Gaming the System

This week’s readings were awesome.  I especially enjoyed the discussions about the educational benefits of video games (and only partly because it helps justify how many I play).  The most powerful idea that I came across was that a truly excellent educational curriculum doesn’t require assessment because it is impossible to finish without learning the requirements – like a video game.  Once you beat a video game you can be pretty damn sure you know have some proficiency in all its elements.  I also found it an interesting prediction that violence in games will fade as complex dialogue becomes easier to implement.  Teaching children to design video games seems like a wonderfully worthwhile goal.  It exposes them to advanced technology, it requires them to teach something through the game and empathize with the players experience, and most importantly, its fun!  The kids seemed to be enjoying themselves in the video and that’s the first step to making life-long learners.

The distinctions between 20th and 21st century learning also seemed spot on.  Whereas the 20th C. learner did well to simply learn facts and enough literacy to be a factory worker, the 21st C. learner wades through orders of magnitude more information than their predecessor.  This requires different skills such as the ability to evaluate the reliability of information you come across and the ability to tie multiple pieces of information from multiple sources together into some cohesive narrative or solution.

Now I’m a Believer

I found the readings and videos for this week to be very interesting.  It made me reflect on my own education and the impact that grades had on it.  Basically, not much.  Grades always came pretty easy for me, I don’t remember ever being overly stressed about them nor even really caring for them.

But despite the minimal negative impacts that grades had on my education, I have been convinced that they are an archaic and ineffective aspect of school.  Something ingrained into the system and done more out of habit than any thought-out reason as to their purpose.

I am actually in the process of reading Kohn’s What does it mean to be well-educated? (I actually have the full book).  He covers many aspects of contemporary pedagogy but also elaborates on some of his criticisms of standardized testing and traditional grading schemes.  One thing I found particularly insightful was that grades are not the same as evaluations and evaluations don’t necessarily have to be numerical.  I also liked the idea of involving students in the design of evaluations and the assignment of grades.  This is something I have been doing in my own class this semester (though I was doing partly because of my own inexperience).   

As an engineer, I still like the idea of being able to put numbers on things.  It feels more objective to me.  But just because something is easy to measure numerically doesn’t mean its worth measuring.  Likewise, numeric grades make things easier for the educator but diminish the education experience for the student – at least compared to a more in-depth and personal evaluation.

Lessons From Castalia (Part 1)

I am currently reading a book by one of my favorite authors, Hermann Hesse.  It is called The Glass Bead Game (and yes, it is the inspiration for this blogs name).  It is a wonderfully rich text and is resonating particularly strongly with me because of its relevance and similarity to the current stage of my life (graduate school).  Below is a quick analysis of the novel, I plan to further develop the connection of the novel’s themes to more specific, contemporary discussions regarding public schools and higher education in a Part 2.  My hope for this post is that it will inspire educators and learners to investigate this magical story for themselves.

“No noble and exalted life exists without knowledge of devils and demons, and without continual struggle against them.” (284)

Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game is widely considered the author’s magnum opus and an important achievement for justifying the award of his 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature.  The novel lends itself to being read on several parallel and intersecting levels; however, its plot and primary content are particularly well suited to making connections with current trends and phenomena that appear in significant discussions of teaching and pedagogy, schools, the role and function they serve – or ought to – in the context of larger society, and the importance of institutions that are primarily devoted to the development of intellectual pursuits, the imagination and life of the Mind.

The story is largely about Castalia, the Pedagogical Province, set in the distant yet strictly unspecified future.  It takes the form of a biography of an exalted member of this Province, Joseph Knecht, who attains its highest office: Magister Ludi or Master of the Glass Bead Game.  The Glass Bead Game is important as it serves as a “perfect expression” or symbol for Castilian goals and ideals: “the conception of the inner unity of all man’s cultural efforts [and] idea of universality” (233).  This “spirit of [the Province]… is founded on two principles: on objectivity and love of truth in study, and on the cultivation of meditative wisdom and harmony” (237).  While the Game’s rules and structure defy precise description, Theodore Ziolkowski, in his forward to the text, describes the Game as, “an act of mental synthesis through which the spiritual values of all ages are perceived as simultaneously present and vitally alive” (xi).  A more in depth description can be found in the ‘Layman’s Introduction’ preceding the biography:

The sign language and grammar of the Game, constitute a kind of highly developed secret language drawing upon several sciences and arts, but especially mathematics and music (and/or musicology), and capable of expressing and establishing interrelationships between the content and conclusions of nearly all scholarly disciplines.  The Glass Bead Game is thus a mode of playing with the total contents and values of our culture…Theoretically this instrument is capable of reproducing in the Game the entire intellectual content of the universe… within this fixed structure, or to abide by our image, with in the complicated mechanism of this giant organ, a whole universe of possibilities and combinations is available to the individual player (15).

