108 / Education in the third millenium
At Christmas I started a book that I didn't find easy to read - but very satisfying nevertheless: The Next Fifty Years, Science in the First Half of the Twenty First Century.
Twenty five scientists wrote essays about their fields in respect of what the world will look like mid-century.
Currently I am reading, Are We Going to Get Smarter? by Roger Schank, researcher in artificial intelligence. He makes the point that soon we will have gadgets that allow us to access all human knowledge in an instance.
He says: "As machines become omnipresent and able to answer questions about whatever concerns us, the value we place on each individual's being a repository of factual knowledge will diminish - knowledge will no longer be seen as a commodity to be acquired." "Fifty years from now, schools as we know it will have atrophied from lack of interest. Why go to schools to learn facts, when virtual experiences are readily available and the world's best teachers are virtually available at any moment?"
This of course will change the way we learn - in fact, retaining knowledge will not be necessary anymore. Instead students will learn how to 'do': "As more tools for doing become available, it is doing that will matter. At Carnegie Mellon, where I work, new students must put together their own computer as soon as they arrive on campus and use that computer for the next four years. You can be sure that they understand how computers work once they have built one themselves."
A few quotes in this context:
Aristotle, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."
A. S. Neill, "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand."
Einstein, "The only source of knowledge is experience."
Goethe, "Do the thing, and you'll gain the knowledge to do the thing."