The original idea behind school isn’t to educate the masses. Why would a factory worker need to know calculus and Shakespeare? He needs to read the clock and timetables, be on time, wake up in the morning early enough to be punctual, …
Likewise higher education isn’t about the thinks you learn. It is about learning methods to learn. If you can learn the nitrogen cycle, you can learn our scrum statuses. If you can hand in your homework in time, you can keep our deadlines.
This isn’t to say the system is good, but it helps to understand it when you want to criticize it.
But learning to critically question statements and judging them yourself (which requires some knowledge, for example you can’t question anti-vaxxers when you don’t know anything about how vaccines work) instead of simply believing them is extremely important in a democracy.
Judging sources for the information requires way less knowledge. To continue your analogy, for most people it’s obvious to take your medical advice from your family doctor instead of that crazy aunt in Facebook
While you’d generally believe that to be true it can be hard for people with no knowledge who aren’t the brightest to see through statements like “doctors just are part of the wealthy smart people society who aim to keep us down”.
The original idea behind school isn’t to educate the masses. Why would a factory worker need to know calculus and Shakespeare? He needs to read the clock and timetables, be on time, wake up in the morning early enough to be punctual, …
Likewise higher education isn’t about the thinks you learn. It is about learning methods to learn. If you can learn the nitrogen cycle, you can learn our scrum statuses. If you can hand in your homework in time, you can keep our deadlines.
This isn’t to say the system is good, but it helps to understand it when you want to criticize it.
But learning to critically question statements and judging them yourself (which requires some knowledge, for example you can’t question anti-vaxxers when you don’t know anything about how vaccines work) instead of simply believing them is extremely important in a democracy.
Judging sources for the information requires way less knowledge. To continue your analogy, for most people it’s obvious to take your medical advice from your family doctor instead of that crazy aunt in Facebook
While you’d generally believe that to be true it can be hard for people with no knowledge who aren’t the brightest to see through statements like “doctors just are part of the wealthy smart people society who aim to keep us down”.
Never underestimate human stupidity.