The Danger of "Fragile" Learning

“After a lot of investigation, I finally figured out that the students had memorized everything, but they didn’t know what anything meant…Everything was entirely memorized, yet nothing had been translated into meaningful words.” (Feynman, 212)

The book I am currently reading, Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman, is an autobiography that follows the life of the American physicist, Richard Feynman. The book is organized into a series of stories based on actual events from Mr. Feynman’s life. One of the stories, entitled “O Americano, Outra Vez”, tells of his trip to Brazil where he ends up teaching physics at a local university. He finds that the students there have memorized all the material with extraordinary accuracy to the point of even knowing what questions would be on the final exam. However, none of the concepts were truly understood. In the Canadian education system, there is a strong emphasis on understanding the material, being able to apply it in new situations and then memorizing it (more popularly referred to as the KICA grading system). This immense difference in educational styles made me think of what future implications it would have on each of the countries in question. While simply memorizing the concepts may prove useful in tests, real-life application of the knowledge requires a comprehensive understanding. In other words, does pure book knowledge prove to be valuable without understanding and vice versa? _­­I believe that the perfect solution lies somewhere in between. I think that it would be most beneficial to not only require explanations, but to also ask for them without being given all the equations and constants, which in real life, would be expected. This way, not only would students be able to answer questions outside of a textbook, they would be able to answer it without the reference key as well. This would prevent what Feynman so resolutely warns against: “fragile” learning.