User:Ivangiesen/Wikimedia Education Greenhouse/Unit 1 - Module 1

Essay answer to Education Paradigms

I'm interested in hearing responses from people who did not experience education in the U.S. as I did, because I would like to better understand how they viewed their own educational experience as compared to the video's interpretation. To what degree, generally speaking, is location (ie nation) an indicator that divergent thinking is being suppressed? By the way, I also saw a comment on the video that made a surprisingly good point, divergent thinking, although on the whole, an integral component of creativity and thus 'humanness,' can be detrimental when the usefulness and practicality of the ideas need to also be considered in parallel. Sort of like a filter for extreme and dangerous ideas.

Also considering that I am participating in a course that takes place entirely online without any physical interaction, it leads me to question the efficacy and the longterm effects of all the distance learning that is going to take place during the pandemic (at least in the states).

The video did not address the most important aspect, which is how alternative or different existing forms of education can better mitigate the gradual degradation of 'divergent thinking.' Besides allowing different age groups to mingle and more self-selection in terms of choosing to work with others or alone, I don't see how those models fundamentally give rise to people more capable of understanding the world around them and acting on those understanding (which I interpret as a principal goal of learning).

Anyways, those were my initial thoughts.