Clay Burrell has started an open thread on what we learned in high school and since we were in school at about the same time [Grad ’77], I’m following the thread.

English: I remember the opening lines of Julius Caesar …

Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home:
Is this a holiday? what! know you not,
Being mechanical, you ought not walk
Upon a labouring day without the sign
Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou?

… but I was more interested in reading science fiction, such as Asimov, Heinlein, and Arthur C. Clark.

Math: Even though I took all the Math courses that were available I remember very little.

Science: I took Chemistry and remember very little but I do know that Force = Mass times Acceleration, from Physics.

I didn’t take Art, which was a big mistake that I still regret. My five years of French did not prepare me for university, scoring straight zeros on the public service French test when I arrived at military college.  I also did not have a clue on how to study effectively, as high school was a breeze for me, so I came very close to failing my first year of university.

The best thing about high school was that I had time for extra-curricular activities such as student council, Reach for the Top;  cadets; cross-country running and track. Those activities I remember quite well and I learned a lot from my coach and others outside the school.

I guess that my high school experience was similar to The 5 Minute University.

Gilbert posted a comment to a previous post of mine, but it’s worth its own post, as many people don’t track all the comments [merci, Gilbert] :

Here is a story for those who are interested in alternate ways of learning.

After reading some Marshal McLuhan in the mid 70s I decided to change the way I was learning.

Mcluhan was saying that electronic communications media would restore to Western civilizations many features expressed by oral cultures. In oral cultures you learn as an apprentice under a master and learning is a lifelong process. Being young (17) and naive I thought that this would happen in less than 10 years so I decided to change the way I was learning and thinking to make me ready for this new world. Learn orally under the masters.

During this period I remember reading some Plato and a book called the Art of Memory. This was pre-Western world stuff. I started to see that there were other ways of learning. This led me to read books on old East Indian training methods for musicians and all kinds of different approaches in various cultures. One of the last books I read was from Bacon. In a world made up mostly of books I decided to change the way I made use of books for learning. Here are things I did to make me ready for this print to oral change.

1. I stopped taking notes in the university classroom. Simply decided that I should remember what was being said.

2.  Started to train in old memory and visualization techniques from the Greek period.

3.  Instead of reading modern books I tried to read only original works. I read DesCartes, became a mathematician by reading Newton including hand written manuscripts. Learned my industrial engineering skills by reading original works of Taylor, Gilbreth, etc.

4. I stopped reading books about books. I threw away all my “Understanding McLuhan” and meditated on the Medium is the Message. Reading originals is very close to learning the oral way. I could hear these people talking to me.

4.  Decided to play blindfolded games instead of visual. I remember playing several chess games simultaneously based on oral communication only. Played blindfolded bingo,tic tac toe, card games too. I was warned that if I screamed bingo when it wasn’t bingo that some old lady would beat me up. Later on I used to write computer programs orally by having someone else type them and myself not being allowed to look at the code.

5. Totally neglected my university classes for many years to concentrate on mental training techniques. Went through concentration training, visualisation training, visual thinking training, lateral thinking, synectics, observation training, yoga, shorthand, logical thinking, illogical thinking, and many others.

6.  I decided that I would learn how to play classical guitar. I added the rule that I should never take a lesson, not ever even look at someones fingers as they played. The learning would have to come from the soul or simply from playing pieces. By that time I was into so much mental training that sight reading was mmediate. Took me about 2 minutes to figure out what the symbols meant. I started playing fifteenth century pieces and worked my way to about 1920. Much of the learning was simply done by hitting notes and simply listening. I did use sheet music to learn. At the age of forty I decided to use the fiddle and did so without lessons and did not allow myself to look at any sheet music. Listen and learn or just invent pieces.

7.  After a few years I kind a missed reading the newspaper and magazines so I went to the library and read the news of one hundred years ago and all their copies of Scientific American preceding 1970. Sure gave me a different understanding of politics and propaganda.

8.  I listened to a lot of radio.

During this period I was still reading but only original works. And then I discovered Buckminster Fuller….

I actually decided to study his mathematical work (Synergetics) and forced myself to think in terms of tetragons. Buckminster Fuller’s story of how he relived the history of tool making led me to reinvent many things around me. (Things like inventing my own alphabet and a different arithmetic than what other people used. Gave up on inventing a oral language because my friends were ready to have me interned.) I never read books about Fuller written by other people but I did meet someone who had met him and drank a lot of beer with the guy.

Pretty weird stuff! Did give me an insight into non-curriculum driven learning and also in some McLuanistic thinking.

So for those interested in alternate ways of learning. Give it a try. Take a new subject and try to learn it in a completely different way.

Do it like a caveman would if it suits your personality. It will give you a different perspective about learning.

PS. Learning from blogs is contrary to my learning style because it somewhat similar to reading books about books. The Blog process itself however is reflective and fits in well with this philosophy. Now that I am old it is also entertaining. I never really learned how to watch TV yet. I find playing with the remote quite interesting. Also find watching without sound quite interesting.

The printing press changed our relationship with knowledge and sparked the Protestant Reformation, which one could say helped bring about the Enlightenment and all of those scientific advances (such as real medicine) that we now take for granted. As John Naughton, of The Observer, says of a UK study on information seeking:

“The study confirms what many are beginning to suspect: that the web is having a profound impact on how we conceptualise, seek, evaluate and use information. What Marshall McLuhan called ‘the Gutenberg galaxy’ – that universe of linear exposition, quiet contemplation, disciplined reading and study – is imploding, and we don’t know if what will replace it will be better or worse. But at least you can find the Wikipedia entry for ‘Gutenberg galaxy’ in 0.34 seconds.”

The Web is changing everything, whether we like it or not; much as the printing press did, to the dismay of the established church.

As books are to subjects and disciplines, the Web is to processes. David Weinberger says that Everything is Miscellaneous, and in our interconnected world it sure is. That means that ALL subjects in school or university are miscellaneous and it doesn’t really matter what you study. It matters how you study and what you can do with your knowledge.

Even medicine is miscellaneous. The other day we were discussing a diagnosis with an orthopedic surgeon and the first question he asked was, “I’m sure that you’ve researched this, so what have you found out on the Internet?” In one miscellaneous area, we could have been more knowledgeable than a specialist, and he wanted to check.

On Sunday I listened to a discussion on the radio about the need for teaching black history and more ethnically diverse subjects in school. These educated people were discussing symptoms without addressing the cause because a subject-based curriculum will always be based on the wrong subjects for some people. Without a subject-centric curriculum, teachers could choose the appropriate subject matter for their particular class and the school system could concentrate on ensuing that students have mastered the important processes. Some of the processes that readily come to mind are critical thinking, analysing data, researching, communicating ideas, creating new things, etc.

All fields of knowledge are expanding and artificial boundaries between disciplines are disintegrating. Our education system needs to drop the whole notion of subjects and content mastery and move to process-oriented learning. The subject matter should be something of interest to the learner or something a teacher, with passion, is motivated to teach. The subject does not matter, it’s just grist for the cognitive mill.

Discussing ‘what’ subjects we should teach is the 21st Century equivalent of determining how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The answer is infinite. The real debate in education is whether we need linear, book oriented curriculum at all.