I did read the article and I found it persuasive. That said, I agree with your basic point: foundational knowledge and skills are vital to a full iteration of 'higher level' skills; hence, yes, the views of those with no understanding of economics, history etc ARE less worthy than the views of those who have that perspective.
The reason I found the article persuasive is that the 'learning through creating' model is slowly being leeched out of education (if it ever really existed) in favour of a too-prescriptive hierarchical model which prioritises lower-order skills and is content (for all but the elite) to stop right there. There is precious little freedom to explore or create in education any more.
When I was 20 and picked up a guitar for the first time. I was shown two or three chords and within a week I was writing songs. Naturally, they were terrible; however, over the next few years I added more chords, more skill and reached a point where some were pretty good. This permitted me to hang out with one or two genuine musos, which quickly put me in my place. I realised I had no idea how to change key - or even what a key was. Not being able to draw on, say, a palette of useful bridging chords, meant my transitions were often clunky; I was still essentially clutching in the dark for inspiration, and that's probably why I never made it as a songwriter. Which is right? Plenty of people have made it with my limited set of skills, but most haven't. Similarly, if I'd never just picked up the axe and had a bash but instead sat in some boring music lesson where I'd transcribed and learned musical theory, I'd probably never have even hit a chord; I'd have missed out on a helluva lot of fun.
The essential problem is one of a pervasive culture of anti-intellectualism in this country that is exploited by a cynical political class, people like Gove with his 'had enough of experts'. It was Gove who, as Education Secretary, introduced an 'updated' curriculum which made GCSEs allegedly more "rigorous", eliminating 'softer' modes of assessment such as coursework and introducing (e.g.) the teaching of 'fronted adverbials' to 9 year olds. It was also responsible for my being able to get a full-time job that involves
forcing would-be hairdressers who have failed their English GCSEs to do Imaginative Writing and analyse random nineteenth century texts. The national success rate for this endeavour is around 30%, and many will take and retake four of five times and still leave without their GCSE. It is an end point of educational futility, one man's vanity project.
What education should really be about, first and foremost, is engendering (and retaining) within children a
love of learning, because if this love is retained, it eventually translates into a love and appreciation for the wider culture and its heritage. You love the poem long before you learn it contains things called fronted adverbials. Without this love, this
loam if you like, the wider culture remains an alien imposed thing which does not belong to you and to which you do not belong. Fundamentally, this love begins, as the article says, through exploring, creating - and also being listened to.
Moreover, it takes place within an emotional context. Far too many children arrive at school in a traumatised state - through poverty, dysfunctional family structures - whereupon school, primarily secondary school, traumatises them further! It is important to understand that the recent trend towards more discipline, more uniform, more rote learning and (basically) terror in the classroom, is the advance front in the Culture War: a direct and conscious assault on the liberal permissive culture that the Right believes was embedded by comprehensive education. Education should not be expected to solve social ills, but nor should it add to them.
The key hierarchy in education is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. To many children arrive in school with their basic survival/safety/love needs compromised. To expect 'self actualisation' in this context is absurd.
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