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 Peg's
Polemic
Every
month, philosopher Peg Tittle casts off the calm, measured and qualified
style of her profession to deliver her opinionated and impassioned
column, exclusively for the TPM philosophy café...
Number
9. Air Bands and Power Point
I
still remember the feeling I had when I saw my first air band performance.
It was a sick kind of feeling.
I
hadn't known what an air band was. The announcement came over the
p.a. at my school-for-the-day, and I dutifully shepherded the class
to the gym. Then I watched, incredulous, as group after group of
high school students came on stage and pretended to play their favourite
songs. I mumbled a query to the teacher standing next to me. Apparently
this air band stuff was quite big. Students spent weeks practising.
They really wanted to get it right. 'It' being the appearance, the
pretence.
In
my day, the guys actually did play, guitars and drums mostly.
Each school had a couple bands. From time to time they even played
at our dances.
But
I tried not to go there. That was then, this was now. There is some
skill required for this, I thought. It does take practice to get
it right. But still. It bothered me. As everyone applauded - faking
it.
I
was reminded of that sick kind of feeling just the other day. I
heard a new technopop piece on the radio; it was based on a sample
from a Gene Krupa drum solo. That's how technopop is 'composed':
someone uses bits and pieces (samples) of other people's music and
puts them together - often at random, mostly in repetition. That
is to say, there's no coherent development, no substance.
It's
sad to see that the ability to play, let alone compose for, a musical
instrument is on the wane. But it's frightening to think about the
why and the therefore.
I
read somewhere that playing a musical instrument is the most mentally
challenging task humans perform. Certainly the daily practice requires
a level of both concentration and discipline that I just don't see
in young people today. Is it that our kids don't have the mental
stamina needed to learn how to play a musical instrument? Or is
it that because they don't learn how to play a musical instrument,
they don't develop such mental stamina. Either way, it's cause for
concern. And my guess is it's both.
That
is to say, attention to pretence/form instead of to substance/content
is both the cause and the effect of a paucity of higher cognitive
skills. True, content without form can be incomprehensible. But
form without content isn't anything at all. One must attend to content
before one attends to form. At best, content determines
form. Further, inattention to content entails inattention to quality
of content. And that makes things so much worse.
Consider
the current fascination with the internet. Surfing the net is like
watching the news (and browsing the encyclopedia). It's kibbles
and bits of information. That's all. It's pure content. Sure, it's
knowledge. But is it valuable knowledge? Is it relevant,
is it adequate? Is it usable? One has to have some
of those higher level cognitive skills to go beyond acquisition
and comprehension into analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and application.
And,
well, I've read about the increase in kids' television viewing time.
I've heard about their inability to play games at recess: they just
stand around, or maybe they play with a ready-made single-purpose
toy for a bit and then they're bored. I'm told that kids, young
people, don't go to the library anymore; they don't go to the used
bookstores either, to trade in one handful of paperbacks for another.
I know about the increase in learning disabilities. And I found
out about grades inflation: Cs are now Bs, Bs are now As - 'So what
do I give to students who really do get an A?' 'Trust me - you won't
have that problem.' An exaggeration?
I
teach courses from time to time at a university now. Basically I
teach applied philosophy - Informal Logic, Contemporary Moral Issues,
Business Ethics. I discovered in the first course that essays on
controversial issues were way over most of the students' heads.
I now give an open book reading comprehension quiz for each essay
I assign - it doubles as a guide to the main points of the essay.
I can't teach them to assess what they can't even understand.
And
in three out of three courses, students have told me that the kind
of thinking I'm demanding, essentially critical thinking, is a new
way of thinking: they haven't had to do this before. Arts majors,
Science majors, and Business majors, even third and fourth year
students - they all say the same thing.
I
happened to be in an Accounting class recently, watching students
present case studies. The second group was very impressive. They
sure had their act together. Respectfully in their suits and ties,
standing at business attention, their voices projecting confidence,
they introduced themselves as Wannick, Smith, and Pratsk: 'We thank
you for choosing us as your Accounting consultants, and we are happy
to present to you today our analysis...' They had rehearsed, that
much was clear. And the power point presentation sure was slick:
titles variously fonted with fade-ins and fade-outs, points neatly
aligned and bulletted, graphics full of colour and icons - it looked
just like the real thing. The class applauded.
I
mumbled a query to the prof sitting next to me. 'Suitcoats and power
point aside, which group had the better analysis?' 'The first group
- these guys missed some important discrepancies in the accounts.'
Hmmm. And if they didn't get an A, there's hope.
(Postscript:
I take that back. There is no hope. The Student Union is holding
an air band competition next week.)
Peg's
Polemic will next be updated at the beginning of August 2001
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