The Idols of the Mind

Eric Wilson - 2013

People are no longer thinking, learning, or discovering.  At the same time, more and more schools are not only contributing to the problem but instead are the problem.  I would like to take a moment and examine what exactly these statements mean, but more importantly, challenge you while reading to think of yourself and see if you fall victim as well.

Do we really think?

People are wired and have been conditioned to consume facts.  People in business can recite

the Six Sigma process or the concepts of lean manufacturing, but why do so many companies struggle to implement and execute them?  There are people that amaze me with details of history but still do not understand how to learn from it.  We are led to believe that we understand a concept by reciting its definition.  How many people truly think about the concept to understand it?

Think about this: many of you learned in school that “a republic is government of the people, by the people, for the people.”  This catchy phrase most likely stuck in your mind.  Memorizing it or quoting it may lead many to think they understand what it means.  Truth is, most people could not intelligibly answer any of the following questions:

1. What is the difference between a government of the people and a government for the people?
2. What is the difference between a government for the people and a government by the people?
3. What is the difference between a government by the people and a government of the people?

The whole process of public (and private) education is flawed, but it is all we seem to know.  National assessment in virtually every subject indicated that – although they can perform basic skills – our students are not doing well in critical thinking.  Textbooks pay scant attention to big ideas and concepts that cause students to think.  Teachers teach most content now for only exposure and not for understanding.  Students at every level are fed a diet of facts, dates, formulas, definitions, and figures.  A perfect example of this is today’s emphasis on academic clubs that have competitions based on recall of information while we no longer have debate clubs that foster and reward the use of reason.

Do we really learn?

Ironically, in the age of information, what we know or what information we have access to fails to equate to what we learn.  We rely heavily on the easy accessibility of information, and – in essence – continue getting dumber.  Information is not knowledge, and in the age of information and technology overload, new ideas are being stifled as we are becoming a “wiki” society of facts instead of an innovative society of concepts and learning.

Consider this comparison between learning and information:

1. Learning is said to be an ongoing process.  Information is something that one gets at some point in their life.
2. Learning is knowledge gained through experience.  Information is knowledge gained through inquiry.
3. Learning is something that evolves in the inner self.  Information is something that an individual gets from an outside source.

Teachers have been taught themselves and view their role as providing answers to questions instead of developing questions.  Teachers many times (either out of training or laziness) avoid thought-provoking work and generally stick to tried-and-true, predictable routines of blackboard notes, textbooks, and short answer tests.

Do we really think we learn?

Knowledge no longer seems to beget new knowledge; we just continue the reinforcing of bad habits and are not growing and learning.

Francis Bacon (in his book “The Advancement of Learning”) called attention to the fact that most people – if left to their own devices – develop bad habits of thought which he called "idols" that lead them to believe what is false or misleading.  He called attention to:

1. "Idols of the tribe" - the ways our mind naturally tends to trick itself
2. "Idols of the marketplace" - the ways we misuse words
3. "Idols of the theater" - our tendency to become trapped in conventional systems of thought
4. "Idols of the schools" - the problems in thinking based on blind rules and poor instruction

People – especially teachers – are highly likely to teach others in the way they were educated.  This explains why private schools (and many, many home schools) – although they are well-intentioned and in many ways superior to their public counter parts – reproduce the same learning system and develop the same problems.

Howard Gardner (author of “5 Minds of The Future”) put it this way: “People are loath to alter practices with which they were raised and with which they are now all too comfortable.”

I guess another – less poetic – way of saying all this is that we are stuck on stupid.

The culminating result of all of this is a disastrous trend of, not only schools and students, but people and societies no longer having the ability to think, learn, and discover.  Make no mistake; a generation raised with “conveyor belt” education will never be a generation of leaders or statesmen.  Without critical thinking and understanding of history, our leaders will only react to crisis and repeat the worst mistakes.  Without people thinking for themselves, truth will be replaced by power and eventually by force.  By manufacturing meritocracy, we will not realize the economic growth we have the potential for, and will lose the innovation we once enjoyed.

“We are caught in a vicious circle of mediocre practice modeled after mediocre practice, of trivialized knowledge begetting more trivialized knowledge.  Unless we find a way out of this circle, we will continue re-creating generations of teachers who re-create generations of students who are not prepared for the society we wish to be.” – Mary Kennedy (Policy Issues in Teaching Education, 1991)

Are you really thinking, learning, and discovering?

If we are to succeed and prepare our children, we must break this cycle.  Do not get me wrong, there are exceptions out there, such as Monticello College which is one of the only institutions of higher education in America – which I know of – that is consciously preparing leaders and citizens to think, learn, and discover.

More importantly, it must start at home, and it must start with you.

1. Examine yourself and begin to consciously think and challenge yourself to learn.
2. Seek knowledge that guides your thinking to further knowledge.
3. Seek foundational principles and use them as guideposts and anchors in learning. 

In the end, will you take command or will you let other people, groups, or schools define thinking for you and your children?