Michael J A Tyzuk writes about...
Failure and Success
Don and Jerry:
First, a disclaimer: I am not an educated man, not by any stretch of the imagination. I am sufficiently learned to be able to recognize patterns and make inferences from the outcomes of specific actions based upon those patterns, which basically means that I know just enough to be dangerous and should probably be locked up. My only real saving grace is that I understand that my opinions are just that and should not be taken as gospel by anyone but me. (In that regard I am probably an evolutionary step ahead of certain environmental scientists, politicians, and educational thinkers, but that’s another story.)
That having been said, I am certainly capable of recognizing when something is inherently wrong and curious enough to research the matter just enough to develop a basic understanding of why. I have done this in regards to the matter of education and have a few ideas about what’s wrong and why; and even though I don’t have the slightest idea what to do to fix it I still thought that those ideas were worth sharing.
Besides, my ideas might just get people to start talking about it with their friends, and that’s not a bad thing.
I have come to the conclusion that one of the biggest mistakes that western society has made is to allow Education to be considered a science when it most certainly is not. With its reliance on concepts put forth by psychology and sociology and other specialties which have no scientific basis but are nonetheless mistakenly considered to be science, Education is really nothing more than pseudo-science at best, and complete and utter voodoo magic at worst. It always has been, it always will be, and anyone who believes otherwise is living in a dream world.
And yet we as a society continue to believe that these learned souls who we allow to continue to teach our children have some clue what it is that they’re doing despite the fact that if we look closely enough we can clearly see that they really don’t know a damn thing. Every single thing they do, every single concept upon which they base their theories on the good and proper way to educate our children is really nothing more than guesswork.
Outcome-based education is one of my particular favorites. The idea that a student should be graded based upon their performance relative to the rest of the class is so outrageous as to be almost hilarious. Truthfully, I couldn’t have come up with a more amusing concept if I had tried, and believe me when I say that, I have. I’m sure that the parents of children being graded in this manner are quite comforted to learn that young Mary is perfectly average when compared to the rest of her class. Were Mary a student in a class of geniuses I could see how this would be comforting news indeed, but what if Mary is in a class populated largely by complete and utter fornicating little gits? Mary’s ability to keep pace with the vast majority of her classmates then becomes less comforting and more disturbing, unless your intention as a parent is to raise a fornicating little git, in which case it’s beer and pizza night at Mary’s place.
When I was in high school my Electronics instructor was an ex-tradesman who had decided to get into education. He was in the middle of pursuing his Master’s degree and was intent on achieving his Doctorate immediately thereafter. I remember him being quite taken with the idea of outcome-based education. When I served as his Teacher’s Aide for the Junior Electronics class we would argue frequently about report-card marks. I believed that the marks that he students actually achieved should be the ones that were printed on the report card, but the instructor felt differently. He believed that such harshness would only discourage his students, and that we as instructors had a responsibility to do everything in our power to bolster their confidence. On more than one occasion I watched him give failing students who had already stated their intention to leave the program a barely passing grade in an attempt to encourage them to do better than they had.
By my estimation he didn’t succeed with a single one of those failing students, but he claimed otherwise and told me that I simply didn’t know what I was talking about.
I laughed when I read a report in the newspaper that said one of the school boards in the United States was considering discontinuing the use of red ink to mark exam papers because the color was believed to have a negative psychological impact on students. I couldn’t help but think that the educators were missing the point. When you do something wrong it’s supposed to have a negative psychological impact in that it’s supposed to make you feel like crap, especially if it’s in relation to a subject that you know well. That negative feeling is then supposed to encourage you to do better next time because now you know how it feels when you fail and you don’t want to feel that way again. But these learned and knowledgeable people don’t seem to be willing to consider the idea that failure is a valuable learning experience. They would rather teach our children that they are perfect and equal in every way, and underscoring their mistakes doesn’t facilitate that kind of positive outcome.
They tell us that all this mucking about with people’s heads is all in the name of turning our students into psychologically balanced individuals, and somehow or another they’ve managed to convince themselves that this is the way to do it. The reality of the situation, however, is different. Students and teachers both have to be prepared to face harsh realities in the classroom. This is the standard that you must achieve to pass this course, these are the things that you have to know in order to succeed. If you don’t learn these things well enough to pass the test then you won’t pass the course and that’s all there is to it. I don’t care how average you are compared to your peers or how it makes you feel when you fail. If you hate the fact that you keep failing, then stop doing it. Study harder and ask for help if you need it, and then pass the damn test. When you pass the test you get to move on and conquer the next objective.
That’s how you make a psychologically balanced individual, by teaching them that failure is nothing to be afraid of and can be overcome if you simply allow yourself to do it.
It occurs to me that I am rambling, which is usually God’s way of telling me that I’ve said enough. I will close by saying this: there are a number of things wrong with the educational system in the Western World, and I believe strongly that allowing Education to become a science lies at the very heart of the problem. I just wish to hell I knew what to do to fix it. God knows this world can use less smegheads.
You have my permission to publish this letter if you so desire.
Michael J A Tyzuk, CDOSB
Tarnished Knight Scotsman With Nae Trewshttp://www.angelfire.com/scifi2/tkskeep
http://www.livejournal.com/users/inssnemesisCopyright © 2006 by Michael J A Tyzuk
Thanks, Mike. I wouldn’t worry so much about the social sciences’ — including education — emulating the physical sciences. It’s a false problem: everybody knows that the social and physical sciences overlap only within strict limits, and scientific rigor has probably done more good than harm — as long as it’s been properly understood and applied.
Beyond that, if I understand correctly, you’re saying that where there is no chance of failure, there can be no chance of success, either. Quite so.
The challenge then, is to define success and failure. They’re often defined by the activity itself. If you’re learning to fly a plane, for example, you pass if you take off and land in one piece without causing any trouble in the meantime. If you crash, or scare the cows and horses, or cause someone else to crash, you flunk.
Likewise, if Jerry wires the city of Moses Lake and all the lights come on, he passes. But if he throws the master switch and Moses Lake warbles off into the fifth dimension or something, well... I guess he gets an Incomplete until he brings it back.
But academic subjects usually have shades of grey. Take English composition, for example: pass-fail marking may be fair, but what good does it do? Only the mediocre are satisfied with passing; good students want to do better.
In that sense, Bewildering Stories resembles an on-line seminar. Every issue brings you works — stories, poems and essays — that have “passed,” i.e. met our standards. But it’s up to the readers to grade them. Which stories, poems, etc. give you something to emulate? Which do you feel you could improve upon?
When we editors give anything a “pass” to appear in Bewildering Stories, we rely on quantifiable rules to a certain extent; our Submissions guidelines are very detailed and offer contributors a head start. Beyond that we have to rely on experience, which includes a lot of reading and writing — and, in my case, marking and critiquing English compositions.
The writer, then, like a teacher, must keep in mind three basic questions: What does he have to say? Who is he talking to? How is he going to make them understand? In other words: content, audience, and style.
Maybe, as you say, Mike, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. That happens when people confuse their priorities and stray from the “straight and narrow path.” Here at Bewildering Stories, we try to stay on track.
Keep up the good work, Mike, namely thinking about your own priorities.
Don
Copyright © 2006 by Don Webb
