On Education? What is it, and How Does Henry Thoreau Fit In?
(See also http://www.smithclass.org/edetmedia/Thoreau-Ethics-of-Education.pdf )
Briefly:
I was asked as part of the interview for Kennedy High School a Blue Ribbon North Bellmore, Long Island school, to write an essay about how I would teach Henry Thoreau's quote that roughly says: "What does education often do?.... Education makes a meandering brook into a straight-cut ditch..." and here is my, i believe, well-crafted essay.
_~_~_~_~_~_~
Also termed: "Fill the cup," many teachers dream that by the end of the semester, their students will be filled to the brim with knowledge and facts about Social Studies, Science, and the rules of grammar. This is the end of the "set" so to speak.
That is why when Henry Thoreau's quote torques things in some people's minds. He wrote:
"What does education often do! -It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook" (after 31 October 1850, Journal). I would write that quote on the board.
Immediately, our critical eyes will see the words "ditch" and "brook" as a negative and positive word for stream or river. Students will list 11 words for "waterway" on a piece of paper. Words like "river" carry a neutral feeling while words like "canal" bring with them man-made power, a harnessing of nature for the good of transportation. The feeling quickly is that education personified here, changes something nice, like a free and wandering brook into a utilitarian, harnessed muddy ditch. We would infer that Thoreau did not like education', at least not the type that children would get in a schoolroom. And so reading this quote on an application to become a teacher at a prestigious institute of learning is puzzling. The only thing his words would satisfy is the New York State standard that students learn things so that they can enjoy life, and be able to hold discussions with others for fun.
What Thoreau toggles is how education succeeds. And to discover more about this quote, we really have to go back in time, to the 1800's when America was being settled by people from other established countries. At that time, the "indian" was sometimes called a "savage". At that time, religion really focused on changing the wild man into a God fearing, submissive citizen. Taken as an individual, the writer admired the free spirit of the Indian and saw this tying up of him as not ideal. As well, the different cultures assimilated into a society that tried to democratically vote on the same laws and ideals instead of having a boss or king dictate rules and regulations to them. Perhaps a schoolhouse served both as a tool for assimilation as well as a sign that rules stilled ruled, although this time at least the people got to make the rules. In that time frame, Thoreau and his brother ran a schoolhouse for a few years. And closing that house, not entirely due to philosophical reasons but perhaps to financial ones, Thoreau continued to modify his idea of what "education" meant. I think he thought that learning things because you want to, when you feel like it, was superior to forced learning. I am guessing that he would have hugged Maria Montessori and wanted to sit in and observe her classes where children play without adults interfering, where youths play work, and are allowed to take toys out of unlocked cubbies at random.
I smile whenever I see that part in the movie Big Daddy where Adam Sandler says something like: "Look he wants to go to school. I let him make the decisions and he wants to go to school!" That to me is a modern version of free will education. The ramifications of it are immense, but the motivation is very powerful. Given a choice, the boy Julian whom Sonny adopts decides to enroll in school.
The Internet is an example of what some attention deficit hyperactive children love, to look one thing up (say in a dictionary) and end up on a journey of research that goes on for hours. Through the "web", I was surprised to learn that Japan has no Nobel Prize winners. They admire us while we are jealous of their successes. What I found out is that Japan thinks the USA has "creative productivity", allowing youths to grow and explore. The No Child Left Behind Act is legislation that lists and quantifies who is achieving and why some are not in an effort to put "everyone on the same page". In some ways, this is that drab but debris-free ditch Thoreau complained about.
I would assign the following class work: As a citizen approaching voting age, what legislation would you support that would help children learn more and enjoy learning more? How would your child's success be measured? What would your benchmark be since you are paying increasing property taxes that go towards local education: graduation, college transition, job readiness, or crime free environment? Students would hold discussions with groups of three role playing homeowner parent, homeowner double income no children, and person moving into the neighborhood. This conversation could be videotaped or tape recorded and then scribed to see what issues came up in discussion. I would hope that finally an essay would synthesize this lesson. The climactic assignment is that each student would write a persuasive essay addressing the necessity of education to help "clear away the debris" so that children can realize their potential.
The reality is just like any utopia, there are downsides. Society may fear that if it transformed into a Montessorian educational style, the checks and balances of achievement would be missing. Even New York State home schooling rules insist there will be testing and attendance guidelines. There is no way to keep meandering without moving to a deserted isle.
