We’re tested every day in real life. Every one of us. Many are personal tests, tests of character, life tests. Others are professional, problems to solve and solutions to create, or tests of skills that we need to apply at any given moment. Few of any of these are planned or scripted. Few are “announced” a week ahead of time.
And importantly, rarely are we asked to pass these tests by ourselves. In almost every case, we reach out to friends or colleagues to ask questions and mine their tacit knowledge. We search our physical and virtual networks, and we use that knowledge to help us learn or fix or create or invent. Hardly ever are we forced to totally go it alone.
Yet, the kids in our schools are almost always asked to go it alone when it’s time for a test. Accessing their networks for information, or connecting with their peers or teachers in the room or on the phone, is strictly prohibited. “That would be cheating!” we say in schools.
If true, then we’re all cheaters in our real lives, aren’t we?
Now that we are working so hard to give kids access to all these tools and networks, why wouldn’t we encourage them to cheat? Teach them to cheat, even. Why wouldn’t we be more interested in whether or not they can use their access to pass the test, rather than just passing the test on their own?
Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
There are occasionally situations where you do need to have the skill and confidence to do something without relying on your network or the Internet. For example, if you’re in a situation where you need to administer CPR, you’re not going to take the time to look it up on YouTube or call a colleague to explain it to you. You just need to know it.
Also, some fluency with knowledge and foundational skills does help you focus on the larger problem without getting bogged down in the details. If you’re trying to cook a meal and you don’t know how to handle a knife well, it’s going to take longer and you’re going to have less attention to give to flavor and texture of the food.
That said, these situations are rare and limited to simple processes or factual knowledge. That we focus our school energies on these kinds of processes is a major part of the problem. The more complex a problem or task, the more we want to involve larger teams of people working together on it. Watch the credits of even the smallest film, or read the acknowledgments page of any book. It takes a team, and often an enormous one.
I agree with Gerald, Will. There are situations where a person must rely on his instincts and knowledge. Decision-making is psychologically personal. Therefore, one must learn to rely on himself.
Let’s say, if you play corner back, and in time, you change teams. You may continue playing a corner back, but it ain’t the same team. Kids got to be ready for that.
Moreover, in STEM professions, everybody takes their own decisions. They do co-operate, but each is on his own. Kids got to learn that too.