Postman
made several great suggestions as to "gods" that could serve to
motivate both students and teachers to learn/teach. Some of these included the
Earth as a spaceship that we all need to work together to protect; the theory
of the fallen angel, which urges us to abandon the idea of absolute knowledge;
the idea of America as an ongoing experiment for students and teachers to
participate in; and the idea of humans as "world makers" because we
are "word weavers." However, in my opinion, the most interesting
suggestion of Postman’s was his idea of the Law of Diversity. Within this
narrative, Postman has several different sub-categories in which he explains
the different aspects in which students need to learn how the different
cultural groups came together to form different traditions. The most
fascinating of these categories that Postman uses to explain the narrative of
diversity is language.
Previous
to reading The End of Education, I
knew that English was a language of many cultures, I just didn't know what how
many! I found all of the history of the English language quite intriguing and
wonder why this was left out of my schooling. For example, I was completely
unaware of (nor had I ever though to question) the origin of the differences
between the English words for meat before and after we cook it; let alone the
fact that, according to Otto Jespersen, this difference was due to the fact
that the Normans conquered the Saxons so the Saxon language was spoken only in
the kitchen before the meal was prepared.
I found
Postman’s suggestion to create a multilingual culture of America , as
well as his postulations on why we have failed to do so in the past, to be
equally fascinating. As Postman explains, “there are several reasons why we
have failed to accomplish the task of teaching other languages, (one of which
is) starting too late…” (Postman 149). This is an issue that I, myself have
discussed on numerous occasions with just about anyone who will listen. There
is significant evidence to show that languages need to be taught before
children reach puberty (referred to in the world of psychology as the “critical
period”), or else they will not be able to fluently learn that particular
language. Why do most schools begin the learning of language in middle or high
school when children of that age are well past the age of being able to learn that language?
