Dear all,
Your homework is as follows:
1) Read the Peter Senge on the Industrial Age of Education (excuse my grad school notes in the margin.)
2) Find the American Scholar address online (Ralph Waldo Emerson), print, and read.
3) Blog regarding these two articles in the context of Hard Times
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
23 comments:
The two articles both parallel aspects of Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. Dickens’ novel warns against the Industrial Revolution’s effects on society. Because of the rise of industry, society was placing more emphasis on black-and-white, cold fact, and less on emotion and imagination.
Peter Senge’s article discusses the mechanization of education. As machines became more popular, people were being treated more like objects. Just like machines, which are made of interchangeable, mass-produced parts, people have lost their individual characteristics, Education is becoming mass-produced. In Hard Times, Gradgrind’s school places emphasis on facts, which are easy to teach to children, instead of allowing for imagination, which would promote individual thinking. Senge warns that the education system promotes disillusionment – or, as he puts it, a choice between coping and detachment. Dickens illustrates this idea through Louisa Gradgrind. As a result of growing up without an imagination, she has grown up to be an emotionally stunted, empty person.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s speech, on the other hand, promotes individual thinking. Instead of an education based solely in books, he argues, scholars must learn through experience. He heralds a new age where education is individualized, naming several examples as proof of the changing times. Dickens perhaps hints at this – Gradgrind reforms his ways when he realizes that he has hurt his daughter, Louisa.
Judging by my pile of textbooks and papers, though, the times have not changed. Education is still mechanized. Schools are placing more emphasis on standardized tests than ever. We are expected to learn at certain speeds – CPB, CPA, Accelerated, or AP – and if we fall somewhere in between, we are either very bored or trailing behind. Of the two articles, Senge is probably the more accurate.
Senge's The Industrial Age System of Education discusses particularly the "Machine Age" and and education during this time period. Senge wrote about Frederick the Great, who "achieved military success by instituting standardization, uniformity, and drill training" (Top of pg 30). Thomas Gradgrind from Hard Times is very similar to Frederick in the idea that he controls his famiy's thinking and education the way that Frederick the Great runs his army. Both support a structured society with rules, something that Senge later called the "training and development" approach to learning. Senge said, "Parents not only have goals for what their children learn, they have very definite ieas about how learning should occur" (34). Gradgrind's views are exactly that.
Senge's article is very similar to Hard Times. Dicken's novel is even structured much like an assembly line that Senge talks about, having 3 separate parts: Sowing, Reaping, and Garnering. On page 42 Senge writes about the difference between those who excel in the classroom and those who do not. After trying to educate Sissy Jupe and failing, Thomas Gradgrind classifies her as a dumb kid and he puts her to work. Whereas, Louisa is seen a smart kid. At the end of Senge's text, he discusses the movement towards schools being seen as "living systems" and no longer machines. By asking questions and requesting answers for why rules exist, Louisa in Hard Times, is a symbol of the movement toward a different sociey in Gradgrind's eyes. As Louisa becomes more curious, Thomas Gradgrind sees the imperfections in his philosophy of education and living.
Emerson believes that we learn through experience and that books are links to gather information from the past. He supports the individual learning like Julia said. Thomas Gradgrind supported education by fact and not questioning what has already been proven. Therefore, individual thinking would not be supported by Gradgrind.
Senge's article was an overview of the industrial age and its effect on the scholastic institution. He claims that school systems put too much pressure on their students to succeed in specific subjects that school boards find the most important in a very specific way. It is not fair to children to give them such enormous work loads and call them "slow" or "learning disabled" if they struggle or do not reach the high scores on standardized tests that some of their peers may. He states that too much emphasis is put on standardized tests, and for that matter, questions the purpose, importance of them and what they show about a student.
Similar to Senge, Emerson's speech describes the complete and udder absurdness of the educational system, considering that the individual obtains knowledge through experience and not through sitting at a desk, being lectured at. He also comments on the idea of "wasted time," believing it to be a non-existent factor to the true scholar. His ideals are a step beyond what Senge proposes in that he suggests the scholar to go out int the world and experience life for him/herself rather than study books of no importance in the real world.
