In the book I selected, How We Think, by John Dewey, I noted a really interesting topic Dewey conveys about the different levels of education.
He begins with the disciplinary level, referring to education received at school. Dewey explains that school provides the students with logical information for each subject-matter. The students give heed to each subject-matter taught, acquire information, and take pains with memorizing and understanding each lesson.
The freedom of thought was the next form of education Dewey expatiates on. He stresses that, although a school provides the students with a sense of discipline and prepares them for more arduous work in the future, it is also capable of restricting each students' thoughts on any matters. A student's free thoughts allow him to form his own beliefs and opinions on daily matters without referring to a book or any other informative source.
Dewey believes that a student should have a balance between disciplinary education and freedom of thought. In the case of disciplinary education, a student acquires information in a mechanical, routine manner, without forming his own thoughts on the subject; he is expected to regard the information taught to him as correct, even though other views of the subject being taught could be correct as well. With freedom of thought, a student has endless boundaries to believing in what he wants to believe. Dewey warns that, though freedom of thought should be exercised daily by each individual, some thoughts formed are nonsense if they don't have a sufficient amount of information to support them.
After reading that chapter, I automatically thought of the common terms "book smart" and "street smart" that are used today to describe a person's intellect. "Book smart" and "street smart" are the currently used terms that have replaced Dewey's disciplinary and freedom of thought terms, respectively.
I completely agree with Dewey's perceptions on education. Students who are able to regurgitate everything they read out of a school book are indeed deemed the "book smart" students, but such students may also lag in the freedom of thought department. (i.e. "street smart") Those who form their own personal views, and do not adhere to what books or any other informative sources state, are very free in forming thoughts of their own on matters, ("street smart") but may also be vulnerable to sticking to erroneous beliefs or opinions.
-Chloe Martianou
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I believe that both "smarts" are important, but I believe that the freedom of thought is undervaled in today's society.
ReplyDeleteA friend related to me a story today about an AP scholar he knew many years back. This girl was an outstanding student, and scored 20 points under perfection on the SATs (and beat herself up about it). Anyways, she had to go to Boston for a weekend, and needed driving directions. However, she had almost no concept of where Boston was, not knowing whether it was north or south or near or far.
There's an apparent necessity for a balance of both types of knowledge.
A couple years ago, one of my teachers was asked the infamous "When are we going to have to use this?" question. She responded, "You're probably not, unless you go into some career related to this. But it teaches you how to think, so you can apply the thinking skills to other things outside the classroom."
ReplyDeleteOf course both "book smarts" and "street smarts" are important on their own, but they are so closely interconnected that somebody who has street smarts must have at least some book smarts, and vice versa.
-Audrey
I think that today education has become awfully skewed toward emphasis on "book smarts" rather than "street smarts". Colleges evaluate primarily based on numbers (GPAs, SATs, other standardized test scores), never minding that a kid doesn't know how to write a check, complete a tax form, or have a sense of direction. As competition in these key areas continues to spiral upward, it's almost an inevitable result that kids and their parents will continue to put more and more emphasis on "book smarts" (i.e. producing numbers that please admissions officers) and less emphasis on "street smarts".
ReplyDelete-Bryce Cody
It's rather depressing that colleges have the power to simplify us into numbers and standardness. But the colleges do attempt to determine our street savvy by looking at whether we did an internship, whether we had a part time job, what extracurriculars we participated in, and what community service we did.
ReplyDeleteI think that communication is a good example for the balance between street smarts and book smarts. In a social setting, we use colloquialisms and bad grammar even if we know it's wrong. It just doesn't sound right, in my opinion, to say "whom." Ever. Anyway, social settings emphasize the way we learn to interact with other humans when we befriend them or learn to watch out for social enemies. On the other hand, the academic world is the place we use book smarts. Some situations use both types of smart. Writing a formal email asking for donations needs persuasion, kindness, conviction, as well as a business-like undertone with formal grammar. We need both but some situations invoke varying combinations of the two.
-- tori