How to Ruin Learning

Shaun asks Jon why he chose to study English in college and explains how he came to deeply appreciate his own choice to study "English." They both then point out how they ruined that study of literature for students by teaching literature. Jon shares why he performed so poorly in math classes in high school before pointing out that he could manage the subject when he had time to approach it on his own terms. A hopeful herpetologist student from early in Shaun's career carries the conversation further since Shaun could then blame someone else besides himself for ruining learning. The importance of failure comes up, and while the two fail to point out the troubling artificiality of consequences that attend failure in school (perhaps they can do so in another episode), they do make some good points about how fear of failure perpetuates mediocrity and diminishes the possibility of authentically engaging in learning. They conclude by designating the grading system as a dehumanizing process, but they relent a little, excusing teachers who give grades as non-dehumanizers probably because they want listeners and if they suddenly offend their entire core audience, things might not go so well.

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart / CC BY-SA