Relevance in Education?

Abstract

Among a number of other questionable “ideals” that have become commonplace in educational philosophy over the past few decades, relevance is one that has been preached and applied widely. Make the material relevant to the student in any way possible—that is the message, and it is typically implied that any topic worth learning can be made relevant to the average student if the teacher simply tries hard enough. Unfairly as usual, the emphasis is always on the effort of the teacher as the key to success. An endpoint to this and other educational “tricks” (co-operation, selfexpression, etc.) is never discussed, rather it is implied that what works in grade school should continue to be applied and carried right through the college years, regardless of the fact that most jobs in the real world require independent work and achievement, with relevance and self-expression ranking low in the average workplace. I see no problem in using some of these once nontraditional educational ideas in moderation in the lower grades to “engage” students and show them that learning can sometimes be fun, but real academic learning does and must always involve some level of work—the “W-word” that is so widely avoided in our modern society. In fact, the work level should rightly be expected to increase as one moves up the grade scale and into college. Certainly, past the freshman year of college, students should have become at least somewhat self-motivated and driven and no longer need tricks and entertainment value artificially added to most of their coursework. They should move (and be moved) to the level of adult interaction where they can easily listen to a presentation, make obvious connections, ask meaningful questions, and take responsibility for their own learning. When I attend national scientific meetings featuring distinguished guest speakers, those speakers almost always deliver well-planned lectures supported by Powerpoint visuals (typically around an hour long), which those in attendance feel privileged to hear and then have the opportunity to interact with questions. I would hope that our universities want to graduate students who would be able to attend such meetings and possess the attention span to follow and actually enjoy such quality presentations within their chosen fields. If they still need to be entertained and asked their opinions throughout such a lecture, they simply are not adult learners and have not “graduated” into the world of serious adult learning. In the sciences, much of what is learned and questioned is simply not directly relevant to the student or even to humanity. This is undoubtedly a major reason why many in the “me generation” have garnered a dislike for science— because it is not about them. Most other disciplines (business, history, art, economics, literature, languages, sociology, philosophy, etc.) are human-centered, whereas much of science is not, except for the pure pleasure of using one’s curiosity to gain knowledge about the real world and universe in which we live in. What is or could be relevant to modern students concerning dinosaurs that have been extinct for 65,000,000 years or more? Except for the few whose goals involve dinosaur research or art (certainly less than 1% of students), there is really nothing directly relevant about dinosaurs except that they were simply some of the most magnificent and interesting beasts ever to have walked the earth. Many great scientists (such as Stephen J. Gould) credit an early interest in dinosaurs as instrumental in their decision to become scientists. I recently attended an IMAX Evo Edu Outreach (2008) 1:517–519 DOI 10.1007/s12052-008-0068-1