Category: Love of Learning

8 Reasons We Still Need to Know Things

Posted on by Chris Loper

Man taking in knowledge through a book

When I was in elementary school, if you wanted to know something, you looked it up in an encyclopedia. Well, you first determined which volume of the encyclopedia you needed because attempting to store all of the world’s knowledge in one place required a dozen or so books.

a set of encyclopedias

Soon, however, Microsoft came out with Encarta, a CD-ROM encyclopedia that condensed all those books onto a handful of compact disks. Suddenly, all that knowledge was accessible from your home computer. As a young nerd, I loved it.

But within just a decade, Encarta would be eclipsed by the internet. Google and Wikipedia became the repositories of humanity’s knowledge. And then smartphones made sure all of this information was constantly available, literally at our fingertips.

This trend seemed to culminate in late 2022 with the release of large language model AIs like ChatGPT. Although AI is an infant technology, what it can do is astonishing. What it seems to know is astonishing.

And it begs the question, if Google or ChatGPT can answer all of our questions, why do you need to know anything?

a person on their smartphone

Do We Really Still Need to Know Things?

I often write about how the true purpose of school isn’t to acquire knowledge, but rather to develop a variety of skills and strengths that will serve you throughout life. And for the reasons described above, the acquisition of knowledge is tempting to dismiss as unimportant or outdated.

But I do actually think that it matters. Having Google and AI at our fingertips has certainly changed things, but acquiring knowledge is not a waste of time. In fact, it might actually be more valuable than ever.

The purpose of knowing things isn’t to simply have the answers to questions. The true value of knowledge has more to do with curiosity and creativity, understanding and wisdom.

So here are eight reasons why we still need to know things. The first few are fairly obvious, but the rest are, I hope, a bit surprising.

1. Procedural Knowledge

Not all knowledge is simply factual. Much of what we know is procedural. And while you can look up procedural knowledge online, you typically have to do it yourself. ChatGPT can’t mix chemicals together in a lab. YouTube can’t bake a cake or ride a bike. Google can’t hook up an IV. For now, at least, such things have to be done by people.

Procedural knowledge takes practice. It’s not enough to understand how to do it, you have to work toward mastery. You obviously wouldn’t want your surgeon looking things up mid-operation, but you also wouldn’t want them to be a beginner.

two surgeons performing an operation

Now, school does ask students to acquire and practice procedures that computers can perform for us: math calculations, writing essays, balancing chemical reactions, etc. So what’s the point of learning these things if algorithms can do them?

The answer is brain exercise. Procedural knowledge, like solving quadratics and writing research papers, is logical. So learning and practicing the methods expands your capacity for logical reasoning, which is highly valuable.

2. Asking the Right Questions

If you’ve ever watched a 6th grader try to Google something related to their homework, then you know that asking questions of the internet is a skill that many children, despite being tech natives, are lacking.

Partly, there’s a need for training. Tools like Google and ChatGPT don’t know who you are or what your goal is, so it can be challenging to ask a question that will give you the answer you’re looking for. For example, if this 6th grader’s homework is about the gut’s microbiome, their search will likely yield information that’s far too advanced. Adding the phrase “middle school science” to the search should help.

But in addition to learning the skill of searching effectively, there’s also a need for greater background knowledge. Without some knowledge, you might not even know which questions to ask.

A woman at a laptop looking lost

You’ll often be lacking critical context, and your search will be fruitless. For example, if you ask Google about the Russian Revolution, it could give you information about the 1905 revolution or either of the two 1917 revolutions. Which one do you care about? You have to specify.

Your search also won’t go well if you don’t know that there are multiple meanings to the word you’re using or that the topic you’re researching appears, by the same name, in multiple academic fields. “Energy,” for instance, has a different meaning in physics, biology, environmental science, and psychology.

3. Critically Judging the Answers

A meme of Abraham Lincoln saying "If you've read it on the internet, it must be true."

Having some knowledge about what you’re looking up online also helps you determine whether or not you’ve found a legitimate answer. It’s hard to reality check the answers you get if you’re completely ignorant about the topic.

But Chris, if I start out ignorant of the topic, how am I supposed to get the basic knowledge I need to research online effectively?

Good question.

Whenever possible, don’t start online. Start with the in-class lesson or a teacher-provided resource, such as a handout or a textbook. Or ask your teacher for an online resource that is legitimate and at the right level. They might recommend something like Crash Course World History or the Amoeba Sisters.

