Tyranny Of Tradition Analysis

The article “Tyranny of Tradition: How information paradigms limit librarians’ teaching and student scholarship” by Carrie Donovan and Sara O’Donnell, goes into deep discussion of the traditional paradigms for education changing and how it is impacting the learning of students. The article discusses how everyone is entitled to a higher education and one of the main principles of higher education is democracy. Democracy focuses on the actual content of study and how the instruction is delivered. I believe that if students were to learn in the socratic method of instruction, which allows them to question and have their own opinions of things, they will succeed in democratic society. Critical thinking is a necessity for democracy because
people step outside their paradigms and see things from a different perspective. If more and more people accept this new way of learning, then hundreds of new ideas that can improve our society and way of living will emerge. Enforcing this socratic method of learning may be hard but people such as librarians can have a big impact. Librarians can adjust their method of teaching by using a “bottom-up” style versus the “top-down” style. Instead of teaching through lectures, students will learn through experience and perspective. This style goes against the normal authority rank of teacher-student because the student will feel they have more power from experience, questioning and exploration. Students won't be afraid to speak out their new ideas and can put their knowledge to use in a new way. The way of teaching students is changing and this way is giving students more preparation for their future and the democratic society.