thoughts on learning, part I
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This week, I’ve started taking an online eLearning course through ASTD. One of the big differences between what I see in education and what many of these corporate educators and trainers are dealing with, is that certain aspects of their businesses sink or swim based on how well they can train their people to grease the wheels. This learning they design still leans in favor of the organization and not the individual (no, they don’t really* care about developing their employees, not as much as they care about the bottom line). But at least there’s accountability. At least learning carries with it some dollar amount equal to the organization’s training budget.
I can’t help but wonder, what are we doing in school? I mean, really. What are we doing?
What do we know about learning from a cognitive standpoint? The research tell us:
- Human brains do not receive and process information like “video tape recorders.” They deconstruct input, then reconstruct meaning.
- Every brain is wired differently from every other brain, individually processing information in ways unique to that wiring.
- People are natural explorers, using hypothesis testing to process information. This tendency can be observed in early infancy and is probably genetic.
- Practice increases learning. Repetition and rehearsal are critical for the successful creation of long-term memories.
- Half of the human brain cortex is devoted to processing visual information.
- We process visual information more effectively than any other type.
- People do not learn optimally from continuous, long stretches of linearly supplied information. Deliberate … breaks are… critical for comprehension.
- Stressed brains do not learn the same way as non-stressed brains.
So what do we do in school?
Okay, let’s stress everyone out, teachers and students alike so that people can’t really connect the dots in meaningful ways. Let’s supply linear information in unending units and expect everyone to move faster or slower than some imaginary average. Or let’s interrupt a student right before they get in the zone or have an AHA moment. Let’s dish out the verbal information and not let people make visual sense of their world. Let’s give students just enough time to rehearse and retrieve information so that it goes in and promptly out of short-term memory. Let’s keep everyone so busy that there is rarely any time to relax and explore, to question, and to find meaning. And let’s create a thousand learning disorders for brains that aren’t wired like mine.
Okay, good.
It drives me bonkers that so much of what goes on in schools is anti-learning, anti-meaning, anti-relationship, anti-fun, anti-personal.
It just doesn’t make sense. After all the research, are we really going to just sit around and call this learning? There have got to be better ways.
