Misconceptions about Education
Five Misconceptions about Education
What many people think
- Schools are isolated from society
- Education is about learning subjects
- Learning is exploring facts
- Extracurricular activities are extra
- Silence promotes learning
What is closer to the truth
- Schools are extensions of society
- Education is for holistic development, not job preparation alone
- Learning includes subjective knowledge: the why, not just the what
- Sports, drama, debates, and trips are core to holistic growth
- Learning happens through sharing of ideas and peer interaction
Educators carry beliefs about what education is for. Some of these beliefs do not match how learning actually works.
Misconception 1: schools are isolated from society
Some teachers behave as if schools exist separately from the world outside. They tell students “this is not your drawing room, this is school” when students laugh or talk. They forget that teachers themselves are products of the same society. A teacher who shouts at students for shouting is also part of the society they want to correct.
Schools are extensions of society. Society is an extension of schools. The two cannot be separated. A teacher who pretends otherwise is teaching in a fantasy.
Misconception 2: education is about learning subjects
A common belief: education prepares students for jobs. Learn math, English, science, social studies. Get good marks. Get into a professional college. Become a doctor or engineer. This view treats education as a vocational ladder.
Teachers, though, are supposed to be agents of social change. A student can be excellent at math and English yet be a poor citizen. If education is only subject knowledge, it does not produce the social change teaching is supposed to bring.
Misconception 3: learning is exploring facts
Many people believe learning means knowing facts. The atom and the molecule. Solid, liquid, gas. Nouns and pronouns. The teacher who designs activities around these facts is doing a good job.
The educationist Ferrere said learning is more than this. Take the example of someone who learns to plant potatoes. They know the procedure: water at this time, plant at this depth. That is objective knowledge. But why are these people growing potatoes? Why does this community grow this crop? What needs does it meet? These questions point to subjective knowledge: knowledge about why facts exist, what they mean, who they serve.
Objective knowledge has its place. Subjective knowledge matters too. A student who learns only objective facts has not learned the full picture.
Knowledge about why facts exist, what they mean, who they serve
Different from objective knowledge, which is the procedure or the static fact.
A student who learns to plant potatoes knows the steps. Subjective knowledge asks why this community grows potatoes and what need it meets.
Misconception 4: extracurricular activities are extra
Drama, sports, debates, field trips, fun fairs. Most schools call these “extracurricular” or “co-curricular”. The word “extra” suggests they sit outside real learning. The word “co-curricular” suggests they only support learning and are still secondary.
These activities are not extra. They are core to a child’s holistic development. Holistic development means physical, intellectual, ethical, social, and spiritual growth, all at the same time. A child who only studies math and English misses the physical and social parts of growing up.
When schools allocate timetable space only to test subjects, holistic development suffers. Sports build the body. Debates build thinking. Drama builds expression. These belong inside the curriculum, not outside it.
Misconception 5: silence promotes learning
“Sit quietly”. “No talking”. Generations of teachers have built classrooms around silence. The belief is that learning happens when the room is quiet.
Research says the opposite. A baby learns to speak by hearing more speech, not less. The more a child listens, the larger their internal vocabulary grows. The more vocabulary they hear, the sooner they begin to speak. Silence does not teach a child a language.
Learning happens through sharing of ideas. Peer learning matters. Students often learn more from each other than from teachers. A silent classroom may be orderly, but orderly is not the same as learning.
Learning happens through sharing of ideas
Babies learn to speak by hearing more speech, not less. The same logic applies in school.
Peer learning is powerful. Students often learn more from each other than from teachers. A silent room may be orderly, but it is not always a learning room.