BACKGROUND: Some years ago I was applying to teach English at a pretty presigious high school called Kennedy High School in New York. As you get to know New York State and City Schools, you will stand on your soapbox and talk about how NY has it's standards and Regents exams, years in advance of the Common Core and what we now grumble and scoff at as almost ludicrous and lofty. At the same time, you are aware that NY is considered both one of the best schools and also the most troubled when it comes to a variety of cultures, crime, and lack of resources. A piece of this is that although Long Island "The Island" has been considered a safe haven and an escape from The City, it is rather mediocre overall and full of a lot of just good enough schools and then some very, very just getting by institutions that fleeing minorities who were well off enough so to speak live while they commute to higher paying jobs in The City. Such areas are Freeport and Hempstead, even Levitown, working class towns. One such struggling blue collar area is Bellmore and Bellmore - Merrick, and Kennedy was a blue ribbon school in the North Bellmore neighborhood.
So, I was asked as part of the interview to write an essay about how I would teach Henry Thoreau's quote that roughly says: What does education often do?.... Education makes a meandering brook into a straight-cut ditch..." and here is my, i believe, well-crafted essay.
(See also http://www.smithclass.org/edetmedia/Thoreau-Ethics-of-Education.pdf )
Briefly:
I was asked as part of the interview for Kennedy High School a Blue Ribbon North Bellmore, Long Island school, to write an essay about how I would teach Henry Thoreau's quote that roughly says: "What does education often do?.... Education makes a meandering brook into a straight-cut ditch..." and here is my, i believe, well-crafted essay.
_~_~_~_~_~_~
Throughout
the semester, as a teacher, I try to remind students about the big picture of
why the American society passed laws that require youths to go to school until
a certain age. I would begin with a mini-lecture about my acquaintance to Henry
David Thoreau:
As a child, I was very interested in desert islands and the simple life. My
favorite television show was Gilligan's Island. Seven people lived in a society they created by being stranded on an island after a three hour tour and a bad storm. I carried a paperback
version of Thoreau's Walden Pond around like a holy book. I wished often
to live on a deserted island like Gilligan or Robinson Crusoe. In 5th grade, I
checked out from the library and read the unabridged
version of The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne twice. The simple life
appealed to me and the fantasies of television and books were a safe place to
escape.
I had made a huge connection to these dream-like, survivalist lives of Crusoe and
Thoreau working on his farm at his pond because he wanted to toss or cast away the whole
theme of struggling and striving at 7-8 industrial revolution jobs or 24 hour a day farming careers to reach the American dream.
Henry Thoreau twisted even the 1800 idea of any American
dream on its head when he lived alone for almost two years at a pond in
Massachusetts called Walden Pond. By his solitary life, he professed that Life
improves when lived simply. Praised by many bohemian, hippie-like,
commune-dreaming people, Thoreau's experiment said to some that we don't HAVE
to work; we can spend more time on our
left side brain, writing,
relaxing, thinking, and talking to neighbors when they come by. His life seemed
to lack that striving stress that people associate with big cities like New York
or Boston. He was writing about studying flora and fauna, keeping tab of his
economy, listing his habits, and learning in the way toddlers do, by exploring.
Think about toddlers. Their rank runs by the simple
word "why?" Always asking questions, children are natural learners
and we as adults nullify their curiosity 60% of the time due to lack of time
and lack of patience. By age 5, we place them in schools,
what some consider a prison-like atmosphere of four walls, dusty chalk, and
pedantic lecturing from teachers. What is the purpose of education?
In education, there is a term: "in parentis loci".
This translates to "in place of the parent". Teachers are called to a
high duty of being responsible for children in place of the parent. This
furthers the idea that either the parent cannot teach Junior Calculus, or that
the parent entrusts the teacher
to do this for him/her. As well, children and adults alike are a bit surprised
to realize that as property of an adult, the child is allowed
and required to be in attendance at a school
until age 18. Compulsory education is for the betterment of our society. The
converse of this is that if a child does not go to school, he or she may end up
flipping burgers at McDonalds'. This cliché phrase translates to the threat of
not achieving the American dream: home ownership, a family of one to three
children, and a productive job for the husband and often the wife.Also termed: "Fill the cup," many teachers dream that by the end of the semester, their students will be filled to the brim with knowledge and facts about Social Studies, Science, and the rules of grammar. This is the end of the "set" so to speak.
That is why when Henry Thoreau's quote torques things in some people's minds. He wrote:
"What does education often do! -It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook" (after 31 October 1850, Journal). I would write that quote on the board.
