What School Should Be: On Learning

I want my kids to attend a school that recognizes its role as mental calisthenics in preparation for a lifetime of learning.

The school must take the long view that the solution is of secondary importance to the solving. In other words, obtaining the correct answer is subordinate to showing your work. Our brains are inefficient long-term data storage devices, but they’re uniquely skilled at synthesizing diverse sensory inputs into coherent conclusions. I scored well in advanced mathematics as a student through high school and college, but a decade and a half removed from those classes, Calculus now bears for me a striking resemblance to hieroglyphics. Nonetheless, I am glad I took so much math, not because I can solve my stock broker’s derivative problem in a pinch, but because I learned how to solve complex problems with multiple, dynamic variables. Most jobs won’t require you to perform advanced trigonometry or to analyze Anna Karenina. It is the enduring process of learning, not the ephemeral acquisition of knowledge, that is paramount. Challenging assignments etch neural pathways like a rushing flood carves out a river channel. The water subsides, but the deep grooves remain.

Learning is lifelong, and 90% of a person’s persistent knowledge will be acquired beyond age 18. Schooling up to age 18, then, must accomplish two cardinal tasks: 1) equip the spoon-fed learner to self-feed, and 2) stoke in children their innate curiosity. Schools should not seek to slake our thirst for knowledge but to stuff our mouths with gauze till we never forget our cottonmouth.