What Does It Really Mean to Learn?
Joshua Rothman
Valiant says that he tries not to use the word
“intelligent” to describe people (in fact, he is “sometimes taken aback” when
he hears others use it); instead, he is drawn to “valuable abilities that
somehow involve learning and are not well captured by conventional notions of
IQ.” An educable mind, he writes, can learn from books, lectures,
conversations, experiences, and Zen koans—from anything, really—and notice when
relevant aspects of almost forgotten knowledge reveal themselves. We admire
aspects of someone’s educability when we say that they are a quick study, or
identify them as “coachable,” but what really makes them educable is that they
apply insights “for purposes not foreseen at the time of the study or the
coaching”; educability is something like “street smarts”—a term which connotes
the “uncanny ability to negotiate the practicalities of life”—and is closely
related to having common sense. When people strike us as particularly
“well-educated,” this might mean that they’ve had lots of school, Valiant
writes, but it could also mean that they’re exceptionally educable, with the
ability to “take good advantage of whatever educational opportunities arise,
whether formal or informal.”
Related:
An Infantilizing Double Standard for American College Students
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/opinion/college-students-adulting.html
If universities today won’t hold students responsible for their bad behavior, they also won’t leave them alone when they do nothing wrong. Administrators send out position statements after major national and international political events to convey the approved response, micromanage campus parties and social events, dictate scripts for sexual interactions, extract allegiance to boutique theories of power and herd undergraduates into mandatory dormitories where their daily lives can be more comprehensively monitored and shaped. This is increasingly true across institutions — public and private, small and large — but the more elite the school, the more acute the problem.