Andrew Miller: Teaching the next generation during the great dumbing down

“Dr Miller, can I ask some advice?” asked the millennial doctor. “Sure, as long as it’s not financial” I replied. Doctors are often not great with money - something about ego and lack of relevant education. She went on, “I’m having trouble with these medical students - do you have any tricks for keeping them interested?” I stood with my mouth open, buffering. My default response to students who seem bored is to set them free to go and find themselves. The furthest thing from my self-confident psyche is to wonder if I might be able to do something better. If you turn up on time, I am willing to share dry dogmatic aphorisms until my caffeine levels drop. Otherwise, leave me in peace. This doctor was teaching me that I am not a good teacher. This may be because I have had no formal training in education, yet all professionals are responsible for teaching our replacements. I also become irritated with extra variables in my workplace. It’s not that I am obsessive, I just like everything to be exactly the way I want it, all the time. However, you don’t own a medical degree; you hold it for a few short decades then pass it on. Among my own mentors were some talented teachers. Rather than poking holes in our self-esteem, one particular professor was quietly spoken and kind. “Do you know what this patient is concerned about?” he asked as we crowded around the bedside of an elderly lady who was busily waving a piece of paper. Her other arm lay limply neglected, and one side of her face drooped with paralysis. “That she has probably had a middle cerebral artery stroke?” I guessed, eager to score diagnostic points before the better students chimed in. “I can see why you may think that” he said as her unilateral gesticulations became wilder, “but I rather think she is trying to show you something.” The piece of paper was a family photo - she wanted to see her daughter but had been robbed of her speech by an expressive dysphasia resulting from the stroke. He was teaching us that being a physician is not a game of “name that disease.” I have marinated in this lesson many times - it’s easy to forget when busy - the context for any problem is always human. The quality of a patient’s journey through illness is as important as the destination. Last week we went to a school function to farewell our six-year-old daughter’s teacher. After thirty-four years in the classroom, she’s hanging up the chalk. We prefer to think it’s just a coincidence - that it wasn’t our child who pushed her over the edge. Being a professional teacher must feel like moving a sand dune upwind with a bucket; every year a new beach. The best ones understand that kids have a natural desire to learn, so they act as a bespoke guide rather than a commander. All the while trying to subtly counteract the dead hand of uncaring modern metrics and the expectations that us beyond-repair parents bring to the classroom. The latest problem with education is that the truth itself is up for grabs. We are entering a period of unprecedented, AI enhanced, anti-science misinformation. The great dumbing-down. This new legislation to limit access to social media for under 16s is not a bad thing - they don’t need those apps. Sure, many will skirt the rules, as with alcohol laws, but there is plenty of evidence with booze that age restrictions delay harm in the youngest group. These laws at least give us a chance to highlight the pitfalls of the 24/7 industrial garbage information feed. If parents and teachers can help kids use their values to find gold flakes of truth in the river of lies, then that might be the most important lesson ever taught. Maybe even us old dogs can learn a trick or two.