Should education be
skills based or content based?
Education is a crucial issue in today’s
society. Over the few past years, it has been the subject of endless debates
and thus it’s becoming an increasing concern. Lately, the question which has
gathered the most strength is whether education should be skills based or
content based.
The traditional education system is content
based. It prioritizes memorizing over discovering. Albeit, memory is just one
skill, and a skill which not everyone has equally developed. Human intelligence
cannot be measure solely by just one skill, and definitely, students should not
be graded solely on just one skill.
Firstly, content based education is obsolete
and inefficient. Nowadays, we can find everything that we need and more by just
looking it up at the internet. Children are just one click away of all the
knowledge this world has to offer, and although this may seem as a wonderful
progress, it also means memory has become useless. Content based education may
have made sense back when the only source of information were books and
teachers, but for the modern world a skills education is considerably more
suitable.
Secondly, as various scientists have reported,
humans possess seven different types of intelligences. Like everything, some
people have some types of intelligences more developed than others. Therefore,
taking into account that memory is considered one of these intelligences, there
is a school of thought that believes content based education is unfair for the
students, as it is focused in only one type of intelligence.
Finally, according to the BBC, skills based
education has been proven to enhance and improve students’ abilities such as
critical and logical thinking.
In conclusion, education should be skills
based, as content based education is outdated and unfair according to
scientific discoveries, whilst a skills based education has demonstrated to be
beneficial for students. Education should help students to develop their
abilities and to prepare them for the world, instead of making them memorize
gigantic amounts of content that will be readily spilled out in a piece of
paper and then happily forgotten.
Essay 2
Should
education be skills based or content based?
Over
the last 50 years, an education system has been created which educates children
with a minimum skilled based knowledge. Memorising huge amounts of information
was something that you needed to do without an excuse. But nowadays, schools,
and therefore politics, have come to the conclusion that skills are also very
important. They prepare children for the problems that they may encounter in
real life.
Knowledge
is important. Before skills are developed it is completely necessary to acquire
some theory. Children go to school to learn some basic knowledge of how our
world works and adults go to university to study a degree which would finally
give them a job.
Therefore,
to perform a simple skill a minimum amount of knowledge is required. For
example, doctors may know where to cut a certain vein in the body, but if they
do not know the relationship between that vein and other organs, the patient
may end up dying.
Also,
the Spanish education system is based on this idea. Spanish students leave
school knowing huge amounts of content which they will finally apply in their
future degree.
But
skills are also important. Skills develop our experience in the knowledge that
we already know. In addition to this, with applied knowledge people begin to
learn about how the world really works and how humans develop in it.
The assessment
system should enable teachers to test their students on how they utilize newly
acquired skills, rather than their ability to remember knowledge which they
really don’t understand. And without a shadow of a doubt, education needs to
encourage individual initiative, not only academically but also socially and
vocationally. Education needs to teach students in values which they would
apply when they leave the school and university.
This
is pursued by the IB education system, where critical thinking and team work
are skills that you need to demonstrate throughout your training.
In
conclusion, education shouldn’t choose whether to be skilled or content based,
on the other hand, both systems should be merged to create students who have
knowledge and know how to apply it. As Nelson Mandela said, “education is the
most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Education should
make this its purpose.
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