The Challenge of Instruction

Healthy Skepticism & Vigorous Debate

The real challenge of instruction, and of any educational endeavor, is deciding how to present information as truth, versus the necessity of promoting healthy inquiry, or even skepticism. Despite the flood of information available to us, a lot of what we believe simply isn't true. The joke is that 23% of Italians still believe Columbus' landing was faked. Apocryphal perhaps, but uncomfortably close to some kind of true commentary about the world we live in.

The subject comes up frequently these days, partly because we're assaulted with data from every direction. It's difficult to discern what's worth our time and attention, and what's chaff and chimera. We have everything from RSS feeds, to listserves, to popups, to billboards of every description and style. It's like a national shouting match.

Which is perhaps the best reason of all to nurture a healthy skepticism about whatever we hear and decide to give our attention to. One truly important consideration is this: What we focus on expands. That sounds a bit airey-fairey, but think about it. We spend more time on that which holds some vital interest for us personally. The number of fans at a curling match proves this--although curling fans are devoted, if somewhat cliquish. The point is, that whatever we give our mental and physical energies to is what we learn more about. And we learn better about it, too.

So the choice is simple. Understand that it is a choice, that what data stream we tap into is up to us, and make our decisions based on whether or not what we're being served makes sense. And don't be afraid to question it, whatever obvious 'truth' it may contain.  

Start the Parade

Bring them Home--and Start the Parade

From a Lantern Editorial 5/2/10:
“We should just declare victory and get out.” Those are not recent words; the quote is from Sen. George Aiken of South Carolina. The year was 1966. The senator was advising President Lyndon Johnson about his options in Vietnam. And by the way, Senator Aiken was a Republican.

We ought to take Aiken’s advice in Iraq. The way is clear. The Iraqi people are as close as they’re going to get to tending to their own affairs, whether democracy, theocracy, oligarchy, anarchy or whatever form of social governance they choose. It is time to recognize that the ball is in their court, and whichever way they hit it--even into the net--we’re declaring that they’ve won. And good for them.

Then we should bring our troops home, and make sure we do it right. We should take the same “Mission Accomplished” banner that ‘W’ used in his ludicrous photo op aboard the Abe Lincoln seven (yes, seven) years ago next week, and hang it across Pennsylvania Avenue.

Here’s why. When over 200,000 American soldiers came home from Vietnam all those years ago, myself included, we snuck back into this country one by one, separated from our colleagues: A solitary Sergeant at a train station; a lone Marine crossing an airport concourse; a single Sailor hefting his seabag into a taxi, all alone.

The separation wasn’t just physical but spiritual. There was a wall of shame we felt at having lost something no other generation of American troopers had: We’d lost a war.  

There were no banners then. No signs in airports. No pats on the back from grateful citizens in any kind of organized way. Oh, there were relieved parents, greetings from neighbors and friends with welcome back messages, but no mentions of Vietnam and its descent into chaos.

And no parades. Americans love parades. We hold parades on red letter occasions, saint’s days, national days of recognition, and when the troops come home. There were no parades for Vietnam vets.

We should pull those men and women out of Iraq, bring them home en masse, ply them with awards for a job well done--because it is a job superbly done. Then we should hang that banner across Pennsylvania Avenue, and march them division by proud division under it.

We should invite everyone to come, including those who got us into the Iraq war, however misinformed and misguided they were, and those who opposed it, too. We should make it a national day of celebration--of the pride we feel at those men and women and the job they’ve done, of the families at home who supported them, even of the Iraqis who must recognize the opportunity they’ve been given.

There will be many veterans of Iraq who will need more than discharge papers, awards, and a plane ticket home. Many will need years of counseling and help. A parade is not a panacea. But the public recognition it represents can help us all share some closure to this long national nightmare. Bring them home from Iraq, and start the parade.  