On the other hand, Thomas Gradgrind believes that institutionalized education in the form of an assembly line is most beneficial to society. He believes that "the machine" is what will technologically progress the country. He also thinks that coddling a child or nurturing a child's creativity is wrong for it creates a sense of frivolity and laziness in them. Peter Senge's article describes the ultimate ineffectiveness of treating children this way. In the case of Emerson's speech, Thomas Gradgrind's ideas of business and life are slightly more entwined. Both more or less think that experiencial knowledge is beneficial, although Gradgrind feels that these experiences can be gained by going the the process of institutionalized education.
Peter Senge and Ralph Waldo Emerson present articles that demonstrate and argue against the depiction of education in Hard Times. In the novel, Dickens writes of a society that enforces adherence to the cold hard facts. Peter Senge explains how the modern day society is adopting this lifestyle. Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the other hand, describes the need for individuals to be more free-thinking and independent of the cold hard facts.
In his article “The Industrial Age System of Education,” Senge describes how the classroom setting has become much more traditional and fact-based. Teachers stick to specific curricula and do not put in any creative touches to the class. As Senge puts it, “Each teacher knew what had to be covered in order to keep the line moving, even though he or she had little influence on its preset speed, which was determined by school boards and standardized curricula.” Thus, children “learned about the world to understand and fit into it, not to command or control it.” This mechanical system has slowly gotten rid of the individual and made everybody subjects of fact. These schools are the tools that fix the problem of children be creative. This is exactly the world that Dickens depicts in Hard Times, where Gradgrind’s school teaches nothing but the commonly accepted facts.
Contrary to Senge’s description of the current education system is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s message to the students at Cambridge in “The American Scholar.” In his speech, Emerson encourages the students to be thinkers instead of bookworms. Instead of reading over the facts of history, students should be active thinkers and create a new history. Thus, Emerson encourages students to go away from the cold fact world and create their own world from their creativity and experience. This is the concept that the character Gradgrind denounces in Hard Times, as it encourages to much individualism and creativity.
I think that as much as we want to live in the creative, individualistic world that Emerson encourages, we tend to live our lives in the facts-based world that Senge and Dickenson describe. With all of the pressure to do well and get into good schools, most students tend to just study from textbooks to do well on tests based on fact. Teachers do not test a student’s creativity, but rather they test how well they can memorize. Perhaps Dickens was doing more than just telling a story in Hard Times. Perhaps he was warning us of the world that Senge has determined we currently live in.
I thoroughly enjoyed both the Senge and Emerson pieces, and there are many similarities to Hard Times found within them. However I think that above all else, all three of these works point to a main message. That message being that education as it is now, mechanic, and based upon memorization and internalization of facts is flawed. Each piece discusses the inherent issue within our education system that is that student are not afforded enough opportunity to develop a love for learning and passion that they can pursue throughout their lives. There is a constant struggle to achieve for false ends such as good test grades, and entrance into top colleges when all that can bring someone is a false sense of accomplishment. Though, as Senge states, it is not the fault of the teachers or even solely of any person or group of people, in trying to educate the masses schools leave much room for students to fall through the cracks and for genius to go unrecogninized. Excentricity often comes along with brillance, but is stifled in such mechanic education systems. People with a passion need to have the opportunity to cultivate their talents and pursue their interests so that they can make some new stride in the world.
