The Philosophy of Life, the Universe, and Everything

Oct 2017: Methods of Teaching

Telling us "Here are all the raw materials pertaining to X" (e.g. the English alphabet) and to now "do Y with it" (e.g. write something in English) is a silly way of going about things.  You are setting us in an infinitely vast room full of objects but no light and telling us only to find "an object."  There is an incredibly small chance that, stumbling about in darkness, we will happen upon the correct object, and an even smaller chance that, having found it, we will recognize it as being the correct object.  So why don't you instead tell us what that object looks like and where to find the light switch.

A/N: The examples are from something I experienced in kindergarten—we knew the alphabet (or a good number of us did) and I knew how to read (very simple things only), but none of us knew enough to be able to write.  Our assignment was to write something in a little journal—we were specifically told not to worry about spelling or anything like that, but to just write something down.  You might write "xcoi sadj eewnn" and say that it read "I like cookies" or something like that.  I, however, was not interested in this exercise, because it meant nothing.  I didn't know enough to form letters into words, to put on paper what was so clear in my mind, on my tongue, and this exercise, this blind stumbling, would not help me to do so.  I asked the teacher for help in spelling something (or simply in spelling, I can't remember), but she merely repeated what she had said before: we weren't to worry ourselves over anything so superfluous as the very basics of the written language.  So I wrote: "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ".  The teacher came over to me and saw this, and made some comment about how we were supposed to be writing about something we did.  I responded, "It says, 'I went to the park yesterday.'"  The teacher thought I was merely being unoriginal, but I, in fact, knew that it didn't say, "I went to the park yesterday," and although I may have wanted to write that, I did not know how, or even how I might attempt it, or, were I to attempt it anyway, I would never know if I had done it correctly or was completely off the mark, and thus, I knew that writing "ABCDEFG..." was just as meaningful as anything else I might write.  Even at 5 years old, I already understood that this "method of teaching" taught nothing whatsoever.  Even in kindergarten, I began to understand that a true thirst for knowledge, a true inclination to learn was not welcome here, in the public education system.  Even at 5 years old I rejected this way of thought as pointless, backwards, idiotic.  Even through high school I sought that from which I could learn, that which would challenge me to do so, and even through high school those places, and those rare, rare people remained disconnected from the "education system."  I can only hope that college holds a pleasant surprise for me, although I also hope that the stagnant pool I have thus far lingered in has not ruined me for the true rigors I was so often promised (yet never delivered).