Why are we learning this?
The fact is, it’s a relevant question and should always be asked. I love learning, but I have spent many hours in classrooms, lecture theatres and other learning environments, being spoken at rather than to, and thinking why on earth am I here?, mainly because I couldn’t recognise the objective the learning that was being forced upon me. Were I able to travel back in time, I might change my tune.
Most frustrating is when we as educators are asked the titular question - the mouth dries, the heart pounds and that little doubt goblin rears its ugly little head and sneers, you don’t know do you? Well fear not - in the face of this question, I recently pulled an answer confidently out of nowhere and I suspect that I have answered this question forever more (with regards to primary education, at least).
Before we go forward, a disclaimer: I’m not so pompous as to think that my mind has constructed the explanation you’re about to read. I’d bet that my subconscious has collected facets of this explanation over time from much wiser people than myself and has put it together in the ramshackle fashion you’re about to experience. Furthermore, I’d be willing to accept the idea that I’ve plagiarised some wise sage and am merely regurgitating (badly) some wisdom earlier I’ve received in the past.
So, if the question is why are we learning this?, the answer is simply this: the details of the subject are not important; it is the features of the subject you must remember.
Good isn’t it..? Yes...?
Okay, let me explain - teaching should not focused on the goal of planting specific details in the mid of the learner; instead, the key elements of a style of learning should be communicated so that they can be carried forward.
Let’s take a subject like The Romans. It’s a classic and most Britons below the age of 50 can remember learning about them. Since learning about them, I’d wager that 100% of those learners have forgotten the year that Caesar was murdered and they wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of a centurion’s sword (it’s a gladius).
Yeah, okay, you smug twit. You can Google search. Who even needs to know what a 2000 years old sword was called?
That’s what you were thinking wasn’t it? I don’t blame you either. Why do you need to know that? The answer is that you don’t. As I said earlier - it’s not the details you need to carry forward when learning. It’s the the areas of learning that must resonate in the learner. Here’s what I mean…
When children learn about The Romans at primary school, they learn all sorts of facts and the themes of the Romans topic carry across into their writing, maths and most of the foundation subjects. This topic, like lots of topics, bleeds across a half-term’s learning and finds its way into every corner of school life. But here’s the secret: not a single detail is important. I know, you want to argue, because if not a single detail is important then none of the planning and teaching is worthwhile, right? Wrong. Not as long as you explain what the details they are learning represent.
You see, when children learn about the Roman Empire, they aren’t learning about Romans; they are actually learning about learning about a civilisation. They aren’t learning to be experts on the Romans; they are learning to be historical learners. Let’s look at a topic web:
This topic web is pretty generic, but it is reflective of my point. Take Mount Vesuvius: the child here learns about a key landmark and parts of the geography linked to his or her topic, as well as about key events and their lasting effects. They do some fantastic writing and some lovely artwork that won’t see Christmas, and the key facts and words dissolve from their memory in time. Now, let’s fast forward twenty years to that same learner at 28-years old: they’re moving to Japan to work and want to learn about their new home. Well, whad’ya know - their Roman topic learning kicks in, right on time. Okay, they might not remember learning about Vesuvius, or that it erupted in 79AD, or that the place it destroyed was called Pompeii. It really won’t matter in Japan. What matters is that the 28-year-old learner has the ingrained instinct to research key landmarks and parts of the geography linked to his or her new home, as well as about key events and their lasting effects in this new place.
The same ideas can be applied to all areas of subjects and topics. Take Roman myths for example - they don’t specifically matter, but knowing that reading any culture’s myths and legends can strengthen cultural understanding matters greatly. The architecture of the Roman Empire isn’t specifically important for most people, but knowing that the architecture of a culture is key to learning about it is something all learners should take from their experience learning about the Romans. Scientific breakthroughs; mathematical impacts; arts; people of interest; these are all key elements of a learning journey that the learner is living, but knowing all of these things specifically about the Romans is not.
We cannot remember everything nor should we be expected to. A person can only be expected to harbour the knowledge we are currently living, and it is our job as teachers to make sure that children enjoy the details they will likely forget, but carry forward an appreciation of what those details represent.
I hope this rambling shack of logic has given you some perspective, because when we as education professionals are asked why we’re teaching the things we teach, we don’t actually have to justify them by grumbling about the government’s choices for what goes into the national curriculum, nor do we have to paddle our way through a flimsy excuse. We are enablers, and we enable children to learn beyond the current half-term’s backdrop. The backdrop doesn't matter, because we have the pleasure of carrying the fundamentals of learning past each backdrop. We have that privilege. Maybe we’ll even have the honour being remembered by the learner when they are whole and able to educate themselves twenty years later.
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