Aren’t Facts Important?

Posted in DemEd in Real LifePhilosophy of EducationParentingTeaching on Nov 11, 2009 - 08:25 PM

This "democratic" approach to education seems nice, but don't kids need to know certain facts to thrive in the world?

In a word... yes.

But I'm not going to stop after one word. Yes, there are absolutely things that people need to know in order to thrive in the world, but we will never be able to teach people everything that they will need to know for their life. And people, depending on the life path that they choose, will need to know different facts at different times. So rather than filling our young people's heads with facts, we should teach them how to find the information they need and give them the skills to analyze and interpret that information for themselves.

If our schools should be teaching anything, they should be teaching research and critical thinking skills. And the cool thing about these skills is that they are learned best when a young person is encouraged to pursue their personal passions. We are all curious -- at least we all start out that way. And when encouraged to follow that curiosity, we are relentless in our commitment to finding answers (or at least more satisfying questions).

Take a six-year-old whose father is a chef. Lets say that she is fascinated with cooking but she is struggling to learn how to read. Instead of sitting her down and trying to force her to read, why not encourage her to cook? Soon enough she will want to start making new things. She will discover recipe books. At first she will try to make the dishes she finds by looking at the pictures. Eventually she will need to read the recipes. At this point she will either ask for help or teach herself to read.

The key here is that she is in a relaxed, comfortable and supportive environment. She is getting to pursue cooking, gain confidence in her own thoughts and ambitions, and learning how to take initiative with research. Eventually she will, possibly with her teachers' help, learn to read. By simply being calm, confident, supportive, and staying out of her way, the adults in this girl's life will have given her a set of skills that she will be able to take with her for life.

So yes, it is important that young people learn certain things, but more important that they are able to understand the value of learning.

Keep the questions coming,

Jonah

I'd rather know some of the questions than have all of the answers.

Tags for this entry:
research, autonomy, curiosity, critical thinking and analysis, empowerment, reading, confidence, facts, initiative

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