Imagination, Evolution, & Education

I was listening to a podcast titled Philosophy Bites in which Edmonds and Warburton (forgot first names) interviewd Alison Gopnik on the imagination. Toward the end of the interview, Gopnik offered an explanation for why we even have imaginations at all. In her estimation, and from an evolutionary perspective, the role of imagination in childhood serves as the R&D department of the human race (what the imagination corresponds to in adults was not clear, although our purpose in general as adults could be summarized as PR and Marketinig). She went on to say that what's interesting about this is that the period of childhood in which we spend so much time exploring, pretending, etc. is time we actually spend inferring causal relationships in the world: this causes that, if I do this then that happens, and so on. So far so good. What followed, however, was that she observed that this doesn't do the human species at large any particular good; it's just a whole lot of years and resources spent on offspring who don't bring home any bacon and who consume a disproportionate amount of resources (time, attention, affection, money, etc). The conclusion she forwarded was that this whole thing actually seems to work because, from the child's perspective, nothing is "on the line" in their learninig. They get year after year of opportunity of "trial and error", and that, rather than being an inefficient use of time and resrouces, it paradoxically creates an environment in which learning is incredibly effective!

Now, what I want to know is, since this observation is true (and I think that it is, even though the evolutionary interpretation is flawed), two things:

1. Why has it taken evolutionary psychologists so long to see that children learn well when the "pressure" to learn is not constant, but they are shown the delight and sweetness of things,
2. Why is our national state education policy moving in exactly the opposite direction, requiring that every move of every student in every classroom on every day be quantified, analyzed, interpreted, and constructed upon for the next day's lesson?

BHT

A Glimpse of Lost Humanity at the Pool

I was watching today at a pool in which middle and elementary school children were receiving swimming lessons, and noticed how unattractive children are when they won't trust adults.  It wasn't as though they were explicitly defiant or that rebellion was oozing from every corner of the pool. However, I notice that those who could tread water, or even perform a sophisticated doggy-paddle, rarely gave serious attention to the swimming instructors on how to improve their stroke, or even learn a new one. In fact, I'm not even sure that they realize there do in fact exist distinctions between these arm/leg movements and those, even though they will all move your body through the water.

This got me thinking what a well-suited parable this was for the mainstream Postmodern throw-off of authority so prevalent today. The "old" addage "question authority" has become so emblazoned on the modern psyche that to utter the slogan smacks of being a cliche.  What happens, though, when such chickens come home to roost? If we raise our children on the milk of "question authority", is it OK when they question the life-guard?  And this doesn't just go for the question of safety, but also aesthetics and beauty.  For instance, have you ever wondered why in the world the human race has devised more than one swim stroke? What's the point? If the breast stroke will get you there, why bother with another? If one is for "cruising" and another for "speed", then why not just two strokes (not to mention what possible 'pragmatic' purpose a stroke for "cruising" serves)? And does the butterfly serve ANY practical purpose that no other stroke serves? And is it a complete accident that it's named after a beautiful creature, rather than after something a little less pretty (like 'scorpion'?)?

It seems to me that there are multiple strokes that serve so many purposes, not just because there really are that many purposes but because human beings have a penchant for beauty, for aesthetics, for beholding things of glory to admire.  And this, after all, is what every sport has to offer by athletes who've given themselves to their sport.  They train, they eat, they sleep, they schedule, (and mark this) they listen to coaches, all for the sake of perfecting to the best of their ability their craft. And they choose the strokes and sports they choose, not just to win, but to win beautifully, admirably.

And here is what I saw today: kids who "know how to swim", according to their own testimony, simply because they can keep themselves afloat. And they've been trained to only do what they're told if the authority in question can justify it's usefulness.  Here, there is no sense of improvement for beauty's sake, for the sake of improving something; there is only "how does that help me?" and if it doesn't, then they want nothing to do with it. It was a profoundly sickening experience; I felt as though I had received yet another glimpse of a humanity lost.

