The semester is almost over and I want you to start thinking about your beliefs concerning education. What do you belief about teaching, about education, about students, and about yourself? What do you know to be true; what do you think to be true? You will need to develop a philosophy about teaching for your portfolio and it will be good for you when you start teaching.
Chances are that your philosophy will change depending on what you are doing in education at the time. Now will be different from when you are student teaching and your beliefs during student teaching will change when you become a full-time teacher. This can be an interesting exercise if you really take the time to develop it.
This will get you started…
Read through this and tell me what you think it has to do with philosophy. Then synthesize that into education and your beliefs.
Good luck
The difference between the effect that thinking for oneself and that reading has on the mind is incredibly great; hence it is continually developing that original difference in minds which induces one man to think and another to read. Reading forces thoughts upon the mind which are as foreign and heterogeneous to the bent and moon in which it may be for the moment, as the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind suffers total compulsion from without; it has first this and first that to think about, for which it has at the time neither instinct nor liking.
On the other hand, when a man thinks for himself he follows his own impulse, which either his external surroundings or some kind of recollection has determined at the moment. His visible surroundings do not leave upon his mind one single definite thought as reading does, but merely supply him with material and occasion to think over what is in keeping with his nature and present mood. This is why much reading robs the mind of all elasticity; it is like keeping a spring under a continuous, heavy weight. If a man does not want to think, the safest plan is to take up a book directly he has a spare moment.
This practice accounts for the fact that learning makes most men more stupid and foolish than they are by nature, and prevents their writings from being a success; they remain, as Pope has said,
“For ever reading, never to be read.” – Dunciad, iii. 194.
Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
No link to another page this week.
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April 14, 2009 at 11:06 pm
Melissa Warzinski
Although it took a bit for me to get through this (lots of re-readings), when I finally did I sort of just stared at the wall. I don’t think there is much else TO do after reading a passage like that. In fact, I suppose that’s exactly the point, to not read and to just let your mind “read” itself and the world. In a way I feel like this is philosophy about ignoring philosophy because the world around us, the our own mind and thoughts are enough “philosophy” for us to ever need. We may have a society that tells us to read all of these books, go to these classes, get these grades and we will be “smart,” but is that true? Following your own impulse is the natural way to learn from yourself, and from your own thoughts. This passage even makes you question what learning IS. The book of the world isn’t something that most people would necessarily see as something important, but if you think about it everything comes full circle. Where do you think these books came from? SOMEONE had to write the first book, that inspired the next book, and so on. Knowledge erupted from nothing if you take the time to think about it, so maybe that “nothing” is really the “something” that is the most important.
This isn’t to say that reading is useless. I think that this passage just really makes you think about how a person should have a healthy mix of thinking and reading. It is important to distinguish that you’re thinking shouldn’t always be ABOUT reading, thinking for the sake of thinking is beneficial. Reading in a way certainly does force thoughts upon the mind, leaving little room for personal choice and direction.
Teaching and education can really spring off of these ideas. In terms of a teacher– it really makes you realize how important it is to be easy going, and stray from schedules, answers, questions, and activities that force thoughts (like reading does). Letting students think for themselves needs to be a part of the classroom. Our world has a lot to teach us, almost as much as the other people in it. Students should be able to see that they can and should learn from themselves. The mind has few boundaries, if any at all, and a lot of the time in schools there are layers and layers of walls and boundaries that teachers, students, administrators feel they can’t step out of. What would happen if students just got to sit and think for 30 minutes? We never think of the positive things that may bring.
Education is twofold, it is a career AND an experience. How many jobs can you say that about? Teaching has boundaries, but they differ for everyone. And personally, I think those boundaries can stretch any which way you want them to. The classroom is a hot zone for the development of minds. Not just yours as the teacher, but the students as well. Topics can take on new meanings, answers can be refuted, questions can startle you, concepts can perplex you, EVERY DAY is a new and different day. You learn from the day—and you learn from yourself. The teacher has the ability to balance reading, and thinking to onself. Enlightening the world requires being an active participant in the WORLD, not just in books. As a teacher I hope to make that happen. Teaching about life AND english, teaching from books AND experience, teaching through written words AND words that are never spoken or written, just thoughts…
The same way that I don’t want to be trapped in a cubicle, trapped in a repetitive lifestyle, trapped in words or monotony, is the way I feel about students and education. Our schools and classrooms shouldn’t trap people, they should expand and stretch every boundary. The passion that drives me to take the reigns of my own classroom is the same passion I want to instill in my students, to take the reigns of their own thoughts…and thus their own lives.
April 15, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Reggie Stout
Before I make my own response to the reading, I just wanted to reply directly to Melissa’s comments– Wow! Love your comments! I won’t quote specific lines (it’s all right there), but wanted to say boo-ya! and I believe the passion you express for teaching, learning, expanding horizons, broadening and connecting life experience with education is exactly the thing that WILL instill and inspire those same passions in your students.
