Education

The School of Athens by Raphael

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~ Writings found here on Education represents my view on what a student should and should not be. Like all other writings that I have written in Eternity in an Hour, the collection of essays on education is a work of philosophy and therefore it is in essence, my philosophy of education. As the lifespan of learning for the common individual is increasing, we now realize that we must be both an effective and efficient knowledge worker and knowledge learner. It is my sincere will that my essays would benefit individuals in search of a method to which education should be pursued. Although the ways we learn may be different, the philosophy of education should remain the same. Therefore, education should not only be a science but an art.

Contents

The Learning Life-Cycle

Direction

Contributions

Evaluation

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The Learning Life-Cycle

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin

Background Information

Lifelong learning is merely an old idea made popular. The ancient Greek philosophers had since time immemorial practice the spirit of lifelong learning and transferred their passion for knowledge throughout the world. However, our current education system contains a fundamental flaw that requires immediate attention. Why is it that students spend hours after hours learning languages, history, math and science while spending virtually no time at all on learning how we learn?

In the start of my college life, I realized that the way different people take down notes, organize their assignments, and study were drastically different and their results were different too. The students who aced all subjects in their exams were less than 5% of the entire class. Another 15% of the class scored extremely high in certain subjects (of their interest) and extremely low (or average) in other subjects. The remaining 80% of the class were just either scoring average or below average results.

Why is the 20-80 Pareto principle present in education?

Perhaps the more important question is why the absence of a subject that teaches the student how, when, what and why we study. Furthermore, besides the students studying in medical courses, almost none of the other students know how the most important part of our body, namely the brain, really works. Mention hippocampus in class and everybody thinks you are speaking a foreign language (this is partially true).

The lack of the knowledge of the learning process handicaps most of us when we are learning. This paper attempts to bring into the spotlight how our brain works when we study. Consequently, I hope to weigh the importance of nature versus nurture in the development of an individuals ability to learn.

The Problems

Why should we study?

What is the most important elements or conditions when we study?

What is the best method to take notes?

How should we prepare for our exam?

The Procedures

The data that I present here is mostly secondary data from books I have gathered on learning. I have however, noted down my own results whenever I use certain principles to be mentioned in this paper.

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Direction

The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba by Claude Lorraine

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Prelude

Every man (and woman) on Earth that matter is to a certain extent a manager. One manages his/her time, money, education and almost every other tangible or intangible aspect in life. From what we eat to what we wear, people must manage in order to stay alive.

As I have argued in the seventh essay of the meditations, the only constant thing in life is not only change (though this is constant to a certain extent) but making choices. In life, even when we choose not to choose between two alternatives, this act of choosing not to choose is fundamentally a choice. Therefore, one cannot say that he chooses not to choose anything in his/her life!

As long as one makes a choice, one must forsake the second best alternative (the opportunity cost) and this results in a bias. No two alternatives are ever equal in terms of both quality and quantity. Things are never fair in reality and no fairy tale has ever unfolded without a prelude and postlude of challenges (in the long-run, no fairy tale exist).

However, even though the choices we make often result in different and unfair outcomes, this bias situation gives humanity the greatest hope of growth and improvement. As long as one properly defines the boundaries and desired outcome, one can make the ‘right’ choice.

The Way

Education has always been an essential part of humanity since the dawn of civilized human beings. While the underlying concepts of education has never changed (we study to obtain a means of existence), the way and span of education has changed in several revolutionary ways.

First, instead of learning from our parents or caretakers like out ancestors, we are all expected to go to a school and preferably a University. Second, formal education is now commonly held as a necessity and an increasing amount of our human lifespan is invested into education. Formal education in our current environment is therefore a necessity (for most people).

In reality, a man/woman is both a manager and an investor. Both occupations requires making choices to achieve their objectives. Therefore, in order to succeed in education and in all other aspects of life, one must be able to effectively and efficiently allocate resources (time, effort and wealth) to the right places. Failure to  do so would often mean failure in life.

Visions, Missions and Objectives

Are goals really necessary? Yes, there are. Imagine asking an archer to shoot an arrow without telling him where the bull’s eye is. Without a target, even the best archer in the world would fail to hit the bull’s eye. Although the story may seem ridiculous, I am often baffled when people tell me they do not know what their goals in life are.

While a person’s raison de tre (reason for being) might take a lifetime to reveal itself, goals in education are not. It is however, common that when you ask a student what his goals in education are, the normal reply would be to pass his exams or to obtain his degree. These goals are short-term goals and not long-term goals!

I believe that the process of strategic management should be applicable to an individual as well as a business. According to David Fred (2007), strategic management can be defined as the art and science of formulating, implementing and  evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve its objectives.

Strategic management for an organization involves integrating management, marketing, finance/accounting, production/operations, research and development, and computer information systems to achieve organizational success. For an individual, strategic management involves integrating the management of time, presentation skills, wealth, homework, research and writing skills to achieve academic success!

In order to align all your resources as stated above, an individual must take time to formulate the following:

1. Vision Statement

What do we want to become?

2. Mission Statements

What is our business? And how do we intend to win in this business?

3. Objectives

Short-term milestones to achieve the mission and vision.

4. Strategies

Means to achieve Objectives.

5. Policies

Guidelines, rules and procedures to support efforts to achieve objectives.

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By setting the vision and mission of what I want to achieve through education, I note down my beliefs, philosophy, and principles in education. This written goals then serve as a creed statement for allocating my resources and focus. Furthermore, this enables me to measure how much I have succeeded in achieving my ultimate vision.

Personal Example

Vision - To find out my reason of being and to come up with my philosophy  in life and worldview through the procurement of knowledge and information. In achieving this, I would in turn find ways and means to ensure that society benefits from my achievement.

