From prisoners of education to free thinkers

By: Takhliq Amir

The transition from high school to university can be challenging for many individuals. While some of the difficulty stems from being in a new environment or leaving home, another component of this transition is also the difference in the style of education.

High school is a playground for those with the ability to memorize. Few classes require significant critical thinking and application, though credit must be given to any teachers who try their best to use creative methods in a rigid curriculum.

This style of teaching works well for those who either need their learning to be organized for them or only want a surface level of understanding about the topics taught.

Paulo Freire, arguably one of the greatest educators in history and a vital component of the critical pedagogy movement, once stated that “Education makes sense because women and men learn that through learning they can make and remake themselves, because women and men are able to take responsibility for themselves as beings capable of knowing — of knowing that they know and knowing that they don’t.”

He opposed the idea of a “banking” education where passive students are fed facts as ultimate truths with no opportunity to question. He also believed that a “culture of silence” prevented individuals from critically reflecting on their world.

Unlike high school, McMaster has felt like the opposite of these concerns with many of my courses requiring self-directed learning. This autonomy has been pleasantly surprising.

While I will not be naive as to believe that every university course is worlds apart from high school, I have had a few that required minimal effort and maximum memorization. Most of my courses follow the style of problem-based and team-based learning that is inherently different from the traditional style of teaching.

Unlike didactic learning, problem-based learning is student-centred and offers individuals the opportunity to, as Freire postulated, “read the world.”

This is perhaps the best approach to allowing students to become individuals who feel comfortable to ask questions, fall, pave their own path and create their own success.

Interestingly, the history of PBL essentially began in medical education here at McMaster. According to a report titled, Approaching PBL Practically: A Guide for Students by Students, the PBL model came to McMaster when John Evans, a University of Toronto graduate, became the dean of the medical school and wanted to challenge the way medicine was traditionally taught.

Self-directed PBL focuses as much on learning as it does on problem solving. While students continue to work towards solving an issue, the learning process that occurs beforehand is emphasized in this model. In the most common cases, small group tasks of students have complete autonomy in the manner they go about solving a problem.

From formulating research questions, to identifying sources of information, to synthesizing your findings and reformulating your research questions, PBL becomes a constant loop of asking questions and refining them in your search for answers.

It can be frustrating. From not knowing where to start to encountering constant failures, PBL sometimes makes you want to give up. Through all of my past and recent failures and successes learning in this model.

I have gained a great appreciation of how tough critical thinking and critical analysis can be. Asking the right questions to directing your project with students who know as much as you do gives you a true taste of what practical application and learning should be.

This is perhaps the best approach to allowing students to become individuals who feel comfortable to ask questions, fail, pave their own path and create their own successes.   

Now being used worldwide, not just for medicine but for many other fields of study at many different levels of education, PBL is a proud component of McMaster’s history.

It should continue to be applied to different programs so that all students can have the opportunity to become critical thinkers, learn how to embrace failure and turn theory into practice.

Memorization will only take you so far. Questioning the world is what learning should truly be about.