Language Shapes Thought
Regardless of political affiliation, I think the consensus concerning last night’s debate was that it was bland, uninformative, and downright boring. I was hoping to hear some real issues, real distinctions between the two candidates. I did not. If I did see a new side from anyone, it was Tom Brokaw, who was gruff, impatient, and a veritable clock Nazi when it came to keeping the candidates to their time restraints. And it was amid this realization about Brokaw’s obsession with time that I had an epiphany–of course this debate is boring and uninspiring. It’s engineered that way. News outfits buy up a specific time slot and provide questions to be delivered in easily disectable sound bites that can be tossed immediately around morning news programs in neat packages that still leave time for the “informed” news anchor to cut to a segment about dogs that sing. It’s downright scary.
When the Bailout Bill was to be decided, did it have to be decided in under thirty seconds? Within one day? No. It waited until our representatives and the President were sure they had the facts right and had deliberated sufficiently enough to arrive at the best solution possible. It took a little longer, but aren’t we glad they took the time to take it seriously?
To me, a presidential debate should be like a baseball game. Prepare for nine innings, but in the end, if the candidates need extra innings for it to be decided definitively who the best man for the job is, then let the TV time run over. The Oscars do it for crying out loud! Shouldn’t those running for the most powerful and important office in the nation be allowed to run over the music if it means delivering a point that could be crucial to our decision making and therefore our future? I think so. And we don’t owe the candidates 90 seconds. Rather, they owe us a valid explanation of their policy positions in full, not just sound bites.
A president will have to made split second decisions in under 90 seconds, and this needs to be considered. But for us to determine who we want making those split second decisions, we need sound point by point policies, not snippets and not sound bites.
It really is a catch 22. Spark Notes is out there. It’s on the web, it’s in the bookstore, and kids are going to use it. It’s not a fight worth fighting-trying to ban spark notes that is. I just assume that kids are reading it, and I’m ok with that.
What I’m not ok with is that many assessments require that a student only read Spark Notes and not the literature itself. If you can get through the shortened version of Great Expectations and get the same grade, why go through the trouble? I sure wouldn’t. But the richness of the language, the style, and voice of the writer is lost. What’s the point of mere plot summary or theme analysis when the student doesn’t even have to think because it is laid out right in front of him? At that point, you’re not teaching English; you’re teaching sound bites; you’re teaching factoids.
To combat this, and to combat cheating in general, my English tests for sophomores through seniors are now open book and open notes, but they are impossible to pass with just Spark Notes (or inactive reading and shoddy note taking). The tests present a few themes coupled with character names, and students are then required to pull quotes from the actual text and apply them to the themes while explaining their significance. Many times, they ask a student to take that quote and theme and relate it to an entirely different idea not yet mentioned on the test. The tests are only a few questions long, but the point is, students have to consider the text, are rewarded for their individual work in class (most do well if they have taken notes and have read the actual book) and actually do some thinking instead of just regurgitating facts.
Spark Notes is out there. But thankfully, I’ve stopped fighting. I just abandoned plot and decided to acknowledge that my students have a brain.
I’m not going to get political, but I did feel like my life had no meaning after watching the Vice Presidential debates the other night. Here’s why:
I spend my life these days grading papers and writing memos to students saying things like, ”Good point, but you didn’t answer the question” or “Well said, but this doesn’t relate to the thesis” or “This answer was from the last unit” when the test is clearly on another unit. And when that happens, the student doesn’t get an A. In some cases, he doesn’t get any credit at all, because, he failed to support his claim with evidence or failed to answer the question altogether.
Both political parties are at fault, but during the debate last Thursday, did anyone else find themselves throwing up their hands when questions about the bailout plan were answered with musings on energy? That wasn’t the question. But maybe I’ve got it wrong. Maybe I’m teaching my students the wrong things. Perhaps when I ask about Emerson’s thoughts on science and trancendentalism, I should give them full credit when they write, “Mr. N., I’m going to speak to you directly about RNA synthesis instead.” Well, Johnny, you sure stated your position on biology well. Here’s an A.
I take this seriously. In fact, I’m loosing sleep now over the students I had four years ago who earned (I thought) Bs and Cs because they were just “speaking to me directly” about other things and just didn’t want to answer my questions. Will I have to track them all down and apologize? Should I call the principal and change their transcripts? I’ve failed them. Clearly in the real word you don’t have to be accountable for having the right answer. You just need to to be able to speak to people directly.
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