Why open the books?
On "Game of Thrones", language, and the mixed purposes of education
A common theme that emerges from conversation with those in education right now -- from elementary through grad school -- is the challenge of motivating students to learn when many feel like the world’s knowledge is already available in handheld form. Basic questions like “Why are we doing this?” have gained an unusual amount of currency. A particularly contentious question asks whether conventional liberal arts can coexist with training shaped by “workforce readiness”.
■ The bottom line may be this: Education should raise our aspirations and prepare us with the tools to do something about them. Consider, for example, the case of the literary canon.
■ As a basic proposition, there is a canon of literature that “educated” people could reasonably be expected to know. Like it or not, we’re always forming social canons. You may or may not have cared for “Breaking Bad” or “Game of Thrones”, but in the realm of prestige TV, they became canonical. Getting familiar with the shows -- enough to have a general understanding of what the buzz was all about -- required watching a few episodes with a halfway open mind.
■ Knowing the language requires recognizing its references. You can exempt yourself from learning them, but that’s like choosing not to look up a new word in the dictionary. You can dislike elements of the canonical consensus, but that’s like saying you choose not to understand someone’s accent.
■ Understanding the present requires an approximate understanding of the past. So, in turn, that means spending at least some time with the canons of the past -- even though they had gaping holes of ignorance and left out lots of people. You fix those problems by trying to repair the omissions, not by omitting the material that was accepted as canonical in the first place.