Write two questions and/or comments about the Orr article below as a comment.
I was originally going to provide an example, but I don't want to limit the possibilities of your responses. So let's keep it open. I do, however, expect to see sincere interaction with the texts. So if you're confused, angered, fulfilled, uplifted, intrigued, etc. with the text, explore that! What makes you feel like that? Why? Since this kind of exploration can be extensive and maybe even exhausting, your responses should be more than a couple sentences long. If you have a question, explain it and give context for your question so we can provide a better answer.
Happy reading/responding :)
The Article " What is Education For?" by David Orr was extremely interesting and raised many good points about education today but also a couple questions. One of the points made is that morals and ethics are being taught and enforced less and less by today's society, competition and success have taken their place. An emphasis on wealth, power and control are placed on the the young today. Every part of education is controlled and internally designed to create "successful" people. But because of the change in society and the shift of the moral compass the definition of "success" as obviously changed. Orr later goes on to say that that the education system needs to be changed, which I completely agree with. He makes note of the many subconscious messages being sent to us in the classroom today, always indoors, and as we further out educational careers continually focusing more and more on a specific subject while continually narrowing the scope of that subject. He believes this is part of the reason for people having less and less concern for the earth and its inhabitants both human and not. He suggests that we are all educated in a variety of subjects to enlighten us on all areas to make us more aware of the causes and effects of our actions. Calling for a more general education system. But here is the question that I ask, If you broaden the scope of education would you not be creating a population unfit for the workplace? Could you not but more emphasis on morals and ethics and solve the same problem?
ReplyDeleteI am not the most environmentally friendly person, so when I started reading this article I immediately felt a sense of guilt and desperation about all the ways our society destroys the planet. I strongly agree that there is a myth that our society can fix what it has broken. With that said, I also strongly agree that education does not bring wisdom, morality, ethics, common sense or real human kindness. I have come across so many people who have all the book smarts in the world, but have no compassion for others. We grown up with an idea that is ingrained in our minds- if we keep learning we will be successful. Success is superficial. Success is cold and cruel without real human kindness. The article was exactly right in saying that there are enough successful people in the world. We need peacemakers and healers. I think before we can fix our planet and the forces that destroy it, our society needs to realize the effects that ignorance has on human connection and start using some common sense.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI hate to put up such a long post but here it is. I get I kind of off-putting feeling because of the authors somewhat "doomsday" tone and his pessimism/cynicism. I also didn't find much in that was convincing or moving. One thing I had issue with is that all the lines of writing that I found effective and moving were not his own, I am referencing to the Elie Wiesel, Tom Merton, Barry Lopez, and Ron Miller quotations. I particularly liked the Elie Wiesel quote. The only effective rhetoric, if you will, I found is his third myth that "knowledge is increasing, and by implication human goodness" but I think this is actually embodied better by the Elie Wiesel quote. I do personally believe that humanity is negatively effecting the enviroment but not as much as is sometimes thought. I also dislike the "Calcuttan poverty" line because I do not think the poor of India who live in slums made of cardboard and spare wood who literally live near cesspools is comparable to the poverty we find in the United States where there is welfare and medicaid, the analogy does not fit, I think it would have been more effective to discuss how Western Europe is more willing than us to help alleviate poverty even when we have much more economic power. I also fail to see what the Laws of Thermodynamics have to do with economics, because they merely mandate in order that 0.) That two thermal systems will share and equalize heat 1.) the heat in an isolated system remains the same because energy can not be created or destroyed 2.) That the energy put into something is what is put out 3.) that absolute zero Kelvin is impossible. I fail to see what thermodynamics has to do with economics. Although, I did like his line "we routinely produce economists who lack the most rudimentary knowledge of ecology. This explains why our national accounting systems do not subtract the costs of biotic impoverishment, soil erosion, poisons in the air or water, and resource depletion from gross national product." I think this line is important and effective to a degree, although I think it lacks a certain emotional pull in, because the basis of economics should be based on the concrete natural resources. He also fails to recognize I think that in a complex structured society like the United States that you need and depend on specialized workers and that a completely broad education does not facilitate this need, and I personally like the balance we have in our eduaction system already. I do agree whole-heartedly that there is not enough in the schools to instill a sense of civic values and virtues in a student, ever since I read Emile by Jean-Jacques Rousseau I have firmly believed that Civic Values must be instilled into a student but I think this must be done at younger age than college and should begin when schooling itself begins. All together however, I think his tone throughout is too pessimistic and cynical; I do agree with much of what he say but the tone is off-putting.