Sowell, T. (2010) Educators creating artificial stupidity. Retrieved March 15, 2010 from: http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell031010.php3
In his commentary, published on Jewish World Review’s website and the Paducah Sun on March 15, 2010, Sowell takes a jab at the US educational system and states that they are creating artificial stupidity. He states that people are born ignorant but not stupid but much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system. He further states that educational institutions were created to pass on the knowledge, experiences, and culture of the past but instead have become indoctrination institutions that push notions and ideologies instead of knowledge. People normally outgrow the indoctrinated information with their own life experiences but the danger, he states, is that they get used to hearing one side of an issue and take action without hearing both sides and that students are not developing mental skills that would enable them “to systematically test one set of beliefs against another”. This is an interesting subject that I think students should be interested in. There are certainly good schools and teachers out there that do not fall into the category of indoctrinators but students should be aware that it does go on and they are responsible for their own learning and for developing the skills they need to weigh out different beliefs.
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In the university setting, especially the business school, one of our goals is to foster creativity. yet most of the behaviors that we ask students to engage in do the opposite. We end up stifling the creativity by having set curricula (sp?), rigid majors and cultural norms that overwhelm the limited opportunities for exactly the type of engagement described above.
ReplyDeleteIn an ethics or leadership course how might you frame a discussion of this article? Would you expect your students to agree or disagree --- there is much discussion on polarization in the decision making literature.
We have actually seen that take place in the political arena, recently --- the two sides of an argument (usually there are more than two perspectives, but they get boiled down to that) get lost.
The opposing sides cannot hear each other because their beliefs have been ossified.