Why can’t education be more abstract and impersonal?
Too many teachers assume that their
students will benifit from assignments that are more personal and feeling
oriented. But young scientific types deserve consideration too.
This particular entry was inspired by an
article in the latest NY Times Education section, about the new
curriculum being introduced to New York City’s public schools.
The author is sensibly skeptical regarding the proposed
“constructivist” teaching methods, in which teachers guide children
into “constructing” their own learning, as opposed to teaching any
actual facts, rules, or
procedures.
My favorite section describes how the instructor of the literacy program asked the teachers for happy and unhappy memories of writing. When one offered writing in her journal as her positive example, and writing college term papers as her negative example, the instructor catapulted to the conclusion that “what works for us is writing that is personal.”
My immediate response is “who do you mean by ‘us”?!” While I can’t say that I loved every writing assignment I had in college, I do have fond memories of papers for specific classes, such as my study of the depiction of prostitutes in medieval Japanese literature, or my analysis of Romanian economic policies in the 50s and 60s. These assignments gave me the opportunity to do some in-depth learning on obscure yet interesting topics that I would never have bothered to think about without the requirements of the course.
On the other hand, if any teacher at any point during my education had required me to keep a journal, I would have pitched a fit. Although I did keep a sporadic journal for a couple years in college, I eventually gave it up because I simply didn’t think there was anything so interesting about my life as to be worth the effort of recording. I certainly would never have permitted anyone else to read my journal (in fact, to deter snooping, I wrote in Russian, leading to my own current inability to understand anything I wrote), believing that my personal life was, well, personal. The literacy instructor’s supposedly “inspiring” stories about students who “used writing to surface buried hopes and fears” give me retrospective chills at the thought of any of my grade-school teachers trying the same tactics.
Granted, I am a hopelessly analytic science geek, and my preferences do not necessarily (or likely) reflect those of most other students. But that is precisely my point. Students have diverse personalities and interests, and will each find different writing styles more or less appealing. There is no one style that “works” for everyone. The instructor of this course follows all too many supposedly liberal educators who, in seeking to free students from one supposed pedagogical orthodoxy, end up imposing their own even more stringent dictates.
I have always suspected that this tendency is particularly damaging to young budding scientist types, simply because the sorts of people who are into these feeling-oriented, personal teaching styles are obviously of a completely opposite personality type, and as such are prone to make disheartening misjudgments of these students’ personalities. The sort of person who dreams of helping students construct their own learning experiences is probably someone who values expression over introversion, feeling over thinking. These are not bad traits. The trouble comes when they assume that their introverted, thinking-oriented students, the ones who would rather analyze than emote, and insist upon keeping personal matters to themselves, must have some sort of problems that need correcting. In particular, female students who follow stereotypically masculine logical analysis are made to feel that there is something wrong with them. This surely does not help the development of female scientists.
Analytical writing is, I believe, an important skill for everyone to learn, but it is especially essential for these scientific types, who will need this skill far more than practice in writing journals. Barring students from developing skills they need and would actively enjoy, merely because the instructors find these skills boring, is not good teaching, but pure laziness. I can only hope that the next “new curriculum” picks up on this basic fact.
My favorite section describes how the instructor of the literacy program asked the teachers for happy and unhappy memories of writing. When one offered writing in her journal as her positive example, and writing college term papers as her negative example, the instructor catapulted to the conclusion that “what works for us is writing that is personal.”
My immediate response is “who do you mean by ‘us”?!” While I can’t say that I loved every writing assignment I had in college, I do have fond memories of papers for specific classes, such as my study of the depiction of prostitutes in medieval Japanese literature, or my analysis of Romanian economic policies in the 50s and 60s. These assignments gave me the opportunity to do some in-depth learning on obscure yet interesting topics that I would never have bothered to think about without the requirements of the course.
On the other hand, if any teacher at any point during my education had required me to keep a journal, I would have pitched a fit. Although I did keep a sporadic journal for a couple years in college, I eventually gave it up because I simply didn’t think there was anything so interesting about my life as to be worth the effort of recording. I certainly would never have permitted anyone else to read my journal (in fact, to deter snooping, I wrote in Russian, leading to my own current inability to understand anything I wrote), believing that my personal life was, well, personal. The literacy instructor’s supposedly “inspiring” stories about students who “used writing to surface buried hopes and fears” give me retrospective chills at the thought of any of my grade-school teachers trying the same tactics.
Granted, I am a hopelessly analytic science geek, and my preferences do not necessarily (or likely) reflect those of most other students. But that is precisely my point. Students have diverse personalities and interests, and will each find different writing styles more or less appealing. There is no one style that “works” for everyone. The instructor of this course follows all too many supposedly liberal educators who, in seeking to free students from one supposed pedagogical orthodoxy, end up imposing their own even more stringent dictates.
I have always suspected that this tendency is particularly damaging to young budding scientist types, simply because the sorts of people who are into these feeling-oriented, personal teaching styles are obviously of a completely opposite personality type, and as such are prone to make disheartening misjudgments of these students’ personalities. The sort of person who dreams of helping students construct their own learning experiences is probably someone who values expression over introversion, feeling over thinking. These are not bad traits. The trouble comes when they assume that their introverted, thinking-oriented students, the ones who would rather analyze than emote, and insist upon keeping personal matters to themselves, must have some sort of problems that need correcting. In particular, female students who follow stereotypically masculine logical analysis are made to feel that there is something wrong with them. This surely does not help the development of female scientists.
Analytical writing is, I believe, an important skill for everyone to learn, but it is especially essential for these scientific types, who will need this skill far more than practice in writing journals. Barring students from developing skills they need and would actively enjoy, merely because the instructors find these skills boring, is not good teaching, but pure laziness. I can only hope that the next “new curriculum” picks up on this basic fact.
Posted: Sun - August 3, 2003 at 10:26 PM
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Published On: Nov 16, 2003 06:43 PM
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Published On: Nov 16, 2003 06:43 PM