A Study of School Knowledge

Abstract

One of the many overriding goals of a liberal arts education is to help cultivate students who are knowledgeable about themselves and the world. Schools, that is, rightly seek to instill knowledge that helps deepen the students’ awareness of the historical past, their natural surroundings, and cultural heritage. The transmission of knowledge obviously raises a number of enduring problems that elicit different responses from those involved in education. Teachers must determine the content their students need to know and the pedagogical rationale for learning what they seek to impart. They also need to think deeply and carefully about how to deliver the content to their students. The curricular content to teach, the goals of learning, and the instructional strategies to use all raise profound questions that must be examined by those interested in promoting learning. There is, however, another issue the acquisition of knowledge within the school context can raise and be pondered by teachers, namely the view on knowledge students tacitly or consciously acquire from years spent in the classroom. Spending vast amounts of time listening to teachers deliver content in very set ways, schooling can and does engender deeply entrenched beliefs about the nature of knowledge within students. This present study will identify some of the views students can mistakenly inherit about knowledge given how and what they are usually taught at school and why it is important for them to become cognizant of these misconceptions.