The Barriers That Indoctrination Imposes In Education As We Attempt To Gain Wisdom
I was thinking about the negative impact of using 3D printed teeth in the preclinical training of dental students. I have stated my reasons in past posts. The plastic used in their fabrication is about 1/2 to 1/3 the hardness of the dentin that composes the canal walls of natural teeth. This difference in hardness between the two produces a strong contrast when they are being endodontically instrumented. Rotary instruments will encounter less resistance as they negotiate to the apex due to the softer property of the plastic while stainless steel instruments are more likely to produce distortions because they rely on the hardness of dentin to keep them centered within the original canal anatomy. This is all well and good to encourage the students to use the rotary instruments they are mandated to use, but in reality the students are being educated out of a book with known misinformation.
Just what to I mean by that? The endodontic books the schools require their students to read do not knowingly include false data. Yes, they may convey a preference for a particular way to instrument teeth, but whatever information is in the book is not knowingly wrong. On the other hand, the employment of 3D printed teeth knowingly trains the student body in developing a tactile perception that is significantly different from the one they will encounter when treating natural teeth in live patients. In my mind that is the equivalent of teaching from a book loaded with well-recognized falsehoods.
What can we expect from such training? As the students transition to natural teeth in their clinical training, the rotary instruments that encountered reduced resistance in the 3D printed teeth will now encounter increased resistance as well as a variety of more complex pulpal anatomy that they did not experience pre-clinically. Whatever tactile experience they developed on 3D printed teeth does not accurately prepare them for the consequences of increased resistance now that they are treating natural teeth. A likely result is a higher rate of instrument separation until the students adjust to clinical conditions. Even after adjustment, the students tactually know they have a greater challenge now that their efforts are directed to natural teeth and more challenging pulpal anatomy leading them to adopt the safety precautions of centered shaping and light pecking motions to advance the instruments within the confines of the canals in turn compromising the three-dimensional debridement of oval canals and thin isthmus spaces.
On a more positive note, the early use of stainless steel K-files, preparing the glide path for the rotary instruments is less likely to cause ledging and other forms of canal distortion because of the greater hardness of the dentin. That is a plus, but as I have stated again in previous posts, the manual use of K-files is poorly designed for the functions that are assigned to it. They shave dentin away from the canal walls on the pull stroke tending to distort curved canals to the outer walls while while the in stroke tends to impact debris apically with occasional loss of length. To mitigate these shortcomings, the curriculum could be immediately improved by substituting relieved stainless steel reamers for the K-files, instruments that are easily adapted to an engine-driven 30o oscillating handpiece at frequencies of 3000-4000 cycles per minute that have been shown to be free of breakage, inducing canal distortions and prolonged procedural time requirements.
The fact that the 30o oscillating relieved stainless steel reamers can be used to prepare 98% of the canal preparation leaving little work for the use of a single helically relieved rotary NiTi instrument thus preventing instrument separations is information that the students are never exposed to. The reality of the students’ education is based on indoctrination rather than education whose traditional ultimate goal is to impart wisdom. Let me be specific here. Rational thinking requires the accumulation of data. That data is organized into information and the integration of that information constructs knowledge. This process is good up to this point. However, it does not necessarily lead to wisdom. The barriers that prevent knowledge evolving into wisdom are the steps the universities take include mandated instrumentation techniques based on which companies are most generous in their financial sponsorships, the prohibition of any information that does not align with the sponsored techniques, sponsored research supporting the corporate supported systems and a faculty that in step with the school administrators confine their teachings to the systems exclusively determined by the corporate/academic agreements.
The schools and the sponsored corporations are fine with the use of 3D printed teeth given the fact that the learning process is already a predetermined affair. Using 3D printed teeth distorts the preclinical experience of the the student body, but is that any worse than teaching systems with known serious shortcomings, that require precautions that have been documented to compromise pulpal and bacterial debridement? Worse, this is done in an environment that prevents the students from getting acquainted with known alternative means that eliminate the short comings of the methods they are mandated to learn. This method of teaching defines quite specifically the process of indoctrination, far removed from the exercise of critical thinking that is our most effective path to wisdom.
The process of indoctrination meets the goals of an increasing militant society. It kills the imagination minimizing our potential to think outside the box, our ability to seek solutions that we will continuously be faced with. Adaptability is the best route we have to our survival as a species and what should be our goal of a more equitable society where the citizenry should have its best chances of a productive and meaningful life. An educational system that devalues the unique creativity of the human mind for a host of prejudices is one that hurts us all collectively. What a difference in the energy that is released when people sense that they are valued in their totality and not simply as vehicles for the mighty few to increase their profits.
We have a long way to go, but a good start for every individual is to encourage us in asking the whys? Why are things the way they are? Is there any reason why we cannot do better? Why should certain authorities have the freedom to determine what is best for us and why should we accept it without adequate explanation? That we are too often ruled in our perceptions by race, religion, ideology, and sexuality and sexual persuasions is clear evidence that we have not developed enough respect, humility and empathy for those we are not familiar with and that is what a true education must include. Not just IQ intellence, but emotional intelligence as well.
The insights into indoctrination versus true education and the search for wisdom are discussed in beautiful detail in a book I reference for this post. It is titled, Indoctrinated: How Conventional Education Systems Perpetuate Conformity, Mediocrity & Indistinguishability authored by Ron Malhotra. You can download it from Amazon for free. For anyone interested in education it is an excellent addition.
Regards, Barry