I am currently reading Bill Bryson‘s “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. It is a funny and wacky look at Science and other human discoveries. Such books are not new and I do enjoy reading them despite my Humanities background. What I do remember when I first started reading such books was why was my experience with senior high school, Science such a boring one? I remember feeling uninspired when learning about Newton, about light or Planck’s constant and others. I didn’t see much meaning in what was taught and I suspect that if I had asked why I had to learn all these, the answer would be “because it is in the examinations, stupid!”

It got so bad that when I had a chance to go to the university, I went to the Arts Faculty and studied History and Political Science among others. It was after I left the university (the learning wasn’t very universal then…still is?), that I started reading again about Science. I read books about evolution, physics and general science topics. I even read about the history and philosophy of science. I found them fascinating because the authors were writing in a very fascinating way. Reading them, you felt that Science was a human endeavor with heroes and villains, and humor too, as Bryson has shown.

It is not just about rote-learning. It is not just about knowing how to calculate and getting the correct answer to an examination question. I wanted to know more because it was interesting and it was interesting because a context was given to the information that was there. When the context is given it made more sense or meaning for the learner. At the end of the day, knowledge is about making sense or meaning of the information that one receives.

It is perhaps for this reason that Neil Postman, argued in his book “The End of Education”, that it is important for schools to teach narratives. Teaching and learning has to go beyond the mechanics of passing the examinations. Much of the disconnect that happens in schools today is mainly because of this mechanical approach to school and “learning“. Students and teachers are cut off from the “story” of knowledge. That story is very much a human story. When the teaching and learning is cut off from the human story, school becomes a dehumanizing experience.