The return of the dojo metaphor! And here I thought we had seen the back of it.
Personally, I would go a step further and say that debating popular ideas which are unworthy of debate might be a good way to train bright un-titled college students.
My grandmother, being time-rich and lacking for good conversation, never failed to invite door-to-door prosyletizers into her house, then spend hours telling them how ridiculous their beliefs were. Soon after this behavior became known, one told her he had been placed in charge of training new young missionaries, and asked if she would mind if he brought them around and seeing how they did against her. She didn’t, so he did, and continued to until her health took its final turn for the worse.
Unfortunately, the anecdote ends there, so I don’t know what the results of the experiment were, or if they are an actual argument for this trial by verbal fire. But I’m sympathetic to the guess that the practice would inculcate surety in those students who didn’t give up mid-way: they would have the answers to the common lies “beaten” into them.
The return of the dojo metaphor! And here I thought we had seen the back of it.
Personally, I would go a step further and say that debating popular ideas which are unworthy of debate might be a good way to train bright un-titled college students.
My grandmother, being time-rich and lacking for good conversation, never failed to invite door-to-door prosyletizers into her house, then spend hours telling them how ridiculous their beliefs were. Soon after this behavior became known, one told her he had been placed in charge of training new young missionaries, and asked if she would mind if he brought them around and seeing how they did against her. She didn’t, so he did, and continued to until her health took its final turn for the worse.
Unfortunately, the anecdote ends there, so I don’t know what the results of the experiment were, or if they are an actual argument for this trial by verbal fire. But I’m sympathetic to the guess that the practice would inculcate surety in those students who didn’t give up mid-way: they would have the answers to the common lies “beaten” into them.