In Hard Times, Dickens creates a world where fact is viewed as the only important element of education, and people are told never to wonder. But wondering is the most important thing in the world. That is the way that people really learn and how they can truly change things and become great. Senge argues that the weight of the pressure put upon children and educators to succeed and to teach to standardized tests takes the joy out of learning and deprives people of the chance to learn in their own unique manner and reach their full potential. He also explains that children with disbilities are often very creatively gifted, something that is far too often taken for granted. Emerson promotes the idea of studying onesself and nature, and from that thinking giving others a place to begin their own new threads of thought. He feels that people should not simply read books and accept them, but that they should read them, ponder them, and form their own views in relation to them. All three advocate a world and a system of education where one uses their own unique learning style, passion, talent, and ideas to view the world in a new manner so as to achieve all that they can achieve. When people are stiffled into filling expected roles within education, when they are forced to learn in one way, or to believe one thing as hard fact, when children are taught to regurgitate and not to analyse and interpret, then the education systems have commited a great failing. There must be a better way to educate many while still insuring students maintain their individuality and achieve excellence in the manner in which they were meant to do so.
One of the messages of Hard Times by Charles Dickens is that living in an industrial town where no imagination is allowed causes people to lose their identities; they simply become robots living perfunctorily. Because Thomas Gradgrind discourages Louisa Gradgrind from wondering, she feels emotionally unstable, and she loses her sense of self and place in society. In his essay “American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson also comments on loss of identity with lack of creativity. He says that schools encourage students to only do what they are told, and the American scholar must fit a certain stereotype and perform only certain actions, and as a result of that, he or she becomes blind to the wonderful world around them. He says, “Whilst the world hangs before the eye as a cloud of beauty, we cannot even see its beauty.” He also comments on the fact that we don’t call farmers “men who farm” or thinkers “men who think;” we give them standardized, mechanized names that cause them to lose individual identity and like Louisa and students under Gradgrind who forced themselves to stifle their desire to learn and wonder about the world, they become lost.
In “The Industrial Age System of Education,” Peter Senge also comments on education and comparies it to mechanized, factory work. He says that because a system of education developed during the Industrial Age, it is organized like an assembly line. He says learning was an impersonal experience that was standardized, and even teachers had little to do with curricula and pace of learning. Students aren’t individuals with certain specifications, learning styles, and desired; each person is simply one out of twenty or forty who must follow a certain curriculum. Also, students with learning disabilities or who learn slower simply fall or feel out of place. Senge says that the major problem with our education system is that success is defined as an A on a paper or test, and students become so obsessed with that goal that they lose sight of actually learning and applying that knowledge. In Hard Times, the children who agree with and follow Gradgrind’s principle of fact are considered successful, but they feel emotionally unfulfilled; they lose sight of who they are and the world around them as well.
Both of the articles represent the two opposing views in "Hard Times". Peter Senge's article explains the issues of machine-like thinking in the context of the Industrial Revolution, while Emerson discusses the merits of individual thinking.
Senge explains that the modern education system has become somewhat of a machine that does not give any notice to the individual. He likens modern education to an assembly line or factory, leaving little space to allow personal development. He also attacks the fact that children are not allowed to learn their own ways and must submit to the methods of the majority. He also goes on to explain that according to modern standards that children who do not accel in school are automatically considered dumb and useless.
The issues that Senge refutes parallel Gradgrind's thinking. Gradgrind sees everything as fact, leaves little room for personal learning, has almost no care for his students, and does not treat them like people. Rather, he treats them like a machine or some sort of project. An important example of this is found with Sissy Jupe at the beginning of the story. Sissy consistently performs at a lower level than her fellow students and is immediately reprimanded by her teachers. Later, Gradgrind takes her in and attempts to make it some sort of project to improve Sissy, something that is reminiscent of My Fair Lady.
In contrast, Emerson's speech emphasizes the opposite. Emerson explains that the masses cannot succeed without the thinking of the individual. He also stresses the importance of many different mediums for learning that can be found outside the classroom. This mirrors Louisa's thinking who is never content with her father's philosophies. Louisa constantly longs for a sense of individualism but has no idea how to achieve it.
Based on the two articles, Senge was more realistic. Though I found the article redundant at times, i thought the metaphor comparing education to a machine was quite apt. The bit about what parents think of their children and the stress they impose upon them was also quite accurate. It was so accurate in fact, that I actually made my mother read it to show her what she and other parents can do to their kids.
