Dear Friends,
This blog is to explore the topic; 'Could the three Rs be making humans dumb', keeping in mind that the three Rs were not required to bring humans to their present level of intelligence. The following posts were made in another discussion group.
1. Are the three Rs making humans dumb? (14 May 2015)
2. Education vs Literacy. (13 Jun 2015)
3. Children teach themselves to read. (14 Jul 2015)
4. Self education / The Literary (8 Aug 2015)
5. Schools should be more like farms not factories (8 Aug 2015)
6. The tortured history of education (8 Aug 2015)
7. Dyslexia (4/9/2016)
... to be continued
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This blog is to explore the topic; 'Could the three Rs be making humans dumb', keeping in mind that the three Rs were not required to bring humans to their present level of intelligence. The following posts were made in another discussion group.
1. Are the three Rs making humans dumb? (14 May 2015)
2. Education vs Literacy. (13 Jun 2015)
3. Children teach themselves to read. (14 Jul 2015)
4. Self education / The Literary (8 Aug 2015)
5. Schools should be more like farms not factories (8 Aug 2015)
6. The tortured history of education (8 Aug 2015)
7. Dyslexia (4/9/2016)
... to be continued
(1) Are the three Rs making humans dumb? (14 May 2015)
A look at evolutionary history:
Reading, Writing and Arithmetic are of recent origin and so
can have little to do with our innate intelligence. It is reasonable to assume
that human intelligence peaked when humans were in the hunter-gatherer stage.
How did the little hunter gatherer learn?
* By imitating the adults of his
tribe. (Let's not throw garbage all around)
* By naturally learning the language
of his tribe.
* By story telling and verbal
knowledge passed on through the generations.
* His mathematical skills may not have been too bad, even if
he had to use his little fingers for the purpose.
The point is, wide teaching of the
three R's did not take off probably till the beginning of the 20th century.
That does not mean humans were dumb before that. We also know that greats like
Newton and Einstein did not excel in school in their earlier years, hence there
is no sound base for pushing the three R's on younger and younger children.
Indeed we need to debate whether we can delay the teaching of the three R's.
To be continued ....
Regards,
Selvaraj
Reference:
(His argument is based on the fact
that for more than 99 per cent of human evolutionary history, we have lived as
hunter-gatherer communities surviving on our wits, leading to big-brained
humans. Since the invention of agriculture and cities, however, natural
selection on our intellect has effective stopped and mutations have accumulated
in the critical “intelligence” genes.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-intelligence-peaked-thousands-of-years-ago-and-weve-been-on-an-intellectual-and-emotional-decline-ever-since-8307101.html )
( A third source of evidence is the fossil record of hominoid evolution, which shows significant growth in brain size for several million years without a corresponding increase in the use of either language or tools. Then suddenly (in evolutionary time), the distinctively human traits of language, symbols and tools appeared.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-intelligence-peaked-thousands-of-years-ago-and-weve-been-on-an-intellectual-and-emotional-decline-ever-since-8307101.html )
( A third source of evidence is the fossil record of hominoid evolution, which shows significant growth in brain size for several million years without a corresponding increase in the use of either language or tools. Then suddenly (in evolutionary time), the distinctively human traits of language, symbols and tools appeared.
Devlin argues that our ancestors'
increase in brain size was driven not by acquisition of language (as most
standard theories assert) but by the selective advantage conferred by a richer
understanding of relationships among objects in the physical environment and in
an increasingly complex social world. Once the brain reached sufficient size
and complexity, it rather quickly developed the capacity for what Devlin calls
"off-line" or "what-if" thinking—the capacity to reason
hypothetically about relationships and abstractions that undergirds both
language and mathematics.
Thus, according to this argument,
when the human brain acquired the ability to use language, it automatically
acquired the ability to do mathematics. It follows, contrary to popular wisdom,
that everyone has a metaphorical "math gene." It is not genetics but
interest that makes the difference between those who are hooked on mathematics
and those who prefer soap operas.—Lynn Arthur Steen, Mathematics, St. Olaf
College, Northfield, Minnesota
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(2) Education vs Literacy (13 Jun 2015)
Akbar is believed to be the most successful of the Mogul
emperors. He had a glittering court with exceptional talent; Birbal, Tansen and
many others adorned his court. Art scholarship and culture flourished in his
empire. He even tried to start a new religion. Yet ....
... He spent his youth learning to hunt, run, and fight, which made him a daring, powerful and a brave warrior, but he never learned to read or write. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar
... He spent his youth learning to hunt, run, and fight, which made him a daring, powerful and a brave warrior, but he never learned to read or write. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akbar
Akbar appears to have been the only illiterate emperor in
the Mogul dynasty. Was that a handicap? Surely not, he had the best of talent
to debate with and learn from. Books were read to him and whatever he said
would have been written down.
Hence we can say that Akbar was educated and well informed
but illiterate. Unfortunately our educational system does not make this all
important distinction, it seems to equate an illiterate person with one who is
uneducated.
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Could making the distinction between Education and Literacy
be important for our educational system? Especially where young children are
concerned.
