Traditional Education Is Changing

With every generation of educators the world becomes better at teaching. Most common knowledge today, wasn’t common 100 years ago. For instance, modern calculus wasn’t invented (discovered is a better word) until 1687, but is now the cornerstone of any scientific education. 300 years ago the concept was brand new but now it’s a requirement!

I’m fascinated by self-education versus traditional education systems. Our current education system is built around a foundational concept framework*. A foundation is laid and then built upon. But, we don’t learn that way in the real world.

During our school education we are taught using a very structured method. For instance, when teaching mathematics, educators use an iterative approach. We are first taught about the concept of numbers (counting), then the manipulation of those numbers for problem solving (arithmetic and algebra), then applying those manipulations to objects and shapes (geometry), and finally understanding how those objects change (calculus).

We’ve learned the best way to educate is by laying down a foundation and then building upon that foundation. It’s nice to learn things this way because it’s easy for our monkey brains to comprehend. But, it’s easy to forget our education system is built on more than 2,000 years of past experience. We’ve learned this best way through trial-and-error.

Our personal method of learning is through our own trial-and-error. Babies learn to walk by attempting to do so, falling, getting up and trying again. They are determined to be like those around them using two limbs instead of four. The baby continues until he is successful and has mastered walking. The baby doesn’t want to look foolish and give up. It would seem ridiculous, considering everyone else around him can do it.

Once a foundation of knowledge is learned, we continue to build on it. Once the baby learns to walk, she wants to climb, run, jump, skip, and hop. The baby builds upon a core principle by learning new methods of motion. Educators teach the same way, using this foundational concept framework.

But what the baby is learning isn’t intellectual. It’s physical and uses very different parts of our brain.

In the natural world we don’t intellectually learn things this way. New discoveries aren’t methodically laid out for us. The world doesn’t structure information in an easy to consume format.

The way we actually learn is by starting somewhere in the middle. Once we’ve familiarized ourselves with the general core ideas of a subject, we begin learning more about it. We learn things as we need them. Learning leads to more learning. It’s stressful, but it’s the natural, non-man-made, way we learn.

Self education happens all the time. We educate ourselves through entertainment. When we find something interesting, we do research. But, the Internet can be over bearing. We have so much information, it’s hard to know where to begin learning about a subject. The truth is: it doesn’t matter. Educate yourself the same way you entertain yourself. Just pick a starting point.

If you ask a subject-matter expert: “How did you start learning about this subject?” They’ll have a hard time explaining the order they learned things. They don’t remember how they’ve built their knowledge base, but, they know exactly what their currently thinking about and researching. Our memories of self-education are similar to the way we remember dreaming.

When we awake from a dream we don’t remember how the dream started. We don’t remember how one event led to the next. But, we remember in detail how our dream ends.

The Internet makes it easier to learn and communicate. Society is advancing at an accelerated rate and there is a lot of disruption in the education space. I’m interested in how the education system will change and what brand-new ideas will be required learning 300-years from now.

Note: The term _foundational concept framework isn’t a real term. I couldn’t find the term educators use for this. If you know, let me know._