Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century - The Diigo Meta page

• 22 Dec 08
  

  Annabel Astbury
• 

  Clay Burell

  books education

  • Postman offers a wide-ranging perspective on events and trends from 18

       

    th,

       

    19

       

    th

       

    ,

     

    and 20

       

    th

       

    centuries. He reminds us, for instance, of the concept of tabula rasa: “Locke

     

    wanted education to result in a rich, varied, and copious book; Rousseau wanted

     

    education to result in a healthy flower. … Children are [today seen as] neither blank

     

    tablets nor budding plants. They are markets; that is to say, consumers whose needs for

     

    products are roughly the same as the needs of adults.” Children are not seen as members

     

    of society with special requirements, but just another market segment.

     

    Postman looks at how the nature of education has changed; he points out some

     

    serious short-comings he finds in contemporary educational practices. Viewed from a

     

    slightly different perspective, children are not simply a market segment but a largely

     

    passive audience for an expanding use of technology. And education’s own increasing

     

    reliance on technology poses a serious short-coming. He writes, “Before the printing

     

    press, children became adults by learning to speak, for which all people are biologically

     

    programmed. After the printing press, children had to earn adulthood by achieving

     

    literacy, for which people are not biologically programmed. This meant that schools had

     

    to be created. … And it is my contention that with the assistance of other media such as

     

    radio, film, and records, television has the power to lead us to childhood’s end. … There

     

    is no need for any preparation or prerequisite training for watching television … .

     

    Watching television requires no skills and develops no skills. That is why there is no

     

    such thing as remedial television-watching.”

    • I question the TV watching skills. There's much to intelligence "reading" of TV.
    Add Sticky Note
  • What should we do to bring some sense of

     

    integrity (in the sense of integratedness) back into school? Firstly, Postman wants us to

     

    remember the importance of a historical narrative. That narrative provides continuity and

     

    connections and above all context. We don’t have to re-invent ourselves with each new

     

    generation (baby-boomers, baby-busters, Gen-X). We have a long history and a valuable

     

    collection of lessons-learned. We would do well to remember the story and build on it.

     

    On the other hand, we can’t assume that we have discovered The Truth in that narrative.

     

    So, secondly, to balance that narrative we need to introduce (or re-introduce?) critical

     

    thinking into the school curriculum as a useful response to mindless viewing of

     

    technology or listening to the narrative. “Wisdom,” he reminds us, “means knowing

     

    what questions to ask about knowledge. … Wisdom does not imply having the right

     

    answers. It implies only asking the right questions.”

    • This is why I'm such a huge proponent of narrative history and interdisciplinary studies.
    Add Sticky Note
  • Students need to understand the

     

    need to be both answer-givers and question-askers.

  1 more annotation...

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Clay Burell on 2008-12-22
  I question the TV watching skills. There's much to intelligence "reading" of TV.
• 
  Clay Burell on 2008-12-22
  This is why I'm such a huge proponent of narrative history and interdisciplinary studies.

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