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Every academic learning experience can and should be an interactive and enjoyable process

"Gaslighting" or "gas-lighting" is an abusive technique whereby the abuser twists, spins, selectively omits, or falsifies information to manipulate the victim. In this case, my opponent is the abuser, and the rest of us are victims. This defense is a counter-story to re-assert the realities of the situation before me and the reader. 1. My opponent begins with a specious "negation" of my initial suppositions by accusing me of conflating whether a goal is "primary" with whether such a goal can or should always be achieved. This false accusation, of course, misses the well-known connotation of "primary," which is that of a goal that is to be pursued before others and even at the cost of others. And, as I painstakingly explained, my argument is that education has fundamental goals that are incompatible with making every educational experience both interactive and enjoyable. My conclusion that it does is strongly influenced by the well-established fact that there are a multiplicity of learning styles, so making every single educational experience "interactive," as my opponent explicitly proposed, is completely incompatible with the goals of diversity in education and neglects the fact that "interactivity" is often not compatible with "enjoyment" for some students. 2. My opponent then makes the mendacious claims that (i) "meaningfulness" is a non-issue because he has not explicitly mentioned it in his resolution and (ii) my position that some learning experiences are more meaningful when his criteria of interactivity and enjoyment are set aside makes discussing his resolution pointless. No critique of my opponent's resolution could be more on-point than a discussion of whether there are other criteria that might be more important than and incompatible with those proffered in his resolution. My opponent's absurd critique--like his absurd suggestion that "this exchange will seek to identify ways that academic learning can be participated in and enjoyed by the students rather than merely being observed and tolerated," is nothing more than a demand that I accept the truth of his claims and get on to the more important task of making the positive case for his claims that he declines to make himself. Furthermore, because my opponent has made an "ought" claim without explaining any criteria whereby an "ought" may be established (here, my opponent suffers from having made no argument in favor of his resolution), I am free to consider what sorts of ends might drive an "ought" conclusion. As clearly set forth in my argument, a "meaningful" educational experience includes one that has certain ends such as the development of multiple modes of thinking, a diversity of learning approaches, fairness to a diverse group of learners, bench-marking the adequacy of efforts, a humane understanding of one's limitations, and achieving good outcomes (among other ends). These are all considerations that are, to one degree or another, in conflict with the criteria of "interactivity" or "enjoyment" and are more important than assuring that every single educational experience is both interactive and enjoyable, as my opponent explicitly insisted ought to be the case. 3. My opponent credits my statement that "we should take [the resolution's criteria] more as an aspiration that we make education interactive and enjoyable when possible" was closer to addressing the contention of the resolution. Nothing could be further from the truth. The resolution contended in plain English, which some may comprehend more easily than others, that "EVERY academic learning experience CAN and SHOULD BE an interactive and enjoyable process." I have shown that there are competing and at times more important imperatives that we ought to pursue and that are sometimes incompatible with those criteria. 4. My opponent then blatantly reverses course on the meaning of a fundamental term, "interactive." My opponent claimed that the definition was "self-explanatory," that "interactive" challenged the notion that some learning had to be "unilateral." Now, he proposes that dancing with butterflies was also what he meant. Well, it wasn't. My opponent clarified it in one of his more lucid and direct moments: "This interaction can be between mentor(s) and student(s) or shared between the learners themselves." It's abundantly clear that "interactive" has the "obvious" meaning it was given until it was convenient for my opponent to suggest that solitude could also be interactive, if butterflies are involved. Well, that wool doesn't fit over my eyes, and far from being a "conjecture," as the sources I cited set forth plainly, there are multiple learning styles and learning preferences, one of which is solitary learning. 5. My opponent absurdly suggests that he has responded to my contention that it is sometimes infeasible to achieve his universal goals in concert. We should hold my opponent the definition of "interactivity" that he claimed was "obvious" and then explicitly set forth as involving student-teacher or student-student interaction before the inconvenience of evidence and logic became apparent to him. Students who are intimidated when they do not have access to solitary learning will not enjoy the learning experience (as set forth in my sources), and many interactive learning experiences (such as performance before peers) involve levels of natural evaluation and self-evaluation that will not be enjoyable. 6. For a response to the supposed "conformist" attitude expressed by the idea that "failure" can be important, my opponent drums up the argument that the U.S. is non-diverse, etc. Well, I think one of us made an argument a bit earlier in favor of a little solitude, didn't I, in recognition that requiring a conformist "you must interact" approach to education was a bit non-diverse. But let's look at the facts. The U.S. is actually fairly diverse (http://www.pewresearch.org...). Those not living in a history book understand that education in the U.S. now reflect this fact (http://education.jhu.edu...). There is no doubt that a diversity of expectations and approaches is required. One part of diversity is acknowledging the value of solitary learning, allowing students who value it to experience it, and exposing students to diverse learning styles. But diversity does not mean that any failure is attributable to the instructor. It does not mean that 1=1=3 is a good argument or answer. I am relieved that my opponent realizes that students should not "be allowed to put forth minimum effort...," and I agree that, as I proposed first, education should recognize diversity and not be delivered in a one-size-fits-all manner. But failure (not an "F" on a report card, but rather one of the natural and, preferably, temporary results of challenge) is in all likelihood a non-enjoyable but necessary experience that students can come to value, accept, and at some point "laugh about" even though none of us like it. 7. My opponent discusses the effect of "grades" as if I had ever mentioned them. In fact, I did mention them--as an arbitrary or trivial thing that I did not wish to discuss, in my acceptance. Nowhere in my argument did I discuss grades. I cannot fathom why my opponent thinks that a rebuttal of the value of "grades" has anything to do with my arguments. The only thing that I have argued is that "interactivity" will sometimes invite self-evaluation and the evaluation of classmates and that it failure is part of meeting challenges and understanding when better or different efforts or approaches are required. My opponent proposes that I have argued for grades and for labeling people as "not bright" or the like. That's spurious. All I did was point out that part of testing one's limits is not always fun. This absurd lie that we must all feel wonderful about everything is a great harm to all of us. It is okay to fail, and it is okay to discover one's own limitations, and it is okay to use that information to have a great life. It's sick to hide that information from people. 8. Rationality and defeatism are two different things. Einstein was a math genius but not a mathematician, so he hired mathematicians to help him (http://www.todayifoundout.com...). Realizing your limitations is not degrading or defeatist, it is simply a realization that one doesn't need to be an island. My opponent has misconstrued my argument against the irrational lie of unlimited potential and self-sufficiency (absurdly enough, since he values interaction so much) as "defeatism," when realizing the need for alliance is nothing even remotely like defeatism. 9. My opponent's response to the idea that some groundwork may not be entertaining is that it is always possible to make that work entertaining. This is nothing more than a circular argument in response to common experience. My opponent offers no reason to doubt the common experience that some learning is simply not fun, and gutting it out is sometimes the best way to get the basic competencies that open up a more enjoyable experience. 10. Again, my opponent argues against his own universal of "interactivity" in claiming that not everyone enjoys the same method of learning. He cites a situations within common experience where education can be enjoyable and interactive--scant evidence for a universal resolution against the evidence, logic, and experience that those criteria are not always compatible or preeminent. My opponent ends with the conclusion that while butterflies are interactive, using a device to interact with real people is not. This "huh" moment sums up the validity of his attacks against my argument, in a situation where he has offered nothing in support of his resolution.