My view is that it is possible to give a good education to
children in the 0 - 10 age group without bringing literacy (the ability to read
and write) into the picture.
Instead of focusing on the three Rs, the focus can be
shifted to learning languages, and learning science and other subjects orally.
If a child is able to string four coherent sentences together verbally, there
is no reason why he will not be able to write coherently at a later stage.
(This does not mean that the child should not be casually introduced to the
alphabets and numerals).
I have also strong objections to children learning to read
and write at too early an age for another reason. It is difficult to engage in
these tasks without distorting the body. In the age group 0 - 6 especially,
when the nervous system is not fully developed it would be wiser not to engage
in these tasks.
Let us once again analyse what
Rousseau had to say .....
It
was the delayed shock waves of the ideas of an 18th-century Frenchman that were
to crack the foundations of education in the 20th century and cause their
virtual upheaval in the United States. The man was Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(1712-78). The child, as Rousseau saw him, unfolds or develops--intellectually,
physically, and emotionally--much like a plant……….
"Children," observed
Rousseau, "are always in motion: a sedentary life is injurious." From
age 2 to 12, therefore, Rousseau envisioned the cultivation of the body and the
senses, not the intellect. When the youngster's intellect begins to develop, at
about 12 to 15, he can begin the study of such things as science and
geography. The study, however, should begin not with an organized body of
abstract knowledge but with the things that interest the child in the world
around him. He must learn not by memorizing but by firsthand experience.
"He is not to learn science: he is to find it out for himself," Rousseau
said. Only when he is 15 should book learning
begin.
…………… Compton's interactive encyclopedia
Selvaraj
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(3) Children teach themselves to read. (10 Jul 2015)
The general assumption in our culture is that children must be taught to read. Vast amounts of research go into trying to figure out the scientifically best way to do this. In the education stacks of any major university library you can find rows and rows of books and many journals devoted solely to the topic of how to teach reading. In education circles heated debates--dubbed "the reading wars"--have raged for decades between those who believe that most emphasis should be placed on teaching phonics and those who take what is called a "whole language" approach to reading instruction. Many controlled experiments have been conducted comparing one instruction method to another, with kindergartners and first graders as the guinea pigs. The phonics people say that their method has "won" in those experiments, and the whole language people say that the experiments were rigged....
.... In marked contrast to all this frenzy about teaching reading stands the view of people involved in the "unschooling" movement and the Sudbury "non-school" school movement, who claim that reading need not be taught at all! As long as kids grow up in a literate society, surrounded by people who read, they will learn to read. They may ask some questions along the way and get a few pointers from others who already know how to read, but they will take the initiative in all of this and orchestrate the entire process themselves. This is individualized learning, but it does not require brain imaging or cognitive scientists, and it requires little effort on the part of anyone other than the child who is learning. Each child knows exactly what his or her own learning style is, knows exactly what he or she is ready for, and will learn to read in his or her own unique way, at his or her unique schedule.
https://www.psychologytoday.
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Is this old-fashioned culture of self-improvement making a comeback? The mainstream school system — with its barrage of tests, Common Core and “excellent sheep” — encourages learning as a passive, standardized process. But here and there, with the help of YouTube and thousands of podcasts, a growing group of students and adults are beginning to supplement their education.
School isn’t going away. But more and more people are realizing what their 19th-century predecessors knew: that the best learning is often self-taught.
Back then, it was a matter of necessity. There were plenty of schoolhouses in 19th-century America, but few young people could attend them regularly. They had to work. Most pieced together a semester of classes here, three months there.
In 1870, students averaged under 80 days in school each year. Even though America had incredibly high literacy rates, and admirable schools for those with free time, most young Americans supplemented formal schooling with their own makeshift curriculums....
..... Perhaps the literary offers the best lesson for modern self-educators. For all its shortcomings, 19th-century self-education taught young Americans to openly engage with the conflicts of life, to debate and argue, not to rely on adults to shape their futures. Every step of the modern school system discourages this contrarian individualism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/
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(3) Children teach themselves to read. (10 Jul 2015)
The general assumption in our culture is that children must be taught to read. Vast amounts of research go into trying to figure out the scientifically best way to do this. In the education stacks of any major university library you can find rows and rows of books and many journals devoted solely to the topic of how to teach reading. In education circles heated debates--dubbed "the reading wars"--have raged for decades between those who believe that most emphasis should be placed on teaching phonics and those who take what is called a "whole language" approach to reading instruction. Many controlled experiments have been conducted comparing one instruction method to another, with kindergartners and first graders as the guinea pigs. The phonics people say that their method has "won" in those experiments, and the whole language people say that the experiments were rigged....
.... In marked contrast to all this frenzy about teaching reading stands the view of people involved in the "unschooling" movement and the Sudbury "non-school" school movement, who claim that reading need not be taught at all! As long as kids grow up in a literate society, surrounded by people who read, they will learn to read. They may ask some questions along the way and get a few pointers from others who already know how to read, but they will take the initiative in all of this and orchestrate the entire process themselves. This is individualized learning, but it does not require brain imaging or cognitive scientists, and it requires little effort on the part of anyone other than the child who is learning. Each child knows exactly what his or her own learning style is, knows exactly what he or she is ready for, and will learn to read in his or her own unique way, at his or her unique schedule.
https://www.psychologytoday.