Mission - My mission is to ensure my financial and life’s (not to be mixed up) success by obtaining the understanding of various fields of knowledge and experiences. Achieving this would in turn enable me to achieve my vision.

Objectives -

1.To find the relationship between what I am studying with the rest of the world.

2. To apply what I study in my daily and working life

3. To understand the underlying philosophy of the subjects I am taking.

4. To ace all my exams!

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Contributions

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1563)

Efficiency and Effectiveness

To be effective is the ultimate goal of a student. Even though both effectiveness and efficiency is desirable, effectiveness holds a greater priority. Getting the right things done is way better than getting things done right. However, my own observations show that students generally confuse efficiency and effectiveness.

Too often has a student succeeded in making his own comprehensive and multi-colored notes only to fail exams again and again. Judging from the ability to generate such beautiful works of art in the form of his notes, one should assume that the student is not only efficient, but hardworking. In other words, effort and efficiency has been invested to obtain undesirable results!

The most likely reason for the student’s failure in this context is the lack of effectiveness. Spending half an hour understanding the concept and philosophy behind a subject far outweighs the benefit of an hour of ‘copying’ portions of the textbook to form personal notes. A student who spends half an hour understanding the reason for the subject’s existence enables the formulation of ideas on how knowledge gained can be applied. In contrast, one hour of copying does nothing more than to clone a piece of paper with black ink on it.

Similarly, bright and intelligent people are also proned to the lack of effectiveness. They are in abundance, bright people of whom I have the pleasure to meet, who are unable to gain good academic results or a thorough understanding of his field of study. Intelligence and genius left alone is not effective. Peter Drucker once said that  people failed to realize that brilliant insight is not by itself achievement. In line with this, intelligence if not applied to do the right things is inconsequential as it produces no results.

Therefore, the bottom line is that students should be efficient in doing effective things. While this is of course easier said than done, its achievement would yield a bounty of rewards. First, lesser time is needed to do the things that really matters. Second, the things that really matters get done. Thus a student would obtain a desirable outcome with minimal time which frees up more resources for other more productive (maybe co-curricular) activities.

Focus on the Contributions

In order to be effective, a student must know the ultimate aim of studying. This of course differs from one individual to another. Nevertheless, once the vision, mission and objectives of education have been set, a student should focus on doing things that contribute to their attainment. Failure to do so would often lead to resources spent in doing counter-productive things.

Take for example, the linear, lengthy and multi-colored notes that you often see in front of students before their examinations. Not only are they a waste of time, they are a waste of resources and paper! If one aims to obtain a comprehensive bible for a certain subject, one should buy the subject’s textbook. If one wants brief and summarized notes, make sure they are short and sweet.

People often confuse quantity with quality as they do with working hard and working smart. Instead of reproducing a textbook of data and information, it would really be wiser to come up with mind maps, key words using the Cornell’s method or even acronyms for things a student should remember before his exam. Do not do things that are repetitive as they are fundamentally counter-productive.

More often than not, people tend to specialize in their fields of study while ignoring all other forms of knowledge. This act of isolating one’s self to a narrow scope is not only counter-productive but folly. Instead of just looking at the sky from inside a well, one should think of how the subject he studies creates value to the society. Knowledge that does not create value for society is worthless.

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Evaluation

Students as Knowledge Workers

Students, like knowledge workers produce intangible things. The knowledge worker produces and utilizes knowledge on a daily basis to achieve the requirements of his profession. Whether a doctor, lawyer, architect, financial consultant or student, knowledge is always the key and knowledge workers are prized and paid above all other types of workers in the society.

However, the nature of work that the knowledge worker produces is often the cause of his ineffectiveness. Unlike blue-collared workers in factories who can judge their level of effectiveness and efficiency by the quantity and quality of their work, knowledge workers do not have such a benchmark. Take for example, a doctor. A doctor is judged by his ability to heal his patients. Yet when a patient passes away, the health of the patient and not the doctor is often at fault.

So how then can we judge the value of a doctor? There is no official and tangible benchmark.

Similar to the case of a doctor, a student is unable to judge accurately his degree of success in studying. All of us study to obtain a means of existence (those who do not are merely wasting their time and money). However, we are unable to judge to what extent studying would contribute to our long-term progress.

Seldom is our achievements in line with our intended goals. Yet in order to be effective and efficient, which is what a student should be, goal setting is an imperative. Once our goals is set, we must focus on activities and actions that contribute to their attainment. Thus, knowing how we can perform at our optimum is also an imperative.

Optimum Efficiency

Knowing how we perform best is probably crucial to succeed in anything we do. We know we perform at our best when our performance result in us winning (this is subject to the situation and individual) and we win only when we utilize our strengths. Our strength is our competitive advantage. This can be defined as anything that we can do especially well compared to our peers. In other words, our strengths is our distinct competencies.

Preferably, our strengths must be either rare, hard to imitate or not easily substitutable. Our unique abilities normally define who we are and what other people perceive we are. Take for example, a friend of mine who is quiet but extremely intelligent while another friend of mine is outspoken, friendly, jovial and a courteous person. Both of them have distinct abilities that defines who they are.

We should always concentrate on our strengths. Our strengths like how we perform is an individual characteristic that is different from everyone else. Whether by nature or by nurture, a person cannot change his strengths. He must build on them. Talent is at fault here. If training is all that is needed to create a prodigy in music, there would be an abundance of Beethovens and Mozarts around. In reality, good music composers are extremely rare.

One cannot build his weaknesses. While one can improve areas that he is weak in, this improvement would only be marginal and in most ways counterproductive. Why waste precious time learning how to swim when you already have wings to fly? We should waste as little effort and time as possible on improving areas of low competence and if possible, ignore them completely.

The thing that counts is to know thy strengths and build on them!

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