I have thought about this recently, about challenging our mind, our thoughts and ideas. How easy it is to sit back and watch the boob tube all the time. How easy it is to surrender our lives to interest in this sport or that sport. There are places for television watching, for the diversion that sports provides.
Recently, a few of us engaged in an e-mail discussion of the greatest Detroit Tiger of all time. That was fun and worthwhile. In response, I then asked what the greatest candy bar was/is. There's nothing wrong with either or like thing(s). Fun is not always a sin.
But do such "fun" things challenge our thoughts and ideas? To an extent, in certain areas, maybe they do. That's not what I mean here.
It's far easier to believe than it is to challenge. It's become a joke for almost everyone, "It's true. I read/found it on the Internet." Though we laugh at that, many of us subscribe to it. I know I sometimes, perhaps too often, fall into that error. Challenges to our beliefs require effort, thinking. It's not easy to confront what one "believes." What if what we've thought, based our views on, etc. is wrong?
That can be very disconcerting. Sometimes there's the realization that reality has upset our prejudices or at least our preconceived ideas. It's as if we get smacked across the face one day and discover we have arrived at a truth we weren't even looking for, a truth that causes a previous "truth" to tumble.
In many ways, this is where today's education is failing, failing students, failing society. I guess in a way, that's understandable. Teachers and others in the system are no longer allowed to create "microaggressions." Students can't be challenged, oh no. Schools must be "safe places." Or, if the school aren't "safe" themselves, they must provide "safe places" for students who have faced "microaggressions." As Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up."
And I agree! Schools, especially colleges and universities, should be safe places. They should be places where ideas of all sorts, good and bad, popular and anathema, old and new, are safe to present and discuss. Instead of burying "ideas that we hate," put them out there where they face scrutiny, that is, challenge. Let students see if the ideas can stand on their own. Even more, let students confront ideas that challenge their own thoughts and beliefs.
I received another pair of Abraham Lincoln socks for Christmas. (Gee, if that keeps up, my Lincoln sock collection will soon surpass my Christmas sock collection, although his neckties have a way to go.) That present led me to reconsider what W.E.B. Dubois once wrote about Lincoln. I've noted this here before, but I often think of this and it bears repeating.
Of the five masters of the 19th Century, "Lincoln is to me the most human and lovable," Dubois wrote. "And I love him not because he was perfect, but because he was not and yet triumphed. The world is full of illegitimate children. The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man [Lincoln]. He was one of you and yet he became Abraham Lincoln."
This is why I admire Lincoln so much. He grew. He grew as a President and he grew as a person. Lincoln did so by challenging his own thoughts. He sought differing opinions. Look no farther than his choice of Cabinet members, his Team of Rivals as Doris Kearns Goodwin put it. Those Cabinet members would force him to confront his ideas--and they did. Sometimes he stuck with what he held. Sometimes, though, he changed his mind. Others had better ideas than he did.
It's not easy to do what Lincoln did. I'm like most others in that regard, finding it easier to believe than to challenge. I should try harder.
Recently, a few of us engaged in an e-mail discussion of the greatest Detroit Tiger of all time. That was fun and worthwhile. In response, I then asked what the greatest candy bar was/is. There's nothing wrong with either or like thing(s). Fun is not always a sin.
But do such "fun" things challenge our thoughts and ideas? To an extent, in certain areas, maybe they do. That's not what I mean here.
It's far easier to believe than it is to challenge. It's become a joke for almost everyone, "It's true. I read/found it on the Internet." Though we laugh at that, many of us subscribe to it. I know I sometimes, perhaps too often, fall into that error. Challenges to our beliefs require effort, thinking. It's not easy to confront what one "believes." What if what we've thought, based our views on, etc. is wrong?
That can be very disconcerting. Sometimes there's the realization that reality has upset our prejudices or at least our preconceived ideas. It's as if we get smacked across the face one day and discover we have arrived at a truth we weren't even looking for, a truth that causes a previous "truth" to tumble.
In many ways, this is where today's education is failing, failing students, failing society. I guess in a way, that's understandable. Teachers and others in the system are no longer allowed to create "microaggressions." Students can't be challenged, oh no. Schools must be "safe places." Or, if the school aren't "safe" themselves, they must provide "safe places" for students who have faced "microaggressions." As Casey Stengel used to say, "You can look it up."
And I agree! Schools, especially colleges and universities, should be safe places. They should be places where ideas of all sorts, good and bad, popular and anathema, old and new, are safe to present and discuss. Instead of burying "ideas that we hate," put them out there where they face scrutiny, that is, challenge. Let students see if the ideas can stand on their own. Even more, let students confront ideas that challenge their own thoughts and beliefs.
I received another pair of Abraham Lincoln socks for Christmas. (Gee, if that keeps up, my Lincoln sock collection will soon surpass my Christmas sock collection, although his neckties have a way to go.) That present led me to reconsider what W.E.B. Dubois once wrote about Lincoln. I've noted this here before, but I often think of this and it bears repeating.
Of the five masters of the 19th Century, "Lincoln is to me the most human and lovable," Dubois wrote. "And I love him not because he was perfect, but because he was not and yet triumphed. The world is full of illegitimate children. The world is full of folk whose taste was educated in the gutter. The world is full of people born hating and despising their fellows. To these I love to say: See this man [Lincoln]. He was one of you and yet he became Abraham Lincoln."
This is why I admire Lincoln so much. He grew. He grew as a President and he grew as a person. Lincoln did so by challenging his own thoughts. He sought differing opinions. Look no farther than his choice of Cabinet members, his Team of Rivals as Doris Kearns Goodwin put it. Those Cabinet members would force him to confront his ideas--and they did. Sometimes he stuck with what he held. Sometimes, though, he changed his mind. Others had better ideas than he did.
It's not easy to do what Lincoln did. I'm like most others in that regard, finding it easier to believe than to challenge. I should try harder.
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