What if we're wrong about education the same way we're wrong about health and nutrition?
We're asking the wrong questions.
Surely you've heard that "you are what you eat" when it comes to diet and health. And, in search of eating a healthy diet, we have been laser-focused on what we eat which has manifested into decades of fad diets that leave us with more than empty stomachs.
Want to eat in a way that actually improves your overall health and well-being?
What if you are when you eat?
Whether you've heard of intermittent fasting or not, The New England Journal of Medicine has and recently concluded in the article, "Effects of Intermittent Fasting on Health, Aging, and Disease":
"Evidence is accumulating that eating in a 6-hour period and fasting for 18 hours can trigger a metabolic switch from glucose-based to ketone-based energy, with increased stress resistance, increased longevity, and a decreased incidence of diseases, including cancer and obesity."
What if, the single most effective thing you can do to improve your health and longevity is to focus more on when you eat than what you eat?
While you let that sink in: how are we asking the "wrong" questions when it comes to education?
There is certainly a greater focus on what students are learning as opposed to when they are learning. I would be curious to hear from educators how remote learning in the time of COVID-19 has informed their understanding of when students learn best. How might we use that learning to better accommodate learners in September no matter where they (and you) might be?
What lessons can we take from remote learning to ask better "when" questions when it comes to education?
Perhaps one of the things I am most curious to discover from the experience of remote learning is what we can learn about when students learn best so we can use that learning to improve how they learn and prepare them to learn no matter where they are, who they are with, what they need to do, or why they need to do it.
What other questions should we be asking about how we educate outside of "what" we are teaching? What non-what questions do you think we should be asking to truly improve how we teach and learn?
"Who...?"
"How...?"
"When...?"
"Where...?"
"Why...?"
What if you complete each one of those questions with a question to highlight a facet of education that needs to be explored followed by a "What if...?" response to innovate education?
Comments