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'Don't teach children facts ... they can search online'
Benedict Moore-Bridger02.12.08
Schoolchildren should not be taught to memorise facts and figures because information is available online, a leading commentator said today.
The existence of search engines such as Google and Wikipedia mean that traditional methods of learning are redundant.
Don Tapscott, author of the best-selling book Wikinomics, said teachers should instead encourage pupils to think creatively and learn to apply available online knowledge.
The author, who coined the term "net generation", said the commonly-used modern-day education model was designed for the industrial age, and needed to be changed. He said: "Kids should learn about history but they don't need to know all the dates.
"It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorise that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google. Memorising facts and figures is a waste of time."
But Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary, has recently criticised "the move away from fact-based learning".
Reader views (9)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
We cannot diminish the need for rote memorization of facts in any area of study. There is a specific logic governing the way a discipline approaches and solves problems. The solutions arrived at form the basis of the disciplines constructed knowledge. This common knowledge reflects the group's collective knowledge and experience within that discipline.
The specific insider language is the necessary medium for addressing pressing ill-formed problems requiring innovative solutions. Therefore working knowledge is critical to innovation. Innovation is not a single user event. Rather innovation is a result of a continuous process of group engagement causing small yet constant change. Without a toolbox of discipline specific knowledge, innovation is hampered. So we need to support active learning of core knowledge that includes rote memorization of facts, figures, dates and terms.
- Jenny Ankenbauer, Houston Texas
When doctors have access to the Internet and data bases, they are adding to their knowledge base and able to go beyond what they have memorized...give me a physician who knows how to use all the tools available to 21st century learners rather than one who relies on his all too human memorization skills!
- Marcia Tyrol, Maine, USA
Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that all facts are useless and a waste of time to learn. I do believe, however, for most of the classrooms around the world the model of pedagogy has remained the same for centuries. Teachers stand at the front of the class, spouting facts, figures and dates. Students demonstrate they have “learned” when they can regurgitate these facts on exams. I describe this model as being “teacher focused.” It is also outdated.
The better model is “student focused.” Kids memorize fewer facts but acquire more knowledge. They learn how to think, communicate, solve tough problems (from math to society), put things in context, and work in groups. Learning excites them, and they acquire an appetite to keep on learning throughout their lives. This works out well, because almost all workers in the digital economy will need to constantly relearn as their jobs evolve or simplify disappear through ever-faster Schumpeterian creative destruction.
Moreover, the factoids that students should learn could be acquired in a much more efficient manner than is typically the case today. Instead of delivering a one-size-fits-all form of education, schools should customize the education to fit each child’s ability and way of learning. Software can easily teach facts to kids and quiz them as they progress. When a student does poorly in one area, that material is retaught. Meanwhile, the teacher is freed up to spend more one-on-one time with each student.
- Don Tapscott, Toronto, Canada
Oh, right...so in future years, I'll just wait till doctors,dentists & other professionals just log-on and 'google' to try and find out what the problem is...as they haven't ever had to memorise muscles, bones, body systems etc..
Dream on.......
- Suzy, Essex
XSo all these Revision Guides for diffferent subjects are not helpful, because they deal in facts? Tell me another one
- Keith Price, Luton, England
"It is enough that they know about the Battle of Hastings, without having to memorise that it was in 1066. They can look that up and position it in history with a click on Google. Memorising facts and figures is a waste of time...." - yeah, George Orwell would be dead impressed with that !
So...history then gets rewritten without any of us spotting it ! Example - England was never at war with the Normans - it's a slippery slope ladies and gentlemen
- Mick C, Dublin, Ireland
I remember back when it was accepted that calculators could be used in exams, the powers that be stating that students had to know the correct calculation required anyway, so they were not missing out. The trouble is that they no longer had to work their way through the process any more, ensuring that they got the details right at each step as that was being done for them by the device. Now we have young adults who couldn't calculate their way out of a paper bag without a calculator in hand. They don't understand the process of working out the problem - any problem, only how to enter that problem into a 'smart' device and get it to do the business for them.
In this example, and in life in general, making things 'easy' takes away the need to strive. The social equivalent here would be people letting others, with their own agendas, think for them. This in turn sidelines problem solving skills and pride of achievement (except in the diluted form that is increasingly being thought of as normal).
This dumbing down process will lead to one thing alone (two if you quantify the frustrations of intrinsically intelligent people taught to be losers, the results seen in the hoodie culture of today's kids) - automatons; human robots.
The Utopian dream? An Orwellian nightmare, more like!
- Rogan, Irving
As soon as some self-appointed pundit starts referring to 'kids', alarm bells should ring. Children should not be forced to 'learn facts' but to increase their internal reserves of general knowledge. To find an answer with certainty on the net you have to know the right question to ask and that takes a known framework of knowledge, not creative thinking; some common sense needed here I think.
- Peter Haldane, London
Recently, an O-level chemistry examination question asked what was the chemical symbol for oxygen: P,O,N,C or F. The idiocy is not that anyone who knows about the alphabet and abbreviation can guess right. It is that even knowing the hard ones, like Antimony being Sb, involves no understanding whatsoever of the subject chemistry.
Education used to be about understanding. That's learning the ability to make deductions and form views and critical judgements, starting from the facts or the set text. This ability is useful long after the detailed subject matter is forgotten, and it builds up from year to year and across subject divisions as a student progresses.
Now it is about meaningless memorization. Little wonder that many now leave school with a clutch of examination passes, despite being functionally illiterate, functionally innumerate, and often near-inartuculate (every other word, "like", or "you know").
So this man is partly right, but as with all previous state meddling, then prescribes a "new new" dogma, rather than a return to what worked well in the past. Schools and teachers must be freed from the shackles of state and local-authority control. Competition must be encouraged, discipline enforced. The disaster that is mixed-ability teaching must be abolished. Teachers should be freed to create understanding, rather than being state functionaries telling kids what to memorize in order to pass the next test.
- Nigel, London
