Loading the educational scattergun ...

I often encounter souls who lament why they were taught X or Y at school, as they never use it in everyday life. To be fair on the curriculum creators and the teachers we:

  • Do not know what will become of you - chances are we are building the foundations for a career that will rely on the clever stuff we are trying to wedge into your minds.
  • Appreciate that often you miss the point - you do use X or Y, is simply the case that you often do not realise (for example equations when buying multipack soft drinks in a world of ever changing deals)
We sit down and think - what will most people need most of the time. As well as, what is actually needed by each discipline we teach. Create the programme, load the educational scattergun and shoot away.

It is rare to have taught (or created) a programme where someone somewhere does not struggle to see the relevance of what is being covered. Citing all manner of reasons until we observe that it is either a threshold concept to get them from A to B or it is a concept/practice used in a given context (which they may encounter in the future).

When we shoot our educational scatterguns, we do not know what you will become or plan to do. If you do not use what we have offered, is this our fault or yours or nobody at all? For schools as well as universities, we are trying to give you the best tools possible for your future. Unless we have access to your crystal ball, then we are likely to never get a 100% match.

Off to load another scattergun.



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