O mundo real

Scott Adams, «Dilbert»

Scott Adams, o autor da série Dilbert, reflecte sobre a educação dos nossos dias e da necessidade da integração da complexidade do mundo actual nos currículos, mesmo que seja em detrimento de matérias mais clássicas:

[...] I’ll begin by stipulating that any field of study is helpful in training a student’s mind to become more of a learning machine.[...]

Today, life is more complicated than school. That means the best way to expand a student’s mind is by teaching more about the practical complexities of the real world and less about, for example, the history of Europe, or trigonometry.

I’ll pause here to acknowledge that both history and trigonometry are useful for students who plan to become historians or rocket scientists. For the other 99.9% of the world, little from those classes will be retained. The only benefit from much of what is taught in school is generic training of the mind, and for that we now have a better and more complicated option: the real world.

Some of you will argue that learning history is important on a number of levels, including creating a shared culture, understanding other countries, and avoiding the mistakes of the past. I agree. And if the question was teaching history versus teaching nothing, history would be the best choice every time. But if you compare teaching history with, for example, teaching a kid how to compare complicated financial alternatives, I’d always choose the skill that has the most practical value. You get all the benefit of generic mental training plus some real world benefits if any of it is retained.

I’d still teach history in school. But I think the world will survive if some of the details are skipped to make room for more relevant coursework.

O que é uma educação voltada para o mundo real será sempre um assunto ambíguo e aqui o Sr. Adams mostra a sua visão que é em muito centrada na sua própria actividade, pessoalmente não concordo com esta visão. Este post de Scott Adams vem na sequência de um artigo que este publicou no The Wall Street Journal e da necessidade de currículos alternativos para alunos que não têm tanto interesse em matérias como Física, Química, Cálculo ou Literatura… outra opinião discutível.