To those who have nicely extreme disagreements with our current educational set up, you might find
this article interesting. You should also note the writer's profession and position. People are working.
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Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre  in the context of school-based education, I believe being taught how to apply knowledge is incredibly important. |
Ah, that is, interestingly, the precise reason why we would differ on this point. I would prefer to redesign the educational system to suit the objectives that should be met. I believe that if students can desire knowledge, then based on this knowledge, which is not predicated by a restricting application, they can then act knowingly.
The pursuit of knowledge is important in and of itself. I don't have a solid defense for that assertion, but I think it is true. This was, after all, the founding concept of the
Institute for Advanced Study.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre what is the point of knowing if nothing is done with that knowledge? |
This is a remarkably common question with some definite merit, but the demand for utility to come of all things makes me wonder. How would you apply art, for instance? How about history? What about combinatorics? But is knowledge of these things useful? Certainly. I apply knowledge about them all the time, yet the application is the knowing itself. The easiest example is history: I know facets of the past, and thus can see their effects on the state of today, and so I can grant myself context in which to see our circumstances.
Of course, I speak of disciplines.
But then, we speak of the applications of a particular disciplines, and then we also speak of unforeseen and surprising, new applications of those same disciplines. Is this something that can be taught? Finding knowledge can be taught, as can analysis and communication. But usage? It is not so easy to encapsulate usage as it is the other three abilities.
Keep in mind I'm not making a list of things we need to add to our schools. One of the grander flaws of our current school systems
is the lack of application in the curriculum we are taught. But I don't think it's a very important one; it seems more to me like a symptom, rather than a cause, of poor curriculum design and pedagogy in general.