Modern-day schools have not really changed from the 19th century schools described in the article. We wake up before the sun rise, we get to school barely functioning from sleep deprivation, we are sooo exhausted by the end of the day, we go home and take a nap and then wake ourselves up to do homework...this is a constant cycle...
I think every student at Millburn High School can relate to this article in some way. Let's be honest we all just want to get an A... learning has become "defined as getting an A on a test." I completely agree with this statement. I am going to be honest, I am never really 100% excited to learn something...the competition of our high school has sucked all the fun from learning and replacing it with the stress of getting better grades than others and ultimately getting into college.
Both Hard Times and Senge deal with this industrial method of education that is dominating our society. Both deal with this assembly line learning…learning is based on facts just like in Hard Times with Gradgrind’s school.
Emerson’s The American Scholar (American LIT DAYS!!!) tells the reader to learn rather than memorize, think for themselves rather than pull ideas from famous figures, etc…Being a transcendentalist, Emerson was all for going out into the world to explore and experience things rather than confine oneself in a library huddled over books. Emerson wants to tear away from established guidelines. Emerson stresses the individual, unlike in Hard Times where the end result was considered more important.
Hard Times deals with the mechanization of society; if we replace the subjective qualities of life with facts, production will increase, but at what cost? Both articles dealt with this practice in the world of education.
Primarily, Senge stated that the strict memorization of facts kills all interest in learning. Standardized tests cast a long shadow over the educational process, and teachers, instead of truly educating, are simply preparing their pupils for the looming monstrosities. However, he goes on to clarify that it is not the teachers’ fault, but the result of a lacking system. All of this certainly opposes Gradgrind’s philosophy of emphasis on facts. Interestingly, Senge suggests to use new technologies to engage all the senses of modern students and goes on to cite the internet as an invaluable tool; with this, he suggests that technology itself is not the problem but only its current implementation. This paralleled Hard Times, as, even with its bleak depiction of industrialism, it never gave me the vibe that all technology was evil either.
Emerson’s speech stuck closely to his traditional, transcendental beliefs. He suggested that students should be insulated by things that gave them a natural respect for the world around them and themselves as in individuals. Much of it was vague and suggested few realistic means of improvement. However, this is appropriate to the subject, as Hard Times was not exactly a comprehensive guide to social reform either. Upon selecting their professions, writers are not imbued with a magical omnipotence that grants them all of the answers to the world’s problems. Their logic is as fallible as anyone’s. Sometimes, it is best for people to use their energies to bring focus to a social ill and hope that the rest will sort itself out.
The 19th century schools that were discussed in the article are very similar to the ones that we have now. I agree with Zoe's idea of the constant cycle that we students go through: go to bed ridiculously late doing homework, wake up ridiculously early and are exhausted from staying up so late and the ridiculous hour we are up, go to school, do work, come home after 800 million activities, do homework, etc.
According to the article, learning has become "defined as getting an A on a test." This is so true. Many times the subject material covered in class does not interest me at all; I simply study and learn the material well so that I will get an A. Memorizing facts is not really helping me to further understand the material, but it is all that is necessary to get the A. And when I get the A, it is considered that I have learned the material.
Senge and Dickins both address the idea of school and education as a factory setting. In Gradgrind's school this idea of students as machines simply pumping in information and generating out facts is clearly prevalent.
The American Scholar explains that learning is more important than the simple memorization of facts. Emerson, like many transcendentalists of his time, believed that the greatest learning was to come from going out into the world and experiencing things, rather than being shut up in the classroom. This differs greatly from the ideas that Dickins presents in Hard Times where it does not matter how a child learns the information as long as they are able to spit up facts.
These three works emphasize learning based on individual needs. In Hard Times, Thomas Gradgrind refuses to treat students as individuals. He believes in only one way of teaching, through memorization of facts, and refuses to help anyone who cannot learn from his method. However, Emerson focuses entirely on individuality. As everyone thinks and acts differently, everyone learns differently as well. When the system uses this individuality instead of trying to ignore it, education will be much more effective. Peter Senge also warns against treating children like products in a factory. The more they are pressured, the more they will resent learning, making it less likely they will succeed in school. All three works reject the industrial system of learning for its refusal to treat children as individuals.
