What Matters More?
I ran across this post today on The Elementary Educator. The basic idea is whether or not it is more productive to teach students to memorize basic facts, such as state capitals, the dates of famous wars, or even multiplication tables. While a certain amount of basic information is necessary, is it not far more likely that “in the real world” they will just look up these facts by using Google or Wikipedia. Isn’t that what we would do as adults? Shouldn’t the real purpose of education be to teach students to use the tools they have at their disposal? If they are doing this then they will be able to follow their own interests and guide their own learning to make it more meaningful. I have discussed these concepts in previous posts, High Tech in Hawaii and Inquiry-Based Learning.
What do you think? What matters more – the memorization of answers to trivial questions or familiarity with the tools to find the answers?
Flickr photo courtesy of Leo Reynolds
I would like to admit pretty frankly that I remember having the exact same train of thoughts while i was a student. Even though I was quite good at memorization, if I may say so myself, but the times tables and the boring wars and the formulas for chemical compounds, all seemed useless to me! But now I think that the process of learning or memorizing all that stuff used to give my brain a good deal of exercise. It taught me to work hard, it gave me a detailed insight into what the world is really about. It opened up my mind to new dimensions and helped me grow my horizon. Maybe I don't remember even 1/3rd of the knowledge that I acquired during my early school years but it gave me a strong foundation to my general understanding of how things work and how our world revolves. Now I never look at a flower the same way I used to, after I learned that almost all flowers have petals sepals, stamens and carpels. And some of my key passwords now are actually chemical formulas.
I don't dislike tools, gadgets and internet but even though these innovations have made our life easy I feel that these have also let my mind lose some of its acuity. Now I cant subtract 17 from 72 in my head in less than ten seconds anymore. Can you? For me, teaching my kids how to use a map is far more important than letting them rely on a GPS any day!
So I think that memorization of answers to trivial questions (which I don't think are trivial) is as important as familiarity with the tools to find the answers. In fact, memorization should come first during the early school years maybe until 5th grade at least and the students should be encouraged to use their brains instead of relying on gadgets. They should be encouraged to go to libraries to find answers rather than just looking it up on google or wikipedia. If the teachers do not encourage the students to work hard, develop their own thinking and challenge their brains, the day is not far when a student will have his reports done by a professional on Elance and proofread by an editor on Guru.
I respectfully disagree. The time that was taken to things such as memorizing the times tables could have gone to better use. The same content would have been memorized simply through its regular use. If it is never memorized then that should be a signal that it simply isn't in high enough demand in our daily lives to be committed to memory. Too much of the way that children are taught is guided by the way their teachers and parents learned and not necessarily what recent relevant research has taught us about the way that children learn. Regardless of whether or not it is the most effective way to learn, "the way it has always been" is normally selected in favor of "the way it should be".
I don't see how looking something up on Wikipedia as opposed to physically going to the library does not represent hard work. The difference of having students not walking down the hall, but instead reading information and discerning what information is useful to them and what may not be reliable is a much more valuable skill than deciphering the Dewey Decimal System. There are skills that will need to be taught that are different than what has been taught for generations, but that is education for the 21-st century is it not?