Knowing

Knowing is the act of appropriating knowledge as one’s own. It’s a more nuanced term than learning. If educational environments start paying more attention to the nature of knowing, we would probably see some drastic changes in the way we approach teaching and learning.

For one, knowledge is presented as hard, concrete, and incorruptible by individual minds. And the way to reach this hard substance and acquire it is often laid out on a unidirectional map. On the other hand, imagine knowledge as malleable, clay… and knowing as the act of playing with it, making models of it.

Look at what happened to computers and why there has been an explosion of ideas in the field of computing. From intimidating codes and scary looking interfaces, the computer evolved as a friendly plaything for the average user. Playing (not necessarily in the sense of playing games) leads to experimentation and new ways of using things.

What is missing in educational curriculum is this sense of play, this sense of tinkering.