After reading both Peter Senge's and Emerson's articles, I found that they wove perfectly within the context and perspective's of Dickens' novel Hard Times.
From the first page of Senge's work, I immediately heard the voice of Thomas Gradgrind. His one-sided view of education as a systematic approach of only fact and truth as opposed to emotion, intellect, and wonder, stood out as the Industrial Age of thinking. To him, and to Senge, education is run like a machine, or likened to an assembly line; everything is ordered in a specific mechanical manner, in which teachers have control of students, and the administration has control of the teachers. The ultimate goal that students are taught to pursue it to please the teacher, assuming that everything the teacher said is viewed as truth. Clearly, like Dickens' voice shown obviously through the narration of Hard Times, as Senge's voice was exaggerated, they both felt that there was such fault in this system, because it left no sense of community, just mechanics.
Oppositely, Emerson's American Scholar took the view on the stress of the individual. As Zoe had mentioned before, Emerson was a transcendentalist who stood against the structured working environment and instead encouraged going out into nature in order to truly achieve an education.
Without a doubt, I think as students at Millburn we encounter this Industrial Age mentality everyday. We essentially are grouped into the smart kids and the dumb kids, which are placed in the range of different level classes. We may not like to admit, but education at our school really is completely systematic as Senge stressed; and, we can all agree with his thoughts on a heavy backpack, both literally and figuratively, given our intense work loads. Although our school has taken strides to ameliorate this system and teach in different forms, the foundation definitely lays in the Industrial age.
The is a central idea about education present in Senge's article, Emerson's essay, and Dicken's Hard Times. I think it's embodied in Emerson's line "[Schools] can only highly serve us, when they aim not to drill, but to create..." What education is supposed to teach us is not necessarily the facts themselves, but how to be curious. We can then do the learning to match our own thirst for knowledge. Facts are useless by themselves. The creativity and the intellectual drive that enabled those facts to be is what we should be channeling in education. In our education today, we separate ourselves from our environment, acting as if it's a code that we have to break. We underestimate how much of the world is already inside our mind.
There are so many of us who have to write essays and take the side that is easiest for us to defend. Because we know more facts on that side of the argument. It's actually easier for us to write words that have we have no attachment to but not words that hold meaning to us. It's because this "assembly line" education has taught us to have more conviction in faraway facts than ourselves.
Education shouldn't teach you how to think, what to think, or what to say. It should make you want to learn, at least some of the time.
Senge's article presents an interesting view of the educational system. Educational system is similar to the world of business in many ways. Senge compares it to assembly lines in factories, which allows for mass production of uniform items. Schools, too, are based on such system, each student packaged by many teachers. In Hard Times, Dickens conveys the same point by juxtaposing education (with Gradgrind's family) and industry (Bounderby's factory). In the novel, Grandgrind treats his students as products, believing that by imbuing facts and knowledge that he can produce successful individuals.
Another assertion made in the ariticle is reflected in the novel. Senge explains that tests and assessments declare success or failure. When a child's performance is poor the child feels inferior and parents feel that they have failed as parents. The case is the same for Sissy Jupe. She herself is very aware that she is not competent enough to meet Grandgrind's standards and Grandgrind blames himself for his failure.
Also, in the aricle, it was very shoking to read about the large number of kids taking drugs that improve concentration. By iterating an experience of his collegue, Senge convinces that the criteria for diagnosing learnign disabilities is certainly foolish. This assembly-line educational system has rules and anyone who does not conform to the rules is considered incompetent. This "industrialized" educational system ignores the obvious fact that everyone is unique. However, everyone IS different and certainly their ways of learning are different. This is why we need to heed Emerson's advice in American Scholar. Emerson advocates the importance of individual learning. A man must learn in solitude and private thoughts. Then, he will find the best method for his education and be productive.
