Let's say, for instance, that the idea of a "ball", a spherical, fist-sized object, is universal. That is to say, it exists in every baby's brain and will be manifested differently depending on what language this child is given to speak. I'm supposing a very Platonic universal schema for seeing the world, but given what we know about the human brain, it seems that there truly are built-in schemas for these ideas, such as balls.
It would be a very inefficient system if, say, confronted with a marble, the baby tried to construct an entirely new schema for a marble. But we use known items. By now, the baby has an idea of large and small, and will say that the marble is a small ball. At some point, the idea of "glass" will be derived from clear things I can touch, etc. And so eventually a small glass ball gets its own word, a "marble".
Interestingly, it seems, once we get a certain number of ideas in our head, it becomes more difficult to construct a schema of something new in our head. There are hundreds of different ways to think about a "marble" in the adult brain - for instance: large, smooth pebble; one in a set of marbles; etc. But if we want to talk to someone about the colors of our marbles, the schema of "marble" has to be adequately constructed. A "marble" cannot be "white round thing" in the complicated adult brain. Essentially, in order to communicate properly, two brains need to construct different schemas for the same objects in very similar manners. If two brains are talking about two different things, communication will never happen.
So here's the trap of education. In Biology, the "marble" is a type of leaf, the way the roots take up water, or how a seed becomes a full-grown plant. There are two major ways that these ideas can be transmitted. The first, and most common, is to simply memorize the words, essentially constructing a schema out of letters and phrases. The second, and an expressed goal of education, is to use the learner's current knowledge of cells, growth, roots, water, leaves, etc., and put these ideas together in a new way and give it a new name.
The danger in the second manner is that the schema is explicitly taught and so the learners simply copy the teacher's schema. It makes sense to the learner, the teacher and can often be tested immediately to demonstrate knowledge. But knowledge acquired by imitating doesn't stick as well as if the learner is forced to create their own schema.
As Fosnot said, there are two main approaches to having the learner create these schemas. The first is to let the learner create a schema and then let them discover if and why it is wrong, correcting their own errors. The second is to moderate the schema, building one slow step at a time. In reality, both are slow processes.
But because it is possible to feign knowledge of a great many things, education is often seen as a quantity and not quality of knowledge. Which then causes curricula to be created that are overambitious and do not allow for this assisted schema-building which can create truly educated people.
So while I'm still introducing "marbles" to my students, slowly and one at a time, I'm giving them a crack at the whole curriculum. Maybe I can give them enough practice at schema building that they, if motivated, can practice it on their own.
Peace
John
