Lord of the Things

Greetings!

Yes I know; stories do not begin in this way, but letters often do.  As it turns out, this week's posting(s) will be late for a variety of reasons (explanations but not excuses).  I've outlined Presenting: The Naucine, and begun Introducing: The Ra'u - the latter of which feels quite important to me as they are the planned major player in my story - and then immediately shivved with writer's block.  As well, I do a lot of my writing in cafes, and the last had a large group of giggling teens constantly falling over their tables.

I have no idea what they had in mind when they decided to go, as a gaggle (which, like a murder of crows, is the correct group-counter for an unspecified otherwise-herd of teens), to a cafe.

I may also have been playing the shit out of Hearthstone.  But, as it did with Naucine physiology, video game playing often serves for me as a source of inspiration and problem solving.  Though really, this was just lollygagging.

I thought, however, that I would write briefly (which is to say, a lot) on the subject of education and, if I happen to reach it, language.  I've been busy on the teaching side of things.

This past week I assigned to a student William Golding's, Lord of the Flies. (wow, I remember proper citation format.... I think.)  I felt rather guilty about this because I had read this book when I was in middle/high school.

But I should clarify - my student is of middle school age and is unschooled (blog).  Personally, I thought the book would be right up his alley - it is, after all, a dark, violent, even at times crazy, story about a bunch of british boarding school kids who get stranded on an island and immediately proceed to go bonkers.  I had to read it again since it'd been so many years, but I finished the book in 3 or 4 nights - it's not terribly long.  When I think about it, that book should be a great read for any male adolescent.  Was Survivor NOT a national phenomenon in the US?

But as I recall, few enjoyed it in school.  Most any book you care to name that was read in school will generally be associated with vague, negative thoughts.  Mostly forgotten, walled off negative memories that largely center around the words "bullshit" and "pain in the ass", a reading assignment over the course of weeks (!), capped off with a graded writing assignment and/or test.

I think any educational system that engenders in its children a strong dislike, for years and years, of reading and, in particular, classics of literature, needs to be strongly reevaluated.  Reading and writing, indeed language itself, is the very cornerstone of civilization... and thus education itself.

The educational system in general, when it comes to literature, has spawned an entire industry (and that is no small thing mind you) of crib-books/horn books - short(er) books that highlight the key plot points, characters, allegory and metaphors, subtext of a work.  The entire purpose, despite weak disclaimers to the contrary, is to prepare a student for discussion without having read the necessary text.

What's more, isn't it the TEACHER'S job to point those things out? To lead a discussion on those topics, rather than have students regurgitate memorized factoids like a parrot?  Where is the comprehension that marks true education?  We seek only the "right" answer - the means became an end unto itself.

The right answer, the right answer... we are conditioned to always seek the right answer.  This stifles innovation, creativity, learning.  We should learn to value the right answer, how to recognize it, but we should not ignore (or worse, penalize) the journey to reach it.  Insert cliche story about Edison and the light bulb.

There is a hypothesis that the current educational system is a relic of the Industrial Revolution:

-The next generation of workers are being trained at a young age to accept spending hours at a time (literally) in a small room, doing what they are told, with the same people.

-They all do the same work, all on the same thing - such as a work sheet, a work book, a diorama (what is this supposed to teach me?), a paper mache puppet (again, what is the true, educational content of this project?), a tooth pick structure, a Jell-O model of a cell, a dissection (you would think this is an educational activity, I assure you it is not... both as a student and later as an assistant), running around a field (this is... education? No, it is exercise, calling it "physical education" does not impart any educational value to it whatsoever), learning the rules to badminton.

-Future workers are taught to accept localized authority, to respond to the sound of a bell signalling a shift in location and/or task, to listen to announcements made over a PA loudspeaker system.

-Future workers get up early in the morning, eat lunch (of a sort), and go home late in the afternoon.  Why?  Do the hours truly matter so much? Need they occur at approximately the same time as rush hour? Wouldn't it make more sense to stagger the school rush and work commute, for safety if not traffic?

-Future workers get the whole of summer off - a relic of needing hands in the field for harvest (an example of the backseat education takes and concessions it must make to the influence of the economic machine)

-Future workers are penalized for failing to show up, on time, without authorization.  There must be a proper accounting, in alphabetical order, or who is present at the start of each shift.  Seating arrangements are often assigned in this manner (in their perfect rows and columns).  Is taking attendance important?  It's true you have to be physically present to learn in a classroom, but this seems a matter of discipline and responsibility.  In any event, how this relates to the grading one's "performance" makes no sense in an educational context - if you didn't learn because you weren't there, you'll already be penalized appropriately on the test.

-Regular performance evaluations.  Which, frequently, don't test comprehension, but instead ask for regurgitation of memorized information.  The teacher does not evaluate a student's comprehension (in most cases), but simply 'quality assures' by checking answers against a 'key'.  If a student's comprehension or interpretation exceeds a teacher's (as can, and indeed we should hope ought happen frequently) it is wrong.  We teach and seek conformity, not individuality.  This is the primary problem of emphasizing the right answer over learning.  There is also something to be said for conditioning people to be afraid to make mistakes.

-Conformity over individuality is also the key feature of the social aspects of our educational system.

We never bother to question or seek to understand how a student interprets information such that they come to the 'wrong answer.'  We seek only conformity to the right answer above all.  Where is the 'teaching' then?  But of course, this is incompatible with the large scale classroom system.  It is also inconsistent with the complete of oversight into the quality of educators.  We expect educators to match answers, not to teach; we expect them to stop gunmen, not to understand evolution.