In his address, Emerson also argues the same point that Dickens states through his novel: facts are not enough. After gaining facts from books, people must create.
After reading the two articles, I can see how both of them are perfect parallels for Hard Times. I found it interesting how close both pieces mirrored the ideologies presented in the novel.
Senge says that the modern education system has become machine-like and doesn't notice the individual. He compares education to an assembly line leaving little space for personal development. Senge also attacks the idea that children are not allowed to learn by themselves and must submit to the ideas presented by the majority.
Emerson encourages students to be free thinkers, instead of beings regurgitating facts. Instead of reading facts, students should be active thinkers and create a new history. Emerson encourages students to leave behind facts and create their own world from imagination and experience.
Both of these ideas are seen in Hard Times. The clashing of these ideas are seen in the Grandgrind clan. Mr. Grandgrind believes that people should simply repeat facts while his daughter Louisa wants to be a free thinker and learn from herself. This clash is enhanced by the two critiques presented.
In my opinion, I feel that one should have an education that involved personal experience as well as facts. One should have the right to learn from experiences what he or she wants to do. At the same time, one needs to be knowledgeable in the area that he or she wants to pursue in order to be successful. Going in the extreme direction of both thoughts will result in failure. In life, it's about making compromises in order to be successful.
The central theme of education in Hard Times was the increasing focus on fact. Mr. Gradgrind emphasizes this in the way he educates his children in the book. The Senge reading picks up on this theme when it calls the industrial age the "machine age." The entire organization of how school works flows from this idea of a machine. During the industrial time period the idea of the machine was applied to everything from manufacturing to daily life. However, the creation of a system that treats people like machines is dangerous. The Gradgrind children, the embodiment of these new mechanistic ideals turn out to be deeply disturbed individuals. The Senge asserts that all of the negative aspects of the education system today can be traced back to the assembly-line idea developed in the Industrial Revolution. Standardized testing as the criterion for measuring sucess is a biproduct of the emphasis on "fact" in a situation where absolute fact may not always be the best thing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson presents a completely different view of education in his speech. Instead of an assembly line system where one student is just the same as every other student, Emerson emphasizes individual thought and creativity. Two things that were not considered very important by industrial age men like Mr. Gradgrind. Emerson advocates learning through experience which flies in the face of an assembly line education which would have to take place in a relatively closed environment that rarely left a school building. A medium between these two types of education seems to be the most beneficial to the children of the world. Facts and reason certainly have an important place in education but they cannot exist without some emphasis on individual learning and personal experience. The ending of Hard Times with Mr. Gradgrind's reversal of his emphasis on facts as the only things that are important seems to support this idea of education.
Both Senge and Emerson attack the educational methods portrayed in Hard Times. Coketown is a symbol of the industrial age and the principles of hard work, meritocracy and efficiency govern all aspects of life. Senge compares the rise of the machines to the rise of mechanized, oppressive education and the comparison is apt. Children are meant to function like machines, subject to standardized tests and harsh evaluations. The gospel of fact suppresses imagination, and passionate children like Sissy Jupe can never hope to conform to so cold a standard.
Emerson's view of education is less critical of a specific institution and more constructive. He proposes a more individualized, creative form of education. He describes an American scholar as diverse. It is precisely this diversity that is suppressed in Coketown, a place which thrives on extremes. There can be no intermediate phase between passion and prudence, emotion and fact. One is the antithesis of the other. Emerson's free spirited style of education allows individuals to occupy a more realistic middle ground.
Both articles described and warned against the educational system portrayed in Hard Times. They discuss a student molded by “endless disconnected fact” and “trapped between the forces of a standardized curriculum and educational process” (Senge). Both began by plainly addressing the reader with an issue that is an undercurrent in school systems and in students’ homes: mechanical learning.
