Roger Schank's 'Dangerous' Take on Schools

Each year, The Edge asks its members ("some of the most interesting minds in the world") to respond to a provocative question.  This year's question was:

WHAT IS YOUR DANGEROUS IDEA?

The history of science is replete with discoveries that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally dangerous in their time; the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious. What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

The responses are all worth a read, but the one that caught my attention (given TIS's area of focus, and the fact that I got my MS under him at The ILS @ NWU) was Roger Schank's.

As is his habit, Roger's non-PC response hit the nail of the assignment squarely on the head: No More Teachers Dirty Looks

(It was originally titled 'School Is Bad For Children' and in the following shorter format - perhaps all the attention he's been getting caused him to edit/expand his original answer?)

School is bad for children

Schools are structured today in much the same way as they have been for hundreds of years. Schools should simply cease to exist as we know them.

The Government needs to get out of the education business and stop thinking it knows what children should know and then testing them constantly to see if they regurgitate whatever they have been spoon-fed.

We need to stop producing a nation of stressed-out students who learn how to please the teacher instead of pleasing themselves.

We need to produce adults who love learning, not adults who avoid all learning because it reminds them of the horrors of school.

We need to stop thinking that all children need to learn the same stuff. We need to create adults who can think for themselves.

Call school off. Turn them into apartments.

- Roger Schank, Chief learning officer, Trump University

Roger is a lightning rod (by his own design), often taking some pretty outrageous positions in order to prompt thought and discussion.  Perhaps this (espec the original title) is just another example of this technique, but the content of the message has some merit, I think.

"Education/Training" (both at the K-12 and Corporate levels) has been blindly modeled on an outdated view of how we learn, and how scarce instructional resources/expertise is.  Too often, we take the lemming stance of "I went through the current school system and I turned out OK, so it can't be *that* broken!", and blindly ignore (forget?) just how painful and meaningless the majority of the time we spent in school actually was, academically.  So, we cheerfully send our kids (and employees) to experience a similar lock-step, one-size-fits-all experience.

We need to not only open our eyes to this suboptimal pattern of behavior, but also open our minds in considering alternative approaches to teaching and learning, based on new research and advances in technology.

• Take into account that, based on our experiences and (yes) genetics, we are all different and unique, so instruction shouldn't be aimed at the "bump" in the middle of the normal distribution curve, but dynamically tailored to the individual (content and pace).

• Motivation, context, and failure are enormous drivers in comprehension and retention. (What's the difference between myosis and mytosis?  Anyone who's completed freshman Biology once knew. Now ask anyone who's played SimCity about the relationship between Industrial Tax Rates and municipal growth (something taught in High School Govt and Econ class). QED)

• Very little of what is valuable in life/work is based on explict knowledge of WHAT (which is the instructional foundation of our school systems and most corporate training programs - fact & figures, listening & memorization), but rather on implicit (tacit) knowledge of HOW (doing).  This "Learning by Telling vs. Learning by Doing" division is at the root of many of the shortcomings of our current instructional methods.

• Most testing and assessment, as currently practiced, is irrelevant and misleading.  Multiple-choice and True/False questions (which make up the vast majority of structured evaluation) say little to nothing about what we are (or *should* be) really interested in:can the learner actually DO something better now (compared to before). Most tests are simply artifacts of what is easy, quick, and inexpensive, when applied to the masses.

To paraphrase from the opening to the 70's TV show, The Six-Million Dollar Man:

We can rebuild it. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's learning systems better. Better than it was before. Better... stronger... faster."

(Jon Revelos is Consultant - Instructional Design with Tata Interactive Systems)

Comments

[Anuj Kapoor]

A wonderful article on how school education should be with the changing times..and espicially in India. As India is growin in IT sector, there is also a need for arising ourselves in the school education.

[Shilpa Sharma]

Ivan Illich also talks about deconstructing schools in his book "Deschooling Society"-A revolutionary works of his times.

[Gaurav Peters]

I have a 3+ yr. old son, Elroy Jordan [EJ]. Being the first born of parents [and a family] that is steeped up to their noses in the field of conventional education, we set out to look for a near perfect balance of starting early AND a natural individual learning plan for him. EJ is a very smart kid [and I'm not just saying it because he is my son – that too is so clichéd] we thought it best to involve him also in the decision of how he would want to educate himself. After having done the rounds of the million [actually only 7] international schools in the city and another billion [again 20+ really] conventional nurseries/ playgroups we realized that almost each one of them portrayed themselves as having a contemporary and radically new yet natural approach to education. However all of them ended up being even less conducive for children to grow their appetite for learning than the conventional Indian classroom model.

Cutting to the chase, EJ seemed excited about going to one of the international schools that had a great outdoor playground with every possible plaything that would help EJ grow strong physically and we were impressed when the principal of that school gave us a tour of the 4yr olds classroom and the kids recited numbers 1-10 in German and French!!! Eins, Zwei, Drei… We were like WHOA!!!

However, later that evening after the marketing blitz faded away we realized it still was “learning by rote”.

Needless to say the balanced education environment still remains a utopia in terms of schooling for EJ. We finally settled for a very enthusiastic lady entrepreneur who has given EJ the power to think beyond the conventional. We found her setup in the small shop in a market place a very interesting learning environment where the kids play in the space off the road right in front of the shop and learn under the trees at the side of the road. Safety was a concern at first then we realized the layout was very unique and no kid could really run-off right onto the road.

Here is one of the manifestations of all the discussions we engage in http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/india/thestory.html. I had hoped to see something of this kind in the international schools at least; if not the conventional convents. I do wish that we can realize/translate the benefits of “learning by doing” and CMA [Critical Mistakes Analysis]sooner than later at the school level too.

[YJ]

Agree to what Jon refers here. However, (in brief) I must reiterate that education for K-12 is going through a transformation phase already. (And this is India Im refering to) Kids are taught much more in practical circumstamces than pouring Bookish down their tiny brains. Learning by Doing is IN. But not outright. You kiddn me, 40% drop-out rate. Literacy just about 50%. Thats India. Technology is developed and not Used here as yet. We got customers in US who pays for it.