Originally education was the preserve of the elite, it was a study of the classics and the enlightenment era sciences. This education was largely translated to the population during the industrial revolution and remained unchanged for a long time, basically until the mid 90’s when the advent of the internet changed the way we work.
When I say this changed education, I do not mean the established methods of delivery, they have unfortunately remained the same, what the digital revolution has altered our approach to learning.
Largely this boils down to memory vs. synthesis (there is an article on this in the ‘mind’ pages) which has created a shift in out adaptive and educational focus that has not been matched by the improvements in delivery.
The internet, mobile phones, smart tablets, and other things have created a collective memory bank for humans to use, and being the adaptive creatures we are, we have leapt at the chance to use this. What this does is create a transverse memory bank for us to use. This means we remember less, because we know we can access the information at the touch of a button. Things like phone numbers and addresses are no longer committed to memory, nor are many things that used to be in education. People are simply not prepared to learn in the same way anymore.
So, we have an educational system that is geared towards the memorising of information in order to pass exams, and a system of learning in the real world that is largely based on information synthesis. Is this new system bad, or is the educational system no longer fit for purpose?
If we look at the real world for a moment and forget education, we can clearly see that the ability to synthesise information rather than retain it has led to exceptional advances in almost every field of study, innovation, and technology; people are able to pull information from the transverse memory store that is our world wide web and join up the dots in ever more innovative ways. I would argue on this basis alone that the new system is an improvement, however, there is more compelling evidence in favour of synthesis. Biologically we are not designed to memorise information, our memories are notoriously unreliable; we remember events euphorically and have a sense that things we experienced in the past were better than they actually were, we remember our own actions self critically, recalled actions are almost always recounted as being worse than they actually were, we remember events with varying degrees of clarity depending on which senses were primarily used at the time (smell for instance creates a far more vivid memory than hearing). On top of this, it is common for us to fill in gaps in our memory with complete fantasy, our brain makes up the bits that are not memorised to fit the general theme of the memory. All in all, it is not a solid basis on which to base our measure of an education.
we are, on the other hand, brilliantly adaptive as a species, we inhabit all environments on earth, and have adapted both physically and technologically in order to cope with these environmental differences, we learn how to use new technologies and how to combine processes to create composite tools that suit our needs better. Throughout history we have demonstrated this ability to innovate.
So, if we give our memory largely over to electronic devices, does this mean we become less intelligent? If we are measured on our learning through memory alone then this is the only predictable outcome, but to me this does not create an accurate picture of intelligence. Our ability to synthesise is far more valuable to us than our ability to memorise, so this should be reflected in the teaching and learning that forms our education.
Let me give you an example of how I see this working; in the current system we might learn about trigonometry, followed by several pages of problems related to trigonometry for us to complete in the hopes that we commit the process to memory. However, this does not allow us to synthesise the information and apply it, we have no concept of how trigonometry can be used in the world around us. So, my model for education would be this; we learn about the uses of trigonometry, where it is applicable and how it can be used to solve real world problems, we learn this through discussion and practical application with a reflective element to allow students to reach their own conclusions for how this could be applied to the world around them. They do not need to know how to perform trigonometry from memory, we have computers that will do this for them, and no employer is ever going to expect someone to write out and solve a trigonometry problem by hand when there is a faster and more efficient machine alternative. So, what they learn is how to think about a problem, how to synthesise the information within a problem and how to obtain the information to solve it through the use of the transverse memory of the web.
Another example of this is in divergent thinking, this video illustrates this perfectly.
We create an educational system that teaches people to think objectively, critically, and analytically about the problems they encounter, and how to research, question and apply a variety of options to solving the problem at hand. it is the processes of thinking that are most important, the retention of information is secondary in a digital age. We need people to be able to effectively sift through the information they find online, apply it wisely and creatively and critically analyse the effects of this synthesis for the benefit of people in the future.
Classical learning by rote is dead, what we need to do now is learn how to learn. We need to be able to think creatively about problems we face, not face problems with a raft of largely irrelevant memorised information.
Shevek Pring 