Some of my thoughts during the quarantine [8]. So read the footnotes :)
Learning
was free, fun, unbounded, unstructured, and you could learn anything, anywhere.
Studying, on the other hand, was more rigid and structured, associated with the
word “syllabus” and taught in educational institutes like schools and colleges.
I would like to call studying ‘external’ and learning ‘internal’. To state
simply, if you can’t get the “feel” of what you’re doing, you ain’t learning [2]. A
celebrated teacher once said that every professional should aim to internalise
their art and reach a level where their expertise is like intuition. From my
short life till now, it’s clear that such internalisation requires practising
what you learn, preferably by yourself. This is the primary thought on which I
am basing the rest of this article discussing my perceived ‘actual’ and the
general ‘perceived’ ideas about education and education systems.
Schools, and related education
systems for the general public, are almost universally hated. A common thought
is “if schools just give you the tools to function in the real world [3], why not just hit the books by yourself
and be done with it?” I disagree with this. Schools don’t just ‘give’ you the
tools; they develop it. They try to get what they’re teaching into your head,
and, more importantly, keep it there. That requires practice. That’s why we
have classwork and homework and assignments and all that load on our feeble
young shoulders. One might even argue that’s another thing you learn—carrying
responsibilities you’d much rather not. What do you do once you’ve completed basic
schooling? You specialise.
In my junior college [4], I chose to study the basic sciences and a
language, for fun. Where I am from, junior college lasts for a mere two years,
and most students spend that time studying for various entrance examinations
like the JEE or NEET. Since that is what I did, I will focus on that. Many
students go to external tuition classes. Whatever the motivations of the
students, one thing is in common: the syllabus is vast, and you’ve got to solve
a LOT of practice questions. Here comes a point where I would like to distinguish
between learning and rote learning. In the simplest terms I can put it, in
‘real’ learning, you appreciate what you are learning. As much as I hate to
admit it, rote learning is a kind of learning—you can memorise anything anytime
and however you want, though it doesn’t particularly fit in with the notion of fun.
The action involved in doing so is repetition, the same as in ‘real’ learning.
Is rote learning, then, visibly indistinguishable from ‘real’ learning? At this
stage of education in a highly competitive environment, everyone seems smart,
but is it just their memory or are they ‘really’ smart? [5]
One possible difference is that ‘real’
learning involves practice (or repetition) by various approaches. A strategy to
distinguish ‘real’ learners from ‘rote’ learners comes from the board
examinations—the HOTS questions, supposed to test higher-order thinking
skills. The solutions to such problems are extremely tedious and
laborious if one decides to go by the standard, well-trodden method. The trick
to solving them is, quite literally, a trick. You need to really understand the
system and make some kind of connection based on prior knowledge which dramatically
simplifies the problem. I like the concept but disagree with the name.
I saved elaborating what I mean
by “appreciating what you learn” for right now. Suppose you learn of a new
phenomenon. Would you like to memorise what happens as is, or would you like to
learn why it happens? If you want to understand why it happens, you need
to explain it to yourself in terms that you understand, specifically in terms
you know already. For example, a ball rolls when placed on an inclined plane.
If you store this information as is—without reading into it or thinking about
it any deeper—would you be able to answer the following questions: (1) what
will happen if a ball is placed on a flat plane? (2) what will happen if a ball
is placed on an inclined plane in the absence of gravity? (3) what will happen
if a ball is placed on an inclined plane with a frictionless surface? While
learning about rolling balls during the physics class in school, you must have,
knowingly or unknowingly, deconstructed this phenomenon and stored it as a
consequence of geometry, gravity and friction. Gravity pulls the ball downwards.
Geometry constrains the path to be along the surface on the inclined plane. Finally,
friction stops the ball from just slipping or sliding down and causes it to
roll. In a way, it’s not higher-order thinking, but thinking from a more fundamental
viewpoint.
After schooling, you decide what
you want to be [6]. You take the first steps towards being
that, in terms of curricular activities. College lecturers are not as invested
in personally monitoring the students (at least in my experience), and that (in
my opinion) is rightly so. Your teachers, at some point or the other, must have
mentioned that you need to break the habit of being spoon-fed and take more
initiative in learning and other activities. You need to buck up and focus on cracking
the entrance exams, after which you’ll take the second major step towards being
what you want to be.
Again, since I’m doing a
bachelor’s course in applied science, my observations are limited to this kind
of education. The conclusions, however, can probably be generalised a bit
further. In my first year, we dove back into the very fundamentals. Courses
repeated what we learned for the JEE (to an extent) in a format more structured
towards its use in the field. Then, we essentially revisited basic arithmetic
with balance calculations, this time in a more ‘realistic’ setting. In the second
year, we studied how materials interact and why they do so. Everything from the
third year onwards was based on the prior knowledge (the fundamental tools of
the art) we had developed so far. It was taught in terms of, and the problems
had to be solved in terms of, prior knowledge. Diving into the nitty-gritty, we
again zoomed out in the final year, looking at the bigger picture and the field
as a whole. Painters understand their colours and brush strokes, using which
they develop various techniques. Ultimately, these techniques create the
painting, and the painters step back to admire their work. It doesn’t end here—at
least for those pursuing higher studies. Now you apply to a centre of learning
you like, even more aware of what you want to be. Once there, there’s a lot to
study and a lot to learn. However, nearly all of that is left up to you [7].
I would like to add a note about online
courses, which many—including me—have subscribed to during these quarantimes [8]. Online courses do give you a sizeable
amount of information in a structured format—you’re studying. However, if you
are not going to use what you’re studying immediately or often, you are most
likely going to forget it, like an obscure nursery rhyme wiped off your memory
in its entirety. Fortunately, since online courses are usually on-the-side
exercises, the situation is generally harmless. Proper “offline” courses,
however, need to (to an extent) ascertain your abilities before handing you a degree.
There’s a lot of value (= $$) attached to the legitimacy they grant. I plan to elaborate
more on this in a separate article.
As you move up the educational
ladder, lesser is taught to you while you have more to study. The shoulders
bear the additional weight of learning by yourself. As society [9] gradually pulls back on making you
learn, the freedom to learn what you want paves the way to self-actualisation.
So, what are you going to learn today?
[1]
The 90th percentile means I have a
higher IQ than 90% of the people (at least in MENSA’s database). As the
preceding sentence suggests, I expected a higher score. Says something, doesn’t
it?
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