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109 Response #4 The Language of Composition quotations from Francine Prose or

Ralph Waldo Emerson

When Emerson says “A rule is so easy that it does not need a man to apply
it”, he embodies the solution to the current educational crisis our community is
facing. Rules regulate thought, making them not thoughts at all but repetitions.
“Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions.” There are no syllabi for creative
thinking. There are no cliff notes for curiosity, but rather an inquisitive world:
a world that answers each others’ questions while simultaneously growing together.

We are naturally curious. When my son was assigned to read Wuthering Heights
in his high school English class, he had trouble understanding the rotation of
narrators, and 19th century prose, so on his own accord, he dissected the novel.
He kept a family tree nearby, he made note of who the narrator was each time it
changed and referenced dictionaries if he could not decipher the period jargon.
Was all of this work to earn an “A” grade? Surely, it wasn’t. He could have picked
up a copy of the Spark Notes or watched the movie. Was it to interpret the
complexity of Heathcliffe’s character? Possibly, but I personally think it was to
simply learn a new skill. After Wuthering Heights he acquired the skills to
interpret any 19th century text. Emerson gives an anecdote about a man who
encountered a stone and gained the skills to be able to deduce the text’s meaning.
By this curiosity, he received an excellent education. Emerson implied we needed
to respect the child, and the child would find his own way. My son found his own
way and it was not through a worksheet asking him about main idea, but by his own
questioning. The “passions and whimsies” of a child are being forced into
submersion by modern day education. I agree whole-heartedly that it is our
“absolute duty” to lend encouragement to the youth of the universe. But is society
currently mixing brainwashing with encouragement? We are explicitly forcing our
children into being what we think are “well-read” individuals? If well read means
sub-human androids who can pinpoint the falling action and theme of Dead Souls,
then by all means our education methods are successful. The term “well-read” is
not definable, therefore it is not attainable. I can say “well-read” is someone
with thorough understanding of classic literature, but the depth and capacity of
being an esteemed literate is not something that can even be described, it is to
be experienced.