Children Need Boredom

In the days before television, video games, and standardized testing, children were “bored”. Schools and media are always trying new ways to keep kids “engaged”.

Each new way eventually fails, like new fads; technology “one-ups” itself and creates a higher standard for instant gratification from the young learner. It is often forgotten, though, that children born in an era before the pervasiveness of internet and video games read more, played more, socialized more, appreciated more and actually really learned more.

In attempting to keep children happy and busy, parents and educators may forget development of the imagination and free curiosity which naturally comes with it is enabled by unstructured time away from the quick fix and “carrot” used to “motivate” children. “Free” time allows the mind to think, analyze and contemplate. Boredom itself, teaches.

Who children become is a result of what they learn and the behaviors they see by the people closest to them. A parent that makes smart decisions based upon sound logic provide a good model for the developing child. Justification using specific examples and reasoning gives structure, helping build cognitive ability, providing a reliable “life-solving” methodology to follow. The study of critical reasoning provides the platform in which to teach it. Understanding the “who”, “what”, ”when”, ”where”, “why’s”, and “how’s” of something, combining variables helps to make a claim and draw a conclusion. The context determines the logic used to present arguments; relating all concepts and providing a recognizable pattern. Willingham, in his essay Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard To Teach?, posits that “scientific thinking must be taught hand in hand with scientific content.”, and that upon analysis of teaching methods, believes “that effective approaches were those that focused on building complex, integrated knowledge bases as part of problem solving,” whereas,  “Ineffective approaches focused exclusively on the strategies be used in problem solving while ignoring the knowledge necessary for the solution.” (Willingham, 26)

People have come to have this habit of imagining the brain as a computer. It is assumed it can be programmed much like its technological counterpart. Modern learning methods capitalize on this idea, and have presented new ways to “program” the child using technology. But in all this, educators lose sight of the purpose of education. There is a difference between teaching someone and training someone. Greek philosopher Socrates believed in the concept that “the role of a teacher was draw out of a pupil the awareness, insight, and knowledge that would dispel ignorance and lead to clarity of thought”. In their book, The Child and The Machine, Armstrong and Casement expound on that philosophy adding “..education entails the development of a certain frame of mind, one that includes the idea of meditative thinking based upon self-knowledge and careful observation of the world… It is not simply a matter of programming a machine, but teaching a child how to think.” (Armstrong/Casement, 37-38)

With all the promise of electronic educational material, it should be that children “these days” are smarter. While IQ scores remain comparable to previous times, teacher, Jane M. Healy, author of Endangered Minds: Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It, questions what kind of knowledge is really shown through that test, finding students that although “likable, fun to be with, intuitive and often amazingly self-aware” seemed “nonetheless, harder  to teach and less attuned to verbal material”, struggling with written assignments and admittedly “not reading much –  sometimes even the required homework.” Interviewing her colleagues she comes across comments such as:

“..every year I seem to “water down” the material even more.”

“Lectures can’t exceed fifteen minutes. I use more audiovisuals.”

“I used to be able to teach Scarlet Letter  to my juniors; now that         amount of reading is a real chore for them and they have more trouble following the plot.”

“I’ve modified my teaching methods because of their lack of attention span and their impatience.”

“Kids’ abilities are certainly different – I use with gifted sixth graders a lot of what I did with average fifth graders in ’65-’66.  They complain of the workload.”(Healy, 2)

