365 Days of Creativity
day sixty one
This is Your Brain on School
School is bullshit.
The government plans every lesson for you, chooses every topic that you'll study for twelve years of your life.
It's been claimed that video games desensitize teens, but all sense is lost long before that. It's the classrooms that numb the minds of children.
Social Studies is the greatest offender of all.
In this course, number after number is thrown at you. Dates, coordinates, and percentages. People's names, and the places they lived, all these details that you don't give a shit about.
World War One
World War Two
Hiroshima
The Hindenburg
They take these travesties and turn them into facts. They make millions of deaths seem like petty statistics. It's not about who died, how the families coped, or the social study of loss. It's about numbers. Facts. Tidbits of history.
How could I possibly give a shit about Hiroshima? First, I didn't know anyone killed, and second, they present the event as a number.
80'000 dead.
1.6 km blast radius.
Because they taught it to me in numbers, I'm forced to compare it to other things in numbers.
80'000 dead vs the 6'800'000'000 people in the world.
1.6 km blast radius vs the 510'072'000 square km covering the planet.
Not to mention the event compared to the timeline of human's existence. It makes it almost infinitesimal. It's so minute, so completely useless to try and feel something for these faceless numbers. I can't sympathize with a digit.
On the other hand, the act of taking people, and summing up their deaths as numbers, saying "80'000 died" makes them seem like they still exist. Sure the people behind the numbers are dead, but together they are forever immortalized as "The Victims of Hiroshima". The individual names are forgotten, but the mass is not. No, they may not be thought upon with true tenderness or care, but at least they're thought upon at all.
I had a teacher once, she swore to the offensiveness of the film Titanic. She claimed that making a profit off of a romanticized version of the tragedy was one of the worst sins imaginable. I could see her point of exploitation for personal gain, but I defended the movie for one main reason;
It made me care.
The movie of the titanic crash, took a statistic of 1'517 dead, and made them into real people. Humans who had laughed and loved, and unfortunately were lost.
It was the only time learning about an event in history had triggered any sort of emotional response in me. While my teacher thought the love story was gimmicky, I saw it as a way to relate to the victims of the titanic. To see that there were human beings behind the numbers and percentages.
This is the power of storytelling, this is why I make movies and this is why school is bullshit. Because they throw information at you like rice at a wedding. That is your marriage to the machine. Your holy matrimony into enslavement to society. Your vows to obey.
It's time for a fucking divorce.
Interesting. As someone who did well in the school system, and someone who loves history... you will be surprised to find that I agree with you mostly.
ReplyDeleteThe (or my) main issue with Social Studies is that the school board or government decided you don't actually have to know anything about history, politics, or geography to teach it. Literally. That's why it's usually given to gym teachers... and I've yet to meet more than one gym teacher I considered a bright, intelligent and studious individual.
The result of that is that the teachers usually know no more than the students and rely on the textbooks and worksheets to do all the work... No textbook is engaging.
On the topic of history - I swear it can be made interesting. There are some powerfully emotional documentaries on historical topics. But... this is a long post.
I've got lots more to say on this. We should talk again some time soon (if you wouldn't mind).
I'm glad you can see my point of view. That's a ridiculous but true fact about the training (or lack there of) required to become a Social Studies teacher.
ReplyDeleteI agree, history can most definitely be interesting. I personally find Ancient Greece and early Japan to be two of the most captivating cultures to read about, but unfortunately those aren't incorporated into the lessons of schools. And if they are mentioned, it's only briefly.
I would love to discuss this more! Talk to you soon.