Our priorities are completely wrong - they are fully subservient to (in some cases, archaic) economic systems.  The gun industry.  The Political machine.  Capitalism.  Marketing.  Sports and entertainment.  Copyright and intellectual property.  DRM and quick-buck technologists (everyone trying to pawn off shitty tablets onto schools... remember the iMac?).

Imparting comprehension, what we call education, has always been a 1 on 1 or 1 on small number matter.  In any skills-based group learning, the instructor MUST take time to check on everyone (such as in martial arts, to check posture, form, and mechanics, or painting for much the same).  Sauces and baked goods must be tasted.  Technique must be watched, evaluated, the source of mistakes pinpointed and corrected.

Case in point, do grades matter for your occupation? In the overwhelming majority of cases, no they do not.  When have we ever examined the grades of a candidate for political office?  We care more about the birth certificate of the president, the job in the US, than we do about his grades.  We check for grades in going to higher education, and we check for GPA (not grades) for some first-time-employments.  But that's about it.

Do we prepare students for higher education?  No, not really.  That's why there are scores of books on vocabulary ALONE for entrance exams.  And an entire test prep industry.  And even that is not education - what student, who has ever memorized vocabulary for a test, has ever remembered or even used those words thereafter?

A different student of mine expressed a desire to learn "English conversation skills."  I almost laughed, because I'll be frank here: there is no such thing as "English" conversation skills.  There are only "conversation skills."  The term "English conversation skills" is a defense mechanism, a lie like many others we tell oureselves so that we don't feel bad about making mistakes.  Mistakes which our school system teaches us to fear and avoid above all else.  Absolutely anything you can say on the subject of making conversation in one language applies to every single other language past, present, and future.

The grammatical differences between chinese and english, as pertains to conversation, conveyed in layman terms, are:

1.  It is possible to make a grammatically correct and complete sentence in chinese without a subject (true, even requisite, in most asian languages)

2.  It is possible to make a grammatically correct and complete sentence in chinese without a verb of any kind

3.  It is possible to make a grammatically correct and complete sentence in chinese without both a subject and a verb.

And that is it.  Because of these differences, it is common for native chinese speakers to answer questions without designating a subject (I, me, you, they, etc.) or using a verb (frequently using instead either infinitives [to + verb] or gerunds/participles [verb-ing]) - what, in english, we call a sentence fragment.  Conversely, ABCs such as myself tend to be more verbose, emphasizing particles (a, an, the - also missing in chinese) and subjects (specificially I and You) more than is actually needed.

As an aside, if you think about it, when speaking... I is obvious, it's the speaker.  And You [is] obvious as well, that's the listener.  Or, more politely, you would address the person specifically by name or title.  Going about all the time saying I and You is, if you think about it (outside the native language context), a bit bombastic and rude.  In japanese, the acceptable term for 'you' is お前 (o-mae), which even carries the honoriffic o-prefix, which literally means 'in front (of me)'.  A more roundabout way to say it would be 目の前に (me no mae ni), meaning "that which is before my eyes."

'You' indeed... *ahem*

So the whole of what might be termed "english" conversation skills can actually be covered in about 30 seconds.  The remainder is a question of vocabulary and usage - but if you naturally speak in such a way where you attempt to provide more information (where you are going, how you feel, your opinions, in short - conversing) and pre-emptively answer logical questions (Did you eat yet? Yes.  When? an hour ago.  Did you eat a lot? No.  So are you hungry now? No.  What did you eat? A dead pigeon.  Do you need to go to the hospital? Yes.  Is someone taking you? No.  Do you want me to take you? Yes.) then that is usage... there is no teaching that.  That is a matter of personal habit.  You need to practice speaking and giving out relevant information.  There is no teaching of that, because it is a matter of how your brain is wired.  And as you naturally speak and attempt to convey information, you will become frustrated that your vocabulary is lacking - you will seek out more terms, relevant ones, and use them, and thus increase your vocabulary.

Memorized teaches you shit.  There, I said it.  It teaches you to recognize information taken out of context.  You don't learn words; you learn to regurgitate a contextless definition (which does not demonstrate comprehension) upon visually recognizing the word.  That's why everyone "forgets" things they "studied" (aka memorized) for a test - the brain was conditioned to respond in a given manner (spit out the definition) when it sees the trigger (the word).

You haven't learned anything.  You haven't learned how to use it, how to adapt it or make it your own.  You've learned "when A happens, do B.  Repeat."

You've learned how to be a part of an assembly line.

For all this, I don't know what the proper solution is.  Apprenticeships, tutoring, small scale teaching... these things would cripple the economic system that we have.  But I know what we have isn't the right answer.  Even mice learn not to shock themselves - that's not the path to the right answer.  As I said to my student's father in my interview, "I'm not sure homeschooling is the right answer, but I admire you for acknowledging what the wrong answer is and casting about for a solution."

Actually, I might have paraphrased that a bit.  Whatever, I was the one that said it.  I can change it.  Shut up. 

The next book I have assigned is George Orwell's, Animal Farm: A Fairy Tale.  It's another book I read in high school.  It's also rather enjoyable for it's sheer ridiculousness and clear political message.  Although these days, you might question which government is being satirized.

Stories to come later this week!