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this article and found myself agreeing with many of the points being made. In today's society, we often hear about how Global Warming is becoming a bigger problem and that we need to do everything we can to save the planet and reduce our Carbon Footprints. However, college campuses do not seem to practice what the preach. By attending college classes, I believe that we are only worsening the environment. Most classes require students to purchase books or use some form of technology to get their homework done. Too many trees are being cut down to produce these books that students only use for one quarter. We are also using an unnecessary amount of energy to get work done because many classes require the use of internet access. I do think that this article should be read by all college students because it made me much more aware of the problems humans are causing for the environment. I found the statistics in the opening paragraph shocking. I had no idea that so much destruction was being caused to the planet in a single day. This article really changed my outlook on education and the environment and I am sure that anyone else who reads it will feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteI think that Orr brings up a lot of good points in this article. By now everyone knows how urbanization affects our natural resources but few know what to do in the way of reversing the negative effects. Orr basically says that some of the most educated and tangibly "successful" people can actually be the most ignorant, and I couldn't agree more. We are all a part of this earth and it doesn't make much sense why a focus wasn't being put on protecting it sooner. People get so caught up in their own business that they don't realize the very earth that provides them with so much is suffering beneath them. I'm not the most science-savy person but I would definitely be willing to learn about what I can do to help sustain my planet along with my course of study.
ReplyDeleteI found this article to be very interesting. Orr immediately pulled me in with the shocking statistics in the first paragraph. He made it possible for me to imagine the beauty of this earth fading into nothingness. Seeing this vision in my head has made me feel a sense of guilt for not really knowing the condition the earth is in or even attempting to do that much to improve the environment. I agreed with all of Orr’s myths however one in particular jumped out at me more than the others, “the myth that the purpose of education is that of giving you the means for upward mobility and success.” I believe wholeheartedly that some individuals are more concerned with being successful than anything else. Once you start worrying about how successful you are going to be you start to lose your passion, forget your morals, and begin to think of only yourself. If everyone in the world only thought of themselves all the time, where would that leave us? Our world really does need more compassionate people that really want nothing more than to make this earth a better place.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance I found myself overwhelmed with the ideas proposed by Orr. I found it to be overwhelming because it was so enlightening and his six myths about the foundations of modern education seem to be ideas that I have held to be true in the past. Obviously I don’t hold these myths to be true anymore. The last part of Orr’s article that proposes a challenge to Universities I found specifically interesting not because his ideas were particularly informative, but because the article was written in the winter of 1991 around twenty years ago. This posed two questions in my mind the first question being how has Ohio University met his challenge? We as freshmen of winter quarter obviously have not personally seen the progression in past twenty years, but we can draw from our experiences in our first quarter of school to see if Ohio University has responded to this challenge at all. I personal believe we have just from one specific experience fall quarter that came from my attendance at the guest lecture from the author of Fast Food Nation Eric Schlosser. Schlosser lecture stressed sustainability in all aspect of life and understanding that our actions on community level have an impact on the global level. Overall these ideas are very similar to the ideas Orr holds to be true and Schlosser’s guest lecture has met Orr’s challenge to create campus wide dialogue on how we as a community can become more sustainable. Although we have done something’s in the twenty years to meet this challenge the other question this article raised for me was how should Ohio University proceed in the next twenty years to do more and be more successful in completing Orr’s challenge?
ReplyDeleteThe first part of the article "Sane means and mad ends" really made think about human life today. To think in such a innovative yet controvertial way is probably my favorite part of the whole article. Near the end of the first part though I was kind of overwhelmed with this emotion of wow he is tottaly right,and the sadness hits you because you think to yourselft what if people can't get it right and the world is going to come to a sad devastating end.
ReplyDeleteThe second part off the article though did not catch me so emotionaly. I think it is good that Orr cares about the enviroment,but he was taking it to a kind of annoying pressing his values on other people level. At the same time though I believe colleges should give more eco education. This is our planet it may be "controlled" by our parents generation now and they obviously didnt do it right. So i would love to see my generation step up,and take resposibility for the human race while making it a better condition on the planet.
