Late Night Inspiration
I'm having a little trouble coming down off of the Halloween candy rush, so why not make an update?
What is it that kills the thirst for knowledge. In her book A Philosophy of Education, Ms. Mason points to a couple of culprits.
"I can touch here on no more than two potent means of creating incuria in a class. One is the talky-talky of the teacher. We all know how we are bored by the person in private life who explains and expounds. What reason have we to suppose that children are not equally bored? They try to tell us that they are by wandering eyes, inanimate features, fidgetting hands and feet, by every means at their disposal; and the kindly souls among us think that they want to play or to be out of doors. But they have no use for play except at proper intervals. What they want is knowledge conveyed in a literary form and the talk of the facile teacher leaves them cold. (Emphasis Added)
Another soothing potion is little suspected of producing mental lethargy. We pride ourselves upon going over and over the same ground 'until the children know it'; the monotony is deadly. A child writes, - 'Before we had these (books) we had to read the same old lot again and again.' Is it not true? In the home schoolroom books used by the grandmother are fit for the grandchildren, books used in boys' schools may be picked up at second-hand stalls with the obliterated names of half-a-dozen successive owners.
They cannot go over the same ground repeatedly without deadening, even paralysing results, for progress, continual progress is the law of intellectual life."
Rather than run the risk of proving Mason right, I shall refrain from exposition and allow the text to speak to you.
What is it that kills the thirst for knowledge. In her book A Philosophy of Education, Ms. Mason points to a couple of culprits.
"I can touch here on no more than two potent means of creating incuria in a class. One is the talky-talky of the teacher. We all know how we are bored by the person in private life who explains and expounds. What reason have we to suppose that children are not equally bored? They try to tell us that they are by wandering eyes, inanimate features, fidgetting hands and feet, by every means at their disposal; and the kindly souls among us think that they want to play or to be out of doors. But they have no use for play except at proper intervals. What they want is knowledge conveyed in a literary form and the talk of the facile teacher leaves them cold. (Emphasis Added)
Another soothing potion is little suspected of producing mental lethargy. We pride ourselves upon going over and over the same ground 'until the children know it'; the monotony is deadly. A child writes, - 'Before we had these (books) we had to read the same old lot again and again.' Is it not true? In the home schoolroom books used by the grandmother are fit for the grandchildren, books used in boys' schools may be picked up at second-hand stalls with the obliterated names of half-a-dozen successive owners.
They cannot go over the same ground repeatedly without deadening, even paralysing results, for progress, continual progress is the law of intellectual life."
Rather than run the risk of proving Mason right, I shall refrain from exposition and allow the text to speak to you.
posted by Stephen | 9:44 PM
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