Where will my thoughts take me today?
Learning has evolved through many stages. In early times children learned from their parents. They learned how to cook and supply the needs of the family through helping the family to survive. When surviving became easier through living in cities where some of the needs could be easily obtained then learning became more of a process. Schools became a place where you learned a trade. Only the very wealthy had teachers who would guide them through many different subjects. Most of the subjects centered around learning to think in a logical manner and to make decisions based on facts. In the United States and most industrial nations schooling evolved into a place where children could be taught the basics of behaving the way the “powers that be” wanted them to. They were given enough education to fill factory type jobs and follow orders. But the world has changed. The Internet opened up a whole world of understanding to the major population and expanded the role of learning!
The major problem with learning in a public school system is that it is static. There is very little discussion on how the subjects impact the student’s life. They are simply learning the data in order to pass a test. The process of using the imagination to implement the information into their daily lives is left out and therefore is discarded as non usable information and soon forgotten. Therefore when they get to the point that they are taking their SAT tests they have already forgotten most of the information that they acquired throughout the year. This causes the public school statistic scores to fall. Another problem with the public school system is the overwhelming control put into place from the government. This makes it almost impossible for a teacher to encourage independent thinking and the use of the data in a meaningful way that they are supplying to the student.
Part of the reason that student’s home school statistics out perform the public school is that the student is taught how to use the information. The school environment is elastic enough to allow for individual and imaginative use of data. A home school student can apply what they are learning so that it becomes more meaningful and useful to them. The ability to explore a thought through to the conclusion helps to solidify the importance of the learning in the mind. This makes it easier for the student to recall the information when they need it. When a student becomes interested in a certain subject they can have the time to explore it and use their imagination.
Most of the great discoveries in history were made by people who used their imagination to think that something could be done. They developed the information they needed to make it happen. We would not have space flight today if some one had not thought “Yeah, we can do that” and started figuring out how to do it! Ben Franklin’s curiosity started us down many roads of scientific discovery. It is time for Learning to Evolve back into the basic process of the old style which is getting the basics,using the information in a meaningful way, and learning to explore knowledge!
