In My Opinion

By: Brian J. T. Watts

Being schooled and being educated are two very different things and one is clearly superior. Let me be perfectly clear, when I speak of being schooled, I am not referring to the urban terminology where a person learns a lesson by being embarrassed. (“He schooled you on the basketball court!”). Every student of an institution is schooled. Attending classes, regurgitating a percentage of the information and matriculating are all it takes to be schooled.

Being educated has many requirements. First, to truly be educated a student must allow the information being taught to become more than just a simple memory, it must be used and, in some cases, tested. Imagine you want to learn to swim, so you take classes online. You listen to and watch the teacher. You have perfected every stroke, but you have been doing it from your seat at your desk. You have never entered the water. Have you been schooled or educated on swimming? In addition, education requires application. While it is fine for a student to know 7 times 7 equals 49, it is much more important for that student to be able to apply this knowledge when purchasing 7 items that cost $7. A simple recitation of the multiplication table will not suffice when “real life” situations occur. Finally, education should cause a person to compartmentalize the information, assess its worth and use it to solve problems. When a person learns karate, they learn many stances. These stances are positions that must be mastered to be successful in achieving higher levels and correctly executing defense and offense when engaged in a fight. All of the karate masters you have seen have broken down what they have learned, prioritized the stances and put

Brian J. T. Watts

them together in an order that solves the problem of defeating their opponent. It is not enough to stand in front of the opponent and go through each stance. You will never win that way!

How can you make sure your child is being educated rather than being schooled?

1. Ask questions about what they

learned. Discussions will cause them to think deeply about the lessons.

2. Find ways to inject learning into

everyday activities. This will make education real and show them they are learning for a purpose.

3. Get involved! TV shows, movies, plays, programs, exhibits and books on various topics will have a positive effect as your child learns. It will increase their attention span, listening and reading comprehension as well as promote cross-curricular learning. Soon they will begin to connect various subjects and prioritize the things they have learned.

4. ENCOURAGE! Real, sincere encouragement helps and cannot be replaced with anything else!

Prepare yourselves. For many, a taste of education creates a thirst for knowledge. Get ready to assist in quenching that thirst. It will be worth it!

Much of what I have discussed is an application of Bloom’s Taxonomy. It was proposed by Benjamin Bloom many years ago and it assists teachers when they organize lessons into learning objectives. It is one of the foundational methods used in education.

Brian J. T. Watts is an educational consultant, motivator, author, and host who helps teachers and parents better prepare students for life. His offerings (including seminars for parents, professional development for teachers, motivation and math tutoring for students and his book; “How To Help Your Children Help Themselves”) may be found on his site: www.theBrianWatts.com