What Is The Best Way To Learn?

*Originally written 03/25/2016*

It is becoming increasingly apparent that, in our current age, the role of the lecturer is a superfluous one. Indeed, one might think it absurd that a society with as much access to the Internet as ours would spend considerable resources on “teachers” who stand in barren rooms, day after day, simply reciting information. It is now possible to easily and cheaply learn any high school or even college content from one’s computer on platforms like Khan Academy, Udemy, and Wikipedia. Additionally, archives and institutes are making scholarly material available at an unbelievable rate (the Mises Institute alone has published more material on economics than could be consumed in a single human lifetime). Agencies and universities regularly collect and publish comprehensive sets of raw data on every aspect of life. There is an incomprehensible amount of knowledge out there, accessible to anyone. The knowledge of professional lecturers is insignificant in comparison; as lecturers, they offer nothing that the Internet cannot.

It seems clear, then, that the educational model of the United States public school system requires severe revisions. Almost everyone agrees that the intense focus on testing is unnecessary and detrimental, but there are even bigger problems to confront. The very method of educating used by public schools has become archaic and stifling. Still, the question remains: Given that the current system is inefficient and ineffective, what should we replace it with? What is the best way to learn?

The answer, in a word, is naturally. The clearest manifestation of this, however, is intellectual conversation. Yes, I think that conversation is perhaps the best method of education available; conversation on many topics and with many people. Through conversation, students can be exposed to a wide range of ideas and arguments but, since all participants offer something to a real conversation, everyone feels a sense of equality and fraternity as they explore a topic together. Everything that is said and heard is just something to analyze and consider, not a dogma to memorize and regurgitate on a test. Conversation stimulates the intellect in ways that memorization cannot. 

A friend once said to me that “In terms of retention, we are a culture of binge and purge learning. We consume as much as possible for a test, throw it up onto an exam, and flush it from our brains once the need for it wanes.” I’ve rarely heard a more accurate description of what goes on in modern-day schools. Again, the solution to this “binge and purge” learning is a conversation-centered education. Exposure to topics will occur naturally (even obscure topics can come up in everyday conversation), and knowledge of the topic will be gained organically, piece by piece, source by source. Within a very short time period the student will gain a very thorough understanding of the issue. Ben mentioned the concept of economic calculation when dismissing socialism. Andrew brought up Oskar Lange’s response in defense of socialism. Then the student googled all the terms he heard in the course of these conversations. Then he went to Bott to get his thoughts on the matter, and Bott recommended a book that addresses the issue in full. The next thing he knows, the student will be knowledgeable about a crucial yet obscure debate in economics and, because he pursued the information himself, because he wanted to know about it, he will be more likely to remember what he has learned. He will have gained a greater understanding of the topic than he would have from a normal lecture, and he will have heard the actual arguments presented, rather than just summaries of those arguments written by disinterested third parties. 

This conversation-centered method of education also solves the inter-subject-knowledge-crossover problem because, in conversation, you tend to bring up whatever comes to mind, regardless of where you learned the information. Through conversation you engage with the material, you actually use it, and it thereby comes to have value to you. Through conversation you begin to understand how seemingly random knowledge can be connected and arranged to support other thoughts and ideas. Through conversation you learn how to create, how to build something new with the knowledge that you have. Through conversation you learn how to think, reason, argue, and communicate, all in a natural, non-coercive manner. 

There are two other components of a good education that are implied in the conversation-centered method but deserve further elucidation. First, students need to be in control of their own education. Moreover, they need to take control of their own education of their own volition. They must have the necessary freedom to make this component more than rhetoric; they must have the freedom to not learn for us to be able to say that they’re actually in control over their own educations. Second, the students must have an interest in the subject matter, or at least a belief that it’s important. This condition is important for the students’ happiness, but it also aids in retention. Ask anyone: the things they remember from school are the things that they found interesting. Together, these two concepts, control and interest, fundamentally change the nature of one’s education. When one decides what he wants to learn, he’s also deciding that he wants to learn.

Now, the public school system seems perfectly designed to eliminate these elements from education. Conversation is positively discouraged as schools further embrace the lecture-and-test method of education. What few choices students have are just selections from small pools of sanctioned options. And it hardly needs saying that there is very little passion for or interest in schoolwork emanating from high school students. 

We conclude, then, with the proposition that schools are not good places for students to learn, at least so long as schools continue to provide the exact opposite of the best way to learn.