The Method Of Education

1730 Words7 Pages
The Method of Education Have you ever wondered why most students hate school? There is something about school that they really dislike and they have no motivation to go to school besides the law and their parents forcing them. It could be the fact that a traditional academic environment just isn’t suitable for optimal learning. Today’s method of education has acquired many critics throughout the years including the authors of the book Ways of Reading, David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky and the writer of the essay, “The Loss of the Creature,” Walker Percy. I support the authors’ beliefs in that a traditional method of achieving an education is not suited for optimal learning and students should learn with different methods in order to acquire the education they deserve. While most students successfully pass school under the traditional learning environment, they have not learned as much as they could have in a hands on environment. In a hands on learning environment a student can better appreciate information they are told because they are seeing what they are being taught about. In his essay Percy strongly suggests that learning occurs off the beaten track. By leaving the beaten track, the tourist, (whose learning process mirrors that of a student) often has an enriched experience exploring on his or her own (Percy 483). Furthermore, Percy also believes that the learner must be completely unprepared for their learning experience. Someone who goes to visit the Grand Canyon after seeing pictures and hearing about it will not take away the full experience as someone who has never seen a picture or had an image of the Grand Canyon formulated in their mind. Percy states that tourists tend to have a pre-determined idea of the site they are about to see. “Experts present [an] experience to the consumer;” through the media these ideas are expressed and internalized
Open Document