Solutions to Problems with the Educational System

Ok, here goes. For whoever might not know, this is a response to Andy Bloomfield's post on Facebook, "Problems with the Educational System."

First, to summarize the problems mentioned in Andy's post and the comments that followed:

1. Rote Learning. Facts are presented without instruction concerning their origin, necessity, theory, application, relevance to other topics, or potential development.
2. Research Methods Untaught. Rather than training the student to develop good research methods, or even to comprehend the concept and value of research, excessive focus is placed upon the memorization of temporarily relevant information for the purpose of testing.
3. Lack of Cultural, Social, and Practical Incentive. Rather than education functioning as a specific means to a specific end, the purpose is often confused, obscured, or even ignored entirely as the methodology resulting in so-called success within the current system is overemphasized. Culture and society are perhaps as influential in this regard as any other factor.
4. Lack of Flow. To reference Csíkszentmihályi, the skill level of each student is not matched ideally to difficulty level of subject, resulting in an educational system specifically designed to pander to mediocrity at the expense of both the exceptionally skilled and the exceptionally unskilled.

Truth

I just finished watching Good Night, and Good Luck again, and it got me thinking.

I think common people love truth with a passion that borders on neurosis. They love truth because truth is eternal, permanent, lasting. They love it because truth never changes, never betrays, never fails or falters. They love truth because they love to surround themselves with others who also love it, to be surrounded. They love truth because it provides a purpose to their otherwise purposeless lives, and it provides this purpose by way of commandments to be obeyed. Yes indeed, common people love the idea of truth.

Quote and Response

"To convince someone of the truth, it is not enough to state it, but rather one must find the path from error to truth." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

I would respond:

To him who values Truth, direction is unnecessary, for he will inevitably follow whatever sign is visible, whether it lead him over mountains or through hellfire, needing as he does to confirm the matter for himself and not by the word of another; but, to him who values his own truth, no amount of direction will suffice, no proof will convince him, for he must ever maintain his own truth against all others, for therein lies his own god.

The simple rule by which I live my life...

After all desirable options have been exhausted there are only three options left:
1. Adaptation
2. Apathy
3. Death

If you can accept that this is true for every situation that is not ideal, and if you can accept the possibility of each of these potential outcomes, then you can be at peace, knowing that nothing can trouble you.

Tuesday, March 11, 2010; 2:44 am

I am tired of people.
Tired of insincerity, complacent stasis,
Resigned weakness, lazy stupidity,
Arrogant hypocrisy, fake virtue.
I am tired of Christians.
Tired of their dense apathy disguised as faith,
Tired of their short-lived efforts at empathy,
Tired of their gospel of enslaving lies.
I am tired of atheists.
Tired of their silly claims to enlightenment,
Tired of their willing disregard of self-control,
Tired of their useless indulgence in the mundane.
I am tired of spiritualists.
Tired of their cliche remonstrances of past values,
Tired of their ineffective answers,
Tired of their complete lack of passion and resolve.
I am tired of friends.
Tired of their selfish claim to comradeship,
Tired of their collapses and turnabouts,
Tired of their nakedness.

I desire to stand among warriors.

On True Sorrow

You trivialize your sorrows by speaking of them with empty words in the presence of empty listeners. You are children still, and hypocrites, fearful still of what you cannot comprehend. Those who know true sorrow are silent, and wise, for they know that no words can communicate the experience, and no mockery of empty words can abate its memory. To feel true sorrow is not, as some would claim, a basic human capacity. Basic humans can only know basic sorrows, and their basic sorrows are rightly spoken of with basic words. True character is the prerequisite of true sorrow, and rare is the person of true character.

Types of Religious Faith

I have been thinking about types of faith, specifically, the motivations, whether conscious or unconscious, of a belief system, and their corresponding connotations or colorations on the faith syntax. It must be understood that all of the types I am about to describe are, to my mind, actual manifestations of a faith syntax, that is, the assertion is made that "what is held to be the case" is thus necessarily "what is the case."

A movie quote that struck me.

"I want to tell you things so you won't stumble through life. I've done the wildest things, the foulest things, but I've done them superbly. I feel innocent now."

From Henry and June.

Excerpt from "Psychology and Alchemy" by Carl G. Jung

"The faint echo of the Fire Music--the Loki motif--is not out of key, for what does 'fulness of life' mean? What does 'wholeness' mean? I feel that there is every reason here for some anxiety, since man as a whole being casts a shadow. The fourth was not separated from the three and banished to the kingdom of everlasting fire for nothing. Does not an uncanonical saying of our Lord declare: 'Whoso is near unto me is near unto the fire'? Such dire ambiguities are not meant for grown-up children--which is why Heraclitus of old was named 'the dark,' because he spoke too plainly and called life itself and 'ever-living fire.' And that is why there are uncanonical sayings for those that have ears to hear."

On a Paradox

It is a curious paradox, one that I am very familiar with and have spent a great amount of effort contemplating.

The two mutually exclusive sides of the paradox are firstly, the criticism of intellectualism itself in favor of simplicity, and secondly, the criticism of simplicity in favor of intellectualism.

Excerpt from "Psychology and Alchemy" by Carl G. Jung

"[This example] shows that the difficult operation of thinking in paradoxes--a feat possible only to the superior intellect--has succeeded. [T]his results in a serious conflict for the conscious mind because it is not always either willing or able to put forth the extraordinary intellectual and moral effort needed to take a paradox seriously. Nothing is so jealous as a truth. [T]here is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection but for completeness; and for this the 'thorn in the flesh' is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent." (Emphasis added.)

Excerpt from "The Transcendent Function" by Carl G. Jung

"The present day shows with appalling clarity how little able people are to let the other man's argument count, although this capacity is a fundamental and indispensable condition for any human community. Everyone who proposes to come to terms with himself must reckon with this basic problem. For, to the degree that he does not admit the validity of the other person, he denies the 'other' within himself the right to exist--and vice versa. The capacity for inner dialogue is a touchstone for outer objectivity."