The opinions expressed here are the personal views of Karl Fisch and do not (necessarily) reflect the views of my employer.
Thursday, October 06, 2005
18 Again?
Are you ever going to be 18 again? Are your students ever going to be your age? Should we be preparing our students for the world as it was when you were 18, or for the world they’re going to inhabit when they’re your age?
I think that a lot can be learned by studying the past. However, the world that we need to be preparing our students for is not the past or the "now" but the future. I think we need to give the learners the tools to make themselves competitive in the world market. Individuals need to be given teh tools so that they can turn their lives into what they want. People need to be able to form solutions to questions using information that they "digest." If we are not preparing students to be independant thinkers then I think we are setting them up for failure.
"Knowledge, then, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate." -Jean Piaget
So we are assuming that some wacko is not going to destroy the world sometime in the next few years? Kidding. Anyway, one of my favorite quotes comes from B.F. Skinner: "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." I try to always remember that teaching students how to access information is really my primary goal. I do not expect that twenty years from now they will remember all of the reasons why the Roman Empire fell, but I do expect that they will leave my class with a good historical framework, the ability to think like historians, and some strategies they can use to learn and re-learn information when they eventually decide that they would like to remember all of the reasons why the Empire fell.
Looking at my daughter Emma, I can't help but wonder will her teachers care as much as I do about preparing her for the future? Will they look at her as just another student and expect her to regurgitate the information they provide or will they instill in her the desire to be a life long learner? I accept my role in this as her parent so I am not just putting the task solely on her teachers. I can only hope her teachers, as we are demonstrating, will want to prepare her for the future and not become complacent in terms of their learning nor in terms of her learning as well.
I believe that students themselves should look back at the old ways of learning, where not everything was just handed to them. Where they actually had a yearning for learning. Where students asked why does this work like this before they asked why do I have to. The future I have envisioned is one where all students strive for knowledge, with or without teachers.
I think that a lot can be learned by studying the past. However, the world that we need to be preparing our students for is not the past or the "now" but the future. I think we need to give the learners the tools to make themselves competitive in the world market. Individuals need to be given teh tools so that they can turn their lives into what they want. People need to be able to form solutions to questions using information that they "digest." If we are not preparing students to be independant thinkers then I think we are setting them up for failure.
ReplyDelete"Knowledge, then, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate."
-Jean Piaget
So we are assuming that some wacko is not going to destroy the world sometime in the next few years? Kidding. Anyway, one of my favorite quotes comes from B.F. Skinner: "Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten." I try to always remember that teaching students how to access information is really my primary goal. I do not expect that twenty years from now they will remember all of the reasons why the Roman Empire fell, but I do expect that they will leave my class with a good historical framework, the ability to think like historians, and some strategies they can use to learn and re-learn information when they eventually decide that they would like to remember all of the reasons why the Empire fell.
ReplyDeleteLooking at my daughter Emma, I can't help but wonder will her teachers care as much as I do about preparing her for the future? Will they look at her as just another student and expect her to regurgitate the information they provide or will they instill in her the desire to be a life long learner? I accept my role in this as her parent so I am not just putting the task solely on her teachers. I can only hope her teachers, as we are demonstrating, will want to prepare her for the future and not become complacent in terms of their learning nor in terms of her learning as well.
ReplyDeleteI believe that students themselves should look back at the old ways of learning, where not everything was just handed to them. Where they actually had a yearning for learning. Where students asked why does this work like this before they asked why do I have to.
ReplyDeleteThe future I have envisioned is one where all students strive for knowledge, with or without teachers.
YES - what Anne said with the names Adam and Kendyl applied in the appropriate place!
ReplyDelete