This article really has opened my eyes to many ideas that I don't normally think about. I feel as though if these things are not brought to Americans attention, then these problems are simply overlooked. The very beginning of the article surprised me with the statistics and almost angers me. What people don't realize is that their everyday lives are constantly contributing to this problem in our world. I found that one sentence of the article seemed to make a lot of sense to me and was a pretty bold statement. "It makes far better sense to reshape ourselves to fit a finite planet than to attempt to reshape the planet to fit our infinite wants." I feel like that is the definition of people in our society. People will do whatever it takes only to get what they want regardless of the outcomes of others and even themselves. I agree with the point that Orr makes that we cannot fix what we have already done but yet people seem to keep putting us into a deeper hole. Our whole society is based solely on money and greed. In my everyday life I don't think about these problems which now I have opened my eyes to it a little bit more. I think that people should read this to really think about what people are doing to this earth. People get the attitude that it won't affect them but maybe they need to start thinking about the future generations.
ReplyDeleteWell when i read this article it made me think about thing alot more dealing with the enviroment. I'm by no means a eco friendly person. But with this article it made me see how important it can be for eveyone living to help out in every way the can to make the world a better place. The stats given at the beginning were very mind opening with that alone people should be able to stand up for whats right and make this world ten times what it is today because its the only one we got.
ReplyDeleteWhen Orr says "With enough knowledge and technology, we can manage the Earth", I fully agree with that statement. I feel as if people go around bashing politics and give no reasonable explanation is just a sign of ignorance. If people really thought into it and actually tried to expand their minds and understand the world, we really could manage the Earth wiht our understandings. By reading this article, it did make me want to have a better idea of the world and the people around me.
ReplyDeleteOrr's article is a well-written exposé, in a sense, of our current education system and the flawed perception of the ends it attempts to reach. In what I believe to be his biggest strength, Orr uses insightful statistics and quotes from highly regarded individuals to substantiate his claim. Of these, I found the Thomas Merton quote to be most effective. Merton's description of our education system as the "mass production of people literally unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade" is a spot-on summary of the general public's superficiality. His advice to "be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success" struck particularly hard for me, as I feel society as a whole places far too much emphasis on their unwritten, but universally understood, definition of success, based either on monetary acquisition or fame (with one inevitably following the other, to some degree). This caused me to wonder why, exactly, has our society attempted to assign definite meanings to such intangible ideas as success, love, and happiness?
ReplyDeleteTo get to the article's focus, I am always a little torn when it comes to ecological issues. On one hand, I fully acknowledge that humanity is, without a doubt, a detriment to our planet, and that much needs to be done if we wish to preserve our future. However, I am also strongly inclined to believe that what is happening with our planet, the way we are destroying it, is simply a result of human nature. As humans, we are, at our core, primal beings. By nature, humans are selfish. This goes back to Darwin's theories and the "fight or flight" idea. Certainly humans are of the highest intelligence on earth, and have evolved greatly over the years; however, I believe what has happened in our history is all a result of the natural desire to advance. Human nature has produced an exponentially advancing society, which is both a blessing and a curse. As we live on this planet, we use it: its resources, its land, its inhabitants, etc. This is simply because we are the dominant species. As a result, I find myself taking less interest in environmental activism. Yes, it is necessary. Yes, it is beneficial. Yes, it is important. However, our society is advancing at such a high rate that virtually no feasible amount of reform could counter it. To paraphrase Orr, it is a myth to think we can undo what damage we've already done. If any one solution is even possible, it would not only require a complete change in the foundations of our current society, but a total halt in progress as well.
I didn't enjoy reading this because it was very depressing and talked about all the errors in our society. However I agree with what he saying about technology taking away part of the human soul. Everybody should love and care but with technology it is becoming all digitalized and not as personal.
ReplyDeleteI thought this reading was interesting. It has a very unique angle to it. I get pretty tired of reading political arguments because of how transparent the biases are, and in the past few decades even environmentalism has become a political issue. Biases can usually be seen pretty easily through the use of fear. Fear is probably the best tool a politician can use. The same way fear can be used to drive a nation to war, I suppose it can be used to drive a nation to recycle. A lot of environmentalism comes from some sensationalist fear that Earth's future will be some fiery greenhouse hellscape of oil soaked seals and drowning polar bears. That's why I'm so happy to come across an environmentalist argument titled "What Is Education For." Orr promotes knowledge rather than fear, a far more mature strategy. Fear stems from ignorance and will never be as powerful as knowledge. Fear may be more exciting, but it's just a disingenuous tactic to control the uninformed masses. To lead people to understanding is to help them know what is right and make their own decisions, that's what education is for. It is obvious that Orr isn't here to simply promote electric cars, recycling, or those reusable grocery bags, but to promote the understanding that will lead us to a healthy and more sustainable relationship between mankind and the environment.
ReplyDelete