to discover vs to be told

daily blog #61

Will we learn faster if we are told the "best" way to do something? We may.

But will we learn better?

Learning better entails not just the speed of absorption, but also the retention of knowledge. How long will you remember it?

"Being told" burns the process of thinking and trying, which is fundamental to knowledge mastery. Telling a student "the right way" to do something without giving them a chance to use their brain and try, in most cases, is a lazy teaching method.

But for generations, we have done exactly so. We require a child to sit still in a chair, pay attention to us and passively absorb all the information in our boring lectures. We do that for all the children in society and call it an education.

Education is not the same thing as learning. We have been learning long before the establishment of the public "education" system.

We learned hunting techniques by observing animals' patterns and going on hunting trips. We learned to farm by observing and predicting weather conditions, soil quality, and getting on the field. We learned trading and negotiation by talking to different people, finding out what they need, and figuring out how to fill it.

None of these were taught inside 4 concrete walls that we call a "classroom". Our classrooms used to be the world. Our teachers used to change every day. We used to learn anything that makes us curious.

The difference between learning and formal education is the difference between discovering something and being told something.