Facts Chance
General May 12th, 2009At the IATEFL Annual Conference in Cardiff, during which I was speaking on digital literacies and games in education, I made a rather small throwaway remark about how I didn’t bother remembering facts such as the names of the wives of Henry VIII anymore because, quite frankly, my brain only had so much room and the only earthly reason I could find for remembering such data would be if either:
- I were a history teacher
- I were a member of a British pub quiz team specialising in history
- I wanted to impress a historian or someone I had taken a shine to…
This provoked outrage in the audience, with one man irately opining that ‘facts are what we communicate with‘. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough, but the conversation, if replayed, should have gone like this:
MAN: That’s outrageous! Facts are what we communicate with!
ME: 23,478
MAN: Sorry?
ME: Are we having an enjoyable conversation yet?
Because actually, facts aren’t what I communicate with, or rather they are a small part of what I use to communicate with other people and I can’t for the life of me remember the last time I had a conversation about the wives of Henry VIII with anyone, so why should I bother remembering that information when I can Google it on my laptop, netbook, desktop or mobile phone any time I should need this fascinating information?
There was more outrage in this talk, to be honest. One mother said that her daughter was extremely interested in the wives of Henry VIII (to which I replied that I was very happy that was the case, and perhaps the world would have been a better place if Henry had shown such commitment to them) and she also bemoaned the fact that ‘it’s terrible when kids spend hours playing on their Playstation‘, to which I reply, possibly – but the PlayStation isn’t forcing them.
If parents don’t like that, then they should ensure some balance is in place – perhaps one hour’s gaming coupled with another outside running around and playing, and another reading a good book or doing some homework (possibly on the wives of Henry VIII…)
But really, it is an absurdity to ask people to remember such useless trivia. And thankfully the Danish government have realised this and are doing something about it. I refer you to an article in the Guardian Online entitled “Danish Schools Ready to Trial Internet Access During Exams” [ click here to read it ] in which you will find the following gems:
“The reason, say officials, is that collecting facts and figures is now a task best left to computers – and that youngsters taking exams shouldn’t necessarily be blocked from one of the tools they are routinely expected to use in their studies.
“It is a good way to get historical facts or an article that may be useful in a written civics exam, for example,” Søren Vagner, a consultant with the Ministry of Education told Danish newspaper MetroXpress last week.
At a simple level, this makes a lot of sense. The internet is now such a powerful research tool that it has done away with lots of the old methods like learning by rote – turning facts into commodities in the same way that calculators dispense with some basic mathematical activities. Why bother remembering facts and figures when you can call them up on demand with a computer?“
I await the howls of indignance from the facts-ists…
May 12th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
No howls of indignation, just gurgles of satisfaction.
I bemoan the fact that so much of my early education was dedicated to fact memorization – facts which have totally fled my memory files and which I can easily google if needed – and so little on how to find them or evaluate them once in my possession.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Gavin you are obviously in a spirited frame of mind lately with all this blogging!
Facts are nothing without interpretation. People are always drawn to one more than the other don’t you find? Lots of discussions and disputes are based on this premise i.e. believing the truth is finite (facts person), believing the world can be understood in multiple ways (interpretation person). Believing one approach to teaching is the best (facts person), accepting that multiple ways of teaching can be relevant (intepretation person). Perhaps its a bit like dogs/cats debate (for the record I think they *both* have their strengths and weaknesses!) I think you need both facts and interpretation, but facts alone are worth nothing much in making sense of the world or language teaching.
Re: Said wives. No not yours….Henry’s! Dates wives were born help us to understand the context of the times in which they lived, therefore offering a platform for contextualising history. Wives and Henry changed the course of events in England but it is interpretation or the “why” of events that is important methinks in this story, and the one that brings it to life. If not watch recent BBC series which I have to say was very good in bringing that story to life.
At risk of also being howled at, I agree that where possible, it would be great for students taking exams to have online access.
No two interpretations of facts are ever stitched together (in the old fashioned metaphor or a giant patchwork quilt) in exactly the same way. How we all deal with knowledge and interpret it is excitingly subjective and having access to each other’s interpretations (and that of our students) is dynamic teaching if ever I saw it.