I thought that the main point both articles were driving at, and that was illustrated in Hard Times, was that the educational system caters to one kind of child and doesn’t accommodate for the uniqueness that makes us human. The influence of the Industrial Revolution, as it did in Hard Times, has launched students into a system designed for machines, which labels individuals and deems them inefficient if they cannot cope with this sort of one-way street. Senge stresses the need for teacher involvement, and Emerson points out interaction with Nature, books, and action as remedies.
One argument that I found especially interesting, was that the assembly-line school system labels children as smart or dumb, and that parents are quick to write off their child’s ‘dumbness’ on a prescription pad (Senge). I think it’s safe to say that at Millburn High School, a school riddled with AP admissions tests, SAT preparation, and gridded exams, people often make rash judgments of their classmates’ intelligence, and parents grow frantic when Johnny isn’t an instant scholar. Maybe Emerson and Dickens’ qualms with education aren’t so outdated.
Both articles and Hard Times warn against learning by facts alone. Education is more than sitting at a desk; it’s also experience and interaction with others.
Many of the core themes from Hard Times by Dickens are reflected in Senge’s “The Industrial Age System of Education” and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “The American Scholar.” Senge’s article depicts the education as a teacher-based and machine-like system. But toward the end, he questions this idea and begins to advocate more what Emerson and the transcendentalists advocated. As Senge says at the end, “I have come to believe that the real hope for deep and enduring processes of evolution in schools lies with students. […] They have imagination and ways of seeing things that have not yet been reshaped by the formal education process. And they are crying out wanting to be involved, to become more responsible for their environment”(58). Like in Hard Times, Louisa Gradgrind exemplifies this hope placed in students. The last section of his article titled “An alternative to the machine model of schools” discusses what would happen if there was a switch from machine systems to a “living system”(53). He concludes that education based around a living system would allow the learning process to come alive. He uses the example of a woman who was teaching Hamlet in a high-poverty neighborhood and used a computer stimulation model that “traced the growth of Hamlet’s anger and resentment”(54). Senge’s major point is that the system of education is evolving, and like in Hard Times, the machine system cannot last, because it restricts creativity and individual thinking.
Emerson took this idea even further. He encourages students not only to learn from others (such as teachers and authors) but also challenge and think on their own. For example, he argues against being a “bookworm” by saying that “Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books.” Emerson advocates the opposite of the system based on facts from Hard Times and the machine that Senge describes, thereby joining the other two works to emphasize the importance of experience, creativity, and individualism in education.
Senge's assembly-line theory of our educational system was very interesting. I agree that our system instills some pretty bad values into students, such as not questioning the teacher (I notice that in my AP classes, students are afraid to talk for fear of "looking dumb," whereas CPA/ACC students have no qualms about sharing their ideas). I also agree that centralization requires standardization, which is a problem; so what if you get an 1800 on the SAT and I get a 1900, it doesn't make me any smarter. The No Child Left Behind Act has really contributed to "teaching to the test" and limiting the scope of the education we receive. However, I realized that this is not necessarily a bad thing. Standardization limits the curriculum to what is most useful in society. So when Senge complains that math, science, and English are stressed over music and the arts, is he justified? How many jobs require both calculus and psychology; astronomy and painting? Our educations may have been stymied, but it is all for a practical purpose.
Thus, as you could probably guess, I actually agree (though not to the same extent) with Gradgrind's philosophy about education. I am "eminently practical" as well and value math over art, for example. However, I found it very interesting in Senge's article about how "industrial" learning paralleled the industrial revolution; I guess I always thought that our present educational "machine" has always existed.
Emerson's views as espoused in "The American Scholar" are quite the opposite of what Senge describes as today's education system. Emerson argues that books should not be the primary means of learning, experience should. His transcendentalist ideas would be rendered anachronistic in today's world, where everything is so mechanized. I feel that Emerson's view is simply impractical- students need teachers and knowledge sources (textbooks, the internet, etc.) to gain from. I can't imagine that a person who lived in the forest for many years could learn 5% of what a student learns at Harvard in a semester. Although the knowledge I am referring to is facts, textbook education does lack the other parts of knowledge (such as nature and actions, as Emerson discusses).
