JohnGrowing up in a traditional education system, I honestly never fully grasped the content, just enough to pass the class. What I mean is that the goal of school for me wasn’t to learn anything, it was to pass the class and get the highest grade possible. Why? Because that’s what everyone looks at. Check most people’s resume and you’ll find the school they went to, the GPA, and when they graduated. Does it ever say I took a class in rocket science and that’s why you should hire me?
That’s one of the problems I have with traditional education, it’s built on top of a scoring platform. It isn’t built to help someone to understand why and how you can use this information in the real world; the application of it. The biggest issue I have is that if you don’t understand it quick enough, you’ll get marked down, and you’ll get low grades. How is that in any way motivational for students to want to even learn the material?
“You have to learn this stuff. If you don’t understand it, though, you’ll fail.”
From my perspective, there are many times that I do want to learn about the subject, but if I don’t do a good job at learning it, I’ll fail the class, reduce my GPA, and maybe spend a ton of money to retake the class or something else. Or, I could just simply take an easy class. This style of teaching does not lend it self to help someone grow even if they make a few mistakes. I don’t have a solution, but I think some things need to change.
The caveat here are those classes that didn’t take the “here is your textbook, read pages one through a million, test tomorrow” approach. An example would be my high school physics class. Yes, there was a book, but it was more of a reference to the projects we were doing. One of the memorable ones was building a bridge with toothpicks to support weight. My buddy Calen and I – mainly Calen – came up with the idea to just wrap a ton a toothpicks and glue them together and make logs. Then just build a regular bridge with supports we referenced from our book. I would have to say it’s probably the best bridge ever built in that class. We had a 200+ pound student stand on it with one foot and it supported him. From my understanding, many students copied the idea, but the teacher told them to try something else.
And that is a great example of doing things outside of the traditional education model.
On the opposing side, how else would you measure how well a student is doing in class? I really have no idea. Just venting.