Educational Shifts; or, Why You Shall Never See A Poem Quite So Lovely As A Tree

After CAS on Tuesday, I was walking back to my dorm with one of my friends from the class and discussing the subject of other English classes. As we were doing so, I came to the realization that he had not had to memorize and recite poems in his English classes as I once had (One common poem choice for recitation, Joyce Kilmer's "Trees", was the basis of the title of this blog post). This in turn led me to realize that memorization in schools in general seemed to no longer be in vogue and, as such, that a paradigm shift had occurred.

As a result of this realization, and the realization that finding sources for my other topic ideas was near impossible, I decided to choose as my topic the shift from memorization to critical thinking and analysis as the focus of education (especially in the humanities) in the past few decades, driven in part by the rise of the Internet. My thesis, in turn, will be that between 1960 and the present education has followed a general trend of greater focus on critical thinking, accelerated by the rise of the Internet and resultant free access to information.

In order to support my claim, I'll draw directly from tests offered now and historically to show changes in what kind of questions are being asked about the material. I will also look at statistics and practice questions on standardized tests (since the originals are not available) to show their change over time. In addition to the pure source material, I'll examine writings about education to determine other perspectives about general trends in education.

As a final note, here is a list of some of the sources that I plan on using in my paper:

Works Cited
                                    Bidwell, Allie. “8 New SAT Sample Questions.” US News and World Report, 16 Apr. 2014, www.usnews.com/news/slideshows/check-out-8-sample-questions-from-the-new-sat?slide=4.                             
                                    “The Old SAT vs. the New SAT Test | PowerScore.” PowerScore Test Preparation, www.powerscore.com/sat/help/sat_oldvsnew.cfm.                                         
                                     Tyre, Peg. “Atlantic.” Atlantic, vol. 317, no. 2, rote memorizationpp. 50–57.           

Comments

  1. bevOctober 19, 2017 at 6:54 AM

    Solid topic. I feel like you have a lot of potential sources to talk about here. However, your thesis could use some specificity. What sort of education are you talking about. What level? Is it elementary, Intermediate, or Higher Ed? In what region does this shift apply? What are some of the effects of this change?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matthew MouckOctober 19, 2017 at 6:55 AM

    I thought about doing education as my paradigm shift, but thought it would be too broad. But, you definitely have specified a shift that works! I really like this idea, especially because it directly affected us. I think that this definitely is significant enough to work with since so education is, of course, a perpetually debated concept in America. Furthermore, millions of students have taken the SAT, so of course it is significant in the regard that this not an isolated shift.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Charles RyanOctober 19, 2017 at 6:58 AM

    Jacob,
    I think that it would also be good to examine different types of education that have emerged and how the curriculum vary across private and public schools. Is the evolution of critical thinking present across all schools or mainly private ones? I am also unsure of whether or not memorization has disappeared from learning or whether it is that memorization has been paired with critical thinking. Another thing that may be helpful is if you gather surveys from students to see whether studying habits have evolved with the change in teaching.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownOctober 19, 2017 at 12:47 PM

    I think that this is a really interesting topic and one that is relevant to all of us as college students. I agree with you that it seems like more critical thinking is used in education instead of memorization nowadays. The entire scope of education is a very broad topic, so I would advise you to try to narrow your topic so that you can research it in greater detail. Additionally, if you don't define "critical thinking" well, and what it specifically it entails, I think that the reader might perceive this in the wrong way. You might also want to include in your essay and your TED talk about why this shift occurred . For example, what caused schools and teachers do away with memorization techniques and favor critical thinking. Make sure that you also mention something about the impacts of this shift, for instance how students benefit from this shift occurring.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Robin KramerOctober 20, 2017 at 1:40 PM

    Jacob, you've received many useful comments from your classmates. Let me add one more thought: Does the fact that memorization was esteemed (and expected) more often in the past suggest that critical thinking was not prioritized or expected as well?

    Your post seems to infer that the presence of memorization negates that critical thinking occurred, so this would need to be substantiated.

    Carry on!

    ReplyDelete

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