She finds these modifications in the teaching process as connective of an underlying issue apparent in the interview that states “some of my seniors will graduate from high school reading on a lower level than the students who graduated from junior high in 1970.” Another teacher finds with a book like Tale Of Two Cities, once used in some eighth grade classes is lost in  its meaning among current high schoolers. “The syntax is just like a foreign language to them.” While documenting her colleague’s frustrations in teaching this generation of students, she questions the modern, fast paced learning procedures, lamenting “To read well, minds must be trained to use language, to reflect, and to persist in solving problems. Students may learn to sound out the words, but unless they possess the internal sense of responsibility for extracting the meaning, they are engaging in a hollow and unsatisfying exercise. With major efforts, we have succeeded in teaching students in early grades to “read the words.” Test scores jump off a cliff, however, when students must begin to plug the words into language meaning and grapple with the more advanced grammar, vocabulary, and the sustained intellectual demands of a real text.”  New learning software has taken the educational process out of the hands of teachers and parents, and placed it onto computer and television screens interrupting traditional methods of instruction that have been counted upon for decades. (Healy, 11)

As an externality of an increased standard of living, children spend fewer hours with the family.  The television, once a shared activity centered upon the household set in the living room, has become a solo act, relegated to the bedroom.  More fortunate children, when the thrill of television programming has been quelled, now have personal computers, and gaming systems at their immediate disposal, without having the need to change rooms.  Cellular phones and this new “age of the text message” keep people; especially children, more adept at assimilating the changing winds of technology, “connected”, more so than at any time in the history of human civilization.  Before the I-Pod and wireless connectivity, man, woman, and child were resigned to being within earshot of a radio or television.  Phones were sought out, if one needed to place a call from outside of the home.  Knowledge was learned from the pages of books or from parenting and educational instruction.  This learning method forced absorption, with no flash drives to enable a bookmarked link following quick scan of a Wikipedia entry at any random Wi-Fi hotspot.  Computers were connected to walls, and its only use for the young student was as an easier alternative to the typewriter.  Before these technological innovations, many hours of the day were spent on other activities; playing, reading, studying, and even doing chores.  A walk at one point in time was only just a walk, without an accompanying soundtrack.

These new items occupy the “down time” in most peoples’ lives; an area once reserved for conscious thought and introspection, curiosity and imagination.  While they sometimes serve to benefit intellectual interests, more often than not, they commandeer this time; decreasing attention spans and swallowing one up in a consumer lifestyle that demands new and exciting toys to replace the predecessors that have fallen out of style and appeal. These, possibly, fundamental flaws in modern educational techniques have essentially been committed with the best of intentions.  “Higher standards” in American education have generated “lower expectations” from parents, teachers, and schools; no longer trusting in children to keep themselves active in thought, spoiling them with whatever they wish in an effort to satisfy them. As much as technology can teach, over use limits time honored, traditional methods of learning. Adults may forget that the best lessons ever learned are the ones they learned themselves; reading a book, walking in the park, or spending time with friends. Lessons that are never learned if just glued to a chair in front of a television or computer monitor.

Work Cited

Armstrong, Alison, and Casement, Charles.  The Child and the Machine: How Computers Put   Our Children’s Education at Risk. Robbins Lane Press, 2008

Healy, Jane M. Ph. D “Endangered Minds:  Why Children Don’t Think and What We Can Do About It” 1990. 2008.          <http://www.enotalone.com/article/5607.html>

Willingham, Daniel T. “Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard To Teach? American Educator Vol. 109 # 4  March/April 2008

<http://www.aft.org/pubsreports/american_educator/issues/summer07/Crit_Thinking.pdf>

Professor Sibicky – Comp 101

November 24, 2008

“Taking Sides”

Geography as a Precursor to Economy, Capitalism, & Colonialism

Studied work builds upon studied work; and in this case as well, when questioning the European subjugation of Africa, two professors well versed in the history of human geography debate the issue of “cause”.  As a professor of physiology and biogeography, Jared Diamond argues that colonial powers were able to subjugate the African people because of technological factors, “widespread literacy, and political organization.”  At the core of his argument is the idea that these advantages were the result of “differences in real estate”[1]—that over time, the Europeans were better positioned, geographically, to acquire these advantages; and that the continent of Africa’s’ great landmass and isolating areas (either by desert, rainforest, or disease), had many natural barriers that prevented expansion and the growth of capital necessary to it.[2]   Lucy Jarosz, associate professor of geography at the University of Washington, finds flaw in Diamond’s evaluation, stressing that cultural and economic factors (including the spread of capitalism) were the main causes of colonialism in an imperial European quest for resources.  Jarosz questions Diamond’s assertions that geography played any role in keeping in keeping Africa “backwards” enough to subjugate.  She believes that by promoting this point of view, Diamond lends credence to the popular myth that Africa was indeed, backwards; in making her counterargument she uses the pre-colonial history of Madagascar as a discussion example.[3]