Okay, those are the basic reasons. Now on to the good stuff.

4. Curiosity

Two kids curiously learning about nature

The next big reason we still need to know things is because knowledge makes us curious. This is because the more you know, the more you realize you could know. Or, as John Wheeler put it:

“As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

Discovery fuels the desire for more discovery. Every answer you find leads you to more and deeper questions. Exploring the frontiers of what you know and of what we know, as a species, is an essential part of being human.

a person silhouetted against the Milky Way

And as I’ve discovered with birding, a bit of knowledge leads to greater interest, leading to even more knowledge and engagement, eventually leading to passionate curiosity.

5. Knowledge is Not the Same as Understanding

It’s one thing to see facts on a screen. It’s an entirely different thing to understand those facts.

And what good are the facts if they don’t make sense to us?

True learning isn’t just being aware of information or even memorizing it; it’s understanding the meaning of the facts.

We achieve understanding by building on what we already know and by making connections to other ideas. We use similes and metaphors to make sense of new information, and doing so requires that we have preexisting knowledge.

Thus, the more you know the easier it is to learn.

6. Creativity

an older man tinkering with various electronic parts

My favorite reason we still need knowledge is that it makes you more creative. This is because all human creativity falls into one of two categories (sometimes both):

  1. A preexisting idea is enhanced or altered in some way. (Bicycle → Mountain Bike)
  2. Two or more preexisting ideas are combined to create something novel. (Laptop + Cell Phone + iPod = iPhone)

(I challenge you to think of an example of creativity that doesn’t fit into at least one of those categories.)

Thus, your ability to innovate depends on having knowledge: ideas to build off of and ideas to mix together. Learning, both deeply and broadly, gives your mind a bank of ideas to draw upon when a creative solution is needed.

The more you know, the more creative you can be.

7. Focus and Direction

a couple on a hike using a map to find their way

Another reason we still need to know things is that, without some knowledge, it’s very difficult to know what’s important. And if you don’t know what’s important to you, how will you choose what to focus on? How will you know what direction to go?

Studying history is a good example of this principle. If you were to sit down with a history textbook and read the 20-page chapter on the French Revolution, there’s a good chance you would get lost in the details. The story is complicated, with many characters, events, dates, and places that might be important. Without background knowledge – if you didn’t start by reading/watching a brief summary – you won’t be able to sort what matters from what doesn’t.

Modern life provides us with way too much information and way too many options. To navigate the modern world effectively, you need a mental filter, and it’s impossible to craft a good mental filter without knowledge.

An effective mental filter can quickly recognize and latch onto the information that matters, discarding the rest. A good filter takes the myriad of options you have and sorts the valuable opportunities from the time-wasting distractions.

a smartphone displaying numerous apps

8. Wisdom

In the past, knowledge was power, or at least, a great source of power. And until recently, that knowledge was difficult to come by. It required expensive and often exclusionary schools. It could only be found in books or in talking to experts, both of whom were rare.

But now knowledge is incredibly abundant and freely accessible. With the device in your pocket, you can access more knowledge than anyone living 50 years ago could have, even if they had access to the very best schools, libraries, and scholars. So what matters today is not what knowledge you have access to but what you choose to do with that knowledge.

And getting that part right takes wisdom.

an old woman laughing with joy

Wisdom is a specialized type of knowledge. It can be acquired via personal experience (often painful) or it can be learned from others. Either way, the cultivation of wisdom is a lifelong endeavor. Personally, I make a point of taking in a bit of wisdom each morning. It helps me make better choices throughout the day, and it encourages me to reflect deeply on how I’m living my life.

Robots and AI might one day attend to all of our needs and solve all of our problems, but they’re not doing that right now, and they might never reach that level. And, even if they could do everything for us, they cannot live our lives for us. Knowing how to do that well will always remain essential.

In an era when knowledge is abundant, wisdom is paramount.

What’s the Point of Studying a Foreign Language?

Posted on by Chris Loper

a student upside down on the couch with their face buried in a Spanish textbook

Some students enjoy studying foreign languages, or at least, their language of choice. But many find the requirement to study a foreign language frustrating and tedious. They don’t want to learn Spanish or German or Japanese, but they’re required to do so for two years in order to graduate. So they inevitably ask, “What’s the point of studying a foreign language?”

Most adults answer this question with some version of the following: “Well, you might someday want to travel to a country where they speak that language. Or you might end up at a job where your coworkers speak that language.”

