The virtue of the question of why? What is education?
I am writing this on Sunday, September 6, 2015 after listening to Krista Tippett interviewing Mike Rose on the NPR program, “On Being.” You may be one of the fortunate ones who knows or has known Mike Rose personally, have previously been introduced to him via his books, or have been fortunate enough to be his student. I had not had the privilege of meeting him or even hearing of him previously. Given the similarity of some of his interests in education and what work means to that of Studs Terkel who is best known for his 1974 book, Working in which he chronicles his time and interviews with working men and women in the United States, I am surprised that I had not previously discovered him.
Who is Michael Rose? One could be very “proper”/“traditional” and introduce him as a college professor and author of many books. One could also introduce him as the poor boy that was a poor student and, against all odds, got a doctorate degree and now teaches at a very prestigious university. One could also introduce him as a person who is passionate about education. All of these descriptive terms, while, accurate, would not describe the man I “met” while listening to Mrs.Tippett’s interview of him September 6, 2015. The man I heard interviewed was this loving, observant, present, humble person who sat in a restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania with his disabled father admiring and observing his mother and others working as wait person in this down home (my term) restaurant. As a young child he observed the enormous number of skills it takes to be an effective/helpful wait person – memory (short and long term), organization, sensitivity to what the customer is feeling and needing, physical agility, multi-tasking, and endurance. Later he would observe and talk about the many skills required for many jobs, which are, have been historically and often somewhat derisively referred to as vocational jobs versus professional jobs. The elite of the society – the privileged (including financial remuneration) - score well on so-called intelligence tests and are considered smart or wise while, for decades, those who did not do well on such tests were labeled as the dumb kids and assigned to the vocational track in school. Mike Rose was such a kid who accidently got put into a different track and got “noticed” in his senior year in high school by a very observant English teacher, Jack McFarland.
As Dr. Rose pointed out, there has been some breakdown in this attempt at binary duality in schools, but this is such an historic duality beginning with Aristotle and the preparation for “civil” society that it is not a tension which will be easily dissolved.
The brilliance of Dr. Rose is co-joined with who he is spiritually. When Dr. Rose is teaching he does not first focus on the parts – the memorization of facts – but on giving the student a picture of the whole and then how one builds that whole. In other words, in my mind, Dr. Rose focuses on what is it one is attempting to teach, introducing the student to this “picture” or the concept. I think a part of what he is attempting to communicate is that we humans can and will learn if we understand the purpose of this knowledge. If I am told to memorize something, which does not have meaning to me, I will not be interested in learning and may think I cannot learn. I have, for example, known people, sometimes clients, who considered themselves dumb or unable to do math. Yet, these very same clients could organize and run a business, which included the use of complicated math skills. The fact that the business might be illegal was not related to what skills were required. In fact, sometimes an illegal business takes additional skills. I have known home managers, often women, who tell me that they cannot do math and yet they can multiply or divide a recipe, organize and manage a budget, and use geometrical skills to arrange a room.
I am again intrigued with the concept of education. I turned to the on line version of the Oxford dictionary.
It says education is:
· The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
· The theory and practice of teaching
· A body of knowledge acquired while being educated.
As I have previously said, what amazes me about this definition is that the definition is not related to the purpose of learning something. It seems to me that Dr. Rose would agree with me that if we are going to discuss the concept of education, we have to talk about what both Mrs. Tippett and Dr. Rose refer to as the meaningfulness of work. If not careful when we talk about “meaningful,” it can become a very elitist term.
What does it mean for work to have meaning? How is education related to introducing the student to the subject of meaning? Obviously, as Dr. Rose and Mrs. Tippett point out, job title alone does not tell us whether a job is meaningful to the individuals. They use the example of the unhappy neurosurgeon. Obviously, the skill of neurosurgeon is as valuable as that of the plumber, the cook, the builder, or the person who works on an assembly line to make the stove on which I will cook my meals today. I am personally very grateful for the neurosurgeons who have taken care of friends of mine who needed their services. I am just as grateful to the people who designed and built my cooking range. Sadly, the neurosurgeon’s motivation for practicing this profession might be to make a lot of money. The motivation of the factory worker might be to feed his or her family. We know that money alone will not create a meaningful job or life and we also know that not having enough money to feed one’s family will diminish the meaningfulness of a job or life for some individuals.
