An article that first appeared in the July 4, 2010 e-edition of the Technology Section of The Chronicle of Higher Education was repeated in the July 9, 2010 e-edition of Academe Today. The article was entitled “Linked In With: A Writer Who Questions the Wisdom of Teaching with Technology.” Because I was familiar with Carr’s writings, this article caught my attention and I had to read it, even though I was confident of what I was going to find. The author of the article, Marc Parry, was talking about and interviewing Nicholas Carr, the author of a book entitled, “The Shallows,” and many articles, including “IT Doesn’t Matter” and “Is Google Making Us Stupid?“As usual, Carr was questioning the efficacy of technology in assisting in the teaching and learning process. This article was vintage Carr.
I believe education is meeting students where they are and helping them to get to where they want and ought to be. If where they want to be is not where they ought to be, then our first job in education is to help them see where they ought to be. I believe every prospective teacher should watch the musical, “My Fair Lady.” Can teachers learn anything from a Broadway musical? I think they can if they are paying attention, especially if they are asked to reflect on one particular scene. The scene takes place in the Professor’s study, when he and the Colonel are celebrating Eliza’s triumphant debut at the gala. Colonel Pickering keeps saying, “You said that you could do it, and you did it.” Professor Higgins replies:”Yes I did it.” But did you see Eliza in the corner of the room crying and sobbing, “What have you done? “ They replied:”We made you a lady.” Eliza responded, “I never asked to be a lady. All I wanted was to be able to speak well enough to sell flowers at the corner shop. Now that I am a lady, there is nothing left for me to do, but to sell myself and marry a gentleman.” The Professor and the Colonel used good pedagogy and “taught her well”, but they didn’t listen to what she wanted, and they definitely didn’t help her understand what it was to be a lady and why that was important.
The following exchange between Perry and Carr reminded me of that scene from “My Fair Lady:”Perry asked Carr: “If the Internet is making us so distracted, how did you manage to write a 224-page book and read all the dense academic studies that much of it is based on?” Carr responded, “It was hard. The reason I started writing it was because I noticed in myself this increasing inability to pay attention to stuff, whether it was reading or anything else. When I started to write the book, I found it very difficult to sit and write for a couple of hours on end or to sit down with a dense academic paper.” I have found that most of our students today don’t know how to sit down for a couple of hours to read or write. They mentally and physically can’t sit for a couple of hours to read or write. They definitely don’t know how to sit down and read a dense paper. They also don’t know why that should be important. It is not enough for us to tell them just to do it, because it is important and it is good for them. How often to our question of why, do we accept the answer, “Because I told you so; besides it is good for you; or you ought to do it.” At one point in the article after renouncing the use of the internet, Carr says, “my abilities to concentrate did seem to strengthen again. I felt in a weird way intellectually or mentally calmer. And I could sit down and write or read with a great deal of attentiveness for quite a long time.” Our students don’t know why that is important for them unless we help them learn that. Just telling that it is good and that it works for us is not enough. If we want to reach these students, we need to meet them where they are and help them see the benefits of the reflective pursuit of knowledge and truth for them. If we don’t do that, these students might well be like Eliza, sitting in the corner crying that we didn’t listen to them, and we haven’t. The other more likely possibility is they will give up, walk away and never engage in the reflective pursuit of knowledge.
My next question may sound like heresy coming from someone within the academy, “Is the reflective pursuit of knowledge the only way to obtain knowledge? The ancient Greeks allowed and even encouraged at least three different ways of knowing, theoria, poiesis and praxis. Theoria is the word from which we get our words theory and theoretical. In ancient Greece, it meant contemplation or seeing by observation. It developed into the idea of the theoretical pursuit of knowledge and truth through contemplation or reflection. Poiesis is the word from which we get our word poetry. It meant to make or produce. It developed into the idea of creating something of value. Praxis is the word from which we get our words practice or practical. It meant action. It developed into the idea of knowledge applied to one’s actions. The goal of theoria was truth. The goal of poiesis was a product. The goal of praxis was action.
I challenge those of us in the academy, are we open to different ways of knowing and learning? Are we willing to meet our students where they are, listen to where they want to be, and help them see where they could and ought to be? Are we willing to help them get there, even if it means using multiple ways of knowing and learning that may not at first seem comfortable to us?
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