Back to school
They say education is the most important thing in any developed society. That’s why we have to rethink school, according to TED Radio Hour
Have you ever attended to a superboring science class lesson? Have you ever tried to follow the professor and never understood anything? You’re not alone. This is because many times science and other subjects are taught caring to the precision of the language more than its comprehensibility. Tyler DeWitt realized it and started to teach to his students using stories instead of abstract concepts. And it worked perfectly. He says that the problem is that the scientific community is obsessed with seriousness but the fact that you speak in a serious way doesn’t mean you’re precise and the other way around: the fact that you’re keeping in mind you’re not talking to an audience of Nobel Prize candidates and therefore you modulate your language according to doesn’t mean you’re not being precise.
The whole episode of this TED Radiohour evolves around the idea that we have to rethink education because, according to Sal Khan — founder of the Kahn Academy — the current model is obsolete: it came from the scaling of the individual education given by tutors to rich kids. After the industrial revolution it was clear that new generations had to be educated but this model had to be scaled to the size of the mass, that’s why we invented schools and classrooms.
Today education can be delivered in many different ways and in remote areas too. You just need a computer and a connection and you can get an education.
It’s time to rethink what we teach and how and the way we bring this to the greatest number of people. Lucky for us, today is easier than ever.
