John Stuart Mill discusses ‘experiments of living’ and how
we should pursue different activities and learn from them whether bad or good.
We can all learn from somebody else’s experiences as well because these
‘experiments of living’ have collective value.
I found this to be an interesting 'experiment of living' because many students find that teachers have an easy job in teaching, I know I
have thought that before. Until you actually try to teach someone something,
you don’t realize that it is actually somewhat difficult. So, this idea of
having Cory teach the class for a week was an 'experiment of living' and putting
himself in Mr. Feeny’s shoes where he could learn what is was like to be a
teacher. The first day Cory taught, he let the class do whatever they wanted, but
as the week progressed he learned that he needed to actually motivate the students and get them to listen to him.
The episode also dealt with the idea of prejudice and that
it still exists in our time, today, not just in the book the kids were supposed
to read for class. This helped Cory shape his teaching for class because he
brought that experience to the classroom and helped the students experience a
situation of prejudice so they could understand how it is negative and applies
today. He uses an example with Shawn as a way to express how
important it is for everyone to stand up to the prejudice, not just one person.
(1:34-3:31)
I feel that the show did a good job with this ‘experiment of
living’ for Cory and for other students. It helped Cory understand the hard
work that goes into teaching, and it also helped the other students understand
first hand what prejudice is like and how we shouldn't tolerate it. It also
helps teach the audience of the show the same thing. This gave not just Cory,
but everyone around a means for learning and drawing inferences from the
situation. One of the inferences being:
I really felt this clip resonated with Mill and his
‘experiments of living’ theory and thought I would share it. I think we all
experience ‘experiments of living’ and don’t realize it sometimes, or at least
we don’t make the connection. I feel like watching this show (and even others) sometimes is an ‘experiment
of living’ because you really learn a lot of life lessons through it, and an ‘experiment
of living,’ which as Mill says, has collective value.
Sources:
- http://www.camcgugan.com/epguides/Boy_Meets_World.html
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wrx_GFlAuTc&feature=relmfu
- http://jesuitjottings.blogspot.com/2011/10/scranton-does-not-want-prejudice-in-our.html
- Mill's ideas are from the class reading and what we discussed in lecture
Sasha-
ReplyDeleteBoy Meets World was one of my favorite shows when I was growing up as well! For my last blog post, I related a television show to one of our class readings as well and it is quite exciting to find examples of our class topics in modern day living. Not only do I agree that this episode is an example of an experiment of living, but I also think that the creators of the show did an excellent job explaining the concept of prejudice to young viewers. I wonder if the creators intentionally crafted this episode to demonstrate Mill’s experiments of living as well as the concept and the impact of prejudice? Since Cory is obviously a young teenager during this episode, I agree with his argument that it would be much more effective if he taught the children about the concept of prejudice. Although many children do not comprehend how much time is put into a teaching a class and how difficult the task may be, sometimes children respond to children better than they respond to figures of authority. Mr. Feeny may have more knowledge about the concept, but perhaps his examples would not reach the students the same way that Cory’s example did. Of course, initially when Cory walked into the class to teach the kids he was not given any respect at all, but when he started to tell the story about the Asian girl who was called a bad name, he began to get the attention of some students in the class. Mr. Feeny would never be able to make the example about Shaun’s mom in order to describe the concept of prejudice to the class. Since Cory is not really a teacher, he was able to stir up this problem inside the classroom to educate the students on the harms of prejudices and the story of Anne Frank.
Hi Sasha, what person didn't watch Boy Meets World in their childhood? I too was an avid fan. I liked the article, however, I think it's worth mentioning one problem with your example. As you mentioned, Mill's idea of experiments of living had one limiting factor. That is, the experiment can do no harm to anybody else. Cory's experiment harmed two distinct groups, students and the audience. It harmed students in that the students did not learn anything the week that Cory taught, so it essentially robbed them of one week of their local tax dollars. It also harmed the audience of the show because it okayed gambling.
ReplyDeleteThe two problems that I've brought up are minor. Nonetheless, they do harm to others. I guess the question becomes what is harm? How much can an experiment harm another human being without violating this harm principle? I'm not really sure what the answers are to these questions, but I wonder what Mill would say.
Sam,
DeleteI understand why you would say there was some harm caused in this experiment of living. However, I think that this idea goes back to our example in lecture of what actually is harm. Is the line drawn when someone is sad or if someone dies...it is not clear. However, Mill's main point was that mistakes have to be made, and we cannot censor ourselves or our actions because this will limit our knowledge. I think that the kids had to miss out on the week of learning in order to eventually understand the importance of Cory's speech and what they had been missing out on. As far as the gambling goes, I'd deem that a judgement call.
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