The Basics of Education 2 (Why Bother with Schooling?)

Education is simply learning something new or getting rid of ignorance so you'd agree with me that learning can take place anywhere. You could be walking down the road and learn something, your old grandmother in the village is full of wisdom can teach you a thing or two, even the roadside mechanics teaches his apprentices about the job  so why bother with formal education?

I believe the quest for education goes beyond learning A, B and Cs in class to giving people a sense of meaning and identity to life.  I have been to a few interviews and nobody ever asked me to state Newton's law of motion or define photosynthesis. All the interviewers want to know is what I can do in order to add value to the establishment. That means that I must be able to apply what I learnt in school to solve real life problems. The challenge therefore, is that in Nigeria we've been taught to learn by memorization(rote learning) i.e recall method. That is to say that most times students do not necessarily understand what they are learning. All they do is cram to pass examinations. How then can one apply learning in the real world?
 
The essence of education is to graduate students that are useful to themselves and the society. In other words, students should leave school and be better than they were at the point of their enrollment as a result of the learning experiences they have been exposed to.

There are three stages of learning and none should be missing from the goals of an exceptional teacher when planning lessons. They are

1. ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE-  This stage has to do with acquiring the basic facts of the content area. At this stage students should be able to remember basic things like definitions, concepts and principles. 
2. UNDERSTANDING(Meaning)- At this level students make meaning of the factual knowledge they have acquired. They must be able to explain concepts, principles and processes by putting in their own words, being able to teach others and justify their answers showing their reasoning.
3. TRANSFER(Ability to use knowledge)-  Here students get to transfer their acquired knowledge and understanding in to new situations. They use their understanding to solve problems or adapt the concept they have learnt as a way of life. For example If a student is taught "Greeting" as a topic in Social Studies the teacher's transfer goal should be that greeting people becomes a part of the student's life whether at home, at social gatherings and in school. Only then should the teacher boldly say 'I HAVE TAUGHT.'

This would reduce the percentage of unemployable graduates in the society. 

Thank you. As always I would appreciate your views in the comment section. 

 
This post is the answer to one of the questions I asked in my previous post. The next four posts will address the others.

The link is below;
The Basics of Education (1)