Numbers are attached with everything. Instead of having students create something of their own demise, they are expectant to regurgitate information for tests all to create one giant number.
Rather than encourage learning, this drives students to not only become extremely dependent on teachers for the acquisition of information, but it creates absolutely zero desire for students to learn. McCullough talks of the importance of learning to love learning, not learning to cram every bit of our brain full of information.
One of the most important things that can be learned in college is how to learn and how to love learning. If we do not gain that appreciation for learning while we are in school, then it is much harder to continue learning after we are done and graduated. David McCullough proposes that learning and being educated is not just memorizing and knowing the facts and information that is given to us, but comes through concentrated work and a desire to learn from great books and great teachers (McCullough 334).
SUMMARY
In, “Diagnosing and Treating the Ophelia Syndrome,” Thomas G. Plummer, mourns the widespread lack of individual’s ability to think for their own self, labeling the condition “Ophelia Syndrome.” The symptoms of this mental malady, he argues, include a dependency on others to tell you what and how to think. He suggests that in today’s universities there comes a point in every field where a teacher can no longer tell a student what to think. And if students have never been taught to think for themselves, it will severely limit their ability to learn and grow. The students must learn to shoulder the role of thinking through the next steps on their own. He concludes by encouraging self-motivated action, and stepping outside of the scholastic boundaries that are so prevalent in today’s society, again acknowledging the difficulties that accompany