Education vs. Common Sense

I once heard a male co-worker tell a female co-worker that she must be smart because she was well educated. The female co-worker looked at him and said, "yeah I guess I is." Aside from the grammatical mistake of her response I am positive that a persons level of education does not equate to being smart.

Smart: the ability to use reason, critical thinking, and sound judgment to make decisions or respond to situations. 

I am here to sadly report that not all teachers have common sense. If they did the words duct tape and classroom would never share the same news report on Fox or CNN. The same goes for lawyers and doctors who only make headlines because of their ability to make bad decisions. There are well educated people all over the world who do not have common sense and therefor are NOT very smart.

 

I think part of the problem is the disconnect between education and the real world. Lets put public K-12 education on hold for a second and look at college education. We are told all our lives that without a college education we cannot be competitive in the workforce. But lets look at the workforce critically, without a college education you either make minimum wage at the mall or break your back in construction, agriculture, or the oil fields. With a college degree you can make just over minimum wage unless you earn a Masters or Doctorate. With the Masters your choices for a career begin to shape and with a doctorate you can be a leader in your field.

 

While you spend years studying and building up student loan debt to reach your academic goals you learn about theory from college professors who have spent most of their life in the classroom. I had one professor in my masters program teaching us about classroom management. We all thought he was an amazing teacher because he was a good instructor and easy to talk too. He taught us about the various theories of cognition and to plan for instruction in the classroom. But it turned out, he had never been a classroom teacher. After college he earned a masters then his doctorate and started teaching at the college level where he spent all of his career. I am sorry, but common sense should dictate that to teach and prepare future K-12 teachers you should have at least some experience teaching in a K-12 environment. If I want to learn how to play the guitar I have to find someone who already knows how to play to teach me right? This is an example of the disconnect between school and the real world. That classroom management class prepared me for the first ten minutes of my first day in a classroom. After that it took a lot of COMON SENSE and patience to teach students.

 

Now, by the time a person has become a doctor, a doctor in the medical field, a doctor of law, or a doctor of education, you have spent anywhere from 10-15 in college and taken who knows how many classes. But how many of those classes stuck? How many of those classes do you really remember? I remember taking a geology class but cant tell you anything about rock classifications and fault lines. The truth is that most under grad college students are just jumping through hoops to finish and get that diploma so they can stop waiting tables and start a career.

 

I think we need to work harder as a society to make sure our college graduates have more then theoretical knowledge. We need to make sure these future leaders are able to use common sense and theoretical knowledge to be effective in their fields of study. unfortunately I have not yet to come a conclusion on how to teach people to have common sense.

 

-Dr. Thomas Dogood