“Alison, would it be reasonable to say that we could condense 12 years of school into six years, if we cut the nonsense?” I cringe when questions like this one pop up at parties. I’m sure there are better things to talk about! But everyone’s an expert when it comes to schooling, because just about everyone’s been through the system. And after all, with the advent of YouTube, who needs school anyway?
Glad you asked.
If education is all about content delivery and getting through the material, with a strong emphasis on rote learning and memorisation – then depending on how quickly and efficiently you can memorise facts you could ‘speed up’ your education.
Trouble is, unless you can apply the information you have acquired it will be useless. Furthermore, unless you have the skills to evaluate the information and make judgements about its usefulness, you may be memorising defunct knowledge. Then, if you can’t clearly communicate so others can understand, your knowledge will never leave your own head.
Truth is, people who prize themselves on what they have memorised, are usually incredibly dependent on others around them to win work and generate new ideas. An ability to remember information is not equal to a capacity to create new products or services. Box-tickers end up working for thinkers. In education world we would say that memorisation is ‘lower order thinking’ and creativity is ‘higher order thinking.’ The latter is developed through experience and inquiry.
The other problem with a content-delivery approach to education is deciding who determines what material ought to be covered. There is a universe of data out there – what should be included in the curriculum? This is problematic if we have a rote learning view of education. It is not problematic, however, if we approach education with the aim of developing higher order thinking. If we can teach kids to analyse, evaluate, and synthesise the information available to them, then they will be able to conduct their own research, innovate and create.
So no, we can’t condense 12 years of childhood development and education into six. That’s like wanting to condense puberty into six months. Really? And anyway, who said education is complete at the end of Year 12? There is no way we will know everything that needs to be known by the end of school. Learning is a human trait – something we all do for all of our lives. If you’re not doing it then it’s highly likely your life is shrinking.