Diamond begins his evaluation by first acknowledging that “Africa was the sole cradle of human evolution for millions of years” adressing the paradox that the “birthplace of humanity” would eventually become subject to Europe following an “enormous head start”[4] by the African continent.  He pinpoints Vasco da Gama’s arrival to the African coast in 1498, and his subsequent return (with a fleet armed with cannons) to secure East Africa’s most important port, as the starting point of a “collision” that would ultimately favor Europe and their availability of “technology, widespread literacy, and political organization.”[5] He supports this theory by contending that these three advantages “arose historically from the development of food production” and summarizes the delay in food production, stating that it was a result of “Africa’s paucity of domesticable native animal and plant species, its much smaller area suitable for indigenous food production, and its north-south axis, which retarded the spread of food production and inventions.”[6] He argues that many native African animals, much unlike their European equivalents, were never domesticated—and, not for lack of trying; He concludes that if only some of Africa’s larger species were able to be domesticated, they could have posed a formidable threat to Europe’s imperialistic intentions. Native plant species faced a domestication issue of their own, and although Africa “did yield indigenous crops,” there was “fewer varieties than grew in Asia.”  He attributes this to the axis of travel; Africa’s being north-south with “…zones differing greatly in climate, habitat, rainfall, day length,” whereas in Asia, “crops and animals moved easily between Eurasian societies thousands of miles apart at the same latitude and sharing similar climates and day lengths.”[7]

In Lucy Jarosz’ counterargument, she shows appreciation for “Diamond’s emphasis upon the role of geography” but concern over what she perceives as a “narrow definition” of the term.  She believes that “geography encompasses the realms of the humanities and the social sciences in its examination and explanation of society-environment relations.”[8] Jarosz cites waves of colonial and cultural influence in Madagascar by Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and East Africa that had much different consequences than that of European conquests.  She contends that the country had a foundation of livestock, agriculture, and political structure with the Merina monarchy “when Diego Diaz ‘discovered’ Madagascar in 1500.”[9]  The Merina held political and economic “relationships with Britain and France (that) were used by competing political units on the island…to advance their political and economic agendas.” The Merina held on to their sovereignty for many years with treaties and trade, even conducting diplomatic negotiations with the United States in 1863.  Only when the monarchy aligned itself with Britain for defense from French conquest, did it lose its independence. The British would “trade” for Zanzibar while “relinquishing” Madagascar to the French, defeating the purpose of the pact.  “In 1896, the French claimed the island as one of its colonies, abolished the Merina monarchy, and ended trade with Britain and the United States, while a system of French monopolies and oligopolies dominated trade and credit.”[10] She asserts that the pre-French wave of “colonization established settled forms of agriculture and developed international trade in agricultural products to build and maintain the wealth and power of local, regionally based elites,” and that the French “goal was to reshape the economy and commerce so as to reorient and extract wealth and profit for French companies and creditors, rather than for the further enrichment” of the indigenous population.  She challenges that racism and the cut-throat nature of capitalism was the death knell for Madagascar’s independence.[11]