April 16, 2009 at 1:13 am
Terp
This text could accurately be someone’s philosophy on education today; don’t give the students the information, make them think for themselves. Right? Of course! This is what most teachers try to aim for, I hope. However, after a little research on our friend Arthur Schopenhauer we find that this text was due to his pessimistic views of man and society. I admit, I like this text a lot better after researching about him and I say this for a few reasons:
After my second reading of this text, I was about to begin this post with a caution. Caution: Cynical views are due in part of my current teaching experience. I was going to write something a little like this:
The most intelligent people I know have their nose stuck in a book when I see them and personal libraries bigger than my house. How are we supposed to learn without reading? At first glance, this text sounds like a great idea; Have students meditate in class! Then they will suddenly come up with a cure for cancer and solve our economic crisis! I am being dramatic, I know, but there is a reason. All my students want to talk about is the brightest color of shoes they can find and the newest video game they bought. We can let them continue to think about these topics if we give them the time to. Or we could give them reading on consumerism and why they buy the things they do, or the article about the little boy who drove his mother’s car to school because he knew how to drive from playing Grand Theft Auto.
What I am trying to get at is that students need a little push. They aren’t going to suddenly think about important issues and topics, then figure out their own answers. Give them something to think about. Present your students with two sides of an issue, and then get them to write. Writing is the key. I agree that reading is useless unless you take the time to synthesize the information and figure out your stance on the issue. Even this response itself, I did not begin thinking this deeply about this issue until I began writing. Writing is what students should have more time to do. Just write. Giving a student reading, then having them think and talk about it is not enough. Write about it. I think this is what Schopenhauer meant when quoting Pope: “For ever reading, never to be read.”
“Never to be read, if you don’t write”- Marie Umali
Now that I’ve read a little about Schopenhauer, I actually agree with the man. He wrote to oppose the view that society molds individual morality. Schopenhauer believed humans operated out of their own motivation and desires. If this is true, then the text we read makes sense. If all we know and believe is what we read, then we are ultimately shaped by our society (or that of what we read). When Schopenhauer said learning makes men more stupid, I was wondering why teachers exist. Teachers exist to remind students that they operate out of their own desires, begin thinking about those desires, why they exist, what to do. Go back to the shoe issue: Why do you want those bright shoes? Do you really want them or did society mold you to believe you want them?
Step 1: admitting the problem. I have become cynical. If you would have asked me to write my philosophy before my internship I’m sure it would have been full of passion and drive that made me want to become a teacher.
Step 2: Getting help. That’s you all! I need help being optimistic about education again.
April 16, 2009 at 8:14 am
Grace Yang
As with most things, I think this philosophy is emphasizing the importance of balance. I think teachers can take from this philosophy that our aim shouldn’t be just good students but also well-rounded human beings who know how to learn from life experience and learn from books as well. Relying solely on life experience could create emphasis only on street smarts and no book smarts. And the other end of the spectrum (as this philosophy warns against) could produce socially awkward bookworms. English is my content area because I believe this dynamic of balance has the most potential to take place in the English classroom. Reading something they can not or have yet to experience for themselves in their own lives could spark thinking and ruminating over it in their minds, as if they experienced it vicariously. Then they could build upon that experience as they go along and encounter all the wonders of life. Learning is never linear but is a process that is in constant flux. If a mind just settles and sits around it can get stagnant and stale. That’s when we as teachers can throw just the right books and other texts at it. Then it’ll start running around and we can guide it appropriately before it flips on its back and starts foaming at the mouth out of panic. After a few of these scenes, the mind will come to enjoy the exercise, become stronger and revel in the new found strength—then perhaps expand to learning in every chance and opportunity of life, inside or outside of a book.
April 16, 2009 at 11:28 am
chantelle ethier
This article implies we are a product of our environment. it states reading confines our imaginative thought. reading has a profound negative impact on th ereader. it confines our free thinking and limits creativity. i agree with the author on this thought. it follows transendentalist ideology like the greayt thoinkers emerson and thoreau. however some education is necessary to avoid unrealistic ideas. as teachers we want to encourage individual thought but within the bounds of reality
April 16, 2009 at 2:10 pm
maria cosio
I think this passage just reminds all of us that we all have a seperate mind before we immerse ourselves in reading. All of our students have different minds (influenced by their upbringing , religious background, family, morals). Everyone who READS has to be critically thinking while reading. This means contest what you are reading against your thoughts and minds. Ask yourself “what is the author really trying to tell me the reader? Does this go against or with what I believe? Now, what do I do with what I just read? What is the bigger picture or connection to the world?”
Reading is all about opening your minds..but to WHAT? To maybe same or different experiences and thoughts than yourselves. For that reason, this passage talks about thinking for oneselves. Our students, after reading, to to think deeply about what they just read. I know this may be hard for us to allow for. Especially, when we are trying to get discussion going or an answer quickly answered. WE need to give students TIME to think and process what they just read. I don’t think Schopenhauer felt reading was pointless. But, he is afraid on what effect it has on the reader when he does not critically process it in his mind.
