The Key is Fact Finding not Fact Memorization

“Our rapidly moving, information-based society badly needs people who know how to find facts rather than memorize them, and who know how to cope with change in creative ways. You don’t learn those things in school.”
– Wendy Priesnitz

Our educational systems are still fixated on teaching facts even those these facts are often out of date due to the explosion of knowledge. Today's facts are often tomorrows fiction. Technology and science are making very fast progress so memorization is inefficient.

I worked at a computer start-up company in the early 2000's and one of our engineers was a brilliant young man. I wondered why he didn't have any post graduate degrees. When I asked him why he replied, "I did a BSc in Mathematics and at the end of that time I had learned how to learn myself". He could speed read through technical manuals and remember all of the pertinent points. This man has had a very successful career to date because he is self motivated to learn and expand his knowledge base. He also applies his learning straight away.

Given the fast turnover in knowledge we all need to be self motivated learners. By the time someone has got to PhD level in the sciences the information gleaned as an undergraduate is often irrelevant. What is needed are not more PhD programs that take years to complete but more courses that are short, focused and applicable. Such short courses would allow one to keep up. This is where MOOCs are a breakthrough. Of course many of us just make our own courses based on our current interests and curiosity.

DK

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Illich on Schools

“Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.”
– Ivan Illich

Those of us who are readers know that knowledge acquisition is often serendipitous. We read many books, make connections and learn along the way. In fact we mimic the hyperlink system on the world wide web (www), or maybe the www mimics our reading!

Illich argues that society has made schooling into a system owned and controlled by an elite, who know the secrets. It is an educational coterie of druidic mystics. We are told that education is the key to success, that only teachers can teach and that we need the proper authorisations, grades and certifications to get to the next level. This approach constrains real learning and in fact makes the erroneous assumption that all people learn at the same rate, at the same age and that they all need the same content. Educating in this way extinguishes the flames of true learning and curiosity and then teachers complain how hard it is to teach kids who they themselves have constrained.

I celebrate the opportunities that the Internet brings to us all to liberate true learners from the shackles of the educational institutions and let them follow their own needs, interests and curiosity.

DK

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