What then might make a job meaningful to an individual? Certainly an internal sense that the job one is doing is contributing, in some manner, to making the world a more just and loving place is necessary. It also helps if one works for and/or with individuals who value the work and the worker.
Anyone who has been a parent knows that one of the first words a child learns to communicate (by voice, touch, or in some other manner) is why! They ask ‘why” many times. If encouraged, these children will continue to ask ‘why’ for the rest of their lives. If the parents or other adults respond with “Because I said so,” “It just is,” or “Stop asking so many questions” the child may stop asking why.
It seems to me that to call a process education it must first answer the question of why. As I have discussed in past blogs, the answer might be as simple as “One paints or plays music or dances because one does it to exist. One cannot not do it.” The answer might be multi-faceted as it was when Dr. Rose interviewed his mother about her job. It not only fed her family but also got her out into a larger world. The job also permitted her to provide a wonderful and important service.
I often talk to young men and women who are attempting to decide or have decided about the next stage of their life post high school. Often they are feeling a lot of pressure to learn a skill that will allow them to make money. As the cost of college/university education has increased this issue is even more in the forefront for many. Fortunately there is also a move to re-introduce the apprentice system for many occupations. The question, which many of these same students do not ask or are not encouraged to ask out loud is, “Why?” Why go to college or trade school or become an apprentice? Why make money? Are we going to work in a job we hate (over 70% of the population of the United States) so that we can raise and educate children to take a job that they hate so that they can? Really?
The other day, I was talking to the trainer who is working with me at the YMCA. He is getting ready to take a test for additional certification. He is anxious about the test. I asked him what his girlfriend would say is his most valuable quality/characteristic? I suggested she would say his heart. He agreed that she would say that. My sense of this young man is that he is lovingly present no matter what he is doing. Whether he is helping people as an exercise trainer, cooking a meal for his girlfriend, talking with a clerk in a store, his overt or covert goal is to treat others with love and respect. At some point he has learned to take a metaphysical approach to all of life. Whether that essential education came from his parent, another influential adult, a teacher, or it just clicked for him, he figured out that he must first explore “first principles” concepts of being and knowing.
I am writing this on Sunday, September 6, 2015 after listening to Krista Tippett interviewing Mike Rose on the NPR program, “On Being.” You may be one of the fortunate ones who knows or has known Mike Rose personally, have previously been introduced to him via his books, or have been fortunate enough to be his student. I had not had the privilege of meeting him or even hearing of him previously. Given the similarity of some of his interests in education and what work means to that of Studs Terkel who is best known for his 1974 book, Working in which he chronicles his time and interviews with working men and women in the United States, I am surprised that I had not previously discovered him.
Who is Michael Rose? One could be very “proper”/“traditional” and introduce him as a college professor and author of many books. One could also introduce him as the poor boy that was a poor student and, against all odds, got a doctorate degree and now teaches at a very prestigious university. One could also introduce him as a person who is passionate about education. All of these descriptive terms, while, accurate, would not describe the man I “met” while listening to Mrs.Tippett’s interview of him September 6, 2015. The man I heard interviewed was this loving, observant, present, humble person who sat in a restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania with his disabled father admiring and observing his mother and others working as wait person in this down home (my term) restaurant. As a young child he observed the enormous number of skills it takes to be an effective/helpful wait person – memory (short and long term), organization, sensitivity to what the customer is feeling and needing, physical agility, multi-tasking, and endurance. Later he would observe and talk about the many skills required for many jobs, which are, have been historically and often somewhat derisively referred to as vocational jobs versus professional jobs. The elite of the society – the privileged (including financial remuneration) - score well on so-called intelligence tests and are considered smart or wise while, for decades, those who did not do well on such tests were labeled as the dumb kids and assigned to the vocational track in school. Mike Rose was such a kid who accidently got put into a different track and got “noticed” in his senior year in high school by a very observant English teacher, Jack McFarland.
As Dr. Rose pointed out, there has been some breakdown in this attempt at binary duality in schools, but this is such an historic duality beginning with Aristotle and the preparation for “civil” society that it is not a tension which will be easily dissolved.
