Syl Jones wrote an interesting op-ed piece for the Star Tribune about education, "Education, the quality thereof".
His basic advice was to throw out the outline, encourage creativity, and meet a living example.
He said that he refused to do outlines and most of his teachers punished him. In the eighth grade a teacher told him, "Outlines are for people who didn't know what they wanted to write."
I too have disliked outlines. I gave up an A in American History at West High School in Cleveland because I wouldn’t follow the school’s pattern for producing the term paper required for an A. First, one had to prepare and submit a set of index cards. Then an outline. Once that was approved, one could write the actual paper.
It didn’t hurt me that much because I went on to get a Masters in Mathematics and late in life became a regular columnist for the Reader Weekly of Duluth. As a writer I give Word fits. See sentence fragment above. But it is with such breaking out of the mold that one has more effect.
Although I had many inspiring teachers in almost every school year, I wish I had more like Syl Jones described and Frank McCourt, Teacher Man. I think I might have arrived much earlier at the point in writing and singing then I am now at as I approach 70, not really that great, but definitely satisfying.
Click here for a list of some of my writings on learning and education.
