Title18335
Kim du Toit
March 28, 2008
6:00 AM EDT
Al Fin talks about specialization, and why it’s a good thing in education and learning.
We are all somewhat different in what we are good at, and in the ways that we become better within our strengths. But we need to push our “comfort zones” outward little by little, or we will become living fossils--incapable of change or growth. This is something one tends to see within particular intellectually inbred communities. The avoidance of challenge, the tendency to blame “the other” for all of one’s shortcomings. The need to demonise and scapegoat, because placing all blame outward relieves one from any need to face fear-inducing change.
Some things you can change. Within that constellation of changeable things inside and outside of you, lives a potential universe that would make a nice place to live. All of us need to develop the ability to explore the world of changeability at our own pace, in our own way.
This is why, incidentally, homeschooling done properly is so successful.
Good homeschoolers soon realize that replicating a classroom experience, either in the physical sense or in curriculum, is usually (in fact, mostly) counterproductive. It suffices to identify which method of learning best suits the child, and applying that method to all the subjects being taught.
It’s also why universities, for the most part, suck at instilling true learning—although, to their credit, some universities are trying to overcome the standardized ”professor droning at students” method in favor of a more varied approach. The problem, of course, is that this is extraordinarily difficult to do in the “mass education” environment in which most colleges are trapped.
I foresee a new kind of university: one which decentralizes its teaching, setting up a series of on- and off-campus centers, wherein students are grouped not by subject matter, but by learning style preference.
Interesting stuff.
