The upside in reading and education

[oldfart]

I just finished a post on the most recent Common Core thread that ended in a real bummer. I don't like to go to bed with that much negativity, so I'm going to write in praise of the unadulterated joy of learning that so many teachers, students, and peers have. It's a cultural thing, usually based in family, and it spans generations. Once it takes hold, you can't beat it out of kids.

We are born curious and have to be taught to become bored and indifferent. Babies and toddlers are intellectual sponges. By happy design of nature, as we learn, we want to learn more and the process accelerates. Each year the pace picks up and we have to learn faster. But with practice we get better at it. Good teachers universally glow about the kids who have achieved a self-sustaining enjoyment of knowledge, and worry about how to reach those who have not achieved take-off yet.

Sadly, a lot of people don't see this process. If you grew up disliking school, always being behind the other kids, finding education a drudgery, you probably struggle with helping your own kids with their homework, feel intimidated at parent-teacher conferences, and rarely see classroom interactions where success is achieved.

But if your parents were successful learners, or if they figured out how to support you in becoming a learner, you grew up with a good chance to take off. Sometimes it happens early in a school career and sometimes it happens later. I've seen students enter college with no idea how to learn, but then the light bulb turns on. At this point it's a devil's bargain: you work your ass off doing stuff you never thought you could do, and your teachers work their ass off giving you harder and harder stuff to do. At some point you realize you can survive this.

Some kids read a 400 page book for pleasure through the night and into the next day. At some schools kids try to get into every extracurricular learning opportunity they can: drama productions, debate team, science clubs. Students get told they must choose between a math--science track and a humanities track and ask the counselor why they can't do both if they cut out the study hall and take six classes instead of four.

No one can tell which kids in a kindergarten class will explode in high school and college. There are some who will succeed regardless of how badly we treat them. There are some who will fail regardless of how much help we give them. But many many more will succeed if we do it right. And at every level we get a new crop every year.

If this sounds like your educational experience, I congratulate you. But it's not nearly as good a feeling as being one of the teachers. And when society can identify and attract those kind of teachers, give them the respect they deserve and the resources they need, America will have a world class educational system again.

 

[DGS49]

As you say, the first important thing is to be CURIOUS, and the second thing is to be persistent enough to demand of yourself the satisfaction of that curiosity.

Thank god (small "g") for Youtube.

I went through my first 13 years of "education" with minimal concern about school. I wanted to do well enough to keep my parents off my back, but beyond that education was just something to be endured. The last of those 13 years was spent in a failing year at the University of Pittsburgh. There, the instructors didn't really give a shit whether you learned or not; that was your job. They presented the information competently, assigned additional work and study, and if you did all of it conscientiously you would learn enough and get a good grade. I was too immature to do my part and failed out rather conspicuously.

Four years later, after military service, I went back to college and the experience was totally different. I was every teacher's dream student. I did everything that was assigned, and put as much additional time and effort into the subject as I required to SATISFY MYSELF that I had mastered the materials. I got good grades, but didn't really care. I was there for MY benefit and nobody else's.

When I went to law school I was obliged to study more intensely and extensively than I had ever imagined in undergrad. The text books were only the starting point, and you still had to read treatises on the law, summaries, and in my case, I had to prepare comprehensive summaries of all of it, so that I understood how it all went together. Still, I was not as neurotic as many of the other law students and only finished in the middle of my graduating class.

Anecdote from Pitt: When I went back to Pitt after the Army, at my first and only session with my "academic advisor" he cautioned me that since my disastrous first year grades were still on my record (only three credits carried forward), I would have to get off academic probation by the end of my first semester back, otherwise I would be permanently expelled.

I pointed out to him that, even carrying a full load of 18 credits, it was mathematically impossible for me to have a cumulative QPA above 2.0 after one semester. He scratched his chin for a few moments and finally told me that I need not worry. The chances of anyone in the school's administration noticing the problem with my QPA was close to nil.

