Brains working towards machine consciousness

Mike Bogle (@mbogle on Twitter) has a great post on the change needed to support education in the future, which he drew my attention to after I Twittered "knowledge and learning are incarcerated in a monopolistic mould/mold which inhibits innovation and accentuates elitism. Discuss". I might argue it is change that was needed in the past, but I am guessing we can't achieve that now. I recommend Mike's post over this one. Mine is truly a rant, but sometimes a rant is needed...

Societal emphasis is on teaching and learning (or, in fact, increasingly on training rather than teaching) rather than education. Schools are heavily influenced (if not directly controlled) by governments, and the hierarchical power structures are reflected down onto them. Schooling was essentially invented to provide factory fodder more than to produce intelligent, articulate thought leaders, and as such it may not be particularly well designed in a world which has an increasing rate of change in terms of technology. Schooling does not 'build in' the flexibility that is necessary to excel in the modern world, in my opinion, but rather flattens the imagination and creativity of the participants, and seeks to remove individuality. It is not surprising that it does this, because it is necessary to some degree in order to maintain sufficient discipline when you have fairly large student to teacher ratios and seek to practice an instructionist, top-down approach to imparting knowledge.

I worked briefly as an educational assistant, taking 5 or 6 primary school children out into the woods to study natural history. It was a wonderful educational experience for them and for me. I don't suppose much of this sort of thing happens anymore, for fear of being sued. But the kids enjoyed it, and seemed to learn both an appreciation of the world around them as well as practicing other skills such as drawing, writing and discussing what they had discovered with each other. Great fun.

Some of the best learning I did at school was when teachers decided to mix and match subject areas. Trying to learn geography in French was quite a challenge for me (I enjoyed the experience, but was glad it didn't continue for too long!). Inter-disciplinary studies are a key element in promoting flexibility and creativity. We need to do more to encourage it at every level of the education system.

I say 'education system', but I earnestly believe that we barely have such a thing. Training (enabling people to perform tasks by rote practice and indoctrination) and teaching (guiding the student by the hand, highlighting the right way to do things) are not what I would really call education (which is, to my mind, providing the learning opportunities, the freedom to explore methods most appropriate for the learner, and supporting the development of a lively and enquiring mind).

We also have a great institutional (and increasing) desire to provide 'safe learning environments'. But the real world is not always safe, and people need to learn about the things which make them unsafe while learning the skills to cope with that. The real world provides a great learning venue, and the adrenaline rush associated with getting your views out there, to be read and challenged by others, helps with the actual formation of knowledge. I always hold you shouldn't revise until after exams, for the same reason. I learnt a lot more during examinations because of having to work things out quickly and accurately than through other means, and then I consolidated that knowledge by revising the subject afterwards. Perhaps this isn't the best approach for everyone, of course!

With Web2.0 technologies, we are increasingly able to communicate easily with our peers, and receive assessment of our ideas. Education is all about feedback - we learn from seeing where we went wrong (not necessarily mistakes) and to a lesser extent from where others went wrong. A system which concentrates on continual success fails, in my view, to provide an environment where real learning happens. I can memorise things by repetitively seeing them, but I then lack any deep understanding on the subject. If I practice reproducing the "thing" by trying to understand the underlying model and creating my own work based upon it, I truly learn. This also applies at a lower level - if I read a lot of material about a subject before 'doing my own thinking' I have already constrained the range of thoughts which will be immediately available to me. Existing memes dominate by repetition and by latching onto tantalising hooks; new memes are typically generated through the mixed wonders of a diverse memetic population, noise and step-wise progression. Over doing the 'book learning' aspect inhibits the generation of new ideas, in my opinion.

Traditional 'educational' practice inhibits learning, problem solving and creativity. Industry still seeks factory fodder most of the time, but seems put out that the same system it influences to produce the drones is seldom able to produce the high level thinkers it also needs for leadership roles. We do not need to just address the learning culture, and accept that command and control has limited application in the educational sphere, but we need to address the same issues in industry. If flexibility is important to industry (which is probably an artificial need, based on maintaining artificially high and unsustainable 'growth') then industry needs to be flexible and to encourage the education system to be as well. Whilst it is politically scary, we increasingly need to empower people to be cognitively active, vibrant members of the community. To be able to do this, people need to learn how to learn, to approach everything as a learning opportunity, and to know that there is someone to help them get back onto their feet when they land on their backsides. Possibly with the exception of senior banking officials, who should probably have cushioned their fall with their previous bonusses... ;-)