A Proactive and Engaging Approach towards Education and Skill Acquisition - Essay Example

of the Education of the Concerned 6 December Part I Argumentative Discussion and Debate- A Proactive and Engaging Approach towards Education and Skill Acquisition It is indeed true that human evolution is a process that happens to be ongoing and never ending. Going by the perpetual nature of the scope for human progress and advancement, it is but natural to expect that the vital human institutions like education and instruction are always open to betterment. In that context, the traditional approaches towards education happened to be passive and content oriented in their approach. Most of the times the content and the nature of pedagogic engagement in such educational approaches lacked any direct student contribution or say. Thereby, the intellectual domain of students was predominantly taken to be a tabula rasa, which was bombarded with content. Stress was laid on imparting learning through passive participation, without extending any relevance and importance to the inner thought processes. However, the thing that needs to be understood is that the current times defined by multi channel engagement, abundance of interactive media and ideological plurality and diversity, such passive modes of education are no more relevant today. The young minds today do need to develop the capacity for engaging in participative discussion and the ability to debate varied views defining an issue or a topic. Discussion and debate are more pragmatic, participative and proactive approaches towards education that encourage active, humanistic and pluralistic learning and the ability to communicate and listen to diverse ideas. The sad thing is that any attempt to educate and instruct that does not allow for contesting the ideas being conveyed can only promote factual obesity. Such an approach no way strengthens the human ability to digest the knowledge being imparted. As Plato said, “a good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers”, passive content transmission can only encourage useless memorization and ideational compliance. It would not be impractical to conclude that the young minds rendered incapable of challenging ideas and entertaining varied ways of interpreting ideas, can no way extend a meaningful social and ideological leadership. Such closed minds are more prone to being supportive of ideological hegemony and the incapacity to welcome differences, opposition and dissent. Certainly this is not the recipe for achieving a progressive and inclusive society. In contrast, as Kuhn conveys, debate and discussion do happen to be, “the most powerful means of evaluating competing ideas, and constructing shared understanding (Kuhn, p. 173).” Participative and discussion oriented learning allows students in an educational set up, to entertain, challenge, understand and context ideas in a mini social scenario. This encourages active learning in the sense that it prepares them to be more meaningful and tolerant citizens, as they move out in the larger social domain. It nurtures human minds that not only turn out to be more empowered and independent, but that also understand that they happen to be the primary stakeholders in their academic and intellectual growth. It is but natural to expect that a student ensuing from a system that is more open to discussion, debate, dissent and differences is more likely to evolve into a tolerant young adult. One is better capable of understanding and empathizing with people supportive of contrary or differing views and perceptions. It is an approach towards education that proactively and directly moulds the individual character along democratic lines. The other important aspect of class room education encouraging discussion and debate is that it helps students acquire the necessary communication skills and an open mindset. Students churned out by such liberal and open academic systems do have the patience and the intellectual capacity required to listen to and tolerate differing opinions and diverse ways of thinking and living. Even a very basic understanding of human history does convey that the primary problem with many of the closed societies was not that they resented ideological diversity. Rather, their bane was that their education system did not inculcate the basic communication skills and the psychological ability to control passions, when faced with opposition and dissent. For instance, no other city state in ancient Greece was ever more willing to make utmost sacrifice for the sake of freedom and liberty, than ancient Sparta. Yet, Spartan civilization perished and declined because it stressed on ideological and social conformity and plurality (Powell, p. 101). Irrespective of being capable of most rigorous physical and emotional discipline, the Spartans political class lacked in the communication skills and the willingness required to open up to social and political dissent. They simply lacked the capacity to talk with and listen to the rebellious social minorities, resentful of the traditional Spartan hegemony (Powell, p. 101). This lack of communication skills and willingness finally led to their fall. However, a plea for encouraging debate and discussion in academic setups will be utterly shallow if it does not touch upon the possible pitfalls that may defeat the expected outcomes of such an approach. There are experts who believe that the fine art of debate is all about securing intellectual domination and ego assertion. Training students in academic discussion and debate need to touch both the head and the heart of young learners. Thereby, if on the one side the students should develop the reasoning ability to weigh and evaluate varied approaches towards an issue, they simultaneously need to be encouraged to acquire the necessary emotional intelligence and insight. This will prevent them from polluting any healthy debate by getting trapped in narrow egoism and intellectual narrow mindedness. Any form of debate and discussion that hardens petty ego identities and does not encourage young minds “to express their respective views and acknowledge their disagreements (Kuhn, p. 149)” is bound to be misinformed and counterproductive. Hence, considering the abundance of available knowledge regarding the subjects and topics of human interest and the emergence on an array of interactive media, it is time that the educators make way for an enhanced student participation in classroom learning. Discussion and debate are active and engaging modes of entertaining and evaluating course content. They encourage a direct, proactive and interactive acquisition of knowledge and communication skills. They hone the mental capacity to dissect and analyze ideas, while strengthening the talent for exercising emotional tolerance in the face of ideological diversity, dissent and opposition. Works Cited Kuhn, Deanna. Education for Thinking. New York: Harvard University Press, 2008. Print Powell, Anton. Athens and Sparta. