Knowing?

There is a difference between ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’. Do we really need ‘know-what’, if nowadays we can just google it and find our answer. I am in agreement and belief that education should shift its focus on to developing ‘know-how’ into younger people and skills such as:

Creative problem solving
Engaging somebody emotionally
Understanding each other
Empathy
Critical Thinking
Judgement

Education today is not fit for the future of humanity. Developing these skills within younger people will put them in better stead to deal with both the current and future changes within society, such as, political uncertainty, geographical and demographic changes, the application of A.I, climate change and shifting job markets.

The application of A.I is an interesting one. As mentioned before, why do we necessarily need to ‘know-what’, when we can just google the answers, or as mentioned in the podcast, there may become a time where we each have our own personal A.I that stores the ‘know-what’ knowledge for is. Instead, we should give more focus to the ‘know-how’ and these skills that humans, are uniquely placed to do.

Empathy, critical thinking and judgement are not what we usually consider as knowledge as they are less tangible to us. These are skills that we can’t necessarily describe however, we are able to tell the difference between someone who can, and someone who can’t, utilise these skills effectively.

Another thing that I took from this podcast is that the the west are logo centric, they prioritise words and language i.e. what you can put into words and language has a higher status than that you can not. On the other hand, you have India and East Asia, where there is a natural receptiveness of the knowledge that does’t generally generate statements.

In real life it is the know-how that is really important, we should be placing more value on how we use knowledge rather than how we store it. With the presence of A.I it is very important to understand our selves and the people in this world.

The podcast contextualises these skills of ‘know-how’ using something that is common to us all, the Coronavirus Pandemic. To deal with the pandemic it has required lots of people from different expertise to work together requiring heightened interdisciplinary understanding in order to cope with the unforeseen.

The pandemic was also taken to add context to the importance of knowing one another, and the skill of Empathy. Some of the things we have neglected is caring for our children or elderly or being in close social relationships which A.I is not going to be very good at doing. Incorporating this into an education system where this wide range of inquiry into the skills that are characteristically human would be very different to what we currently see.

Care is the connective tissue of the system of knowledge that has made our civilisiation and will continue to fuel it…no one changed anything without caring about it.

Basically, this podcast is actually stacked full of real good shit that you must listen and engage with…it presents a very convincing argument that underpins my personal philosophy.

The Learning Revolution – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000h93b