The brilliance of Dr. Rose is co-joined with who he is spiritually. When Dr. Rose is teaching he does not first focus on the parts – the memorization of facts – but on giving the student a picture of the whole and then how one builds that whole. In other words, in my mind, Dr. Rose focuses on what is it one is attempting to teach, introducing the student to this “picture” or the concept. I think a part of what he is attempting to communicate is that we humans can and will learn if we understand the purpose of this knowledge. If I am told to memorize something, which does not have meaning to me, I will not be interested in learning and may think I cannot learn. I have, for example, known people, sometimes clients, who considered themselves dumb or unable to do math. Yet, these very same clients could organize and run a business, which included the use of complicated math skills. The fact that the business might be illegal was not related to what skills were required. In fact, sometimes an illegal business takes additional skills. I have known home managers, often women, who tell me that they cannot do math and yet they can multiply or divide a recipe, organize and manage a budget, and use geometrical skills to arrange a room.
I am again intrigued with the concept of education. I turned to the on line version of the Oxford dictionary.
It says education is:
· The process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university.
· The theory and practice of teaching
· A body of knowledge acquired while being educated.
As I have previously said, what amazes me about this definition is that the definition is not related to the purpose of learning something. It seems to me that Dr. Rose would agree with me that if we are going to discuss the concept of education, we have to talk about what both Mrs. Tippett and Dr. Rose refer to as the meaningfulness of work. If not careful when we talk about “meaningful,” it can become a very elitist term.
What does it mean for work to have meaning? How is education related to introducing the student to the subject of meaning? Obviously, as Dr. Rose and Mrs. Tippett point out, job title alone does not tell us whether a job is meaningful to the individuals. They use the example of the unhappy neurosurgeon. Obviously, the skill of neurosurgeon is as valuable as that of the plumber, the cook, the builder, or the person who works on an assembly line to make the stove on which I will cook my meals today. I am personally very grateful for the neurosurgeons who have taken care of friends of mine who needed their services. I am just as grateful to the people who designed and built my cooking range. Sadly, the neurosurgeon’s motivation for practicing this profession might be to make a lot of money. The motivation of the factory worker might be to feed his or her family. We know that money alone will not create a meaningful job or life and we also know that not having enough money to feed one’s family will diminish the meaningfulness of a job or life for some individuals.
What then might make a job meaningful to an individual? Certainly an internal sense that the job one is doing is contributing, in some manner, to making the world a more just and loving place is necessary. It also helps if one works for and/or with individuals who value the work and the worker.
Anyone who has been a parent knows that one of the first words a child learns to communicate (by voice, touch, or in some other manner) is why! They ask ‘why” many times. If encouraged, these children will continue to ask ‘why’ for the rest of their lives. If the parents or other adults respond with “Because I said so,” “It just is,” or “Stop asking so many questions” the child may stop asking why.
It seems to me that to call a process education it must first answer the question of why. As I have discussed in past blogs, the answer might be as simple as “One paints or plays music or dances because one does it to exist. One cannot not do it.” The answer might be multi-faceted as it was when Dr. Rose interviewed his mother about her job. It not only fed her family but also got her out into a larger world. The job also permitted her to provide a wonderful and important service.
I often talk to young men and women who are attempting to decide or have decided about the next stage of their life post high school. Often they are feeling a lot of pressure to learn a skill that will allow them to make money. As the cost of college/university education has increased this issue is even more in the forefront for many. Fortunately there is also a move to re-introduce the apprentice system for many occupations. The question, which many of these same students do not ask or are not encouraged to ask out loud is, “Why?” Why go to college or trade school or become an apprentice? Why make money? Are we going to work in a job we hate (over 70% of the population of the United States) so that we can raise and educate children to take a job that they hate so that they can? Really?
The other day, I was talking to the trainer who is working with me at the YMCA. He is getting ready to take a test for additional certification. He is anxious about the test. I asked him what his girlfriend would say is his most valuable quality/characteristic? I suggested she would say his heart. He agreed that she would say that. My sense of this young man is that he is lovingly present no matter what he is doing. Whether he is helping people as an exercise trainer, cooking a meal for his girlfriend, talking with a clerk in a store, his overt or covert goal is to treat others with love and respect. At some point he has learned to take a metaphysical approach to all of life. Whether that essential education came from his parent, another influential adult, a teacher, or it just clicked for him, he figured out that he must first explore “first principles” concepts of being and knowing.
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