Ultimately, the conclusions of both professors have merit, although from my personal position, I find fault with Jarosz’ accusation of oversight Diamond’s behalf, of racism and imperialism, charging that “the emphasis upon environmental difference in Guns, Germs, and Steel lets us off the hook in terms of thinking deeply about geopolitical and economic relationships and the contributions of human ingenuity, imagination, and even cruelty to agricultural development and change.”[12]  I find her tone and lesson she provides in defining “geography,” pedantic, considering his credentials and position[13] relative to hers.  There was no “oversight” in my interpretation of the reading:  Diamond acknowledges racism[14], but it isn’t the topic he is focusing on; his evaluation seems “pre-racism” (or at least how we would commonly define it). His focus is not on guns, literacy, or politics, but on the geographical factors necessary to advance those things–and that Europe had those factors in its favor.  Jarosz’ points throughout her essay cannot and should not be ignored, as her and Diamond’s positions are easily and naturally reconcilable.  She puts it very straightforward in stating “environmental history and differences alone do not explain why today Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world.  The importance of geopolitical relationships, the development of capitalism, and the dynamics of regional, national and global food networks within specific environments are critical components of an accurate understanding of inequality and poverty.”[15] Diamond’s position DOES lay the groundwork for hers.  Jarosz’ work can stand equally alongside his, as a reminder in critical study and evaluation of context.  She puts it eloquently with her closing words,

We must not neglect the complex linkages and relationships among European and African societies and environments, as well as the realities of imperialism, power, and racism, when explaining the harsh realities of inequality and poverty that surrounds us.[16]

ALL sources from the reading:  TAKING SIDES : Clashing Views on African Issues, Issue #3

[1] TAKING SIDES : Clashing Views on African Issues, Issue #3: 40.

[2] I had never considered the scope of the geographical challenges faced by Africa’s “travel axis”

[3] Ibid., 40.

[4] Ibid., 42.

[5] Ibid., 42.

[6] Ibid., 43.

[7] Ibid., 43-44.

[8] Ibid., 45.

[9] Ibid., 46.

[10] Ibid., 47.

[11] Ibid., 48.

[12] Ibid., 48.

[13] Jared Diamond, professor of physiology and biogeography at UCLA Lucy Jarosz, associate professor of geography at the University of Washington, Ibid., 40.

[14] Ibid., 41.

[15] Ibid., 48.

[16] Ibid., 49.

02/12/09

“A Short essay on the invariably successful treatment of cholera with water.”

In the treatment of cholera, Dr. C.C. Schieferdecker felt that doctors were quick to offer the pop drug of choice while the simplest, most effective treatments were ignored.  He recalled the testimony of a Dr. Cahill, who wrote of “extravagant doses of mercury and opium” administered as a treatment of cholera; to no effect, of course, but the satisfaction of the doctor who prescribed it.  With regularity, as Cahill claimed, “death was the consequence of the treatment, rather than of the disease.” Sometimes, these treatments would cause those who survived the cholera to die of “narcotism,” an addiction to the opiate that was their supposed cure. Cahill also spoke of doctors who used saline treatments as a cure for cholera; some of these people would die of air in the veins. Cahill would use the term “luck” to describe those who were able “to escape both the doctor and the disease.” [1]Even still, some of these people would be debilitated from the preventive measures of mercury inoculation.

Cahill postulated that since “no treatment had any influence over it; the best plan was to do as little as possible.”[2]  Schieferdecker respected Cahill’s remarks, and felt that his own work in developing the idea of a “water cure” fit the idea Cahill expressed in prescribing the simplest, most logical treatment available.  Schieferdecker wrote that more than two thousand cases of cholera had been treated by “hydriatric” methods, and “not one patient was lost by death.”  He believed that this was the cure, so long as it was administered by someone sensible and thoroughly acquainted with the water-cure,” while criticizing the practitioners “who suddenly start up with no other claim but the desire to make money.” While Cahill felt that cholera a disease of an “unknown nature,” Schieferdecker believed that it was it was mentioned in the Old Testament and its symptoms mentioned by Hippocrates and others in ancient Greece.

