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Non Satis Scire Research Paper

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Non Satis Scire: To Know Is Not Enough
Elementary schools no longer require students to memorize multiplication tables. Learning how to perform complex calculations using long division is passé. Many schools no longer teach children cursive writing, and none teach, much less emphasize, the importance of good penmanship. The advent of the age of technology is the cause…but is it to blame? Many people might believe that by excluding some of the things that educators thought were important skills fifty years ago, makes today’s young adults ill-educated. However, elementary students of the 1950’s were not taught keyboarding or the use of the internet, or about the basic structure of DNA, or cyber-bullying or global warming either. Such subjects, …show more content…

Before the Industrial Revolution, when societies were agrarian-based, it would have been considered much more important for a child to learn about animal husbandry than to learn about the history of classical art. At that time, farming and ranching knowledge were survival skills. Today is no different; only the knowledge base has changed. To be effective, educators must decide what is important for children to learn in the first twelve years of their education. In the scope of things, it seems that it would be more important for a child to understand the importance, implications and motivations of Christopher Columbus’ journey of exploration, rather than ‘in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue’. Today, most people carry the world’s comprehensive encyclopedic knowledge with them in their pockets. Sadly, most people don’t know what to do with that knowledge, or understand the true power it …show more content…

The amount of information that needed to be absorbed and applied in order to earn a doctorate in 1850 is nowhere near the volumes of information required to earn that same degree today. Immediate access to information has started the idea of “just-in- time learning” (Collins and Halverson 14). This means that when one needs immediate information to accomplish a complex task, one can receive the needed data at just the right time. “Enthusiasts argue for just-in-time learning as the counter to the school strategy of trying to teach everything one might need to know someday. Many Americans spend 15-20 years in school learning things that they may or may not use later in life.”(Collins and Halverson 14) Not many Americans have ever required the date that Columbus discovered America to enhance their lives. Since that kind of information is now available at the touch of a button, why do educators still require children to memorize extraneous material? It would be much more logical and efficient to teach children how to obtain that data, leaving more ‘space’ to memorize other more vital

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