educate

Alrighty then. Sorry the socio-political diatribe had to stay up top for so long. Hope I didn’t lose any friends over that. My absence yesterday wasn’t caused of lack of subject matter. Actually, overwhelmed by it, but no time to talk.
So today at lunch I was involved in a conversation in which “beauty” came up again. I presented my usual speech on this subject including our bias, assumptions, prejudices (what? I haven’t posted that here yet? I can’t remember. I’ll check and remedy that if needed, but for now, its not actually required for this thought process.) At the end of my monologue one of the others at the table said, “well, you are interested in ‘educating’ the students rather than just uploading data.” He went on to say that I was causing the students to ask themselves why they believe what they believe.
So I began to think about this ‘educating’ idea. I responded to that last comment with a slight correction. In reality, what I’m trying to do is not to directly cause them to ask themselves why they believe what they believe, but to cause them to ask why I believe what I believe. I feel that if they ask me, it will cause them to do the same for themselves, even if it is only to refute what I’ve said. If I only cause them to ask themselves, then I’ve not really given them anything new with which to grapple.
All this seems very important to me at the moment. What will the emerging culture tolerate from us professor types? I guess what I mean is, will a culture that wants just to look at all the stuff and then decide for themselves what to do with it, what to make of it, tolerate being given the prof’s opinion? In the past, this has meant being told what to make of it all, what to do with the info. Here’s the conclusion to which you should come, now, here’s why.
It’s my desire to make them curious about what I’ve done with the info. I feel if they ask me the question, they’ll listen to the answer. It’s ironic that my job to educate must also include helping them to arrive at the question that needs asking, rather than simply to provide the answer to a question that has never occurred to them.
The new paradigm seems to be to toss out all the stuff but never have it dealt with personally – it never affects behavior or beliefs. The other end of the scale tosses out the desired results, but never claim ownership of the reasons. It seems to me that these are both approaches to “teaching”. One teaches behavior without conviction and one offers information without conviction or affected behavior or belief. Is it possible in our changing climate, to “educate” people to formulate questions that lead to answers that affect what we believe and the way we behave?