the words decay and fall
Monday, 1 May 2006 09:09 amInteresting article in the M&G this week, nicked from The Guardian: last week Susan Greenfield gave an address to the House of Lords, questioning the effect of media society on learning patterns and brain activity. (She's a neurobiologist). The paragraph that really caught my attention:
We all know how this ends. Torches and pitchforks, and those of us who represent the last bastion of literacy (and a slew of really low essay marks) looking on apprehensively as the mob swarms up the hill.
- [Greenfield] begins by analysing the process of traditional book-reading, which involves following an author through a series of interconnected steps in a logical fashion. We read other narratives and compare them, and so "build up a conceptual framework that enables us to evaluate further journeys... One might argue that this is the basis of education ... It is the building up of a personalised conceptual framework, where we can relate incoming information to what we know already. We can place an isolated fact in a context that gives it significance." Traditional education, she says, enables us to "turn information into knowledge."
We all know how this ends. Torches and pitchforks, and those of us who represent the last bastion of literacy (and a slew of really low essay marks) looking on apprehensively as the mob swarms up the hill.