Davidson Close Reading Exercise

Cathy Davidson’s article is divided into several main parts. In the beginning, she introduces the iPod experiment and how many people objected to the experiment. She then went to talk about how the hierarchal educational method narrows options, while crowdsourcing is a method that greatly opens up the possibilities at hand. She explained how this change was greatly opposed to, even though later on, it was immensely successful. Davidson states, “This iPod experiment was a start at finding a new learning paradigm of formal education for the digital era.” (Pg. 55) Two paragraphs later, she says,

“The formal education most of us experience – and which we not often think of when we a picture a classroom – is based on giving premium value to expertise, specialization, and hierarchy. It prepared us for success in the twentieth century, when those things mattered above all. Yet what form of education is required in the information age, when what matters has grown very different.” (pg. 55).

In other words, the world has changed, education needs to change with it. The subsequent part talks about how the current education model is primarily based upon Ichabod Crane’s model in the 1820s. Davidson writes,

“…Officers even called for ‘sweeping new school standards the could lead to students across the country using the same math and English textbooks and taking the same tests, replacing a patchwork of state and local systems in an attempt to raise student achievement nationwide.’ Ichabod Crane lives!” (pg. 56)

In the next part, Davidson gives the example of the girl with green and blue striped hair who, according to Davidson, is one person of many “who have skills outside that spectrum [the spectrum of the current educational model] will be labeled as failures.” (pg. 61) Later on, Davidson reiterates this point by showing that this girl did have a skill that the modern educational model failed to appreciate.

            She also talked about how she used to be one who had trouble with memorizing certain speeches in order for her to graduate. She was never able to memorize them, but she did something else that she was good at – and because her teacher was a bit more open minded, she was able to graduate. But what if that teacher was closed minded – like the current hierarchal educational system? This is the implicit question Davidson is conveying.

            The example of Inez Davidson, with her creative ways of teaching, only attempts to ask this question again. Inez Davidson changed education in Picher Creek from being formal and hierarchal to one that suites the students – and it wasn’t easy. Just like how introducing iPods to Duke was difficult. The author writes, “First, she [Inez Davidson] got in a lot of trouble, every year, with the school superintendent because she refused, ever, to teach to a test.” (pg. 65)

            Cathy Davidson is conveying one primary message: The modern education system is not working for many people. Inez Davidson taught differently, and she was successful. The iPod experiment taught differently, and it too was successful. The education in the United States needs to be also looked at differently in order for it to be successful as well.