April 22, 1997

Anna White

Calico Cockledoo

Come May 31st another batch of blue-gowned, yellow tasseled seniors will bid farewell to the brick walkways of their alma mater. As they walk, with arms outreached, to collect their long-heralded diplomas, many graduates will be thinking only one thing: At last! Long years of sitting, pen in hand, listening to droning lecturers, painstakingly

taking notes, cramming knowledge into my tender head, and enduring tortuous tests-at last! My education is over!

Maybe the education never started.

Indeed, it is questionable whether much of what goes on in our country's so-called "educational" institutions really constitutes education at all.

Education, we have been "taught," is the uncontested acceptance of knowledge. As students we are masters of memorization and regurgitation. We are passive peons, humble before our omniscient educators who are charged with the arduous task of filling up the empty, vacuous receptacles of our minds with important trivia.

We are taught what "is known" and what "is true." We are spoon-fed answers, but not encouraged to ask new questions. We are told to spew out our fact filled brains in order to make the all important grade. Come exam time, class becomes one big synchronized upchuck. Facts flying left and right, spurting out haphazardly onto exam papers.

The dominant system of education is simply, a bulimic orgy of knowledge. Or in "Stand By Me" lingo, our pedagogic methodology is one big "barf-o-rama."

Many a study has shown students forget much of what they learn in class. Many data are obsolete by the time it reaches textbooks. Many professors' lectures are redundant summaries of the textbook.

The importance of critical thinking in education has been forgotten somewhere. So what if carbon dioxide is a green house gas? So what if a democracy is "governance by the people?" So what if pi equals 3.14?

True, many students prefer multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank and quick short answer definitions. They like the predictability. They like not having to think. Ooooh, professor, stop asking me questions, my brain hurts!

But educational apathy comes from habits well-tuned from as early as elementary school. It is hard for the dedicated teacher to reverse learning patterns rooted in memorization and developed well over a decades time.

It is difficult to combat television which has deadened the mind and preconditioned the audience for passivity. But for educators to use these things as excuses is a cop-out.

The University of Delaware is headed in the right direction. Two weeks ago, the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education at the university received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

This money will be used to prove that education is not simply about memorization, droning lectures, and spew-back exams, but about sparking curiosity and creative thinking. Most of all, this money will further the good example many professors at this university are already setting.

Who are these trend-setting educators? These women and men treat students as equals, talking with rather than at them.

They know how to engage discussion in a lecture hall, making a large class seem small. They speak not at a pulpit, but often organize class into circles. They exude contagious enthusiasm for their subject matter and are willing topic a motivated student out of the crowd and devote countless hours as a personal mentor. They ask difficult questions. They challenge students to think. They open new windows of awareness, enabling students to see the world in a refreshingly new way. They take the time to read papers and write comments and criticisms in the margins. They give students a reason to come to class. And most important, they are humble and they are humorous.

These special individuals all understand a fundamental truth: Education does not necessarily lie in a book, a lecture, or a professor. It lies within. It is a process, not an entity. Educators are facilitators of learning, but the true teachers are ourselves.

Thus, if one is truly "educated," one can never leave one's education behind. It is a lifelong journey of personal discovery that does not end with the acceptance of a diploma. And it begins with the knowledge that education is more about seeking the right questions than about finding all the answers. It is more about active debate than about passive acceptance. It is about dialogue, not dictation.

Looks sometimes twist the facts. A high school ROTC text book still teaches that the country's fledgling military forces needed to "pacify the Indians," justifying the hostile takeover of this continents indigenous peoples.

Professors don't always have the facts straight. Exams are often culturally-biased. One Saudi-Arabian student said prior to his arrival in the United States he took a standardized American exam with a multiple-choice question relating to the "typical weather around Christmas time."

While paying so much attention to the all important grade teachers and students often forget what they are measuring or fail to question whether they are truly measuring anything at all.

If you teach a class on this campus, jump on the educational bandwagon: take advantage of the opportunities this NFS grant will give you. You may find that your students will respect and appreciate you more than if you arbitrarily inflate their grades.

To all the educators on this campus who are already constant inspiration to us students, thank you. You make us students realize that we have indeed paid for more than little red brick walkways.

We can continue to force feed ourselves, cram studying only to barf out undigested and mixed-up what was put in. Lets strive, rather, for some innovative methods of educational retention.

Anna White is a weekly columnist for The Review. Calico Cockledoo appears every Friday. Sende e-mail responses to thelorax@udel.edu.