Monday, part 2

Knowledge is the enemy; imagination is your friend.

That’s a quote from a podcast I listened to last week. It was a conversation with a college professor from Amherst. He doesn’t run the ‘traditional’ lecture style class. Instead, he challenges his students, via discussion, to state their beliefs and defend them. Through this discussion, students gain a deeper appreciation or understanding of their beliefs. Of course, some are forced into actually finding some beliefs or at least discovering what theirs are.

I think of know better goal for education. Certainly, not filling in bubbles on a standardized test, which bring me around to the quote.

Standardized tests attempt to gauge students’ knowledge. What we really need is a test or some type of evaluation that can gauge (or better yet) tap into the vast imaginations of students.

Now that would be fun.

But, unfortunately, instead of doing that, we tend to subject students to knowledge. Specifically in the form of “here is what I have to say about the important knowledge” and “you must sit and copy down this important knowledge” and “then you must repeat it on a test.”

Think back to your education(s). How true is that?

A Western Civ class I took at a local community college comes right to my mind. The professor was gregarious and loved the sound of his own voice. Specifically, to ramble on about his vast knowledge on Western Civ.

I did very well in both semesters. Do I recall much? No. I have tablets full of notes. I even have (somewhere) the cassette tapes I used to record the lectures prior to the midterm and final.

At one time, for probably 36 hours I so, I had a lot of ‘knowledge,’ for I scored A’s on every test. However, my imagination was rarely activated by anything in the class. Don’t get me wrong. It was activated in the class, but it just had nothing to do with the knowledge that was being shelled out at us.

I doodled in my tablet, thought about horror novels I wanted to write, scribbled down top ten lists, thought about prospects for the next draft, designed the cover art for imaginary bands I wanted to create . . .

Now the trick would have been to somehow connect my vast imagination with all that was covered (as opposed to ‘uncovered’) in the class. It could have been great.

Instead, I gained a lot of knowledge that is now long gone.
Now, on the opposite spectrum of things was an English course I took at the same community college. My professor there, though, had a totally different approach to knowledge. She put her students at the heart of her course. Then she prodded, pushed, encouraged, tricked, and anything else necessary to get them to make the knowledge personally relevant.

This is where my imagination came in. For one assignment, I had to write an extended resolution to “The Cask of Amontillado.” I worked harder on that one assignment than I did on anything for Western Civ.

Now part of that is my fault, but only a fraction. A bigger part belonged to the professor, who assigned chunks of reading. But his lectures never seemed to coincide with what I read. He would ramble off topic (usually on the odd sexual behavior of rulers and the elite) and I would just hang on for dear life, scribbling like a possessed man. All thought of the imagination was irrelevant.

Now almost 15 years later, I can recount my extended resolution and how it related to Poe’s classic tale.

There it is: knowledge and imagination working together to form a true learning experience.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

If it were only so.

Now I’m not advocating always giving open ended or creative assignments. Students would get bored with those too. Nor does one have to neglect all the basic skills students might need, skills that are usually illustrated through a traditional lecture format. The trick, I think, is to establish a healthy balance.

For example – my Lit and Language 11 class just took a test on Book 1 of TKM. For the after test assignment, I had them complete a reading guide for Ch. 15 (the one where Scout diffuses the lynch mob’s anger and saves the day).

The students were drained from the test, but sitting with about an hour left of class, I didn’t want them just visiting.

They whined about having to read. Well, most did. One students has left us all in the dust as he races to finish the novel. He is off on his own journey now. Anything I can offer him can only slow him down, so I’m letting him go it alone.

But the majority of the class didn’t want to read anymore.

So I made a deal with them. Play the model students today and read the chapter and complete the reading guide and I’ll have something different for them to do tomorrow – something other than having to read.

What is that going to be? Hell if I know. But I have some time to come up with something.

I thought about getting the Jeopardy computer system from the library and playing that, but I should have done that prior to the test.

Maybe I’ll create a comiclife strip and have them create captions for it. Maybe I’ll devise a scavenger hunt for them. Maybe I’ll have them do some writing.

Whatever it is, it needs to kick their imaginations into overdrive and re-energize them for this novel.

Nothing like a challenge, eh?