Schieferdecker felt that when “men left nature’s ways” by moving into industrialized cities, the more virulent and prevalent cholera had become. Schieferdecker felt that populations which were “intemperate, unclean, and ignorant” were where “cholera reaped the largest harvest.”[3]  These traits of civilization, obvious inducements to cholera were ignored, Schieferdecker felt, and just as well, a similar attitude would persist in the mindset of most physicians. According to Schieferdecker, instead of attempting to understand the benefits of hydriatric treatment, many contemporaries would attack it, “so fixed in their idea, that diseases must be cured by drugs, and that they alone have the stone of wisdom.”[4]

Schieferdecker would describe a successful application of the hydriatric treatment by Dr. R.O. Baikie in Madras; where the patient, deeply affected by the Asiatic cholera, was healthy within a day of the procedure.  The treatment included room-temperature baths, cold water enemas, wrapping in wet towels, and the drinking of cold water.  Although the diarrhea was still prevalent and vomiting occurred with every glass of water, the patient was made comfortable by the procedure; relieved of cramps, and able to retain some of the water by ingestion and by way of the enemas.  By the evening of the first day, the patient stools were normalizing, urination had returned, and the patient had “rapidly recovered.”[5]  The hydriatric treatment, in that case and others, would prove very successful at relieving pain from the cramps and spasms symptomatic of cholera.[6]  Schieferdecker mentioned, also, the statement of a Dr. Maxwell of Calcutta, who felt that adding as much water as possible to the body helped to “relieve the bowels of the fermenting contents.”[7]  The treatment would bring back the patient’s ability to perspire, signifying the return of the body’s natural ability to self-heal.

Schieferdecker would go on to recall many other successful instances of cholera cured by water therapy. Instead of avoiding the intake of water because of the vomiting and diarrhea that it induced, he argued that it was of great importance, because it helped to regularize the excrements.[8]  He had complete faith in the positive benefits of hydriatric treatment, and he hoped that practitioners would abandon their fruitless treatments of cholera by way of drugs, in favor of this more logical and comforting cure.  He held that his skeptics, who were not ready to accept the truth of the arguments listed in his pamphlet, could not be convinced by the success “of a thousand cases.”[9] Treating the disease, practically incurable by “every pharmaceutical remedy,” had taken new life since the discovery of the idea to treat it with cold water.  Schieferdecker felt that “since that time a many patients have been and are saved by the cold-water application.”[10]

Bibliography

Schieferdecker, C. C. Short essay on the invariably successful treatment of cholera with water. Philadelphia [Pa.] : J.W. Moore, 1854) http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7761513?n=1&jp2Res=.25&imagesize=1200&rotation=0

[1] Schieferdecker, C. C. Short essay on the invariably successful treatment of cholera with water. Philadelphia [Pa.] : J.W. Moore, 1854) http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/7761513?n=1&jp2Res=.25&imagesize=1200&rotation=0, 6.

[2] Ibid, 6.

[3] Ibid, 8.

[4] Ibid, 15.

[5] Ibid, 17.

[6] Ibid, 20.

[7] Ibid, 21.

[8] Ibid, 31.

[9] Ibid, 26.

[10] Ibid, 27.

In Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” we are exposed to the tedium of academic study, contrasted with the slowness of casual observation.  The piece is, rather, two.  The clustering of scientific words at the beginning comes across as a chore list when put together with the second idea of the poem, making for a stark juxtaposition.  The two different polar moods balance the writing.  The diction shows sentimentality to the “perfect silence” and “mystical moist night air,” much opposed to the feeling of apprehension given the onslaught of obtuse facts and figures.

Whitman tells this from the first person, possibly for effect.  Strongly shown is his use of the word “I.”  It helps to point out the theme.  This is something that had occurred; or possibly, even, happened to him; and seemingly, important enough to immortalize on paper.  The two ideas have enough separation between them to question the relevance of both.  Ultimately, what the author gets from one, he does not get from the other.  Study and participation provide hard knowledge, versus visual observation providing perspective.  Both of them, balancing the spectrum of experience.