Part of the problem that I saw when teaching was students desire to ‘get the right answer’.\u00a0 Instead of asking if they did the calculation or experiment correctly, they would ask if they got the right answer.\u00a0 We’ve been training generations of kids that there is one and only one right answer to there issues.<\/p>\n
I would often reply, “Did you do the process correctly?”\u00a0 If they answered ‘yes’, then I would say “you probably got the right answer then.”<\/p>\n
There is a good reason for this.\u00a0 In general, at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, we are teaching things that are not ambiguous.\u00a0 We are teaching content.\u00a0 We have to get some knowledge into their heads before we can start asking tough questions (up to a point).\u00a0 The problem is that we stop at the content and forget to start teaching them about tough questions.<\/p>\n
If I asked my boss, “Did I get the right answer?” She would reply, “If I knew that, I wouldn’t need you.”<\/p>\n
In my work (and I think, a lot of people’s work), we do the best we can with the knowledge we have.\u00a0 There is no right answer.\u00a0 We are given some tools and some time and a bunch of specifications that are contradictory, mutually exclusive, and\/or otherwise impossible to meet and we do the best we can.<\/p>\n
I am reminded of the engineer’s slogan.\u00a0 “On time, under budget, works.\u00a0 Pick two.”<\/p>\n
There’s all these trade-offs in our work, in our lives, that don’t have correct answers.\u00a0 Should you have a child?\u00a0 Where do I donate a couple of spare dollars?\u00a0 Do I buy this car or that car?<\/p>\n
And that’s where we are failing kids today.<\/p>\n
My boss likes to say that content is dead.<\/p>\n
What he means (yes, I have a number of ‘bosses’, welcome to corporate America) is that anyone with a phone and an internet connection can find out any content in minutes.\u00a0 Just reading a Wikipedia article, we can learn more about Physics than Einstein ever knew.\u00a0 We can learn more about history or literature than anyone, even 20 years ago, could imagine.<\/p>\n
The problem is, can we synthesize that content knowledge?\u00a0 Can we understand it?\u00a0 Can we evaluate if that knowledge is valid or not?\u00a0 Can we evaluate the sources of that knowledge for veracity?\u00a0 Can we compare and contrast pieces of knowledge to come up with a whole?<\/p>\n
These are the kinds of critical skills that people need and very, very few actually have.\u00a0 It really boils down to skepticism… and we don’t do a good job of teaching that.<\/p>\n
And yes, we can teach that and we can do so at an early age even without in depth content knowledge already present.<\/p>\n
As a side note, a lot of very influential people are beginning to realize this.\u00a0 The standards developed over the last few years have massively changed focus from content to skills, including a lot of reasoning and critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n
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