Fingerprinting learning

Above all, the brain is efficient.  So, for learning to take place  it has to have a reason for taking up space and time.  Otherwise, why would learning take place?  So, early on in life, a person learns that experience is the best teacher.  All of us continue with this idea throughout our lives because "life" in this case refers the dichotomy of learning - what gives us pain is to be avoided, what gives us pleasure is to be rewarded.  The brain will create elaborate schemes if necessary to avoid or reward.

Learning is related to these two ideas in one form or another.  Something has to have + or - value for memory to form, so the first line of memory is to find something utilitarian that helps us in advancing ourselves or taking caring of our needs.  Language is learned for this reason.  It is utilitarian.  After a while language is manipulated, so it becomes ever increasingly more sophisticated in use, but at the outset and for most purposes it remains utilitarian.  Can schools really capture this idea?  Most learning at a school is hypothetical.  Some children can find a use or pretend a use for the hypothetical, thus making the learning utilitarian, but most cannot in the early years.

Humans also are unique in many ways.  One of those ways is in personality.  Some likenesses in personality span the human experience, but not many.  So, if learning is also to help design our uniqueness, it is laughable that education would even attempt to standardize learning.  Humans are the guardians of what they develop, and they develop it according to what motivates them, both from experiences that are utilitarian to them (because what is utilitarian is not usually universal across people) and that are motivating to them.  Commonly, this is referred to as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.  And because humans continue their journey in seeking to be unique, they develop interests that vary in degree.  The stronger the interest the more + value it has.  The weaker the interest, the more - value it has.

So, a place of learning should enhance what comes naturally to a person.  The real problem is that people have different things come naturally to them.  What has + value to someone, has - value to someone else.  What has a great degree of + value to someone, has a + value to someone else in a greater or lesser degree. And, even if there could be a set of shared and common facts to be learned in grade 1, it would erode and disappear the older students became.  The idea of having electives after grade 5 tries rather poorly to deal with this truth.

Individualized instruction becomes impossible, then, when students are grouped in 20s or 30s or when given some broad choices.  When students ask why they should learn something, they are manifesting a primary function of their brains.  When the answer is because you will need this later in life, it is likely that the learning that sparked the question will be sorted into the discard pile.  Its utilitarian function for any value is not apparent.

I suppose one could say, "If all of this is true, then how is it that the US has such distinguished astronomers who can see planets beyond our own solar system or such wonderful surgeons who can restore health to ailing people, or such (name the group) who can (name the specialty)?"  How many astronomers can find these planets?  Oh, 30 (maybe).  Out of 315 million people.  That sounds rather individualized to me.  Even if the answer is 500, what is that percentage out of 315 million?  Even if one speaks of engineers or architects as a large group, how many can really design an 80-story building, or a building in a bay, or a bridge to carry the weight of all types of traffic for 100 years, or a vehicle designed to be electric and respond to an app from a smart phone, or...

But OK.  Test away on a common curriculum.  I'm pretty sure I know where that path leads.