Education: Dissociative Conditioning?
What does the public American education system teach developing adolescents in most cases? Math, Science, English, Music? Basically, to categorize everything -- to dissociate some things from other things. After high school, is up to faculty at universities to introduce the possibility of category lines being much more flexible or even non-existant? To think in categories is to think disjointedly -- to think without grasping the whole picture. It is up to the individual to decide whether he or she will live the life of categories (of shadows), or a whole life as a whole person.
When I graduated high school, I fell into the trap of categorization -- I was living multiple lives in multiple realities as multiple people. [It is easy to see how a postmodern perspective might appeal to many Americans given current enculturation.]
Tormented by my inability to live one whole life, dark depression took hold, I was involved in an unhealthy relationship and I attended a liberal arts college which only contributed to my break-down. I'm not sure how I snapped out of it. Perhaps it was because the unhealthy relationship came to an end and I found myself free to choose my own path or perhaps it was because of the many people I have met and befriended since my sophomore year in college.
Metaphor: life is a gigantic classroom: Life 101. No matter how many sub-subjects we create there is still only one overarching subject. Why not learn from splitting into small groups and discussing our findings and thought patterns with the whole group. Staying locked into one sub-subject without talking to those others in the classroom, there is obviously a language barrier and a dividing line that splits rather than joins.
When I graduated high school, I fell into the trap of categorization -- I was living multiple lives in multiple realities as multiple people. [It is easy to see how a postmodern perspective might appeal to many Americans given current enculturation.]
Tormented by my inability to live one whole life, dark depression took hold, I was involved in an unhealthy relationship and I attended a liberal arts college which only contributed to my break-down. I'm not sure how I snapped out of it. Perhaps it was because the unhealthy relationship came to an end and I found myself free to choose my own path or perhaps it was because of the many people I have met and befriended since my sophomore year in college.
Metaphor: life is a gigantic classroom: Life 101. No matter how many sub-subjects we create there is still only one overarching subject. Why not learn from splitting into small groups and discussing our findings and thought patterns with the whole group. Staying locked into one sub-subject without talking to those others in the classroom, there is obviously a language barrier and a dividing line that splits rather than joins.
posted by Timcom at 4:10 PM
2 Comments:
The elect, though proposing seemingly different positions do not propose to drastically change the education system, because as you've said, it works...to a certain extent.
Conditioned to understand in categories, inductively works...but what if we weren't? Could it be that our brains do have the capacity to understand and retain only a few categories?
Many fundamentalists are pushing for school vouchers so that the federal government pays for kids to attend any school of their parents choosing. In many cases, Christian parents would rather send their children to "safe" private Christian schools so that their children are not around anything "dangerously pop cultural." Of course you and I both know that the public school system would just get worse with little funding and the federal government would again find a way of crossing the separation line between church and state.
...more later...have to work...
I would also like to add the comment: Where has the music gone? And for THArtists sake, art in general?
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