Nuance

Educational Nuance

Dig deeper--It's worth it

This post is from chapter 4 of the memoir.
    The Star Spangled (Mangled) Banner has a foreign melody? Who knew? It’s true. Our beloved National Anthem, that lilting, pretty much unsingable tune that burst forth from the pen, if not the throat, of Francis Scott Key that morning in 1814 has for its melody an alien source. And a British one at that! Imagine the confusion on the part of our English cousins the first time they heard us singing, okay mumbling, our national song at some early rounders game, or early fourth of July barbecue. They would not have attached a meaning to the words. “Rockets’ red glare, Bombs bursting in air etc. But they sure as shootin’ would have recognized the music. It was ‘borrowed,’ bar for bar, by Mr. Key as he watched the smoke clear from Fort McHenry, and saw that indeed ‘Our flag was still there.’ Borrowed, that is, from an old world tune titled Anacreon, which soulful piece was used by a society of revelers to celebrate song and, what else, wine!
    Why does any of this confusion matter in an old patriot’s memoir about going back to college? Because one thing I’ve found as I attempt to clear my own morning smoke, and to clear away debris and cobwebs gathered over a lifetime, is just how much smoke and fog has been created in my otherwise reasonably well educated brain. I’ve been led to believe a lot of crap. And I’m finding that one of the biggest challenges to my latest assault on the educational edifice is all the un-learning I have to do.
    That’s not quite fair; I have learned a lot, it’s true. But a lot of what I’ve been taught has been an itsy-bitsy way toward the whole, a somewhat fractional education. I’ve not been exposed to the big picture, the whole enchilada, the widescreen view. And it’s time, after fifty odd years, that I take the opportunity to yes, educate myself about a lot of things. So I take responsibility for my own shortcomings. Such as those concerning our history, for example.
    I realize there isn’t a lot of time to teach kids in elementary school the nuances. On balance, I believe American teachers do a pretty good job with the tools they have. And far be it from me to critique a system I know so little about, having dabbled around the edges of it, admittedly. Just because I’m a product of that system doesn’t mean I understand it. And maybe that’s a problem? Maybe kids aren’t given the chance to see and understand the shortcomings of their own education? Maybe they need to be told that what they’re being spoon-fed every day may or may not be absolute, verifiable, rock-solid true?

William Bradford-John Morton: Creative Tension in the Colonies.

Creative tension is a good thing!

English 290 Blog entry 4/6/10

The remarkable message taken from the William Bradford & John Morton papers, is how similar are the issues discussed with today’s headlines: We’re still ambivalent about the value of diversity in our culture, and the effects of immigration; we persist in our exceptionalism, assuming that everyone else wants to be like us; our understanding of church/state separation is still fuzzy at best. An example of the last item is the polarization that exists concerning civil marriage equality for LGBT citizens.     Something else a close reading of the documents reveals: Tensions did exist between individuals based on their various beliefs and ideologies, and this fervor lacked a large institutional presence to stifle it. In Europe, state and church acted in tandem to maintain social cohesion, and to dampen heretical ideas and practices. Indeed, that suppressive power is what propelled the colonists across the ocean. In the New World there was no such concentrated power, so people were free to think and act as they believed. The other outcome of the European model of crowd control was to perpetuate a communal spirit. With the Protestant Reformation, that sense was already crumbling. In the New World it collapsed altogether, and, due partly to the hardship required to survive here, the concept of the individual emerged.
    Add the two ingredients, tension created by the clash of ideas, and the lack of a restraining system for it, plus the emergence of the concept of the individual, and we see the genesis of our remarkable--we might even say exceptional--system of self-government, including the official separation of the two elements that stifled competing ideas and methods. In less than 150 years this separation of church and state was codified in our Constitution. Ironic proof of the success of this system is the fact that, in America today, there are more churches, with more branches and offshoots than anywhere in the world.
     

DADT

Don't ask don't tell.  One of the more ridiculous legal endeavors in history, an official codification of our modern schizophrenic attitude about the presence of LGBT people in our midst, a congressional statute that says, in effect, don't be who you are, and we'll pretend to look the other way.  It's kind of like that game we played as kids, where someone counted to six, or twelve, or twenty-four while everyone else hid behind a tree.  Or, better yet, like the old, archaic Soviet system wherein people said they pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them.
The bottom line is, that DADT is itself an archaic, embarrassing failure as a policy in our military, and everyone from the top brass, to congressional leaders know it. The dilemma we find ourselves in now is, that as these cases are dismissed, and LGBT people are freed to serve their country openly, those who were summarily dismissed in years past may well have a legitimate case for reinstatement in the military, or compensation.  And rightly so, I might add.  Future reparations scenarios ought to be a fundamental part of any such arbitrary and misguided legal venture.  Let's be see just how courageous our military leadership is; let's see them call for the cancellation of this flawed, ridiculous policy.  Let's see them display some real leadership.