My philosophy on education

My philosophy on education is driven by the long term view that ultimately the purpose of education is to prepare one to face a world full of unknowns with curiosity and delight. Hopefully, everyone gets to a point where they feel they are facing a problem that no one has tried to solve before. At that point, your prior experiences and knowledge will be your aid towards accomplishing a goal that is unique to you.

Education through rote understanding of facts presented by an authority only prepare you for more of the same. Unfortunately, much of the standard educational system operates this way. Therefore, you can succeed within this framework for a long time before you hit a dead end. Sometimes that dead end is a course at any level which challenges that status quo, however it nearly always happens when one leaves the safe confines of school for the larger world.

Developing thoughtful, well-rounded people involves fostering the confidence to express yourself and nurturing the skills that allow you direct your own learning. I believe that the greatest gift I have acquired in life is to be curious and to have learned how to learn. I think that everyone can grow best, in the long run, by being allowed to exist in an environment that allows one to explore to the boundaries of their knowledge and abilities. Having mentors/guides/teachers on that journey to help push those boundaries is a vital component that allows us to get help when needed and build upon the shared knowledge of our society.

I believe this is true for people of all ages, but for children this mindset is particularly important. Children are not burdened by many of the preconceived notions that hamper most adults’ ability to exhibit the power of unbridled curiosity. Children represent both a sponge and a wellspring of knowledge. We build abstractions as we grow to make sense of the world around us, but those abstractions can blind us to what is really going on right in front of us. Children bring unique insights as they create new abstractions through experiencing the world around them.

The construction of knowledge is a continuous process. We build upon our prior understanding, incorporate new information and experiences, and then adjust our world view through a process that involves emotional and mental coordination with those around us. Children have a special ability to present the world in a way that enriches everyone involved. Their experience can be so foreign to the calcified version of the world that we hold such that if we are open to adjusting our perceptions we can attain a much richer understanding of the world around us.

There are very few walks of life that are not built around social structures and the shared knowledge and customs within. Some of the stereotypical “loner” fields like abstract mathematics or software engineering are actually anything but. The shared knowledge we build upon is one language that underpins most future advancements. This is notwithstanding the many conversations and debates that help push knowledge further than any one person could do alone.

My education was very much the standard fair of rote learning with little room for constructing new ideas from experience. That is, until I got to a level in graduate school where I came upon problems that did not have answers. It was initially confusing to be given a homework assignment and find out later that the professor did not know if it was possible to prove what he asked for. The experience of getting together with others to debate the merits of our approach until we finally came to an agreement that we could prove the question was wrong was liberating. I was no longer bound to the idea that knowledge exists in some finite vault that I am just working my way through. True knowledge is created out of our experience with the world. In some sense I always knew such a world existed, but the mental shackles of most educational systems are strong. This does not discount the existence of those who come before us who have fought hard to develop ideas and share them. Rather, this understanding of how to create knowledge allows us to truly feel comfortable assimilating the ideas of others within our construct of the world.