The Past of Learning

There was once a time when people were smarter and more skilled because they simply had to be. They had a multifaceted intelligence that they needed in order to remember everything they needed to survive. People had to recognize the languages of humans and animals. They had to be a part of a web of local languages. All this in order to exist in a complicated natural human ecosystem. This is the past of learning.

The Present of Learning

There still exists a version of this ecosystem in many places. That is where people have to know or are taught many languages in order to get through day to day life. Teachers will sigh over places like Finland and Singapore for their equation systems.

How is America so far behind in languages? This country does not actually have an official language, so why are we so confined to English? Why do most students leave the education system no more linguistically versatile than how they began? Why do we not have the advanced machinery of the Finnish and Singaporean education systems?

But this is where we find the sticking point. The fact that we treat education like a technology to make learning more efficient. This is an Industrial Revolution mindset; it’s kids we’re putting on the assembly line instead of machinery. Children are not machines! And the only thing they learn from a system like this is how to conform to society. They don’t learn any new skills or languages. Trying to upgrade a fundamentally superficial system with iPads and MacBooks is not suddenly going to give us the capacity of the Singaporean education system.

The Future of Learning

What we should be doing is pairing that technology with a system that works. A return to a time of multifaceted intelligence and an understanding of the human ecosystem. We should stop trying to experiment with the broken system and turn to the one that works. Tutoring is a return to a time when learning made more sense. Giving some of the resources that are sunk into the broken machinery of the public school system to tutors dedicated to leading you through learning is the best path forward.