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| Author |
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MadArchitect
Joined: 14 Nov 2004
Posts: 2609
Gender: 
Location: decentralized
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 Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 7:01 pm Post subject:
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| Why wrote: |
| Show a child what to learn, and he will learn what you show him.....teach a child how to learn, and he will learn for a lifetime. |
Teaching a child how to learn is something that begins long before they get to school, and I think most educators at the early levels would tell you that children who don't already have at least a modicum of training to that end before entering school are the biggest challenge facing a teacher. At any rate, if a child hasn't been taught how to learn by at least their second or third year of school, chances are they'll be a remedial element throughout their educational career.
Which is to say, I don't think it's the educational system's place to teach students how to learn -- at least, not after the first or second year of their education. If a student doesn't know by then how to engage a subject and explore it, then what have they been doing in school in the first place? And I'm not sure how you'd justify the seven or eight years that follow if it's primary purpose is to continue drilling that one lesson.
A compulsory educational system -- let me stress: compulsory -- should not be construed primarily as preparation for one or more types of future education. I think we should be realistic enough to admit that many people who pass through the compulsory educational system will not seek out further formal education. If that is, indeed, the case, then a compulsory education that is geared mostly towards prepping students for a real education to come must be considered unfair to those students who won't seek more formal education. It would be no different than making everyone in a physical education class train for the hammer toss simply because you've got three or four students who might well compete at the Olympic level.
Of course, formal education is not the only issue involved here -- most students will undergo what you could call an informal education, and compulsory schooling could be used as a kind of training for learning in a non-institutional environment. The question that remains, to my mind, is that of, what sort of training can a compulsory education provide that would benefit students in some undefined, informal education to come? It is by no means guaranteed (or even terribly probable) that many of them will reshape themselves as auto-didacts once they've graduated from the educational system. Very people who go on to college or graduate training continue to educate themselves in their post-collegiate years, so I see no reason to suppose that people who never pursue secondary education will be more likely to do so.
What I'm asking for here are specifics. I've been bold enough to suggest some of the sorts of topics and assignments might make it into a curriculum arranged according to my principles. So what kind about in a curriculum that purports to teach students "how to learn"? What would be taught, and how, and for that matter, for how long? |
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