On Education
I’ve been considering the current format of our education system after reading Seth Godin’s Linchpin. It’s a fairly simple present/regurgitate process. What’s 2x2? What was our first President’s name? While it’s important to focus on basics like this for a time, I feel that looking back on my education that it was just level on top of level of similar tasks. Save for a few great teachers, most of my education’s methodology was “we feed it to you, you poop it back out.”
That left me wondering why didn’t it teach me how to solve more interesting problems or encourage the development of independent thinking? After being in real life for these few years, and running my own design business I’ve seen more need for problem solving than map following.
I wonder if now that things like iPods, notebooks and other constantly-connected devices are so pervasive, that we’ll focus on ways to educate people that they’ll be leaders and create cool things. And now that it’s so obvious that we’ll all have this as a permanent part of ourselves via our iPads, iPods and whatever other devices are out there, I wonder if that style of education can continue and add any value. It seems like a waste of time to make a primary focus on that teaching method now.
Interestingly, a new documentary called “Waiting for Superman” is getting a lot of buzz, mainly for calling our educational system out on its failures to promote good teaching. I have yet to see it, but hope to soon. Ebert seemed to dig it and wrote a short but thoughtful review.
