Unlearning

My colleague from City University, Kristine Karlson/Pitt, has written recently about the need to unlearn some things, making room for the new.

And, when I was looking for the right place to do my doctorate studies, a distinguished professor suggested that I would have to unlearn everything I knew about the subject. Since I had been studying it for several decades, this sounded pretty daunting to me – and not a bit enticing.

The question is: how do we unlearn things? Is it possible?

Certainly the human brain does not have a delete function in the way that computers do. Of course, we seem very able to delete data efficiently with the onset of dementia, but in that situation the learn function seems to be impaired equally.

So presumably what we do in reality is overlay old learning with new learning. The problem being that the old stuff can be hooked in there more tenaciously.

Educational standards “woeful”

Perhaps the most successful leader of a major British company, Tesco’s Sir Terry Leahy has criticised educational standards in the country. “Woefully low,” was how he summarised the situation, adding: “We depend on high standards in our schools as today’s schoolchildren are tomorrow’s team.”

Singled out as an underlying cause by Leahy was “reams of instructions to teachers, who then get distracted from the task at hand: teaching children.” Bureaucracy certainly seems to have increased exponentially over recent years.

His main area of concern is focused on basic numeracy and communication skills. I often hear similar comments from colleagues at City University – but with the rider that there are also serious issues with school-leavers in the areas of creativity and problem-solving skills.

I wonder what the answer is? And is this a worldwide phenomenon?

My own experience in Asia (India, Singapore etc) would indicate that they are the ones we might be learning from these days.