Learning vs. Thinking

Friday, February 1st, 2008

I just read an article called This Isn’t Just MY Problem, Friend, and it clarified for me a bit more what I think is the problem in schools. Here is a short excerpt from the article:

My kids are doing fine in school; they even like it. But you know what they come home showing me? Worksheets where they got everything right. That’s what they think they’re SUPPOSED to be proud of. That they can sit, and concentrate, and finish what they’re doing (they don’t get to go out to recess unless they do), and get everything right. Well, dammit, THAT’s not thinking. That’s learning to be efficient and get the answers you’re supposed to get. Thinking is something else entirely. Its being curious, and being wrong most of the time, and maybe, just maybe coming up with something you’ve made that you’re proud of and pleased with, something all your own (even if it turns out later that someone else had thought of it too).

For the most part, I agree with this statement. I don’t think rote memorization of trivia can be classified as “thinking”, although I do think it can be classified as learning. In my opinion, “thinking” is another level, where you can take all these facts you have learned and connect them in some way and use them to reach new conclusions. It’s not that memory work is not important. To a large extent the amount of thinking a person is able to do is determined by the number of learned facts they have in their memory banks to draw upon. But memorization is not, in and of itself, thinking.

I had one really good history teacher in high school that encouraged thinking. We were expected to learn historical facts, and then he would have us write an in-class essay each week that forced us to apply these facts to some question. I remember the first time I stepped foot in that class he had us write an essay about the moral implications of Columbus’ discovery of America. That was the only teacher I felt encouraged original thought, and it was one of my favorite classes, even if I didn’t always do so well due to not memorizing enough facts.

I think it’s rather sad that in 12 years in a pretty good school system I had only one teacher that ever encouraged me to THINK on a regular basis. Even in this case, I was told to direct my thoughts onto analyzing history, where I would prefer for people to be encouraged to THINK about how to create the best possible lives for themselves and humankind.

Obviously, a flashcard website is going to be geared towards memorization. My goal is to make memorization of facts more fun, more efficient, and less time consuming so that there is more time for actual creative thought.

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