If I Want to LEARN...

[nlowell]

... The place I avoid is SCHOOL.

Why?

Because SCHOOL is about credentials. It's not about LEARNING.

If I want to learn, I ask a friend, I read a book, I visit the web, I go to the library, I ask questions of people who might know something. I try stuff out. I fail a few times. Ok, I fail a lot of times. Eventually I figure it out and move on. I've learned something.

If I go to SCHOOL I have to apply. I have to be approved. I have to get permission. I have to be graded. I have to play the transcript game. I get a credential. I may not have learned a damn thing, but I've gotten the credential. By the time I get to even begin with SCHOOL, whatever I wanted to learn is moot.

WTF is wrong with this picture???

How do we fix it?

[nlowell]

The problem is that school takes too long. Downes has it right and that's that learning has to be embedded in what we do because taking time out from life for "education" isn't going to cut it.

Especially with the rate of change in knowledge.

[nlowell]

I'm not sure it's even that.

The problems are centered around the politics and the economics. You need the ticket or you can't get past the gate keepers to make a living.

But .. if you work for yourself .. you only need clients or a product you can sell. With the democratization of the marketplace that might be closer than we think.

[Tom Woodward]

I think you're dead on. It's all about getting tickets punched and doing whatever the person in charge demands no matter how useless. It's a sad state but I'm not sure how to fix it.

I see the same things in middle school that I see in graduate school. I don't think you'll ever have mass change until you change how teachers learn to be teachers. I'm not sure how you do that.