Therefore, when we are teaching, we need to show to our student to read not just for the sake of READING. Don’t allow your mind to become distracted or become blank. Rather, REead with a purpose. Read and continuosly THInk. Not only to fill in the answers to that “Chapter 7 ” worsheet. (Which is something I remember doing in high school).
This just pushes us as teachers to ask ourselves “What do we want our students to get out of reading? Why do we assign them to read a certain text? WHat is our ultimate goal for them after reading a novel? And again, how does that connect back to our purpose in teaching? Why have them read?”
April 16, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Kati Ellsberry
I both agree and disagree with Schopenhauer here. I agree that too many times we fall into the trap of reading what others have learned. We allow ourselves to simply settle into an easy acceptance of what we read. And too often we assume those beliefs as our own and take them as truths without thinking for ourselves. In the defense of reading, however, the writings we have give us access to centuries of knowledge. It is through reading that we can know so much beyond our own limitations in time and space. I agree that we must take responsibility for our readings and think for ourselves, but it would still be a waste to ignore the writings of others before us.
Reading alone obviously isn’t enough. We all know people who are “book smart,” and we all know that being a walking encyclopedia doesn’t truly make one intelligent. Being well-read is pointless if you cannot think for yourself. Schopenhauer says, “Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.” I think there is a lot of truth in those statements, but I also think that most of the thinkers and geniuses, and people who have enlightened the world are those men of learning who were not content to let the words they read dictate their thoughts. And really, how can we further the race of men if we don’t start with reading and learning what it is that we already know?
As teachers, it is our responsibility to foster a desire for learning in our students. Our job, no matter what the county, state, or government says, is not to drill the right facts into their heads so they can pass a standardized test. Our job is to teach our students how to think – to teach them how to draw knowledge from a reading and really think about it. I will never understand textbooks for this reason; who are we to hand students a book and say, “Here. Study this book and memorize what this guy thinks. Then, we’re going to test you and see how much of his ideas you can spit back out.” What’s the point of that? What gives that author the authority to govern what our students believe is true. Our education system as it stands leaves very little room for students to disagree or deliberate on what they learn. We do not teach our students to learn or think, but instead how to memorize and give in to the ideas of others.
I’m still unsure of what my personal philosophy on teaching is and it is difficult for me to write it concretely knowing that it will change. Simply put, I believe that teaching is an education in itself. My goal as a teacher is to inspire students to learn, to think, and to want to continue doing both. It’s probably overly optimistic, but I want to at least prove that even in a country where education has become a system of memorization and the obedient acceptance of facts, some of us are still encouraging learning and thinking.
April 16, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Annie In
This article has a lot to do with what my belief or philosophy is for now when it comes to teaching. Students need to realize that there is a choice, whether they want to come to school or not, whether they want to learn, and whether they want to believe what they hear or what they read from a book. I want to equip my students with the ability to actually THINK on their own; take a reading and and not just automatically take that reading as truth, but to challenge and wrestle with the reading. That should be the point of wanting our students to read, so that they can CHOOSE and discover knowledge or their own beliefs.
This reminds me of that socractic seminar discussion we had, and if I remember, the whole point of asking students question after question was because the answer can be brought out right? I’m not sure if anything can be brought out of a students, such as the pythagoreom theorem (i know i spelled that wrong) without giving them something, but at the same time, those people that did make all of these crazy equations up or invent things did not get it from a book! I guess we will never know the potential of a students if we just HAND them the “answers”. My beliefs about how my English classroom should be conducted is that the students will questions the teacher and the world in a CONSTRUCTIVE way, that will help them when they leave high school. Everybody regardless of whether they are going to college, need to know how to make decisions and think. Without this, how are we ever going to see changes in our world? How is the future generation going to help solve social injustices or save the world?
Lastly, this excerpt made me think about our own education at Maryland, and all of these education courses that are supposed to help us become better teachers. It just reminds me that even though they may all seem so pointless (except 417 of course…) I could really learn something if I really think beyond the reading and articles that are given as homework. I need to do what I hope my students will do, and think way beyond what the courses may try to teach and find my own philosophy!
April 16, 2009 at 7:45 pm
reggie stout
For me, this is a really interesting question that interlocks with personal and educational philosophy in several ways. I do have to say, I think the opening statement of this passage is correct, but maybe not to as absolute a degree as the author implies. While readers in the 19th century may have fit this model better, I think today we read with a variety of mindsets including reading to stimulate and expand our thinking. My hopes for effective education would include instilling the habit of thinking for oneself and never reading with the old attitude of “I read it in the paper so it must be true.” As far as my personal philosophy, I do see a parallel between “when a man thinks for himself he follows his own impulse” and my belief that knowledge and growth come mainly from intuitive leaps and connections and not necessarily from a linear, logical accumulation of information.