Donna Doherty

“It’s likely that through out history, most people have never been particularly well educated, and the world has gotten by somehow. Independent thinking is a category that almost by definition applies to a small number of people, because the majority of people tend to think alike. . . The average person is as smart as he or she needs to be. And if we get in some terrible mess, then people are going to wake up and try to figure out what needs to be done.” (author William T. Vollman, interview reprinted in Utne, May-June ’07)

After reading those words, I had to stop and think--really question--whether I thought this perspective was true. Part of me saw that this view of modern people was practical and had definite merit. I could see some of my students agreeing with the idea that they were smart enough for what life was likely to bring their way. But a bigger part of me protested against the notion that most people didn’t need to think independently, or that the masses would “wake up” when it became necessary.

In my years of work with high school students, I’ve seen so many minds that were asleep, lulled by boredom, repetition and small, narrow thought. As Albert Einstein said, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.” Both internal and external pressures push teachers to focus on the mundane, practical and testable aspects of learning. At the high school level, we rarely hear about teaching kids to be informed citizens any more; instead, we are training them to get good jobs that will pay well.

Sometimes I feel as if I am waging a covert operation against societal mediocrity in thought. Between our culture’s past and our political present, there appears to be an underlying fear of knowledge and independent ideas. Science continues to be pitted against religious orthodoxy, and political or social dissent is viewed as subversive. To remain half asleep, lulled by new gadgets and constant, content-less entertainment, is so easy. National news has morphed into infotainment, with breaking stories simplified down to sound bites. Where is empathy to be developed when tragedy and triumph are delivered with the same half-smiling monotone? How will we learn to draw our own conclusions when reasons are irrelevant and outcomes prejudged? The timeless words of Socrates whisper to our society, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life” . . . “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

In ancient Athens, Socrates was convicted of “corrupting the youth.” Fortunately for me, my modern teenagers have an instinctive tendency to be drawn to what seems subversive. Both my Sophomore and Junior/Senior groups ate up anything I gave them on Philosophy, especially the old Greeks. I’ve seen what transformations take place when those minds wake up. As an English teacher, I rely on reading and writing as my primary tools to awaken sleeping minds and open doors to intellectual discovery and discourse. Students in my Global Mythology class almost unanimously rated our comparative world religions unit as the most relevant and powerful learning. They were allowed to examine their own prior experiences and biases, look at religions from the perspective of those who practice them, consider religions’ impact on history, and directly relate what they were learning to current events in world news. Many of these young people exchanged assumptions for open-minded inquiry. Especially when coupled with discussion and art, reading and writing can lead to expansion of understanding and vision. It appears that when minds wake up, they are hungry!

The most powerful and significant writing that my students produced this last year was inspired by the most demanding intellectual areas of inquiry. After reading All Quiet on the Western Front, Night, and Lord of the Flies, I presented my tenth graders with an “impossible” essay assignment: define human nature and analyze how it plays out in historical events, current news, and personal experience. I explained that many of them might find themselves more confused about human nature when they were done than when they started. Together we built up banks of resources, perspectives, small chunks of writing, structure options. Then each individual struggled to sort through, add to and pull all the pieces together. The whole huge process was so exciting and significant because not only my honors-bound Sophomores, but also the “regulars” were able to tackle a multi-faceted inquiry and write successful essays expressing their insights, discoveries and opinions. They truly impressed themselves. My students demonstrated that demanding expectations, carefully scaffolded, yield powerful results. As two ancient Chinese philosophers expressed, “The object of the superior man is truth” (Confucius) and “He who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small man.” (Mencius) How can narrow, practical expectations lead to great writing?

I believe I am honor-bound as a teacher to facilitate and entice all my students to go on the path to intellectual awakening. I believe that we are already “in some terrible mess” but not enough people are awake yet. The real challenges facing our emerging adults will require advanced abilities in critical thinking, dissent, creative problem solving, vision, expressing shared ideas, collaboration, and even hope. I agree with these words of Confucius: “He who learns but does not think is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” The practical will always be with us, but the intellectual will thrive only if we actively encourage and facilitate it.