Continuation of "Education of a Wandering Man...."
By Louis L'Amour
I have finally recommenced my reading of "Education of a Wandering Man." And surprising to say...it is good! I am really enjoying the thought processes that this book is leading me to and I am only halfway through. It comes at a time in the history of our state where debates around school testing being the sole resource for children passing on to the next grade level. This leads me to think that perhaps a more combined approach would be more effective. Perhaps actually teaching the children to think to arrive at the answer would yield a generation of productive people instead of a group of lazy non-thinkers.
Here is what L'Amour has to say about the subject:
(Preface the following to the way that L'Amour grew up, if you did not already know...without any formal advanced schooling. He learned from reading and experiences. He has several honorary degrees from universities.)
"Acquiring an education has many aspects, of which school is only one, and the present approach is, I believe, the wrong one. Without claiming to have all the answers, I can only express my feeling that our methods of instruction do hamper a child in learning. Our approach is pedestrian. We teach a child to creep when he should be running; education becomes a task rather than excitement. Yet each of us can remember one or two teachers who made learning an adventure, which it surely is."
I have to say I completely agree with this! I we teach properly...to crave the excitement of learning, we create a generation of lifelong learners who can largely pass all these placement tests that we as a society deem so important. Now, that's not to say that I don't deem them important as well. I do. But I don't think we are going about it the right way. The teaching methods to arrive at the end result are not satisfactory. I have a teenager who has spent the last month of valuable schooling time doing nothing but watching movies in almost every class because they were done with testing. I digress....
Also, L'Amour has something to say about books. Keep in mind this copy of the book was published in 1989. Oh what a wise man he was...
"Books as books must be preserved. There is an effort now to preserve everything by mechanical means, but of what use will the be to a man who has no power? [This reminds me of something my husband would argue. And I must say I love that about him.] No means of reproducing the sounds or the words? A book can be carried away and read at leisure. It needs nothing but an eye, a brain, and the ability to read." [Something that today's young generations cannot be guaranteed to provide.]
"If in some distant future," (wait, do you think he turn into a writer of dystopian fiction??) "someone should come upon the remains of a library of ours, even if he could not read, he could through illustrations rediscover much otherwise lost. He would have no machine with which to play a tape; he would have no source of power." (When the world as we know it changes.....this is something to think about)
And then begs to be heard....what of experiences? This is a man whose education is largely through experience. We confine our children to classrooms 98% of the time because we are so scared of legal ramifications if we take them to see some part of history that the world might not agree with or because if we take them to the snow cone stand a few blocks away and encourage them to talk to people that they might learn something not approved in the curriculum. What kind of hobbled, dysfunctional learning environment have we created? How much more can we limit our teachers?
Soap box closed.
I have finally recommenced my reading of "Education of a Wandering Man." And surprising to say...it is good! I am really enjoying the thought processes that this book is leading me to and I am only halfway through. It comes at a time in the history of our state where debates around school testing being the sole resource for children passing on to the next grade level. This leads me to think that perhaps a more combined approach would be more effective. Perhaps actually teaching the children to think to arrive at the answer would yield a generation of productive people instead of a group of lazy non-thinkers.
Here is what L'Amour has to say about the subject:
(Preface the following to the way that L'Amour grew up, if you did not already know...without any formal advanced schooling. He learned from reading and experiences. He has several honorary degrees from universities.)
"Acquiring an education has many aspects, of which school is only one, and the present approach is, I believe, the wrong one. Without claiming to have all the answers, I can only express my feeling that our methods of instruction do hamper a child in learning. Our approach is pedestrian. We teach a child to creep when he should be running; education becomes a task rather than excitement. Yet each of us can remember one or two teachers who made learning an adventure, which it surely is."
I have to say I completely agree with this! I we teach properly...to crave the excitement of learning, we create a generation of lifelong learners who can largely pass all these placement tests that we as a society deem so important. Now, that's not to say that I don't deem them important as well. I do. But I don't think we are going about it the right way. The teaching methods to arrive at the end result are not satisfactory. I have a teenager who has spent the last month of valuable schooling time doing nothing but watching movies in almost every class because they were done with testing. I digress....
Also, L'Amour has something to say about books. Keep in mind this copy of the book was published in 1989. Oh what a wise man he was...
"Books as books must be preserved. There is an effort now to preserve everything by mechanical means, but of what use will the be to a man who has no power? [This reminds me of something my husband would argue. And I must say I love that about him.] No means of reproducing the sounds or the words? A book can be carried away and read at leisure. It needs nothing but an eye, a brain, and the ability to read." [Something that today's young generations cannot be guaranteed to provide.]
"If in some distant future," (wait, do you think he turn into a writer of dystopian fiction??) "someone should come upon the remains of a library of ours, even if he could not read, he could through illustrations rediscover much otherwise lost. He would have no machine with which to play a tape; he would have no source of power." (When the world as we know it changes.....this is something to think about)
And then begs to be heard....what of experiences? This is a man whose education is largely through experience. We confine our children to classrooms 98% of the time because we are so scared of legal ramifications if we take them to see some part of history that the world might not agree with or because if we take them to the snow cone stand a few blocks away and encourage them to talk to people that they might learn something not approved in the curriculum. What kind of hobbled, dysfunctional learning environment have we created? How much more can we limit our teachers?
Soap box closed.
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