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- The Art of Choosing What to Do With Your Life
Image credit: Choi Haeryung for The New York Times
"Our educational system focuses obsessively on helping students take the next step. But it does not give them adequate assistance in thinking about the substance of the lives toward which they are advancing. Many institutions today have forgotten that liberal education itself was meant to teach the art of choosing, to train the young to use reason to decide which endeavors merit the investment of their lives."
This issue is based on an opinion piece with the same title that appeared in The New York Times this week. Choosing what to do with your life is one of the most, if not the most, important decisions one has to make. Here are two shocking truths:
Many people never get round to choosing what to do with their life. They just go along with the path of least resistance, often based on somebody else's definition of success.
Most schools don't teach the art of choosing - training young people to use reason to decide which endeavours merit the investment of their lives.
The authors of the opinion piece designed a course that begins with Plato's "Gorgias" to spark the sort of thinking that students need to understand the choices that shape their lives. By drawing a distinction between the pleasurable and the good, Plato argues through Socrates that an orderly life governed by philosophy isn’t naïve or inhumane, as Callicles has portrayed it, but is actually the truly good life. Callicles, on the other hand, argues that the best life entails the indulgence of one’s appetites.
During the course, Benjamin and Jenna Silber Storey asked students to respond to the question on the best way to live. Peers began to ask each other questions, line up premises, make inferences and draw conclusions. Through this collaborative experience, students had the opportunity to articulate their reasoning, debate and reflect beyond the classroom and reconsider the basis behind their own personal decision-making.
Why aren't kids taught to reason and reflect?
The Storeys' course to introduce the art of choosing to college students demonstrates the importance and effectiveness of helping young people learn to reason and reflect. This begs the question - why are schools not helping kids learn reasoning skills and develop the habit of reflecting? Research has shown that at around seven years old children enter the age of reason, marking the beginning of a new stage of logic, morality and understanding.
At that age, children are also able to identify and express their emotions through reflection. Reflection builds confidence and fosters pride in new skills. Reflection helps children learn to pay close attention to what they see and how they feel. The act of reflecting helps children to understand themselves better, enables them to discover their likes and dislikes, and reconcile their weaknesses and strengths.
Denying kids agency deprives them of opportunities to reason and reflect
Perhaps it is the curriculum load in school that leaves teachers with no time to teach children reasoning and reflection skills. Perhaps it is the culture of asking kids to follow instructions rather than to think, question and ponder. Why it does not happen in school is not as important as knowing the need to help children develop reasoning and reflection skills.
At Doyobi, we use critical thinking more than reasoning, but it essentially boils down to the same thing - the astuteness and ability to evaluate options. We use big ideas like living in a world of interacting systems to introduce children to concepts like interdependence, interconnectedness and systems thinking. Through quests in the metaverse that introduce big ideas, we foster discernment and thoughtful decision-making in children. Our Nature-inspired Innovation quest, for example, helps children understand that nature has gone through 3.8 million years of evolution, perfecting solutions to many problems, some of which are similar to what humans face now. Through this quest, we expand on learners’ problem-solving capabilities using the science + art of biomimicry. In a different quest, we ask learners to question what it means to live in a world defined by rapid change, through which they learn about new technologies and reflect on the relationship between technology & prosperity.
We need to trust our kids
"Modern liberty and modern anxiety are, however, two fruits of the same tree. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted long ago, people who have freedom and plenty but lack the art of choosing will be “restless in the midst of their prosperity.” Anxiety, depression and suicide — all of which are woefully familiar on college campuses — are the unhappy companions of the mobility and freedom modern societies prize."
Waiting for our children to enter college to learn the art of choosing is leaving it a little late. Children, from when they enter the age of reason, have to make choices all the time. Or perhaps that is the problem - the fact that parents make most decisions for kids - leaving them with limited opportunities to exercise their decision-making muscle. If we don't trust kids to make any decision, how can we expect them to make the right call on the big stuff, questions like how they should live their life.
"Colleges should self-consciously prioritize initiating students into a culture of rational reflection on how to live... helping young people learn to give reasons for the choices that shape their lives and to reflect about the ends they pursue. For that art of choosing is what their students most need — and what liberal education, rightly understood, was meant to impart."
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Till the next issue!