MyrnaChomsky

Myrna Gonzalez
Noam Chomsky and Innatism
Introduction
Any essay or report on Noam Chomsky has to be far-reaching and wide-ranging because Mr. Chomsky has been part of the worldwide research scene for many years. According to www.britannica.com his theories on Innatism (the word Innate is clearly legible in the word) stretch back many years, even before any real kind of DNA or geneticmeasurement was possible by scientific means.
Innatism
This theory by Chomsky (and others to be discussed later) clashes with the famous “Clean Slate” ideas made so famous by the well known philosopher and teacher John Locke, and others, and, as stated in www.worldbook.com, has it that when a baby is born, he or she is born with physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual traits that slowly develop andkick in as that particular person develops over his or her life. Its opposite, Locke’s Clean Slate theory, states that the same person is born with a blank slate in the mind and heart, and that over time the person learns how to behave and to maneuver in life.
Controversies and Clashes
If one reads about Chomsky and Innatism carefully, the controversies and clashes with modern research and“political correctness” make themselves clear immediately. For example, in our classes in Education here at Kean, we are taught that every student has the equal amount of ability to learn and that every lesson plan should include every child and be leveled so that those who learn differently can apprehend the main lesson ideas, too.
But Innatism flies in the face of these theories. Think about it: If ababy is born with preconceived ideas of what is right and wrong and what can be learned, then teaching, theoretically, can be relegated to a senseless exercise in some ways. In addition, questions of race and genetics kick in.
For example, if I am teaching a student whose mother is in prison for robbery, and she has been arrested many times for similar offenses, does that mean that the student Iam teaching (her son) will be leaning to a life of crime? Taking Innatism to its logical ends confronts us with these types of questions, which is why the theory is so heated and debated around the globe. It doesn’t firt the narrative that everything is possible and that certain aspects and deficiencies in life and society can be overcome.
Noam Chomsky and the Road to Innatism
According to RobertBarsky, Chomsky’s biographer, Noam Chomsky “had questions about what he was reading in his research and in press reports on the same topics.” Said another way, Chomsky (as a young Linguistics student) began seeing media coverage as rather slanted and biased depending on the subjects. The same biographer writes that Chomsky was born in 1928 in a suburb of Philadelphia and that his father, a Jewishrabbi, and his mother, an intellectual, encouraged the young Noam to read and that education was the foundation to everything.
According to Barsky, in 1959, Chomsky, who had been studying linguistics and human behavior, took on the well known BF Skinner, challenging Skinner’s famous and widely-held theories on human development. In a paper published that year, Chomsky said, as published in thejournal, Language, that Skinner “completely ignored the ability of human creativity” in the book “Verbal Behavior”, which was published to great anticipation in 1957.
If one reads between the lines and takes Chomsky in one big intellectual gulp, that he often challenges authority and commonly held beliefs over the course of his entire academic career.
For example, Chomsky was vigorously against theVietnam and Iraqi Wars here in the United States, and recently became very involved in the Occupy Movement several years ago when thousands of college students protested the “inequity” of income in capitalistic societies.
More on Innatism
To be fair, and although Mr. Chomsky gets much credit for popularizing Innatism, the idea is not new. The belief that the human mind is not a clean slate...