Learning is perhaps the most earth shattering of evolutionary innovations. Where it is weak, an organism is unlikely to thrive during radical changes to their environment, and where it is strong they have the option to either change behaviour or that environment. To these ends, nature has selected for two primary learning instincts that give us pleasure. The first is direct instruction via social interaction, and the second is play, which encourages the experimentation and exploration of our environments.
The advent of literacy prompted societies of growing complexity, and with its spread technologies like the printing press propelled both the arts and sciences forward (see Diamond-9; Fleming and Marien-14). Yet our brains have scarcely evolved to cope with this scale information and, even as late as the 20th century, people have maintained a scarcity mentality and looked to education primarily for content dissemination.
Obviously, this is no longer tenable in modern civilization. All aspirations of being well read and knowing have been crushed by an unprecedented information surplus (see Salter-24), widespread access to the means of content production threatens the hegemony of those with intellectual capital (see Batra-2), and creativity — not just specialized skills — is the basis of prosperity (see Florida-15). To still conceive of teaching as the propagation of truths and core skills is to invite the replacement of middle and senior schoolteachers with computers.
Hence the need for pedagogy that goes beyond knowing and serves as a catalyst for ongoing human development. To that end, I submit that 21st century instruction is to be defined by its role in socialization, which brings us back to the long neglected instinct which was best adapted to a vast and scarcely knowable world: play.
Instruction and its discontents
From a band of nomads to modern governments and classrooms, there has always been a dynamic of power and influence. Central to this dynamic is the distinction between those that know and those that do not (see Zuboff-29). Hence, education at its core is an exercise in equipping subordinates for roles of varying status and complexity within their organization and society.
However, this dynamic can only be relied upon in so far as the latter actually wish to take power and the knowledge it demands, and also in so far as information is actually withheld, which brings us to the dual problems of knowledge and control.
To start with, there are three key drawbacks of teaching for knowledge. First, the survival of ideas depends less upon their accuracy than their ability to self-replicate, spread, and adapt (see Dawkins-8. Second, the setting of official knowledge can be influenced by government and corporate interest in propaganda and whitewashing (see Beder-3; Hirst). And third, over reliance on any particular source — including Google — can discourage further research and questioning (see Haigh).
Now, the obvious solution to the above, prima facie, is the promotion of critical thinking skills and Okagaki & Sternberg-21 recommend this via the explicit demonstration of cross-disciplinary principles. However, this method is inherently flawed in that it does not foster critical reflection on those prescribed principles, and the continuous pursuit of feedback on their application can easily become a force for normalization (see Fendler-13).
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