EN106 ESSAY

Di Mino 5

Carmen John Di Mino

Kimla Virden

EN 106

06 April 2017

Birds of the Same Feather Flock Together

Learning is a crucial experience that no one should have to buy-in to because of a frat house culture. We have to adjust to the cruel reality that there is no true answer and the knowledge that we are taught out of academic textbooks and pdf formats is simply temporary. For example, from my own experience growing up in the 1990s school system, Pluto was considered a planet in our solar system that we, as a world, acknowledge today. 10 years ago it was removed from our educational textbooks, and some of us, like myself, were disappointed and/or accepted it and moved on to better things. “Only through communication can human life hold meaning.” Paulo Freire proves this point in regards to communicating education. While Mark Edmundson states, “At times it appears that the purpose of his education is just to entertain him.” referring to his usual cycle of students that come and go each year. Together we understand that we are of the same system, flocking together, adapting to the constant changes to subjects of science, art, history, english, and math.

Change is inevitable. Without change, do you think we’d be better of riding horse carriages or an earlier Henry Ford vehicle? As Edmundson documents, “Over the past few years, ... the university has been changing. …., the place is looking more and more like a retirement spread for the young. ….Engraved on the wall...is a line by our founder, Thomas Jefferson, declaring that everyone ought to get about two hours' exercise a day…. the author of the Declaration of Independence endorses the turning of his university into a sports-and-fitness emporium.” (Edmundson 1997) Our modern change of heart at the expese of others interests is immense and can be measured by the stylistic offerings from college campus’ with popular surveys from a network of students who crave hedonistic lifestyle. Make that dry history lesson a cool breeze with a sport attached to an American president’s face. We know that there’s a demand to fill colleges up to keep up being a successful young adult, and Paulo Fierce throws a fierce, “Banking theory and practice, as immobilizing and fixating forces, fail to acknowledge men and women as historical beings” (Fierce 1993) Let that statement sink in for a minute as we must not “bank” our knowledge for mote memorization, treating our young men and women as subjective specimens whose only purpose is to remember the facts, not the reasons behind them. “There are innumerable well-intentioned bank-clerk teachers who do not realize that they are serving only to dehumanize.” (Fierce 1993) A rather dystopian cause and effect that goes to those teachers who mean well but fail to challenge the approving authorities and their own pupils in the classrooms due to following a “by the book” routine. Mundane material that allows students to skate by education, entering their adulthood almost clueless to common sense. Edmundson confirms with a correlating, “Praise for my students? I have some of that too. What my students are, at their best, is decent. They are potent believers in equality.” (Edmundson 1997) Memorizing factual knowledge, lacking substance, leads to a productive member of society that might struggle with the discovered changes to their past taught curriculums. “And in their commitment to fairness they are discerning; there you see them at their intellectual best. If I were on trial and innocent, I'd want them on the jury.” Edmunds seals the deal with his personal evaluation how his students leave his class after the school year.

Synthesizing these two educators brings us to how we must challenge each other with no hesitation or fear of humiliation for the greater good of humanity. Not just accept the spoon-fed trivia and rewarding ourselves for minimum effort toward a participation in class. As Fierce so brilliantly puts, “Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.” Our unpredictable nature brings focus to new beginnings and evolution. Impatiently waiting for a desired outcome that would benefit ourselves and make it easier to hear the news that Pluto isn’t a planet, but a dwarf planet. Having lessons learned continually after the classroom, in our home or workplace, where we can communicate to our family and co-workers the changes that are happening throughout the years without an authority-like approach. Fierce states, “[The humanist revolutionary educator's] efforts must be imbued with a profound trust in people and their creative power.” (1993) Nowadays, we trust each other but also have the access to an internet browser and Google to call those out who may intentionally or unintentionally misinform us. We live on a planet that can adapt to how other planets revolve around us no matter how far away they may be.

Works Cited

On the Uses of a Liberal Education

Earl Edmundson-Leslie Jamison-Alan Feuer-Yascha Mounk-Jessica Weisberg-Elaine Blair-Walter Kirn - http://harpers.org/archive/1997/09/on-the-uses-of-a-liberal-education/

Greene, Stuart, Lidinsky, April. From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader, 3rd Edition. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2015.