When I sum up the things I remember, the shining moments and what I feel I actually learned through my 12 first years at school, the sum of it all seems surprisingly small. I feel the need to repeat the old question: What do I really need to learn at school? I am concerned that the focus is in the wrong places.
Hi Kjartan!
Good question! I have had these questions myself for a long time. This curricular question about what to learn in school is furthermore accentuated when we have such a fast development of knowledge; connectivists talk about the half-life of knowledge; half of what you learnt is already obsolete when you leave school. More lasting kind of knowledge is of course basic math, etc, but I have a hard time forgiving my math teachers saying that this, this is very important, you will use it many times and be happy you learnt it from me. A plain lie in most cases, and young people today do not buy this kind of reasoning anyway.
I have no answers, but I do have three associations to your question, all relevant in their own way:
1) "The five minute university" is a funny old Youtube film that imagines a university where you only have to learn what you would remember five years from graduation. That takes 5 minutes, the comedian ("Father Guido Sarducci") says. Very funny film, helps us think. It can't be this way either? What is missing?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4 A must-see!
2) Ed Leedskalnin was a autodidact, builder of the Coral Castle in Florida, with only 4th-grade education from Latvia and theories in all from electricity to magnetism to stone-masonry. Very original self-learned person. What he writes about formal education (which he almost lacked) is very interesting: All documented knowledge will in time prove to be false - so we are misled, not educated? Instead: "An educated person is a person who's senses are refined". Read this; https://redefineschool.com/edward-leedskalnin/ A must-read!
3) In a totally other and higher academic category and a very interesting contemporary: Luciano Floridi, Oxford Internet Institute, professor in Philosophy of Information and Internet Ethics. He criticises that school knowledge since the days of Plato has become a "spectator sport", instead of being "the maker's knowledge" (see https://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/phil123-net/intro/floridi_phil_conceptual_engineering.pdf ). He is a constructionist, like Seymour Papert, and criticises constructivism heavily. We learn by constructing artefacts (they do not need to be physical either). He is also pointing out that a much bigger problem than the HOW of education (online, blended, distance) is the WHAT? question of education (the curricular question) and the WHAT FOR? question. This especially as we are accomodating into the information society, "the infosphere" where we as "semantic engines" live side by side and cooperate with "syntactical engines" (algorithms, robots, computer programs) that also processes information like we do for the first time in history (only much more fast and effective), but are in another way "stupid as toasters". Knowledge is anyway not the "facts", knowledge is like cooking a dish with the facts as constraining elements (theme for his latest book: "The logic of information"). When thinking of what to learn in school his best answer is "the languages of information" (all from human languages, to concept frameworks in sciences to all kinds of coupling together of sets ofr information and processing them). See attachment. A must-think!
(Excuse a long answer that did not become a real answer, only reflections.)
Article What a maker’s knowledge could be
Article E-ducation and the Languages of Information
I think its not so much the content knowledge, but rather the various soft skills and competencies such as communication, collaboration, self-regulation etc.
I think these are the important skills that children will need to learn in order to do well in society.
I also believe that schools should be avenues where children are given the opportunity to explore different interests and activities to find out what they are interested and passionate about.
Hi Kjartan!
Good question! I have had these questions myself for a long time. This curricular question about what to learn in school is furthermore accentuated when we have such a fast development of knowledge; connectivists talk about the half-life of knowledge; half of what you learnt is already obsolete when you leave school. More lasting kind of knowledge is of course basic math, etc, but I have a hard time forgiving my math teachers saying that this, this is very important, you will use it many times and be happy you learnt it from me. A plain lie in most cases, and young people today do not buy this kind of reasoning anyway.
I have no answers, but I do have three associations to your question, all relevant in their own way:
1) "The five minute university" is a funny old Youtube film that imagines a university where you only have to learn what you would remember five years from graduation. That takes 5 minutes, the comedian ("Father Guido Sarducci") says. Very funny film, helps us think. It can't be this way either? What is missing?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO8x8eoU3L4 A must-see!
2) Ed Leedskalnin was a autodidact, builder of the Coral Castle in Florida, with only 4th-grade education from Latvia and theories in all from electricity to magnetism to stone-masonry. Very original self-learned person. What he writes about formal education (which he almost lacked) is very interesting: All documented knowledge will in time prove to be false - so we are misled, not educated? Instead: "An educated person is a person who's senses are refined". Read this; https://redefineschool.com/edward-leedskalnin/ A must-read!
