The EduCore Project (4)

I am currently in the process of writing my essay for Trinity Foundation. It is proving difficult work - definitely a different kind of writing than I am used to. (You thought Sojourner's Song was formal? Ha!) For me, writing formally is like playing classical piano - I'll get through it eventually, but it's a stretch.

I've read a lot about education in the last few months. (Along the way, I got to read Plato and Aristotle for the first time, which is a rather embarrassing confession for someone who claims to take a serious interest in philosophy.) There is, it seems to me, intrinsic value in familiarizing yourself with your subject's significant historic writings. I do not quite agree with Rousseau when he wrote that "All minds start from the same point, and the time spent in learning what others think is so much time lost for learning to think for ourselves." This idea has a certain ring of nobility to it, but is it not at heart the classic mistake of reinventing the wheel? Are we to deny ourselves the advantage of building on the previous work of those who have gone before? I think not, as this would tend to undermine the very idea of education itself. As Aristotle said, "If anything has been said well in detail by earlier thinkers, let us try to review it." John Stuart Mill further embellishes this thought: "These great thinkers are not read passively, as masters to be followed, but actively, as supplying materials and incentives to thought." It is quite reasonable to say that we think for ourselves about what others think, and that in doing so our thought processes are developed faster and more efficiently.

My knowledge of Latin is poorer than my knowledge of spider species or Russian Czars, and this has proven to be a considerable handicap. Many authors will enthusiastically launch into a lengthy Latin quotation, which no doubt contributes profound depth to the current topic, but which for me is of course completely unintelligible. It seems at least a rudimentary course in Latin may be in order sometime in the future.

So far, my favorite educational writer is easily Alfred North Whitehead. His ideas are brilliant and his writing is like deep breaths of clean air. I also enjoyed reading John Locke, John Holt, and Aristotle, and, to a lesser degree, John Stuart Mill and John Dewey. (It almost seems that having the name John is a requirement if you want to write about education.) Some of the other authors have been - shall we say - less than enjoyable.

Transitioning from studying to writing was a challenge. Any serious research not only involves organizing an unwieldy mass of material, it also involves coming up with something to say about it. It is an ongoing process of categorization, contemplation, and review. As John Dewey wrote: "Keeping track is a matter of reflective review and summarizing, in which there is both discrimination and record of the significant features of a developing experience. To reflect is to look back over what has been done so as to extract the net meanings which are the capital stock for intelligent dealing with further experiences. It is the heart of intellectual organization and of the disciplined mind." (- John Dewey, Experience and Education)

This brings up something else I have been thinking about - an idea which I am calling "the connectedness of knowing." It is one thing to cram your mind full of information, it is something else to map out its relationships. I believe this is an important skill to develop if one wants to reliably recall ideas, discussions, and specific quotes that are relevant to the subject at hand, whatever that subject may happen to be. The reason this is important relates to how the mind works. Mental organization is categorical, like a kitchen, not alphabetical, like a filing cabinet. Information that is effectively retained, then, is information that is stored in the right place and attached to something else.

At this point, my capacity for retention is still rather limited. The best strategy for developing reliable powers of recollection is to establish topical mental outlines and then fill in the details incrementally. I have been trying to swallow both the outline and the details whole, as a single mass. I suppose it should come as no surprise then that I am unable to keep it all down.

It feels good to be rounding the final lap. "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning," for sure.

And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
-T.S. Eliot