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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 8, 1995)
Learning requires commitment Dead Week. This final week of classes signaled a respite before the frazzling, furious finals week ahead Little was demanded of the student during this week — no Spanish quizzes, no papers due exploring the Theory of Relativity, no examinations querying the status of the European Union. The week represented a lull before the storm of finals. Soon we’ll bid the semester adieu and carry on into the holiday season. But while we’re here and regrouping, let us consider learning. The fact that we’re students binds us. I imagine our intention is the thread that weaves our connect edness, you and me and the kid sitting next to you as you peruse today’s DN. We’ve each arrived at the university to leam. Mask this intention, if you like, with practical concerns such as degree schemes, career aspirations or future financial stability. But we’re learning. Why we’re learning and what we’re learning are different for each of us. Any university prides itself with lofty aims of nurturing learned minds. And theoretically, higher education promotes esteemed goals and values. But any student who’s passed an evening memorizing equations, onl> to have the information curiously vanish immediately following the next day’s exam, blows how difficult it is to be force-fed knowl edge. That student also knows what learning is not. But if we weren’t satisfying someone’s quantitative measure of what we should be learning, we wouldn’t be here. So we leam stuff in accordance with what professor types prescribe. As a student, I think my closest comrades are the questions, undaunting and relentless, that keep me anchored amid the waves of this educational environment. What is Truth? What of knowledge? The chicken or the egg? Kelly Johnson “Learning implies the love of understanding andkthe love of doing a thing for itself Learning is possible only when there is no coercion of any kind ... through influence, attachment or threat, persuasive encouragement or subtle forms of reward. ” And most frequently I wonder: What am I doing here (in this time, at this juncture, on this planet, at this school)? Well, I’m learning. This I’ve determined and no longer question. But I’m puzzled, just yet, as to what exactly learning is. I don’t think learning is the amassing of knowledge as much as it is a fantastic adventure whereby one gains awareness and under standing. To learn is to satisfy an innate curiosity. To a student of life, predisposed to inquisitiveness, every moment offers rare opportunity to learn. A philosophical fellow named Jiddu Krishnamurti (I just call him Jiddu) has helped me consider learning in various lights: “Learning implies the love of understanding and the love of doing a thing for itself. Learning is possible only when there is no coercion of any kind ... through influence, attachment or threat, persuasive encouragement or subtle forms of reward,” he said. Yes. The words sing. There seems an irreconcilable contradiction between what Jiddu says learning is and is not. The infinite potential of learning as an activity that promotes the love of understanding seems hindered by any establishment that promotes learning under duress, with coer cion. In an effort to solidify and mass produce education, course outlines are drawn out, textbooks selected and bubble-sheet multiple-choice tests prepared. The outcome, the right answer, the crux of what is to be learned is predetermined. Instead of being sent on a fabulous journey with the invaluable tool of guidance, we’re led through the maze of higher education. We’re force-fed what others most want us to leam and then coerced to satisfy their requirements through various testing methods. So is “university student” an oxymoron? I don’t think so. Not if we’re aware, as students, of our intention to leam. By paying tuition, we purchase the mentorship and guidance of instructors. However they only provide an organized skeleton of knowledge from which we gather accumulated facts — the likes of which are most useful during a rip roaring game of Trivial Pursuit. But anything more than trivia that we acquire at this institution comes by our own initiative to gain understanding ... to love to leam for learning itself. As something further to consider, Jiddu offers this good news, “Learning is never accumulative; it is a constant movement. You leam as you go along. Therefore, there is never a moment of retrogression or deterioration or decline.” So carry on, my friends. And don’t fret about the twists and turns finals week may bring. Just use what you know to supplement the tidbits of knowledge your profs have so generously supplied. Answer their questions, every one. But give them a bit of yourself. Draw from what you know. Apply your understanding to the questions asked. Kelly Johnson Is a senior news-editorial major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. ‘ Separate but equal still unjust We haven’t seen the end of it. With Shannon Faulkner’s less than-triumphant exit from the prestigious Citadel military academy, many saw it as proof of the idea that women just couldn’t hack it in the rigorous training program. Perhaps Faulkner was not the ideal candidate to break the military-school equiva lent of the glass ceiling, but die rightfully takes a place as a pioneer for trying. I use the word “pioneer” because there are more to come. The Supreme Court continues to investigate whether women can legally be barred from an institution that receives state funds. In the meantime, four women’s applications are gathering dust in a 1 Citadel file cabinet, and more than 250 other women have requested applications. To The Citadel’s credit, they now send out letters to female applicants telling them they can’t be admitted on the basis of their sex. Oh, but if a sudden change in the school’s legal status occurs, they’ll let you know. It all brings to mind a less-than glorious moment in our country’s legal history. In 1896, the Supreme Court decided a case called Plessy vs. Ferguson. The upshot of the case was this: segregated public schools were legal if the facilities were separate but equal. In other words, predominantly black schools must have equal facilities, equal numbers of well educated teachers and equal numbers of students per teacher. Needless to say, Plessy was a sham. It legalized, inflated and promoted bigoted attitudes. There was a status quo before the case even came to court, and it didn’t change at all after tiie verdict. Legal scholar Rodney Smolla writes that the case upheld “the lame and transparent insistence that whatever stigma blacks attached to segregation came not because the Legislature intended to stamp them with a badge of inferiority” but ...>.«aaar ... Krista Schwarting If the Citadel is allowed jo Remain all-male, it means the state’s taxpayers return to the age of legalized segregation. I don’t know about you, but I would rather not go back there. because blacks actually saw them selves as inferior. The motives behind the case seem obvious now, and they should have seemed obvious then. We can argue that the “nine wise men” decided the case in a completely different time, and that’s certainly true. But prejudic looked just as ugly in 1896 as it does now. The Citadel hopes to take us back to that era. Instead of allowing women through its hallowed portals, they want the Supreme Court to cdnsider an alternative: a women’s leadership program at Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Citadel officials believe women can receive an equal educa tion without the disruption of allowing them into an all-male facility. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the area has agreed that women don’t have to be admitted if Converse’s program is actually equal. And to the credit of the women’s college, it’s probably a fine institution. But is it equal? Not likely. And even more importantly, if The Citadel is allowed to remain all-male, it means the state’s taxpayers return to the age of legalized segregation. I i don’t know about you, but I would rather not go back there. [ Faulkner, whose individual legal r battle ended with her admission to L The Citadel, brings to mind the l individuals who exposed and helped end Plessy. The 1954 case Brown vs. c Board of Education officially ended C legal segregation and gave those c hungry for equality a ray of hope. It [ wasn’t until the early 1960s that c someone finally did something [ concrete about it, when John q Kennedy ordered that blacks be n admitted to southern universities. a Like Faulkner, these students were □ ostracized and threatened. But their o experience was still a turning point in R American history; after all, they were q there in a historically pristine, all- n white institution. Li Race and sex are both important □ factors in defining an individual. We [] can’t say whether one is more q important than another, or whether fl something like religion or sexual ^ preference is the most telling part of n 5 an individual’s personality. [] The issue at hand ultimately D doesn’t revolve around either race or |R sex. 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