I look forward to seeing how the Denmark experiment goes, and can only imagine the outcry this will cause amongst more traditional educators!
May 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Not outraged, but I think there’s a balance point that perhaps your article except for at one point goes too far with.
We were, in our youths, expected to learn too many facts. In fact, looking at exams in the UK, our children still are. Questions until quite late on are “state” “define” “What is” type of things, and the explain, analyse, etc. questions are left out, or left until later on. Students who have been doing well on memory without understanding suddenly hit a barrier as the questions start to change and they have to start thinking… apparently this is an advancement in education, but that’s a whole different topic.
Nowadays, with none of the criteria you postulate, but having had to work to learn it at school, I can still remember the wives of Henry VIII, but it’s essentially useless knowledge for me.
However, there is a core of knowledge that I could look up each time, but if I did, it would be incredibly wasteful of time. This is stuff that I’d call essential facts. SL Building techniques, lsl syntax, php syntax, html tags would all be examples of this (socially my partner’s birthday, our anniversary and the like are all on the list, unless you’re going to go all macho and stererotypically male over there!).
I can’t think of a job I’ve had as an adult where there isn’t a useful expectation of knowing some core facts, combined with some understanding, and some facility for looking up new stuff, and usually a process by which that can be evaluated in terms of improved understanding and the need (or not) to convert this from a fact I need to look up, into one I remember. If I know I’m going to be using it a lot from now on, I make the effort to learn it and remember it, if I might not use it again this year, knowing how to look it up in 2010 is good enough!
In the broader sense, education has to equip learners to do all parts of this: learn core facts that are needed, understand them, find out new stuff, evaluate and integrate it. That doubtless means we learn some junk facts (wives of Henries being a prime example except to a historian of the period) but you could just call that reinforcing the skill – and for something like that you could also suggest there’s power in the mnemonics that you used, or the mental gymnastics to get it right. I still remember (26 years later) the mnemonic for the cranial nerves that I needed to be able to list for an anatomy exam. I can’t remember some of the nerves now (not needed information) and I was never going to become a neuro-surgeon, but the cranial nerves are pretty core knowledge for medics, paramedics and the like the world over. How much did learning how to learn the wives of H8 help the medics, nurses and paramedics learn the cranial nerves that they really should have as core knowledge?
May 12th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I was in the audience at the talk -they certainly didn’t like your throwaway yet spot on remark. Though just the other day my English students were appalled when I couldn’t tell them the dates of Henry 8th’s wives but that’s no surprise living and working in a country that thinks students should be able to recall and spout facts on all manner of esoteric topics (come on now, just what was the average wheat production in the US in the 19th century!).
May 12th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Gavin provocative? Surely some mistake! Unfortunately facts are seductively easy to assess and, as El implies, there’s probably a corpus of jargon that qualifies you as a signed-up member of a particular cabal. However, those of a connectivist persuasion (and I veer alarmingly in that direction on occasion) might well endorse your view and Stephen Wolfram appears to be trying to make it happen. Interesting times.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
The article by the Danish government reminded me of a comment made by Marc Prensky in his plenary talk at IATEFL Cardiff. In a conversation with some teenagers he was teaching, he suggested that they use their mobile phones in their tests, to make them ‘open phone tests’. One student replied ‘Most of our tests ARE open phone tests – you guys just don’t realise it!’
May 12th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
This is connectivism, right? If you can remember the six wives of Henry VIII, fine…. but better to have the skill to access that knowledge and utilise it.
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
“Facts are what we communicate with” is a ridiculous statement. True, those blokes in pubs would be stuck without the football stats, but in order to get into a punch up they need to add a few misguided opinions.
By the way, off the top of my head, Catherine of Arragon (divorced), Anne Boleyn (beheaded), Jane Seymour (died), Anne of Cleves (divorced) , Catherine Howard (beheaded), Catherine Parr (outlived the old filther – hooray!)
But then I did a history degree in the days of typewriters and libraries.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Yup: “Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known”.
May 13th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Darren,
Thanks for the list… have copied it out in best and stuck it on the fridge door. I fully expect to have it off pat by tomrrow….