Though I lament the fact that memes appear to be muscling in and dominating the airwaves, and I sometimes worry that students sip at information rather than reading deeply from books, I have to concede that there is often wisdom in short, pithy maxims, proverbs, or mottos.
One recent statement I saw on social media asked, “Do those people that run marathons, know that they don’t have to?”
I don’t run marathons, but I found the statement amusing. Running a marathon must be an enormous amount of work. It involves strenuous effort and exhaustion. There is no immediate outcome or product emerging from the work. But I think there are good reasons for running.
Perhaps people enjoy the sense of satisfaction.
The feeling of training and achieving a goal is an important part of life.
Lots of students also enjoy the slog of learning new material and really mastering a subject.
Learning new things can be an effort. Sometimes the amount of work can feel overwhelming. Good teachers, like coaches, can help students to plan their schedule and build up to the final exam. The course might be hard, the exam might be hard, but the sense of satisfaction might we worth it.
Recently, I saw a university website that celebrated the fact that it was avoiding rote learning and traditional examination methods. I asked myself – why is avoiding learning and traditional examination methods something for a university to celebrate?
Presumably, because both things are hard. Why don’t we eliminate hard things and make it easier for our students? Should we be making marathons shorter?
It’s true that too much rote learning can be problematic. Similarly, if a sports coach recommended nothing but fitness training, and never allowed practice games, or broader varieties of exercise, it would be a problem.
It is great when learning can be fun, and can happen naturally. Somehow, I learnt the numbers of my favourite footballers, organically, by just watching games, rather than having to sit down and study their numbers. And wouldn’t it be nice to learn French by sitting in cafes in Paris, rather than actually studying grammar and vocabulary?
But we must not forget that there is also something rewarding about the effort of learning, even some rote learning. There is a sense of satisfaction.
I remember seeing old footage of Bradman practicing his batting by hitting a golf ball against a corrugated iron cylindrical water tank using a cricket stump – this sort of thing involves repetitive learning that can be rewarding and fun.
A all-out war on rote learning makes no sense to me.
Of course, the synthesis of ideas and critical thinking are important too. But one can’t really engage in higher order thinking without having some basic knowledge, and arguably the more knowledge one has the better. Allowing students to pick up their own knowledge by osmosis can be part of the mix but it is a slower and less efficient process than targeted instruction and even rote learning. Even in the age of AI, having knowledge in one’s head is necessary if you want to be able to think on your feet or even to talk intelligently to others.
I won’t discuss exams here – as I don’t want to get distracted from my main point. That is that the hard work of marathons seems to have a positive side that we would be foolish to ignore.
I think it comes down to the fact that life’s meaning emerges, not just from having fun, but from the sense of satisfaction one gets from working towards a goal. In order to get a sense of achievement one needs some achievable goals. Gradually learning, including by rote, sets up a situation where one can see milestones being passed, and one can feel the sense of satisfaction building. I expect this is good for mental health.
Moreover, learning things, rather than always needing to do or to deliver things, can sometimes be more feasible, in terms of goals. Students often have high ideals and want to make a positive difference in the world. But this takes a long time. Goals like stopping climate change or advancing equity are hugely important, but they don’t provide units of satisfaction to individuals in the same way that steady learning can.
Another Twitter maxim comes to mind. “Give me coffee for those things that I can change, and wine for those things I cannot”. The world is divided into those things that are within our power, and those that are not. Learning is within our power, staying fit is within our power, and we need coffee to give us the energy to get up and get going.
But changing the world – important as that may be as an ultimate goal – is not something that each of us is likely to be able to effect in measurable ways that help build our confidence and give us a sense of satisfaction. So, a glass of wine can help us come to terms with that.
Universities are institutions of learning. The knowledge we impart to students and the things we discover via research are important and can improve the world. It’s worthwhile each morning to grab a coffee, rather than a glass of wine, and get stuck into the important work of learning that is beneficial to both individuals, institutions, and the world.
Professor Merlin Crossley is Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic Quality at UNSW
