Neil Postman has a way of writing that is terribly annoying and pretentious. He criticizes our education system, but offers very little in the way of rectifying the problems. That being said, he does make some decent arguments in the way our language is structured and the impact it has on how our children are taught. One point Postman makes is when he talks about going through security at an airport and joking about certain things are prohibited by law. Our legal system prevents jokes. It sounds so funny when phrased that way, but it is true. It makes me think of when I was growing up and my brothers would tease me. If I got mad and told on them, they would say they were “just playing,” but if I didn’t acknowledge it, they would claim they were serious. Even though the words are the same, the power, meaning and actions behind them can vary greatly based on intentions. Postman states that security guards have the “power means to be able to define” what a joke is, just as teachers have the ability to define what misbehavior is or what grade a student’s work is worthy of. The point is that definitions vary person to person and those with higher authority have the power to apply them however they see fit.
Another interesting point that Postman brings up is the idea of technology education. New innovations are being produced every single day, but how quickly are those innovations being introduced to education and incorporated into classrooms? Postman states that “technology may have entered schools, but not technology education,” and I agree with this. Students are more inept with technology than most, but are they ever taught how to properly use it? This goes back to the idea of using Wikipedia as a source and how we evaluate information. Students, according to Postman, know little to nothing about the origins of technology, instead just recognizing that it is here today and was not yesterday. Getting students to understand simple timelines of technology is important because not only will it allow them to appreciate the advancements that have been made during their lifetime, but it will also give them a sense of what the world was like before the new inventions and how technology has completely changed the structure of society around the world.
Finding and appreciating metaphors in literature is not difficult, but it can often be a little trying to just think one up. Postman points out metaphors are not just intended to literature though. All fields use them because they are “an organ of perception” and help people to see and feel ideas. It is near impossible to have not heard at some point that America is a melting pot. This is true because there is a beautiful range of diversity in this country and all the different cultures here create one larger society. The idea of the melting pot however can be used to describe other things as well, one of which being our education system. There are so many ideas, techniques, research methods, teaching and learning styles that it seems almost impossible to find a way to effectively teach a large group of students. Not only is the system a melting pot, but the student body itself, as well that the faculty and staff can be thought of in this way. The issue with the melting pot though is that not all the ideas and cultures have melted together into a greater product. This is what America needs to work on. Not everyone will be pleased, but there has to be a way to improve upon what we have while still maintaining our identities.