And there is some validity to that response. I studied Spanish in middle school and high school. Later, I used Spanish to get around in South America. I also worked in restaurants where many of my coworkers spoke Spanish much better than they spoke English, so I communicated with them in Spanish. For me, at least, Spanish was very practical.

But for many students, the “You might want to use it someday” answer is neither meaningful nor motivating. Sometimes, they have no intention of using the language for travel or work. More often, they’re struggling so much to learn the language that they can’t imagine a future where they will actually be able to use it.

For such students, there is a different, and ultimately more powerful, answer to the question: “What’s the point of studying a foreign language?”

Remember that one of the main purposes of school is brain exercise. And not just one kind of brain exercise, but a wide variety of mental challenges. Studying a foreign language is a unique form of brain exercise that you simply can’t get from other subjects.

A cartoon brain lifting weights and sweating

The Value of Learning Grammar and Spelling Rules

A common frustration is that the grammar and spelling rules of many languages don’t make sense. Unlike math and science, there is no underlying logic that explains why the rules of a language are what they are. Languages are accidents of cultural evolution. Their rules are arbitrary. So learning the rules is less an exercise in “getting it” than an exercise in pure memorization.

You can decide that this means learning a foreign language is stupid – that it’s a pointless hoop to jump through, a cruel sort of torture imposed on students by the school system. Or you could decide on a more empowering interpretation of reality – that studying a foreign language is an opportunity to strengthen your brain through a unique type of mental challenge. Then, it doesn’t matter that you have no plans to use the language in the future. It’s a valuable use of your time because it makes you smarter.

Cultivating the ability to memorize and accurately use a body of knowledge is a very practical skill. Doctors and psychologists learn to assess patients by memorizing what various symptoms usually mean (and all of the possible alternative diagnoses). Lawyers study all of the rules of our legal system, which is riddled with arbitrary if-then clauses, exclusions, and loopholes.

A lawyer processing a difficult case at his desk

And just about every job has a unique set of procedures that need to be memorized – procedures that, like grammar rules, are often accidents of cultural evolution. So you might not need to know French grammar in your future job, but you’ll need a brain that’s capable of learning something like French grammar.

Learning Foreign Languages Enhances Mental Flexibility

One of the main benefits of learning a foreign language is the development of cognitive flexibility. Since the rules and norms of various languages are arbitrary, there’s no universally “right” way to do things. For example, in English, we put adjectives in front of nouns: the black cat. In Spanish, they usually put adjectives after nouns: el gato negro. Neither option is objectively better; they’re just different.

Thus, by studying a foreign language, you’re forced to see that the way we do things isn’t the only way to do them. Importantly, this principle applies to far more than just languages.

The way things are done at one company isn’t the only way to do them; other companies might succeed by doing things quite differently. The way things are set up in this country isn’t the only way to do things; other nations have different laws and institutions. And what we do now isn’t set in stone; we can decide to change our ways.

So, ultimately, the purpose of learning a foreign language isn’t to be able to read, write, and speak the language, though you may wind up doing that. The point of studying a foreign language is learning to better navigate the complicated, dynamic landscape of human society. And that is a skill we all need.

How to Get Students to Care About Their Grades

Posted on by Chris Loper

Four teenage boys having fun

Here’s a question we sometimes get in our parenting classes or that Greg often gets in parent coaching sessions:

“Bobby just doesn’t seem to care about his grades. How do I get him to care?”

This exasperated parent is hoping that we’ll tell them the magic set of words they can say that will inspire their son to be motivated to do well at school. And they are always disappointed to hear that no such set of words exists.

“A teenager is like a Chinese finger trap,” we patiently explain. “Actively trying to get them to care will have the opposite of your intended effect.”

And how do you get out of a Chinese finger trap? By relaxing a bit. The solution here is the same. The parent actually cares too much about their child’s grades. They need to care less.

The Student Should Own Their Grades

The core message for such parents is that the student needs to own their grades. Teachers, tutors, and parents should not be the ones emotionally invested in the child’s grades. The student needs to be the one who cares. If we do all the caring for them, they’ll reason that they don’t need to care.

a mom checking grades while the student lies upside down

We want students to be in charge of their own academic life. We want them to become active agents, responsible for their own learning. This means they get to choose whether or not to use resources, take notes, and ask for help. They get to choose whether or not to do more than what is asked or use effective study techniques. And they get to deal with whatever outcomes result from their choices – good or bad. They get to feel whatever emotions accompany those outcomes – pleasant or unpleasant.

