Learning versus Teaching

News flash, Dear Reader—the capital of Washington is….

(Nope, it’s not Spokane.)

There was a time in your life when you knew the capital of the state of Washington. And you had a test on it, and on all the other state capitals.

“What’s the capital of the state of Washington,” I said yesterday to Naia, the little girl whose mother runs the café that is my office. Naia was busy being home schooled by her mother on state capitals last year when I first met them.

Naia gave me the look eleven-year-old girls reserve for silly adults.

 “I dunno, that was last year….”

Well, she may be home schooled, but she’s got the education system down cold. Quick—what year was the Magna Carta?

You may know—I think it’s 1215.

Quick—what WAS the Magna Carta?

Interesting to know—how many people could answer one versus the other?

Here’s the thing about Naia—she has correctly eliminated the useless data of state capitals (she has an iPad, if she needs to know a state capital, she’ll google it….) to create more space or capacity or energy for what she really loves, which is dinosaurs.

She was asking me, the other day, what my favorite dinosaur was, and though I was tempted to say Ronald Reagan, I decided to tell the truth: I don’t believe in dinosaurs. Yes, I know the whole fossil record absolutely and completely refutes me, and no, I don’t hold my belief so strongly that I would die for it. I just can’t get my head around animals that big, that massive, and especially I don’t buy the new theory that an asteroid wiped them out. And if people can deny the holocaust or believe that Obama is Muslim, well, I can not believe in dinosaurs.

Naia, however, took me on. She has a vast, untaught-but-still-very-educated knowledge of dinosaurs, as well as a fascination for the natural world. She knew, for example, that a bird of paradise was a bird—I didn’t. I thought it was just a plant. But Naia instantly informed me that the birds live in New Guinea and some parts of Australia. And she showed me a picture of one—look!

Nobody, you understand, requires that Naia know all about dinosaurs and birds of paradise. (Or is it bird of paradises?) However, it is vitally important to know that capital of Washington State so that Naia gets a piece of paper that will lead in four years time to another piece of paper that will lead in three years time to the acquisition of another piece of paper that will lead to a job. Because you need a Master’s Degree to get pretty much any job, nowadays.

Well, I had a job for about 35 years, and guess what! Not once did I need to know that the capital of Washington is Olympia.

What I did need to know is how to use a computer, that first day in Wal-Mart, in 2004.

I came late to the game—everybody assumed I knew what a file was, or what the desktop was, or what Excel was.

“Show me how to turn this on,” I was saying to Elizabeth, the lady who hired me—as she and I sat in front of the computer. Like so much else I did, it didn’t inspire confidence.

Seven years later, I had taught myself the rudiments of VBA scripting and was the acknowledged expert in PowerPoint. I could do all that because I shared a passion for something. No, not dinosaurs, but the cello. And if I could play the Chopin and Shostakovich sonatas, of course I could learn how to use Microsoft Office products.

It’s always the first thing cut, in the schools. Yeah, they may threaten to cut the football team—a sure way to get people to vote for the school board referendum—but when it actually comes time to start the slashing? That machete falls straight down on music and art.

As I write, there’s a guy pounding the hell out of some wood in the apartment above me. No, he’s not a construction worker, he’s a sculptor. I am writing this, which is an arguably creative thing to do. Below me, people are selling shoes. So two thirds of the building is being creative.

Or maybe the entire building is. Can you be creative in sales?

I think so. There’s a kind of magic involved when you meet a good salesman—how many times have you walked away with something you didn’t need until the salesperson told you you needed it, or implanted in you some desire for it?

I think Sir Robinson (view clip below) is right—we are doing a wonderful job of stomping out every last bit of creativity in our kids. Unfortunately, I think that’s what we want to do. The news that our schools do more deadening than awakening has been around for 40 or 50 years, and have we changed? Have we done anything about it? Are our schools better places, turning out better kids, smarter kids, more creative kids?

Well, at least in Puerto Rico, I would never have had the job I did had the answer been yes. Every child in Puerto Rico graduates with 12 years of English class—how could I possibly be needed as an English teacher? And why—since I had no credentials whatsoever and was going up against the professionals—did I succeed in getting people to talk?

I think most teachers get in the way. I think it’s better not to teach. I never really did, and still don’t, although occasionally I feel guilty for not having a lesson plan and vocabulary and written exercises and metrics for evaluation. I am not a very good teacher.

I do, however, observe learning fairly well.