We are offered more insight into the enigmatic Game when the biographer later clarifies differences in styles of gameplay that hint at the significance, beauty, and sacramental reverence the Game holds in Castalian culture:

In the formal Game, the player sought to compose out of the objective content of every game, out of the mathematical, linguistic, musical, and other elements, as dense, coherent, and formally perfect a unity and harmony as possible.  In the [pedagogical method of Game construction], on the other hand, the object was to create unity and harmony, cosmic roundedness and perfection, not so much in the choice, arrangement, interweaving, association, and contrast of the contents as in the mediation which followed every stage of the Game.  All the stress was placed on this mediation.  Such a… Game did not display perfection to the outward eye.  Rather, it guided the player, by means of its succession of precisely prescribed meditations, toward experiencing perfection and divinity (197).

While it is obvious the Game is meant to be a metaphor for human intellect and creativity and Castalia “represents any human institution devoted wholly and exclusively to affairs of the mind and imagination” (xii).  The Game is also described as a tool used

to arrange and sum up all the knowledge of [one’s] time, symmetrically and synoptically, around a central idea… not just [as] a juxtaposition of the fields of knowledge and research, but an interrelationship, an organic denominator… [a] way to channel all [one’s] various talents toward a single goal (166).

The goal being to experience “perfection and divinity,” to shift the experience of consciousness from the world of time and images into one of timelessness and tranquility, and “[extract] from the universe of accident and confusion a totally symmetrical and harmonious cosmos” (197).

            Compared to his other works with which I am familiar (Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and Demian), The Glass Bead Game stands out with its focus on an institution at least as much as its central individual.  However, these novels are connected by the appearance of a character belonging to a group that Hesse referred to as “the Immortals” in Steppenwolf.

In The Glass Bead Game, the “Immortal” is the Music Master – Knecht’s mentor – who at the end of his “life of devotion and work, but free of obstructions, free of ambition, and full of music,” is described as an old man transforming in retirement into a “state of grace, perfection,… bliss,” surrounded with an aura of “cheerful serenity and wonderful peace,” and moving in “the direction his nature had taken, away from people and toward silence, away from words and toward music, away from ideas and toward unity” (257-260).

His death was not so much a matter of dying as a form of progressive dematerialization, a dwindling of bodily substance…, while his life more and more gathered in his eyes and in the gentle radiance of his withering old man’s face” (279).

In his final days, the Music Master is described as “a manifestation, a personification”, or “only a symbol” of music (261) until, in death, he takes on the qualities of “a magical figure no longer readable but nevertheless somehow conveying smiles and perfected happiness.”  As a Castalian, “the grace of such an old age and death, of the immortal beauty of the spirit” that the Music Maker represented, as well as the descriptions offered of the game are very suggestive of what Hesse believes may be the rewards of a contemplative life (280).

Father Jacobus, another of Knecht’s significant teachers, on the other hand

was far more than a scholar, a seer, and a sage; he was also a mover and a shaper.  He had used the position in which fate had placed him not just to warm himself at the cozy fires of a contemplative existence; he had allowed the winds of the world to blow through his scholar’s den and admitted the perils and foreboding of the age into his heart.  He had taken action and shared the blame and the responsibility for the events of his time; he had not contented himself with surveying, arranging, and interpreting the happenings of the distant past.  And he had not dealt only with ideas, but with the refractoriness of matter and the obstinacy of men (192).

In Father Jacobus, Hesse provides a counter example to the Music Maker and creates a tension between the active life of engagement and a more scholarly life of discovery.  And this is one of the important themes of the novel that is borne out in a variety of ways.  For instance, Knecht’s outlines in one of his lectures that

Every Castalian should hold to only two goals and ideals: to attain to the utmost command of his subject, and to keep himself and his subject vital and flexible by forever recognizing its ties with all other disciplines and by maintaining amicable relations with all (233).

