(no subject)

[waterspyder]

There is a problem with post-secondary education.

In the courses where rote memorization and regurgitation are the requirement, I'm a C+ student.

In the courses where I'm forced to offer my own opinion and defend it, debate it, or critique someone else's work, I'm an A student.

That's a bit of a jump.

One would think that employers, and life would find the second skill more valuable than the first, yet most of the courses are of the C+ variety. That's probably why I keep telling everyone that I don't make a very good academic. I guess it's really that I don't make good sheeple.

Comments

[chizzer.livejournal.com]

We're on precisely the same page on this one.

[jagash.livejournal.com]

I am in the same situation.

[kali-kali.livejournal.com]

I hear you. Same for me.

[kookiemaster.livejournal.com]

As you progress the proportion of the second type should increase, at least that's my experience from taking bachelors, masters and doctorate level courses.

Employers (intelligent ones) care more about whether you can write and speak coherently than about what you know. Rote memorization only serves to show that you can understand, memorize and apply something but whether or not you retain it afterwards is sort of irrelevant. You can always learn it again.

An employee who can learn new things is far more valuable than an employee who knows a lot of things, if you plan on keeping said employee for a long time.

***

I think the education system in which our generation grew up has a lot to do with it. As a TA in grad school for a class designed to cut people out of the program and with many students from other countries, I really saw differences in strengths and weaknesses.

Students from Europe loved to debate. It did not matter whether they were right or wrong, it was all about the debate and they did really well on questions where they were asked to defend a point of view. However, this penchant for debate sometimes got in the way of learning and progress. I have had students who would not accept that a) is the answer because they thought otherwise, even if basic mathematics, and the book, and the TA and the teacher said otherwise.

Students form Asia tended to be very good at memorizing things and were very technically competent, but when it came to questions where there was no right or wrong answer or where they were asked to give their opinion, they had more difficulties.

Students from Canada (mostly Quebec) were, in my opinion, a tad more balanced ... but on the other hand, not the champions at anything. They were not too big on grunt work and learning things by heart but were also able to defend a point of view or express an opinion. But they lacked the general culture of most European students, which made their arguments weaker.

***

I credit the nuns in high school for forcing me to develop my memory. In some classes you just had no choice, you had to learn a lot of things by heart or do tasks over and over again until they became second nature. "Hard work" was valued in that system, much more than thinking for yourself or having an opinion. This is where I developed my "sponge memory" technique, which was quite handy in undergrad. Less so in grad school ... where it got in the way. I had to curb this reflex of always trying to find the "right" answer. Often there were none, or many

[conformistsheep.livejournal.com]

for employers as well as for life itself, the first option is better, since employers can control you better if you don't know how to offer, defend and argue your opinion and the less critical thinking you do, the easier life is.

[waterspyder.livejournal.com]

Only if you subscribe to "Ignorance is Bliss"

Knowing I don't know stuff, and not knowing what to make of things drives me nutty.

I think I've also been blessed with bosses that like my brain that thinks outside of the box.

[kookiemaster.livejournal.com]

And only of your job does not require you to analyze information, make recommendations and push them through.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

Education for hoi polloi seems to be designed to produce people who work like machines: program them with certain things, put them in a controlled environment doing a predictable, repetitive job, and leave them to run on autopilot as much as possible. Sadly, those of us for whom this is unacceptable as a lifepath must nonetheless put up with a fair bit of this kind of "education" in hopes of obtaining some other kind, which encourages independent thinking. The system is set up so that one must do well enough at the rote work to be considered "worthy" of the other kind, even though talent in these two types of activity are pretty much un- or even anticorrelated.

It can be argued that in order to be able to form an opinion, one needs to be familiar with the facts. This is, of course, true, but it does not imply a need to attempt to memorize all potentially relevant data. Information is easily obtained today; the key skills are gathering, filtering, evaluating and correlating that information to extract useful and relevant knowledge, since there is more data now being generated and made available than one can possibly absorb in its entirety, even in extremely specialized fields. Memorizing a static collection of texts and facts just isn't adequate for a serious thinker today, if it ever was.

Good luck; I've felt your pain.

[kookiemaster.livejournal.com]

Mind you, memory is a faculty that can be trained. Once you find out if you learn more by sound or sight, you can force your brain to retain stuff. You just have to be obstinate enough and take the time necessary to do so.