There is this strange phenomenon that I have observed in today’s world. I seem to run into a lot of people who don’t know what it means to really learn something.
The misconception…
A large portion of society seems to accept the concept that learning is something that the education system actually accomplishes. The irony of it is that children who attend brick and mortar schools go through a process that looks like this:
Go to school.
Sit in class.
Do homework.
Achieve grades.
Move up.
Review.
Repeat.
What’s wrong with that? You might be asking. Let me explain something. If you really learned in class, you wouldn’t need the repetitive homework. If testing really proved that you were competent, you wouldn’t need the review.
Haven’t you ever paused to think about how strange it is to recall the rules to childhood games, but struggle to think of the history you were taught in middle school?
The truth…
Learning is a real thing. However, if you have to re-learn the same thing time after time, you never learned it to begin with. This is why the current education system doesn’t actually succeed in it’s supposed purpose. The truth is that children do not retain information that they do not care about. You cannot force someone to learn something that they are not interested in learning.
The good news…
If you stop wasting time forcing kids to learn and re-learn the same concepts time after time, you might find that they’ll choose to learn. Kids will seek out intellectual growth in subjects that they are interested in. It is a natural occurrence.
I was pulled out of public school in second grade, and I stopped using curriculum altogether in high school. Yet, I pursued my interests and have been more successful than many of my peers. If nothing else, think of the sociological benefit to raising up a society of passion-led individuals. Think of the impact it would have on the world if children were not raised to believe that they were doomed to be less successful over an arbitrary grade.
I don’t know what you think, but I’m sure that the impact would be pretty awesome.