Reflection lost – Are we living like the catchfools of Pinocchio?
I’d been reflecting a bit this past week on, well, reflection. Reflection is an important life skill, one often under-discussed in education and ministry circles. John Dewey was the first to give it importance in response against the mechanistic Tylerian approaches to teaching/learning. If learning is a disruption of our normal way of viewing a subject, our minds need time to calm those waters and assign meaning to what was just learned.
Take a short-term cross cultural trip, for example. Imagine that you didn’t schedule in any time to discuss the day with your students. Think about how shallow it’d be to not spend time reflecting on the variety of experiences and encounters.
Yet most of us spend little time in reflection. Most gleefully avoid critical thinking, happy to consume the latest ____. Which made me think of the story of Pinocchio. Have we again morphed into a society much like that of the city of Catchfools in Pinnochio?
Imagine you were the fox and cat and you wanted to ensnare (control?) a group of people.
You would get them craving addictive forms of food that didn’t help them be healthy
You’d entertain them with the latest dazzlements that left them wanting even more the next time
You’d educate them in ways that didn’t foster critical thinking or ability to challenge set norms.
You’d interrupt their ability to connect interpersonally and prefer isolation and being a part of the ‘crowd’.
You’d facilitate their desire to lie or make then concern only for their own protection and interests versus living for for a greater good, a communal reality that serves others.
I exaggerate a bit, of course, and sound like an alarmist (of course), but reflect a bit with me, won’t you? How are we spending our hours each week? Where are we engaging the deep? Every election season in America, our main concern boils down to the economy. As long as we can keep our purchasing power and be connected to the Internet, we’re happy. We feel ‘better’ in an unfamiliar context when we can go shopping. When we sit in classrooms, or engage in long conversations, we’re less comfortable and mentally count the minutes until it’s over.
In some ways, one could argue that we’re losing our ability to think like humans ought to think and a bit more like we’re part of a computer. Again, I exaggerate, I know. It’s ok. I’ve been trained in exaggeration so please don’t try this at home.
This past week, Mike King posted a reference to a TED talk and CNN piece from 2011 by Stanford researcher Philip Zimbardo (who has the book The Demise of Guys: Why Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It
out now). In it, he states:
Boys’ brains are being digitally rewired for change, novelty, excitement and constant arousal. That means they’re totally out of sync in traditional classes, which are analog, static, interactively passive.
There’s something going on here that educators, youth ministry leaders, and parents need to consider. And, as I’ve trolled through discussion boards on the topic, it’s worth reflecting on our own reactions to these types of topics.
Does this make you feel alarmed? Or are you dismissive? Now, in good reflective form, we need to consider why we have that response and whether it’s the right one.