BHT

Christian Hedonism a la Thomas Manton

I fell in love with the English Puritans years ago; I found there (after much effort learning how to read them) a substance that was lacking in so much contemporary preaching, both theological as well as practical.  The other reason I have come to admire and appreciate them is because of the affective manner in which they speak about God: one almost gets the impression that they actually love him.  The following are a few excerpts I came across in Manton's work on Psalm 119 (it comes from volume 1, sermon 3):

God is the cause of all things, and nature cannot be satisfied without him. We were made for God, and can never enjoy satisfaction until we come to enjoy him.

The chiefest good should be sought after with the chiefest care, and chiefest love, and chiefest delight; nothing should be so precious to us as God. It is the greatest baseness that can be, that anything should take up our time, out thoughts, and content us more than God.

It is not enough to own Christ to be the true Messiah, but we must [also] embrace him....

We believe Christ with our whole heart when the heart is warmed with the things we know and assent to, when there is a full and free consent to take Christ upon God's terms to all the uses and purposes for which God hath appointed him....

When there is an effective and an affective knowledge; when we cannot only discourse of God and Christ, and are inclined to believe; but when these truths soak into the heart to frame it to the obedience of his will.

Many will be content to give God a part; God hath their consciences, but the world their affections.  Their heart is divided, and teh evidence of it is plainly this: in their troubles they will seek after God, but he is not their constant work and delight.

Such passages demonstrate just how far removed much of contemporary Christianity is from a living, breathng, feeling faith in Jesus Christ.  But what strikes me even more is how natural and earnest Manton is as he writes: there is no sense that he himself finds this affective dimension to be a foreign sounding thing; in fact, to hear him say it, such emotive work belongs in the very center of the heart of Christian faith. So why does it seem so absent (or, on the other hand, contrived) in so many churches?

BHT

 

8 Years of Grace Have Led Me . . . Here?

As I sat in my classroom observing the students in the last period of my day today, I was overwhelmed at the stupidity of it all.  It wasn't just the immature frolicking, the banal sense of humor; it was indescribable banality and folly.  It was a lucid moment into the shallow joys and weak thoughts that so many young adults are trained in today.  What follows are the words that came to me in that moment.  They are neither polished nor gracious, but I do not offer them merely because they are "honest" or because they are me being "vulnerable".  I am fully aware that throughout, they are tainted and polluted by a measure of sin (sinners arouse in God both mercy and wrath, but I sensed no mercy in my soul at the moment of writing); I am also fully aware that much of my observations are true, whether or not they warrant the kind of disdain they aroused in me.
Here they are:

I have become hardened, embittered, enraged, awakened to the ills, evils, de-humanizing, self-abasement, superficial effects of this modern world upon these children.  Children - they ought to be new adults, fresh with ambition, glory, hope, perspective, desire, ready to subdue the world for the glory of Christ.  But they are children - childish.  Worse than children, for children are largely ignorant, un-clever, simple; these are far from ignorant, for they are both knowledgeable and skilled in all manner of banal, vile, perverted social behavior (including tales of past and planned sexual exploits), and their thoughts run incessantly toward such empty and fruitless games.  They are wise as serpents and every bit as guilty - they run headlong into deception, self-protection, narrow-minded conceit and neglect of others.  They are simple-minded and addicted to distraction: substance, reality, meaning are heavy, and they cannot support the weight such things carry.

They laugh perpetually and cannot cry, whether from shame or grief.

[moments later....] I just looked up critically at a student who asked a neighbor: "What, you tryin' to say 'shit'?"  Then she saw my visual reprimand and asked me from across the room: "What?  Why you look lost?  You in 'Mr. Tate's' class!"  I feel more lost than I've ever felt.

The hopeless tone remains, but the feeling of despair has, by the grace of God, passed.  It was, however, a very disturbing experience and one I do not wish to repeat.

BHT