Have you ever went through a day, whether through school or through work, and said to yourself, "Am I ever going to use this information?" I have been there many times! Sometimes it comes as a whole class which seems pointless, and sometimes it is just one section from a class. Nonetheless, most people find somethings that we learn, or even use, are useless.
My point in bringing this up, is that I have recently recognized that everything that we learn is important, even the most seemingly useless things. I have two reasons for saying this: formation and reemergence. First, seemingly useless information forms us. Whether we notice it or not, everything we experience affects the way we see the world. Therefore, those things which we pass off as unimportant stills affects us. Maybe it means we see everything relating to that thing as pointless as well. For example, maybe someone believe algebra is useless to everyday life. This may affect the way the person sees math in general; maybe thinking all math is unnecessary to normal day life. This specific trait shows up in many high school students, and it affects the way they view math.
Second, seemingly useless information sometimes reemerges into our lives. Now this can be taken in two ways, either it reemerges and still seems useless, or it reemerges and we see it in new light and it becomes useful. A simple example from my own life is that in my undergraduate I took a class where I had to incorporate technology into education. I thought everything I learned was pointless. Maybe it was the material or maybe it was the way it was taught. Nonetheless, it was pointless at the time. Now I am in a grad class working with most of the exact same things, except now it seems like these technologies actually hold a purpose. I actually like using the technologies now, like Audacity, and may continue to use them after my schooling.
All in all, I believe that nothing is truly useless, it just might seem useless at the time. Then again, I am a huge thinker and like to make connections. This is something I actually just made the connection to this morning. Now, the next thing to do is to see what others think about this. Does anyone else think that there is no such thing as a useless piece of information?
Very interesting point ... useless or useful information! Yes, many students feel that math is useless until they buy carpet and must understand how the square footage is figured to arrive at their bill. Then, they see the usefulness of that information, which may be too late because they slept through that class. As teachers, we try to provide students with relevant learning experiences, but at times the content is learned for other reasons like the alphabet. By learning the alphabet, the student will begin to realize how words are formed and ultimately learn to read the words. So, was learning the alphabet useless at the time? Maybe but it was vital in the long run. Thanks for posing the question.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest reasons for posting this question is because I am studying to be a high school math teacher. I have seen many of those students in person who seem to think everything they are learning is pointless. Even worse though, is that when they ask the teachers when they are going to use the material or why it is important, I have heard the teachers say things like, "just do it" or "this is what I have to teach."
DeleteFirst of all, your blog looks great! I often find myself asking the question, "What is the point???" in a variety of situations so I can relate. But your post will make me think about seemingly "useless" information in a different way. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThanks. The goal of my whole blogsite is to question the way we see things, hence why I called it "The Way We Look At The World." So, I am glad you are actually taking the time to look at what you thought you knew and see it in new light.
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