The purpose of school
We are spending almost one fourth or one third of our life being schooled. What is the real purpose of school? To acquire knowledge/information? To be trained for jobs? To be a good person to society? Different people have different answers.
Seth Godin gave several points in his video. One of his points on connecting dots emphasize on thinking instead of memorizing. Students need to be taught how to think and how to solve problems, not what to think and what to memorize. Once they learn the techniques of connecting dots, they will still be able to connect dots although the dots may change. Seth thinks there is no value to memorizing things. But I think memory work is necessary for learning. When students begin to learn a subject, they should first memorize facts, then understand and apply these facts into a creative process. If students are only tested about how much/how well they memorized (my school experience before I went to university), they will lose their interests. Before I went to university, I was taught to memorize things and I was tested about how well I memorized. In order to get a high score and be accepted by a good school, I need to focus on memory works. I often forgot the content after I turned in my tests. I didn’t know much about how to think. This is the wrong direction for education.