As a student my response to a rote culture and through it a rote education is mixed. It's easier if you know what is expected but, does it prepare us for college or employment? The idea of a rote culture is introduced in Fast Families, Vertual Children by Ben Agger and Beth Anne Shelton as a way of understanding our fact based, multiple choice education which emphasizes memorization and repetition over creativity and critical thinking. Nowhere was this more apparent to me than when I transitioned from the GECR courses to those in my major, Sociology.
The expectation in most GECR classes is that you study the material until you are able to recognize the correct multiple choice answer or remember the few points that are necessary for a sufficient short answer question. The goal is to remember what you've been told and to commit it to short term memory; without a good understanding of the context or applicability of an isolated fact or event we forget it as soon as the quarter is over. Mostly, I was not expected to interpret or bring my own ideas into my test answer. Many of us probably have bad experiences associated with the few times we attempted to stray from the study topics and bring in our own interpretation or critical thoughts on the topic. We learn right away that there is only one correct answer - the one given to us by the instructor.
For students who went into the 'hard' sciences, I bet this multiple-choice-only-one-answer-fits education continues through the upper level courses as well. Perhaps this is to the benefit of the students learning and future employment but, I don't know; I went in to a liberal arts discipline that stresses interpretation, critical thinking and creativity. I have found my primary and secondary rote education has left me underprepared for the level of critical thinking and creativity that is necessary for sociological thinking.
When I took Social Stratification with Pui-Yan Lam I was challenged to think about and explain why poor minority students have a lower rate of success (statistically) than white middle class or upper class students in all most all levels of education. It was hard for me to think critically about how our educational institutions functioned and I was unable to recognize or articulate the differential treatment that poor and minority students receive compared to white middle or upper class students. Part of it was my own youthful experience as a white student in a mostly white school but, it was also my unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. Having hardly ever been asked to think outside of the box, I had a hard time breaking out of it and seeing what is hidden by our rote culture and rote education - an assembly line that produces and rewards middleclass white ideals, norms and expectations.
Even after two years in the sociology program here at Eastern, I feel like my critical thinking skills are not the sharpest tool in my shed. I still find myself looking through the texts and the discussions for the author or authorities final interpretation and relying on it as if it were the best or only answer to the question. My ability to synthesize information and come up with my own interpretations and ideas is growing but, it has been stunted by the years of rote education that continue to influence my desire for easy clear cut answers.
A rote culture and a rote education has consequences for our problem solving and critical thinking skills. If we hope to improve the world around us, to combat poverty, to end discrimination and hate then, we must be able to think critically about the way and the reasons things are. How can we do this if we don't practice critical thinking in our culture or our education?
To think about and imagine the way that our schools can be organized to promote critical thinking and interpretation is quite hard. I must first imagine schools without the authoritarian reliance on discipline and punishment, on standardized multiple choice question, on teachers who reward white middle class norms and habits. In this imagining I have already transformed schools from a rote education into a more humane and student focused environment where children are not pressured to speak white English, espouse ideas thought up by men a hundred years ago, to regurgitate knowledge out of context and discipline themselves to stay within the established lines and limitations.
Schools relay on rote education because it is easy. If the kids don't question, if they just take it all in and spit it back out at the appropriate times, teachers can rely on packaged lesson plans and standardized tests to teach and evaluate. Easy for teachers but, for students like me, who are now challenged to think creatively and critically it means unlearning a bad habit - looking for the answer rather than contributing an answer that fits the current reality; one that changes with the individual, the setting and the times.
I would agree that most education systems rely on rote culture to feed into their own norms and practices – though to a certain extent maybe this type of mechanism is a necessary evil. Agreed that people need to be able to think critically and independently – but at the same time there is a logistical need to single answer questions. Where would our society be if there were not the hard sciences to nail down some of the more unquestionable questions?
ReplyDeleteCan we honestly say that our abilities to think independently are stunted by rote culture? Or do those years of oppression cause a need for our critical thinking skills to become clearer? Could it be looked as an ends to a means? If we did not have the need to think outside the box because we have been stuck in the box our entire lives – would we even realize that there was a box?