Useful Lies

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about education. This might have something to do with the fact that I need to apply to graduate schools. Also, several of my friends work as substitute teachers in schools in the area. But I've come up with a theory of education.

We are not taught facts: what we are taught is useful lies. Allow me to explain.

One of my professors takes a true/false survey of his freshman composition classes. He asks "can you begin a sentence with 'and' or 'but?'"

When they respond with "false," he replies "But you can. And you do."

Another lie is that we are taught to think of electrons, protons, and neutrons--the whole zoo of subatomic particles--are real things. In fact, these are just the most useful explanations for the equations. The physical sciences are riddled with such best-fit explanations; this is not to say that they are absolutely false, but it is not correct to say that they are absolutely true.

This brings me to the point of this post--that we are not taught real facts in schools, simply given ideas that allow us to function in the world until we're ready for the real ideas. Come on, think about it: how often have you taken an advanced class, only to find out that what you learned in the intro course "--isn't exactly true..."

But even though it isn't true, these lies are still usable and convenient in certain, limited situations. In physics, we first learn Newtonian mechanics, even though most modern physics has focused solely on disproving Newton, finding contexts in which his laws of motion don't apply. They're good for a starting point, and still apply in particular contexts, even though they're not absolutely true.

But I suspect that these useful lies are best when you're aware of their nature--you know that they're not absolutely true, but they're a means you can use to get through the problems you're faced with.