Immediately, our critical eyes will see the words "ditch" and "brook" as a negative and positive word for stream or river. Students will list 11 words for "waterway" on a piece of paper. Words like "river" carry a neutral feeling while words like "canal" bring with them man-made power, a harnessing of nature for the good of transportation. The feeling quickly is that education personified here, changes something nice, like a free and wandering brook into a utilitarian, harnessed muddy ditch. We would infer that Thoreau did not like education', at least not the type that children would get in a schoolroom. And so reading this quote on an application to become a teacher at a prestigious institute of learning is puzzling. The only thing his words would satisfy is the New York State standard that students learn things so that they can enjoy life, and be able to hold discussions with others for fun.
What Thoreau toggles is how education succeeds. And to discover more about this quote, we really have to go back in time, to the 1800's when America was being settled by people from other established countries. At that time, the "indian" was sometimes called a "savage". At that time, religion really focused on changing the wild man into a God fearing, submissive citizen. Taken as an individual, the writer admired the free spirit of the Indian and saw this tying up of him as not ideal. As well, the different cultures assimilated into a society that tried to democratically vote on the same laws and ideals instead of having a boss or king dictate rules and regulations to them. Perhaps a schoolhouse served both as a tool for assimilation as well as a sign that rules stilled ruled, although this time at least the people got to make the rules. In that time frame, Thoreau and his brother ran a schoolhouse for a few years. And closing that house, not entirely due to philosophical reasons but perhaps to financial ones, Thoreau continued to modify his idea of what "education" meant. I think he thought that learning things because you want to, when you feel like it, was superior to forced learning. I am guessing that he would have hugged Maria Montessori and wanted to sit in and observe her classes where children play without adults interfering, where youths play work, and are allowed to take toys out of unlocked cubbies at random.
I smile whenever I see that part in the movie Big Daddy where Adam Sandler says something like: "Look he wants to go to school. I let him make the decisions and he wants to go to school!" That to me is a modern version of free will education. The ramifications of it are immense, but the motivation is very powerful. Given a choice, the boy Julian whom Sonny adopts decides to enroll in school.
The Internet is an example of what some attention deficit hyperactive children love, to look one thing up (say in a dictionary) and end up on a journey of research that goes on for hours. Through the "web", I was surprised to learn that Japan has no Nobel Prize winners. They admire us while we are jealous of their successes. What I found out is that Japan thinks the USA has "creative productivity", allowing youths to grow and explore. The No Child Left Behind Act is legislation that lists and quantifies who is achieving and why some are not in an effort to put "everyone on the same page". In some ways, this is that drab but debris-free ditch Thoreau complained about.
I would assign the following class work: As a citizen approaching voting age, what legislation would you support that would help children learn more and enjoy learning more? How would your child's success be measured? What would your benchmark be since you are paying increasing property taxes that go towards local education: graduation, college transition, job readiness, or crime free environment? Students would hold discussions with groups of three role playing homeowner parent, homeowner double income no children, and person moving into the neighborhood. This conversation could be videotaped or tape recorded and then scribed to see what issues came up in discussion. I would hope that finally an essay would synthesize this lesson. The climactic assignment is that each student would write a persuasive essay addressing the necessity of education to help "clear away the debris" so that children can realize their potential.
The reality is just like any utopia, there are downsides. Society may fear that if it transformed into a Montessorian educational style, the checks and balances of achievement would be missing. Even New York State home schooling rules insist there will be testing and attendance guidelines. There is no way to keep meandering without moving to a deserted isle.
BACKGROUND: Some years ago I was applying to teach English at a pretty presigious high school called Kennedy High School in New York. As you get to know New York State and City Schools, you will stand on your soapbox and talk about how NY has it's standards and Regents exams, years in advance of the Common Core and what we now grumble and scoff at as almost ludicrous and lofty. At the same time, you are aware that NY is considered both one of the best schools and also the most troubled when it comes to a variety of cultures, crime, and lack of resources. A piece of this is that although Long Island "The Island" has been considered a safe haven and an escape from The City, it is rather mediocre overall and full of a lot of just good enough schools and then some very, very just getting by institutions that fleeing minorities who were well off enough so to speak live while they commute to higher paying jobs in The City. Such areas are Freeport and Hempstead, even Levitown, working class towns. One such struggling blue collar area is Bellmore and Bellmore - Merrick, and Kennedy was a blue ribbon school in the North Bellmore neighborhood.
So, I was asked as part of the interview to write an essay about how I would teach Henry Thoreau's quote that roughly says: What does education often do?.... Education makes a meandering brook into a straight-cut ditch..." and here is my, i believe, well-crafted essay.
Comments
Post a Comment