The difference
I want to just talk about this idea that's been going around in my head recently, which is basically there's a difference between knowledge and information. And what do I mean by that?
I'll talk through some of my own experiences as a software engineer in an effort to explain myself. In this industry you learn a lot, you have to learn continuously, always finding out new things, new ideas, new technologies and so on. And earlier on in my career, I collected lots of information. There were sort of techniques that I tried, blog posts that I read, you collect these fragments of things. And at times I would use those ideas or those pieces of code or those solutions to solve certain problems and get some success. But, as you mature and become a more senior developer, you start to realise that those ideas or those patterns - the solutions - don't work in every situation.
You come across this sort of thing and our expectations are broken and you think, hang on a second, that worked before - why isn't it working now? And so you have to collect more information and you have to start trying to understand - what's the difference between the previous scenario where this worked and the current scenario where it didn't? And as you sort of rummage around and you look for new ideas and so on, you start to sort of compare those 2 things and you realise, yes, there's actually an important difference between those 2 situations. And there's a reason why this approach was better in this one and this other approach is actually more appropriate here. And so then this is where I sort of feel like it's starting to cross that boundary between being just information and into actual knowledge?
Context
So because you're starting to understand not just things you've seen or ideas you've received, but you've started to tie that into actual real world experience and you've started to collect enough of context around those things to understand what the limitations of those different ideas are. I'll always come back to this example when I talk to people about this - any idea, essentially, has a limited range to which it applies. And for some ideas, that's that's quite big. For example, I'd say don't murder people, right? And I personally think that's a great idea and it applies almost universally.
However, I think you can legitimately dream up some kind of scenario where that's not the case. It's a bit contrived, but maybe I just walked into a giant warehouse, right? And I look 100 metres at the end of the warehouse and there's a guy with a shotgun and an innocent family, and his finger is on the trigger. I have a pistol, I've got one, maybe two seconds to make a decision, right? And realistically, I might yell out, I might try any number of things that could result in that family being shot. And maybe if I shoot him to try and incapacitate him, it doesn't work. He turns around, shoots me, kills the family.
I actually don't know if shotguns are lethal at 100 metres, but whatever - that's besides the point. It's a kind of reductio ad absurdum type of argument - you're sort of stretching this idea and taking it to its limits, you can find places where it starts to break down. And actually going through that process and understanding not just the information, but also where does that apply? Where is this idea actually valid? Where does it start to break down? Where do other ideas start to rise in importance? And that can get more nuanced and complex as you go along.
You can even get interactions between multiple principles or ideas that compete with each other and have different trade-offs. You have to judge that against each situation, what you're trying to do, what your constraints are etc. As a professional software developer, working in commerce and building commercial software, that was probably more the challenge than actually solving the code problems. Often we knew what the code problem was, we just didn't have time to do it. It would just take too long and we'd have to do something else or make a compromise or you partially solve that problem and plan work after the deadline to complete it and so on.
That's kind of the difference really between a junior developer and a senior developer, - a junior developer has information, they know things, they've got various patterns or they've heard of different technologies. But as you get to that level of having expertise - real knowledge - you're able to make those kind of judgement calls and you're able to think through situations and actually come up with better outcomes.
So bringing that back to home education now. I do see that as the major flaw in our current education system - at least the school system anyway - is there's a strong focus on information. You're expected to absorb vast amounts of information, be able to solve various equations, geometric problems, regurgitate, the Harber process and chemistry and Ohm's law and all these kind of things. I've tutored many, many students, actually, and been - well I would say surprised, but it doesn't surprise me anymore! - that they can perform actions and solve equations etc. , and when I ask them, you know, what is that thing you're doing? Where does equations like that come from? Where do you see them in real life? What purpose does it serve? What does it even mean to solve that equation? They can't answer it.
So they've got information, but they haven't got knowledge.
Creating Knowledge
So how do you actually create knowledge? You do need to supply some information - can't get around it. But you also need to work with that information - it's a two-way process. So you need to have your child (or student) actually tussle with it and and try and achieve something in the real world. And when you start stress testing that knowledge, you really start to see it in action and gain real world experience utilising it, then you really start to see where things start to break down what the constraints are, the limitations of it and all that kind of stuff.
This super heavy focus on theory and just cramming information and then being satisfied with being able to regurgitate it, or perform rituals like solving equations, answering essay questions and that sort of thing -it's a good start point, but you need to go take that one step further and actually try and use that knowledge to solve a problem or to achieve something. Because then the student starts to make their own observations. They start to realise, hey, actually... this doesn't work all the time or... maybe it doesn't work because I was doing it wrong. I thought it worked a certain way and then reality's teaching me that it's actually something else. Right? And that's true knowledge.
When students start to create true knowledge, they can really start to think for themselves. They can look for themselves. They can make their own thoughts and judgements and they can think through problems as well. It's much more valuable than just the knowledge they get. It's that ability to create knowledge as well. When they've gone through that process enough times, they'll start to realise the difference between being able to remember something and knowing it, right? So it has a benefit for their life that transcends the current objective of passing your exams and getting a certificate.
And not to diminish the value of the certificate, our society seems to value them so they're still worth obtaining, but if you have the knowledge then sitting the exam is rather easy in comparison. But if you only train for exams (which is what the school system does), then you don't automatically gain the ability to think, or obtain anything of intrinsic value apart from the certificate you earned.
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