Hard times 2
Hard times 2The one most necessary thing in education, according to Mr. Gradgrind, a retired hardware merchant of Coketown, was facts. In his harsh and somewhat closed view, all human events were susceptible of measurement; they could be reduced to balances with so many facts on one side and so many facts on the other side. According to him, admirations, imagination and even sentiment were useless and disturbing factors that had a tendency to destroy the balance, and should therefore, be eliminated by every possible means. The chief means for such elimination he believed, was education. On these principles, Mr. Gradgrind set up a school where just like with members of his own family, the principles of his "hard and fast system" were rigidly instilled in the minds of his students. Such pupils of the Gradgrind school were continually crammed with facts from day to day until they 'spilled over 'with them. Such facts were to remain in the mind, pressed down in all forms of memory until all finer sensibilities were deadened.
As dramatic and unhearted as it may sound, that is precisely what Mr. Gradgrind wished to accomplish. In my opinion, however, he was not an unkind man at all. He believed absolutely that he was doing a good deed. He was affectionate in his way; but he studiously repressed all forms of spontaneous affection and as his children grew up, it came to be realized that he was not in sympathetic touch with them. This was especially apparent with Mr. Gradgrind's two older children, Louisa and Tom. Tom became morose and discontented, while Louisa stayed somber and hopeless and neither of them like their home, which in actuality, the Gradgrind school was based on and it's teachings were very similar.
The rigorous program taught by Mr. Gradgrind was not concurrent with many of the more common teaching theories and practices of today. It is generally accepted that in modern times, instruction be divided to coerce the student into utilize their three key learning areas: The cognitive, affective and the psychomotor area. The affective area deals with feelings or emotions, which Mr. Gradgrind ignored. The cognitive area emphasizes problem-solving, but also stresses much more creativity than Mr. Gradgrind wanted to deal with...
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