3) In a totally other and higher academic category and a very interesting contemporary: Luciano Floridi, Oxford Internet Institute, professor in Philosophy of Information and Internet Ethics. He criticises that school knowledge since the days of Plato has become a "spectator sport", instead of being "the maker's knowledge" (see https://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/courses_readings/phil123-net/intro/floridi_phil_conceptual_engineering.pdf ). He is a constructionist, like Seymour Papert, and criticises constructivism heavily. We learn by constructing artefacts (they do not need to be physical either). He is also pointing out that a much bigger problem than the HOW of education (online, blended, distance) is the WHAT? question of education (the curricular question) and the WHAT FOR? question. This especially as we are accomodating into the information society, "the infosphere" where we as "semantic engines" live side by side and cooperate with "syntactical engines" (algorithms, robots, computer programs) that also processes information like we do for the first time in history (only much more fast and effective), but are in another way "stupid as toasters". Knowledge is anyway not the "facts", knowledge is like cooking a dish with the facts as constraining elements (theme for his latest book: "The logic of information"). When thinking of what to learn in school his best answer is "the languages of information" (all from human languages, to concept frameworks in sciences to all kinds of coupling together of sets ofr information and processing them). See attachment. A must-think!
(Excuse a long answer that did not become a real answer, only reflections.)
Article What a maker’s knowledge could be
Article E-ducation and the Languages of Information
In regards to learning during our first 12 education years, much of what I learned appeared not to be very applicable to my development. However in college and beyond I felt much more prepared to enter my clinical profession. Then via undergrad and graduate teaching, I'm able to pass this knowledge and skills to aspiring clinicians.
Rich
Anders Norberg Thank you for a long answer. Thank you for putting in real energy because, it seems, it engages you. I often think about the things me and the people around me are willing to learn ourselves because we need it, want it, want to figure something out, need to make something work ... Often, all we need to learn, or learn to do, often very complex things, is the satisfaction, or a little audience, or someone who asks; "How interesting, tell me more" - "How interesting - show me how". I really believe schools can be a free space for learning, were learning is a bi-effect of doing interesting things, solving challenges and being part of a real inclusive and participatory community. ... and it does also happen - only not enough. I was full of learning energy at school (or at least on my free time), but none asked me what I was interested in. I was more than willing to put down the work, but the things at school did not seem to have meaning or make sense to me.
Also thank you Richard Kensinger Zhaoyun Wang Aik Lim Tan for your answers and your wonderful input. At the moment I am reading Eliot Wittington's (1985) "Sometimes a Shining Moment: The Foxfire Experience. Twenty Years of Teaching in a High School Classroom". He turns school into a collaboration project with his students and shows what is possible if you let loose the energy of young people in a good way. I have similar experiences in my role as a teacher in higher education.
School days are the best in one's life. That is true, so we want to go to school again and again. That is why I like the English proverb that says "Never too old to learn".
Kjartan, I can not give the remarkable commentary that Anders Norberg gave, but
what a sensory question. Obviously, the student needs to learn the basics of
communication skills, good citizenship and life skills needed to thrive in the world. I have done some tutoring at the high school level and am appalled at the lack of reading, reasoning, comprehension, mathematical and problem solving skills. But, that is a superficial answer. The teachers that I remember in grade and high school were life long learners, curious about life and eager to share knowledge. They fostered that spark of creativity that exists in everyone. Even people who neither know how to access it or that it exists. Right now, I am a hamster on a wheel, ideas spinning at a rate far beyond my physical ability to express them. I have teachers that make me smile still 40 years later. Some were so far ahead of the world at that time. My biology teacher encouraged us to think about the consequences of medical treatment; how a medication or treatment had to work like the body to fix it. The problem is, that to fix a problem, a new problem develops. Our knowledge base is always incomplete, it is up to the dreamer, cultivated and inspired by a teacher to broaden that base.
That is what an education needs to provide, a structure to build a life on.
Deductive reasoning, knowledge retrieval, work ethic and socialization are the necessary skills needed by all our students.
What a wonderful question!
Brigid
I think we need to :
A good teacher who is able to convey information in a way that attracts students 'attention and attention, is able to stimulate students' thinking, stimulate motivation and desire to learn, give students methods of interaction with others, and teach their pupils to use ways to cope with the problems they face.
A curriculum with information that has applications in everyday life.
Link the school to the environment surrounding the student.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Teacher Education
- School