Thanks for sharing the article, Randy! This statement, with the preceding paragraph, really struck me: “What is really lost when this happens is the self-invention of a human brain. If students don’t learn to think, then no amount of access to information will do them any good.”
In Franny and Zooey by Salinger, Franny goes on a tirade about how no one ever suggests that the end result of learning is to gain wisdom. That on college campuses, wisdom is never even mentioned. People are just building up little stockpiles of information, without any thought to the purpose.
These two thoughts seem connected in an important way — what is it we are actually instilling in our students? What scares me isn’t that we are not omniscient…it is how many of us participate without careful intent.
Jenifer Hanson
Thanks for sharing the article, Randy! This statement, with the preceding paragraph, really struck me: “What is really lost when this happens is the self-invention of a human brain. If students don’t learn to think, then no amount of access to information will do them any good.”
In Franny and Zooey by Salinger, Franny goes on a tirade about how no one ever suggests that the end result of learning is to gain wisdom. That on college campuses, wisdom is never even mentioned. People are just building up little stockpiles of information, without any thought to the purpose.
These two thoughts seem connected in an important way — what is it we are actually instilling in our students? What scares me isn’t that we are not omniscient…it is how many of us participate without careful intent.