In the end, I find Senge's views more applicable to today's society.
Regarding The American Scholar:
The scholar that Emerson describes is a peculiar character; he is different in many ways to the Mr. Gradgrind/Mr. Bounderby Factual persona, but also has a similar quality. I find Emerson’s described persona extremely confusing; how can someone both take in all accounts possible to form his own opinion, but also teach facts over appearances? It is almost like Hard Times is a wrongly interpreted American scholar. Emerson even says that one must never seek money or power, which is obviously a quality in the characters above mentioned. Emerson says, “Character is higher than intellect,” although both Bounderby and Gradgrind (before his epiphany) value intellect much more than their character, which they neglect. Transcendentalism is the direct antithesis to the world that Dickens creates and parodies in Hard Times, and thus the novel is written as a sort of endorsement of the transcendental mindset, or at least an endorsement of it over the strict realist mindset exemplified in the novel.
Regarding Peter Senge:
I agree wholeheartedly with Senge in that the learning aspect of education is ironically weakening as the main aspect. The whole point of education is to learn; I believe that once Millburn High Schoolers get to college, where there is no race to get to the best grad-school (or if there is at some schools, it’ll be nothing like the race here in Millburn to get into college), learning will come out as the top priority in education. At some level it has to be. If students don’t get that, then they are wasting their education. I visited a college on Saturday and there was a lot of emphasis on their “Honor Code” and how they give out take-home tests often. I thought to myself, everyone from Millburn would constantly cheat! But I had forgotten that once out of Millburn, the world becomes a lot less cut-throat; it’s okay to get a B in college if you learn more than if you wriggled your way into learning as little as possible and getting an A.
In the context of Hard Times, this piece is also in direct conflict with the mindset of Gradgrind and Bounderby, and so Senge agrees with Dickens. Senge believes that the strict teaching of Facts and more Facts and minimal understanding is part of the reason why the learning aspect is declining in education: why would someone want to learn if learning, to them, is memorization of just the surface and not an exploration of deep understanding?
Both Senge and Emerson agree that the style of mechanized education advocated by Mr. McChoakumchild of Dicken's novel Hard Times stifles individuality. They agree that this type of education ultimately detracts from a students ability to not only learn but develop as a free thinking adult. Peter Senge describes education of the time as a machine. Happy children go in and students that leave exist devoid of individual thought. Although Senge's theory of education makes complete sense, in order to bring knowledge and education to the largest number of people it must become "mass-produced" in a way.
Emerson also believes that education should conform more to the individual and that students should learn through experiences. Unfortunately, the experiences of most people would not qualify a comprehensive education. Books provide a vast number of people the opportunity to experience new things through text. When teachers gain the unique skills necessary to teach effectively, it makes sense that they lead a large number of students towards a higher understanding. It would be a waste of resources to assign one student per teacher in order to preserve individuality. Though I may be a part of an education system that may be criticized, I believe I maintain my own intellectual identity. The way in which our school functions, especially in higher grades and class levels, allows students to explore versus simply turning out expected results.
Without a doubt, the students in our school especially, feel the pressure of standardized testing. Although this task seems a needless burden and an unworthy goal, these tests possess great merit. The skill set necessary to succeed on these tests contains the same skills necessary to live productively. For example, time managment, preparation, and focus. In addition, these tests provide students with the opportunity to pursue education at a higher level. The SATs are surely an obstacle worth mounting towards the end of attending a college fitting one's particular needs and interests.
Louisa Gradgrind provides ample evidence of the negative results of an education based completely in facts and devoid of imagination. I believe that elements of fact are important to education but that imagination must exist to allow for healthy emotional growth. The goal of education is to find a happy medium between the two extremes represented by the on one end by the Senge's article and Emerson's speech and of the other end by Dickens' Hard Times. I think we have found that medium.
Post a Comment