Defenestrating Thoughts from the Bivouac

I’ve been thinking a lot more about education, and reading a bunch of papers and books on the topic. And it occurred to me that there is a simple metric we could use to see if an “educational system” is useful or harmful: how many “aha!” moments do the kids have?

I think that everyone will agree with the goal of instilling children with a “desire for learning” so that they go through life actively and continually learning.

On that metric, we’re failing as a nation. One third of the adult population in American is functionally illiterate. Over 40% of college graduates never read a book after school. And 80% of American families didn’t buy a book last year (the source doesn’t attribute their sources, but, from my experience and observation, these numbers seem to be in the ballpark).

So we’re obviously not instilling a desire for learning in our country.

Now everyone says, “we have to make learning fun.” While true, this statement is misleading. Learning is fun, the creative insight from a “Aha!” moment is a very positive experience. The problem is that our education system is built on memorization, not on learning. And memorization is boring.

Let’s take simple geometry as an example. What’s the area of a rectangle? That’s easy, it’s the base times the height (or, if you prefer, “length times width”).

Now, what’s the area of a triangle? Most people know that it’s “one half of base times height”. But, here’s the better question, why is that the area of a triangle?

Most people will say “It just is.” Well, if you say that, it means you memorized what the area of a triangle is, you never learned it. If you want to learn it, you should draw a triangle and then draw a rectangular box around it. Do a few of those and you’ll say “Aha!” as you learn why the area of the triangle is one half of base times height.

Now take this example and apply it to all the curriculum in math, physics, chemistry, biology, history, economics, and everything. As you think about it, you start to wonder, what exactly are we teaching kids? Are they memorizing facts or learning concepts?

What’s the derivative of “x^2″? Why?

Oil and water don’t mix. Why?

The sky is blue. Why?

Trivia is trivial.

When we add in standardized testing, we make the problem with education even worse:

• We now teach “to the test”. Since the test only tests basic understanding, all we teach is basic understanding. Advanced material isn’t on the test, so we don’t bother teaching it.
• Since the test just measures whether the answer is right or wrong, we just teach the minimum and make the kid memorize how to figure the area of the triangle. Once the test is over, the kid forgets it.
• The school is measured on how many kids pass. So as long as the kid doesn’t fail, it’s a “success”. There’s no incentive for the kids to achieve, rather they just need to do the bare minimum.

We need to teach things as an art, not as a system of rules that you just blindly follow. Math and science are really amazing. Once you get down to it, learning and experiencing these subjects require as much creativity as painting or music does.

In the end, when we look at curriculum and teaching we need to think about whether kids are learning or memorizing? If they are learning, they are constantly having the creative insights and “Aha!” moments that make learning fun and rewarding.

On the other hand, if they are saying “school is stupid and boring”, they are probably just memorizing stuff.

It is really stupid and really boring to memorize stuff without ever discussing the why.