. Postman finds textbooks to be “enemies of education”, because they promote “trivial learning” (Postman 116). Education comes down to an equation: memorize facts + take exams = good score. 

However, the question then arises, what’s the point? How does knowing these facts in anyway prepare students for the real world? Further, if a student already knows what they want to do for their future, is it necessary for them to take “required” classes they don’t need, if they demonstrate proficiency in them? Another question: how would proficiency be demonstrated? Yet another test? The twenty-first century has created a public based on quick results. People are interested in learning material to get a good score and then moving on. No one has time for the process that learning and education should be. We become so caught up in the trivial stuff, they begin to seem increasingly important. 

Works Cited: 

 Postman, Neil. The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School. New York: Knopf, 1995.  Print.  

A Zebra, Hyena, Orangutan, And Tiger Walk Into A Bar...

I read the book Life of Pi when I was in fifth grade, and quickly fell in love. The twist ending shocked, bewildered and fascinated me all at the same time. The story begins with Pi, a young Indian boy, trying to explain his adherence to several faiths. Our very first introduction to our protagonist shows him as a peaceful, loving, do-gooding kid. This image is very different from the ferocious tiger he becomes.

Sigmund Freud created his Personality Theory based around three central ideas: the id, ego, and superego. His “studies of the unconscious revealed that people's actions were often the result of 'animal' urges or instincts” (Gaarder). When we are active, and secure, in society, our actions and “animal instincts” are better repressed. However, in dire life and death situations, the animal within us makes an appearance. So, how did the sweet boy we are introduced to turn into Richard Parker? Perhaps the answer lies in Freud’s id, ego, and superego.

In Martel’s story, Richard Parker is the literal embodiment of the id. If you have read the book, you know Richard Parker was not an actual tiger, but a symbol of the person Pi was forced to become in order to survive. His id, unconsciously driven by his desire to survive, influenced his conscious actions that allowed him to survive. Freud believed irrational impulses can be an expression of basic drives or needs. When Pi first encounters the cook (the hyena), his superego is still present and controlling, he can only stand by and watch as his mother is murdered. However, in the second encounter, the cook isn't so fortunate. Pi’s id was ready. Richard Parker killed the hyena swiftly and terribly, and from then on our sweet little boy must deal with the belief that he has killed someone.

Pi was forced to come to terms with the loss of his father and his mother, He then witnessed the murder of a man and killed another man. All these deaths, the horrors he underwent and committed, “can be such a tremendous strain”, especially for the superego, and thus, it is repressed (Gaarder). However, “whatever is repressed in this way will try of its own accord to reenter consciousness”, and thus, the creation of Richard Parker (Gaarder).




Works Cited:

"SOPHIE'S WORLD A Novel About the History of Philosophy." Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
<http://192.184.80.244/philosophy-plain/resources/SophiesWorld.pdf>.

 Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print. 

Nothing to Fear but....Ourselves?

  FDR’s “we have nothing to fear but fear itself”, is one the most well-known presidential quotes. His words acted as reassurance to a nation that had come under the paralyzing clutches of fear. At the time, the people of the United States feared losing all their savings, and rushed to withdraw their money from banks. They faced an unknown enemy and consequently, made rash decisions out of fright. Flash-forward some 60 years and a similar situation presents itself: a President attempting to console a scared and grieving nation in the wake of terror attacks that claimed the lives of almost 3,000 people. However, this president has a different approach. Instead of attempting to allay fears, he stokes them saying “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” He changes the national attitude for years to come by turning foreign nations into hostile enemies, and raising the question of whether a foe is around every corner. 

As the idiom goes, “hindsight is 20/20.” When looking back towards our actions following September 9, 2001, faults are easily found. Our change in ideal, our fear of an unknown enemy capable of the destruction witnessed on that day, caused our actions to be rash and potentially misguided. Even ten years after the incident, we continued to make decisions based on fear. Upon discovering the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, we were too fearful to risk bringing him back to the United States to have a “fair” trial (but then again, was there anything fair in the killing of 3,000 people?) Fear is a powerful motivator, especially to make hasty decisions on, and thus, leaves us with uncomfortable questions to ask ourselves.

It is uncomfortable for us to think that we could be in the wrong. It is uncomfortable for us to think that an event we feel pride in, could be an event we should feel shame over. It is uncomfortable to question whether we made a mistake so grand, that we cannot easily right it. The fact that these questions are uncomfortable make them even more important to consider. The ideals of former President Bush and MIT Professor Noam Chomsky represent two ends of a spectrum. Chomsky’s criticisms can be quite difficult to swallow but it is nonetheless vital that we ruminate over them. It is said that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”, and with a nation so powerful as the United States, it is necessary for us to check our own actions, lest we become like those we claim to oppose.