Why are Americans so Lazy?
In comparison to citizens of many other advancing countries Americans are portrayed as under educated and lazy. This is portrayed through the media and through testing averages. It is commonly known that in countries like China the drive for success and excess knowledge (overall intellectuality) is much higher than in the United States. Throughout this essay we will look at the concerns of a transcendentalist writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, on the way he believes many Americans should be in order to be considered scholarly. In the speech, The American Scholar by Emerson, he defines how an American scholar should behave and ends by saying that there are not enough Americans that are scholars or are trying to be scholars. I believe that in Emerson’s negative message about the average American he makes some very good points but I also believe that he gives them the blame when it is not fully their fault.
In The American Scholar, Emerson believes that it is in the people’s hands to decide if they will become scholars or not. One of Emerson’s main points was that scholars need to make their own conclusions. More specifically they need to take observations about different things surrounding them. From there they need to use their own views and their own research to make conclusions about what they see. This way they do not have to be confused or fascinated about certain things that go on around them, they can familiarize them and move on to something new. He writes that, “The ambitious soul sits down before each refractory fact; one after another, reduces all strange constitutions, all new powers, to their class and their law…” Here he is suggesting that a scholar is a person that will make sure to make sense out of anything that they do not understand. They will take the time out to figure things out on their own instead of just looking for the right answer.
I believe that it is not in the people’s hands and it is in the fault of the American school system if so many people do not become scholars. Even though Emerson wrote this in 1837, it is still not correct to say that students have much control over their fate. School systems were the same back then as they are now, offering little freedom in how work is given back to teachers. For example, many teachers assign homework and grade it only making an allowance for one answer. (This is talked about in more detail in Sir Ken Robinson’s video Changing Education Paradigms). A lot of times students have to do research to find the answers. The easiest and most reliable way to find that answer is to look it up on the Internet. Then there is little chance that the students will research and make their own conclusions because there is a risk that they will get it wrong and get a bad grade. Therefore the students learn over and over again not to do there own research. According to Emerson’s definition this is not scholarly. I agree that it is not scholarly but I think that it is in the fault of the schools rather then the students.
Another point that Emerson tries to make is that scholars learn best through experience and through nature. He explicitly says that we all come from one place, nature, and can benefit from studying it. He also says that the experience we get from being in our environment and studying it will give us an advantage. He states, “ In that passage he was saying that experience is necessary for a person to reach a higher level of knowledge. Through experiencing things in their nature people can learn so much more about themselves, and this knowledge is something that will stay with them throughout their entire lives.
In my view Emerson is right that it is important that a person study their environment on their own, but I do not think that it is practical in the everyday American lifestyle. First of all, the average American does not want to spend the little time that he have after work or school doing more intellectual work. The majority of Americans have the freedom to relax after a hard day. Generally they use modern day technologies to relax with. For example, many people watch television or go on the computer so that they can satisfy their social needs. It is not in our culture to continue work after work. Also according to CNN Health, Americans do not get enough exercise, so I doubt that a high percent of people go hiking or traveling and take the time to experience what nature has to offer. I understand that Emerson thinks it is best that people see things for their selves; I personally remember things better when I experience it for myself, but it is not realistic in our society. If someone were to take the time out to experience things and make their own conclusions they would probably feel as if they are wasting their time. This is because with the search engines that we have now a person can find almost any information they want, and with the right sources the information found on the Internet can be much more reliable. For something like a school project it is much more efficient and realistic to research the information that a student should need. Therefore I believe that it is good to experience things and it is good for a person to know about what surrounds them and where they came from. However, it is highly unrealistic that, in our society, people go out and do these things when they have other needs to satisfy.
One last point that Emerson makes is that an American Scholar must have confidence in what they are doing. If a person does not have confidence then why would anyone believe that his or her conclusions are correct or, consequently, matter? He writes, “In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation, patient of neglect, patient of reproach; and bide by his own time,--happy enough, if he can satisfy himself alone, that is the day he has seen something truly.” In this passage he was saying through making observations and eventually finding a conclusion a person can be confident with himself about his findings. In conclusion, Emerson believes that a scholar is someone who s self-assured and as long as he knows that he was using his knowledge in the process he is confident.
In my opinion people do generally need confidence in order to succeed in what they want, however it is not that simple to have confidence. There are two situations that I know of that can have students in America to have lack of confidence as they get older. One thing that Tara Parker-Pope pointed out is that some schools are trying to do at a young age is instill a lot of confidence in elementary aged children. At first this seems harmless but they are giving to much praise to the children rather than making sure that they truly know the answers to the questions that they are asked. The reason that this is bad is because as students get older they have a lot of confidence, but when they get things wrong, they loose it quickly. I learned in Psychology that when a person starts out over confident and they do poorly their confidence drops significantly. Britnie Girigorie, an English teacher at Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, New York, informed me of another reason that kids (especially in schools in poverty) lack confidence. Many schools have students that live in harsh conditions and do not have time or the drive to focus on intellectual matters. For example, a teen attending a school that already has a child may not have time to focus on their work. Therefore they will do poorly on exams and feel way less confident. Another example is that a kids parents or siblings may be in jail, and the students have the mentality that they will not do any better. The school system does not do anything to help them. Instead kids in high school that are reading at a fifth grade level are expected to take the same exams as everyone else in the country. Britnie sees kids on a daily bases dropping out of school because they do not have the confidence that they can do anything productive with the things that they are learning. It is easy for Emerson to say that a scholar must have confidence, but it is not so easy for everyone to achieve that, especially with the school systems today.
In the modern day society Emerson is right to say that there are not many scholars, but it is hard to be one especially in the conditions that we live in. It is wrong of him to believe that a person can easily become a scholar by changing the ways hey views things. It is not easy for some people to get enough information that they need to even begin making their own conclusions about certain situations. It is easiest for a person to follow how schools have worked for so long rather then risking a grade.
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