October 24, 2008
Whats the purpose?
Posted by Peter under Reaction to Classmates, Reaction to Literature | Tags: cheating, education, purpose |No Comments
Image: To be called a cheater kills me !!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/5oo5a/1334525401/
After reading Chris Betcher’s post on Cheating I’m convinced that PLC has got it right.
At what point are we going to realise that the purpose of education has changed. As Chris mentions ‘the model in which students come to school as essentially empty vessels waiting to be filled by the teacher – is hopelessly flawed and outdated in this day and age’
The education system is still based around being able to memorise every possible fact, an assumption that was valid when access to information was limited. I too recall that the encyclopaedia was the be all and end all to research. If it wasn’t in there then it didn’t exist.
Student’s today can simply type into a search engine and end up with over 1 million possible pages. The real ability is for that student to be able to sort the reliable information from the rubbish.
Unfortunately the education system hasn’t caught on to this yet and therefore students will need to continue to memorise facts hoping that in their last days of Year 12 they can remember it all before the ‘real world’ awaits them. As teachers we can help them make that transition….
