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Tuesday 14 January 2014

Learning the Trivium Beats Out “Talking about your feelings”



A very interesting article in the Atlantic, about how for 30 years the mainstream of public education in the U.S. (and not only there, I can state that in Canada its the same) felt that you didn’t actually need to teach students how to write a coherent argument, how to write complex sentences, or how to structure their thoughts.

You see, for all that time, the idea is that writing was something that you didn’t want to “restrict” students with, it should be “caught, not taught”, which meant that the feeling was learning how to write (and by default forming coherent arguments) was something that would somehow be picked up by magical osmosis in the process of picking subjects that the teachers felt would be “interesting to the students”, dealing with their own lives and culture, or allowed them to talk about their feelings.

Except of course, it turns out that teaching how to structure a rhetorical argument wasn’t “restricting” the students, it was liberating.  Once this school started to do so again, the students were able to open up their minds and ability to express themselves, and began performing much better in subjects across the board. They were kicking the living shit out of the unfortunate students who were being taught self-esteem, expressing feelings, or talking about things that were relevant to them; none of which are worth fuck all if you don’t actually know how to say anything

Its official: the hippie bullshit artists that took over the faculties of education all over north america (and elsewhere) in the 60s officially destroyed an entire generation of minds by refusing to teach them how to actually think and formulate their thoughts, in the name of utterly delusional sensitivity.

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Masonic Meerschaum + Image Perique

(originally posted November 2, 2012; on the old blog)

5 comments:

  1. We wouldn't want students aiming critical thinking at their educations or expecting coherent argumentation from their teachers, would we?

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  2. Please don't ever mention self esteem class. My god they forced that as a requirement on me. Now I am liberal (for real causes and not the whiny tumblr shit by the way), but that is fucking bullshit. My god what a waste of money and the teacher they assigned to that class was fucking douche bag. Why is he a douche bag? He accused me of stealing a worn down pink marker in art class when he was a sub.

    I hated that class and I felt like I wasted my time with it. It was shit and the teacher hated me. That guy gave me a E (aka F, but for some reason my school used a E). Funny thing the class did jack shit to help out with my problems at middle school cause those were my worst years as a student.

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    1. Actually I take that back. I don't know if I am a liberal, or not. Oh sure I have leanings to the left, but there are times when I look at something that makes me go to the right. Lets just say I am not communist, and hell I am not a socialist. I flat out hate the "feelings" crowd because they get in the way of the artists. Not to mention they are often hypocrites and just generally piss me off.

      I guess my economic policy is whatever works and doesn't fuck over the people in my country. If a business dumps toxic waste in a river and thousands of people suffer because of it. Oh yeah there be hell to pay. If a company makes millions of dollars despite warnings about how bad it is (smokes, alcohol, and other things), then I don't give a care. You were told that it was not good for your health.

      Socially... Well as long as your not harming anyone, or forcing people against their will I am fine with what you do. Get a abortion? Not my right to tell you what to do. Not my body and not my choice. Want to smoke? Again not right to tell you what to do. Want to drive drunk? Now that is where I get to say no because there is that chance you might crash and end up killing yourself. Worst you could kill some one else. It is just I don't like to tell people what to do with their lives unless they put other people in danger, or flat out fucking over other people.

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  3. The real problem is that this has now been going on so long that its trans-generational. That is to say, the Teachers and Parents of the current schoolchildren were never taught basic logic, grammar, or rhetoric either. That means they don't even understand how they are failing their children and our society.

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  4. I really really really wish that this shit would stop. It would be awesome to not have to have my upper-divisional writing heavy courses waste one or more classes on how to structure an essay.

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