Parents Should Do Less Grade Management

When parents are constantly checking their children’s online grades and getting on their case about every low test score and each missing assignment, it sends the wrong message.

By micromanaging your child’s grades, you’re telling your child two things: 1) They can’t manage their school life on their own, and 2) They don’t need to practice managing it because you’re going to do it for them. I have never once seen this behavior result in greater effort or buy-in from a student. Every time, this sort of overparenting breeds either passivity or active resistance.

a mother and daughter arguing about school

This is similar to a common issue around executive function. Parents often feel a need to step in and micromanage their children’s schoolwork, keeping track of due dates, upcoming tests, and project milestones. But if you do all the executive function work for your child, their brain will never be forced to develop the skills to manage their own schoolwork. You don’t get strong if someone else lifts the weights for you.

In fact, these two issues often go hand-in-hand because when a parent takes ownership of the executive function tasks related to school, they’re sending a strong signal to the child that they’re the ones who care most about the grades. The child, seeing that their parent is doing enough caring for the both of them, becomes a passive passenger.

Now, you can’t just flip a switch and turn your emotions off. You’re still going to care about your child’s grades. But you need to practice hiding those emotions or at least dialing them down. And you need to demonstrate through your actions – or lack of actions – that you’re not in charge of their grades. If your child sees that you’re no longer in charge of their grades, they’ll figure out that it must be their job to take the driver’s seat.

I’m also not suggesting that you ignore their grades completely, or that you become a totally laissez-faire parent. As always, the middle ground of parenting styles is best. There are ways to be engaged with your child’s academic life without micromanaging it. There are ways to hold your child accountable for their schoolwork without taking ownership of their grades.

Family Values and Natural Consequences

One way to do this is to clearly establish what your family’s values are around schoolwork and to define what the consequences are when you don’t live up to those standards.

For example, you could establish a rule that simply says, “When a well-meaning adult asks you to do something reasonable, you do it because that’s the polite thing to do.” Teachers are well-meaning adults, and homework is a reasonable request. If you choose not to do your homework, you’re effectively being rude to the teacher. In such a case, you can tell your child that they need to complete their homework, but the conversation doesn’t have to involve grades at all – it’s about manners.

a mom pointing out her daughter's bad manners

And your child gets to live with whatever natural consequences result from their choices. This could mean having to stay home and complete their missing homework instead of going out with friends. This could mean having to retake a class over the summer because they failed it. This could mean having fewer options after high school. In all such cases, it’s important that the child feels the unpleasant emotional consequences of their choices because that’s what will motivate them to make better choices in the future.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Sometimes, however, students take too much ownership of their grades, meaning they become single-mindedly obsessed with them. There’s more to life than school, and there’s more to school than grades. It’s good to be proactively in charge of your own learning and your own academic future, but this should never come at the detriment of your physical and mental health.

Some kids may feel a very strong need to earn high marks in school, but they also need balance. They need a social life. They need exercise. They need sleep. They need play. They need to remember that they are more than their grades.

However, very few kids get to be so hyper-focused on grades without a parent accidentally setting a similar example in their personal or professional life. So if your child is in this category, take a look at how you’re spending your time. Are you making time for rest and recovery from stress? Are you giving yourself permission to be human? Modeling these things is a powerful way to help your child learn to find balance between their academic and personal lives.

Not Caring Might Be a Defense

Lastly, it’s important to point out that many kids put on a façade of apathy as a defense mechanism. The reality is, they do care. They want to do well in school. They want to build a bright future for themselves. But they’re struggling, and it’s safer to say “I don’t care,” than to say “I don’t know how” or “I can’t.”

a teenager quietly struggling

They see other students being productive and getting their schoolwork done on time, and they see grown-ups working hard every day, and they don’t know how to do the same. They mistakenly believe that getting things done and overcoming procrastination are all about mustering brute-force willpower. They don’t know about smart willpower strategies that make it easier to do what you need to do. They don’t know how to generate their own motivation in order to beat procrastination. They need to see parents model these strategies.

They see other students scoring well on tests, and they don’t know how to do the same. They mistakenly believe that test grades are just about how smart you are. They imagine that studying effectively just means putting in tons of time. They don’t know about the power of spaced repetition or self-testing. They might need a tutor to guide them toward these techniques.

When students know how to do well, they are much more likely to admit that they care about their grades or, more importantly, demonstrate that they care through their choices.