Regurgitating and Brain Dumping

I want to talk about school for a few minutes.  Do you remember back when you were in school wondering why on earth you had to learn some of the things "they" said you had to learn?  The particular "irrelevant" subject certainly varied from kid to kid, but there was almost certainly some class that you had to take to meet "graduation requirements" that just seemed to have no relevance to your life at all.

Even more so, I bet there were classes, including perhaps many you did agree might have usefulness down the road, but especially the boring/irrelevant/meaningless to you classes, where you spent a lot of time "cramming" for the test so you could regurgitate the correct answers and get that good grade, or make the honor roll, or keep yourself from being grounded.  And odds are you brain dumped most of what you "learned" as soon as the test (or the class) was over and the "final results" were in.  

I could give you many personal examples from my own schooling, but I really doubt that's necessary.  I'm sure you've already thought of your own.  

So, what's up with that, anyway?  Do you remember how stupid itnall seemed back then?  Do you remember griping with your fellow classmates, wondering when you would ever use any of this disjointed information you had to pass tests on?  

Okay, now here's another question:  Have you actually used or needed a lot of that regurgitated and brain dumped information, or was it really just something to "test" you on and keep you occupied with at the time?  I bet you say "yes and no."  Some of the info you probably did need or want to know later and some of it you probably didn't.  

So, one more question:  When you DID need to know that "something" down the road, how hard was it to learn and actually understand and even remember it (instead of forgetting it again) when it finally had personal relevance to you (beyond the relevance of getting the grade)? Is that not when the "real" learning finally happened?

Okay, so, if the "real" learning happened when you had a personal, meaningful interest in the subject and it had personal relevance to your life (perhaps of necessity or perhaps as a hobby), and if that learning actually came easier and lasted longer than the disected "regurgitate and brain dump" learning for the test/grade/credit, why do we spend so much time and effort learning disected information in chopped up classes and segments that we are just going to brain dump anyway once the class is passed?  And if this is something we already know intuitively (as we did when we were cramming and regurgitating and brain dumping and wondering why when we were in school), why do our schools not only still "teach" that way, but do it even more so than they did when we were in class?

Guess what!  I found out why!  There IS a reason for the insanity!

Back in the 1800's, psychology was trying to prove itself as a legitimate "science.". But there was one BIG problem.  To be a respected "science," you had to be able to conduct experiments, and you had to have both an "experimental group" and a "control group" and a testable "variable."  (surely you can still recite the steps of the scientific method!  If not, then how do you judge all the "science" in the news today?)  But psychology with regard to human learning had some big challenges, because everybody's life experiences were different, and what they had already learned was different, and how they learned it was different, and why they learned it was different.  The wanna-be psycho-scientists couldn't create valid and repeatable experiments because they couldn't create "equal" or "comparable" experimental and contorl groups, and they couldn't find unique variables to test the groups' ability to learn because everyone already knew different stuff and had different learning backgrounds already.  That's just how life is!

So they had a real problem on their hands.  They needed to invent a way to create testable and compare-able groups, and they couldn't find a way to do it.  Until someone solved the problem--you had to detach the "learning" from real life!  You couldn't scientifically test and compare how people learned in real life (which people had already "known" for thousands of years--you learn from other people, and you learn what is interesting and relevant).  Instead, you had to scientifically test and compare how people learned NOT in real life.  Which means you had to create "fake" learning.  Detached learning.  Disembodied, disconnected, irrelevant learning.  Irrelevant meant it had to have no possible meaning to anyone's real (real--relevant).  What the testees had to be tested on, what they had to learn, had to be irelevant, it had to make no sense, it had to be NONsense.  

And that's the magical solution that a German psych named Hermann Ebbinghaus came up with in the late 1800's.  In order to study how people learn and remember (and later how they forget), he devised a list os NONsense syllables for people to memorize (and regurgitate).  Because the syllables were not part of any known language, they could have no relevance to anyone's previous life and learning, and therefore they not only made for a great test variable, but they also created by default acceptable experiment and control groups.  Problem solved!

And guess what his experiments showed?  Exactly what everyone already knew, of course.  Learning nonsense, information with no relevance to ones life experience or interests, takes a lot of effort, precisely because it has no relevance to the learner.  Subsequently, he "discovered" that we quite quickly and easily brain dump all this irrelevant nonsense because it is, well, irrelevant.  What we learn and remember is information and skills we are interested in and which have relevance.  (It has a lot to do with "short term memory" vs "long term memory," btw, but I'm already writing a book here!)

So. if the discovery was the confirmation that we learn and remember what we are interested in and what has relevance to our lives, and that we only "memorize, regurgitaite, and brain dump" the info that we don't have experience with or interest in learning (beyong learning for the grade), why on earth do we run our schools (and our autism intervention programs, I might add) precisely that way?  I can answer that question too, now, but I really ought to stop for now and get on with "real life" again this morning!  Perhaps I'll find another large uninterrupted block of time for "part 2" if anyone else finds this relevant and interesting!  (I sure do, and not because I have to pass a test for "them," whoever "they" are!)