The Common Problem . . .
is that people have become dependent on precise knowledge. There is an epidemic of “analysis paralysis,” where everything must be numbered off, measured, and calculated. There is a lack of abstract thinking, being able to address the “big picture” of conceptual knowledge and high-level thinking skills such as analysis and synthesis. For the entire 20th century, the pattern has been to teach skills and facts, and that trend toward limited thinking skills has only strengthened in recent years. Skills-based education was displaced by a focus on STEM subjects, Science, Technology, Education, and Math. Yes, student performance in these areas has collapsed over the past few decades, but focusing only on those subjects is a failure to address the bigger problem.
Anyone who learns algebra just for the math skills is missing out on the logic skills, learning to rearrange the terms of the problem into a more tractable form. History and literature teach not only reading comprehension, but also the higher-level thinking skills. They provide invaluable practice in understanding something that one has not directly experienced. What people need is formal training in how to think big, how to understand and analyze something from a conceptual standpoint, how to step back and step up to abstract thinking and other high-level cognitive functions. Most of these functions depend on qualitative learning. Qualitative understanding is more than knowing the definition and description of something, it is knowing why something is the way it is. Cause-and-effect is a good way to start critical thinking, but it needs to go more than one level deep to aid understanding. Those second and third order thinking skills are what contribute to understanding the whole picture, rather than getting mired in unconnected details. Numbers are good tools, but they must have context to have any meaning.
The Uncommon Solution . . .
Don’t limit teaching to skills, to STEM. People need to learn analytical skills, abstract reasoning, how to comprehend the whole, not just details.
The Common Problem 