There’s a lot of angst and concern and thought and “spinning of the wheels” in regards to education. I feel it, especially as a professor. This past semester was, for me, a poor one. I really felt like I had lost my touch. Perhaps I have…though others tell me to not be quite so critical.
Regardless, in the shifting culture where we find ourselves now, something has happened. Maybe to find our solution, we not only need to eliminate the focus on testing, but recover the ancient idea of how one learns.
In simple terms, we need to connect the mind with the body and the soul. If those words are too religious for you, evoking various ideas from the Bible, how about just the idea that learning happens best when the head and the hands are working in concert on something that the heart enjoys. Linking the heart with learning seems a wistful idea these days of test after test after test.
I remind my younger professors often that the research, both now and historically, point out that learning sticks when there are multiple sensory touch points for the student. The more ways and times a student “plays with the material,” the better. If they just listen, it rarely sticks. Likewise, if they just play, learning isn’t very deep or locked in.
I don’t know how this looks for every discipline. They are different. But if we really want to ensure our students are learning, we must connect learning to doing, and then help the student see how this leads to rewards….is worth doing.
Mind connected to body linked to soul.