Students must learn how to learn

By Michael Bassis
Published: Monday, March 22, 2004 8:25 p.m. MST
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John Florez makes some interesting points in his recent piece ("U.S. losing edge in higher education skills," March 15). He points to a 1990 report by the National Center on Education and the Economy, which called for restructuring education to prepare students to make a transition from school to work. He indicates that the report became the basis of a series of laws: the Goals 2000 Educate America Act, the School to Work Investment Act, and the No Child Left Behind Act. But, as Mr. Florez points out, those reforms failed to achieve their goals. He believes they failed because they did not anticipate the global economy's decreased emphasis on high-skilled jobs and its increased requirement for white-collar work based on math, science and engineering skills.

If, however, we simply train a new generation of students in the math, science and engineering skills in demand today, by the time they graduate, the global economy will have new requirements.

The problem with reforms such as the No Child Left Behind Act is that it focuses on what students know, not what they are capable of learning. Knowing is important. But it cannot be an end in and of itself. What we know today will be outmoded tomorrow. On the same day that Mr. Florez's article appeared, the Wall Street Journal had a front-page story headed "Technology Titans Battle over Format of DVD Successor."

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A formal education that just teaches us to understand today's technology is, in an age of rapid change, just another example of planned obsolescence. If a student studied computer programming in the 1950s, he or she was taught COBAL and similar programs, all of which are relics of the electronic equivalent of the Stone Age. Today, students of computer science need to learn more than contemporary computer languages. They must understand how to learn, or even better, how to create the next generation of computer codes.

It isn't enough just to learn anymore, one must learn how to learn. How to learn without classrooms, without teachers, without textbooks. Learn, in short, how to think and analyze and decide and discover and create. That is the ultimate test of good education, the kind of education that will keep America competitive in a global economy and allow Americans to keep their jobs no matter what skill sets are required by the technological demands of the moment.

At Westminster College we have just gone through a year-long review of what we do, how we do it and why we do it. Our conclusion was that while, of course, we want students to learn specific content, we want them to learn how to think critically and creatively, express themselves coherently, work collaboratively and develop a global consciousness. Those are not skills demanded by No Child Left Behind. Those are not achievements that can be measured by a true/false test. Those are not the traditional measures of an educated citizen. But that is, we believe, what the 21st century will require of our graduates whether they major in math, science and engineering, or literature, sociology and history.

The kind of educational reform that Westminster is implementing obviously helps students internalize knowledge. But because knowledge evolves and changes, a college education must ultimately be designed to help students develop the skills that will help them become lifelong learners, capable of finding new information, evaluating it and using it.

That kind of learning should be the goal of education in the 21st century, and it is the path to national and individual success in a global economy.

Michael Bassis is the president of Westminster College.

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