The day dawns wet, humid, and cloudy today, much as it has the last few days here on the mountain. Little has been seen of the sun since graduation. All the same, it is there somewhere, hidden behind clouds and mist, shining as it does and warming the Earth with it's rays. I suppose it should not surprise us that Plato used the sun as a metaphor to describe the nature of the Good, revealing the Forms of nature, always present just outside the cave, and high above the shadowy world of delusion.
Is delusion then the everyday world in which we live? A Zen thinker would likely disagree. Everyday life is the stuff of which Zen concerns itself. It is thought to be "nothing special," very ordinary, and nothing separate from ordinary things. But let's not talk about Zen much more, since words always get it wrong where Zen is concerned.
A report from the May 12th Economist popped up today on the teaching of science. It discussed a teaching technique called "deliberate practice," in which science students (in this case, engineers in a physics class) do reading assignments prior to class, then spend class time working on problems and figuring out how to apply the theory. It is a reverse, apparently, from the usual way of doing things. My own experience in physics partially confirm this view, since most class time was spent in lecture, and most homework time was spent solving problems. We would occasionally do problems in class, but it was often not helpful. Oh well. Point is, deliberate practice yielded some fantastic results, according to one study boosting average grades on an experimental exam from 41% to 74%. Deliberate practice covered less material, but it taught what it did quite well.
The curious thing about all this, from perspective at least, is that my college education in history almost exclusively employed a form of "deliberate practice" from the very beginning. Rather than lecture, out professors engaged us in dicussion everyday of class, closely examining th work of other historians, as well as primary texts from the period under examination. The reading and general acquaitance with the material occurred outside of class, while the practice of asking historical questions and scrutinizing historical work occurred with the guidance of the professor, and support of fellow classmates.
To my mind, the method has some weaknesses, especially when the professor is less-experienced with such teaching, or if students do not read the requistite texts, but otherwise the method worked quite well for me. Each day we would examine a text, breaking down arguments and evidence, or considering the point of view of the author if the text be primary. It really got you wanting to get to the heart of the matter, to understand the author's point of view; to see the evidence as he or she saw it, or experience something of the moment about which the contemporary sought to convey.
I think, at some level, that's what studying history is all about, especially regarding primary texts. Can you reach a degree of empathy with a person long ago? Can you see the world from a degree of their perspective? Understand contemporary ideas as they might? This is a big challenge, but such is the challenge of history. With technology and society changing so rapidly in our own time, the difference between ourselves and our parents is rapidly growing, and we may well risk no longer understanding one another. That has been true for a while it seems, but the problem could grow rather acute in the coming decades if we remain ignorant of it.
One way to prevent a massive disconnect between generations might include a renewed emphasis on the cultivation of empathy among young and old folks alike. We have to be able to feel what others feel, or a degree of it at the least, if we are to understand one another's positions and views. Technology seems to be making that gap between children and parents wider more rapidly and more completely than ever before. Already we see large political debates ensuing over the privledges of the elderly and the rights of the young, especially as the national debt becomes a popular issue. These issues may well be getting worse, and technology could be playing a major role. Old folks are living longer, and young folks are becoming more connected to their own networks rather than simply that of the family. How shall such vastly different groups of people live together peacefully? For they shall have to if they would share the Earth, a consequence of our scientific world. Or will one group become so different as to decide to leave the Earth entirely? Wouldn't that be bizarre.
The point is, our times simulataneously appear to be rapidly lessening the chance people will feel emphathy naturally as the same time as the increasing age and experience gap between young and old is making empathy doubly important. We may well be losing on both fronts, and a crisis in the future may result. More than ever, then, it seems essential that we work to correct this growing imbalance. But how?
Why not educate people in the study of history in the manner in which I studied it in college? Or something similar, it's not terribly essential so long as you get people trying to understand a person's point of view from an often vastly-different experience. If you understand how, say, Erasmus viewed religious life, then perhaps you might understand better how your parents view techonology, or certain political ideologies.
The world is pretty strange, and it is getting stranger all the time, thanks to "Progress." Historical skills may well become quite important in the future if we are to reconcile the differences between young and old. Let's get it then.
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