Thursday, November 20, 2014

A Comfortable Haze

I preferred the study part of working and studying to the study part of university. In standardising learning and breaking the work down into step by step sections, a course is forced to go at a certain pace as it works through the syllabus. When Salman Khan of the Khan Academy first started recording tutorials on Youtube for his cousins, they said they actually preferred it to him teaching them. This was because they could pause him. They could replay him. They could do all this without feeling embarrassed or pressurised. In formal studies with a class, you have to go at the pace of the class. This drove me nuts. Not because I wanted to speed up, but because I wanted to slow down and I didn't feel like I had context.

An important part of learning is becoming comfortable with the haze. You don't understand. Sentences don't fit together. You can't remember what individual words mean, and so the next word makes no sense. Eventually shapes start to emerge and interact and you realise where you are. I am not convinced learning is a linear process where you can go from lesson to lesson conquering each step. Tutorials had me tearing at my hair. Particularly if they were new concepts and then you had to do something which was marked at the end. You couldn't learn to be patient with yourself as you had this burden of testing at the end. As you went through the syllabus, tests would have to be studied for surrounded by whatever other dose of life circumstances was adding to your stress.

Industrialised Education doesn't test the depth of your understanding or your ability to perform as much as it tests Exam fitness. There is no stronger symbol for me than one of the exam venues I used to write in - the UCT sports centre. Rows upon rows of seats, pens and paper. Stressed students. I would love to produce four 10m X 20m paintings of these rows and rows of desks. In the middle of the room you could place a single chair and desk and then play a surround sound of furious scribbling. Remaining calm and being exam fit become the key things that get tested. You need to have practised writing under exam conditions over and over again until you are ready. Past papers aren't just about testing the knowledge, they are about training your body to cope with the actual event. I always tried to study very little the day before an exam, to go to a movie or something to clear my head, so that I could walk in calm.

UCT sports centre exam venue
Source: KRwhiteZA

I was actually a much better 'exam athlete' than I was in tests. Until I had gone through the full body of the syllabus and connected the dots I was very aware of how superficial my knowledge was. It often took the study week just before the exams for things to come together. I used to think maybe it would be a better idea to have study week in the first week of the semester followed by an exam. If you passed, good for you, but most people would fail and then start learning. Second time round you have the context. The exams I failed and had to repeat were some of the most enjoyable courses I did because I could learn haze free (ish).

Many get to the work environment and draw a solid line under their studies barely escaping the urge to tattoo 'done' on their foreheads. While working though, often exams become self study and it is another ball game altogether - you can slowly working through a subject at your own pace. You can get the context you need. For the most part though, it still becomes about that exam at the end - and that is what scares people. There is naturally the challenge of balancing work commitments, but that is a post on its own.

To encourage life-long learning, we need to harness technology to make testing environments less intimidating or at least more reflective of real life situations in which the knowledge will be used. We also need to think of education less as linear step by step process, and more as search for context.

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