procrastinaters.com

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

[1] Let’s take the example of a high school history class.  There are, say, ten chapters covered per class with ten historical events covered per chapter.  Those are the one hundred most important and most educational events you could possibly learn about in the realm of post-Civil War American History, so those are the one hundred about which you’re going to learn.  Okay, so granted every once in a while, a teacher will bring in this happening that he/she also thinks is pretty awesome, and the teacher will teach you about that event and go home very proud of him/herself that he/she managed to squeeze the 101^st most important thing to happen in the last 150 years of history of arguably the most influential country on the planet into the course. 

Meanwhile, things like Operation Northwoods and the first men on the moon are seldom covered in great detail.  But since the main learning objective of history is to learn from things that happened in the past in order to think more intelligently about the present, if a particular student has an interest in conspiracies, the class as a whole can get plenty out of investigations into to what extent they can and can’t trust their government.  (In case you didn’t notice, I picked one example that would make the tin hatters look silly and one example that makes the government look villainous).  This is just one example, but I am certain that there are a slew of subjects, and there’s a good chance that even the most lukewarm of historians in a high school class can find one they find interesting, relevant to them or actually of some practical use.

[2] I can only assume that people who follow this line of thinking also think that we should grow up looking to date people that we hate, people who truly grind our gears and test every ounce of our patience.  I mean, after all, marriage and having a family is tough and, especially once you have kids, you and your significant other and your kids are all going to spend a lot of time getting on each others’ nerves, so surely it only makes sense that in order to prepare for the “real world” of dating, you have to tough it out dating people you absolutely hate and who get on your every last nerve.

Wait, that doesn’t make sense, you say?  Well then could you please for the love of God stop using the same logic to conclude that it’s actually a good thing that we’re teaching our kids that pleasure and intellectual endeavors are mutually exclusive?   “Building character” by taking zero interest in what children/teenagers/college students actually want to learn should be a secondary priority (if a priority at all [note: it should not be a priority at all]) to keeping them engaged with the things they are learning, either through teaching them things they’re interested in, things they’re good at, or just things that they can readily see as usable and practical in their world.

[3] It would take just a small dosage of open-mindedness on what is crucial to be included in curricula.  This way teachers could have just a few seconds to be able to take a deep breath and have the time to talk to their students as a group or one-on-one.  “Hey, Joe, what interests you most about history?*  Oh, really, your family talks about the upcoming election at the dinner table and you’re wondering how campaigns tend to correlate with their terms (how many promises tend to be fulfilled, what types of rhetorics tend to be true and which tend to be empty, etc)? Well we can look at some exemplary and/or famous campaigns from the past and spend some time discussing how they correlated with their eventual presidencies.”

 It would take just redirecting energies from standardized testing and putting them toward office hours with a counselor to decide what educational package works best for you.  The counselor can look at your folder with all the information of every class you’ve ever taken and talk to your previous teachers and see what your strengths and weaknesses are and why you got the grades you did and can talk to you and have faith that you can talk honestly about your educational interests.  You guys can decide together what subjects you’d be best suited to just take on a practical tract (only getting what you need to get by in the world), what subjects you’ll get the usual education in, what subjects should be especially fostered and on which you should give special attention.  Heck, there could be classes you could cut out altogether or only take 3 out of the 4 years or 2 out of the 4 years, so that you can put that time toward specialized, smaller classes in your interest with only 10-or-so students who all decide the direction of the class (something like each student can get their own week where they decide the material covered, give presentations, share their arguments and theses on those topics, etc).

* I just keep using history as an example because it has the strange combination of being one of the Humanities, yet it is one of the most factually-taught subjects imaginable.