3: Reforming Education

Its purpose was to reform society using reason and logic through science, Immanuel Kant called it, “mankind’s final coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error.” The Age of Enlightenment was a time of rising philosophy, understanding of nature and science.

According to Matthew Taylor in his 21^st Century Enlightenment, we, as a society, are drifting away from this idea of an enlightenment period. We must start living differently to think differently. Taylor believes that a reform is necessary to get to an understanding of who we are, who we need to be and who we might aspire to be, 21st century enlightenment. The video explains that education needs to be updated and adapted to a new way of thinking. He thinks that education being our most valuable resource is now a cliché, which Sir Ken Robinson touches on in Changing Education Paradigms. Robinson states that the current system of education was designed by a different age, so it can’t apply fully to this day and age of learners.  He believes that we need to go in the opposite direction.

Right now education is trying to meet future needs for today’s youth by doing what they did in the past. This system is alienating millions of children, Robinson goes on to explain. Students are put through a factory line to get through school, separating students strictly by age, not ability or interests like he believes they should be. If organized by what students are interested in and enjoy then their ability to learn rises. Also, he states that we need to get back to “divergent thinking” or get back to seeing lots of possible answers to a question. “We have to think differently about human capacity, great learning happens in groups, which leads to growth.”

I have to agree most with what Sir Robinson talks about in his video. Our education system is very, very flawed. Many kids are becoming more and more alienated by the strict regime of today’s way of schooling kids and young adults. He talks about children being scolded for being distracted by the most stimulating period in history from the, what he calls, boring stuff. I think for education to be fun, exciting and effective. The people in charge need to be open with the fact that not everyone is interested in the same things. We need a system that takes into consideration the many different ways people learn and the many different things one could be interested in and good at.

#2: Susceptible Minds?

Coercion is something that is imposed on us, making us think that whoever is doing the coercing is looking out for our best interest, whether it be our parents, bosses, or authorities.  Douglas Rushkoff explains in “Coercion: Why We Listen to What ‘They’ Say” that we have people trying to influence what we do, buy and believe everywhere.

One point he does make is that most of us can tell when we are being influenced. We get this feeling of paranoia that we aren’t making the decision on our own free will and we can then block out the point the coercer is trying to make. However, as it becomes easier to recognize the techniques of coercion, new techniques are being developed. “Every effort we make to regain authority over our actions is met by an even greater effort to usurp it,” Rushkoff states.

But I am not totally convinced that the advertisers and publicity people have my generation completely influenced to what they want us to do, buy or believe. We were raised in the age where we have ads and people trying to tell us what we need to do constantly coming our way. Our minds trained us to ignore most of what we come into contact with when it comes to coercion.

Don’t get me wrong though, Rushkoff did a very good job of using the techniques that he was describing throughout the text seemingly unnoticed to get his point across to the reader. He mixed humor in with the terrifying “they” to ease our thoughts just enough to send us into his next rant. He gave us rhetorical questions to make us feel like we were actually participating and using our own free will to agree with what he was saying. Then he made it personal. He asked us to think about the authorities in our own life so we could identify with the threats he was feeling.

I then understood what his point of the whole piece was. It was to realize that once you put yourself in the situation the authority is describing, that is when you are most susceptible of coercion.

#1: Evolutionary Writing

"Summary: Theory for Beginners" is a piece written to explain the importance that writers and artists have on the world. Words and stories play an important part in the evolving and creating of someone's views and standpoints on different subjects. The author, Michael Ryan, goes through 15 different ways criticism is involved in our world and everyday thinking.

The insights that had the biggest affect on me were the first and fifteenth, which happen to coincide. The general idea portrayed in both is cultural adaptation. In the writing Ryan explains that much of what we know as culture has been shaped by the stories that we, as humans, tell each other. He uses what many know as the golden rule to explain this. Those stories influence our lives and can even change what we believe and how we act. Cultural norms are created by our stories and change and adapt to the need of the majority. He goes on to explain that what stories do is help us understand how life works and organize that understanding into different categories. Who tells the stories has a huge influence on what is told and how the culture will be shaped. Stories told and words used are such a powerful influence on what people believe and how they act, criticism is necessary to change norms and keep the evolution of culture moving forward.

Ryan also makes a good point when describing how many view the world, culture and history as very one dimensional, most don't look at all of the of the events or actions that lead to the end result. For example he uses the word "terrorism" throughout the piece as a word that people us to sum up and simplify a very complex thing.

However, Ryan's verbal bash on capitalism rubbed me the wrong way. Contemporary Theory views capitalism as something that is only good for the greedy, money- hungry owning class. But what he fails to mention is all the benefits capitalism actually gives us. Sure, capitalism is based mostly on greed, but that greed between the human race creates competition, leading to what the whole piece seemed to be about, evolution and adaption. The sometimes healthy, sometimes not so healthy, competition helps advance society and changes society. Also, capitalism isn't a monarchy, you aren't always born on top, and everyone has a chance of being a part of the owning class. To be on top, you have to work to be there.

Criticism helps evolve the relationships we have among ourselves and with our world and Ryan's work helped me understand that more fully with his 15 insights to Contemporary Theory. It showed me the effects that writers and story tellers actually have on the word and it's people.