Live to Learn
Information is more available to us than ever before. Why aren’t we taking advantage of it?
I spend a lot of time critiquing the American education system, and for good reason. As I’ve detailed in several newsletters, the U.S. education system is poorly run and yields bad outcomes for kids and teachers. Because students learn so little and because some schools set such low expectations, some education scholars have even asserted that low-performing school districts are a national security risk. While such claims may be hyperbolic, there’s no question that our nation’s schools could be performing far better than they are.
One result of this is that students graduate high school with yawning gaps in their knowledge. Colleges spend millions of dollars per year shuffling freshmen through remedial math to get them ready for undergraduate calculus. Even many college graduates—including yours truly—feel let down by every level of the education system because they aren’t familiar with basic aspects of world history, economics, and a host of other subjects. This creates an alarming situation: Millions of Americans are ill-suited for engaging in important debates on complex topics. This is especially troubling in an era of intense polarization, but it would be distressing even if we weren’t beset with such passionate disagreement. Knowledge is valuable for its own sake, and the fact that we don’t possess enough of it is depressing.
There’s an added difficulty: Even if we were to fix American education such that the next generation could become more knowledgeable, that won’t help those of us who have already graduated. So what do we do about that?
Well, despite the pessimism evident in the above three paragraphs, I am actually bullish on our prospects for self-education. Human beings have never been in a better position to pick up the football dropped by our public education system and run with it. What we’re lacking in foundation may be filled in by taking the initiative and learning on our own.
Let’s first consider books. As one of the original education technologies, the book can lay claim to being the most important—and effective—tool that students can use to teach themselves. Prior to the book, students could only learn by being in the same location as their teacher and absorbing the information imparted to them by their teacher. If students zoned out for a minute or two, they could not go back and re-engage with the material unless the teacher was willing to say what he already said to his disengaged student. The book changed this by allowing students to learn at their own pace. The book also allowed students to strengthen their in-person learning by questioning their teachers based on what they learned outside of class. This could enrich classroom discussions by folding in material that the teacher may otherwise have forgotten to consider. Of course, the value of the book as a learning tool depends on how accessible and accurate it is. But assuming that you’re closely reading the right books, you’re likely getting a decent amount of supplemental knowledge.
We take books for granted today because they’re so plentiful. But prior to the invention and adoption of the printing press in the Middle Ages, books were owned by only a few well-to-do families because they were so time-intensive and costly to produce. And before mass literacy, only the very wealthy could read at all.
We live in a different world today. Even with our education woes, most Americans know how to read. Moreover, books are more plentiful than ever before. When you add in audiobooks, ebooks, and physical copies available in public libraries, books are both ubiquitous and cheap. Not all books are of equal educational value, of course, but the amount of material available to aspiring self-educators is limitless. I’ve taken advantage of this by reading widely on a variety of subjects in which I felt I received an inadequate education, including history and classic literature. If you can manage to make reading part of your daily routine and commit to learning through reading, you can learn at least a little about most things.
One of the wonders of modernity is that books are no longer the only source of learning outside of the classroom. The biggest game-changer for me has been the humble podcast. We may be in the golden age of podcasting right now. With a few exceptions, podcasts are free, and they can be of enormous educational value. (I still don’t fully understand the economics of podcasts. I assume that at some point, podcasters will no longer do the amount of work they do for free. Although, it’s possible that podcasts, which often have faithful listeners who pay for subscriptions on a voluntary basis, are immune to the typical challenges of the free market.) Better yet, it’s easy to tell when podcasters are knowledgeable about their subjects and when they’re not. History podcasts, with which I’m most familiar, are particularly good at citing sources. For proof of this, listen to a few episodes of The Rest is History and pay attention to the level of detail the hosts go into during each episode.
The other medium that’s especially helpful for those who want to educate themselves is—hear me out—YouTube. There’s so much content on YouTube that it may seem impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, but if you know where to look, YouTube can be incredibly useful for self-edification. I used YouTube a lot in middle and high school for math, as Khan Academy, one of the largest online educational platforms, uploads all their videos to YouTube for free. But beyond geometry and algebra, YouTube is a font of information on subjects ranging from chemistry to history. YouTube can be particularly helpful when you’ve just finished a challenging book and you want to get someone’s perspective on it. For instance, I just finished Coriolanus by Shakespeare, which, because it’s Shakespeare, was hard to read. I watched a video summary on YouTube of the play that rounded out my understanding of it and filled in some of the gaps created by the archaic language. While YouTube videos may not be as helpful as a good teacher, they are far more accessible and immediate.
The problem with all of these technologies is that they are susceptible to charlatanism. This is especially true of podcasts and YouTube videos, which are as free to create as they are to consume. This helps explain why we’re still so polarized on basic issues despite having access to so much free information. If anybody with an opinion can put up a video and seem confident, lots of suspect characters will take advantage of the medium and post inflammatory, misleading, or just downright false content. The wide availability of information, then, is no guarantee of quality. Plus, it’s not clear that reading Shakespeare by yourself and then watching YouTube videos is as good an education as taking a Shakespeare class taught by a good teacher.
Still, the sheer availability of this much free information should be a boon to an undereducated populace. Those who feel let down by our education system should stop lamenting their meaningless diploma and learn on their own time. There’s never been a better time to do that than now.
wow Ron. that case of yours feels like that kind of baggage is almost insurmountable. you do hear stories about people with what seem like insurmountable odds who find a way through. it usually involves some luck and some key people (mentors). it also surely takes some (probably a lot of) fundamental, independent motivation that is either fueled by dna or by a recognition and belief in personal responsibility. what a giant topic. but it feels like we've lost our way. solutions are long term and complex. i do like the idea of self-learning and how that can help fill the gaps. but it sure is hard to even know that self-learning is something one can do when you don't even know who your parents are.
These are some comments related to last post also. I may be way off base, but in my world I see that what is wrong with the education system is the 'student' and the 'parents 'of the student. You often refer to you feeling some what failed by the 'system'. In the Social work field I am in, I see the failures from the home. I am working on a case right now, and would like to share some of the challenges. This is a 13 year old girl, with cognitive problems (IQ testing 72) She is a twin and has an older (18) brother-(with many behavioral issues) and now lives with his father) and she has a 2 year old sister living in foster care. (different father of course) Her twin lives in a different foster home in a different city. My client has never met her father-who abandon the family at her birth. Her Mother has a 'very long' history of drug abuse, and has had a number of relationship that my client was privy to, and saw some of them as her 'stepdad', who wasn't that good either, leading to her experiencing emotional, physical and suspect sexual abuse. And Mom has lost legal custody of all her kids. (And who has custody-"the system') At this time my client is in a transition group home program struggling (as you guess) with many behavioral and emotional problems. (That is why I am involved).
I realize this is rather extreme, but there are many with a variety of these kinds of problems. Enough that distracts the 'system'. But my point is there are lots of distractions that the educational system experiences and often is required to deal with ("fix the problem" but keep the kid in school) And I have interacted with a number of teachers who work in the 'alternative' educational system, and respect most of them who are trying to help these kids transition into self managing adults. Who will than have kids of their own, and possibly the cycle starts again.
And you talk about reading books, educating yourself. There are few of my clients that can be that self motivating. All Right enough of my negativism, I do think us humans are smarter then anytime in our history. We have been able to build on what each generations before us has accomplished.. I am sure that Shakespeare would be amazed at what we know that wasn't known then. And as a student; well your Grandpa Ron was far from the 'ideal student' and often I have to make efforts to hide my lack of knowledge (spell check has been wonderful) :-) :-) Thanks for listening