“Who won World War II?
i. Goodies ii. Baddies”
Taken from a cartoon, this
line nicely sums up how multiple-choice questions in standardised examinations are dumbing down education. We have become besotted with
how students perform in examinations. Such exam-centric education unduly
emphasises learning the content of a discipline, usually by rote, and students
often lack a deeper understanding of fundamental concepts or episteme of a
discipline and the underlying thinking framework.
In the 20th century
stockpiling knowledge in the form of a University degree did almost guarantee
lifelong employment but now, when we are in an era where abundant knowledge is
easily and cheaply accessible, having a head full of knowledge is no longer a
comparative advantage. Admission into a good college on the basis of high
marks and the University degree that follows may lead to the first job but
mugging up just the content of a discipline does not secure a bright future for
students. Moreover, intelligent machines are now taking over cognitive tasks
that could earlier be performed only by a human brain and for future employment
today’s students will have to compete not only with fellow humans but also with
intelligent machines.
Employment
and entrepreneurial prospects are significantly brighter for students who learn
how to create ‘value’ for a large number of fellow denizens of planet Earth and
can deliver this ‘value’ successfully to the market as a product or service.
This ‘value’ could be material – designing a more efficient way to tap solar
energy, or it could be physical – becoming a Yoga trainer, or it could be
social – inventing a service like Facebook or Uber, or it could be
psychological – offering ways of living a joyful life to multitudes.
What complicates the problem
of value creation is that students will need to make this happen in a future
that is VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
Education needs to prepare
students to thrive in a VUCA environment by instilling in them the ability to
wonder, which in turn leads to development of a fertile imagination. Education
also needs to develop a laser sharp intellect with deep perception as intellect
and perception are needed to abstract new patterns by connecting the knowledge
dots in novel ways. Ability to deal with complexity is another essential
quality for flourishing in a VUCA future. This includes ability to use
intelligent machines to churn data to garner insights from information and have
the ability to take judicious decisions to solve complex problems.
To achieve these objectives
of cultivating an insatiable curiosity, fertile imagination, sharp intellect,
deep perception and ability to solve complex problems, education has to go much
beyond its current infatuation with exams and in addition to knowing the
content of a discipline school and University education should also cultivate
‘disciplinary skills’ – i.e. mode/framework of thinking, threshold concepts,
vocabulary... – elements that need to be mastered to gain deep
expertise in that discipline.
Take history for example. It
is not about mugging up facts, which is what an exam-focused education
inadvertently emphasises. History is a living interpretation of the past. It is
about perspectives, for example victor vs vanquished and how both sides
interpret past events. Thinking like a historian is about understanding the
'Arc of Inquiry' – formulating probing questions to understand the larger
context, articulating a historical claim, finding evidence for and against the
claim in the form of primary and secondary sources, evaluating these sources
for their provenance (reliability, authenticity, bias, prejudice),
corroborating the sources, drawing inference and presenting your argument
cogently with evidence.
Thinking like a Historian is
also about learning from the wisdom of history. As Santayana put it, “Those who
don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” Knowing history should make one
capable of taking informed action because history teaches you about choices
people made in the past and the consequences of these choices. Studying history
should lead to an appreciation of how seemingly insignificant acts can later
lead to a domino effect.
The causal nature of history
is akin to science – choices and consequences in history and cause and effect
in science. While there are similarities in the two disciplines the way a
scientist thinks is also very different from the way a historian thinks. Unlike
a historian who is dealing with human events of the past a scientist is mostly
dealing with empirical phenomena. Science can be construed as man’s dialogue
with nature where a scientist observes nature, formulates a hypothesis,
conducts experiments and draws an inference about a natural phenomenon. A
historian cannot conduct experiments and can only rely on primary and secondary
sources to interpret past events.
Learning different modes of
thinking – thinking like a scientist, thinking like a historian, thinking like
a writer, thinking like a mathematician, thinking like an artist and so forth,
enhances a student’s ability to perceive the world in a more profound manner by
looking at it through different lenses and this makes the student a deep,
independent thinker. Disciplinary skills and an appreciation of how experts in
different disciplines think also prepares a student to appreciate and
understand cross-curriculum linkages – similarities and differences across
disciplines. This in-turn develops the ability to connect the dots of knowledge
in more creative and innovative ways, which yields fresh insights and
facilitates finding novel solutions to complex problems, thus opening up the
possibility for value creation.
And, ability to create value
is the new comparative advantage in a VUCA future.