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print. Part II Drinking Age- The Need to Base Opinion on Credible Facts and Reason The legal drinking age is an issue that is of immense practical and emotional relevance to the American masses. It is an issue that does warrant an informed debate and discussion. It is something that needs to be argued upon while exhibiting immense social and intellectual responsibility. As is with many other such serious social and political issues, the expert opinion will always remain divided and somewhat polarized. However, the democratic freedom to differ should not justify shallow and untenable arguments in support of or in opposition to this issue. In that context it will be really insightful to consider the position taken by Mary Kate Cary and Laura Dean-Mooney in their respective articles regarding the legal drinking age. As is obvious, Mary Kate Cary supports lowering of legal drinking age while Laura Dean-Mooney is in favor of keeping the legal drinking age at 21. It is amply evident that the argument forwarded by Laura Dean-Mooney is more compelling because it is based on reason and logic, it no way tries to emotionally exploit the readers, it is presented in a very convincing and thorough manner and it respects the views and sentiments of important stakeholders associated with the issue being considered. The strength of any social or political opinion maker is that one always makes it a point to base one’s argument on sound reason and logic. That way, it is indeed true that the argument forwarded by Mary Kate Cary falls flat on its face right from the start, as it is based on twisted and faulty logic. For instance, Cary asserts that “in 2010drug overdoses caused more deaths than motor vehicle crashes (Cary, p. 2)”, so there is no harm in lowering the drinking age. This is like saying that since more students die in car accidents than from gun shots, so students may be allowed to bring guns to schools. In contrast, Laura goes on to support one’s stance by asserting the need to respect the conclusions arrived at by the credible and responsible bodies of opinion, rather than trying to dupe the readers by resorting to silly logic or reason. Right from the very start, even a cursory reading of Laura’s article does show that she is trying to convince her readers through reason by presenting a whole body of credible studies, research data, and statistical findings. Nowhere in her article has she tried to influence the reasoning ability of her readers, by touching upon and misleading their emotions. This shows that Laura is not only towing a very responsible line of argument, but she is open to entertaining tenable contrary arguments as she says, “the discussion must be based on facts (Dean-Mooney, p.2)”. For her, her personal ego is less important than the welfare of the people influenced by this issue. In contrast, argument presented by Cary not only underestimates the mental abilities of her readers, but her primary strategy is to influence the public opinion through emotional manipulation. Time and again Laura does try to remind her readers of the carefree joy and bliss of savoring beer at the campus, when the legal drinking age was just 18. Moreover, it is indeed sad to see that instead of showing respect for the statistical findings and data provided by responsible institutions and bodies like scientific researchers, and government organizations, Mary is trying to undermine them by extending unrelated and absurd data and statistics. A better approach would have been to counteract them by presenting more convincing and credible statistical findings in support of her argument. In fact that is what Laura has exactly done. She has added so much strength, relevance and credibility to her line of argument by supporting it with more than enough scientific data and facts. A public orator does not need to rely on rhetorical manipulations, if one can present plain and simple truth. Nothing weighs more on the public mind than the immense power and appeal of a simple truth presented in a straightforward manner. The biggest strength of Laura is that not only is she basing her argument on truthful facts, but she is also making her readers see that she is not averse to welcoming opposing views, provided they are based on truth and facts. The biggest blunder that a public opinion expert can make is to ridicule and disrespect the feelings of such stakeholders who disagree with one. This not only betrays the immaturity of an opinion maker, but also reveals one’s emotional insensitivity and incapacity to respect human sentiments. In that context, Mary in her article does not shy away from ridiculing the achievements and concerns of her opponents like Mothers Against Drunk Driving as she says, “Thanks to MADD, drunk driving isn’t the problem it used to be (Cary, p. 2).”. This seems even harsher, when one considers the fact that many members of this particular organization did lose their loved ones to drunk drivers. The beauty of Laura’ approach is that never even once she appears to be ridiculing, undermining or trivializing her opponents. She comes out as a more credible, responsible and sensitive arguer as compared to Mary. Her argumentative style is very democratic, pluralistic, open and logical. To put it in a few words, if one sets aside one’s personal views regarding the issue being debated in the two articles under consideration, the argument forwarded by Laura Dean-Mooney is more compelling, both in a rational and emotional context. Throughout her argument she does succeed in retaining an element of rationality, reason, credibility, tolerance and sensitivity. In contrast though the writing style of Mary is more stylish and verbose, she comes out as being manipulative and insensitive. Works Cited Cary, Mary Kate. “Time to Lower the Drinking Age.” US News 7 May 2014. Web. 6 December 2014. Dean-Mooney, Laura. “A Lower Age would be Unsafe”. US News 8 September 2008. Web. 6 December 2014. Read More