Bored of Education

Our entire concept of education needs to change, move out of the Industrial Era and into the 21st Century, better informed by recent scientific research. Education is not just about what we teach and what kind of information we put into the brain, but is understanding what is happening in the prefrontal cortex and working with that knowledge to help children develop and learn to learn better. What we need in school is to learn skills, because we forget most content anyway. With the Internet, we can always look up the content. Educators pretend that it is important that we learn the content and that we will remember it, but that's not what happens. Educators are concerned that we learn content for the exams, but what is more important is that we develop a passion for learning. To know how to find information if you need it is far more important than memorization. Learning how to problem solve and use that information is even more important.

While the methods of modern education certainly need to evolve to take advantage of our advances in neuro-science, we also need to look back. We have evolved as a successful species because we have been able to learn and grow. There was a lot of wisdom in previous generations that we're ignoring because we think that we can do better than our parents and grandparents. But there are certain things that have worked well for thousands of years that need to be reintegrated into modern methodology. Storytelling is one of those things. Music and art. Dance. The play of children. Schools today de-emphasize these time-honored tools of learning to maintain a focus on academic content "because they're going to get tested at the end of the year and we have to make sure they do well on these tests."

Compelling research shows that if children have more time to play, they do better on academic outcome measures than if they spend more time in direct academic instruction. When the arts or sports are integrated into the learning environment, children better develop cognitive skills dependent on the prefrontal cortex, like sustaining attention and being able to hold information in mind; and they better develop appropriate interactive social skills. Social development and cognitive development are intimately integrated. When children use their bodies in sport and other active play, their overall improved physical fitness contributes to the prefrontal cortex working more efficiently. A sedentary life is absolutely terrible for cognitive health. It is believed widely that a child's ability to play creatively with other children and exercise inhibitory discipline are better indicators of future academic success than IQ. Being able to exercise discipline by keeping at it, practicing, studying, and start and finish assignments when you need to is much more important than IQ.

We all learn better by doing. We all think better on our feet. But somehow when we make schools we forget about that as we continue to have children sitting passively (usually in uncomfortable chairs) with the teachers doing all the talking in the front of the classroom. Listening is never the best way to learn. We learn by actively using skills or content, practicing repeatedly, experiencing, and trying again and again until we get it. Sitting still in class listening to a monologue is a lot like sitting up straight in a pew at church listening to a sermon. Most of us would rather be singing and dancing and moving around in a fully engaged physical, emotional, and spiritual display. That is finding religion, in the truest sense. It should be the same in schools.