When choosing to register in the CAP Global Citizen program, I anticipated a year of critical thinking and an opportunity to improve my thought process. I have found this expectation to be especially true in my ASTU 100 class this week, as I took particular interest in Farhat Shahzad’s article: The Role of Interpretive Communities in Remembering and Learning. The author explains how an individual, particularly a student, learns and remembers not only through textual based information, but also via networks of relationships. Shahzad labels these networks “interpretive communities,” and emphasizes their importance in shaping our learning and memories. (Shahzad, 2011)
Throughout reading this article, I wondered how important it is to establish a balance between what we learn from textual based material and what we develop within interpretive communities.
First, let’s look at this through a political lens. If those in power put extreme emphasis on intensive textual study, students have little to no time to involve themselves in interpretive communities. Since the nature of examinations in these types of states is highly objective, students aim to memorize rather than engage in critical thought. The state has now increased its control over the thoughts of its population, which is an ideal situation for dominating with little to no protest. This highlights just how important it is to question textual resources by actively involving yourself with interpretive communities.
Interpretive communities have a much higher emotional connection and trust within them. This can be problematic because members may adopt ideas without recognizing the need for critical analysis. Many young people of today share a natural skepticism towards the media. This is a notion that was shared by several of the test subjects in Shahzad’s study, but interestingly, these students did not express the same feeling of skepticism when relaying the views they had gained from family members or teachers. This is why I view the emotional connections in interpretive communities to be a double-edged sword; on one hand these connections form the basis of the community itself, and on the other hand, it can give rise to a mentality of blind trust.
Just as all sources of textual information need to be checked, so too does the information gathered from an interpretive community. We need textual information to challenge our interpretive communities and vice versa. In short, this speaks to the need for a balance between the two.
Shahzad, Farhat. “The Role of Interpretative Communities in Remembering and Learning.” Canadian Journal of Education 34.3 (2011): 301-316. Web. ProQuest. 1 Sept. 2014
