Source: 📖 How to Take Smart Notes ch.10

The normal educational system doesn't leverage the way we really learn

It is by trying (and often failing) to make sense of what we encounter that we truly learn. We try to figure out how the new things we encounter fit into the bigger picture of our already found knowledge—we make connections.

Normal schooling (particularly the testing aspect) simply presents students with deeply categorized (disconnected) information and tests their ability to memorise and regurgitate factoids on a given date. It doesn't often try to get to the roots of understanding. This means that normal schooling is somewhat optimised to facilitate the short-term memorising of information instead of a true understanding—it asks students to memorise, not to think.

• What are the implications for a proposed, better educational system? Education should focus more on understanding, testing is insufficient