As he continues to praise The Game and highlight its historical importance, he describes its function as “repeatedly [having] to save the various disciplines from their tendency to self-sufficiency” (234).  He emphasizes “the best and the most vital aspect of our institution is the old Castalian principle of selection of the best, the elite” (235).  He explains to his elite students that they “are more than a reservoir of talented and experienced players” and commends them for being the only ones to play the Game “properly and correctly… shorn of all dilettantism, cultural vanity, self-importance, or superstition” (236).  Knecht goes on to reiterate the dangers of disciplines but warns “that the Glass Bead Game also has its hidden diabolus, that it can lead to empty virtuosity, to artistic vanity, to self-advancement, to the seeking of power over other and then to the abuse of that power” (237).

A more striking example of this tension is in Knecht’s contemplation of the transitory nature of Castalia and the Game due to the Provinces’ reluctance to stay relevant to the outside world.  While Joseph holds them both “sacrosanct,” he recognizes they have become

Vulnerable to the danger of aging, sterility, and decadence.  The idea underlying them always remained sacred to him, but he had recognized the particular forms that idea had assumed as mutable, perishable, in need of criticism.  He served a community of the mind whose strength and rationality he admired; but he thought… by forgetting its duties to the country and the outside world… it was doomed to fall into sterility (275).

Many tensions are resolved by Knecht’s transcending the false dichotomy of his reality.  Instead of struggling to define himself using the arbitrary and passing values of his time, he comes to embrace polarities in life such as the contrast between the Music Maker and Father Jacobus in a larger unifying vision.  We can see this when, as Magister Ludi, Knecht – during one of his meditations – recalls a childhood memory of meeting the Music Master for the first time.  They are playing piano together.  To Knecht,

it seemed to be the young man who showed honor and obedience to the old man, to authority and dignity; now again it was apparently the old man who was required to follow, serve, worship the figure of youth, of beginning, of mirth.  And as he watched this at once senseless and significant dream circle, the dreamer felt alternately identical with the old man and the boy, now revering and now revered, now leading, now obeying; and in the course of these pendulum shifts there came a moment in which he was both (221).

Later on, we can see Knecht continue this move towards a more tempered education in his lecture to the elite Glass Bead Game players when he explains,

We need another kind of education beside the intellectual…, not in order to reshape our mentally active life into a psychically vegetative dream-life, but on the contrary to make ourselves fit for the summit of intellectual achievement.  We do not intend to flee form the vita activa to the vita conteplativa, nor vice versa, but to keep moving forward while alternating between the two, being at home in both, partaking of both (237).

            I think there are obvious parallels to be drawn between Joseph Knecht and contemporary educators – especially university faculty, as well as connections to be made regarding Castalia’s and the higher education system’s similarities.  Specifically, I think Hesse’s novel offers lessons on what the role of intellectual should play in society?  What constitutes a good teacher? A good student?  It offers Joseph Knecht as an archetype for both.  What is the purpose of education?  Why is it worthwhile to pursue an education?  And countless other quandaries.

The Futility of Teaching

I think the readings and videos this week made some interesting and well-founded critiques and analysis of the state of education and teaching. Conceptualizing education around the learning experience as opposed to the information learned offers a powerful tool to re-imagining what it means to be well-educated. I would contend that what you know – or even how much you know – has little to do with whether or not someone is well educated. But if I’m going to talk about what it means to be educated, perhaps I should say something about the goals and purpose of an education.

 
The purpose of an education is often connected to larger views about society, self-hood, ethics, and so on. It seems to me the current dominating attitude is that education is an investment in future workers so that they may be more productive later on – that is, schools are primarily economic tools to further corporate profits. I believe schools should primarily be seen as tools for serving and improving democratic society. With this view of schools, it is relatively easy to see that the purpose of an education should be to instill people with critical thinking skills, a social conscience and sense of justice, the capacity to understand individual consciousness, and to generally produce cheerful people with amiable ties and attitudes towards the rest of their community. But I have to question how realistic it is that you can teach people to be this way. Can you?

Ultimately, a good education mostly prepares one for more education. It seems then that to be well educated is simply to have the desire to continue learning. But how can teachers help to ensure this outcome – that their students become enthusiastic, self-directed, intellectual explorers capable of challenging themselves and others with interesting questions? In addition, how to you convince students that they should have an interest in thinking this way? How do you inspire the intrinsic motivation to learn for the sake of expanding one’s intellect?