I was unsuccessful in getting that first year's grades purged from my records because of the damned 3 credits I carried, so getting into law school was more of a challenge than it should have been. My QPA for the last two years was 3.9, but cumulatively it was only a little over 2.5. No matter; I kicked ass on the LSAT.

 

[oldfart]

As you say, the first important thing is to be CURIOUS, and the second thing is to be persistent enough to demand of yourself the satisfaction of that curiosity.

Thank god (small "g") for Youtube.

I went through my first 13 years of "education" with minimal concern about school. I wanted to do well enough to keep my parents off my back, but beyond that education was just something to be endured. The last of those 13 years was spent in a failing year at the University of Pittsburgh. There, the instructors didn't really give a shit whether you learned or not; that was your job. They presented the information competently, assigned additional work and study, and if you did all of it conscientiously you would learn enough and get a good grade. I was too immature to do my part and failed out rather conspicuously.

Four years later, after military service, I went back to college and the experience was totally different. I was every teacher's dream student. I did everything that was assigned, and put as much additional time and effort into the subject as I required to SATISFY MYSELF that I had mastered the materials. I got good grades, but didn't really care. I was there for MY benefit and nobody else's.

I've had a lot of students with that kind of experience. I could always count on the GI Bill students to keep the class discussion real. They knew exactly why they were there and had little tolerance for me or anyone else wasting their time. Some of them pushed pretty hard and I enjoyed it. I got the highly ideological bullshit (right or left) from other students, not them.

When I went to law school I was obliged to study more intensely and extensively than I had ever imagined in undergrad. The text books were only the starting point, and you still had to read treatises on the law, summaries, and in my case, I had to prepare comprehensive summaries of all of it, so that I understood how it all went together. Still, I was not as neurotic as many of the other law students and only finished in the middle of my graduating class.

You have to have gonads between your ears to make it in graduate school. A mistake the kids (but never the veterans) made was that they thought because they were head of the class in high school, college would be easy. It gets harder every level up. The BMOC in high school often washes out in college. The genius in college often can't hack graduate school. Intelligent people are the ones in for the rudest shock. Being smart only gets you so far. If you didn't learn how to learn in junior high, just skated on knowing the answers, you will eventually hit the wall. The further you go before realizing this, the harder it will be when it happens. It's not enough to be smart. You also have to be motivated and disciplined.

Anecdote from Pitt: When I went back to Pitt after the Army, at my first and only session with my "academic advisor" he cautioned me that since my disastrous first year grades were still on my record (only three credits carried forward), I would have to get off academic probation by the end of my first semester back, otherwise I would be permanently expelled.

I pointed out to him that, even carrying a full load of 18 credits, it was mathematically impossible for me to have a cumulative QPA above 2.0 after one semester. He scratched his chin for a few moments and finally told me that I need not worry. The chances of anyone in the school's administration noticing the problem with my QPA was close to nil.

I was unsuccessful in getting that first year's grades purged from my records because of the damned 3 credits I carried, so getting into law school was more of a challenge than it should have been. My QPA for the last two years was 3.9, but cumulatively it was only a little over 2.5. No matter; I kicked ass on the LSAT.

My hat is off to you. You not only got a degree, you got an education.

 

[Disir]

Wonderful post, Oldfart.

Lifelong learning is a gift.

 

[guno]

Wonderful post, Oldfart.

Lifelong learning is a gift.

Agreed! When we stop learning we die

 

[Unkotare]

Thank god (small "g") for Youtube...

Are you afraid someone might think you believe in God?

 

[Unkotare]

You have to have gonads between your ears to make it in graduate school.

That's a very...odd turn of phrase...

 

[Unkotare]

The part about having concerned, committed, involved support at home is key, I think. One of the problems with public schools is the allocation of resources, not the amount.


America's private schools - from Primary School on up - draw the best and brightest from around the world.