The Process of Knowledge Acquisition

The overall essence of education or knowledge acquisition is reflected in an axiom by Confucius which says “Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I will remember; but involve me, and I will understand. Back then, it was clear that learning was a comprehensive process which involves passionate exchanges between students and their teachers; unfortunately this is not the case in most modern classrooms. Instead of the expected bidirectional communication between learners and teachers, in the modern learning environment there is a unidirectional system which involves the teacher incessantly hurling facts at students who, due to their passive roles as mere receptacles, have fallen asleep or; in the case of “best” students are mindlessly taking notes. This leads to a situation where knowledge has neither been conferred nor acquired.

Yet, the damage doesn’t stop there, in classrooms where the students haven’t fallen asleep the students usually develop a dispirited, and less engaging nature towards learning. The students are convinced that the suitable mode of learning is through the utterances of a teacher which, undoubtedly, leads to an excessive reliance on professors. Reliance on professors is not necessarily a detriment, but when it prevents students from seeking knowledge independently it transforms them into superficial learners who lack depth of understanding.

Unfortunately there are no quick fixes for the problems that plague the modern classrooms; there are only stopgaps and remedies which may be helpful in mitigating the problem until a more permanent solution is attained. These remedies constitute my personal teaching philosophy. One of these remedies involves instructing the students in the act of metacognition, st...

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...one, therefore each member of the group plays an active role in the completion of the task. Also the project must include intellectually dense divergent questions, with multiple answers, and also include questions that encourage critical thinking skills. Having the freedom to think without the constraints of coming up with a single precise answer will imbue the students with the confidence to think differently, display their creativity and work at their own pace. Hereby leading to a more comprehensive and thorough answer which would encourage longer retaining of the information. This is a positive alternative for students because instead of having to stay awake all night and cramming for exams, and then forgetting the information as soon as the test is over. The students can finally acquire knowledge they can retain forever or; at least for a longer period of time.