Inquiry-Based Learning |
I can safely say that I never learn a bloody thing in all my years of schooling,
Picture taken from janetlee.edublogs.org
and yet every year I manage to pass all my classes simply
because I have a knack for taking multiple choice tests, which reduce the sum total of human history and knowledge to nothing more than a series of facts that must be memorized and regurgitated and are the worst possible way to gauge a person’s actual knowledge.
Memorized facts have no context, no understanding, and to an average
student, no relevance at all. Teaching people how to understand concepts rather than just facts and derive their own relevance from available data would be a quantum leap forward in American education.
because I have a knack for taking multiple choice tests, which reduce the sum total of human history and knowledge to nothing more than a series of facts that must be memorized and regurgitated and are the worst possible way to gauge a person’s actual knowledge.
Memorized facts have no context, no understanding, and to an average
student, no relevance at all. Teaching people how to understand concepts rather than just facts and derive their own relevance from available data would be a quantum leap forward in American education.
It would take a complete overhaul in American education to get any of this to work, though.
Picture taken from stetson.edu
We would need to, like the article says, enact some sort of subject continuity from grade to grade and come up with a greater definition of what a kid needs to know by the time he graduates high school. Above all, we would need to either eliminate summer vacation (which, really, wouldn’t be the worst idea) or severely pare down the “testable facts” a kid needs to know to pass any required exams in order to give teachers the time they need to actually explain things. In the current system, “On-target questions that would tend to cause deviations from the plan are met with, ‘We will get to that later.’” Of course they are! There’s still a thousand things they need to know for the TAKS!
I agree that it’s important to not just “recite the correct answer.”
Picture taken from
ergonomicedge.wordpress.com
ergonomicedge.wordpress.com
Teachers need to ask deeper questions, get students actually thinking rather than just memorizing. It’s about synergy. It's about connecting that country border in geography to that event in history, or connecting the physical details of electricity to how its invention changed society. Done correctly, inquiry-based learning might be a solution to the whole “obsolete in two years” problem brought up in Shift Happens – who cares if stuff changes if people have the intelligence and growth skills necessary to change with it? Since the 'essential' knowledge someone might need in the future is always changing, it's more important for students to master learning skills like research, question-asking, teamwork, and innovative thinking.
Of course, I worry that we’ve gotten so brainwashed in the last 50 years that it won’t be possible.
Picture taken from archives.gov.on.ca
If Americans are known for anything (other than our propensity to shoot each other) it would be that we have a bit of a tendency to resist change. As the article says, “Many, especially older, people have not mentally moved past the time when our country was an industrial, or even an agrarian, place.” Our kids are falling behind? Let’s throw more math at them! And make them sit at computers more! Recess? No! Keep them at their desks! Well-rounded education? No! They need more science! They need to be able to recite the five steps of cell division by the second grade! Of course it’ll be like Hooked On Phonics where they can read the stuff out loud but have no idea what it means, but dad gum it they’ll be able to say “anaphase!”
Plus, there’s also the fact that people who actually understand
things can think for themselves,
which isn’t something that the billionaires who run America want them to be able to do. Unfortunately, I’m sure we’re facing down the barrel of another generation of bored standardized-testers who think science and math and anything other than spending money and watching TV is 'stupid.’