What is being lost is the capacity to think in terms of cause and effect, of distinguishing between differing levels of argument, and particularly any appreciation for abstraction. Increasingly, students expect to be spoon-fed with concrete examples, operational instructions, mechanical repetitions, and pictorial representation. The loss of language is but a symptom of the loss of thought -- and losing thought means losing much more.That final statement is rather provocative, and I believe the conclusion it represents to be hyperbolic. I confess to a certain conceit with regard to written communication - indeed, I am frequently the "go-to guy" in my office for composition and editorial services on important proposal work. Yet I readily admit that at times I fail to apply myself to the discipline required to fully and succinctly articulate an abstraction or thought. In years of writing, I have been intentional about ensuring the accessibility of the topic to my audience. I have not so much focused on the impartation of those necessary thought processes that would enable the audience to construct and frame responses after their own fashion.
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There is a curious reluctance to think about the nature of things, maybe as a result of decades of teaching that there is no such nature apart from what one wants them to be. Rather, students increasingly see the world phenomenologically -- as a haphazard arrangement of "stuff" and of events informed by the sensory impressions of their own experience but devoid of any structure.
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Surveys show that the average American receives some 5,000 external stimuli per day and spends more than eight hours a day in front of screens -- television, computer monitors, cellphones, gaming consoles, and so on. Where in earlier ages people worked in their gardens, played an instrument, went fishing, read books, entertained guests, or engaged in conversation with family or friends, they have become passive and speechless consumers of canned content. These screens help produce a people that is losing its language. But more importantly, these people no longer see structures in their world but rather a bewildering juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated events.
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The phrase "it's like" itself seems, well, like a trifle. But it is a symptom of an underlying and more serious malaise: The loss of an ability to think clearly and express these thoughts perceptibly is no trifling matter. It makes our younger generation, and possibly those generations that succeed them, susceptible to boilerplate thinking and ultimately manipulation by others. A speechless society, or one that can no longer enunciate its will clearly and with a large register of distinctions, is reduced to an ant heap.
Perhaps the scourge of multiple-choice testing, not to mention the plethora of SAT/ACT study aids designed simply to help students prepare for and pass the test, is merely a symptom rather than the cause of this loss of language and thought. As I have often told the engineering interns I've had under my watch from time to time: being able to apply the formulas and solve the problems are important skills to be sure - but the ability to communicate your findings, both orally and in written form, is absolutely essential to future success and achievement. Further, the ability to communicate well enhances your opportunity as one who influences, rather than as one more likely to be manipulated by another.
It takes effort, to be sure, and the exercise is at times exhausting. It is also true, however, that exercise leads to agility, and agility positions us for increase in understanding and wisdom.
Then again, I may be completely wrong, as I have much yet to learn. I encourage you to read the whole essay, and draw your own conclusions.
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