Daily Lessons from Life 16 August 2013 - Rote learning has to make way for digital literacy: Heng Swee Keat

"Rote learning has to make way for digital literacy: Heng Swee Keat - CNA 16 August 2013 SINGAPORE: Education Minister Heng Swee Keat has said that with information readily available, rote learning has to make way for digital literacy. Speaking at the Second International Summit of the Book on Friday, Mr Heng said there is a need to place greater emphasis on critical and inventive thinking. Whether it is a papyrus, print or the iPad, it seems that books are here to stay. Mr Heng said: "Some fear that the technologically sophisticated books of the future will dull the mind, as we no longer bother to use our imagination to render words into sounds and images. "They worry too that we will forget to think for ourselves after we close the book because social media offers such an array of ready-made opinions that we will just pick one off the virtual shelf rather than form our own. "We need to place greater emphasis on critical and inventive thinking, so that we may go on to imagine and create new insights. "At the workplace, as the information revolution transforms the nature of work, our ability to move from theory to practice, to apply learning imaginatively in different contexts, and to create new knowledge, will become increasing valuable." As the discussion moved on to the future of the book, experts point out that what makes a difference is knowing how to organise and use information. Professor Wang Gungwu from the National University of Singapore said: "I am quite interested in how the digital revolution will lead to the point where knowledge is so fragmentised, so atomised, everybody picks up little bits here and there, that we lose the power of organising it all into one coherent form. "And if we fail to do that, the people who know how to do it, who'll always be the few, who will be people who wield the power. The order will come from those who know how to wield power, who can bring the fragmentary knowledge into one series and use it to dominate the others and that throughout history may have always been like that." Cannot agree more with Minister Heng on the need for creative and inventive thinking vs. rote learning. In fact, it should always be that case digital revolution or not! Lessons for me are: 1. with some many 'ready made answers' in the internet, my concern is that PEOPLE do not learn well enough to NOT have to depend on: 'Oh, let me check what it means or how to solve this from the internet!'; 2. knowing WHERE to look for help to resolve issues that one has tried one's level best and still could not resolve is VERY IMPORTANT. Of course, these issues can only be THOSE that OTHER PEOPLE had solved in the past. It may not be very useful for NEW issues and challenges that required NEW way of thinking - creative and inventive; digital or not! Still, being in digital forms, it does render searching and researching for possibilities that much easier. Not able to replace creative and inventive thinking totally but definitely allow more angles and places to look for possibilities!; 3. As for Prof Wang's worry that the PEOPLE who KNOW, who can ORGANISE the WHOLE PICTURE will wield great power over others who do, this may NO LONGER be a worry as the kindness of the human being will mean that SOMEHOW SOMEWHERE SOMEONE will LEAK it so that those who DO NOT KNOW will know. UNLESS, of course, they cannot read and think AT ALL. LOL!! Singapore has been talking about creative and inventive thinking education for a while. Hopefully we are ALREADY doing it instead of still 'talking about it'! Have a great weekend to all.