Social Punishement for vegetables
It has always been a difficult task for those in the teaching professions to
explain difficult concepts to people that have no interest in complex ideas
or genuinely lack interest in the subject matter.
From that moment onwards education becomes punishment for both sides.
I do not know if it is sign of times but when I first started my degree it
was not lack of interest but lack of work that made us/ me fail. But what
I am seeing in some od the people that I am supposed to help in labs nowadays
is an absolute lack of initiative in the learning.
The French have wonderful expression to descrive their state of mind "Les
assistees" which translates on to the assisted since the require someone
else's input for them to do something. They require someone to think for
them even to break the tasks in to small repetitive elements that are
trivial to apprehend if they are not already known.
In this priorly described sorry mind set the possibilities of improving are
greatly reduced since any input has to be digested before hand by someone
else. The raw world or knowledge out of a book seems to be too unreachable
for them. From their insight it looks like the world is punishing them with
things they can not apprehend.
On the teachers side the over simplification of things frustrates the
educator as it sees that less and less of its skills are being required.
That there is not much discussion or input beyond a set of over simplified
teaching materials. For her/ him it is also punishment as the field is no
longer explored in the classroom. Knowledge is only poured with no
delicatesse whatsoever.
Education is also punishment through frustration for the educator.
What a sorry estate of affairs.
At this stage there are two things left to do. Jump backwards accepting that
things will never change and switch to drone mode with the help of the usual
intoxicant. Or jump forwards and turn punishment into even more punishment by
making the student face up with the true complexities of the subject and letting
them deal with them. The jump will not be for the faint hearted yet it is
necessary for their own sake.
This jump in quality will also be difficult for the educator since it will
have to go against the flow and challenge the students on to further and
further complex subjects and at first will encounter a lot of resistance.
But in due time and with the right kind of help it is believe that anyone
going through higher education should be capable of pulling their act
together or are not worthy of the privileges a degree offers in further life.
As expected the burden falls on to the educator because s/he knows or should know
better what to do and how to keep the pupils interested in the subject.
However apathy, and not only in the academic world, is on the increase. Young
people are turning on to mindless consumers more worried about what colour should
their mobile phone be rather than the sorry state the planet is now in. However
there is only a certain amount an educator can do. The education on the
citizenship and civic matters ought to come from the family where the scope for
cultural differences lies.
Further education is not about learning to think. It is about having already
learnt to explore ones ideas learning about someone else's and taking them
further in order to contribute back to the knowledge base. Four years is far too
short for learning to think and do something useful with it. One should start to think on ones feet in late teenage-hood when the world is beginning to be perceived as an adult. Not when all the burden of society has already fallen on you since
you will never have had the courage to think for yourself without taking in to
account any external influences. The same that youth is supposed to mindlessness I
advocate for a youth in which ideas have to emerge and start to shape your life
as the obligations of adult life will be hard enough for you to diverge from
a true free thinking exercise.
Think and train your youth to think as soon as possible as they will never be
ready for the complexities of the real world. Educate and do not be afraid to
overwhelm since either a limit will be reached, and hence acknowledged, or the
challenge will be taken over and conquered.