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(4) Self education / The literary (8/Aug/ 2015)
EACH summer, when school ends, education mostly stops short, too. But it hasn’t always been that way. For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process. Devouring books by candlelight and debating issues by bonfire, the young men and women of the so-called “go-ahead generation” worked to educate themselves into a better life.Is this old-fashioned culture of self-improvement making a comeback? The mainstream school system — with its barrage of tests, Common Core and “excellent sheep” — encourages learning as a passive, standardized process. But here and there, with the help of YouTube and thousands of podcasts, a growing group of students and adults are beginning to supplement their education.
School isn’t going away. But more and more people are realizing what their 19th-century predecessors knew: that the best learning is often self-taught.
Back then, it was a matter of necessity. There were plenty of schoolhouses in 19th-century America, but few young people could attend them regularly. They had to work. Most pieced together a semester of classes here, three months there.
In 1870, students averaged under 80 days in school each year. Even though America had incredibly high literacy rates, and admirable schools for those with free time, most young Americans supplemented formal schooling with their own makeshift curriculums....
..... Perhaps the literary offers the best lesson for modern self-educators. For all its shortcomings, 19th-century self-education taught young Americans to openly engage with the conflicts of life, to debate and argue, not to rely on adults to shape their futures. Every step of the modern school system discourages this contrarian individualism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/
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"If you design a system to do something specific, don't be surprised if it does it," Robinson writes. "If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity that suppresses individuality, imagination, and creativity, don't be surprised if that's what it does."
http://www.businessinsider.in/
(5) Schools should be more like farms not factories (8 Aug 2015)
Unfortunately for today's students, the grassroots revolution Robinson points to is slow-going. Schools have largely failed to change the analogy upon which they operate, either out of laziness, lack of creativity, or simply ignorance."If you design a system to do something specific, don't be surprised if it does it," Robinson writes. "If you run an education system based on standardization and conformity that suppresses individuality, imagination, and creativity, don't be surprised if that's what it does."
http://www.businessinsider.in/
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Although deeply influenced by
Greek education, Roman education was nonetheless quite different. For
most Greeks, the end of education was to produce a good citizen, and a
good citizen meant a well-rounded individual. The goal of Roman
education was the same, but for the Romans a good citizen meant an
effective speaker. The result was that they disregarded such
nonutilitarian Greek studies as science, philosophy, music, dancing, and
gymnastics, basing their education instead on literature and oratory.
Even their study of literature, with its overemphasis on the
technicalities of grammar and its underemphasis on content, had the
purpose of producing good orators.
When the Roman Republic
became an empire, in 31
BC, the school studies lost even their
practical value. For then it was not the orator in the Senate but the
emperor who had the power.
Because of the emphasis on the technical study of language and literature and because the language and literature studied represented the culture of a foreign people, Roman education was remote from the real world and the interests of the schoolboys. Vigorous discipline was therefore necessary to motivate them to study. And the Roman boys were not the last to suffer in this situation. When the empire fell, the education that was originally intended to train orators for the Roman Senate became the model for European education and dominated it until the 20th century.
http://history-world.org/
-------------------
http://www.thehindu.com/opinio
(6)The tortured history of education (8 Aug 2015)
Although deeply influenced by
Greek education, Roman education was nonetheless quite different. For
most Greeks, the end of education was to produce a good citizen, and a
good citizen meant a well-rounded individual. The goal of Roman
education was the same, but for the Romans a good citizen meant an
effective speaker. The result was that they disregarded such
nonutilitarian Greek studies as science, philosophy, music, dancing, and
gymnastics, basing their education instead on literature and oratory.
Even their study of literature, with its overemphasis on the
technicalities of grammar and its underemphasis on content, had the
purpose of producing good orators.
When the Roman Republic
became an empire, in 31
BC, the school studies lost even their
practical value. For then it was not the orator in the Senate but the
emperor who had the power.Because of the emphasis on the technical study of language and literature and because the language and literature studied represented the culture of a foreign people, Roman education was remote from the real world and the interests of the schoolboys. Vigorous discipline was therefore necessary to motivate them to study. And the Roman boys were not the last to suffer in this situation. When the empire fell, the education that was originally intended to train orators for the Roman Senate became the model for European education and dominated it until the 20th century.
http://history-world.org/
-------------------
(7) Dyslexia (4/9/2016)
DALI decoded
The test, Dyslexia Assessment for Languages of India (DALI), consists of a Junior Screening Tool for students in Classes I and II and a longer Middle Screening Tool for those aged 8-10. It consists of testing the child’s facility for naming pictures, the ability to identify words that rhyme, distinguish the individual sounds that make up words and manipulate them, reason with ‘nonsense’ words (essentially, pronounce made-up words), comprehending paragraphs, and mathematical reasoning. The big lesson from the test, says Ms. Singh, is that children shouldn’t be forced to begin reading and writing until they are extremely comfortable in one language. “There’s much research to show that children can rapidly pick up a second language if they are fluent in one,” she says...http://www.thehindu.com/opinio
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