Unfortunately, I don’t think you can teach these things. This is tangentially related to a theme that ties together many of Herman Hesse’s – one of my favorite authors – novels: that there is a certain knowledge and wisdom that can only be gained through experience. I think the democratic and humanitarian values we should really want to teach our children are the very things we cannot directly instill in them.

The videos and readings this week made good arguments for how teachers can better foster a learning environment that facilitates the self-learning of students. However, I did not see much about how teachers can lead by example through their own learning. For instance, I am teaching an engineering lab course, but I try to inspire students to become more independent learners with my behaviors outside the classroom. I am always reading (typically fiction) when I walk through campus and have donated a small library to the MSE undergraduate lounge. This being my first time teaching, I have many opportunities to share what I am learning with my students from the experience. If we want to educate people well we first have to inspire their confidence and curiosity to learn – the best way to do that is through our own example.

The Futility of Teaching

I think the readings and videos this week made some interesting and well-founded critiques and analysis of the state of education and teaching. Conceptualizing education around the learning experience as opposed to the information learned offers a powerful tool to re-imagining what it means to be well-educated. I would contend that what you know – or even how much you know – has little to do with whether or not someone is well educated. But if I’m going to talk about what it means to be educated, perhaps I should say something about the goals and purpose of an education.

 
The purpose of an education is often connected to larger views about society, self-hood, ethics, and so on. It seems to me the current dominating attitude is that education is an investment in future workers so that they may be more productive later on – that is, schools are primarily economic tools to further corporate profits. I believe schools should primarily be seen as tools for serving and improving democratic society. With this view of schools, it is relatively easy to see that the purpose of an education should be to instill people with critical thinking skills, a social conscience and sense of justice, the capacity to understand individual consciousness, and to generally produce cheerful people with amiable ties and attitudes towards the rest of their community. But I have to question how realistic it is that you can teach people to be this way. Can you?

Ultimately, a good education mostly prepares one for more education. It seems then that to be well educated is simply to have the desire to continue learning. But how can teachers help to ensure this outcome – that their students become enthusiastic, self-directed, intellectual explorers capable of challenging themselves and others with interesting questions? In addition, how to you convince students that they should have an interest in thinking this way? How do you inspire the intrinsic motivation to learn for the sake of expanding one’s intellect?

Unfortunately, I don’t think you can teach these things. This is tangentially related to a theme that ties together many of Herman Hesse’s – one of my favorite authors – novels: that there is a certain knowledge and wisdom that can only be gained through experience. I think the democratic and humanitarian values we should really want to teach our children are the very things we cannot directly instill in them.

The videos and readings this week made good arguments for how teachers can better foster a learning environment that facilitates the self-learning of students. However, I did not see much about how teachers can lead by example through their own learning. For instance, I am teaching an engineering lab course, but I try to inspire students to become more independent learners with my behaviors outside the classroom. I am always reading (typically fiction) when I walk through campus and have donated a small library to the MSE undergraduate lounge. This being my first time teaching, I have many opportunities to share what I am learning with my students from the experience. If we want to educate people well we first have to inspire their confidence and curiosity to learn – the best way to do that is through our own example.

The Modern Integrated Mind

There is no doubt that computers and the internet have changed the world by connecting people on an unprecedented level and creating easy access to information. The wealth and format of this information has far reaching implications for how people will learn today and in the future and what they will need and want to know.

The global network has increased the opportunity for competition and collaboration on much grander scales. In turn, this has created new demands on the people and organizations that have or desire a global presence. Writing effectively remains a efficient way to share ideas with large audiences but the internet facilitates much more than sharing the written word. Youtube channels and podcasts for instance allow those who maybe don’t like writing or do not do it well to share ideas in a more personalized way. Likewise, audiences that prefer to read less have several other sources of information and entertainment.

Social and information technologies have moved the goal posts for education. Before, having very specialized knowledge may have been enough to build a successful life. Today, information is so easy to find success depends much more on your ability to find information effectively, evaluate its reliability, and utilize it in flexible and creative ways to solve problems.

Ultimately, people have always made their greatest achievements by working together and sharing ideas. When we collaborate, we challenge each other and grow. I look forward to learning to blog together. Cheers!