When I attended my first class this semester, one of the common questions my professors asked me was what information I had previously encountered in the field. Previous students in my philosophy classes would spout terms like “metaphysics” and “Kant” without further explanation, earning smiles from students who were more familiar with the field. But the other students were confused. Similarly, when listening to discussions in literature class, I found myself nodding along to words like “aesthetics” and “postcolonialism” and not paying attention to other details. Instead of registering new information, I used my knowledge of these terms to infer what my classmates were thinking.
These examples remind me of my experience teaching English language arts to middle school students this summer. I interned at Breakthrough Collaborative, a nonprofit serving low-income students and families in Greater Boston. In the current education system, students have little time to think critically about how important academic and social terms are in their daily lives. Both my internship and college experiences have made me wonder why education prioritizes memorization of big, empty academic jargon without supplementing it with the content needed to elicit creative and critical thinking in students. . As I learned about the current education system through my experience as a teacher, I realized that the American education system only encourages memorization of concepts, not understanding them.
I started my reading class this summer by asking my students what was the last text they read. Most students came up with similar sentences and wrote that they had read an article last semester about Islamophobia and the global exploitation of Muslims. At first I was surprised that the 12-year-olds had such a sophisticated command of language, but when I asked them to elaborate on Islamophobia I was met with silence, which made me suspicious. Finally, one of the students explained that her teacher last semester asked her to write the answer as a reflection assignment.
Conversations with fellow teachers confirmed the reality of teaching that only conveys concepts, without the explanations and discussions that are essential for complete understanding. For example, her students were required to memorize official definitions of commonly used phrases in the news, such as LGBTQ+ rights and police violence, within 40 minutes. She was concerned that her students would be unable to grasp these important concepts quickly because they were being prioritized to memorize rather than explain.
The increasing polarization of American politics has made it easier for us to learn empty concepts as information appears repeatedly and quickly on social media. When there is too much information to choose from, simplified concepts can initially be an effective way to communicate by making the bulk of the news easier to understand. For example, the expansion of the term “LGBT” to “LGBTQIA+” codifies the concepts of “intersex” and “asexual,” affirming and internalizing more marginalized sexualities in public spaces. This has become a useful concept.
But when a concept, a rigid term without an understandable explanation, becomes over-circulated, its actual meaning becomes diluted. Politicians whose aim is to win over supporters perhaps best understand the psychology that generates concepts. Distilling political acts into symbols over-expands the pool of political concepts as we know them. For example, former President Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) is an abbreviation of former President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign slogan “Let’s Make America Great Again,” which President Reagan promised It represented a solution to economic difficulties. But in the Trump campaign, MAGA has become an empty concept, a rallying cry to boost party morale without a clear policy.
Additionally, teachers may tend to make students memorize empty concepts to get better results in exams. Each state in the United States has certain curriculum standards, and education policy makers evaluate teacher performance by assessing how well students meet these standards through tests. However, these rigorous standards fail to account for the diverse backgrounds of students, including the educational resources available to them, the languages they speak, and what they want to pursue in the future.
Although clear testing standards may be less common in higher education, universities still compete with each other in rankings that rely primarily on post-graduation employment rates and starting salaries. Recognizing that job opportunities are rare and essential to success, universities encourage students to demonstrate their job competency through job searches, including “critical thinking,” “transferable skills,” and field-specific terminology. There is a tendency to instill terminology into students without necessarily delving into what these concepts are. Practical in real life. With an emphasis on efficient exam preparation and job hunting, teachers need to help students master academic concepts and popular social terminology in a short period of time.
Education should be a place where students can develop critical thinking about big, empty words. By enabling this thorough thinking, children can learn more concrete knowledge, communicate detailed solutions to the current political and economic system, and develop strategies. Our education system should emphasize thorough explanations and critical discussion rather than forcing vague concepts onto students. In philosophy classes, professors and students should ask why certain philosophical terms apply in certain contexts, rather than just nodding along. When teaching a concept, teachers should encourage students to think and discuss its practical uses.
In practical terms, helping students adapt to today’s society, which favors pretentious but meaningless words, can be part of education. But education does more than just strengthen the system. It must foster change, free people from the pressures of capitalist efficiency, and create a more just environment. At its best, education brings joy and hope to our future. To do this, it is necessary to supplement mere concepts with concrete content.
Amiee Zhao is from Shanghai (26C).