Teaching for Transformation

The goal in most of education is transfer of a body of factual information.

The word “information” is fraught. Information is not a thing that can be transferred. More efficient uploads are not what improving education is all about. Think about the concept of information. The root word is to form. To form in the learner. This implies a process whereby the learner becomes a knower.

The process of becoming a knower involves grappling with ideas. Grappling is a strong word —because knowing isn’t easy. One classic definition of knowing is “justifiable belief.” If you can’t provide a justification, you're just parroting what you’ve been told. A justification wrestles ideas into logical connectedness.

This wrestling serves something bigger than mental fitness. Mental fitness allows us to tackle important questions looking for answers. Along the way learners will have to discard erroneous ideas that may served them in the past, but are no longer up to the job of answering the current questions. In the process the learners are transformed and are able as a consequence to take on problems and paradoxes that have troubled humanity for millennia.