Ambiguity in Education and Learning

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ~ William Butler Yeats

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler

“One of the greatest problems of our time is that many are schooled but few are educated.” ~ Thomas More

“To teach is to make a space where the community of truth is practiced.” ~ Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach

The lecture is still fresh in your memory as you sit in the classroom.

Today, your professor, teacher, or instructor presented a concept that was not neatly wrapped in a bow but rather appeared as a complex web of competing theories and open-ended questions.

Initially, a feeling of unease creeps in. You glance down at your notes, a jumble of incomplete ideas and question marks on pages. This is not the simple memorization you may be accustomed to.

It is expected of you to comprehend this ambiguity and to replay the issue in your mind repeatedly, much like a chess match against a master with no clear solution. As you start reading books and articles from scholarly journals, you start to fall down unexpected rabbit holes.

One article makes a strong case, and then the next one makes a counterargument that is just as strong. You begin to notice the subtleties, the gray areas that give the problem its color. You're not merely taking in information passively.

Rather, you're actively interacting with it, challenging presumptions, and tying together seemingly unrelated concepts. You could talk about it with your peers, each of you contributing a different viewpoint, which would broaden the intellectual horizons even more.

Your critical thinking abilities start to hone as a result of this in-depth analysis and multifaceted deep thinking.

You gain the ability to see through the forest, even if your opinions are still subject to change, by learning to recognize bias, assess the evidence, and form your own well-informed opinions, to question, to learn and to be able to strategize.