Another thought to be munched: The names and nuances of television's characters and
hosts and hostesses are familiar and
critiqued ad nauseum by many who could not pick their next-door neighbor from a
line-up.
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2005 9:33
AM
Subject: [Winona] Food for Thought
[Winona Online Democracy]
To those who read the Star Tribune
regularly, I apologize for the frequent articles I post here. But I just had
to share this one with the group--comments? Or, more specifically, since I
believe that underachievement is a community issue as well as a school issue,
what can we do as a community to inspire enthusiasm about learning rather than
the ubiquitous "junk culture" that invades our lives? The late Susan Sontag
said, "Be serious, be passionate, wake up!" How do we promote this?
Vicki
Englich
Elizabeth Rock: Let's return to a
belief in the power of the mind
By
Elizabeth Rock
January 2,
2005 ROCK0102
When
education and intelligence have become a cause for suspicion, not respect;
when we prize aggression over thought; when Salinas County is closing its
libraries, but there is always funding for sports stadiums; when our
scientists and engineers are coming from other countries because our students
find those subjects too "hard"; when we give the same weight to unproven ideas
as we do to hard science; when we tolerate mediocrity and errors, thinking
"it's good enough..."; I say it's time for a huge resurgence in the power of
the mind.
It's time to put a premium on intellect again.
I want all of
us to aspire to greater brainpower. I want us, and especially our kids, to
want to be smart -- really, really smart -- again; to admire smart people they
way they admire rich people. I want kids to want to be smart the way they want
to be professional athletes and rap artists.
I want young people to devote
the kind of energy to their brains that they devote to eating worms on "Fear
Factor." I want young women who can't be bothered to read, but will devote
months to pretending to love someone for his money, to want to find the cure
for ovarian cancer just that much. I want us to spend as much time on the
strange shadings of Thomas Jefferson's complex world as they do on the
slightly less-nuanced world of Nick and Jessica.
I want us to innovate
again. I want us to export something besides the concept of bling and "Wife
Swap." I want Shakespeare to be the new hot sex talk. I want brains to be the
next bling.
We need to be critical thinkers again. Because once we wake up,
kick our brains into overdrive and stomp on the gas again, everything else
will fall into line.
Elizabeth Rock is a freelance
illustrator.
Story
tools
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