[MOSAIC] Knowledge

[Stacy Kula]

I just wanted to respond to the posts opposed to my statement that "knowledge is overrated" that that we need more of an emphasis on thinking skills than discrete facts.  Because this topic isn't exactly what this listserv is about, I hope to keep it short and sweet, and I'll make this my last statement on this particular topic.
   
  First of all, I must say that I very much agree with people who have said that knowledge is essential and important.  I totally agree that without knowledge, we'd be nowhere.  It is exactly the gaining, reporting, and learning, and use of previously gained knowledge that advances our society.
   
  So how do you reconcile my previous statement with this one?  Well, I'd say my first statement was both overstated and misinterpreted. It's not so much that knowledge per se is overrated; it's that knowledge is seen (by the educational institution of the US in general) as the end toward which we work. I disagree; knowledge is a means to an end: the end of using knowledge to advance society.  This requires the interaction of knowledge and thinking skills, which remain highly underrated.  Given the finite amount of hours we have with students, many school reformists believe (and I agree) that we should narrow down the discrete facts we teach and expect kids to "know" to a smaller, more important core, so that we spend less time teaching "stuff" and free up more time for helping kids understand why the stuff they learn is important, how it can be used, getting them to actually question, consider, analyze, synthesize, experiment... all the stuff kids do so little of in most
 classrooms.
   
  For example, I was made to memorize all the U.S. presidents.  I do not remember all the presidents today, though if you threw a name at me, I'd be able to tell you if that person was a president or not.  And I remember more than most people, I'd wager.  Now, under Glasser's approach to schools (Ted Sizer argues similarly), it's not that we wouldn't ask kids to memorize the names of the presidents.  But we'd approach it differently.  We'd tell kids that we're going to launch an investigation about the presidency and the presidents.  We'd ask questions to guide the unit such as: why is the presidency important?  What can a president do to change the lives of everyday citizens?  Which presidents are considered to be our best presidents, and what exactly did they do to earn that distinction?  Which presidents are considered to be our worst presidents, and why is that so?  What factors are used to determine whether a president was a success or not?  Is it possible to have a
 concrete, fair measure of job performance for a president?  Why are there so many widely differing opinions as to how well recent and current presidents have done their job?  How does knowing all this affect how you think about who is president and how you will vote when you are old enough?  What will you look for in a potential president?  Now, this is a barrage of questions, and we wouldn't just give these to students all at once.  We'd probably stick to one or two main questions.  That was just a sample of the kinds of questions I'd personally consider important.  As students are investigating these questions, they are learning not only presidents' names (knowledge) and something about their times in office (knowledge), but also are creating a construct for WHY knowing this is important, HOW they can use their knowledge to make better decisions for themselves, etc.  This emcompasses knowledge-gaining and goes way beyond it.
   
  Another example: In math, with my kids, I follow Constance Kamii's framework for teaching: games to learn math facts (knowledge), and pointing out math problems we encounter in everyday life and working them out with kids orally along with using large math problems and discussion to gain mathematical thinking skills.  That way, we do the fact-gaining, but go beyond it.
   
  The mosaic listserv is dedicated to something similar with reading; not just being content to make sure kids are saying the words that are on the page, but going beyond so that they are thinking about them, making connections, inferences, questions, analyzing and synthesizing what they read, etc.
   
  Ted Sizer, in his book "Horace's School," basically argues for a "less-is-more" approach to teaching.  This means concentrating on fewer discrete facts for students to gain (core knowledge) and instead using our time to go deeper with every unit of study.  If, in the course of their lives, students come across a hole in their knowledge that they need to fill, then can then not only look it up, but fit it into a larger construct of understanding and make good use of it. Also, the focus on the USE and PURPOSE of knowledge theoretically would increase students' motivation to learn in the first place. (Bill, I would be curious if your students wouldn't be much different people if they had been taught in this way from the beginning.) This is what I agree with, and what I meant to express with what I initially said.
   
  Anyway, you may still think this is all bunk, but I at least wanted to clear up what I meant by what I initially said.  I'm looking back at what I wrote and, wow, I totally didn't stick to "short and sweet", but hopefully this was at least illuminating to someone.... :-)
   
  Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clear up what was a woefully inadequate initial statement!
   
  ~Stacy

       
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