| Chieh on Education / History of Education Before jumping into psychology right away, let's take a look at how our current education system evolved to its present state. What we considered education in the past is very different from what we consider education today. Kids in the distant past tended to become apprentices in order to learn a particular trade, similar to our trade schools today. There's a very distinct end goal defined up front upon joining a trade school. This is called Goal-Orientated Education (GOE). With a goal-orientated education, there's no mistake about the purpose of learning. If you become an apprentice of a cook, you will become a cook. If you learn from a carpenter, you will become a carpenter. With a goal-orientated education, the student is trying to do something, and all learning is designed to fulfill that purpose. In a GOE system, subjects are taught in a matrix base linkage. This means that instead of learning an entire subject all together (such as algebra), students tend to learn only those parts necessary to complete the final goal. A single project might require the student to use some geometry, physics, and technical writing. Instead of learning the entire subject, students would learn only what they needed to complete a task. In a matrix base linkage, subjects are taught in the context of other subjects. There is no such thing as calculus. There is only a formula that allows you to build fences that use the least amount of wood while maximizing the area. This formula would be taught in the context of woodworking. The same formula could also apply to a car building shop. I call this system a matrix base linkage because the subjects are linked together in a seemingly random ocean of matrix. Goal-orientated education lasted a very long time before the advent of public school education. The public school system, for many good reasons, switched to Theory-Oriented Education (TOE). Since not every student wanted to grow up to become a carpenter or cook or other tradesman, it made sense to provide a general curriculum that benefited everybody. Topics such as math, science, literature, etc., became the foundations of our education system. With theory-orientated education, our education philosophy flipped completely. TOE was the exact opposite of GOE. Now students learned in order to fulfill future goals. To see how they are completely opposite, let's put their definitions next to each other. GOE = there is a goal, and all learning is designed to fulfill that goal. TOE = students learn now so they can fulfill future goals. In a TOE system, subjects are taught in a pyramid base linkage. This means that subjects are neatly organized together in a hierarchical pyramid structure. Students concentrate on learning one topic at a time. When a student has mastered a particular subject, he or she moves up on the pyramid. There's very little taught about the relation between subjects unless they belong to the same side of the pyramid. In other words, you will probably not find calculus in a woodworking class. The founders of public education must have been geniuses. The premise of the theory-oriented style of education is flawless, and it provides benefits way beyond goal-orientated education. In GOE, students spend an enormous amount of time just learning a single trade before graduating. But TOE students, although they may not have the same expertise on a particular trade, have the general knowledge to pick up any trade upon graduation. Instead of spending too much time learning how to use tools that might become outdated very quickly, TOE students concentrate on the most important theories pertaining to a subject. So within the same amount of time, a single TOE student can pick up five fields of expertise while a GEO student can learn only a single trade. With TOE, the concentration is on helping students to adapt rather than preparing them to do something substantial. Like I said, in theory the theory-orientated style of education is flawless. The creators of the first public school system must have been geniuses, but they were not very good psychologists. |