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My View

EVERY SO OFTEN, my computer succumbs to a 鈥渧irus鈥� and, with my exiguous knowledge of the machine, I have to take it to the repair shop to have its health restored. Usually, a young technician fixes the problem in a blink by nimbly pressing several keys. Amazed and grateful, I collect my perfidious device and go home.

On my last occasion, however, the young man servicing the computer said, 鈥淚 can teach you how to fix the problem if it occurs again.鈥� I quickly agreed, and he began a brief demonstration. Not only did he show me how to make the repair, he wrote down the procedure and instructed me to give it a test try.

En route home, I recalled an old saying I used when I was a professor: 鈥淕ive a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.鈥� I wondered if educators today are merely giving this generation of students a time-limited fish. In this era when smartphones are upgraded every five years and knowledge doubles or triples within a generation, isn鈥檛 the information we ask students to regurgitate on standardized tests with little emphasis on critical thinking bordering on useless?

Dodging Questions

We don鈥檛 have to teach young people to think. They already have this ability. It is we as educators who, in fact, discourage this process.Witness the young child who exasperates his or her parents by repeating questions such as 鈥淲here does rain come from?鈥� 鈥淲hat causes it to rain?鈥� 鈥淲hy does it rain down instead of up?鈥� 鈥淗ow does it know when to stop?鈥� If these questions seem familiar, refer to the poem by Rudyard Kipling: 鈥淚 keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.鈥�

Next, think of the sedulous teacher (we鈥檝e all had one) who dodges a student鈥檚 thoughtful question by saying, 鈥淲e鈥檒l get to that next week鈥� or 鈥淚f you don鈥檛 know, look it up.鈥� Is there a better example of someone stifling learning? I am prone to wondering if learning a subject such as history with its multiplicity of 鈥渋mportant鈥� dates and places, a student would be permitted to ask 鈥淲hat was the main cause of the Civil War?鈥� 鈥淲hy were some people for slavery and others against it?鈥� and 鈥淗ow did the war stop?鈥� Apply these questions to any discipline and ask yourself, 鈥淗ow much more would I know if I had this type of learning in school?鈥�

Of course, some subjects are best taught by rote methods. Before one learns to read, he or she must memorize the 鈥渟ight words.鈥� In math, we memorized the multiplication tables.

Quotable Inspiration

When I was verifying that Kipling quote, I came across a consulting firm that uses the five W鈥檚 to help business clients improve their services. They do so by asking 鈥�What are the good business techniques that you use?鈥� 鈥�Why are some practices effective while others are not?鈥� and 鈥�Where do you see the difference between good practices and bad practices?鈥�

My final questions are: 鈥�What should be changed in our present education system?鈥� 鈥�How do we change it?鈥� 鈥�Who should be responsible for the change?鈥� and 鈥�When should the change begin?鈥� Perhaps George Bernard Shaw said it best: 鈥淵ou see things; and you say 鈥榃hy,鈥� But I dream of things that never were; and I say 鈥榃hy not?鈥欌��