No Allusions In The Classroom

Article Critique of Viktoriia No Allusions in the Classroom: Under the Mask of Ignorance
I agree with the author’s mentioned above points because of the following reasons:
Firstly, everyone in the contemporary society should understand the importance of common knowledge as “a phenomenon which underwrites much of social life” (Lewis 236). Paraphrasing the famous philosophical works and authors, we can easily come to basic suggestion which states that “to communicate … successfully, individuals typically require mutual or common understandings or background knowledge.” The same model can be used in explaining failure of student-teacher interaction in learning process, the explanation for this is that the parties involved do not have “the common knowledge that would have resulted in success (Lewis 236)”.
Secondly, the meaning of understanding and learning the history of your own country or any other essential knowledge can’t be overvalued. The young generation has the unique opportunity to find out from the history about the major events, ideas, and individuals that have shaped the modern world. It is also needed to enable one to make decisions as a member of a democratic society. Diane Ravitch, historian of education, professor at New York University, call this background knowledge “a foundation for democratic participation”. Bob Bain, professor of history education at the University of Michigan, has reasonable supporting idea regarding the necessity for the students to study the history, since “the disciplined study of the past should help students self-consciously sharpen and improve the accounts of the past they accept, and increase their intellectual capacity to "see" more clearly the situation in which one has to act”.
Finally, the ability of students to understand the teacher’s allusions will help them not only to avoid communication problems, but also they will benefit in different ways: many emotions or ideas that readers may associate with the works to which the writer alludes delivered only by allusions; some writers use allusion in order “to create a complex and association-filled reading experience”; others try to make a reading experience filled with “challenges and puzzles” that can only be solved with a great deal of research and study; allusions also can help to simplify complex ideas and emotions.

As a college teacher with 15 years of experience, the author is qualified to provide an opinion on the topic and the most vivid example in the article appears as his own “general knowledge” test-experiment. The author’s title is appropriate for the essay because it reflects the main idea of the article and shows the audience author’s attitude towards the discussed problem.

The evidence used to support the author’s points is convincing. For example, the author use a combination of his experience, evidence obtained from recent polls, other professors' opinions, and the results of an experiment. Although the evidence is more than 30 years old, it is still relevant today. Results from the most recent (2014) gold standard of testing, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, report that only 13 percent of the nation’s high school seniors showed proficiency in their knowledge of American history, and only 18 percent of eighth grades and 22 percent of fourth graders scoring as well.

The essay is logically organized. There are clear sections and each section has been thoroughly explained and supported.

The author’s predominant tone is serious and authoritative that helps to convince the reader that the author’s conclusion is a valid one. Audience can easily fill the irony which appears from a numerous examples regarding student’s “creativity” in the “common knowledge” test and emphasize author’s willingness to illustrate his points by not only general summarizing of his claims but by making everyone who reads this article fill participating in the experiment.

The conclusion is reasonable and convincing because it not only summarizes all the mentioned points but also calls audience to action in form of “servicing that hope more responsibly…” Also the last quote about Socrates create the effective final chord of the article.

Evidently students are unfamiliar with the famous paraphrased aphorism, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” But in current situation we do not have to blame the young generation in there “ignorance”, we do need to find real tools to deal with the “information revolution” and “information overload” that can lead to decision paralysis, inability to see what is relevant, “essential” information – exactly what is happening with the student under the “mask of ignorance” nowadays.