The Acme syndrome

Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
And he pushed,
And they flew.

– Christopher Logue

The education and social environment I grew up in exhibits something I like to call the Acme syndrome.

The term harks back to my days in school when I used to watch a lot of cartoons. It was a time when a lot of new cartoon channels (Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Pogo, Hungama, Disney etc.) were establishing their presence in India. I, and I have reason to believe that many others of my age, found the content entertaining. Yet, at the same time these cartoons were what Randy Pausch calls ‘a head fake’ in his last lecture. I also found myself learning about new cultures, history, geography, music among other things while I watched these cartoons.

Among these cartoons, Looney Tunes was the pick of the lot because of the variety of voices, the wackiness and its numerous pop culture references. It is one of the characters, Wile E. Coyote, that inspired my observation about the Acme syndrome. Whenever Mr Wile E. went out to catch his prey, the elusive Roadrunner, he would order elaborate booby traps from a company called Acme. Every single time, probably owing more to his own fault, the trap backfired. I was always left wondering that why he never tried out the same device more than once.

It is similar how we educate kids. We stigmatize their mistakes always keeping them in the fear of punishment if they make a wrong move. This philosophy might have its origins in military schools where future soldiers had to internalise the fact that mistakes could be fatal. But the method has lost relevance in public schools, not only does for social sciences but even core sciences and mathematics, as Marvin Minsky explains in this essay. I feel that recognising the existence of this ACME syndrome is the first step before we can think about any real educational reforms.