Quote:
Originally Posted by The Reaper
Well put, but I take slight exception to your question.
Kids would "want" a diet of candy and to have no school, if they could have it. Similarly, most adults want complete and immediate fulfillment of every desire, with little or no effort expended in obtaining it.
Wants are not the same as needs.
Self-discipline is a part of life, despite our recent departure from the concept. Delayed gratification may be better than immediate gratification.
The real question is, ""Are today's youths learning what they need to know to live the lives they NEED to live?"
TR
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Sir--
I agree that the "want to know" issue is problematic. The first time I encountered the concept was in a graduate class at USC's School of Education. I found the implications troubling. What if a person wants to know things that are potentially self destructive? What if a student seeks knowledge that, when practiced, may be harmful to the broader interests of his or her community?
As the professor was a psychologist, he was ethically correct to respond repeatedly to my questions and scenarios (some of which were very provocative) that the objective remained individual self efficacy. If a domain of knowledge stopped working for a person, that person could decide to learn a new set of skills.
For me, the 'need to know' is a part of the acculturation/indoctrination process. In my view, an issue here is that within our lifetimes, the learning environment had a much higher degree of overlap between the 'need to know' and the 'want to know.' I believe that in this environment, there was an unarticulated understanding of the concept that anything worth having required hard work to earn.
I think we need a national conversation on how such an overlap could be re-established. To use the ugly parlance of the private sector, we need to re-establish stakeholder buy in.