My latest Random Thought has generated a lot of discussion about
the value and use of textbooks as I had hoped and unexpectedly reigniting
some discussions about testing and grades.  At the same it has revealed
more.  All these exchanges, as I already have told many people, remind me
how we're all very good at arguing backwards.  That is, not willing or
hesitant to learn from or even consider the learnings of others, we prefer
to come up with those "I believe" and "In my humble opinion" and "It seems
to me," or we make those sweeping statements and draw those stereotypical
images that defend and justify what we are already doing.  So many of us
each have this guiding internal dialogue that often surfaces in
discussions.  The the world of academia and students are such and such or
so and so. They're such and such and so and so, however, only because we
talk to ourselves about them being such and such and so and so.  Then, we
talk ourselves into believing they are such and such and so and so.  And,
finally, we act as if they are such and such and so and so.  So many of us
struggle to take a stand on our own established exclamation points and
find all sorts of intellectual contorting reasons to wave aside those
troublesome question marks.

        What troubles me is that so many of us, technology not
withstanding, run our classes the exact way we did when we first started
in the classroom.  Most of us, not trained to be teachers, first aped the
professors who taught us, assigned to us, and tested us, and we continued
to do so.  We accepted at face value the lecture, the textbook, the test,
the grade, and all the rituals and ceremonies of organized academia,
though most of us weren't shown the educational hows and whats or engaged
in reflective discussions of the whys.

        So I ask, maybe for far too many of us practice makes imperfect.
After all, does it make sense to stick to what we first learned about
teaching when that learning occurred at the time we were most naive and
least experienced and least informed and most narrow about the processes
of learning or the methods and techniques of teaching and the purposes of
an education?  As we stick with and to what we've always been doing, we
get locked into single-minded practices and views, call upon "I have been
doing this for years" experience as vindication, and reinforce those views
for each other in a supportive back scratching manner until we have a
fairly mindless academic culture that lashes out at any divergence or
query.  And yet, in such an assured answer is a surrender of personal
control for we have ceased to think freely for ourselves.  Instead, we
have unwittingly submitted to and mindlessly accepted the mouthing of the
mouthings of other mouths under the delusion that such mouthings came
originally from our mouths.

        To be sure, it is easier to learn something the first time than it
is to unlearn it and learn it differently after a long time.  But, if we
don't ask the question, we won't have an opportunity to hear the many
answers that offer us insight and choice.  If we are convinced we have the
answer, we won't ask the question and will only ardently defend our
answer.  I think it was John F. Kennedy who said something to the effect
that the true opponent of a truth is not the premeditated lie; it's the
ingrained, entrenched, unchallenged, emotionally satisfying, and
self-serving myth.

        We human beings are doomed to live a life of conscious and not so
conscious choices.  We can choose to submit to the controlling black and
white exclamation of an "is" or we can choose, as Steve Sample urges,
think gray and free.  To think free, however, means we must accept the
questioning doubt and uncertainty of a "maybe" or "what if" and become
questers rather than pronouncers.

        If we can the accept the discomfort yet exhilarating challenge of
doubt and uncertainty, we can exercise personal control, free up ourselves
to creative thinking and imagination, offer ourselves to the opportunity
to convert that too often mindless practice into a mindful one, be aware
of the possibility of more than one perspective, be observant of the
changes from minute to minute and the differences from person to person,
experiment with alternative methods and approaches, to foster a continuous
creation of newness, become open to an openness to new information, be
free to discover concepts, philosophies, purposes, missions, and visions.
It not an easy task and can be a lonely task.  Nevertheless, if learning
is reimagining the world, it is true for us, supposedly the purveyors of
learning, no less than it is for students.

Make it a good day.

                                                       --Louis--


Louis Schmier                            www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History                    www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
Valdosta, Georgia 31698                    /~\    /\ /\
(229-333-5947)                     /^\    /   \  /  /~ \     /~\__/\
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                          -_~     /  "If you want to climb mountains, \ /^\
                             _ _ /      don't practice on mole hills" -\____