How Valuable Is Education?

The Gene Expression 'blog has an interesting post tracking Google searches of academic topics. Unsurprisingly, interest in subjects covered in schools peaks during the academic year and drops off as soon as vacation begins. Which leads the GNXP 'blogger to ask the obvious question:  If they don't care about it after the exam, why are we teaching it to them? 

Of course, everyone does that, to some extent. I took a college course in Analysis in the Real Numbers as a requirement, and I literally don't remember anything from the course (I got a C and was glad to get it). I can still mimic the instructor's idiosyncratic lecture style, and I can still remember a guest instructor's horrible body odor, but the actual material of the class is no longer in my brain.

We tend to forgive specialists for being intellectually specialized. Scientists who remain current in one (or more) highly demanding disciplines probably don't bother remembering much about the plot of Crime and Punishment; historians may be forgiven for being fuzzy about the Krebs Cycle. All jobs have their own intellectual specializations. Selling insurance requires specialized knowledge, as does furniture-making or driving a truck. People forget what they learned in school because they have to learn other stuff which is more important to them.

So why bother teaching it at all? The answer, I think, is this. When you're young, life is like a great plain extending off in all directions, and you can choose any way to go. As you get older and keep moving, the land gets hillier, and you find yourself getting channelled into one of many valleys. Over time the ridges between the valleys get steeper until you can't easily get from one valley to the next. But when you're still young, a broad-based education can at least sketch out a map of that plain -- it can show you where the valleys lead and let you choose which ones you might want to explore. Even if you forget about the other valleys after your journey begins, it's worthwhile to start with a good map of the territory.

Comments

[Brian Rogers]

I'll add to that the idea that learning about many things helps you think more clearly about any one thing. Concepts from one field might be useful in another, but it's not just that. Ken Jennings talks about how learning "trivia" is constructing a giant net in your breain with each strand making it easier for you to capture and integrate other facts that come your way. The more boradly you learn, the easier it becomes to learn more.