Equipping Mental Tools?
Written on 10:46 PM by Christian Olson
Lately I've been reading differing materials online about online education. I came across this quote:
A major part of the job of a good educator is to equip students with the necessary mental tools to be able to continue learning on their own. Those skills are likely to be less developed in younger students, making face-to-face teacher intervention more necessary. (Source: http://mashable.com/2009/08/31/online-education-teachers/)
This is an article with the purpose of summarizing the "future of education." That quote, however, stopped me in my tracks. Do people really need to be given the tools to learn on their own? Without the teacher, people would be doomed to a life without the ability to learn? That seemed ludicrous to me.
What made this even more interesting was that I had just finished reading articles from a pro-home school advocate who wants liberation from teachers: http://blog.allisonweiss.com/2008/01/26/curiosity/
I personally think that people will learn to learn by themselves if they are allowed to do so. Teachers walk a fine line between pushing or guiding students and inhibiting them. However, teachers are so helpful as resource and guiders. I've done completely self-directed learning and guided learning and I've always the guided learning more. Also, I feel that the guided learning was deeper and better.
Anyway, I thought me blogites (Hi Mom!) would enjoy that quote. Share your thoughts below! I'm a big boy, if you disagree with me I can take it.
Christian.
I actually agree with the quote, to an extent. I think that at certain points in life, people really do want to learn, and will take the initiative to learn by themselves. However, especially today, there is so much information out there, that I think it can actually discourage people from learning unless they have the "mental tools" to continue with their own learning. There are those individuals out there that are naturally gifted, and have the ability to learn, memorize, and apply new material by themselves. But the majority of us need to be shown how something can affect our lives before we really have the desire to go out and learn it ourselves. Young people especially need to be shown how fun and exciting learning and applying new knowledge can be. Once they have that fire in them, they will take off. This also places a large responsibility on those teaching these tools. We need to get away from the traditions of learning that we were using 25+ years ago, because you are right that there is a fine line from pushing students and inhibiting them. Some kids need to be pointed in the right direction and pushed off, other kids need to have their hands held until they have tried it a few times and now feel comfortable. This is one of the reasons that we need some of our brightest, and patient and loving people teaching our young people,